Playing tourist

Song of the day: “Not as we” by Alanis Morrisette. Gorgeous song, and not a bad one to have stuck in your head, really. I sure like it.

The day, the day, oh what to say…it was really quite average today, considering we spent most of it working on the basin wall again. Considering the weather was once again splendid (yes, I am deliberately making you northern folks jealous, hah) it was a rather wonderful.

Of course the day started with…hey wait, I didn’t get to yesterday yet, did I? Drat. Yes, yesterday was quite eventful seeing as we had to get up early again to make it to Málaga in time for our garage appointment. Seeing as we first needed to visit the moped garage so they could fix grandpa’s moped in time before the weekend. Grrr. Don’t you just hate it when you have to go back and forth to a garage because something else, or new is wrong? I do…with a passion.

But anyway, after dropping the moped off big brother and I headed for the city post-haste (were running behind once again of course) and arrived only five minutes late. I came prepared this time, mind you. I’d actually thought to take supplies to have breakfast with, so the first thing we did after dropping the car off and getting some fresh bread at the local supermarket, was head for a little park to break our fast. (Old-fashioned terms are so quaint.)

Since the park (the same one we sat at the last time) was chilly as heck, we got outta there really fast though. First we checked with the garage of course, but they had just put it on the bridge, so we had them put our bags in the back and headed for a place where there was would be sunshine at least: The beach! Yay.

Seriously, it is not at all glamorous in reality. It’s a boulevard with sand beside it. Some palm trees on grass (I wondered how they got it to grow there, by the way) and a bulldozer dragging through the dirt to open up the sewage system.
The sea was blue, though, and so was the sky, and in the full glare of the sun, it was actually rather nice there.

On the left of our location this one stood:



96 meters high, 8 meters across at the bottom, and 4 at the top, and from what I understood from the plaque beneath it, it was an old lead factory chimney the town placed there on the beach as some sort monument.

We wiled away a couple of hours playing some sort of tourist. The chimney, a local bird park, or some such. Walked about five miles, so we were nice and toasty by the time we got back and were allowed to take the car back home. The event set us back hours, of course, but money wise, luckily only twenty-five bucks, or so. The problem was a broken cable, apparently, and a busted light. *sigh* Imagine my relief.

We got home, where grandpa had already made all the preparations for us to start on the basin once more. The remainder of the afternoon was spent doing masonry, eating fresh veggie soup and finishing the last vestiges of daylight in the carport putting together a table for the greenhouse. Succeeded too, so all in all it was a successful day there.

The evening was of course spent editing, but that is nothing new, is it?
So that leaves us only with today: Nothing too interesting during the course of the day. Just the building, morning chores such as laundry and scrubbing the kettle (it was a mess, I tell ya) but then we could head out for the fun stuff.

Since everything in the greenhouse is doing so well, I (and Dani) spent about thirty minutes transplanting the pepper plants from the seeding bed to pots. The butternut pumpkins are doing great, by the way. Practically all the seeds came up. Yay.

Next there was the wall building. It took several hours and then I had to rush on up with Touri and Knight II. I had to get Touri to the vet yet, so she could check his drain (remove it, if possible) and finally got around to asking about spending a day there for the column. She said yes, so yay for that, but since this is an incredibly slow time, we decided to wait until she’s got a full schedule some day soon.
It will be fun, I think.

Well, I should get to work on the day’s edit. We’re almost through, just sixty more pages, and I for one will be happy when I can start sending this one out. Jeez. I need to get back to serious writing, rather than all this editing. Okay. Gotta go.

Grrrr.

Song of the day: “Brimful of Asha” (sp?) by Cornershop.

I’m a bit in a weird mood today so I’m going to keep this short. There’s not much of interest to tell anyway, seeing as work turned out to be a bust. Yep, apparently John Doe (the boss man) forgot to inform me that we wouldn’t be bringing papers this week. So I was in town, waiting and wasting a couple of hours that I could have spent building the basin wall, blast it.

We got home and went down into the yard immediately. Might as well while away the rest of the day taking down reed constellations by the dead tomatoes and such. We also pulled loads of weeds, which was really necessary. One of these days soon, we’re going to have to turn some serious earth down there…in particular since the cauliflower plants in the greenhouse are doing rather splendidly.

Yesterday was ended with a slow but good edit, in the end. Did a solid nine pages, which is not bad on a day filled with distractions.

Touri is doing well. He doesn’t seem to be bother much by the his stitches and seems in fact content now that pressure is gone. Sure, he’s on antibiotics and is still careful (as he should be) but other than that, he appears cheerier than usual even.

