Taking the plunge

I said that when the water temperature in our pool got up to 20º I would get in. Well today it did, so I had to take the plunge. We both sat on the side with our feet in the water, and I wondered what made me think 20º would be warm enough, but I gave it a try, and once I was in, it was actually rather nice! It is only a little pool so you can't do much proper swimming in it, but I paddled around for a bit, and then Chris decided he might as well join me. So here are the photos to prove it.

There is not a lot of other news. I have made a few successful calls on my new skype phone, but so far no-one else has had a camera so I haven't seen who I am talking to, but Jean could see me, so that's a start.

Yesterday I had my first Spanish lesson with Paco, a local bar man who has been holding group lessons for some years. I joined the intermediate group and it was hard work. We did the 'present perfect subjunctive' tense! Now if I knew when to use that in English it would have helped. We were each given a sentence to translate and mine was "I don't believe you saw cows flying around this campsite because there aren't any cows in this area"! I can tell you on good authority that the word 'saw' in that sentence is in the aforementioned pps tense. So now I know some really useful Spanish! But we all muddled along, and I expect I will get the hang of it in time. At least it will save the old grey matter from ossifying!

Our hibiscus turned out to be a bit like a butterfly. It had a short but very beautiful life. Today it has gone but there are loads of buds to look forward to when they open. There is a small stretch of land belonging to us, just beyond our back fence. It drops down into the green zone, and is too steep and overgrown for us to do anything with it, but it has two lovely big orleander shrubs on it, which are now in bloom. The flowers are double ones in a deep pink. I looked it up on the net and I see it is one of the most poisonous plants on the planet, so it is a good thing it is on the other side of the fence. I shall still enjoy looking at it.