Welcome to Techno-Billies

Autumn? Really? It's been so warm and so very little rain has fallen it's getting hard to believe that it really is autumn. I have been desperate to get some planting done in the veggie patch for a couple of weeks now - as it is I think we've probably missed having home grown Brussels for the midwinter festive season, but better late than never. Steve rotavated, I hate the rotavator. Firstly our soil is mostly Sahara sand blown in over hundreds of years and rotating does nothing but dry it out further. It makes a horrid noise and it smells awful but mostly it's just too heavy for me so I can't really help with it and I also can't get on with anything until it's done, just have to wait until the man has finished. We have no worms. A whole garden dug over and not a single worm. This is not good. I thought we were doing very well with our soil improvement regimen but it's not looking good at the moment. I have a huge bag of Dutch organic fe

Things are always busy. Why do I remark on it? I should just take it as given - I have a busy life! I had an incredible week in Scotland. Firstly the Loch Ness Knitfest was amazing. I got to meet some of my favourite knitwear designers. I bought some fibre for spinning and had a long chat with some ladies from the local spinners and weavers guild. Pretty much kinda heaven really. I then had a great time catching up with relatives, had a tour around the Johnstons wool mill while hurricane Ophelia approached and turned the sky dark at 2pm. In the end the NE Scotland escaped pretty much all of the storm damage. I had deliberately taken a large suitcase because I knew I would be bringing stuff home. It ended up at just over 18kg and the wheels were definitely feeling the strain. The week went by very fast and I began my return journey the day before my flight. Spending a great afternoon and evening in Edinburgh.  But by the time I reached Madrid the following afterno

After living here for more than four years you would think that we would be used to the Spanish way of doing things. Two words.. yes and no. We love it here and we haven't had that much trouble adjusting to the more relaxed lifestyle, it is, after all why we are here. But sometimes it's impossible to escape our upbringing and the typically British love of orderly organisation surfaces and highlights how chaotic Spanish culture can be and we wonder how anything could possibly get done here. This is how the art exhibition in the village is shaping up. The long meeting I attended which was supposed to answer my questions was very haphazard. Everyone talked at the same time, people took phone calls, some people arrived late. Trying to make sense of what was happening made my head hurt but somehow at the end of it we had progressed... a bit. Don't get me wrong, it's still very chaotic. For example a start date has not been decided upon. At the moment the best guess