Another bit of the Fragas and our garden

My daughter Kate arived a few days ago weather has been waarm and changable ah well. We headed out to the lake above As Pontes for a change yesterday and after trip traping our way over the Dam we found a lovely walk along the lake edge, First we looked at this little valley... then we looked at the next one.
Then Rowan got obsessed about picking bilberries.

And we headed out to Club nautico in the evening to see the sun set on our lake.Now that chicken pox has started to fade we were planning to go to the beach for the first time in what seems like ages but today is raining ...at least the park the van in the potato patch with the radio on strategy seems to have helped fend off the wild boar - they popped in the night before last and borrowed some of our potatoes, we did not notice untill all of the shops had closed so we managed not to buy an electric fence again.

I have managed to move my office outside most days
Sunflowers are doing fine with a few gazenias at their toes

We have a fair bit of this on the garden not sure what it is but it is welcome to stay

This is just what you don't want to see on potatoes and all that activity leads to this...

they are pretty endemic here and a lot of spraying goes on - we have managed not to spray the potatoes so far but have picked a few hundred of them off and are cropping potatoes as fast as we can

Maize is coming along well
And the strawberries are doing fine too

More cheese Grommit

Callum is well into modeling just now we had a 7 frame go at a stop gap animation a couple of days ago it was not easy without a tripod to steady the camera but it got the idea off the ground and he has now recruited Rowan to help make a bits and bobs for the next great movie ...

things are being created....dog man vegetables river

a scene has been set....
a story might well be written soon

watch this space.

varicella and amazing photos

Varicella
Oh dear Rowan has lots of Chicken Pox granos and Callum might be going down with it too although he doesn't yet have any spots and I seem to have some kind of aching bones, headaching, throbbing eyes, wobbly legs, itchy skin, sleeping virus hopefully not the start of shingles.

Photos
Hamish Scott-Brown is a truly wonderful friend as well as being a brilliant and stimulating colleague to work with, I am proud to know him, his photographs touch my soul in a way few other photographers manage to do. Check them out it really is worth it http://www.hamishscottbrown.co.uk/main.html pour your favourite tipple get comfy if you can plug your computer into a big screen do so then check out the carousel.... then take the link to the galleries it will be worth the journey.

Respect to ya Hame.

perspective from the lake

Doh no pictures but I had a wonderful late paddle in the kayak on the lake just below our house, there it is in our view every day and we rarely go down, we hear the frogs doing frog things int he distance every night and always say we should go listen to them down nearer the lake and I think of Lee Mellon and big sur and littlte crocodiles but we never do anyway I did tonight and it was well worth it. I got in the water just as the last light was fading into black and the stars were starting to show. Every time I get to the water I forget how it is, the kayak is big and heavy its an old Huntsman built by Captain McNulty in South Shields in the 70s out of bulletproof 70s glass fibre - orange and white, long with a turned up front, based on a baidarka ( inuit) design and made to go far out on the ocean anyway its realy heavy and feels cumbersome getting it on and off the van and getting a spray deck on and a life jacket is also a horridly clumsy feeling, getting into it is a case of balancing and squidging and squeezing and wiggling due to the cockpit design but the moment it floats free of the land the world changes - its part of me, glides over, flies along, slips effortlessly through; are all too weak to catch what it does on water. Tonight the lake was literally like a sheet of glass I wish I had had a camera I thought of taking 2 photos of the same view one with the camera upside down would there be any discernable difference I wondered anyway I discovered new places down the West end by the Dam and a sickle of a moon slipped over the hills and the water was incredibly beautiful, the frogs were loudcroaking to each other, many species have limited frequency hearing so they mostly only hear their own kind or so I heard on the radio in the 80s it makes sense doesn't it and they dont stop when yo uclap your hands only when you do someting to hte water they are sitting in or move past them fast.visual and feely they are I think.. They seemed to be having competitions; one bunch perhaps a crowd covering around 5 meters of banks side would go off for a minute or so then go quiet, a few patches down the way another team would start up for a minute or so and so on back and forth little groups doing the croak croak thing and a few doing the woooohoooo wooohooo wooooo thing and a sort of high pitched weeeeeooooo weeeeooooo oooo oooo I really need some multimedia words don't do it do they. I wasn't going to talk about frogs but there they are they got covered. A few grunts went off and some snuffling thrashing through the undergrowth I guess Jabali were out and about doing piggy things too while in the depths of the kayak a biting flying thing was having a go at my leg just out of reach no matter what I did with my legs I couldn't stop it ouch won't be wearing shorts and a short sleeved T shirt next time. I got as far as almost back to Club Nautico paddling backwards to admire the water making metal waves from my wake when I heard a sound like something chomping grass and there was a glimpse of some deer in the trees, then a wake and a plop and an otter popped its head out a few meters away turned over and started munching on a troita I saw otters near Achmelvich in the 80s and Porth Nanven in the late 90s but not as calm and relaxed as this one, two minutes later there are a whole family of them swimming around me pushing and shoving each other then just gone like nothing had been there, animals are good at that you see a deer and it becomes part of the woods in seconds and isn't there any more even though it must be there really. A few paddle strokes and I was back to lumbering over the land ungainly awkward and as I drove away I could see that I too was just gone as if I had never been there but that is an illusion like the animals we leave little bits of ourselves behind every where we go - the odd hair, a few threads from our clothes, some cast off skin cells, some food in a few mosquitos tummies that will leave a legacy of moelcules in generations of offspring, a tiny tiny bit of my garden maybe off the bottom of my shoes, rubber from my tyres atishooo more cells cast into the world before I head home... I almost gone and never gone; there by proxy through a scatter of little legacies. I guess some bits might make it through the dam down the river and into the sea to join all the other bits I and you have left in the sea. My take on the world is sort of scientist with a hint of maybe, but when I start to think long term I am more scientist - a few billion years pass where am I where are all the bits that were me... Joni rekoned stardust and golden - that seems about right to me and quite a pretty thing to be too.

