CONGRATULATIONS to my nephew, Paul, and Melissa on the birth of your beautiful baby daughter, Emily Frost. And congratulations to the proud grandparents Granddad Malc and Granny Steph!!!! I’m a Great-aunt.
The bloody birds (bee eaters) had me up at 6.15 a.m.! and I’m not even trying to photograph them anymore, they move too quickly for my camera to react. Now I’m outside with binoculars trying to get a proper view of one; I’ve seen their colouring in books, but I want to see it for real. Anyway by the time I got outside (in just a tea-shirt) they’d gone out of view (of course I could still hear them taunting me, they have a very distinct call); but I did get to see a close up of a Hoopoe which seemed to be putting it’s bill down the ant nests along the track, if they eat ants they’re my kind of birds!
We’ve been seeing an awful lot of golden orioles lately; it’s another bird with a distinctive call, it sounds like it’s laughing, maybe it’s related to a kookaburra? There’re masses of birds here which we haven’t been able to identify yet; we have a big bird which soars above the quinta which we think could be a golden eagle and Brett keeps hoping to see vultures which apparently live in this area.
We had a disturbed night last night; we didn’t get to bed until gone midnight and then we were woken up by fireworks, which lasted for about ½ an hour, between 3.00–3.30 a.m. One of the villages close to ours is having it’s festa this weekend; so I think they must have been coming from there. The fireworks started again around 8.00 a.m. for another hour or so (weird).
Brett spent the day clearing the lavender and broom from along the side of the track coming into the quinta (about a 10’ wide verge); we’re going to plant it up with trees, so we’ll have a tree lined avenue approach to the house. There’re some trees/bushes we want, they grow everywhere and have flowered (pink, purple and white) continuously all summer seemingly without water.
The beans are flowering and I think I found the start of a little bean today. The herbs that I bought from the supermarket and planted out seem to have taken, so I might buy some more this week just to get a few plants established – I do have a lot of herb seedlings now, but they won’t be available to use for quite a while.
Tomorrow we’re off to Castelo Branco, it’s been a week since we were last there (when we first moved in we were travelling back every other day, so we’re getting more organised): we’ll update the blog, pick up supplies, have a drink or two at pavement cafes, visit Mark and Glen to get the cement mixer and have dinner – another relaxed day.
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