What's this?

Can anyone identify this visitor to my terrace for me?

Photofest

I haven't been taking many photos these last few months, but here are some of the few I did snap. Make the most of them becasue my camera seems to have given up its hold on life and no amount of persuading can get it to work -  believe me, I've tried.

Oviedo city council opt for the cheapest solution - Woody Allen, now completely devoid of glasses.

March skies and Redes mountains

March snow

Fruit from the garden. The berries and plums have all been scoffed and I'm about to make a start on the pears.

Feeding greedy sheep though the garden fence.

A neighbour's lambs

A different neighbour's donkey and a two-week old... erm, what's the word for a baby donkey? Donkette?

Still curious

And still friends

By Popular Demand...

...sort of. OK, that's a lie - I don't have the readership for popular demand. Enjoy anyway, and excuse the mud stockings.

Here's your more stereotypical Spanish cow:

And, seen on the same walk, an alternative for those of you who don't do bovine.

This little piggy...

Last weekend we went round to Matt's dad's for lunch. The meal was as good as always, but the title of this post does not refer to my good self and the amount of food I scoffed (although, admittedly, it could). No, the heading refers to the highlight of the day:

A pair of Vietnamese pot-belllied pigs seen on the post-prandial walk we undertook to help lunch go down. They belong to Matt's dad and Carolina's neighbours and both came running at the sight of us, or rather the food we were carrying for them, which disappeared in no time. The little one was a real sweetie and lay down and dozed while Carolina scratched it's neck.

It turned out to be an animal-filled stroll after that: we were offered a four-year old Dacshund with a slipped disc by another neighbour. We politely declined, fearful of the wrath of our cats. And then we met a beautiful Siamese-tortoiseshell cross who was quite happy to be picked up and stroked, despite the yappy Basset Hound pup she was sharing her barn with.

We almost topped the day off with a camel or two on the drive back - they were appearing the the local town's Xmas Parade (the 6th January is when everyone gets their presents in Spain). We missed them, however, as we purposefully turned in the opposite direction and headed home, bellies full and thinking of cute black pigs.

Three excuses for a cat

We went camping last week while Sue and Simon were visiting (more about that in my next post) and our cats made sure we had a welcome present to come home to, although we didn't find it until yesterday evening. A live mouse. In the pantry. Somebody must've brought it in and then got tired of playing with it (this is Elbi's style and I suspect she was the culprit). It seems it was very soon allowed to make itself at home in the brown rice and, as we were greatly disappointed to discover, also nibbled on our only bar of favourite Lidl chocolate. Just what our three felines were doing while the mouse was living it up I have no idea but they certainly weren't earning their keep.

The first thing we knew about it was when Matt saw it climbing up to the top shelf in the pantry yesterday evening and it was left to me to don gloves and get the step ladder to find the little beast. Matt's solution of putting Beeps up there failed miserably when all she did was sit and gaze down upon us from her new throne. Fortunately the mouse had scurried into an old box we kept up there so it was just a matter of taking the box outside and releasing it.

While I've been writing this Matt called up from the lounge to declare there's a vole hiding under the fire. No-one would ever know this was a three-cat household! They're hopeless. It's hidden itself under there somwhere but we can't see it. Elbi, however, as you can see, has taken it upon herself to make up for her earlier mousey misdemeanours.

Puds, bugs and flowers

Some photos I've taken this week:

We went for a walk up by the lakes behind the house one morning. Everything seemed to be flowering.

There are many different types of orchid in Asturias - these seem to be the most common.

Wonderful, large dog daisies.

We get lots of foxgloves around here too. Something I very rarely saw in the British countryside.

The lakes were covered with a mist that was blowing down the valley. If you watched for long enough, it seemed that it was the mountain moving, not the mist.

The mist cleared later and the horses appeared for a drink, as if they'd been waiting for that exact moment.

On the way back we stopped to give some dandelion leaves to the neighbours young hens.




Back home, our roses are flowering.



Beetles are common round here too - big ones - this is about medium-sized by our standards.



And finally, two very good friends dozing on the terrace.

A Bears' Picnic

As promised in my last post here is what we got up to last Sunday while Dawn and Rich were visiting. We went to see bears. To be more specific, two Cantabrian brown bears named Paca and Tola.

These two bears were found 18 years ago after their mother had illegally been shot and killed by hunters. As a threatened species, and because they were too young to survive on their own they had to be hand-reared and could then not be released back into the wild as they were too used to humans, and hunters were still a very real threat. Instead, a five-hectare enclosure was built for them - in their natural habitat, the same area that other brown bears are to be found, in the Proaza area. This is in the mountains to the west of where we live, about an hour's drive away. There's also a walking/cycling route along the valley that passes by the enclosure (I've read accounts of the bears following walkers on the other side of the fence), we intend to take the bikes next time we visit and make a day if it. By last Sunday, I had been wanting to visit for a long time and we all rather excited when we arrived.

Every day at twelve the bears are fed by the warden who looks after them and people can watch. We arrived just before twelve to find the two of them tirelessly pacing back and forth, waiting for food. The warden arrived and opened their feeding enclosure into which they eagerly scurried. What amazed me most was how they ate their food. I was expecting them to chomp down and scoff everything quickly, but no. They took apples and pears from the hand of the warden with the greatest care, opened oranges up with their claws and gently scraped the flesh out, then meticulously shelled peanuts before popping them into their mouths.

It really was wonderful to watch. After about half an hour most people left, but we stayed transfixed by two creatures that looked very cuddly and cute, although we could sense the power behind those padded paws and the damage they could do. At the end, one of the bears refused to leave; she wanted more food but they always refuse to give them too much in order to force them to look for other sources and keep their diet as natural and varied as possible. Because she was so stubborn the warden got out a hose pipe with a water pistol on the end and gave her a good hosing down, although she decided that this was an excellent moment for a drink too.

