Thursday 17 March 2011

Getting Some Garden Time

For the last 4 or 5 days the weather here has been fantastic, sun shining, barely a cloud in the sky and temperatures above 20 degrees C. What a total difference from last week and a very welcome sight.

It's meant that we could finally get outside and start on the garden. All winter you try to plan and imagine the changes you'd like to make and now's the time to get busy. The locals obviously agree and instead of hearing the whirr of chainsaws we've been listening to tractors plowing and some of the neighbours have plowed their gardens the old way with horses.

Our animals have been making full use of the good weather and there's been some sunbathing done too. The horses are shedding their winter coats and enjoying the first signs of grass coming through while the donkey has just been pleased to be out and really looked like she appreciated having a roll in our sand pile again.

The neighbours think we are slightly mad to be wearing shorts before the official start of spring (which is March 22nd) and have passed a few comments about the mad english but it's all in good fun and our tans are already starting to develop nicely.

The kids have been taking tests in school and have done really well. So much so that the director said he's very proud of them and they didn't expect them to do as well. Now they can be moved up a year and get closer to the class they should be in for their ages. We are so proud of them too, learning a new language is not easy yet they seem to have become almost fluent. Pity we haven't really done as well! Oh well I'll keep trying lol