2010/2011 Happy New Year!

Song of the day: “I will survive” by…something Gaylor? Gloria? Maybe I should check…nah. Who cares anyway? Let’s get down to business instead.

The last day of the year is almost gone and it has been a turbulent year to say the least.
I mean seriously, so much is different now from last year that I figure I might as well do a bit of what all the big networks are doing and look back upon 2010.

So what all happened? Personally, this year and the last are pretty much a blur for me, but I am trying, rather desperately, to come up with some good ones.

Okay.

First one: As of this evening, around midnight last year, I think it was I smoked my last cigarette. Now, I would like to say that it was my New Year’s resolution, but considering that at the time I had forgotten that it was old year’s eve, that would be a gross lie. Hah.
But anyway. My first anniversary as a none smoker, after six years of chain smoking. Personally I would say, “Let’s celebrate it with a nice cigarette,” but that would be kind of counter productive, now wouldn’t it. *snort*

I did prove my own point to myself, I’m happy to say. Smoking for me was definitely an oral fixation, and not all that hard to overcome. I liked smoking, and if the prices hadn’t gone up so much (just last week the bastards brought the prices up another 30 percent, or so) I would still be doing it. Heck, if it weren’t for exorbitant taxes and my refusal to fatten the coffers even more, I’d be lighting one up right now. *sigh* Alas, this is not the case, so I am once again a non-smoker, blast it.

But enough about that.

Second one: We did it. We won the bet. We built a greenhouse without buying anything other than screws and paint and it worked out splendidly. We scavenged, we scrounged, and we dove into places that I would much rather forget, but it is there and plants are growing in it even as I write this down. It’s beautiful, it’s sturdy and it’s there. What more can a person ask for?

Third one: Tenant is hardly ever using her wheelchair anymore, and that after her doctors proclaimed that it was highly unlikely that she would ever walk again. The arm they claimed she would not be able to use either, might not function properly yet, but she can raise it, tighten a fist and grab hold.
These days she walks down the mountain in the morning and then back up at the end of the day with hardly any assistance, and without breaking out in a sweat.
Screw the doctors!

Fourth: We build the basin, which, admittedly crashed again just weeks ago, but we’ll rebuild and know what to do now to make it as sturdy as it should be to hold the water that will come. The rocks are there and waiting, so are the bricks, so just as soon as the infernal rain stops coming down we’re going to tackle the wall once more.

Fifth: We lost quite a few dogs. And I much rather not linger on that particular issue.

Sixth: I finished writing two books, which should both be ready to go out to publisher in one, maybe two months. They were written, edited and re-edited within the time we allotted for the task and soon we will see if the effort was fruitful. I do admit to being curious about what the responses are going to be.

Seventh: Ehm. Is there a seventh? Just kidding.
There is the yard, of course. We had quite a successful year with our own veggies this year. More zucchini’s than we could eat, but luckily the dogs loved them. Same goes for the tomatoes, which the dogs loved as well. Hah. We had cauliflowers, melons, eggplants, onions, potatoes, leek and more chard than we could eat…which the dogs didn’t like, for a change. Hah. There were the piles of pumpkins, the strawberries (way to few of ‘m) bushes full of peppers, the broccoli, cucumbers and the white and red cabbages. All of them delicious, and several of them saved long enough for an occasional soup this chilly winter.

Eight: The weather. We’ve had a relatively cool summer to follow a chilly spring. We hit the hundreds only a few times after all, and the coolness stayed consistent through out autumn where we’ve already hit the lows that were three degrees from the freezing point. On the plus side, I don’t mind as much as I used to. Hah.

Nine: Remodelling and building wise we’ve been busy, I guess.
1. We built tenant’s solarium, and put up a wall in her kitchen. Sure, the new floor still has to be poured, but once we’ve done that, all will be beautiful in there.
2. Also put in a floor in big brother’s room, of course, along with a new bed with a drawer system beneath it and new walls and everything. While busy there we also put a lick of paint on the wall so it’s looking good.
3. We fixed my broken floor earlier this summer, of course, and soon we’re going to put in my new floors as well, so, yay.
4. The bus was painted, and a new wooden partition built behind it. Soon we’ll be putting in vinyl tiles in there as well, so it’ll be a good as new.

Ten: Got a job. Yes, finances are low and it just couldn’t be avoided any longer. It’s not bad either. I get my exercise, meet lots of fascinating people and earn a few extra bucks that’ll pay for dog operations if nothing more.

Eleven: Had a massive amount of car repair bills, in particular since we got the Daewoo for the smaller stuff. Seriously, for the car bills alone we could have a full-time job. The way I figure, soon the car will be entirely new. Hah.

Twelve: I took the first step in starting a column by spending a day at a cocktail lounge. I’m still working on the format of the telling, but I’ll get there. As of now I am looking for interesting jobs that I could do for a day and write about, so if you can think of something, feel free to leave a comment and suggest one.

Should I do a thirteen? Okay, last one. After two years and half a year of doctor’s visits, my foot is finally starting to show some improvement. I now actually have moments per day where it doesn’t hurt, and that is still the best news of this year, I think. Hah.

Seriously, I’m starting to lose track. Stuff pops up in my head but then I don’t know what I’ve already had, and what not. Maybe I should leave it at this. I’ve described everything in the blogs anyway, so if you’re a “follower” you’ll remember most of this stuff anyway. Hah.

So let’s wrap this up and move onto 2011.
Edits are still going well. We passed the middle of the book, so yay!

The past two days I spent working on the new patio door I am designing. No, not the one I had already finished three days ago, that one was for inside. But a heavier, sturdier and pretty hardwood one for the outside. It’s starting to look bloody gorgeous, and is definitely worth the effort of spending the whole day in smoke and sawdust while I sawed the slats to the right size. Seriously, I can still smell the stuff now, after a shower and dinner. For some reason the hardwood I’m using smell likes a mix of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. Very pungent.

Added to that, we headed into the yard for a bit…it felt like we were in northern England in October for all the green and wetness, to check how everything was doing. While we were wandering through the moist undergrowth, looking for an occasional tomato and pepper, the dogs were happy for the break in the rain too, and dashed up and down the mountain with noisy appreciation.
In the yard, all was well, so I could get back to work on the door. Since the sawing table overheats on the long stretches, we spent the time in-between sawing sorting through the piles of screws and doodads.

Which brings us to the very last words of this year.
Hope you had as great a year as I did, and that the next one will be even better.

Have a GOOD and HAPPY New Year!!!

Hauling butt.

Song of the day: “Irish Son” by Brian McFadden. I nicely simple song to sing, so those who were forced to spend time in my company got to hear it too. Hah.

Whazzup, whazzup? (Gawd that sounds stupid) Give me a second here to gather my thoughts.

Oh yeah, yesterday.

It was big brother’s birthday, but since he doesn’t like cake or pie at all, I didn’t make any. It was kind of a relief, since I would have had to get up at least two hours early if I needed to make something. As it turned out, Sally offered to make one later in the day anyway, so it was an unnecessary worry.

The day started with laundry, just like every other day, of course. But, what with the crappy weather (no rain yet, but lots of clouds and moist air) nothing is drying so practically all the lines are filled to full capacity, which I find highly frustrating.

But anyway, laundry got done I was free to head out into the fresh morning air. First thing up was hanging four gorgeous copper lamps in the greenhouse. The day before we worked in the carport for an extra hour or so to get the wiring right.

It took some doing, but in the end we did manage the chore and they look wonderful. Very fancy in fact, and yet I’ve made pictures, but I am not going to post them yet. Seriously, writing about it takes less time.

Since we were down there already, big brother and I also took the opportunity and the momentary break in the cloud cover to take the wall apart and put the large concrete blocks in a neat pile so we can start over (darn it) one of these days. It wasn’t as heavy as I remembered, actually. The last time I had to haul those blasted things those 80-100 pound blocks felt almost too heavy to carry, but compared to then it went easy enough. I think it took the two of us less than an hour to get them all neatly stacked on the floor.

Admittedly, I was a tad tired last night and actually had a fifteen-minute catnap before I could get myself to start on the edit. Good thing I had that nap, by the way, because we had a full chapter edit that rent bloody well, if I may say so. Hah.

So that brings us to today: Again laundry, duh, but this time I could actually take some stuff off because it was relatively dry. Yay. Next, we cleaned Tika’s (Eclectus parrot) cage, because the place was a mess, and we’d been postponing it too long. Of course, the bird was eyeballing us the whole wile, her indignation implying that she didn’t appreciate us taking her stash away. But no matter. In the end the cage was nice and clean again, and we could head outside to get down to business.

While big brother continued with the box of the car, I sanded the new door so our friend Danni could paint it later in the day.
It was moist and cold today, so we lit up the vat for some comfortable heat at least. I’d missed the vat, I’ll admit. Nothing like working on some project while back and butt are kept warm by a blazing fire. Hah.

That done I made a small roof section for grandpa beside the carport. There is a serious lack of storage space, so I took the opportunity to create some extra by building it underneath the eucalyptus that stand between my house and the carport. I love working around nature that way, it creates the most interesting little nooks and crannies, if you must know and…well, it just looks nice.

