Well, we’ve had a good few days. We’re getting into a bit of a routine. Working until about 1.30 for lunch, stopping for a quick lunch, then working till 4.30 / 5 ish then a walk, then a bit more work and tea, we´ve also been out for a wander in the evening too – particular as band practice seems to happening most nights and we enjoy listening to the band. We’ve actually been out for a walk most days even if just a short stroll, but as yet have not been the same route twice. Not unusually because of our navigational skills, but because of the amount of tracks or footpaths (we hope, either that or we’ve spent a great deal of time wandering up and down people drive ways). we´ve thought it important to make sure we get out for a number of reasons, firstly it is good to be out and acually ´be seen´, it is good for Basil, as he gets taken on these strolls, and lastly as we are working from home, the danger is we get no excercise what so ever – other of course than the daily visits down to the library to check emails. My ´work´at the moment is involving making up the projects for the book. I also need to make a number of step by step pieces, but I´ve not started on those yet.
We’ve noticed that 4.30 / 5 ish is when the villagers seem to go for a walk after siesta time, and there are people of all sorts walking around the roads and lanes. It is surprisingly busy. Tonight (Sunday), we headed er, east-ish (?) and were astounded by not only how far we could see, but also the amount of bird song. There are no trees, so we were bemused as to where these birds were whose singing we could hear so clearly. We walked quite a long way and we flopped down at the top of a hill where we could see in both directions. I was happily musing over where the singing birds were when I looked down and I was in a nest of red caterpillars. They were fluffy, which would ordinarily be a good thing, but so many and such a bright red I could not help but think was a bad thing. I threw myself towards Ian who did the gentlemanly thing which was to step aside and let me instead throw myself into the ditch. I am sure that I have read somewhere about evil man eating red caterpillars, or is that ants…?
Suffering no more than injured pride, it was time to head back. And as we did so, we overtook some old Spanish men who I think might have been hunting with birds, either that or they were taking their canary for a walk, as they appeared to be carrying a bird cage covered in camouflage. Ian also saw the first rabbit or hare since we have been here, which is perhaps what they were hunting for.
I’ve been particularly happy work wise as I now have a work shop / office. We gave up trying to find something locally and went to Ikea in Seville. Furniture is not cheap locally, although I am sure if you find the right place it is, but we were aware that we were spending quite a lot of time looking at things which were not suitable. There is nothing (that we have found) like a B&Q here, so we are stuck for the cheap and cheerful side of things. If we had the time then Ian would make me something, but we don’t want to be distracted from work at the moment.
So in a completely non-distracting sort of way, we both headed off to Seville and IKEA. Success, units for workshop and Ian had hot-dogs. It doesn’t get a lot better than that. Admittedly my workshop looks not unlike a box filled garage, with a few units on one side, but it is going to be brilliant, and Ian is happy not to be tripping over bits of knitted wire, or finding crocheted wire lace caught in his sweater.
Latest update on the phoneline – our order had not been processed as we didn´t have a Spanish contact number grrrrrrr. So we´ve bought a Spanish SIM card for the phone which gives us a spanish mobile number which we hope will sufice.