Our bomba and Primavera in vilarrube

Our bomba is a water pump it is an ancient and gawky looking thing and has given up, a very nice man came to see it this evening after Sam and I had tried temporary alternatives, he agreed with our diagnosis its the gubbins that dissapear down the pipe where the problem lies and that means me phoneing some one miles away who is a specialist in old gawky pump undeground gubbins, a Galician Fred Dibnah image forms and me pushing the limits of my Spanish and leading to total confusion ah well this is not a high point so I looked through iPhoto and found some of Vilarrube. Here they are but first here is the gawky pump magnificent in inaction and in a small lake of rust.
It's a great car park at vilarrube beach, the old willows are turning into green fountains.
Green fountains
Eucalyptus+ dunes that are just starting to come alive.
Piney bits and the curry plant that gives these dunes a wonderful aroma all year round.
That path again it is silver and glistens in sunlight but makes great shapes in any light. Easy to be distracted by the shape of the path and end up with a sloping horizon hrrrm.

And there's another bit of it, that is what you see if you are about to fall off the edge. Its not very far and Rowan does it a lot.
I have seen a greater range of ripple patterns at Vilarrube than anywhere else, these are called mountainy peoply ones by my boys.
And just a few meters away 'strangyer winded ones'. Oh how glorious the unhindered languge of the young.
Oh look there's something, its a bung fom a boat ...its a big bung...oh dear...what happened to the boat? We all look around for the boat that isnt there and hasn't got a story for us.Sorry there are rather a lot of ripples, ghosty shadowy ones here.The boys went swimming, its very shallow at low tide but there are dangerous deep holes and nasty curents when the tide is running. Jenny and I watched - its not that warm yet.
DIfferent willows in the distance.
Euphorbia is colouring up well but don't touch its very irritating and definitly don't roll in it getting the sap all over your face.
Stock just starting to appear in early March it does smell stronger in the evening but is scented all day.
Good I have forgotten all aboute the broken bomba now.

Oh go on just one more lot of ripple sand, these have blobely bits in them.

THe weather man says it sgoing to rain tomorrow and forte vento we won't be short of water then....always look on the bright side of life te tum te tum ..

Universities and technology

David Lammy, the minister of state for higher education recently said, “Students are all on Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, i-Phones and
i-Pads for their social life and their university experience is still
divorced from that […] Universities have to be advancing technology.”

Our BA Learning through Technology (BA LtT) course is the latest evolution of the BA LTR that started back in 2003 it is fully online and designed to draw on this potential as will the Masters we are designing at the moment. In our online communities on a daily basis I see evidence that our BA LtT students are using these kind of technologies and a lot more. Some of our students use their iPhones as their main interface with the conversational aspects of our course logging into FirstClass Client via the iPhone app. I see discussions about places they go to shrink pictures, draw diagrams, make comic strips, animations, videos, design and conduct surveys, build whole websites or presentations, and I see the results when they bring the files into their online assessment portfolios. The outputs from online tools are becoming as common in assessment portfolios as the time tested MS Word and PowerPoint. As part of a module activity during the first semester on the course many of our students make a blog to use primarily as a reflective learning journal; some go on to use their blog to share their work in progress, gather peer review and to showcase their completed work. We have students posting videos on youtube as part of their peer review activities, posting presentations to disseminate their research online and gathering feedback data online.

Using these tools is no longer the realm of the techno-geek it is today's way of life for many. From where I am standing it seems that divorcing students' university experience from this world is to look at life through yesteryear's eyes. Universities who do not evolve to adopt this world might risk becoming lonely dusty hollow halls ..talking of which... on our course we don't use lecture theaters, we don't need need expensive flashy buildings with huge concrete footprints, students study from wherever they can get a phone signal or internet access - at work, at home, on the train, on holiday but never in a university building.

oh dear deer

The boys went for a walk with Jen today and met a deer rather in a tangle, I was called in for a rescue but it was rather a lively deer with pointy antlers so we decided to go tell some one. After being passed from one neighbour to another I ended up at a house with a very bemused mujer, she eventually cottoned on to my story once I managed to get a pencil and paper out of her an do some little maps and sketches. She said thank you kindly my hubby is out but he will be back in a little while with his gun. Oh yes of course he will Oh drat I didn't see that one coming. Poor little Bambi er rotten little pest er lovely freezer full of meat.

Campelo

Just a few minutes south of Valdovino this is a wonderful little spot very popular in the summer but fine this time of year. There is a little waterfall next to the steps down to lovely granite rocks and golden sand it felt very like Nanjizal in the far West of Cornwall.

And a few stacks like the Irish Lady off Pedn Maen Du Near Land's End.

The boys discovered a cave that lead to a secret grotto.

And they could not not get wet.

We made a labyrinth

and a Mago

And we walked the maze
Looked at the rocks and thought they were almost Porth Nanven rocks
Sam managed to catch a few waves but I dod not manage to get any good photos of him.

Then a quick goodbye to the magic grotto.

chop chop

We remembered our wedding anniversary a day early this year, friend arrived early evening and we played boy games with a chainsaw and an axe, the axe was not much slower than the chainsaw on small trees but did make more blisters anyway it looked a bit like this a few days ago
and now it looks like this
We did precision chopping - watch out for that baby chestnut tree it will be part of the new forest that grows to replace the eucalyptus...whirrr zzzzuzzz zizzz zzzziizzz eeeeeeeee crump woohoo perfecto. we did bend a few little oaks and chestnuts but they will survive. we landed one right between two new cherry trees with no damage too - that was a fortunate accident though.
The hen house even survived, we are hoping to be able to keep the few still standing at the bottom end as specimen trees as they are part of the boys tree house adventure park place. Blimey that is a lot of leaves to dispose of too, they rot down to a horrid black nasty compost.


There are still another 40 or so at the top end due to come down this weekend...we have many weeks worth of sawing and chopping ahead of us before they become a lifetime supply of firewood. I intend doing 30 mins every lunch break ad infinitum.