Hauled some stuff up the mountain, which my dogs didn’t like at all. They would have much preferred to stick by the vat, by smooching up to it as close as they can without getting burned.
Talking about the dogs, I made a list the other day and it turns out that we lost a LOT of dogs in the past couple of years. Gawd, by the last count we had ninety-two, and now we’re down to seventy-seven. It was a tad scary to realize that, in particular just looking at the list I could see that in the near future we’re going to lose at least another 20 to age and sicknesses. *sigh*

Better not think about it, because that is definitely the thing I hate about having our pack.
But alas it cannot be helped and feeling bad about things that you cannot change won’t do anything except cause frustration so until the time comes that we actually lose them, Screw it!

I’ve got more edits to do, and a book to prepare for sending off, and…well, just more than enough to do yet, before the day is through.

Busywork on the most part.

Song of the day: “How do you do” by Shakira. Funny song.

Busy work has been going on, but I’ve gotta give the good news first. Yesterday, (26th of December...it is going in the history books for me) was the first day in almost two years that my friggin’ left foot, the one I have been threatening to chop off for a long time, didn’t hurt like bloody fuck (pardon my French) by late afternoon. Heck, it wasn’t even hurting yet at midnight, so for me that was cause for celebration. Well...sorta anyway. I burst out in tears, in fact, but you know what I mean, right. That’s progress right. The stupid appendage wasn’t burning, stabbing, or throbbing, just a little tired from a long day, so YAY!

I do wish the doc had mentioned that the friggin’ insoles wouldn’t work in anything other than sturdy high boots, because for the past few months I seriously pondered getting rid of those darned insoles because they only seemed to worsen the problem.
Nope. Army-like boots, tough black leather and thick soles. Gonna beat this thing, hoorah.
Sorry, that came across a little inelegant but what the heck. Hah.

So what’s been going on, what’s been going on? No, no, no...don’t blank out!
Yesterday. Let’s start with yesterday. Yesterday we had beautiful weather again, and we spent the majority of it with busywork too. Hah. First off, I made a wall lamp for Sally who decided to change her quarters and needed extra light. The light actually turned out nicely. Elegantly curved and mounted on a piece of beech wood.

I also found Sally some curtain rods, and hung her other light as well…after fixing the piece that allowed for hanging, because it had gotten lost when she moved here.
Afterwards I sawed more boards for big brother’s room, so our friend Dani could paint them already.
There was some garden work, along with the greenhouse where I pulled weeds from the pots, just because it was so nice to work there for a bit. Got some more peppers from the yard too, along with tomatoes, and soon we’ll be able to eat some more chard, so everything is doing pretty good down there.
Fortuyn (pointer) killed one of the young Eucalypti while we were down there, darn it, so we’re going to have to get a new one from our stash and plant there some day soon.

There was an unfortunate accident in my bedroom. Somehow, my closet came of its perch and when I entered my cabin I had to do a double take before I managed to identify what was in front of my bedroom entrance. It was really weird. I was looking at the side of the closet for a solid five seconds before I knew what it was. Then, of course, I had to get down on the floor to wiggle through the narrow strip that was left in the entrance so I could get under the closet and push it back up straight.

With grandpa’s help, I got the thing back in place and shoved my shoes back on top.
We had a good edit last night. Which was peculiar, considering my focus wasn’t all that good. Still. The book is still working out well, so we did a good job with the first edits.

Oh I heard from J (the soldier from Operation Desert Swap) who is presently working on the island of Hawaii, lucky son of a gun. Seriously, according to him it is not cold there, and that…well, I want it to not be cold here too. *pout*

But anyway, there was more busywork today. Since we went on a nice scavenge last night, there was the car to unload, but, the water main broke, so we spent about an hour finding the leak, then dug it out and fixed the problem.

Note to self: “If the water looks white from oxygen bubbles in it, there’s a leak somewhere.” Grrrr.

So next we unloaded the car, pondered the big mimosa growing above the house and decided that soon we’re going to have to tackle it and saw the big branch off, lest a storm breaks it off and lets it fall on the house. That would be bad. Duh.

Considering the dogs finally really wrecked the door of the patio, I went up to the storage and got out a replacement. Since I didn’t like the idea of a closed one, I opted to put a window in the frame, allowing for looking through (to check what you’re facing, really. Meeting fifty dogs without preparation is a little hairy sometimes. Hah) before you open the thing. It worked out well too, since we fitted it in just an hour ago. It looks a bit like a mix between a boat cabin door and an old farm door. I’ll take a picture soon and post that too…I hope.

Big brother and grandpa went down to the basin while I was working on the door, and put in a new tap under the basin. The old one got clogged, and since they needed to open it up anyway, they also added and extra one and a drain to prevent the problem from occurring again.

The basin looks abysmal at the moment, by the way, seeing as big brother tackled the wall with the big hammer the other day. Only half of the slabs are still standing, and the rest, well, they’re going to have to come down soon. *sigh*
This time we’re going to do the support wall at the same time. Not much choice there, really, but we do need the weather to be in our favor.

Tenant joined us on my terrace today, and the dogs kinda like her company. Knight II, for instance, will try to sit on her lap, and all the other come by for a petting every other minute. Poor woman…well, it would be if she didn’t enjoy their affection so much. Hah.

The idea for the new book that stopped me the other day, had flitted from my reach by the time I got to it, so now I’ve got to be patient and wait for it to return. Darn it. The next time a scene tumbles into my head like a freight train, I’m so going to have to rush to get it down on paper.

Well, that about sums it all up, doesn’t it. It is rather strange to not have to go out to work today. Guess you get used to it after all, because I really had to remind myself that I didn’t need to hurry to get ready. Hah.

Well, I’ve got an edit to do, and…well, other stuff too.

A Merry X-mas...all over the place

Song of the day: “Perfect 10” by The Beautiful South. Love them, and such a funny song. Luckily it replaced Judy Garland which continued to haunt me for two solid days.

So I’m a mess today. Be grateful that you can’t smell me, because I haven’t had my shower yet and I worked with smelly mud most of the day. Yep. We got to empty the basin sludge again, and boy was it pungent. And I was covered in it by the time we were done. Seven wheelbarrows of the stuff, and I got to lift the bucket up to fill them. I don’t get why people pay good money to get covered in this stuff, because I’ve gotta admit that I wanted nothing more than to wash it all off afterwards…I did, btw. But it didn’t help, darn it. There I was, hosing myself down with extremely cold water from the garden hose, only to have the scent remain. Blast!

But no matter, I’m saving the best for last, and will head for the shower later tonight so I can head to bed all clean. *sigh* I can hardly wait.

Anyways, Yesterday was mostly spent doing fix ups. Sally’s room had some leakage so we poured concrete to see if that fixes the problem. We also planted some more seeds in the greenhouse: butternut squash. Added to that we spent some wonderful time in the awesome sunshine by heading into the yard to plant cauliflower plants, white cabbage and red cabbage. They were doing so well in the other field that we decided to do some more, just because it will be free food a few months from now.

It has been ridiculously cold since the rain stopped. The Mercury dropped down to three tiny lines above the freezing point. Now that is cold for Spain. In the fourteen years we’ve been here we’ve had freezing temperatures just once and that was in 2005. My dogs don’t like the temperatures at all, in case you’re wondering. Seriously, during the night we can’t get Knight II to move out of the way, and Sitabah woke me this night, by hitting me in the face with her paw until I finally just dragged her up and tried to shove her to the last empty spot on the bed. Apparently that wouldn’t do. Instead she preferred to play collar and wrapped herself around my neck. When she refused to budge, regardless of my efforts, I finally gave up and drifted back to sleep.

Labhana would have preferred to join us (did in fact for a while before I went to bed) but I’m afraid I have to draw the line somewhere. Seriously, the bed only holds so many.

This morning was spent making pumpkin soup again, while grandpa and big brother went to the gas station to get butane gaskets for the stoves. I’m happy to discover that this year I haven’t actually needed to stoves yet, so that’s saving some money at least.

This year we decided to skip Christmas entirely, and I’ve gotta say that it is rather relaxing to not have to cook a massive meal, the clean up afterwards and the heart-stopping receipt of getting the supplies, hah. Christmas eve was just like any other evening and that was just fine.
We did some good edits, in fact we managed to do an entire chapter, so Yay, and I had a relatively early night which psyched me into sleeping almost a solid 8 hours. Double Yay.

We did head into town last night at the last possible moment to get some last minute supplies from the DIY store. But the city was quiet, most of the stores already shut for the weekend. Those that were there seemed extremely cheerful. Hah.

While lifting bucket after bucket of foul smelling sludge up, big brother attacked the broken basin wall with a sledgehammer and got half of it down. Such a shame that we're going to have to redo it. Stupid rain came too early, darn it. In particular because we had to do only the fortification still. Guess we were slackers. *snort*

During the afternoon big brother and I spent about an hour finishing up his room. While he put the finishing touches on his bed, I put the plinths on his floor. Afterwards we put up part of the partition against the open section of his second floor room. Now all we have to make are narrow white-glass windows to top them off, and one more wall closet and we’ll be all done.

Maybe then my turn will arrive and we get to work on my floors. That would be totally awesome. First the parquet in my bedroom, then the hardwood in my sitting room, then the bathroom. Wow! It’ll be beautiful. Gleaming teak, polished to a shine. Whicker chairs on it, mahogany shelving. Very early 20th century. Warm light…

Gawd, I just got a scene for the new book in my head I really have to go…yikes! Seriously, I’ve gotta go. It’s bubbling out. This is bad. I’ve gotta…….bye.

