Seems to be a lack of photos recently and as the capers have nearly finished flowering and the seed pods are opening I picked some this morning to take pics of. The seed pod starts off in the middle of the flower on a stalk, grows and grows to the size of a plum and then starts to split open. It's full of seeds and is surprisingly bright red. The capers that you buy to eat - either in brine or vinegar - are 2 different kinds, you can either pick the unopened flower bud or wait and pick the seed pod at whatever size you prefer. We've only ever brined the bud, not sure of the difference in flavour.

On a different subject, we woke the day before yesterday to the sound of an aeroplane and helicopter and the sight of a large column of smoke from the hill behind us, towards Berchules we think. The plane is like a crop sprayer but contains fire retardant foam and the helicopter had it's water bucket down ready for dumping water on the fire. They were circling round, collecting water and then another plane came, a spotter plane we think as it went round much higher up. They moved further away after a few hours, to where we could just see grey haze on the horizon, perhaps nearer Cadiar although it's difficult to tell with so many rolling hills around just which valley they had gone into. We heard aircraft until about 8 in the evening, but only saw the 2 lots of smoke. Yesterday, again very early, the fire plane flew overhead and as I write this a helicopter has just gone over. We get very little aircraft noise and in the summer it usually means a fire - just looked out and the fire plane's gone over again too. Luckily, gone straight and high so where ever it is, isn't that close. (fingers crossed!)

Friday last week was the 13th birthday of Dale, eldest grandson of friends of ours who have a house in Yator, come over for all their holidays and bought Dale with them this time. We had his birthday party here, spicy food that he loves and lots of people that he has met....he was head chef in charge of rolling out and cooking the wraps for the fajitas, we also made chilli and spicy albondigas plus lots of salsas and dips. 8 children came who spent most of the day in the pool followed by the 11 adults who had their swim later on at 5.30. Although I think the children were in as well plus every float/ball/lilo we had!!

So for Dale, this is you as chef; for Simon, Andrea, Poppy and Charlie, fame at last!!

Last post was apparently on June 30th so to update things use the following words and phrases in any order to fill in the missing 18 days!

watering, weeding, picking, freezing, drying fruit, sweeping and mopping floors, washing, (minimal) ironing, dog walking, sewing (mostly altering clothes due to a 6kg weight loss:) ) pool cleaning, entertaining and/or visiting neighbours and friends from Yator over here for their holidays, shopping, relaxing - yes, I try and get a 2hour rest in the shade of the olive tree every afternoon and have a swim as well, cooking - although that is minimal due to the heat, mostly a quick salad and something on the barbeque, and if I'm lucky about 7 hours sleep a night.

J has been making extra shelving, that has used up bits of wood that have been waiting around for yonks, he is now making extra space by one of the sheds to give his work-benches a new home. They have lived on the terrace for too long and it's nice and spacious now it's not so cluttered with stuff.

Pip is growing, at least her legs are and we are beginning to wonder if she is related to either a greyhound or even a kangaroo as she is so bouncy! Eats anything given to her, even fruit and vegetables, the downside being that she likes cucumbers and we found her this morning lying by the pool munching her way through a freshly bitten off cucumber! She'd taken it off very neatly at the stalk and was half way through eating it. Monty is very tolerant of her, as she wants to play when he wants to lie down, but he can still out run her and they quite often run round and round the pool in the evening with her desperately trying to catch up. Last night she got too close to the edge, either trying to get a drink or fish out a cicada, and in she fell with a big splash. She probably can swim but instinct was to pull her out and dry her off a bit. It made her a bit excited and off she went, running and bouncing round and round again.

The temperatures of 35/36 degrees seemed to have cooled a bit, it only reached 33 yesterday! The pool water is registering 29 so it does seem refreshing when you get in. It's very strange, and I don't know why it happens, but there are always hot-spots in the water, and as you swim round or across some bits are much warmer than others! I'm sure there's a very good reason for it, maybe I'll have to swim round and round to stir it up and even it out. Talking of which, I'm going for a pre-lunch dip right now...

What with watering, picking, freezing, drying, sewing, walking early and late with Monty and Pip, keeping (or trying to) on top of housework, washing and ironing and pool cleaning, the days are just flying by. The first figs are ripe and John has made a hot box for drying them in - converted an old window and frame we were given, made a mesh base to keep them off the ground, and put black plastic underneath and round the edges. The temperature is rising to about 55 inside and figs are drying in about 24 sunshine hours. We are going to use them instead of sultanas and raisins for cakes, biscuits, curries etc. I pick more each day when out walking to replace the dried ones. The first peaches all got eaten, but there are more on the way. I froze 1 kg of green beans this morning, we have been eating them every day but needed a break today!!

