Notice:

I can't predict when I have the time to post a new blog, but check occasionally. I'm going to try at least weekly.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Floor's in

Song of the day: “Give me love” by Ed Sheeran. Gorgeous song. Heavy, intense, but absolutely beautiful.

First off. It was big brother’s birthday today. Hah. Gawd, we’re getting old. Just yesterday we were teenagers and now he’s galloping towards forty…me too, for that matter, but I’ll always be three years behind big brother in that regard, hah.

But anyway, we didn’t do anything for the occasion, not even pie, or cake, because, let’s face it, big brother hates both. I’ll be making one for my own, of course. I’m thinking a lemon cheese cake, with lemons from our own little tree down in the yard. That sure would be splendid, but we’ll see.

A few of the dogs are not feeling all that well since yesterday. There was some vomiting, shivers and listlessness, and some overall miserable-ness, but they seem to be improving some. Most of them ate again this morning, so they should be fine by tomorrow.

There was the usual stuff, of course. Laundry, feeding the dogs, chores, and me actually managing to squeeze in sweeping the floor of my cabin, which was a friggin’ mess. It didn’t help either that what with the dogs feeling bad there were all sort of unmentionables happening on my bed, which forced me to changed the sheets and blankets twice within six hours, darn it.
Added to that, Knight II was one of the dogs with the shivers, meaning that he had to, come hell or high water, lie against me during the night, making me feel like I’d spend the night on the rack, or something. *sigh*

Headed into the yard for a bit, which was wonderfully warm, since it is out of the wind down there. I found a pumpkin hiding in the bushes, and we watered the young seedlings and plnts. Such a pity that there is relatively little to do in the yard a the moment, because the sunshine really is best down there.

The kitchen. It’s going slow, but it’s getting there. We’ve poured most of the floor now, along with two steps. Only one more level to pour, which is where the fridge and closet will be once we’re done. It’s looking good, nice and smooth, and parts of the wall are up already too. Lots to do still, but we’re getting there.

Got to haul stuff for it, which made for excellent exercise. Big 20 pound blocks of concrete, wheelbarrows of cement, rocks and shovels full to take from one spot to the next, balancing rather precariously at times. Hah.

Went for a jog today, which was going really well, right up until I put my foot down wrong, which made it nothing, if not excruciating to get all the way back to the car. *sigh* Definitely taking an Ibuprofen tonight before I go to bed, jeez.
At least I did some jogging. The rest is really not important for as far as I’m concerned.

There were logs to split, which made for good exercise as well. Still have plenty of that to do, so we’ll get around to it one of these days, I’m sure.

Editing is going slow at the moment, but steady still. Not a day goes by when nothing gets done on the book, but at the moment we're not managing our usual ten pages a day. Way too many distractions.

Big brother cooked supper yesterday, spinach with cheese, of course, while today we decided to fry cauliflower and French fries. Yummy. Did manage to get another piece of meat down my throat this afternoon, which was highly necessary. A little bigger than the last time, but still not a whole piece, darn it. It’s just too hard. The satay sauce helped, though.

Well, as for the rest, I can’t remember anything else. Dratted memory. Doesn’t work all that well most of the time, now does it.
Do know that the weekend is there again, so that means we’re going to have to prepare for market tomorrow, and then spent Sunday in Marbella again…weather permitting.

Ah. No matter. Time to get to bed. The day was a long one.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Bar fight!

Song of the day: “We are young” by Fun. I always see the clip in my head when this song starts tumbling inside my brain.

First off, for the past few days we’ve been trying wean Tadaika off big brother, so she can start sleeping in my cabin. Seeing as I’ve got a lot less dogs than him these days, we discussed which one would mind least. Poor Tadaika got elected. She likes my dogs, has spent an occasional hour in my cabin already and…has been miserable for three nights in a row now. Pitiful darling. She knows how to milk it, I tell ya. She’ll whine for about half an hour, walk back and forth through my cabin, try to climb out over the fence, go through the window, and then, after three times of me hauling her back on the bad, she finally goes to sleep. And the looks she gives me when I don’t let her go…sooooo sad. Poor girl. I just hope that she manages to adjust.

We had a big rainstorm yesterday, which meant getting very wet while I went down to the house for the morning chores. By the time we had to feed the dogs, the weather cleared enough or us to do it outside, so there wasn’t a real problem with that. It did save us from having to go in the yard to water the plants.

There were of course two edits during the course of the past couple of days. We came across some hiccups, which made our progress rather slow. Seriously, there were some intense discussions again, some arguments, and some heated snarling, but we got through them again, thankfully. Have brought the page count of “done” up to 226, so we’re on schedule at least.

Worked on my kitchen, yay. Yesterday we put in the outer edge foundation, which was nice work to do with the sun coming out later in the day. Same goes for today, while the wind was fierce today, working on the kitchen, pouring concrete, was a nice and warm occupation, since it was in the lee of the wind and in the full sunshine. Got the first level poured, and it’s looking good. Now we’re getting somewhere, yeah!

Had to go out today to pick up a donation and picked up some groceries at the same time.
Took way too long, of course, in particular since afterward I still had to cook. No disaster, and not taking as long as I’d feared because I could work with yesterday’s leftovers of cauliflower and potatoes.