Sunshine, sweet sunshine

Song of the day: “Get Happy” by Judy Garland. That’s a first, I think. The first time I had this one in my head anyway. Such a lighthearted song.

Busy couple of days, and last night was spent in candle light due to a four hour black out. Yep, that’s Spain for you. They’ve gotten a lot better, because ten years ago you’d be without power five minutes after the rain started, but when things are bad, it can sometimes take a whole night for things to get back in order.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start off with yesterday morning that started with a solid rainstorm that continued on most through the day.
We drained the basin again, from fear of flooding Sally’s room.
It is working so far, and as soon as stuff dries off a little, we’re going to have to build that wall proper.

The remainder was spent in the carport, working on big brother’s bed some more. The last drawer got done; I got the bent out of a particularly nice piece of wood, which was put on the bed this afternoon. The friggin bed looks bloody gorgeous and tomorrow, or the day after I’m going to take pictures to post here…or at least try to. Hah.

Nothing takes as much time as building furniture, but around seven we did head into the house where I had just barely enough time to answer my messages when suddenly the power went off.
Not that I minded, I could nap for a solid fifteen minutes before we decided to work on the books the old fashioned way. Pen and paper, baby. There really is nothing like it. That is REAL writing after all. Hah.

Got a couple of good pages going, and by then in was time for a quick run to the garbage dump, because the mess had been piling up during several days of rain.

Which brings us to today, thankfully.

I woke up with the sun in my eyes, and I lay there with a smile, fully enjoying it. It was beautiful. I hadn’t seen the sun in days and now the sky was clear and the sun fell right in my face. Then I remembered that everything has been damp for days and jumped out of bed to hang my linens out in the wind (it was blowing somewhat fierce) and sunshine. It all smelled wonderfully fresh this afternoon.

There was a big stack of laundry waiting, and the wind had already dried some of the massive amounts already hanging on the lines. The washing machine has been going almost non stop today.

This morning, I headed down there first thing to hang a curtain rod for her, as well as a little coat rack. The water is still streaming from the storage beside her room, but luckily it is staying out still. It didn’t take all that much time, and afterwards I went up to clean veggies while big brother and grandpa were out to get supplies.

Then, when they got back, we both headed down into the yard to plant some cauliflower, chard, white cabbage and red cabbage. Soon we’re going to try to plant another butternut squash because they turned out really well. I’m looking forward to seeing if it will manage to go all through the greenhouse.

It was rather pleasant working, first in the warm greenhouse and then the windless part of the yard. In fact, I would have preferred staying there for the remainder of the day if other chores hadn’t been waiting. You should have seen the dogs, they were all lounging about on the sunny spots, preferably out of the wind...except for the Labradors, who couldn't care less about the wind, and just lay in the sun.

Tenant’s caregiver had made cauliflower soup for us, and we wanted to build another water table for in the greenhouse. Once we ate and got the supplies we needed from storage, it was too late however, so instead we finished up big brother’s bed and hauled the twenty bags of cement to their special spot of storage behind my cabin. Once the seventy-pound bags were wrapped in plastic and we put the finishing touches to the bed, it was getting dark and we headed inside for today’s edits.

That’s it, off to other stuff…like edits, yeah.

Passing on.

Song of the day: “Leaving on a jet plane” by John Denver. I know, I don’t have a clue where it came from, but I think it is because I was thinking of the movie Armageddon earlier. Maybe it is Ben Afleck I’m hearing (which is bad) ‘cause lord knows I don’t think I heard the original in a couple of decades. Hah.

First of all, the sad news. Rhumba (11 year old Samojeed mix) slipped in the courtyard the day before yesterday and fractured his upper paw. Poor darling cried like mad, and when it became clear that his left front paw was dangling middle sister (his mistress) and I rushed him to the vet hospital. The vet felt him up, injected him with an anesthetic, took a picture and showed us the problem in glorious detail.
It was broken just an inch above the join, the fracture jagged and at a sharp angle. What we were looking at was a four-to-five hundred euro operation that had only a small chance of succeeding and, in a best case scenario a five month recovery afterwards.
Taking in consideration his age, chances, quality of life and of course the costs, Middle sister had to make the horrid decision of putting him out of his misery.
The vet agreed that it really was the best thing, considering that due to his age he was unlikely to create new bone where he needed it.
Suffice it to say, it was a rather bad afternoon on the overall.
After being with us, this stubborn, snarky and waaaay too enthusiastic dog, for a solid eleven years (he was one of our earliest saves) Rhumba departed on a Sunday afternoon, sleeping on a table with middle sister (the love of his life, hah) stroking his head. A sad day to say the least

Okay, before I start to bawl, or something, let’s move on to life, rather than death. Big brother and I have been working on his bed for the most part. Sunday we built these huge wooden boxes, which would be his bed, and today (after Monday workday, of course) we made the first two drawers to go in them. It’s looking rather grand, and I really ought to make pictures of it. It’s going to be a bit difficult what with the room being a tad dark, but I’ve gotta show off my design. It worked out splendidly. One more drawer to go and then the thing is all done.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. There were lots of stuff going on, seeing as the majority of the morning was spent digging ditches and cleaning out floods in both guest room and tenant’s kitchen. Boy, has the rain been coming down bad of late.

There was a bit of gardening, of course, seeing as we headed into the yard to get peppers, and everything else we could get our hands on. Not a bad harvest either, and the stuff in the greenhouse looks absolutely splendid.

So let’s get to yesterday. We had to leave a little early for work because Dewey (the new delivery guy, remember) is a lot faster getting all the way here from the Costa Blanca. Big brother and I loaded up our papers nice and easy and before you knew it we were on our way.

Was a good day, paper distribution wise. Sure there was still a bit of rain, but there were no disasters and even (for me) hilarious moment when I entered a rather big restaurant and delivered my papers as usual. The owner was there, and when I was done putting the bundle on the bar, he said thank you, and then “Happy Christmas” while making this very Godfather-ish waving gesture with his hand. Seriously, the guy just might be a gangster of old. From the way his pictures (taken with all sorts of celebrities at his side) hang all over the place, I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe he’s in a witness protection program, or something, wiling away the end of his days in Southern Spain. *chortle*
I always feared that some of the characters in my books might be too theatrical, but much to my relief, real people can be far worse. Hah.

Prior to going out on the route, we had to go to the phone shop. Sally has been getting prank calls, and since we all have a joined phone contract, big brother and I had to go there to change her number. It did cost twelve Euros but in the end we managed to leave with the problem solved.

Next we had to go to the Daewoo dealer to finally pick up the papers. I don’t know if I already talked about this, but last week they let us know that to get the papers we still had to pay the Gestor, an expense they hadn’t informed us about. So first I got a bill of € 286 and then after I balked some about not having been told about this expense, they brought it down to € 240. A good thing too, because I was of a mind to have the papers reported stolen and pick them up myself. In the end I was just happy to be rid of the entire hassle.

Back to the route. There was some rain throughout, but in the end it wasn’t the worst of days. I didn’t have any accidents. I call that a good day in any book, hah.

While we were working middle sister’s boxer Lubika had to go back to the vet…she’d had a tumor removed on her ribs (seriously, dogs didn’t used to have this much cancer…heck, humans didn’t either) and had ripped open her stitches. Poor little boxer. Nutter than a hatter (or something along those lines) but still sweet as can be. She just can’t stand any kind of discomfort.

So anyway, today was spent working on the drawers for big brother, and some supply hauling. My dogs once more spent a lot of time in my cabin. They don’t like the rain at all, I assure.
Oh, and I discovered that there is no ordinance against dogs in this area, meaning that I no longer have to be careful about mentioning their numbers. Yay.

Well, I’ve got edits to do, and maybe just a little catnap…yeah, that sounds good. I think I will.

When it rains it pours.

It does. Quite literally in fact.
It's been coming down all the day. Hah

Song of the day: “The Banana Boat Song” by Harry Belafonte and “Opposites attract” by Paula Abdul. I don’t know why, but the two songs were going through my head off and on during the day.

So let’s do this quick, because, as usual, time is short once more.
First off, I made pumpkin soup yesterday and it went splendidly, and just when I was done grinding the lot into a nice even mush, the pot slipped from between my hands and poured all over the furnace. Not funny, but the dogs loved helping clean up. Managed only to save 1/3 of the amount and luckily we could enjoy it both days.

Next, we spent an hour or so unloading the car from supplies and ended up processing pallet wood for storage. Got some nice slats of wood for the efforts.
Vinyl tiles aplenty for the new floor in the bus, which is really starting to become necessary. Rugs really don’t do the trick anymore, and when we start on that floor, we really should put in new wood in the bathroom floor, because that sure won’t hold much longer.

For what was left of the day we worked on the carport roof. We saw on the weather channel that there was rain coming, so while the sibs loaded up the car early, we finished up the extra bit of roof plating and painting the wood. Looking good, I assure you. Hah

Since the day wasn’t over by the time we were done, I spent the remainder of the afternoon sawing plating for big brother’s balustrade/wall. Since there are slight blemishes on the triplex wood, I finished up filling it with pliable wood in the last minutes of daylight.