I was very impressed with the way the warden 'presented' the bears. As they had only recently come out of hibernation they were over 40 kilos lighter, and much smaller, than they would have been in the autumn and did almost look like giant teddy bears. However, he made it clear that they were still wild animals and deserved to be treated with respect and caution. He never entered their feeding enclosure and always fed them through the bars. I normally don't hold with keeping wild animals captive, but in this case think an excellent solution was found with what to do with two bear cubs. The bears live in the most natural habitat as possible and at the same time the public are educated about them - there's a centre down the road dedicated to informing visitors about the Cantabrian Brown Bear, which has free entry, (neither do you have to pay to see the bears). According to the warden, numbers of the Cantabrian Brown Bear, which had dwindled to a dangerously low level, have now risen to a safer 170. Although this still seems a frighteningly low figure to me I find it comforting to know that the same children whose ancestors would've have hunted this animal are now being taught to respect it.

A wonderful rainy weekend

I was very excited last Friday and my friends Dawn and Rich were coming to visit from Llanelli. The weather last week had been wonderfully sunny, but, true to form, as I stepped out of work and looked up on Friday evening I saw a sky full of grey clouds. Even so, I raced home eagerly to meet my friends and prepare the BBQ we had previously planned.

I love it when friends come to visit. The thing I dislike most about living out here is not being able to see them as often as I used too. It's also good to get a visit as I can order a big package from Amazon to be sent to them for free to bring out for me instead of having to pay extra tax (4% on books and 16% on CDs and DVDs), plus a whopping postage fee to get it sent here. (As my mum is coming by car this year she's getting an extra big package!) So thanks Dawn and Rich for bringing my package out for me.


In true British style we had our BBQ despite the clouds, and the drizzling rain which started later on. It was a good job the clouds came down as our neighbours would've thought us most peculiar if they'd seem us sitting outside eating barbecued goodies under the awning in the miserable rain.


I have been inspired by Tortoiseshell to post this photo. This is our current favourite beer, which we happily consumed on Friday night. I hadn't come across it in Spain before I lived here, but am making up for it now. At 6.5% it's stronger than the usual Spanish cerveza with a much fuller flavour. Matt calls it a 'sipping beer', but I find it much to tasty to just sip, however hard I try.




Despite the late night and the dreary weather, we pulled ourselves out of bed on Saturday at not-too-late an hour. Revitalised in true Cardiff style by a fried-egg-sandwich breakfast we went for a walk to our favourite spot above the house. It was quite atmospheric up there with the low cloud, although we could've done without the constant drizzle. Compare this to the last time we were up there.





We still enjoyed ourselves up there. There was lots to see despite the clouds blocking the mountain views (poor Rich, I don't think he saw a single mountain while he was here. Dawn, who has visited before, kept telling him how lovely the views that he was missing were) and because of the rain everything had a fresh, green look to it.














There were lots of cobwebs everywhere that stood out because of the rain. I think these were the strangest that we saw - they covered numerous bushes. I presume they're there all the time but we normally don't see them in dry weather.




My favourite activity of the weekend by far took place on Sunday. We had to get up early and had planned an early night, but after going out for a lovely meal at a local bar/restaurant we had gone back home for a few more beers and ended up talking until the early hours. So we were a big groggy on the Sunday and navigation to a place we'd not been to before in the non-stop rain didn't help. However, we were determined to carry on as planned. And I shall tell you all where we went in my next post which will appear as soon as I have time to write it during what's turning into a very busy week.

A day at the beach and the rest of the week

We've had Matt's mum staying with us this last week, and yesterday, with the idea of showing her some of what Asturias has to offer, we went to our favourite beach at Vega.

Unfortunately, much of the Costa Verde, as the Asturian coastline is known, is becoming highly developed. However, due to the presence of some interesting geological formations, the land directly behind this beach is a protected area. This makes it very hard for even the most determined developer to get his dirty paws on it, no matter how many brown paper envelopes he produces. I'm keeping my finger crossed it remains this way because the beach is wonderfully unspoilt and, even at the height of summer, relatively quiet. The village of Vega is also very lovely as it's mostly traditional stone houses, many of them with walled gardens. If I ever come by a vast amount of money, this is where I would choose to own a house.

We passed several relaxing hours on the beach. I wasn't quite brave enough to go in the water - it was only the 21st April after all, and the water at Vega is never very inviting, even in September when it's been warming all summer. After that we hopped into the car and drove west along the coast to Llastres. Matt and I had driven through the village one cold, wet day in December when we first arrived in Asturias. We found the place much more to our liking yesterday. It's a Cornwallesque village, built on cliffs overlooking a harbour, and again, full of traditional houses. We had a beer in a bar overlooking the port while we drank up the view. I was tempted to change my 'ideal house location' to Llastres, but in the end decided Vega had the edge due to the large, peaceful beach and not being packed in summer. Still, were it to be offered, a house in Llastres would do me fine.

Above Llastres, looking towards the Picos de Europa.





Matt and I looking none too pleased to be photographed.




Houses overlooking the harbour.


Also this week we've made it up to the land above the house for a quick walk before I had to have lunch and dash off to work. We normally only go on days when I'm not working, but it was so relaxing I shall make a point of getting up there more often on work days. Despite it being hectic at the Academia this last week - the sun has made the students more boisterous - the weather has put me in an excellent mood, as can be evinced by my springing out of bed at a vaguely decent hour.




Taken from our terrace this week. Early morning (for us anyway) cloud in the valley.




On our morning walk.


A slow worm, seen on the way back from our walk.


A recent sunset. Since the clocks have gone forward I can sometimes get back home from work in time to enjoy them.