Wonderful smells from the kitchen.

My personal chef is downstairs preparing a birthday dinner,  I'm not allowed to help so I'm sitting in the late afternoon sun enjoying a glass or two of El Gaitero cider,  according to some more ciderey people than me,  it is the champagne of ciders,  certainly when amazon sell it for £5.45 a bottle,  it isn't cheap local stuff.  There is a lovely small of prawns, fish stock, garlic and who knows what else wafting up from the kitchen,  steak is involved too, I know because I bought it on Wednesday when out shopping.

Back a few days to Tuesday,  we picked and crushed the last of the white grapes,  62 kilos after de-stalking them,  apparently grapes are 90% juice so that should squeeze out another 55 litres or so on Monday.  Then Tuesday we will pick the rosy blush grapes for a rosado.  The only  black grapes are still not black but last time we  didn't pick them till October 28th so a week or so to go yet.

Wednesday morning was a shopping and coffee with friends morning,  that meant plant stuff- picking, watering, checking on the weeds etc didn't get done till Thursday.  It's unusually hot for October,  18 or 19 overnight and around the high 20's during the day.  And since those 2 storms of  a month ago,  no rain either.  So although by now we usually only need to water veg weekly, at the moment we are doing it twice weekly.  The squash are still producing fruits,  more now than in the summer although they are not so big yet.  And so are the strawberries,  another kilo for the weekend!

Yesterday was more routine than anything,  house cleaning, washing and ironing- actually I didn't iron anything, but it's in the basket ready -  and we cleaned the pool too.  Although I  haven't been in since my last dip on the 4th,  I was very tempted this afternoon,  the water is shimmering, the floor is clean and the sun was so warm on my skin but I didn't do it.  Maybe tomorrow.