There was a very decent edit at the end of the day. We managed to get through ten pages, so Yay! for us on that score. Hah. We did good, I think. There is very little left to change, and the things that need to be changed are just typos and missing words every now and then.

At the end of the evening, I really had to do some cleaning in my cabin. It was getting to be ridiculous. I changed my sheets, took away spider webs and scrubbed the toilet and sink. It was bad, I tell ya.

Today commenced with me baking pancakes up at tenant’s place. She really liked them too, so I figured I might as well do it in her company. Get her to help out to boot, and she did. She ended up making dough while I peeled and sliced apples. She ate two of them in fact. Regretfully she couldn’t go outside today, what with the rain coming down for the most of it. Boy, did it rain. It was pouring buckets…meaning we had to go down to the guest quarters to unplug the drains and open up gutters and such.

Luckily, by then there was a pause in the downpour, so all that got wet was the bottom of my pants trousers. My dogs didn’t like it at all, and were actually more than happy to spend the day in my cabin. Seriously, normally I can’t keep them inside with a stick, but today they were really well behaved. Whenever I went in and out of the place I would “stay” and they would actually listen…in fact, they would barely look up from whatever spot they were snoozing at. Hah.

We did a quick check of the greenhouse. The zucchini plants, lettuce and cauliflower are doing really well. And seeing as everything was properly wet, we didn’t need to water anything.

For the most part, today was all about working on these big wooden boxes (for drawers later on) for under big brother’s bed. It took some looking but in the end I found enough material to put together three of the things, that will make up the bottom of his king-size bed.
I really like carpentry work, if you must know. There is very little that compares to working with your hands and seeing a piece of furniture appear. It feels a lot like writing, I guess. You work on something for a long time. You design the lines of it, work on the idea, gather the ingredients and then put it all together until it has cohesion.

That’s it for today. I’ve got more edits to do, as usual, so I better get to it fast. Time’s a-wasting.

Quick, quick, quick. Sorry.

Song of the day: “Hold my Hand” by Michael Jackson and Akon. Loved the first, don’t like the second one all that much, but it is still a great song that I didn’t discover until yesterday. Almost missed it too, but there it was and now I’ve got it stuck in my head. Hah.

Running behind again, and we really have to get started on editing so I’m going to do my best to keep it short. If I don’t, slap me on the back of my head please. Okay. It was a bunch of busy days on the most part and it involved a lot of exercise, luckily.

First of all we started laying the beech parquet floor in big brother’s room yesterday. This meant that our friend Dani and I (she came over for the day) hauled the packages from under the tarps and carrying all 30 of them down to my terrace. For the remainder of the day we spent going back and forth to the room until we laid the complete floor, except for the last three lines, which had their turn today…but that’s getting ahead of myself, isn’t it?… okay, back. There was still the piece under the shelving that needed to be done, but at that time big brother was so smart as to slam the hammer right on top of his index finger. Suffice it to say, he felt a tad faint for the remainder of the afternoon, meaning that I had to finish up. Hah.

There was a rather miserable attempt at editing afterwards, but since it didn’t work (big brother was understandably distracted) we called it a day early and headed up to my cabin to see a DVD. The Expendables with the whole string of known action movie actors. Gawd it was just like the good old days, just some mindless violence, no major message other than good winning from evil in the most wonderfully gruesome ways. It was nostalgia more than anything, seeing as the movie was far from “amazing” but still, I had fun…especially the digs and black humor. I remember the old days so…*slap* Gawd, so sorry. Got distracted there.

This morning there was a slight detour from the planned continuance of working on the floor, seeing as Sally’s door oddly gave the spirit and needed to be fixed, as well as her windows, which she was unable to close for some reason. It took us a couple of hours to fix the mishaps, but then we could head up to the carport and resume with the floor. Of course I first had to break down the shelving closet (big brother’s finger, remember?) and had quite a bit of fun with that, actually (despite the inch of dust on them). Seriously, I wrecked the thing with saw, hammer and tire-iron, before finally resulting in just bringing my heel (the good one btw) down on the last board. Then the stupid shelving was out and grandpa could haul it away. I put in the last pieces of the floor, the threshold and then it was time to put in the metal threshold big brother had made for the second door.
It looks good, I assure you. Clean too, which is the most important thing in the end. I even took out the spider webs, and there were plenty of those, I assure you.

The good part is that I found back a whole crate of books that big brother borrowed from me, so Yay. One of the walls is painted and thus clean, and we had pumpkin soup I made yesterday morning, and which turned out splendidly again.

Tenant spent both afternoons on my porch, enjoying the large amounts of sunshine that is pouring down every day now. Sure the air is pretty chilly, but the sunshine, ah the sunshine. It’s what makes living here the best. Why I still remember…*slap*…Okay, sorry again.

The dogs behaved well, after I spent the majority of yesterday snarling at them, every time I had to get through the door. Showing my teeth and growling works really well, in case you’re wondering. It worked so well in fact, that I needed to do it only once before they let me go through the door without half the herd trying to slip through.

Okay, I’ve gotta go.

Temporary change?

Song of the day: “Strange” by Wet Wet Wet. It has been a while since I had anything in my head from this band. Makes for a nice change, I say.

Well, I think it is safe to say that today is going to be a short blog for a change, considering yesterday was Monday work day, and except for the fact that I didn’t get paid yet (I sent an email but haven’t gotten an answer yet) and that John Doe wasn’t there, but a new guy. Let’s call him Dewey, shall we, ‘cause I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be mentioning him more often. Hah.

Dewey is a strange little fellow. He’s rotund, short and doesn’t say much, apparently. Personally I wouldn’t have hired him, but then, I never hired a person in my life, so who knows. Maybe he’s ridiculously good at his job…what, it’s possible, right? *sighs*

So anyway, the job went flawless. We could start at two thirty due to Dewey, so what with the route so very neatly lodged in our heads already, we arrived home at nine thirty for a change. It was a novel experience, I’ll say that much for it. Heck, we even managed to do a four, or five page edit in the end, which is always a good thing for as far as I’m concerned.

Got to be in bed in time, and had to get up at eight in the morning to pick up our friend in Marbella again. First we did a quick tour of the village to disperse the last few of the papers and then headed to the city.

Turns out this was the last time we needed to pick her up. After many months of complaints about her employer (she’s a caregiver for the elderly) she quit her job today and will be staying with us for a bit at least. A good thing too, since she’s been looking pretty bad late. Heck, I feared she was going to keel over any minute but she insisted on seeing the job through.
Her decision naturally, but I think she wouldn’t have had such a bad time of it if she had done it several weeks ago.

Ah well, no matter. What’s done is done, and this means that the budget is going to be a wee bit tighter once more. Not that I mind. Heck, I can do without cookies, cornflakes and other luxuries. I’m going to look at this as another good exercise in cowboying up, that’s for sure. It sill sure be interesting to see how things go. For the sake of her probably being in more blogs in the near future let’s call her Sally. Hah.

Okay, project wise. Once we got home this morning, we got to work immediately. Big brother’s floor…seriously, it’s a disaster. He sleeps with about thirty dogs and you can only imagine how bad it is…now, tenfold that and you’ll maybe have a slight idea how bad it is, hah.
So yeah, we ripped out about three square meters of his floor, just in time too, mind you, and then the same amount of ceiling of the living room, because the mess had seeped through. Grrr.
I was nauseous, I tell ya.

I spent most of the day measuring and sawing while big brother, grandpa and our friend Dani (she was visiting too and since she wants to learn DIY it was a perfect opportunity) ripped out the old floor. Rather than try to salvage anything of the mess, we sawed the old rotting wood to pieces and burned it in our winter vat without delay. It was nice and warm working near the vat, by the way. I didn’t think we were going to make it, but we did. The old is out, the new is in, painted and all, and come tomorrow (with a little luck) we’ll start laying the parquet tomorrow.

The day was beautiful, tenant joined me on my porch, keeping me company most of the day while she sat reading in the sunshine, and enjoying it.

The dogs were happy that we were home for the day, and happily alternated between sunbathing and lying around the burning vat. Boy do they like that. Sitabah was literally twisting into odd angles to get as close as possible to the heat. Dax likewise, and Knigth II sat at a slight distance, his head high and his eyes closed in bliss. Seriously, we’ve got some heat loving dogs here. Hah.

Well, I should get some more work done on the book, and I’ve got some messages to see to fast.

Back to normal.

Song of the day: “Hit the Road Jack” by James Brown, I think. I looked it up once, but my memory could be failing me. It usually does. Hah.

Okay, let’s get this done fast, because I’ve got stuff to do and only a little time today. I would like to say that I’ve got something immensely exciting to talk about, but except that the sibs and mom sold well at the market today, things were pretty much like normal.

I did have another dream, but unlike the Zombie dream the other night, this one faded way too fast. I couldn’t even jot down notes, for crying out loud. But anyway. Yesterday I overslept by almost two hours…and felt miserable because of it. I don’t know what it is about oversleeping but I wasn’t myself all day.

Which, of course, is an excellent reason to get busy fast for as far as I’m concerned. The project yesterday was the path towards the carport, and the gravel that has been a thorn in my eye for the past year or so. I decided to tackle the path and get rid of the gravel at the same time.