Okay, on to today.
It started early, about two hours before our usual wake up time, so we could head for Málaga to the appointment we had at the Land Rover garage. We were there right on time too, only to discover that they were too busy. Seriously, we called last month for this appointment. Then they said call back two days ahead, so we did, and now this. *sigh* That’s Spain for you. They aren’t all that “on the dot” so on days like today that means you’re screwed.

Right afterwards we had an appointment at the ITV (that the place where you go here to have a technical inspection of your car. Basically, they say what needs to be done to your car before you can drive on) so, that didn’t pain out. They did put in a new back direction light, so after whiling away the time for about an hour and a half, it was our turn and the car came through with flying colors, thankfully.

Of course now we’re going to have to return to the garage in the morning. So that means another early morning, darn it. Ah well, no helping it. What has to be done, has to be done.
Today, after we got to town, where we had to pick up grandpas moped, my stomach thought my throat ’d been cut. We had to buy bread anyway, so I stuffed my face with that before we headed home.

Turns out the moped still isn’t working properly, though, so that has to go back too in the morning. Gawd, another day wasted. But anyway, once we got home we hauled sand down to the basin and got to work on the big eucalypti tree in the courtyard. We had a rather big storm last night and the top blew right off. It was hairy there for a bit, but we did manage the chore without incident.

Afterwards big brother and I started on another table for the greenhouse, but then, before the sunset we had to give up on the endeavor to head on out to get more rocks. I know, boring right.

Well, I better get started on an edit. The evening is passing way too fast.

"All'swell" (Yellow beard) Hah

Song of the day: “Wishing well” by Terence Trent D’Arby. Weird, but I don’t even like the song all that much.

Today is my birthday so I’m going to treat myself to a short blog thingy, hah. Also, I got the bestest B-day present. Sunshine and a beautiful day, added by two bits of good news. Yay. Oh yeah, and there was plenty of apple pie.

Since the weather has been rather splendid, we decided not to focus on my floor but spent the past two days working in the basin and adding to the wall. Seriously, it’s looking great we’re now at two feet high along the entire length, and its about a foot and a half thick while the bulwark stairs will make absolutely sure that the thing won’t go down again, ha. It’s beautiful and I’ve got pictures.

What else? Well, there’s the usual stuff, but seeing as it wasn’t all that wonder…oh wait, I almost forgot that tenant went up and down the wooden stairs of the greenhouse yesterday. It was rather chilly outside so we decided she would be far more comfortable in the low eighties temperatures within the glass structure.
But seriously, it was the first time in almost two years that she did the actual stair climbing thing. Down went just fine and though up was a little harder and big brother and I both had to help, she managed it and we all were psyched. Of course, she was embarrassed that it went so slow and that we had to help so much, but it was awesome. After having been paralyzed on one side and with the doctors giving up on you, to then…well, it was splendid.

Oh, and also, an hour or two after my last blog Indigo and Knight II got into a fight. I intervened and...yep, you can see it coming can't you? I got bit. It's not funny, I tell ya. I got a hole in the fleshy part of my palm and there's some swelling. Lifting rocks has been a total pain...no pun intended.

Which brings us to today.
I had to get up a little early to bring Touri in for his operation at the vet. He didn’t like being left of course, but since grandpa was waiting for me to pick him up, I had no choice but to leave him before the vet could give him something to put him to sleep.
I went home and we got to work on the basin. We hauled sand and rocks and then…well, I still love working with cement and rocks. Good thing too, since we’ll be doing it for a while yet. Hah.

Made good progress, and ended the day hauling some more sand for the next time.
Then I had to get ready to pick up Touri and my doctor’s appointment.
We got to Touri on the dot and he came through surgery just fine. The vet didn’t have a clue what it was they removed, though. There was this tennis ball sized lump of some sort of alien material, followed by a golf ball of fat tissue, followed by…well, two more bits of tissue that didn’t make any sense either, right until they reached the bone. They removed the lot (showed it on a tray, of course) and already he is walking better. Poor fella. He was so happy to go home and since they also cleaned his ears, his disposition was vastly improved.

As to my doctor's appointment...I don't have to return, yay. Now that's what I call an awesome present. I'm all set for the next year or so, at which time I have to have my insoles checked, but otherwise I'm good. Such a relief that I don't have to go back. *sigh*

Once home…well, let’s just say I’m quickly going to continue with the edit. We’ve only eighty more pages to go so….wish me luck.