"I can hear something moving", I said with alarm, as I reached over to wake hubby, as there was no way I could look, not knowing what it might be. I had been in bed for a couple of hours, not wanting to watch the football, as Germany was playing, and I knew for sure they would win. I had left the front door open a while, as, it was warm, and I wanted some fresh air, but I was not about, to admit this to hubby.
Grumpily, he reached for the light, and peered across the bed to my side, "nothing there", he said, switching the light off and returning to bed, a few more minutes went by, and I heard it again. "Honey there is something there", pulling the sheets tight around my head, in case whatever it was decided to jump on me, and eat me alive. I was not terribly good with wildlife. I do not mind them outside, or in a park, but I draw a line to them invading my bedroom.
"Oh for goodness sake", he said as, I refused to turn on the light, as it was at my side of the bed, and was convinced that my hand would be slowly nibbled off by the unknown monster.He grabbed the torch, which we left for emergencies at the side of his bed,namely the many power cuts we have here in Spain, and he shone it towards the scuttling noice. By this time my imagination was running wild, was it a snake a rat,what !!. Hubby laughed, it's a toad, have a look, I slowly opened my eyes to see a big creamy coloured toad,at the side of my bed.
Maybe if I had kissed it, it could have turned into a handsome prince, but Knowing my luck it would probably be the artist formally known as... so I decided to give it a miss.
The toad was carefully picked up and put outside, and I finally got some sleep.
My everyday Blog of my life hope you like it.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Germans & The Mole
I awoke this morning to the sounds of 'Got It'
' Got what ' I said curiously.
'The Mole' hubby said. He was referring to the mole that had been furrowing away in the garden, chewing the roots of the vegetables, completely ruining the crop. I looked outside, to see him happily shaking the garden fork in the air in triumph. Shouting 'No more Mario Mole', MMm well for now I thought, thinking it was a sure thing that Mario would have siblings perhaps a whole family tree would be there somewhere. Still I did not want to spoil hubby’s thunder, so I kept quiet.
For weeks now, he had tried everything to catch the annoying thing. He had tried smoking him out; he had borrowed a professional looking sound vibrator from my next-door neighbour, who being German had a garage full of all gardening mod cons. He blocked all the mole holes up with paper. Almost everything, it is nice to know that his dedication, paid off in the end, still I think it is only a temporary triumph, and this will be an ongoing adventure for him, but for now it is a gardening victory.
Our next-door neighbour’s garden is perfect. Which is only what we have come to expect from the German people, they seem so dedicated to any task they do. They are so efficient and precise. Unlike us they do not walk around their garden in sawn off jeans and flip-flops; they wear green garden overalls, and knee protectors. They wear goggles when clipping their trees, facemasks when spraying their crops, and jockstraps when weeding. They have all their gardening equipment, up on shelves, which looks like something from the VW factory, unlike ourselves, which is more of a whereabouts in the garden did I leave that rake?
We have to laugh though, every time we do something in the garden, or in the house, my neighbours peer over the garden fence, not knowing that we can see them. They pretend to water the plants or they will use their rotavator that they call Bobby, and if all that fails, they will pop round, with a bowl of sauerkraut to ask what we are doing, they do not miss a thing. Still they are good neighbours and lovely people.
This year has been a particularly bad one on the snail front. They are everywhere, munching their way through the trees, the plants, hauling their hunch-backed little bodies, up my freshly painted walls, over my neighbour’s fence happily eating their way round there garden also. It seems hubby and I am singularly responsible for the snail epidemic in Southern Spain, because we refuse to use pesticide or weed killer, well sorry but that is just too bad. We plan to stay organic, so unfortunately, for now we will have to keep picking them off the plants, unless someone out there has a better solution.
' Got what ' I said curiously.
'The Mole' hubby said. He was referring to the mole that had been furrowing away in the garden, chewing the roots of the vegetables, completely ruining the crop. I looked outside, to see him happily shaking the garden fork in the air in triumph. Shouting 'No more Mario Mole', MMm well for now I thought, thinking it was a sure thing that Mario would have siblings perhaps a whole family tree would be there somewhere. Still I did not want to spoil hubby’s thunder, so I kept quiet.
For weeks now, he had tried everything to catch the annoying thing. He had tried smoking him out; he had borrowed a professional looking sound vibrator from my next-door neighbour, who being German had a garage full of all gardening mod cons. He blocked all the mole holes up with paper. Almost everything, it is nice to know that his dedication, paid off in the end, still I think it is only a temporary triumph, and this will be an ongoing adventure for him, but for now it is a gardening victory.
Our next-door neighbour’s garden is perfect. Which is only what we have come to expect from the German people, they seem so dedicated to any task they do. They are so efficient and precise. Unlike us they do not walk around their garden in sawn off jeans and flip-flops; they wear green garden overalls, and knee protectors. They wear goggles when clipping their trees, facemasks when spraying their crops, and jockstraps when weeding. They have all their gardening equipment, up on shelves, which looks like something from the VW factory, unlike ourselves, which is more of a whereabouts in the garden did I leave that rake?
We have to laugh though, every time we do something in the garden, or in the house, my neighbours peer over the garden fence, not knowing that we can see them. They pretend to water the plants or they will use their rotavator that they call Bobby, and if all that fails, they will pop round, with a bowl of sauerkraut to ask what we are doing, they do not miss a thing. Still they are good neighbours and lovely people.
