Thursday, September 17, 2009

A leap of faith!

It is a while since I posted a new blog isn't it? This is really just an indication that, now the visitors have gone for this year, life has settled down to a fairly regular routine, so there is less to write about. But I am sure I shall continue to find a selection of trivia to entertain you with from time to time.
Anyway, today I will start with some more snaps of our furry friends. We have a very set routine with them which means that when they wake us around 7 o'clock, we take them for a quick 'comfort break' across the road and then bring them back for their breakfast. At the same time I feed the cats and make our cup of tea, and then we all sit out at the back of the house while we drink the tea, before taking the dogs off in the car for their proper walk. Each morning Paco comes out with us but Chico and Foxy won't leave him alone. They don't hurt him but they pester him, and seem to feel they need to protect him all the time. So usually he jumps over the wall into the orange grove next door, and then down into the green zone at the back of us for a quick run around. When he has had enough, he climbs up the fence and balances on top of it. For a campo-cat he is not very agile and he wobbles around trying to stay put with one wary eye on Chico's nose, until he has his balance just right to take a leap of faith, and sail over the waiting dogs to land in my or Chris' lap. When we walk the dogs I carry a bag with a few treats in it, and when they come back to us on command, sit to have their leads back on, or jump into the car boot with out assistance, they get one. Then, when we get home they have a big drink and come to me to have their leads and harnesses taken off. I make them wait until everyone is sorted, and if they sit still and wait properly they get one last treat. Talk about cupboard love. Look at the eager anticipation on their faces for what is usually just another little piece of the food they had for breakfast! But at least they are learning a measure of patience and obedience. And finally here is one more picture of Paco that I took this morning. It had rained in the night and the bourganvillia was wet. I felt it drip on my arm and turned to see little Paco peeping out from among the purple flowers. He looked so sweet I just had to take his picture.
We woke up this Monday, not to the sound of dogs barking, but instead we could hear heavy machinery outside. It turned out to be a digger and lorry and they were systematically digging up the path across the road from us, and tipping the rubble into a lorry. They worked all morning and soon had a long trench dug. Then we had an almighty thunderstorm and the trench was filled with water! We have had to park our car down the road a bit because our stretch is cordonned off at each end. The trench now reaches up into the village with little help for the poor folks who live alongside it, though I did see a few planks across it this evening. As far as we can make out, they are laying new pipes to carry electricity cables (currently overhead), and installing new street lighting, as part of a big road improvement scheme for the village. We suspect we may wake up one morning to find our side of the road dug up as well. That will be fun, making three hounds walk the plank several times a day!!
Our local bar, 50 metres down the road from us, has had a live music session with a barbeque each Sunday through the summer. We have been to a couple of them and they are great fun. Now the schools are back, they need to quieten down earlier so they are going back to a lunch time carvery on Sundays, but they are continuing with live music events on Friday nights instead. We went along to the last Sunday one last weekend and the entertainment was by a couple who call themselves The Blues Brothers. They sang a good mixture of blues, soul and rock numbers, and the smaller guy was really good at playing a harmonica which I love. They really looked the part too. When we got there they were in their jeans and tee-shirts, busily testing out the sound system. Then they went back to their van and emerged in black suits and trilby hats. They were very entertaining. and we had a really good evening. In the second photo, a local man called Antonio, who I think is in his seventies, got up to dance with them. He is a real character and everyone loves to see him enjoying himself. He certainly likes the music. He is often in the bar and occasionally I get to sit and have a conversation with him in Spanish. He only knows a few words of English, but we muddle along together quite well.
In my last post I included a photo of a butterfly that I caught on the campo. Well the next day I caught another one. Then, this evening I heard the dogs suddenly getting noisy and went out to find them fighting over this huge moth. Handsome fellow, isn't he? I did as I said I would, and made the first photo into a rubber stamp. Then I used this stamp to build up a 'Nature' collage and made a big stamp of that. Here is a card I made with the collage stamp. It's not bad but it needs a bit of refining. I am working on it again now, and hopefully I will be able to make a much smaller one the same, to use on my ATCs when I have improved it a bit.
I see I have rambled on a bit now and by the time I have added the photos, this will be a long post. I'll try not to leave it so long next time. Hasta luego !

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