I usually leave the van in here when I leave Cornwall
But it will have to survive a summer outdoors.
There are new residents building a nest in the garage and I don’t want to risk disturbing them nor provide a ledge for cats to lie in wait. It’s the first time they have nested in there, using the broken window at the front and with an emergency exit through an air vent at the back. Hopefully when I get back here they will have a large family preparing to fly south.
Sorry there are no swallow pictures – I waited for a long time at the window but they chattered loudly on the wires and waited equally patiently for me to go away!
My last night. Cleaning the house. Saying goodbye to the dogs – yet again. A visit from Dandelion my beautiful ginger cat, he now lives next door but must have known that I am leaving soon.
Thinking back over the long list of things that I have done in the last two weeks all I regret is that I didn’t go for more walks with Bonnie on the coast path or lie down more doing nothing with Blue who has been too wobbly to go further than the bottom of the lane.
Except when we went to the vet!
After we came out she took off down to the promenade and insisted on a long walk beside the sea
The Jubilee Pool has beautiful flags this year
Let’s go then!
I’m off!
Shall we stop here for a bit?
I will be back soon but two and a half months is a long time in the life of a dog, especially when you are almost 15. And a long time for me too.
Welcome to Virtual Vermut – a time to relax and have a drink and a chat. At least I will be chatting and I hope you will join in but I won’t know what you’re saying unless you write in and tell me!
Tonight I am actually going to have a whisky – it’s a bit chilly here for a vermut and ice. Here is Blue guarding the bottle in front of the fire.
If I was sitting here with you I’d probably find it hard to get started. Lots has been going on this week and especially inside my head but I can’t put it into order. I wonder if this is a common experience for people who have moved to another country when they go back ‘home’?
Here is my ‘office’ the only place I can get onto the internet as my neighbour kindly lets me use hers when I am here.
The picture at the top of the stairs is too small. This one would be better…………………
Karen Wade painting
I saw it in an exhibition in Penzance. It’s by Karen Wade and she has her first solo exhibition in the Stoneman Gallery. I was reading Cornwall Today in the dentists waiting room and when I saw photos of these paintings and knew I must go and see them in real life. Only just resisted buying one – now is not the time for splashing out.
My head has been buzzing with plans. I want to move properly to Catalunya and this means I need to bring my dogs over, including 15 year old Blue. Before that happens I need to sort out my house and that could take a few months – you can’t tie up a life and home in just two weeks…..or I can’t.
While thinking, I have been getting out and about. The weather has been good so I went with a friend to see Surfing Tommies at the Minack theatre. Outside the ticket office there was a forest of echium
That night it was windy and wild with rain showers thankfully only lasting a few minutes. I enjoyed the performance but hit my boredom level at least half an hour before it finished.
But the place is so beautiful it’s easy to forgive almost anything
Bonnie likes to go walking and doesn’t get out so much now so I took her along the coastal path from Mousehole. For once she didn’t bark at the horses and they were too curious to be afraid of dogs
I’m not usually lost for words and really I wonder if you’d be better going to see Bodhi Chicklet straight away to see if she has any vermut or perhaps something stronger. I am boring myself. All I think about is lists of things to do and in what order to do them.
This visit I have spoken to two other friends who also have left to make lives in different countries. It’s not just me who finds it hard to get the right balance. Friendships are disrupted, people get miffed, if you have a home you come back to lots of tiddly but awkward maintenance jobs, a mound of mail with nasty surprises and not enough time to sort it all out. You need delicacy and tact when talking about your new life. Too much enthusiasm sounds like you are critisising the old; too much complaining sounds like you’re not grateful. Emotionally it is tiring – everything familiar but also strange. You are here but you are absent. People want to see you but sometimes, because they miss you, they behave strangely.
Sometimes animals are easier. Cats are especially relaxing. Dandelion – the best cat in the world.
Apart from all this I’d like to tell you that I have been thinking about my other home and about what is happening in Plaça Catalunya and feeling sad that these peaceful and creative protests almost always end up being violently disrupted. What is this force in the world that needs to be in control and is willing to hurt others in the process? Nothing on the TV news but plenty on the internet.
I’m wondering how my Catalan is doing, buried deep under a thick layer of English now. Hope it is just gathering strength for next week and will emerge stronger and more fluent.
And lastly – tomorrow – I will be watching the football. I wish I could be over there but at least I’ll be able to understand the commentary. Good luck Barça!
See you next week and thank you for listening.
Sometimes nice things happen and I don’t take a photo – either I don’t have the camera with me or the battery is dead or perhaps it just feels awkward to pull it out and start clicking. Tonight we went down to the river to take Duna for her walk. On the way we passed by the little vegetable patches and the rough fenced in wasteland that houses chickens and geese and the two dogs that I always visit as I go by. Do you remember? The border collie who is normally tied up inside the enclosure and who barks as you go past but wags her tail at the same time. I used to shout ‘Hola Guapo’ before finding out he was a she and on heat. Tonight she and her terrier friend were running freely around the chicken plot. Her owner was there relaxing on an old plastic chair. We all got talking – actually I mostly smiled and listened as it was all too fast and in spanish. But I learned that her name is Lolita. That her owner is passionately against cruelty to animals. He is Andaluz and comes from Huelva north of Cadiz . He feels it is more important to live simply and take care of the planet than to work all hours just to pay for things you don’t need. He had three baby ducks who were being mothered by a large speckled hen. I don’t know what happened to the mother duck – you miss those sort of details when you can’t keep up with the language. Lolita put up her nose to nuzzle the ducklings soft yellow fluffy coat. Border collies are like that – protective rather than menacing.
Lolita obviously loves him and the chickens and the ducklings and her little terrier friend. So, sigh of relief, she is a happy dog! And all around the swifts were swooping and swirling and screaming and streaming
It’s the first time they have nested in there, using the broken window at the front and with an emergency exit through an air vent at the back. Hopefully when I get back here they will have a large family preparing to fly south.