This year has been a particularly bad one on the snail front. They are everywhere, munching their way through the trees, the plants, hauling their hunch-backed little bodies, up my freshly painted walls, over my neighbour’s fence happily eating their way round there garden also. It seems hubby and I am singularly responsible for the snail epidemic in Southern Spain, because we refuse to use pesticide or weed killer, well sorry but that is just too bad. We plan to stay organic, so unfortunately, for now we will have to keep picking them off the plants, unless someone out there has a better solution.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Orthopaedic Bed.
SOMETIMES, strange things happen here in Spain. Today has been one of those days. Hubby and I were working in the garden, trying to decide on the companion planting, an essential role in organic gardening, and the best way to promote healthy predators, to confuse the destructive ones. Tomatoes with basil, peppers with aubergines, sweet corn with beans, peas and potatoes, and many sunflowers ,to make me smile.
The doorbell rang, peeking up the drive, I saw two Spanish women, obvious by the Spanish red hair, and Seat car. Scrambling, for my pocked sized, Spanish-English dictionary. ‘Hola’, I said quietly, after lots of arm flapping, and many turns of the pages of the dictionary, I discovered that they were cousins of the people we had bought the house off over 6 years ago. They asked us if we still had the orthopaedic bed, left in the house, when we bought it. Apparently, one of the woman’s husbands had chronic back pain and needed it.
My memory of buying the house, after all the signing and dignitaries, was standing on the Notary steps, with the three beneficiaries of the sale, the children of the vendors, who had suddenly inherited wealth, as mum was in a care home where she could be looked after properly. These three people could have been Olympic sprinters, given chance. I had not seen anyone move so fast, to put their cheques into the bank, before it closed. It was 1.45 and closed at 2pm. They almost threw the keys for the house, at us, as they ran anxiously shouting,' Banco, Banco, Banco'.
When we finally viewed our new Spanish property, we found that the only thing the vendors had taken was the wood-burning stove, and the washing machine, which was unexpected, as these two items were the only things we wanted. They had left everything else; there were clothes in the wardrobe, food in the cupboards, wines and spirits, furniture, family photographs, first communion trinkets, and an unfortunate infestation of cockroaches, which my hubby discovered as he peered into a dark cupboard, to see them all staring at him from the ceiling. The orthopaedic bed was in the “gloomy room” as we called it, as the room was then quite dark and unwelcoming.
As six years had now passed, and the house had finally, been cleared, and all the unwanted items skipped, and the cockroaches fumigated. I was surprised when hubby said, “I still have the bed it is in the garage covered in lots of items, which would of course come in handy one day. The two women were delighted and said they would come back on Sunday to collect the bed, armed with wine in exchange for the bed. They went away happy.
Hubby spent the next three days fighting his way to the back of the garage, to retrieve the item, when his back went, he had suffered from sciatica for many years, but had been fine recently, in agony; he crawled in the house, and spent the next two days flat on his back.
The two women came back on Sunday, without the wine, but an English speaker on the other end of their mobile phone, who asked if we still had the automatic hoist to lift someone in and out of bed. They were sure it was in the house six years ago. Unfortunately, we had no recollection of this item; the two women who were obviously disappointed, grunted a little, but thanked us and reluctantly put the bed in the back of their car and drove off, maybe they will come back later, looking for something else. We will see.
The doorbell rang, peeking up the drive, I saw two Spanish women, obvious by the Spanish red hair, and Seat car. Scrambling, for my pocked sized, Spanish-English dictionary. ‘Hola’, I said quietly, after lots of arm flapping, and many turns of the pages of the dictionary, I discovered that they were cousins of the people we had bought the house off over 6 years ago. They asked us if we still had the orthopaedic bed, left in the house, when we bought it. Apparently, one of the woman’s husbands had chronic back pain and needed it.
My memory of buying the house, after all the signing and dignitaries, was standing on the Notary steps, with the three beneficiaries of the sale, the children of the vendors, who had suddenly inherited wealth, as mum was in a care home where she could be looked after properly. These three people could have been Olympic sprinters, given chance. I had not seen anyone move so fast, to put their cheques into the bank, before it closed. It was 1.45 and closed at 2pm. They almost threw the keys for the house, at us, as they ran anxiously shouting,' Banco, Banco, Banco'.
When we finally viewed our new Spanish property, we found that the only thing the vendors had taken was the wood-burning stove, and the washing machine, which was unexpected, as these two items were the only things we wanted. They had left everything else; there were clothes in the wardrobe, food in the cupboards, wines and spirits, furniture, family photographs, first communion trinkets, and an unfortunate infestation of cockroaches, which my hubby discovered as he peered into a dark cupboard, to see them all staring at him from the ceiling. The orthopaedic bed was in the “gloomy room” as we called it, as the room was then quite dark and unwelcoming.
As six years had now passed, and the house had finally, been cleared, and all the unwanted items skipped, and the cockroaches fumigated. I was surprised when hubby said, “I still have the bed it is in the garage covered in lots of items, which would of course come in handy one day. The two women were delighted and said they would come back on Sunday to collect the bed, armed with wine in exchange for the bed. They went away happy.
Hubby spent the next three days fighting his way to the back of the garage, to retrieve the item, when his back went, he had suffered from sciatica for many years, but had been fine recently, in agony; he crawled in the house, and spent the next two days flat on his back.
The two women came back on Sunday, without the wine, but an English speaker on the other end of their mobile phone, who asked if we still had the automatic hoist to lift someone in and out of bed. They were sure it was in the house six years ago. Unfortunately, we had no recollection of this item; the two women who were obviously disappointed, grunted a little, but thanked us and reluctantly put the bed in the back of their car and drove off, maybe they will come back later, looking for something else. We will see.
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