One of them zip a dee doo dah days!

Song of the south was possibly the movie I enjoyed most as a child. I had become fascinated with the Uncle Remus stories from reading my sister Ann's books. That old Brer Rabbit and his friends were larger than life itself! I still enjoy seeing that opening sequence with the blue birds and Uncle Remus.

The birds of northern Spain have provided much needed company in the course of the last year.

We have had the European roller, Bee eaters, Finches galore, Dipper, Robins , Swallows, Jays, Magpies, and others too numerous to mention.

The rollers put on the early morning show along with the finches. The atmosphere changes in mid morning with the arrival of the birds of prey, a variety of hawks hunting the smaller birds.

The kitchen fitter from Figueres, we had employed on our home, was amazed to see four eagles riding the thermal currents above the finca, a familiar sight to ourselves.

On another occaision, I watched in amazement when a flight of swallows rose into the air high above Ordis to drive away a golden eagle.

Working in the finca is always a pleasure surrounded by these colourful creatures.

Everybody sing along now.............

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my what a wonderful day!
Plenty of sunshine heading my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay

Mister Bluebird on my shoulder
It's the truth, it's actch'll
Ev'rything is satisfactch'll
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Wonderful feeling, wonderful day!

Text

The movie 'The Twin Towers'’, part of the 'Lord of the Rings' was shown on Spanish television and provided an opportunity for me to test my theory. My theory that it was possible to learn the language in an enjoyable way.

This after all was a story I was familiar with from both the book and the movie. Well known characters from the story would speak perfect Spanish, as I read the corresponding text from the subtitles below thereby reinforcing my learning of the language; simple but brilliant!

I had equipped my new language lab with all the essentials, a wide-screen T.V. with remote control, copious amounts of ice cold beer, and a variety of junk food to snack on. Oh! And the not quite so important pencil and paper, dictionary etc. This would be the deluxe learning package; maybe I should patent my new method.

The story unfolded as expected and I tried to follow the Spanish text, though this was often interrupted by pop up ads for forthcoming football matches and other programmes. Still that provided an opportunity for further refreshments to be enjoyed.

As the movie continued the text seemed to be quite succinct compared to the actors spoken words; paraphrasing important dialogue possibly kept the flow but lost the subtlety of the script.

Later as I watched a scene involving the hobbits Sam and Frodo, the discrepancies were more apparent.

Frodo Spoken Spanish, '‘yakity yak yakity yak yakity yakity yakity yak: yakity yak yakity yak yakity yak yakity yak Sam'

Frodo text version '‘Sam'’.

The further into the movie I watched the worse it got, I formed the opinion that the sub title writer was watching another channel, flicking backwards and forwards on his remote control with little interest in the story. My experiment had failed!

Dali by moonlight

The Dali Theatre Museum has been open to visitors throughout August for nighttime visits. The moonlight and floodlights add to the drama of the theatre building. The cool night air and absence of large crowds or queues make it a much more pleasant experience.

The contents are interesting but as with all artists the more significant of his works are spread far and wide around the world.

Sortie

Horse and deer flies are two of the nastiest biting insects I have come across.

Don't let those big blue green eyes fool you, the flies eyes not mine, these insects are out to hurt you. Look at the mouth end! It is comprised of a pair of machete like inscisors which rip apart your flesh in an instant causing the blood to flow and allowing the fly to gorge itself.

It is reported that deer flies are the most likely to bite humans but they seem to be in direct competition with the horse flies in these parts. To make matters worse the pests hunt in packs, at times this summer they hunted in squadrons.

The Flies must die! this has been my motto throughout the hot dry summer but the only sure fire way of killing them is to swat them or to ensnare them in a chemical trap.

In windy conditions they lie low around swimming pools and patio areas, conserving energy for future blood sucking raids.

It was on one such windy day that I worked happily away in the garden, shovelling ton after ton of soil and rubble. All was well, the soil heaps were diminishing and one small corner of the garden was emerging from the unpromising land.

As I wheeled my wheelbarrow, along paths broad and narrow, I noticed that the cooling breeze was fading away. I was not the only creature to observe this, crickets and butterflies again took to the wing the swallows too.

Nearby and more sinister by far the flies were stirring.

Wing commander to fly squadron ready for take off…off we go

heading towards the stables and we will approach the target from the rear.

Hold that formation keep it tight.

Target five meters ahead, there he is the barrow boy

We’re coming out of the sun, he can’t see us ok everybody here we go strike! strike! strike!

Argh! The pain in my right shoulder as the first fly bit, I let the barrow fall Argh! A second bite then a third and a fourth, as I tried to swat the attackers away a fifth bite to my shoulder marked then end of that particular attack. My shoulder was sore and already the flesh was swelling, reacting to the bites.

Wing commander to fly squadron, ok everybody back to base! Job well done

A Fig from Figueres

A fig from Figueres

Late summer salads in Spain are often adorned by fresh figs, a superb accompaniment to the fine cured ham of the peninsular.

Due to the Iberian drought the yield from this year’s fig harvest was low. The shallow rooted fig trees were denied rain water until late September; the few fruits that survived the hordes of insect pests were small but full of flavour.

I attempted to dry the figs in a domestic oven set to the minimum temperature; the process took the best part of two days to complete. Once dried, I stored them in an airtight container with the layers separated by paper towel to absorb any remaining moisture. After a period of two weeks I found that mould was growing on some of the fruit and had to discard that batch.

A second batch was prepared in the same way but stayed fresher longer. The figs survived a flight to England were they were devoured by my wife Carol.

Mmm! I wonder...

While spending the night watching the recent Tropical Storm Vince doing its worst, I couldn't help but wonder about the weather.

As thunder claps exploded over the land with a deafening roar and lightning tore at the clouds above; I decided to count the seconds between the two weather phenomenon to establish how much distance there was between the storm. Suddenly the whole landscape was illuminated by a series of lightening flashes and was accompanied the deafening boom of thunder overhead. Street lights in the surrounding villages went out for a moment, no sooner were they re-lit than the storm blew them out again. Vince is here! There is no distance between us.

After long minutes of intense storm activity the period between thunder bolts and lightning flashes lengthened a little, I began to count ....

And then it struck me! The thought not the lightning. At home the measurement was 1 second to mile, but here in continental Europe they measured distance in kilometers; here maybe 1 second equals 1 kilometer rather than a mile. Perhaps they have metric weather?