Our shady seating area over the tables and chairs by the pool is gradually filling in, we are using palm branches and cutting fresh bamboo as and when we can - it looks very tropical and beach bar-ish. It's much needed at the moment, it's not dropped below 30/32 for days now - it's still 30 now at almost 8pm. We are eating late, after the sun has gone when it feels cooler although it isn't really.

So what else is new....J has stripped now an old table and varnished it for using by the bbq's, I've made curtains for our bedroom (lovely fabric bought locally - 2.8m wide and only 4 euros a metre) and finished the last of 6 new wrap skirts - almost one for each day but unfortunately they wrinkle in the wash and need ironing and I really am not one of life's ironers.

Our neighbours came again this weekend, invited us round for Saturday evening but we were already prepared for dinner, just as well as there were 20 next door and it would have been hard work. They left between 1.30 and 3am, the last ones going via the spring to turn off the water that was going to their olives. How do we know the time? Both Monty and Pip heard the cars leaving and assumed it was time to get up!!
We were up at the normal time on Sunday morning for our watering day but they didn't appear till 1pm and then started digging water channels in the heat of the day. By which time we were finished, in the pool and thinking about making brunch - our Sunday breakfast/lunch.

Time to stop, Pip has just come rushing in, all wet from playing in the running water in the acequias and is leaving wet paw prints on the tiles. At least she's cool but I'd rather she was cool outside than in here!

I've just looked back at June's blogs and there is only 1! So here goes...the most likely reason for not writing is the weather because I am outside all day and only come indoors to shower and sleep. I very rarely turn the computer on and am only inside now because I need to cool down a bit. It's been unseasonably warm of late, up to 35 this Sunday and totally airless as well. It's not too bad if there is a breeze and you can find somewhere to sit and catch the air but failing that I get in the pool for a swim.

Sunday afternoon we went up to a neighbours house for lunch with him, his brother in law and 2 of his sons and another neighbour. There were 2 Mariano's, 2 Juan's, 2 Antonio's and me. The evening before we were at our neighbours for the evening. Carmen and her 2 daughters, 2 sons in law and 3 grandchildren plus another couple from Yator and their daughter all talking at once with us trying to keep up with everything. It's almost 4 years since Manolo died and Carmen went back to Granada and it's 2 years since she has been back to the house but she seems now to want to come and spend some time here. They are talking about coming everyday of the school holidays, spending the day here and going to the house in Yator to sleep. There is a pool in Yator but it's 2 euros per person and only open to the public from 4 - 8 pm (it's free if you live in the apartments, and available all morning as well) so over 8 weeks that they will be down from Granada, that amounts to a lot of money! Last week they came and cleaned their water deposit and filled it up so the children can swim for free.

We've been having some creative days recently, I have made 3 wrap skirts from material which has been waiting for me to do something with for ages. Another is ready for the finishing touches and 3 more are cut ready for pinning and sewing. Its a slow process because my sewing machine is in the caravan and it's just too hot in there in the afternoons really so I nip in, sew a bit and when I boil over, go for a swim. John has also been using up things we have left from other projects and has made a frame which we are going to cover with bamboo for a permanent shady seating area. There is lots of bamboo growing up at the fuente which we've asked if we can cut down so we won't have to buy any.

We had a bit of a delay last week doing the shady roof because our water tank sprang a leak and had to be replaced. Not something that could wait, unlike the shady area. We have a sun umbrella there at the moment but the tank was priority! Luckily we had already bought a replacement tank but - obviously - not done anything about fitting it. The tank lives on the roof of the house and when the temperature is 30+ in the shade, it's not a very comfortable place to be working.

Watering the vegetables has got into a routine, some first thing, others in the evening, some daily, some alternate days. We are picking dwarf and climbing beans now and courgettes. Not loads each day but enough at the moment for when we need them. There are flowers on the cucumbers and aubergines too so they should be growing soon. The olives have flowered (seemed like all of Montenegro's blossom landed on the surface of the pool - took ages to clean it off with the net!) and now you can see baby olives forming. Hopefully a good harvest this year and maybe a better price per kilo too.