The village veg lorry.

The winter winds went away at the end of last week,  we went shopping on Friday morning down to Berja and the sun shone all day,  although we decided it was still a little chilly to be eating outside and came home for a late lunch.  In the sun it's hot,  in the shade - not hot.  Basically the air temperature is still too low.  We've  spent  the last few days doing stuff outside,  except for Saturday when we went in to watch the rugby.    Sunday was watering day,  the peas  are covered with pods and needed a good drink plus there were enough to pick for dinner that night,  the land is very dry as we haven't had that much rain this winter.  Monday and Tuesday we have been sanding and painting outside walls plus a bit of cementing for John finishing off some walls.  You know how it is,  things get started but they don't always get completely finished for one reason or another.  It gets too hot to be working outside,  or  it's an exposed corner and cold if windy,  but eventually the day comes when little jobs get tidied up.

During my garden tidying I found some small almond trees.  Considering that we don't always pick every almond and they drop off  it's surprising that more don't grow.  They do have extremely hard shells and are difficult to crack,  but  given time in the ground I suppose the shells must soften and split - or else the root and shoot are very strong and force their way out!   I found 6 small trees this week which I dug out and transplanted along the fence on our top terraces.  This one still has it's nut and shell attached..

Wednesday is the day that the fruit and veg lorry comes to Yátor,  except last week when we needed some veg - potatoes and onions mainly - and he didn't come.  Normally about 11am we hear him - there is an air horn on  the lorry that is very loud,  loud enough for us to hear.  This morning as expected I heard the first blast,  went down for courgettes,  aubergines,  peppers,  cabbage,  tomatoes and sweet potatoes.   Just 1 cabbage,  a kilo of tomatoes and 2 of every thing else.  Not 2 kilos....as much as he'd like to sell me things by the kilo we can't eat that much.   Then it was the usual...   ¿qué más?   (which translates as 'what more?")  and he rattled off a list of everything on the lorry in case I hadn't seen what there was while I waited for the old dears in their dressing gowns to do their weekly shopping.   

Yes,  dressing gowns during the day are quite a normal sight in the village,  going out in your slippers is even more common and last time I bought some slippers I was asked if I wanted house slippers or campo slippers  (campo being country)