For the first hour or two I worked on cutting into the path, chopping out rock and clay until I had a proper track that could be filled with concrete. Though there were some hard spots, on the overall it went well enough due to the recent rains. The clay at least was soft, so I could get things done with the pickax and jackhammer in good time.

Next grandpa started making concrete so I could see to spreading and flattening it on the path until we ran out of cement. Almost got it all the way up, darn it. Guess it’ll have to wait ‘till some other time. We covered the newly poured strip up and headed for the carport.

Big brother had spent most of the day there working on fixing grandpa/tenant’s washing machine. The door had broken off, and since the handle didn’t work either, it took him several hours to figure out a solution. Worked too, considering it is all back in place now, and they can do their laundry again. Dontcha just love it when fixing something costs you nothing but time? I do.

I also made dried pea soup yesterday, and it worked out rather well, I admit. Broth, leek, onion, ginger powder, dried cilantro (aka Coriander), honey and a couple of pounds of dried peas that had been soaking in water during the night. It was friggin’ good soup that tasted even better on a slice of bread with butter and cheese. Hah.

We did some good edits last night (good thing too, because the day before that went horribly. I was way too distracted and tired). Got through at least ten pages, and considering we really ought to finish this book before spring as well, that’s good progress.

Today (I woke in time, thank you very much) the weather was once again wonderful. At least it was for the first part of it. The first thing we did after the habitual stint with the day’s laundry was go into the yard for a bit.
For some peculiar reason my back has been killing me since yesterday afternoon. I guess I am no longer used to bending over like that for any amount of time. It really isn’t at all surprising. To get rid of the problem I have been doing a lot of stretches and bends until some of the discomfort receded.

But anyway, since the dogs ate so many tomatoes last summer, we’ve got tomato plants springing from the ground everywhere. Good thing too, because none of the seeds that we sowed came up. We now have six little plants in the greenhouse at least, so, yay.
It was rather nice working in the greenhouse for a bit, in particular because it was wonderfully warm in there. I wouldn’t mind at all spending a lot of time in there.

Grandpa just finished painting the inside of tenant’s solarium, and declared this morning that he was redoing it because he found the paint to grainy. I looked at it, but couldn’t detect anything wrong with the stuff, but what the hey. It’s his choice if he wants to do it again.

After the morning chores, we headed for the storage shed up on the property to get wood. We need a slight expansion on the carport in order to put up wind screens. What with winters getting colder we’re definitely going to need some way to block the winder properly.
We got the main frame up today, and should be able to start with the covering sometime this week. I would have liked to say tomorrow, but since tomorrow is a work day, that definitely isn’t going work.

Okay, I’ve gotta get outta here. I’ve got fun work to do on the book. Hah.

Woke up too soon. Grrr.

Song of the day: “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. Awesome song, yet a bit tedious when your head keeps repeating it over and over again. Hah.

Let’s start this one a little different, shall we. It was grocery shopping day after all, and rather than share that with my habitual aaargh, I would prefer not to talk about it at all.

Night time. The wind howled overhead and in the distance, there where trees stood silent in a niche of the mountain, shadows stirred madly. There was a chittering noise, it started up front of a large group of human shapes and gradually made its way through the group of forty, maybe fifty.
A putrid stench clawed its way up the slope, decay and mold combining into a smell that could permeate a solid concrete wall, or so it seemed.
The group moved, clothes and flesh alike causing a whisper of a sound as they advanced gradually, eyes glimmering in the full moon just over the horizon. Feet, some clad in shoes, others not, made their way across the damp grassy soil, approached with amazing stealth.
Limbs, some bent or crooked, others not there at all, moved jerkily, much like puppets on tangled strings.
Away from the bush at last, the one up front became visible at last. Sallow skin all over, festering boils turning a cheekbone black, the curve of a once sharp jaw flaccid. Zombie. It was all over the male in ripped jeans, one work boot and a tattered arm that hung limply at his side.
I lay at the top of the hill, my riffle perched on a knoll at the edge and my left eye pressed against the night scope that awarded me with the expected view. A shiver goes down my spine, tension humming through my body at the realization that time is running out. Half a mile to go at least and then we’d be overrun.
My companions and I, (the honeymooners that had run out of gas and had waited by the side of the road. Young Tony who’d been hiding under the crashed fire-department truck. Old Sally and her gardener Pedro. And the two trigger-happy brothers now perched in ancient oak trees on either side of me.) have retreated to this bunker-style house hidden in the side of a mountain-ridge just outside of town.
Them…the zombies…overran the city the night before, and while making my way home, I had no choice but to seek refuge here, where at least we’d be able to make a stand.
My breath comes out with a small puff of smoke in the pale light of the moon, and my fingers feel chilled almost tot the point of numb as I hold the riffle in a firm grip. The weapon is armed and ready, the acrid smell of oil and cordite a sharp reminder of earlier that day when I got to test the weapon’s accuracy on another small group of zombies.
I know I’m supposed to aim for the forehead in order to be the most effective, but in all honesty my aim is still off and having the patience to wait for them to come within reach is almost too hard to bare.
I hate watching them. Their erratic movements like a movie being fast-forwarded, and their rotting flesh a clear reminder that I really should not risk missing, lest they reach us at our hideout.
From the trees on of the two trigger-happy brothers utters a warning whistle, reminding me of the mark we agreed upon when we decided to defend our present position. Rather than run all through the night.
The front zombie, Mr. Tattered Arm, is only ten steps away from the big rock that juts out of the ground near the road that leads on up to the house we occupy.
“Patience,” I remind myself under my breath, lightly tightening my finger on the trigger, almost pulling it. Almost.
Nine.
More jerky movements, a keening wail distracting me towards the female off to Mr. Tattered Arm’s right. Half a dress hangs down her shoulder, red high heels still cling to her feet yet at an extremely slanted angle, and on the left side her once lustrous hair has been burned away. Her face is a Picasso in its horrifying glory.
Mr. Tattered Arm screeches a high sound, jerking my attention back to him.
Six steps…five.
My scope blurs the image for but a moment, my focus just as tardy. There it is, the gaping cheekbone, larvae crawling in and out.
Two…one.
Trigger happy number one starts firing, the woman with the red high heels falling back as if hit in the face by a baseball bat. In the mean time Trigger happy two opens fire as well, hitting Mr. Tattered Arm in the neck. Sluggish blood spurts, but he doesn’t go down, Trigger Two doesn’t care and aims for another while I hear Trigger One shout. “For God’s sake, Sam. Some help please.”
They’re doing pretty well on their own, but I know that I really should stop dawdling before it is too late. The group of zombies have started running after all, now that our firing has allowed them to zoom in on our location more accurately.
“Yeah, yeah!” I call back, and moisten my lips and take aim once more. “Just waiting for them to come a…little…closer.” One shot, and a short, rotund zombie is send sprawling with only half a face. Another spins around mid air, blood spraying out like black rain in the silvery moonlight.
Our ammo is sparse and the creatures running at a neck-breaking speed up the slope. The honeymooners finally join in from the top of the house where they took up position early that afternoon. Gunfire pounds through the ravine until my ears hurt.
Too many. There are too many of them. I know this as I continue to aim, shoot and then all over again. Closer. Faster. Frantic movements while one after the other drops. Not fast enough. Not good enough. Ten yards. Nine.
Screaming and gunfire mix into an orchestra of sound. Two more down, I reload, take aim and…Mr. Tattered Arm is right on top of me. He jumps, I roll and try to take aim. His one good arm is raised, fingers clawed and coming down. My riffle slams is up, the barrel jams under his bloody chin. I pull the trigger…

And wake up. Gawd, I always wake up when stuff gets interesting. Grrrr.

Yeah, I know. Who needs to watch movies with dreams like that, huh? I was positively psyched and revved when I woke up Thursday morning. I thought about maybe writing a book about it, but it’s about zombies, and, well yeah, you know. It’s been done in so many ways that you really can’t think of anything new anymore eh?

So let’s get back to real life for a bit…No. Not today which was just crappy grocery shopping day, remember…and the rocks I’ve been hauling again. Seriously, it was like the good old days. Yesterday I put up a natural rock wall, with clay this time, rather than cement, because it was just for beside the path that goes down to the carport. I hauled rocks like nobody’s business and it is looking good, I tell you. Heck, I even made this little stairs so grandpa can get to the tap in the bushes easier.

I made a small terrace underneath the mimosa behind my cabin, then continued on with the wall until it went up all the way to where we always park the car. I know, the car is supposed to be put in the car port, but for some reason we’re always working on one project or other in there.

But anyway, I put the last four bags of cement on a pallet on the new little terrace, removed dirt and leaves and then helped big brother (he worked on the partition box of the car all day) put the bamboo wooden box in the Land Rover. It looks gorgeous and yes, I have also taken pictures of that. Hah.

I was wonderfully exhausted last night, but as luck would have it, I was unable to sleep during the night. For some reason I couldn’t drop into deep sleep, resulting in me being a tad vague during the course of the day.

Well, that just about sums it all up. My poor doggies need some attention, and I need to get to work on the book. Guess I’ll be back the day after tomorrow.

The loonies were out!!!

Song of the day:...who gives a bloody heck about that, the loonies were out and I gotta write about them before I burst. Seriously, I’ve been thinking about it since last night, and by now I’ve gotta write it down fast.

