Friday 30 March

Where does the time go?????????? I don´t have access to the Internet unless I come into Sober and use the one at the Library which is painfully slow but does mean I meet people and the librarian, Julia, is lovely. Don´t want to overload you all with too much but here goes. The journey was smooth as was the sea crossing thank goodness. Alas when I arrived my collapsed wall that my neighbours had told me about was a bit more collapsed than I expected.

I totally agree with what Aranya told me in an email in that I can now open up the room with a large window and doorway to let the light in to what would have been a very dark area and the doorway could lead out into a brilliant zone 1 growing area - I´m getting good at this positive thinking! By accident I´ve been introduced to different people who say they will start working on repairing the wall before the roof collapses completely but I guess they are working on a different time scale as they still haven´t appeared and it´s been raining heavily. The nights have been cold but it´s great hearing the owls.

Neighbours have been wonderful - feeding us and visiting us to make sure we´re doing ok. There are three elderly ladies in the next village who walk up nearly everyday to check in on us. Two English neighbours came over to help weild the chain saw which I´m too scared to touch but fire wood is needed. Hillary and John live in a village up the hill and also helped clear the corner by the old pear tree which is spurting into

growth again. I´ve measured up for the design but as usual I had to get going as time is moving on and I needed somewhere to put in the plants. I chose a manageable area on the corner of the house and have also started some beds at the back. Pepe who has his finca next to us told me not to touch the grape vines at the back of the house as he and another neighbour Tomas will come and prune them for me. I did suggest they could show me how to do it but this time they said I could just watch them - grape vines are precious things here.

Here I skimmed off the top surface of grass and put down a mulch of cardboard and bracken which they use a lot of here. I´ve used old wood to build up raised beds but it´s not exactly been a low energy input yet!

One dilemma I have is that there is lovely walnut tree in the garden which Megan´s swing sits in and which gives us great shade. However I have been told they can grow up to 45 metres and that the leaves give off a chemical to inhibit other plants to grow near it which isn´t going to help my vegetables so to cut it down or not ?????? I have also read that it takes at least 10 years for them to fruit and we have had some good walnuts off it. I have set my seeds on the ledge in the galeria but to be honest it has been very cold so it will be a while before they get going.

I made some nettle soup and with each mouthful I was amazed not to have stung my mouth and even more suprised as to how tasty it was. I will go a gathering more nettles soon. It is the wine festival in Sober this weekend which I´m sure will be loud and colourful. Must rush on to talk about the Permaculture course as there is a time limit for access on the computer.