school

Not a great day at school, neither of the boys wanted to go in this morning and when we picked Rowan up after school he had cut a couple of large holes in his trousers because he was fed up with getting blamed for what others were doing and at all the shouting from the teacher and Callum's teacher says he has no books - that is the 130 euros worth of books I gave the teacher yesterday in a plastic bag "Ah los libros; bien" she smiled at me yesterday, I am not impressed with her memory at the moment.

BTW thanks for the messages requesting membership - no time to play tonight so I will make changes tomorrow.

ciao

Rowan birthday

Rowan had a wonderful birthday with parcels from the UK arrivng just in time on the day.

He was muy contento

Enjoyed his first cake and the next one

That is a volcano in case you were wondering

He was pleased to have help with the blowing out and some other cakes arrived too

 

It was a tad windy so I knocked up a windbreak and we hung a Panyata fom it, Coco is over just now it was great to see him again I haven't hardly seen him since I taught him in primary school.

It wasn't too windy for watersliding though

We also did parachute games 

this was a huddling game I think

And we did rolling toddlers in a blanket

here they are two babes in tartan. all in all it was a great day - Callum has a birthday next month and wants to go 10 pin bowling - he has just discovered the SImpsons...Doh!

Going private

GoingtoGalicia started out as a way of keeping friends and family informed about our move, Clustrmaps is showing me a widening readership particularly since the lyme disease posts. Given the personal nature of some of the information in the archives I am going to keep the blog available to friends and family and other known contacts but close it to public access from this Wednesday. Could anyone wishing to retain access post a comment in reply to this thread, comments will not be published but, if email addresses are included, will enable me to set membership.

I will develop the View from Valdovino blog in a more anonymous form that will still provide some insight into life out here although due to work commitments this is unlikely to start until next week.

baking

We have spent much of the last week or so trying to sort our tax and social security status in Spain out, it has been rather complicated but we are making some progress at last and we have been getting the children ready for school, A bit of a shock when we picked up the school books...almost 300 euros worth and I don't think we will be able to claim any of it back again. Today must be the hottest day of the year it was a misty sunrise,although we seem to sit in a lovely clear gap with mist above, below and all around us.

that is usually a good indication of hot weather ahead and it just went on getting hotter and hotter, now its around 6 pm and everything out side is singing hot, way too hot to go out really.

 

Rowan did some more work on our tree house that is now going to be a sort of pirate sailing ship  in the woods hopefully.

The pumpkins are coming along well and the hens are on regular caterpillar hunting duty in the cabbages just now. 

One of our Brugmansias is starting to flower we did not expect it too in its first year hopefully tomorrow the first one will be open.

Lugo Province, lack of electricity and some card games

We visited Lugo province for the first time recently, we stayed in a quiet little campsite at Monterroso, it was adjacent to a lovely little municipal recreation area with a clean looking river swimming pool and stepped waterfall right along side a turquoise chlorinated type of pool and a good sized area for toddlers to play in the water too. We are still having camera troubles so we don't have many pics.

Between the campsite and the pool are some relics of the ancient watermills.

 

The water was cold but the sun was hot so the boys stayed in for quite a while. 

There were also some traditional kids things. They were handy when we realised that our van had a flat battery in the morning...the alternator saga has been going on and on ...

 After a rescue by a local car electrician who amazingly refused to take any money for inspecting the alternator and charging the battery over night we chugged along eyes on the voltmeter and popped into the Zoo near Outeiro de Rei and found some impressive wood carvings starting with the huge entrance gate there are some imaginative enhancements of the natural shapes of ancient trees that have been long dead and some good use of granite starting to emerge as they develop new areas. I don't know who the artists were but we were all impressed. Sam and Mel took more pictures I hope to get some from them to put up here soon.

 

And animals of course

and a play house for Lorena

 and swings for Lorena

 

and more animals

It were a grand day out for sure but stopping at the zoo was a mistake there is a big drain starting a 2.8 diesel engine and we ran out of low tension circuit power after about 20 mins. Sam noticed I was not behind him anymore and backtracked - 15 mins with jump leads from Sam's engine charging our battery and we had enough to make it home.

We have spent weeks trying to sort out replacement medical cards, illness, administrative brick walls and our misunderstanding of the conditions applying in each country leave us with our UK issued cards running out tomorrow just as Rowan gets his second blood test results and they decide what to do next.  Lots of things could have gone wrong today - I battled a nest of angry wasps dressed in shorts and wellies (they had stripy T Shirts on as well) and won with only two  minor stings, it was getting ridiculous we had 5 stings between us in the morning before I accidentally discovered the nest with a strimmer.  I also wielded the new chainsaw's vorpal blade and chopped a dozen trees skillfully managing to keep all of my parts intact, we set off to do a major shop in Ferol armed with two charged batteries and made it back with only minutes of power left then four hours from the dealine wher our medical cards run out I managed to fall quite heavily simply by stepping into a strap handle of the inflatable kayak bag, left carelessly lying across the workshop floor, and turning round and trying to walk back again, both feet were trapped and strapped together at the ankle and down I went a victim of a classic rugby tackle by a big heavy grey bag all my weight onto my left knee on to an edge where the concrete changes level. Its swollen and painful but I don't think I need treatment however it was a timely reminder of how easily accidents can happen...I really need to sort out medical cover of some sort tomorrow morning how ever telefonica have still not agreed to transfer our calls back to talktalk (free calls to to UK for 15 euros a month) so I have to ring the UK via skype and a variable internet connection oh joy I hope I get someone who knows what they are talking about for a change.

Weather continues to be hot but I swear I can hear a swell breaking at Pantin so I expect some weather is on the way in the next few days - the ground could do with a drink.