Soooooo let me draw you a scene. We were running behind. John Doe (main distributor, aka the boss man) was late. Admittedly he had a good excuse, his kid was ill through the night, so, okay, I couldn’t be POd about that. Wanted to, but kids are too good an excuse for me to bear a grudge. Hah.

But anyway, we started on the route late. The weather was nice so I didn’t mind all too much that we killed a couple of hours working on the paper edit, and then spent quite a bit of time admiring the imperial. (It works, it works…and we didn’t lose it underway.)
By the time we had stacked the papers into the Land Rover, the clouds were rumbling in however, so I got some seriously good exercise running back and forth with the bundles…got less this time too, what with the holidays and everything, so there was less heavy lifting to boot. Seriously, it almost felt like vacation.

But anyways we’d just about finished with the city, and I’m carrying a bundle of papers as I go through a back alley towards the indoor city market. So there, on my left, just up ahead leaning against a big plant container is a black haired dude (around eighteen or twenty I’m guessing) staring off into the distance. I don’t think much of it, and continue on when suddenly he hears my approach and straightens.
I still don’t think much of it at this point and casually glance in his direction as he spins towards me. He’s fumbling somewhat fierce down by his…ehm, nether regions, and, silly me, looks down…My bad!

YEP! It looked like a penis…only smaller. Gawd, who’d have thunk that I’d ever get the opportunity to say that one, but I can, because it is true.
Black-haired dude was definitely spending time with his best buddy. Petting the dog, admiring the weenie, polishing his lance, and…well, you get my drift. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from the shock. *snort*

But seriously, I think I disappointed the dude cause while he jerked back his shoulders and decided to let his proud member to say “Hail to the leader” *chortle* as he continued towards me. Calm as you please, too, as if his…gawd enough euphemisms already…okay, one more…as if his ROOSTER wasn’t sticking out of his zipper. I almost broke down and laughed. As it was, I didn’t break my stride and casually let my glance skip right past him on my way to the entrance.

Turns out, across from the dude two girls were casually talking together and from the look of things he was definitely staking them out while…ehm, you know, doing some heavy petting to himself. What’s this world coming to that people do this kind of thing in full daylight, I wonder? Although, it makes writing the blog a lot more fun.

Of course, considering I knew he was still there, I decided to take the front entrance back to the car and ran all the way, spurting on laughter. Poor big brother. He didn’t know what the heck was going on, and when I finally caught my breath and told him, we spent a solid five minutes looking at the black-haired dude who was standing by the side of the road as if waiting for someone.

Ah well, enough about my first time “face-to-face” with a flasher and move on to the next.
Small mall where I bring the papers. Big brother head to the market and newsagent, and I head on up to the four bars that also hold the papers.
I can honestly say that I came across my first human being who really growled like a dog. I’m not kidding. I know dogs and this dude really sounded like one. I came across him at the first bar where I drop of the papers and he was inside growling and shouting.

What with my earlier experience still fresh in my head, I eyed the old geezer wearily. He’s scruffy looking (I’ve seen him before) white beard, shortly cut gray hair and so many lines in his face I would guess him to be a professional fisherman. Dirty clothes and a mad look in his eye, I offer him a smile and deposit my papers on the counter.
As luck would have it (I was sooooo lucky yesterday) he growled…probably thinking he was a werewolf, or something…and followed me out. True to his present image he dogged my heels towards the stairs and down, where luckily, a real dog (gorgeous and sweet German Shepherd) took his place and took over his pursuit. All the while the guy continues to growl and grunt, and is still at it when I return.
Much to my relief the German Shepard and her boss were there too, so I got past the old geezer without further trouble.
Yeah, yeah, I wasn’t kidding in the title. The loonies, I tell ya.

Later that night, another location, I’m just about getting out of the car with another stack when another old dude…he reminded me of a sixty-something Omar Sharif for some reason…who asked if I’m delivering papers, and then promptly asks if I’ve spoken to John Doe. Surprised I tell him that I saw John Doe that afternoon at which time the guy wishes to know if he is well. Even as I am telling him that for as far as I know he is, the guy is walking away, without another word…so maybe not a loony, but it came across a bit weird.

So I’ve got a suspicious mind, which could be completely out of whack , but if I were the main distributor I would have, like, people here and there who can let me know if a paper is not delivered somewhere. Very devious, very smart…I wonder if John Doe is both. I wouldn’t be surprised, but then, that’s me. Hah.

My dogs were absolutely insane when I got home, but after I sat on my coffee table for a bit, giving them all a good petting they all settled down for the night and impatiently waited for me to feed them. Poor buggers. Eating just doesn't work when I'm not there. *sigh*

What else has been going on? Not all that much. I can say that my foot was friggin’ killing me again when I got home and it kept me from sleeping properly too. Also that I had to get up early to get our friend from Marbella didn’t help any, but then, that’s life, I guess. Can’t pick your days, and all in all yesterday wasn’t all that bad.

This morning, after we got back big brother, grandpa and our friend Dani headed into the yard and spent a couple of hours in the full sunshine digging holes on the mountain ridge where we planted about fifteen eucalypti. What with all the rain going on (it rained again yesterday. Did I mention that already? It seems like work day is a perfect day for rain so far. Hah.) we figured we might as well make use of it, and do some serious planting.

It was rather wonderful digging and chopping in most clay and rock, and since the weather was so nice, tenant came down as well and sat in the sunshine where we worked so she’d have company.

Since we were down there already, we also worked a bit more on the bus. What with the closet that stands in front of the back window, we’re putting up slats to make it seem more like a building. What with the green paint below it, the entire thing will look rather nice, It think. Now, if we also plant some passionflower vines there, the bus should disappear from sight entirely in just a couple of years, hah.

But, however nice working in the sunshine was (big brother and I also fixed one of the solar panels. The concrete beneath it had cracked and would go down with the next bit of wind, we were sure. Poured new concrete there.) within no time whatsoever new clouds came packing in, making it clear that we should head on up to the carport for some indoor work.

As it turns out, tenant walked up and down today, which is a major accomplishment for as far as I’m concerned. While she settled in for the night, big brother and I got to work on the console we’ve been making for the Land Rover. I’ve mentioned it before, I believe, a console of real bamboo wood. We put all the sections together today, and I’ve gotta say that it looks splendid.

Well, I’ve got another edit to focus on, so I’m going to call it a day here and get to work.

Pics and...worries?

Song of the day: “Swan lake” by Tchaikovsky. Yeah, I know. Don’t ask me why. I caught it on the radio this morning over at tenant’s place and it has been going through my head ever since.
First off, some shots of the greenhouse, and one of a sunset showing the mountains of Africa (dark gray at the horizon):

Africa. Regretfully the picture doesn't do it justice.


The front of the Greenhouse:


The back of the greenhouse. *sigh*


The inside.

Ain't it pretty?

So I feel and look like I worked at a junkyard for the last couple of days. Yep. Black hands an and a black smudge on my face. I’ve been working with old metal and dirt, so it really isn’t all that surprising. Since yesterday morning, I decided that it was time to tackle the huge pile of scrap metal that we’d been storing (and I use that term very loosely) behind my cabin, and put it somewhere else.

This meant hauling in pallets and wooden slats so we could build several containers that would contain it all. Big brother and I started on that, and by the time Grandpa joined it, I and our friend Dani started sorting through the mess that has been in a thorn in our eyes for the past couple of years, or so.

It took a sum total of 10 hours, two days combined, but the mess behind my cabin is gone, and neat piles are now stacked behind the old RV at the top of the property. While the majority of the metal could be brought up and stacked easily, I spent this morning and afternoon using the angle grinder to get off excess metal from a large number of slats.

During the sorting, most turned out to be useable still, which is good. That means that we didn’t gather the stuff for nothing. There’ll be lots of building yet for sure with all that stuff. Hah.

Well, I am of course doing this in a jumbled fashion again, because I started the day making tomato soup for lunch. I had tenant help too, and she seemed to enjoy it again. In particular since she could do both herbs and peppers. What with the fresh tomatoes I’d frozen from the yard this summer it was healthy stuff at the very least. Added to that, we’ll be eating it again tomorrow…good thing too, since we have to work tomorrow. It was a bank holiday today, meaning that everything was postponed for a day.

After making soup, I really gave in to the inevitable and went to my cabin to finally tackle the piles and piles of clean laundry littering my desk and traveling-chest. There was so much of it out of the closet that there was actually space on the shelves. Still, since I was busy with it anyway, I also sorted out my summer clothes, bagged them up and put them in storage under my bed…if only because I was desperate to put my winter sweaters somewhere. I’d been looking for them for weeks now, and finally unearthed them this morning, yay.
I’m so going to need those. Hah

Something totally different for a minute.
This is what my dogs do in the evenings when I'm working on the computer like this. Aren't they friggin' adorable? And do you get the living carpet reference now? *snort*


Troubling news, which I read on the news somewhere here in Europe. The Netherlands, I believe. Some older politician “suggested” that Jewish people should consider immigrating to a different country (for their own safety, of course) because the Moroccan, and gawd knows what other demographic group, were getting more an more violent towards them. Soon it would simply not be safe anymore. Now, does that ring any bells with anyone? Seriously, Grandpa started foaming at the mouth, saying that it’s WWII all over again. And I gotta say: Yikes. Scary stuff that. Seriously, soon they’ll start offering free passage to “the promised land” again and no one is going to do a single thing against it until it is too late.

