Not much going on: Summer's coming.

Song of the day: “Broken wings” by James Morrison and Nelly Furtado. Wonderful song. Ended up singing it all through while hanging laundry.

I am a little on the late side this morning. The temperature in my cabin is so darn good that I have trouble getting up; it almost ends in disaster too, since the dogs somehow manage to open the gate to the upper garden and try to eat grandpa before I even notice what’s going on.

No harm, no foul, however. I grab the monster boxer, lift her from the ground and slap Knight II on the butt to get him back within the fence. Grandpa is none the worse for wear, all things considered, (he managed to keep Trin Trin at bay) and laughs at the debacle as I apologize for the pesky pets.

Once breakfast is dealt with, along with throwing laundry in the machine and the other usual chores, big brother and I settle in for the read-through edit. It goes rather disastrously, I’ll admit. As is usual when diverting from a particular mindset (for instance, yesterday’s letter preparations) it is hard to change gears again.

For some reason we can’t find our focus and end up doing only five or six pages. What with the heat increasing (in central Spain an orange alert is in play. Madrid hit the low forties. Yows!) rapidly during the course of the day, taking no heed of the clouds that cover the sky, a joined decision is made not to build walls today.

Instead, maintenance chores get picked. Big brother and grandpa decide to check out their handiwork on the pool filter they’ve been trying to repair this past week, while I tackle the mess in the courtyard.

Wires are crisscrossing all over the place, and building debris has piled up in the corners, warranting a good cleaning. First thing that needs to be done is remove the old bathtub we’d put there for dog washing. Second, is getting the wheelbarrow and shovel and removing dirt, rocks and whatnot until two full loads are removed.

Next, there’s the fence that keeps the dogs contained inside the house and courtyard during the night…can’t have them roaming around when the Leishmania mosquito is swarming all over the place. The crooked fencing has been an eyesore for months now, and since I’m busy anyway, I decide to remedy the situation by taking out pliers and wires.

It takes some time and quite a bit of perspiration, but in the end the result is looking pretty tight and pleasant. With a little luck, Dax won’t be able to get out again. This will need proof in the near future, of course, but it should hold against the overly inventive Beagle who simply considers the world his personal tracking ground in his search for me. He must and will find me, even if he has to travel to town for it, the idiot.

But anyways, it takes a bit of time, lots of scratches (working with fences always has that result. Aaargh!) and sore fingertips, but I do manage the chore that I’ve been thinking about doing for months now, but just couldn’t get around to.

Around eight-thirty, a powerful wind starts up, blowing in from the west with wonderfully cool air that lures me to stay outside until dusk, hanging another batch of laundry, before hunger finally forces me into a much warmer house.

Once dinner is over, and with nothing of interest playing on the TV, I decide to head for my cabin early because due to all the busy activities these past few months my cabin is a disaster area. Clothes (clean ones, thank God) are piled everywhere, what with winter clothes still taking up space in my closet, spider webs hide the corners and my bathroom…well; it needs a good scrubbing to say the least.

Big brother joins me, while I’m sieving through clothes…the majority of them too large now…reading out loud so we can edit at the same time. We get through three more pages that way. And though I haven’t managed to clean the floors yet, things look decidedly better when I call it a day and settle in to start on today’s Blog and do some relaxing stuff on the Net.

Not much going on, when looked at individually, but all things together a successful day nonetheless. Got the fences fixed, the fire hose is attached to the back of the house, ready for use in case…God forbid…fire breaks out during the summer (it was another task grandpa and big brother took care of) and lots of cleaning was done. Yep. I’m putting this one in the “good day” section.