Happily a new mechanic has started working in the village so Ian was able to slowly take the car up there.
Although not so happily it transpires that break shoe doesn’t translate literally in Spanish and they were left wondering whether Ian’s shoes don’t brake or what strange message we were trying to communicate (although, quite honestly with the pickles we get ourselves into, why Ian didn’t think to double check that the likelihood of ‘shoe’ being used in Spanish too to describe brake pads, I don’t know!)
Hopefully we’ll get the car back for early next week. We also need a new pump thing for it, which is going to be expensive. We’ll have to get it done for the equivalent of the Spanish MOT so hopefully the new mechanic person will take pity on us and do it for a good price.
The brakes actually went after we’d come back from asparagus picking. It’s the end of May and it’s still going strong. Probably thanks to the wet weather we had a couple of weeks ago. For the first time in a number of years we have some in the freezer again.
All the animals are well. I realized it was a year since we had the lovebirds and were hand feeding them. I remember how I had them in a little budgie cage and carry them around with me. I like to think that Larry’s life is better since he’s had avian company, however given that I think he thinks he’s a, well, I’m not sure what he thinks he is (but certainly it involves being some sort of premier in his kingdom) I think he may think that they were pets we got him. When we move we’ll probably put them in together, but we’ll see. Larry is completely back to how he was – other than the fact he can’t climb. But we’ve put ramps in his cage so he can get around to his different perches. He seems quite happy other than he doesn’t like electrical appliances. When the coffee grinder goes in the morning or the soup maker goes into liquidize mode, Larry takes it upon himself to try to outdo them noise wise. And he wins.