Birth of the pool

Yesterday the contractors arrived to start construction of the swimming pool, all paperwork is in place so excavation begins, access is difficult so a small digger arrived and squeezed through the gap between the house and the wall, the alternative was to knock down the wall, instead there was a justchip taken out the corner of the house, Quin says 15 minutes to fix.
surprisingly the ground is mainly sand and boulders and hard work for the digging machine, temperatures are in the mid to high 30ś and the engine of the digger keeps overheating, but at least it gives the workmen a break from the intense heat. At least the excavated ground is not having to be carted away as there was lower terrace to the garden that we are infilling.

MIni praying Mantis

More wildlife -last night as we were sitting having a glass of wine a tiny praying mantis walked onto the table, we have seen big ones but not one this small maybe it is a young one or a small species, there are over 2000 species of the Family Mantidae, so i dont think we will identify it that easily.

Snake in the house

This lunchtime Mary saw the cat staring under the wardrobe in our bedroom, thinking she had seen a mouse or something Mary put the mop under and out wriggled a two foot long snake, she tried to get the cat out the room and called me. I put a leather gauntlet on and caught by the tail, it sunk its fangs into the glove then escaped again, i decided to usher it round the edge of the room then guide it out through the open door where it took refuge in a large plant pot. after taking a photo i chased it out of the garden. we identified as a venomous Iberian cross adder-it certainly was when i got hold of its tail!

Celebration

Yesterday afternoon was the celebration of David and Adrians 1st year at their house just outside Blanca, as the crow flies they are about 500 metres from us, but by road its about a 1.5 kilometres, they have had a lot of work done and its certainly starting to take shape, although there is still plenty to do,-always is though..... they have had many ups and downs with this property - poorly done work having to be redone and work not completed. so hopefully all is now on the up. So about 15-20 of us celebrated their first year with plenty to drink and eat, a bathe in the pool and some great company,it was nice to make some new friends, Of course the weather was perfect for being in and around the pool relaxing.

A Chinese meal

We decided to treat ourselves to a chinese meal last night,our first choice of restaurant, was at Abaran, we got there around 7:00 but the place was closed so carried on to Cieza to find one there, the fist one we went into only did the menu del dia at lunchtime and the menu for 4 (Bec and Joachim were with us) was not impressive at 38 euros, a little further down the road we found another with the Menu for four at just under 30 euros ,excluding drinks--not what we were used too in Guardamar!
The salad was alright, but the rest of the meal was terrible,tasteless and hardly warm, we were the only people in the restaurant and the waiter went and sat at another table to eat his own food half way through our meal.,soooo.... we shant be going there again.
On the way home we noticed the place in Abaran was open they obviously dont open untill around 8 oclock. so will check it out before we go for a meal.

Amazing moon

We sat on the terrace last night to watch the total eclipse of the moon, bec and Joachim came over and we waited patiently with snacks and a glass of wine, because there was a lot of haze in the lower sky the eclipsed moon was not visible untill around 23.00 but it looked amazing especially through binoculars, The moon then started to show its self again,and it was certainly a sight to remember.

Cieza Market

We decided to go to Cieza and its market today, and it was very good with loads of stalls with a good variety of products, there must have been at least 30 fruit and vegetable stalls with lovely fresh produce, and very very cheap, potatoes were 30 cents a kilo, tomatoes on the vine 70 cents a kilo,large lettuce 3 for a euro, cherries and small plums 1 euro a Kilo, i would say it is as good if not better than Guardamar market.
We had a walk round part of Cieza after we had shopped and it is a lovely town with many of the streets tree lined and shady and quite a few pedestrian only areas.

Giant oven and mossy slayers

The giant oven works really well, Mary cooked a chicken, joint of pork and bread and it cooked them all beautifully.the wasps were not too happy though they had made a nest in the roof of the oven and when it got hot, had to make a quick exit,they were still looking to get back in the roof the next day. We have cleared the area now for the swimming pool to be constructed and it is due to be started in the next few days, the sooner the better as it is extremely hot now and a dip would be most welcome. relocating the 2 meter satellite dish was essential as it was in the middle of the garden so Joaquin and i built a tower on the end of the buildings and installed it on top of that.
As always in the the country there are loads of insects and many mosquitos so last night we plugged the electric mosquito slayers in under the gazebo.
sparks really flew, we could not believe the amount they annihallated over night, the sooner we get rid of the mosquito population the better.

Beeeaters in Blanca

We have moved into our house in Blanca! so have been very busy unpacking all the boxes and moving things round to as we want them, also have spent a good bit of time in the garden, tidying up, pruning and replanting pots,the first day we arrived we tried the barbeque out and had a good old meat feast, tomorrow we will try out the giant oven.
The bird life round here very prolific and last night while i was at the end of the garden looking over the river valley i saw a flock of around 10-15 beeeaters swooping catching their evening meal, although we saw alone one last week i the orange groves we did not realise there was so many around. The only other time i have seen a beeeater was when we were in Australia.