We’ve been doing some work on the garden. I’ve been strimming it as much as possible to keep the nettles, ivy and brambles down, but on some of the garden it’s growing back as soon as I strim it, I have also sprayed some patches with weedkiller to get rid of the brambles and nettles, but that’s patchy. So we decided to dig over the front of the garden on the left with the house behind us. This was very brambley, so we’ve removed most of that. The middle patch on that side isn’t too bad, so I think we’ll either get a lawn mower or continue to strim it. I think that will get rid of the nettles there. And we’ve also dug a vegetable bed at the side of the house.
There are SO many roots in the soil, I think it’s ivy and/or brambles, but it made digging quite a challenge – not helped by the fact we don’t have a spade. But here’s the funny thing, we can’t find spades as we would know them in the UK, we can find shovels, forks, rakes – but not spades.
Instead we can find lots of things like this, quite literally as there are quite a few in the barn. The stick on this one snapped – it was very wood wormy – so we went to the ferretaria (iron monger? Not sure if they still exist in UK) and he fitted a new handle and also told us that when the metal bit was new – it would have been twice the size and has worn away over the years.
Anyway, it seems to be doing the job. We were going to get a new one, but when we looked at them, the new ones are pretty much the same as what we’ve got, and I don’t think we’d get a bigger one at the moment as the implement head size is good for breaking up the roots.
Here is the mended version with a new handle.
I said we have a lot of these tools lying around – look at the length of the handle on this one. We can only think it was dragged behind a horse. The metal head is hooked around the bit of wood on the right.
The bramble/ivy roots that have come out of the vegetable patch. We’ve taken 9 sacks full of them to the tip – so far!!!
We’ve also started to clear under the kitchen window. There used to be a shower there, and it looks like it just fell down as there was lots of rubble there, so we’ve cleared that away and are planning a herb garden. We also discovered that the waste water from the kitchen just goes straight into the soil, so that will need some work as the washing machine empties into the same pipe, and I can’t imagine that will be good for the herbs!
The old shower would be the bit that is rendered in white in the corner. The waste pipe that leads nowhere is the grey pipe coming out of the wall under the kitchen window.
Trees
We’ve also bought a couple of trees. This is an orange and grapefruit tree and a raspberry bush in the front.
The trees were going to go by the lemon tree at the back of the house, but we’re now thinking about putting them in tubs for a while as if we have the roof repaired, we may find they are in the way.
Medieval Bridge
On Saturday we went to the supermarket in San Cibroa (mermaid town). There was actually a ‘hedgehog’ fiesta which I was excited by, till I realized that it was a type of sea urchin, and the fiesta was celebrating all the different ways it could be eaten!
Ian had chosen a spot for a picnic which was by a medieval bridge – something we didn’t know was there.
It really is a lovely area along side the river…
video of the swing, swinging out over the bank down to the river.
What’s Wrong With This Photo?
There was someone else on the beach!!! We’ve been very used to being the only ones on the beach – or sometimes we meet another dog walker, but yesterday there was someone sun bathing and a stand up paddle board. It felt a bit odd not being the only ones!
The surf schools open this weekend, I’m not sure if that’s just for Easter hols or if it means that things are opening for the summer.