Yesterday we had a big fight between the dogs. Middle sister came outside rather unexpected, so there was a collision with her boxer Groovy. I was just a second too late to grab Knight II, who grabbed first Jelly, and then Fortuyn before big brother managed to jump in the fray and sent him up. As is usual for the big lug, (whoever says that Great Danes possess elegance, is nuts) he did more damage to himself than Jelly (Fortuyn ended up with a cut in his neck) by cutting up his paws and such. Gawd, he’s such a klutz, not to mention more enthusiastic than he should be when it involves fighting. Had to wedge him against the wall to keep him from going at it again, and then drag him to my cabin for punishment. Jeez. Spent the next half hour cleaning up cuts and scrapes with a variety of dogs. *sigh
Seriously, if you’d have seen the enthusiasm with which the dogs pounced on Groovy, and each other, you’d have thought that there was an old fashioned bar fight going on. Aaaargh. Insanity!

Tomorrow we might be able to get in some wood chopping with the axe, which will be a nice form of exercise for as far as I’m concerned. I need some, I tell ya, and jogging is not working at the moment, if for no other reason than the fact that it takes too much time. Have less than three weeks until the competition after all. *sigh* Still going to try to fit a run in one of these days, though.

Well, that’s it for me, for now. I’m just about ready to call it a day.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

It's that time of the year

Song of the day: “Love is in the air” by…gawd, I don’t remember his name. I just know that the song was for Strictly Ballroom. Fun song, even if he does have a bit of a wonky voice.

First off, let me just get this one out of the way:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

*phew* Almost forgot it, but I didn’t. Kudos for me. Hope you’re having a splendid one.

Right. Let’s get to it then….

Well, today was a total bust, so I’m just going to ignore if for no other reason than the fact that we didn’t manage to do much today. Only thing we did was the piping for the future kitchen, which wasn’t much. Normal stuff, too of course, hauling some wood for the stacks, laundry, dog food, and cooking, but nothing remotely fun, so let’s turn this toward yesterday’s market which…well, which wasn’t a big success either, I fear.

Packing-wise, it was a lot easier seeing as big brother opted to go along. Loading, and unloading was a matter of an hour, rather than two in that regard. Had it all set up before noon, in fact, and we did manage to get home before sunset. Yay. But that was the only real plus to yesterday.

Not that I minded, on the overall my day wasn’t a bad one. We sold for the wondrous amount of two and a half bucks, and my day was…well, okay. Hah. The market was a slow one. If there were fifty customers it was a lot. Did manage to get some nice chats in with Dutch and German folk. There was a couple, who were vacationing these parts, who loved dogs (they weren’t in the market for a dog bed, regretfully, because their dog was killed through the means of poison) and we ended up chatting for a long time about how to train dogs.

Then with a father and son, who were there enjoying the day with friends and family and their little girl. Lots of laughter there, which was fascinating to observe. Big brother and I took a couple of hours in the middle of the day to sit down in the back of the restaurant where we edited over coffee. Managed about five pages, which wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

Also had a chat with the nice lady who organizes the market. She was a little down, as is the case these past few times. She’s taking it rather harshly that the customers are not coming, and since that makes the stand holders unhappy, she gets tossed in the middle a little. Not her fault that folks are watching their pennies, if you ask me, but I can relate. She is putting lots of work into it.

But anyway, afterward it was rushing to get to town in time for the weekly donation bit. Still haven’t managed to arrange it for a different. Well, we did sorta, seeing as Saturday we had another. That guy I met at the market the other week, who wanted to get rid of his stuff before moving back to the UK? Well, I got around to calling him, and we made an appointment at the mall for him to give over his stuff.

Gawd, that guy had some stories. Turns out he’s been away from the UK since ’66. And has basically traveled all over the place. First off he traveled all the way to Timbuktu, and then hitchhiked from England to South Africa. It took him a year, but he got stuck over there in…Mozambique, I think, for the following twenty year.
Then, he somehow ended up here in Spain where he put up this cute little business of designing terrace gardens, which he also maintained. And now he’s returning to the UK to take care of his 90 year old mum, which he feels he should do (as is the right thing, of course) but which he also dreads since he hasn’t been in the colder countries for more than thirty years. Yikes.

Did have a very good edit day on Saturday. It made yesterday’s five pages less disastrous for sure. I think we managed a total of twenty pages, so we’re not actually behind with today’s nine. Yay.

Cooking…well, I didn’t do any yesterday. We settled for fried stuff. But Saturday I made an Indian dish that didn’t work out the way I’d planned, and today there was a rather nice pasta fungi that went down really well.

Digging was part of Saturday, preparing for pouring the concrete foundation (which we didn’t get around to today, darn it). Finished digging the gutter for the tubing, set the concrete blocks of the wall in place (I carried two up while big brother used the wheelbarrow…almost wrecking it…with the remainder) and basically scraped as much rock as possible away.

Still haven’t gotten around to cleaning Chaos’ ear, nor Carla’s. That is something we’ll have to do tomorrow…after the edit. *sigh*

Weather wise we’ve been very lucky (except yesterday, since Funny Beach Marbella was completely in the fog) with clear skies and a warm sun. Strangely enough the valley has been mostly obscured by this thick blanket of clouds that lay on the hills and valleys like a thick fog. Up here, we’re not bothered by it, but the village, town and the sea have been utterly obscured for days. The only thing visible is Africa. The mountains are higher than the clouds, which makes for a rather splendid view. Jutting peaks of green in a blanket of cotton. Fascinating. Reminds me of horror movies, really. You know, the Mist, the Fog. Ya can just imagine dangerous creatures lurking within, or some sort of acid raining down and eating your face right off, or something along those horrible lines……I know, I have a rather gross imagination going there. Hah.

Well, that’s about it. I’m sure I’m missing something vital, but since you won’t know if I do, we’ll just leave it at this. *snort*