End of the month....

Now our summer neighbours are here,  life isn't so quiet as it usually is.   What with children in their plunge pool,  the general chit chat of another family close by,  the tv on during the afternoon - why the Spanish love to have it on during their mealtime is beyond me,  they don't seem to be watching it if you go round there,  just more background noise.   And they can make a lot of noise.....Marie gets stressed about something and shouts,  the eldest - a son now aged 14 gives as good as he gets,  Miguel sometimes gets involved,  the dogs bark then our dogs start too.  Still having them here does have it's compensations.

Miguel and son have been here alone this week.   Marie doesn't finish work for the summer break till today and she and the 11 year old daughter went up to Granada on Sunday evening,  she obviously left  the men enough food till she gets back,  or more than enough as on Tuesday morning Miguel came round with 2 bowls of food that he said they'd eaten what they needed on the previous day,  and had plenty for that day so would we like some for tapas.  A bowl of albondigas in tomato sauce and a pasta salad with cheese, ham and tomatoes. 

Then he and John got to discussing work on the land,  Miguel is out bright and early - 7.30ish - strimming terraces and the track down to his bottom land where there is a very large tree which is growing at a rate of about 2 or 3 metres a year.  Unfortunately although it's a lovely eucalyptus tree,  it is too close to the electric cables now and he said if we cut it down we could have all the wood for the winter.  John went down about 8am yesterday and I could here the chain saw going,  then about 9.30 he rang and said could I go down with the 4x4 as there was more than we expected.  By 11am we'd filled the car with logs,  sticks and split wood.  Back up the road,  we dumped it in through the gates and stacked it to dry.  All done by midday,  I was dripping in the heat and went in the  pool to cool down but John was all sawdusty too so had to clean up in the shower.

Another batch of strawberry wine started on Sunday,  today I strained the first batch and it has made just over 5 litres of wine.  Went picking this morning and there was another 1.7 kilos,  not quite enough for a 3rd batch but probably by tomorrow night.  Also did a taste test of the pickled cucs last night,  delicious!    Picked 3 cucumbers last night and started another jarful this morning,  sliced slightly thicker to get more crunch though.   We counted 19 cucumbers coming on the 5 plants,  but nothing yet on the courgettes or squash even though there are 7 plants and loads of huge yellow flowers.  Very odd.

And finally today, some photos that I took and forgot about so a bit of colour for you.

First up, one of our mimosa trees which has been blooming for weeks now.  Home grown,  we collected some seeds on our 1st anniversary here.  It's over 2 metres high and the branches probably arch over a wider distance than that.  Beautiful.

 What appears to be a dandelion but isn't.  I think it's an Oyster plant,  also my book calls it Salsify.  The seed head is about 3 inches across and very pretty.

These are bigger than the wild garlics,  they are a wild  leek.  Each one grows about 2 or 3 foot high and the heads are a similar size to the Oyster plant seed head.

And a field of drying grasses, just as the sun caught them early one morning.