Well I am very excited, I’ve bought a new computer. It’s got rams, buttons and gigathingys – however it is also PINK. It’s also got a built in webcam, so that is something you can look forward to. I have finally wrestled the computer from Ian and am typing this on it. It is a Spanish keyboard and operating system, which is taking a little bit of getting used to (and I’ve still not get spell check set up so bear with it). I´m spending so much time writing, it made sense to get a new laptop which I can use anywhere. Interestingly, I bought this with less than a months earnings from my writing. My first colour laptop cost more than a months salary as managing director a few years ago, and that would have had much less power than my Palm.
We were rather shocked last night to hear the village band – we thought it had been disbanded, however there was certainly something happening. It was remarkably bad, so we are wonding if the old band were the ones that were disbanded and this is an all new band.
The weather this week has been extraordinary. Monday it was so cold that we put the gas fire on and huddled in my office. Wednesday it was too hot and we had to sit in the shade and since then we could have eaten tea outside late in the evening if we wanted to – it has been so warm during the day the heat has stayed at night.
In our class on Wednesday we were talking about Easter. I think part of the reason why we think nothing goes on at Easter is because it does not happen until late. Next week there are Semana Santa parades every ‘day’ but they start at 9 and go on until 2 or 3 in the morning. This does sound a little hard core, some people parade without shoes on, for 5 or so hours over roads and lanes as they have made a promise to God. And people sing or wail as the parades go past. The parades start Monday and go on, I think, to Saturday. This is in Zafra – in Seville the parades go on all through the night. The people carrying the saints are dressed in outfits not unlike the Klu Klux Klan (surely its not spelt like that…) – I’ll find some pictures at it is really is similar. It was very interesting talking to our tutor, she and her husband will go back to her mother’s house afterwards for something to eat at 3 or so in the morning as her mum can no longer take part but wants to hear all about it. It makes our easter eggs pale into the background somewhat. We will try to go to a parade – either in Zafra or perhaps Seville.
Sam has not had a fit now for nearly 3 weeks. He is sticking to his low protein diet, which is probably one third meat, two thirds rice or pasta and veg. It isn’t costing us too much as we are not giving him too much meat. We don’t know if all this is co-incidence, whether it is low protein, lack of additives or the fact it is wet food and not dry – however it seems that something has happened to slow his fits. We’ve also had Guncs and Black Beard neutered this week. Ian pointed to BB’s slightly black chin to explain why we called him Black Beard. The vet just made that slightly glazed stare that we are getting so used to now and rushed off to operate on a cow.
We’ve also started giving the dogs a spring trim, we had to buy some new blades, so they missed their last trim. Sam was very easy to trim, but doesn’t he look thin now – look at him in the pic above and that was taken today. He has put on a lot of weight, so it does remind us of how skinny he was when we found him under all that matted fur. With his new close cropped look his legs are really emphasized – they really are very long compared with his body! We had a nasty moment today – he has just learnt to jump on his back legs and is so gangly, he keeps falling over. Anyway, he fell onto his back and the thud jolted me as well as poor Sam. He howled, bringing Ian running, however I think he had just winded himself. Poor little fellow is still quite wobbly in some ways.