bathroom

Sunday was hot so I thought well its time to do the old bathroom it won't take long then I can get into the garden. The sink came out in about an hour, could have done it in ten mins had I just started by smashing it up rather than pussyfooting around, very rusty brackets and mmm nice lead pipe work.

No sheet of damp plywood fitted above the floor level casing the tiny little bath in that takes minutes to remove, no not that easy just a solid wall of bricks and rock hard mortar.

So after another hour I went out and looked at some blossom...

Ahh plums in the making...

And peaches. 

Back to the bath, not only was it on a brick wall there were brick walls on all 4 sides and it has been set into the house wall too so I had to cut carefully into the walls all round the sides to free it, then found that the base had been settled nicely into wet concrete too rather than standing in the little metal cradles that all other baths I have ever had to remove have been on...another three hours and it was out to show a gaping hole in the floor full of sopping wet brick work ah so thats where the damp in the walls was coming from; the lead waste pipe has been leaking for many years I think and in a dead unventilated space there was no where for the damp to go. 

So its time to say- you can't make a tortilla with out breaking eggs.

UK and back again

After the hire car fiasco it was lovely to see the garden in Sussex looking like Spring is on its way.

 The day before I had to leave we had a trip to East Head where the beaches are long and wide, if a tad chilly although the boys ran around a lot and eventually ended up in their Tshirts.

 Good skimmy stones too.

 Lovely marshes but I missed the wild geese flyovers every time.

 It was not Tshirt weather in my opinion

 Classic Sussex coast scene

 Looking West towards Hayling Island and Portsmouth

 Back in Galicia and that huge pile of wood that took ages to collect now looks like a load of matchsticks

 Peach blossom is looking lovely

 Where the wood was...nearly ready to start replanting after a bit more tidying and strimming

 Wild flowers are appreciating the extra light

 as are the little oak trees

 Rhubarb is not usually something I like however this one was really sweet and tender after a week or so under a big bucket. I simmered it with some membrillo and bananas and added it to rice pudding.

 Anemones are flourishing

 One of my sculptures starting to settle in

 Hopefully this year we will have our first mandarins

 A walk down Vilarrube at night was an interesting excursion, the pictures were not purposeful but a few look ok; my torch ran out so I had to use the flash on the camera to see where I was going and check for wild boar.

Today got off to a flaming start

 Eucalyptus are slowly being cleared and the landscape is changing apart from the ones next to our house that should have been cleared in 2007.

18C predicted today, they said 15C yesterday and it got up to 22 so it might well be a hot one again.

not nice hire car

Hired  car from Heathrow last week...a young man spent a while trying to persuade me to pay around £15 a day to reduce the damage waiver, it sounded like they would charge me the whole £650 for the slightest damage so I asked if I did the kind of scratch a garage might charge me £20 for would I be charged £650, no I wouldn'tt he said. Then after a pause told me that that kind of scratch would be likely to be charged at £200. Stunned I still did not pay the extra, took my keys and headed out to the car to see a bit more than my idea of a £20 scratch; a multiple mess to the wheel arch. Flattened arch detail, a dent, a lot of white undercoat showing and some black under other scratches. It was not marked on the damage record sheet, I walked around the car to see another small dent further back and numerous scratches several through to metal. 

That would cost more than £20 but was not marked...Not really through the paint we wouldn't charge for that.

mmmm looks like two colours showing there to me...ok I will mark it.

A dent..not really...a dent...OK its a dent....

My idea of more than £20 again

 And again

 Ok he marked three of them I have another 8 photos of the other ones but I won't bore you any more with paint pics, I was getting really late to pick Jen up now so opened the door. Peeeuuw dogsmell and yuk something spilled down the door lining.

 Ah at least the dogs were in the back not the front, dirty seat belts and plastic trim and dog hairs on the seat.

 And dog hairs, crumbs, general stickyness ...

 That doesn't look too bad just double click and view full size a mo, chocolate, fizzy drink spills, stickyness and loads of crumbs and grime.

