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.