If you're lucky

there may be pictures with my last post, but maybe not.  I added screen shots of the colourful map of Spain to show the weather and temperatures, but sometimes it's there and sometimes not.  this is it for tomorrow - 2nd time lucky maybe.  If not and you want to see the colours then look here

Too hot to do much

It's too hot to do much except start early, do everything slowly, get even slower during the afternoon - sit by the pool reading and cool down as needed - water the vegetables later on, eat late, cold showers - or as cold as it can be when your tank is on the roof - and then start again tomorrow.

There are  hot weather warnings for parts of our area for today and tomorrow and this is the colour of Spain at 11pm tonightthose pinky purple bits around Granada and Sevilla are 32 and 33° so you can imagine how hot it was this afternoon.


And for tomorrow afternoon we have this lovely colourful map, and it's almost the same for Saturday......

Catching up.

It's been a while, about a week  since I last sat here to think about writing,  and not much has happened to write about.   The weather continues to be hot, with blue skies and sun shine the same as it has for weeks now.  Much too hot and much too dry really for May and June but better that than wind and rain. 

Because of the heat and dryness we are having to water the vegetables much more frequently but still have plenty of water despite the lack of rain.  The deposito and fuente that provide Montenegro with it's water were renovated at the end of June/beginning of July and it now holds more water.  The base had silted up and a mini-digger was hired to clean it out, then the  deposito base was given a concrete floor, also the sides were rendered as it was leaking badly.  The acequia direct from the deposito was an open channel for about 100 metres and that has now been tubed so the water comes much quicker and cleaner with less loss into the ground.  The fuente itself was overgrown and had stopped coming over the waterfall - the water had made a new route out overground into the deposito with most of it being lost en route.  The deposito wasn't filling up and it was thought there might not be enough water for everyone's land this summer which is why the work started in June, even though it was really a bit hot. 

The fuente before.....

.....and after.

All of that obviously cost money, the bill was large because of the man hours and materials over the 2 weeks.  We counted about 8 truckloads of sand with sacks of cement balanced on top going passed here, sometimes 2 or 3 in a day.   The bill  has been shared out amongst everyone who is entitled to use the water at a rate equivalent to the number of hours use-age you have for your land.  Our share was just less than 4% of a 5000 euro bill,  not bad for a one-off renovation project.

after the digger had been,

laying the concrete base

finished!

The pear tree in the front garden is laden but the very ripe ones are now dropping and Pip has taken a liking to them.  She's made a path in behind a rose bush, along by the fence and looks behind the tree for fallen fruit.  There are 2 large sage bushes growing either side of the pear tree so she comes out smelling wonderful with a little pear in her mouth.  She always takes them to the doorstep, the same corner each time and very carefully eats the pear leaving the stalk on the step. 

Bite-sized pears.

 Still having early starts to beat the heat, although not as early as some.  Paco comes up to plant and water about 6.15am  so if Pip and Monty weren't awake, that sets them off as he has his dogs running behind his van.  We normally go out about 7- ish  and again about 9pm when it's cooling down.  Most of the day they spend on the tiles indoors in the 'cool' - well, it's all relative!   33 at the moment outside and only 27 indoors.  Not surprisingly we  have the fan on all night moving the air around the bedroom.  It may not be cooling the air but it feels nice.

How crazy is this?

We were out shopping this morning for various things  and when we'd got home and put away the basics, onions, potatoes, bread etc, we opened 'the purchase'.

Inside the wrapping was an owner's manual consisting of 22 pictures of do's and don'ts plus 19 explanations in case the pictures weren't obvious enough and then for more detailed information there was a half-page table to cross reference the item you'd bought with the pictures and explanations!   Then John noticed that the cardboard packaging had all the same pictures of the do's and don'ts on it, and the explanations too.  And just to add to it, the item in question is also printed with all this stuff too!

So what did we buy that needs so much information?



A lilo.  A pink one.  4 euros.

It  must of / must have (sorry, grammar error here )  cost more to produce all that packaging and health and safety stuff than the lilo itself.

Hot and sluggish.

It's been a slow  working week due to the heat.  Anything we do is too hot, from the moment we wake up till bedtime.   We've had highs of 36 most days and there has been hot southerly wind as well.  Walk out of the reasonably cool house and it feels like a hot wall of air is in front of you.  But we have carried on with the bedroom decorating,  after painting the first wall we moved the bed round and hung new pictures, then painted the second wall and built an extra wardrobe/hanging space with shelving as well.  Painting white on white isn't easy, if you shut the windows and shutters to keep the sun and heat out then you need the light on and get funny shadows.  If you open the windows for natural light then you roast.  We ended up having the windows open and the fan on as well - I know it only blows the warm air around, but it feels cool against your skin.  And the best thing is to work in the least possible clothing, in my case bikini top and cotton skirt.  Far too hot? Jump in the pool and have swim then go back to work cool and a bit damp.

Wall number three tomorrow plus more shelving.....at least it's cooled down a bit and only reached 29 today.  It's surprising how much more pleasant those 7 or 8 degrees can make it.

The tomatoes are ripening well now, and there are flowers on the cucumbers so they should be producing soon.  Some of the chillis are  growing really well but a lot are just not doing anything.  It's almost as if they went in too late, when it was too hot and they have just run out of oomph.  Most of the rows of carrots are good, although one or two are very patchy.  Maybe something ate the seeds before they germinated?  Lots of kohlrabi leaf growth but no actual kohlrabi as yet.  Big fat juicy strawberries but not as many as last year when we had far more than we needed.  The ones producing now are last years babes, which I planted out in October.  I think next year they will give more fruit.