"Trimming" Hah

Song of the day: “Demons” not by the original band, but rather by Jasmine Thompson who did a gorgeous cover of it.

Oh gawd, time goes so fast, doesn’t it? Once again it has been way too long since I’ve written here, but this time round I have a good excuse: I am back to writing!!! Yay. Right after my trip to the Netherlands visiting friends (hi, Friends!) big brother and I spent several days hacking out a serious plot-line for “Gun” (still don’t have a better title than that, but it is starting to grow on me), which took time and effort, but stuff is turning in my head now, slowly slipping into place. The world is “becoming” and that is always the most exciting part when writing a book.

Did end up lost on Wikipedia several times these past weeks. Research gets to me in that way, I'll admit. Like a list of all the big bank heists in the past century that got me surfing through soooooo many pages for many hours. History is just fascinating, isn't it? I mean, seriously, at some point I stumbled on seppuku (opening a whole new can of worms) which then dragged me into several pages of Japanese culture, which was fascinating. Definitely a country I will be visiting at some point in the future.

 

The fact that big brother and I finally got around to hanging a desk in my corner of the porch. The bed is now set in a way that there is actually room for big brother and me to sit at the desk whenever we need to work together…added to that we now actually are able to eat at a table, which is a novel experience after all this time. Hah. It’s tiny, but it is cozy enough, I suppose.

So what all has been going on lately…at least since the last blog. Honestly I can’t really remember what I did and didn’t write. Which is a bit of a pickle, but we’ll muddle through, I guess.

Part of the past couple of weeks’ activities have been taking down several tops of our eucalyptus trees. It wasn’t easy either. First because every day the wind was blowing, and we really had to pick them carefully so they wouldn’t end up on the power lines…which one did...no damage day, phew.

On two occasions we had to use the car to pull, meaning that at one point I basically ripped one of the tops out, because the car was on an incline, and started slipping, so I had to gas it, ergo, that almost went wrong. Anyway, we got them all now.

The reason is the power company that's trying to act preemptively, I think. So much damage because of the trees during storms that they're just going all out by clearing them away before they are a problem. Since we rather didn't have strangers on the property, big brother and I decided we rather did it ourselves...considering I've been pushing to do this for more than two years now, but we never had time, I didn't mind regardless of the hazards.

This morning the wind finally stopped, so we got the last one down, meaning that I had to climb down part of the mountain with a rope that big brother attached to the upper branches. Then big brother started sawing, while I hung on that rope for dear life, wondering if I was far enough away for when the thing came down. Seemed like it could be a problem, so I backed up one step, by then it started to give, squeezing the chain saw blade. Put my weight into it by then, and had to do it well because there was a slight inclination of the darn tree to go in the opposite direction…straight into the power line. I pulled and next thing you know it came tumbling down, with me backing up three more steps to get out of the way. Yep, you guessed it, the top landed right where I was standing before I started worrying about it. Hah. No worries, though. It all worked out.

For the next half hour or so we were stripping smaller branches of the big trunks which we’re going to save for firewood.

Another activity, due to the drastic “trimming” was dragging branches down to the compost heap. That took a lot longer than planned, but was good exercise at least…it was a lot, so it took us a bit of time, in particular since grandpa isn’t feeling well lately.

Another new thing is that big brother and I have been trying out a couple of gyms, and think that we have come to a decision of trying it out for at least a month. I liked it, both gyms actually. Tried all the machines on both occasions and paid for it dearly for the first couple of days. There was some soreness the first day, at which point I thought to do some stretches and to try out a part of this tae bo cardio that I found. Wasn’t going all that bad, in fact at a certain point nothing hurt at all…but then I could down and it got worse than it had been before. *sigh* Anyway, the soreness was good, it told me I’d done well. Second session at a different gym was a bit more mellow and didn’t leave me all that sore, thankfully. All those muscle groups that you can tackle in there. Gotta love it.

There were a couple of dinners with a friend, which was nicely relaxing. She also invited us to tennis, which should be fun. Haven’t played tennis in ages, and when we did it was far from serious, but the change will be nice.

Tomorrow I’ll be going with her to an animal shelter in Málaga. She likes to help out there, so I’ll go along, see if I can give a hand. Afterward we’ll be heading for the market…that is, if we can make it in time. We’ll see. Otherwise we’ll go to the market next week.

Did some experimenting with cooking, naturally. Not as much as I’d have liked, but enough to have maintained a somewhat healthy diet. Did a very nice experiment with cupcakes, by the way. Chocolate, hazelnuts, and coconut shavings. Was a rather nice combination if I do say so myself. Other than that, I worked with so many different tastes and herbs these past couple of weeks, that this afternoon I was suddenly in the mood for something completely different. Ended up boiling cauliflower and broccoli in some salt sugar and pepper, and then served it with a triangle of butter on top. It was absolutely yummy, especially with a bit of parsley sprinkled over it.

Dogs are doing fine, thankfully. Sitabah and Dax are not liking the cold, though...I can relate. As for the others, they are happy with the changes in my sleeping arrangements. It means that they can just join us by lying between our feet and in the kitchen when we're working on the computers. Am a little worried about Jelly, however. He's getting way to skinny, even though he is eating relatively well. Makes me wonder if there's something wrong inside there. I hope not.

 

Had to go to the garage, to make an appointment for the Land Rover. A simple thing, really, but a hassle of course because we’ll have to go there in the morning on Monday, drop it off. Feels like such a waste of time, but what can you do, right.

Added to that we also had to go to the insurance agent, to arrange for the insurance of the Isuzu Trooper, and grandpa needs to have his driver’s license renewed, which is going to be a bitch because of his medication. For some asinine reason trafico needs to know about that with a doctor’s note.

Which brings us to the end of today’s blog. I’m missing loads of stuff, I’m sure, but it is late and I’ve just about had it with today…doesn’t help that it has been cold as heck, lately, with snow on the near mountains that bring is this chilling wind most every day. Can’t wait for winter to be over.