Baleo evening

It took a bit of effort to drag Callum out this evening but it was worth it when we got to Baleo the tide was right out and we all had a whale of a time. There are some great rocks to play hide and seek chase around and the water was very moito frio brrrr chillly toes too cold for us but not for the boys and lovely warm sun.

each end of the beach was a lot cooler than the middle bit quite a significant difference really, hmmm play at the ends where its cool but the rocks are better or play in the middle where its warm but there are less good playing rocks ...sometimes there are hard choices to make in life.

We stopped at a little mirador on the headland just North of the beach to watch the sunset - a mirador is a little place with some bits of granite to sit on and a view to look at and bits of rubbish on the ground to step around. The view was good nice and heathery with dramatic rocks The path is much steeper than it looks oh no you wouldn't want to slip if it were wet and the rocks are a lot larger and further away than they look Oh for a little plastic cow for scale you never have one to hand when you need one.and we almost nearly saw a whale and someting else in the sea while the sky did a lovely paint job on the van and then it did it on the other side too...look that is my arm - well framed photo... almost but it would be a lovely paint job IMO..well without the arm or well maybe that would make it special and Arty as in ..oh look he put in the arm ...yes the arm and a hint of hand but not the camera hmmm clever ey ...was it really his arm; was that the arm that took the picture or is there another photographer out of shot and tricking us... or is it a birdwatcher with binoculars that happened to accidentally caught in shot.... oh yes thers more too it ..must be very Arty that one ....What is Art by the way ???

Then I played the flute for a few moments root tooty toot but unlike Mr Magnolia I had more than one boot and Callum wanted a photo and sometimes you just have to let them when they are that age. Older... getting much older springs to mind when I see a photo like that. That is my favourite shirt just now btw I havent had a favourite shirt for around 12 years til this one came along its just right soft cottony always to hand like something I always had and just grew into recently.On the way home we decided these new trees down probably have something to do with why the phone has stopped working but rather strangely the internet is fine....hmmm a mystery there to be solved I am off to see Violetta tomorrow and find out what is going on with telefonica - telenonica would be more accurate. Its grand when you phone up there is an English speaking service but you have to get past three Castilliano speaking operators, they all speak different Castillian to what is spoke around here and it is hard understanding them as yet because they do LL as an llye sound but here it is more of a j sound doesn't sound a lot but a few other variances and it all goes to gobbldegook any way its always three of those before you get to the English one who usually doesn't speak English beyond hello sorry what is your number sorry there is no problem or if ou ar every lucky they might say we are working on it.
Then there was another potential phone line problem causing tree ouch unexpected flashback of light on the windscreen wrong time to take a photo but no we didn't nearly crash then we were home and hungry but tomorrow is another day.