Cedeira again and lots of talking

We headed off to Cedeira at 3 pm and despite it being a baking 30 C and the seafront beach for a town the size of Penzance there was plenty of room. There are nicer beaches but being able to drive onto the sand to drop all our baggage off is a real attraction and I forgot to buy bread in the morning so we did some shopping too.
Jenny took her first trip in the Sea Eagle kayak although, because we were all in it, we have no photos of the momentous event, we paddled out a few hundred meters and drifted about off a little reef watching bass and mullet chasing hundred of little tiny fish. I think she enjoyed it as we ended up talking about doing a trip down the Canyon de Sil next year.


Sam gave the boys a surfboard on Rowan's birthday and this a the first time it was trialed - they loved it and Cal managed to balance really well on it standing up, not easy as it is a narrow low volume board and there were no waves.

Rowan took a more casual stance hanging loose most of the time perfectly off balance and totally in control - we will try it in some waves next time.

We had been home about 5 mins when the folk who gave us the chicken and potatoes - Carlos and Victoria knocked on the door with a mother who they kept saying was mad and a friend from mexico who could speak English and his girlfriend and their very young daughter and Carlos and Victoria's two children Carlos an Cristien and I dont think I have ever heard so much talking at such a loud volume and such a speed. The mother did not stop talking at all not for a second and neither did anyone else really it was mayhem but we learned some Spanish and they learned some English and there might be a meeting at the local cooperativa possibly for dads and children from all different places either having a reunion or making freinds for the first time and it is either being recorded by TV Galicia for a saturday morning TV show or they sit and watch TV during the meeting and it might also be for mums we are not really sure and we don't know when it is or maybe when it was but it was all very interesting and took a lot of telling and brought home just how important it is to learn some more Spanish. We learned a lot about local families and how hard it was living here in the past and they can't quite work out why we want to live in Galicia - England seems to be a dreamlike aspiration for many people as a place to go and live and make money. I didn't shatter their dreams we said the climate here and the friendliness of the people was mostly what attaracted us which is true and went down well. English is the language of success and they all want to learn it - sounds promising for us.

Our House - Carrizos

People keep asking what the house looks like so here are some more pictures starting with the front bit.
Outside in the drive is a large granite table and seats, we have just planted a bouganvilia to grow along the wall and some ginger plants that seem to thrive out here and there are a couple of young vines trying to establish there too.

The far end painted white with external steps used to be a carniceria. The shutter is down but there is a big window there.When we bought it the owners had stopped their butchery business and started to convert it to a larger building so the grey bit is just a half finished room that one day will be linked through. Neither of these bits look very wide but the house is quite deep front to back so it is a fairly good size and it is on a slope so the rear is two stories...but only at the carniceria end. The gap is a set of external steps that lead up to a huge attic above the bungalow bit. We keep thinking we might rent the bungalow out for a few weeks in the summer and live in the other bit.

Next pic is of the rest of the front, if you imagine it joined onto the previous pic the two windows on the right of the bungalow are our living room. The window left of the front door is the boys bedroom. and there is a garage on the far left.

Round the side you can see some of our trees and a bit of view. We need to put some big windows in the west wall really.

And here are some more of the trees and field. The trees shade us from the evening sun but also provide shelter from the west wind in the winter and will be a valuable crop in about 10 years with luck.

Looking at the back you can see the read window of the carneceria on the left upstairs that has the best views of the valley, I hope that will be my office fairly soon. Then there is a small opening in the grey bit upstairs that will be a larger window one day and below it a huge opening leading into an open plan downstairs area that use to house a tractor, hens and lots of rabbits but has our caravan and some hay in it just now. We hope to put a huge glass door / window across the opening and make it into a big room one day...and move the 6 huge gass bottles that you can see behind our lemon tree and the snowbirds pen and put a big window there too.

The only inside pic I have so far is of the kitchen that is small but well equiped.

The rest of the house is a jungle of boys toys - will be photographed in one of those few minute gaps between tidying up and new toy avalanches.

4 hen names, school and my job.

I forgot to mention the names of our two new hens - Ginger and Flappy, they joined Kate and Poppy a week or so ago and settled in fine unlike El Pájaro De la Nieve who is a feisty girl rather like a yorkshire terrier she will take on anything. She almost escaped today - I had to do a bit more wing clipping and got pecked in the process but now she can only do a floppy spiral so I don't think she will get out of her pen again.

We managed to get to the local school - cosy with a total of 7 pupils, rather warm inside but very friendly staff and the children seemed nice too. Rowan liked it but Callum is adamant he is not going to go. We have to go to the Junta de Galicia in Ferrol to register before they can start and the English speaking person is only there on a Tuesday so the boys have a few days holiday to go yet.

I work running a degree programme at Anglia University and our students start back on Monday - I am really looking forward to it, the last few weeks have been filled with planning and resource making which is ok but I much prefer the working with students bit..its a totally online work focused, inquiry based approach so I spend my days in online community spaces facilitating a great bunch of students on theirjurney towards self improvement. My cohort are one semester away from graduating..exciting times.

two in one

A double yolker no less woohooo again.

egg

Jubilations we have our first egg from the brown hens, I went out to think about making some nesting boxes and there it was still warm with all of the hens inspecting it as if it was something alien. One egg between two boys doesn't work unless it is in a pancake so we are off to make a mix. I think so far the egg has cost around 45 euros but the cost should drop as we get more :-)

At last an answer to a universal question - the chickens definitely preceded the egg in our experience.