The man in the supermarket looked rather startled as I mimed ‘fly swat’. It probably didn’t help that he had drawn close to me to look in the dictionery I was holding just as I went into full ‘swat’ mime. I think he thought I was going to attack him. Anyway, he didn’t have any – or so he said as he fled from the shop, so we went to another shop and it was Ians turn to ask, so we are now the proud owner of a fly swat and Ian has single handedly declared war on flies.
It is now very hot and I’ve had problems sleeping, so I thought perhaps it was time to shed the tog24 duvet and look for something lightweight. We keep our bedding in the cupboard in the bathroom, and when I started looking I was horrified to find that we had a bad case of mildew. Admitedly I had noticed that things felt a little damp in there – but at the bottom of the boxes things were ringing wet. That little room is very cool, but I guess it heats up during the day and hence our damp. So our yard is now a riot of colour – although not as I imagined, but instead from sheets etc all washed and drying. Some things were beyond saving and others now will only be usable for rags etc. Something to watch in the future.
We have recorded temperatures of 50 in the yard, we get no breeze there which is why it gets so hot. Ian is quite cool in the house, but my workshop is getting hot so I am going to have to get a fan (there are two words for ‘fan’ in spanish, I’ve been going into electical shops and been asking for the wrong one ie hand fans that ladies have – which indeed I have just bought and I think is a underated feat of engineering). The temperature outside with a breeze is 42/44c although it is going to get markedly cooler next week to 35.
One of our favourite times of the day is at night when we sit outside and watch the kittens playing. They spend ages chasing each other round and round a plant pot, followign each others tail and Dukems is fascinated by the jasmine plant and we watch as he climbs up and then falls out, Billy was rather suprised when Dukems fell once on top of him – seemingly from the sky.
Last night we went to Adelardo’s family’s caseta which is on the Bienvenida road. We were invited to take our swimming costumes which Ian did and I took photos. I think they were suprised when I wanted to take pictures of vegetables etc. They have about 500 olive trees and a small kitchen garden.
We are getting spoilt at the moment with a lot of fruit and veg from our neighbour across the road and also from Adelardo. Marrows seem the be the main one – but we also have a lot of figs too. We are going to sun dry some tomatoes, but need to make a frame first to keep them fly and dust free. Suprisingly we’ve not seen any sun dried tomatoes, however in mmy gardening book it says that they are harvested all year round so perhaps traditionally they have not required preserving.