Sunday 11 December 2011

Let Us Get Together.....



Here's John Wayne, as I call him. In theory, the stray/feral cats are his. At least they live in woodpiles etc., around his finca home. I've even seen him throw them the odd scrap of fish on occasion. But he takes no responsibility in reality for the poor bleeders and watches my feeding them with barely concealed amusement. If he accepted responsibility for them, he'd be obliged by Spanish law to both microchip and anti-Rabies them all, at considerable expense. It must surely be sensible to have the adults neutered!:



I was up on the Ragua pass, at about 2000 metres, leading over the hills towards Granada, and came across this thing. It had solar panels on top and also out alongside it and a diesel generator running full-tilt, breaking the peace. Needless to say, it was a Brit, huddled inside with a cup of tea or some'at. Very noisy whatever!:






Impossible to get Blogger to put pix where wanted without huge effort, dragging etc! Absolutely pain in arse, so will try loading some in andtexting around them, as GZ suggested a while back. There we are, for example. The above photo should have been following this text but inserts at top of page....always! In fact the new Blogger is crap, so I must change to Wordpress I think!

The weather here remains sunny and warm, with temps hovering around the low 20s for most of the day. It does, however, get chilly when the sun sinks and, having managed to get a load of wood, -(Olive, not my favourite) I need the wood-burner in the evenings now. 'Tis pleasant to sit with me feet up and a glass of plonk in front of the fire, Jack snuffling at my feet and Charlie sprawled on my lap. Snug and cosy, for the most part. I pop down to the bar for the odd beer and Tapas and make forays into the nearby town of Cadiar from time to time for supplies and Cat & Dog food. There's a Brit shop-cum-cafe that sells tinned Haggis (I kid you not) and a variety of over-priced UK foodstuffs on the outskirts of the place. I stop for coffee there from time to time and the owners are very nice, friendly people. It certainly attracts the Brits in considerable numbers on a daily basis.


Having got talking to the owners I was amazed to learn that they moved here from Glasgow and, in fact, lived very, almost scarily, close to where I was brought up, a few hundred yards away. A surprising discovery for us all, including my old mate from London, who also lived there before moving South about 30 years ago, and Kenny Dalglish who was in my class at school with us. Here he is, (not Kenny) being an idiot (as usual for a recently retired university lecturer) in Malaga and on the road down to the coast:







One of the neighbours has a sign up, presumably in preparation for the Xmas market here. Live Rabbits for sale: and here they are hopping innocently around in near-Stygian gloom. I assume the big lad in the cage at the back is the prize stud:




The sight of this lot reminded me of our time in Sweden when, for a while in deepest winter, we looked after our Kraut neighbours' huge, expanding bunch of bunnies. They took them up there from Germany with a view to breeding them for meat. In the end they ate none of them, but spent a lot on feedstuff and, with about twenty of the boogers running riot in a large specially constructed area, finally gave up and, I believe, simply killed the lot and fed them to the local Fox population in the surrounding forest:



This is my old buddy, one I used to feed in the garden every day during our last spell there in winter. It's already pretty cold up there with a forecast minus 20 today. Oddly enough, you do get used to it and it is often pretty spectacular:



Me, I'm still looking out for a Turkey. Must be possible........

3 comments:

  1. A wonderful post as always.

    How's panda cat? Is he still accepting a stroke or two?

    Isn't it a small world, all of you coming from Glasgow?

    Sft x

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  2. Hi SFT: Panda cat is being really quite friendly. No problems stroking her now at all. If I wasn't so worried about upsetting Charlie I'd just grab her by the scruff and move her indoors. But Charlie is now, suddenly, behaving normally and might take umbrage. And I do adore him so! In addition, I don't know what John Wayne would think of such a move!

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  3. The last picture is the real christmas tree!
    I'm not going to try the new blogger format.
    If you do go to Wordpress, non-Wordpress users can't comment without signing up to wordpress.....

    ReplyDelete