It is one of the problems with the passage of time, I’m thinking. The older generation, the one that still remembered those that fell for the freedom of Europe during WWII, is slowly becoming extinct. Soon there won’t be anyone left to remember the horrors that happened…even now there are schools scraping the Holocaust from history lessons, because it makes certain students become violent. Yep. A few years from now, WWII will be nothing but something-that-happened-too-long-ago.
What scares me more is that it seems that we don’t learn from history at all, no matter how civilized we claim to be.

Ah well, don’t forget that I told you so when the shaite hits the fan, okay?

Let's throw in another View, just for the heck of it.


And since we're busy anyway. Tenant’s solarium…unpainted yet, but what the heck. Hah.


Tenant's solarium 2.



Oh gawd, almost forgot: The second edit is done by the way! YAY! It is good, I think. Really good for the genre, I think. The characters turned out right, and for as far as I can see the story is consistent. It’s going to go to beta readers now, and we’re going to have to do the paper edit yet, but then we really can start thinking about sending it to the publisher.

What else? Well there was loads of laundry, of course, that simply won’t dry because the weather is downright pissy, and the air moisture is nothing, if not sogging wet as well. Stuff I hung two days ago still feels moist to the touch, so let’s just hope for some sunshine (had only five minutes of that during the rainy day…here’s the shot, BTW.


Yesterday was also spent doing some more painting on the bus, along with filling more gaps. Here are some shots of that as well, seeing as I’m busy with it anyway. Hah.
Bus before painting.


Bus after painting. The back, duh.


Bus after painting the side.


Okay, kept my promise. Put up some pics, even though I am sure I forgot a few. I've spent enough time on the blog, however and I really should get down to the more serious work such as digging into the next editing project. I yearn to get back to the vampires and ghouls fast.
Buh-bye.

Wintery for sure.

Song of the day: “Dream a little dream” by the Beautiful South. Yes, it was there again. Wonder why?

Anyways, what’s been up…ridiculously little, actually. It is a tad embarrassing, seeing as I am supposed to write about something interesting. Sure, I could write about politics, but considering I’m a little weird that way, I’d undoubtedly end up insulting the lot of you in some way.

I could join in on the celeb gossip, but seeing as my interest in that particular matter only goes as far as, hey look, this and that got married, right after they got divorced…hey look at the nice chainsaw on sale over there. *drool* It would be counterproductive to say anything remotely interesting about it, really, since this is life and from where I’m standing, celebrities might as well be fictional characters…which they are, in a strange kind of way. Hmmm.

Be that as it may, let’s get down and dirty, and boy am I that. I’ve spent the past couple of days painting the old bus, and since we’ve been using moss green and black, along with a coaba varnish for several wood pieces, I now carry all three colors on my person. It looks interesting and…well, hopefully creative, because I’m absolutely not in the mood to clean up at all.
The majority of the painting has been done though and I’m absolutely freezing still, after I went inside two hours ago.

While during yesterday’s painting we had a northwestern wind, today it came from the east. Both were friggin’ ass cold, pardon my French. Jeez. I’m talking numb fingers, burning cheeks, dripping nose, the works. Gloves, scarf and hand over double sweater and body warmer and of course the snow boots. I love those boots, in case you’re wondering. I could sing praise, write poems and pour them into gold at the end of the winter. *sigh*

Though today was definitely too cold for tenant, she did sit on my terrace yesterday and fully enjoyed the sunshine. Seriously, while I was freezing my behind, she was slowly taking layer after layer off to fully appreciate the sunshine. Today, what with the clouds overhead was a different story, however.

I overslept, yeah, yeah, I hate it when that happens, but anyway, I didn’t have my coffee, so I wasn’t in the best of moods where we headed for Malaga to get to the garage in time to pick up the car before the weekend…which will be followed by a holiday on Monday, and then again on Wednesday. I got heart palpitations when we were presented with the bill. I’m not kidding. I felt a genuine stab while the list got longer and longer, and he showed how close a call we’ve had with the parts that he had to replace. Gawd, what is it with expenses just piling up every time we think that we might finally be able to put something extra aside.

I went down into the yard this morning, just because I wanted a moment of peace after the stressful morning in the city. Harvested some peppers, a few late tomatoes and lingered in the greenhouse where the temperature was a whopping ten degrees more than outside. Luckily there were some weeds to yank from the pot. Afterwards it was back to the bus to fill holes with glass fiber and paint some more. *sigh*

Poor doggies were absolutely miserable while we were working outside for the past two days. You’d think they’d be smart enough to head on inside when it’s windy and cold, but no, they keep wandering around us, trying to stand on three paws instead of four to get their feet warm (whiners, I know) or trying to crawl on top of each other just to keep warm.

Amri, (crossbreed) has a two inch cut in his paw. I don’t know how he got it, but aside from keeping it clean, I don’t think it’s going to need stitches. On the most part the skin stays together, so in due time it should heal just fine on it’s own. I don’t like the idea of going to the vet over something like that, in particular not because they’ll pump him full with antibiotics. So few people know that when you give someone antibiotics you kill off at least one (sometimes several) bacteria in your bowel that might (highly likely) will never come back again.

There was editing, of course, though not as much as we should have. Only eight pages last night, which is frustrating as heck, but also normal. We always do less of it after we make a rough estimation of how much more time we’re going to need.

Tonight, after a quick dinner (lunch was the last of Wednesday’s soup. Yummy) I quickly shaved big brother’s head. It was high time, considering work is just around the corner again.

Well, I’ve got some more editing to do, so I’m going to get outta here and leave it at this

20/20. A waste of time.

Song of the day: “Time to say goodbye” by Andrea Boccelli and Sarah Brightman. Yeah, I know, very unlike me. What can I say; I was in that classic kind of mood.

So what’s been up for the past couple of days? In all honesty, not all that much. On the most part just busywork that was tedious more than anything.
There was editing, one evening of only eight pages then last night nineteen so we made up, I guess. Only forty more to go and the 2nd edit will be over and done with. Yay.

Lemme see if I can organize my thoughts a little and give you a proper recount…nah. I can’t do it, my memory sucks for some reason, must be the busy stuff, I always get vague from having to go out a lot. It has to do with the mindset I guess, makes me feel scattered somehow. I get centered when I’m home. *sigh* Well, no helping it. This will be hodgepodge again.

The going out part involved picking up our friend from Marbella of course. A strange day, weather wise, really. While we left home the sky broke open and revealed the sun, then as we neared the city we drove to pitch-black clouds with two rainbows in it. (Pretty) Then we entered the rain, while the sun was also still shining, which was the weird part. Guess it was because it was still so early.

What else we went into the yard yesterday afternoon, harvested peppers mostly, but stuff is coming to and end down there…except for in the greenhouse where lettuce, chard, zucchinis and cauliflowers are flourishing nicely. Spent a bit of this afternoon transplanting a few of them into bigger pots, which was nice, considering it was sunny and we were out of the wind near the greenhouse, yay. Would like to have stay there but other stuff needed to be done, of course.

This morning I went into the yard as well to get two pumpkins, fresh herbs and an onion for soup. Tenant appeared a little down, so I talked her into helping me with the soup. That promptly got her crying because she was convinced that there wasn’t anything she could do there, which is ridiculous, of course. One hand might not work properly, the other does just fine, it might not be easy, but it can be done with patience and lots of distraction. We ended up chatting for over an hour while she helped my by mincing the herbs with scissors. In the end she was surprised that she had actually managed it, because every part of her emotional state had already convinced her that it would be impossible.

I have found over the past couple of years that the worst enemy imaginable is your own imagination, feelings and assumptions. In most cases they are not accurate at all. Tenant appears to be suffering under the same enemy in that way.
But anyway the soup turned out creamy and sumptuous and we walked down to my terrace together so she could spend the warm afternoon in the full sunshine, even though there was a chilly wind.

Yesterday afternoon, with tenant also sitting on the terrace grandpa, big brother and I spent the majority at the storage. We sorted through the huge pile of windows that we have, stockpiled them up against the storage building and covered the lot with plastic. They should make it through winter just fine.
Like today there was a Western wind blowing like mad, and though it was chilly, my new boots (I decided to go for snow boots and they’re grand. Grand I tell you. My feet are warm during the day and that is absolutely newsworthy.) my bodywarmer and baseball cap I wasn’t even all that uncomfortable. Could it be that I’m actually getting used to the winter weather?

While big brother and grandpa finished up the pile, I dug some through the mess still out there, and made a nice dent in organizing piles of tarp, plastic containers, metal caging etc. etc. Seriously, sometimes it looks like a landfill over there, but to us there’s a wealth of treasures if only you use your imagination and see the possibilities in old wood, metal and plastic.

Look at the greenhouse for instance. We made a bet together that we could build the dratted thing without buying any of the main supplies, and we did. All it cost us in the end was paint, screws, diesel and a handful of cement. Hah. Now that is what I call recycling. Sure it cost us over a year to gather it all, and yes, we dove into skips, garbage bins and whatnot, but we did do it.
Like I said, those piles of ours up there are all filled with little treasures.