 Thats just the kind of stuff that happens, its hard not to get into a car with mud on your feet at this time of year...It has not bee cleaned; I am not happy...Its the only one we have got.

So now, 40mins later than I hoped to leave, I gave up, took the car and noticed the steering wheel was sticky as I drove away shuddering.

Pascal

I heard some readings from teenage diaries on the radio then a few days later found a bit from one of mine.


A response to Pascal’s wager.


Love is not worship 
not ritual of blood and wine
nor offering of silver of gold
these are just the things we can use
to make us feel fine.
Waste no time on praise
pay no heed to artifice
more important by far is
a gift of laughter offered in silence
a smile to ease the tears of a child 
a hand held out to a stranger in need
love pays no heed to reward.


Together 
We play life’s game on a field of infinite truths; why use your truth to separate ‘us’ into ‘me' and 'you’?
I is I and I will I stay, neither will I stop you being you.
You say choose this and blindly follow Abraham’s God, If I do there is nothing to lose and all to gain.
You dismiss all others as inferior – what if you are wrong?
You use probability to enforce behaviour; is faith something we can choose to choose? 
I should live my life as if your god exists, just in case he does; would my poor acting deceive your god?
I offer you the wager I will test: If I spend time being and doing good, if I measure my life by the laughter and joy I bring into the lives of others then if your god or any god exists they will approve regardless of my lack of ritual.

Out and about by the sea

Lovely start to the day I slept in but I have been up til 4ish for a few nights so i deserved it. 

I did a couple of hours of strimming then had to go get some strimmer stuff in Valdovino, the sea looked good so I headed over to Pantin and it was good. 

Baleo was breaking outside, that is pretty big but doesn't look it, big as in if our Delica could float you could fit a couple of them in tandem driving up the face of the wave.

Its not easy pointing the camera the right way when driving and why do tracks never look bumpy or steep on video? 

 Spent the rest of the morning strimming then went out to Vilarrube to meet Sam, Mel and Lorena. Here is a view from the top of the hill for a change. I got to the bottom just as they arrived on the other road.

 And the big empty space down below

 What look like ripples when viewed from the dunes are rather wonderful just the right size for winter waves.

 It was hard to pick out which one was Sam but this one definitely is.

 Hi 5

 Over on the cliffs just North of Baleo the sky was wonderful.

and the cliffs were wonderful

More waves not looking as big as they were. The passing seagulls are a few tens of meters in front of me  the waves are 300 meters to several kilometres away.

Mostly mist and ripples

Warm colours in the mist this morning

 Most of it sweeps across the fields below us, even on a windless morning it flows from East to West like a gentle river.

 Most of the day was spent sawing and moving, odd how huge sections of trunk just look like matchsticks in a photo.

 Little bit of over heating from the van after hauling this not because of the weight more because I was too busy trying to film out of the back door to look where I was driving and bounced over a few stumps that dislodged the wedge of wood that keeps the alternator tensioned, the belts went slack and the water pump stopped turning, a couple of whacks and the wedge was reinstated and all was well again.

As the sun started to get lower I nearly didn't but then did spent 30 mins on Vilarrube, there were lots of ripples and some strange blue light that turned sepia as I headed back to the car park.

 Sandworms heading North

This is the sort of lagoon that forms behind the main beach, and becomes a lot of sand with a river at low tide.

 The patterns on the surface are mirrored on the sea bed below.

 I could almost snowboard down that if it was more than a meter across.

 Over a few minutes the sun lost its power the mist formed and the temperature dropped

 Thats what makes those little holes in the sand, air bubbling up after a wave rolls back.

 And where the wave doesn't reach the holes can't form.

 Smellovision shot, the curry plants are the dominant smell just now, some elegant solitary grasses around too.

 They smelled good too, very like the ones we had in the garden in Cornwall although the form is different.

 4 more days like that and I should have the trees stacked in 3 meter lengths, next will be sorting the flue then updating a bathroom and lots of tidying.