more birthday

Doh ! the camera got forgotten for much of the day, friends came round and we visited our neighbours up the road who have a wicked sense of humour and take great delight in lacing my coffee with brandy when I am not looking then laughing at the wobbly Englishman. They are lovely but only speak Galego - I wish I could understand what they are saying.

Candels are great for playing with ...


and for blowing out

Rowan did breakdancing with Stanley and a lemon
Lorenna did looking very cute for the camera.

Rowan's Birthday

Rowan is cinco anos today, Power Rangers and dinosaurs were on the agenda again and baloons of course and that smelly stuff in a tube that makes baloons. Pancakes for breakfast and his "bestest day ever" so far.

Rowan has only been out of bed less htan a minute and he is tearing the paper off the first one.

Callum gets a couple of presents as well.
Lots of bits in that box that make into...
..a megazoid eventualy

Callum blowing up the smelly stuff baloons.

We are off to Moeche market in a few mins - more photos later.

Gardening

Yesterday we had a lot of fun in the garden playing with water and building a barbecue area.
Jenny is getting to grips with weeding - weeds grow at an incredible rate here. Callum managed to fit himself into a bucket of water and Rowan made muddy puddles.


We found half of a lareira (fireplace) in the front garden and the other half in the depths of downstairs, they are made of a serpentine kind of stone and weigh a lot.

A lot of hacking and some van power and they are now reunitied and our barbecue area is starting to take shape.

There is still some digging and seating to sort but we are getting there.


We had a trip into the hills the day before, I think this is looking down on Covas.

More kayaking and some fungi

Kayaking

Yesterday we found a really easy place to launch kayaks at the quiet end of Praia Magdelina at Cedeira, you can drive onto the beach and unload next to the water and explore some safe water or paddle round to the beautiful beaches and esturies at Villarube or head out to between the gap in the distant hills and into the open sea.

Fungi
On the edible fungi front so far we have found some lovely chantrelles larger and tastier than anything I ever found in the UK , lots of boletus, although I am only confident at identifying a few boletus variaties so we have not eaten may yet. Just over the road from our house the pine trees have no shortage of Sparassis Crispa. This is a fungi I had never tasted but is now a firm favourite; I cooked some last night by gently frying in butter - it has a distinct and delicious nutty flavour, As far as I am aware ther are no poisonous fungi that look anything like it so it seems a fairly safe find. The photo is of a fairly young one (now consumed) but they can grow up to be many kilos.

Waterboys and outdoor girls

The boys love being in the sea, the Faro end of Valdovino has had some perfect waves for playing in recently.

Kate and Poppy have moved into different temporary accomodation, this time they are outside and they are a lot happier, as you can see the garden is getting a little more organised but not a lot. The hens are named after the boys' big sisters who are all grown up and staying in the UK. It is three weeks today since we arrived and we are all begining to miss the folks back home. With school about to start the boys in particular are feeling a bit lost for friends and getting a tad naughty despite telling us that living here is just perfect. They are still telling us they are not going to school in Spain ..time will tell.