Okay, car news: The garage phoned last night and it turns out that someone (we have a suspicion that it was the previous owner, but what the heck) did something seriously wrong with the car. Meaning that they have to replace a lot of crap under the car, which will, once again cost us a fortune. The car has done a splendid job this past year and a half or so, and I love it, and it is worth every penny...even though I would like there to be less pennies involved, of course. Hah.

Now I know what you’re thinking (so am I, believe me) that car was a bad buy…I don’t know. I don’t believe in regretting actions that you cannot change. It is that 20/20 thing. It is the past and therefore unchangeable. You do the best you can and if in the future that turns out to be not good enough, well…bugger you. To regret those actions is a waste of time an energy in the end.

Big brother spent some time fixing the table saw this morning. Mostly while tenant and I were making soup, and the machine should be working splendidly again, thankfully. What we would do without it is a complete mystery to me.

We painted the imperial again, twice (yesterday and today). We want to be absolutely sure that it won’t rust while we start using it. It will, of course, but at least it’ll do that as little as possible. Hah.

Then we went down to the bus in which we moved to Spain and spent the remainder of the afternoon scraping at the huge rust spots and rotting spots, before covering it with Hammerite. Sure, we’re planning on fully painting the thing, but before we do we’ll need to tackle the rust. Can’t have the poor vehicle fall apart, considering it serves as an apartment at the moment. Sure, in the future we’ll need to build a small bungalow or something, but we’ll need it for a few years yet.

What else, oh yeah, cleaned the office the other day. It was a friggin mess, and I still need to do a lot, but at least most of the shelves are relatively clean at the moment, not to mention my paper files which I now actually have in the dossier drawers in folders and everything. Yay.

While doing a massive load of laundry, big brother hung a small trap door in the side of the office so we will be able to let Knight II out through the side, rather than have him barge through the masses of little brother’s dogs. It is starting to get a wee bit dangerous what with the pack’s peckish-ness towards my Great Dane.

Well, that should about do it for today. Who’d have thought I’d manage to fill more than two pages once more. Hah.

Homerun!!!...well, sorta anyway. *snort*

Song of the day…there was none. I had stuff on my mind, so a song couldn’t find room. Hah.

Okay, let’s get the embarrassing part over with: I got out of the car during the paper route, my arms stacked with ‘bout 200 hundred papers. I had my baseball cap on, raincoat hood tugged over it, and was about a yard away from the overhang belonging to the chain store where I needed to make the drop. I spun away from the door, determined not to get the papers wet and sprinted the sum total of two feet when it hit. It was like a baseball bat swung against my shin. Going full speed, my leg decided to stay behind (a mid-shin high concrete block) and I went down like a log.

In a big puddle of water, of course, with the papers that I was trying to keep dry. They went flying and though I doubt it looked that way, I somehow managed to immediately roll to my feet. Yep, that would not have happened two years ago. I would have gone down and lay their like a beached whale or something, wondering what hit me.
As it was, I felt the wetness on my side, decided to go with the momentum, and continued until I was back on my feet. Seriously, once I stopped swearing, got over the shock, and my right shin started swelling, and I had stopped swearing again, I was impressed. Hah. Yeah, I know, but really, it was very unlike me.

Luckily, I had spare clothes with me, ‘cause I was soaking wet on one side, and big brother drove me to the nearest pharmacy so I could buy pressure bandage. My leg was swelling considerable--a patch of three inches in diameter, I think--but all in all it got better once I had the pressure bandage on. Big brother dropped off the bigger amounts of bundles, and I only did the small ones, taking my time crossing the distances.

On the positive side, my body did an excellent job of making a natural painkiller, because for about an hour it didn’t hurt all that bad, not even my left foot, which is nothing short of a miracle on paper bringing day. On the not-so-positive side, after that first hour my left foot and right shin started hurting with a vengeance. For the most part I wasn’t sure which side to limp, so I decided to alternate. Hah. Okay, that sounds bad, but it really wasn’t. I might not have been my “cheery” self, but I did manage to get the job done in the end. Yay.

Lost about eighty papers to the debacle too, which wasn’t good either but manageable since, due to the pissy weather (it was coming down in buckets for the first part of the day) several drop points were firmly closed. It was a quiet day too, considering there was a big football game going on…except for the bars, actually, of which some were literally stacked to full capacity.
But anyway, the entire job thing was very end-of-the-world in atmosphere for some reason.
The sky was overcast, rain pounded down, the sea churned and only a few people ventured outside. If it hadn’t been for the traffic (there were those who appeared to be in a hurry to get to the hospital in a rush, hah) the world could have been deserted. We did manage to get the whole thing done before two in the morning, which isn’t bad considering we lost about forty-five minutes to the incident.

Once we got home the dogs were of course in their usual ecstatic states, meaning that they were rubbing against, bumping into and scratching at my hurt leg, aaaaargh, but big brother thankfully kept them a little bit at bay. Hah. They always do this. If you have a hurt foot, leg, stomach, arm, heck finger too, they'll find a way to hit it. Darn it!

Enough about the job, what else has been going on? Weeeeeeell, this morning was absolutely grand since big brother and I had to get up in time to finish was what left of the route in the village and then shoot straight through to Malaga (that was sarcasm, by the way, the grand thing, that is) to drop the car off at the garage. Yay. Seriously, I could have done without, all things considered. It was a rather restless night considering turning didn’t go all that well. Ah well, what must be done, must be done.

Afterwards, (today that is) we spent a bit of time drying the imperial and then heading out into the yard to check on the veggies and such. Took in a nice harvest of peppers, and even a few late tomatoes, so, yay! While we were out there, the sky actually broke open for a few minutes, allowing for actual sunlight…in the distance. Not on our mountain, regretfully, but seeing it was enough to remind me that this is Spain and I am likely to see the sun shining again overhead soon enough. I tend to forget that every now and then when it rains. I’m so spoiled. *sigh*

I’m going to quit while I’m ahead. I definitely did more than enough complaining for one day and I would like to get back to editing so we can actually finish this book soon and do something new. I’m ready for something new…and fast. Hah.

There it goes...blasted wall!

Song of the day: “Sisters of Mercy” by Leonard Cohen. I know, how depressing is that? But he does sing some good songs.

Considering I am running way behind, I am going to try to kept things a little short, because I’ve got a book to edit still, messages to catch up on and well, I would like to get some sleep since tomorrow appears to be a working day after all. Aaaargh.

First off, I’m going to start with the disaster: Yesterday if rained all day. And around four in the afternoon, just when I was about warmed up from the morning’s chores in the carport and tenant’s kitchen (we put in the new ceiling) grandpa came to warn that we had to go down to the basin because it was almost full. We needed to plug the tubing, lest it would start to overflow into the small section in front of the greenhouse.

When we came there, ready to plug the tubing, it became clear that the wall was slowly expanding outward. Obviously we waited too long finishing the wall (meaning adding the one foot thick natural rock part of it) because where there was first and inward slant, it is now going outward. I never realized solid concrete could bend like that, but there you have it. Hah. But anyway, water was spewing all over the place and while big brother, grandpa and our friend Dani were running around throwing in big hoses to start draining, gradually the water evened out until the entire water amount was evenly spaced…including into the greenhouse. *sigh*

This means that the massive concrete wall I wrote about and posted pictures of at some point this summer, needs to be redone. Grrrr. Pesky rain. This time we’ll be sure to work with our usual tendency for overkill again. Darn it.

Not so nice is that the guest quarters had a floor of water as well, so that means as soon as stuff becomes dry a little, we’re going to have to take everything out and hang it out to dry in the sun, or something. Preferably before Wednesday. If worst comes to worst, tenant’s caregiver has offered to spend the night on a cod in tenant’s bungalow, so that her “apartment” will be available for tenant.

Dog-wise, my Touri (black cocker Spaniel) is feeling a bit under the weather at the moment. Poor dog has a swelling on his bum and though I have already attempted to drain it, the thing is persisting. Didn’t get all that much sleep last night because he was just too uncomfortable. I ended up giving him a piece of anti-inflammatory, at which point he calmed down a little. Hopefully tonight he’ll feel better.

After yesterday’s rains, a harsh, freezing Northern wind picked up during the night, clearing the sky of all clouds, which I was immensely grateful for, I assure you. Most of yesterday’s clothes got hung out to dry during the day, and I took tenant away from her gas stove and deposited her on my terrace. Nothing warms her up the way the sun does, no matter how hot we make her bungalow. She enjoyed the sunshine while reading on my porch all day, and it was good to see her so happy there.

Like yesterday, we painted the imperial again. We want to make sure that it won’t start to rust so the paint has to keep really well. We also spent most of the afternoon pouring concrete in front of grandpa and tenant’s places, since there was some leakage there as well.
Next, we added new supports in front of her door and put up a transparent roof that will let light through and yet keep her, caregiver and grandpa dry.
It looks good, bigger somehow.

While we were working, the dogs really enjoyed the sunshine too. You should have seen them (I know, I should have taken pictures, but I forgot) but they were all clustered (about twenty of them) on the wide threshold concrete of the gate where the sun shone through the eucalypti. It really was absolutely beautiful. Black, white and brown fur gleaning in the bright light, green trees swaying in a orchestra of whispering leaves; their shadows dappling the yellowish soil.
Beautiful.

Well, enough about that. Editing wise we’re still going at it…and I should get to it right now. I’ve written more than enough about the past couple of days.