(Almost) All's well that ends well

We have been a little pre-occupied the last week. This is part of the reason why.

During the summer a pretty little tabby cat took to sitting with us in our garden. She didn't come for food as we never gave her any, but seemed quite content to sit and watch us from a distance. We felt on trial. Then we noticed she was pregnant.

A few weeks ago, she wasn't pregnant any more. Following her route, we found a nest of three kittens between our wall and that of our neighbours at the back of our house and then, a couple of weeks later we noticed kittens-only two now-playing in our back garden early in the morning. We continued to watch their progress, especially since, during the storms that we had a few weeks, ago they took to living on our porch. In fact, the porch became their favourite place, although they deserted us briefly for a flower pot in our next door neighbours garden, before returning once more. (See the not very good photo-there really are kittens in the flower pot!) Mum would leave the kittens with us twice a day while she went purposefully off, always in the same direction, we assumed towards food.

Then, on Sunday, one of our neighbours knocked on our gate and told us that the mother cat was dead, killed by a dog. She asked for help in catching the kittens so that they could be taken to a house with an internal patio, where they could become accustomed to domestic life. Then the fun began! Another neighbour arrived on Monday morning with food and a small cat box and she and I tried to catch the kittens. Without success. I had to go to my Spanish class but promised to continue later. Monday night and Tuesday too were taken up with the kitten hunt, but they developed a way of leaping into the cat box, grabbing some food and scampering off-clever kittens. Finally, last night, with the aid of Rob and Lyn's (or perhaps we should say Barny and Fred's) much bigger cat box and an elaborate system of pulleys we managed to lure first one, then the other into the box whilst we hid behind our front door with scissors ready to cut the pulley so that the door fell shut! We are mad people!

So now Benjamin and Zephaniah, (since these are, I am sure, their names), are tucked up across the road with Julia, no doubt being read stories and fed cocoa. Julia and her friend, Mercedes, are very grateful to us-and we no longer have kittens in our garden and so have time to write blogs.

The Living Language

Hola! It's November 12th, the sea is as calm as a duckpond and I spent the morning sitting in the sun wearing a skirt and my bikini top ( I started off in a T-shirt but it just got too hot!), doing my Spanish homework. As you can see.

I could write about the great jazz/flamenco concert we went to in Chiclana on Friday night-tickets at 5 Euros each. However, I thought instead I would share some of the reasons why Spanish-especially around here-is both fascinating and frustrating.

• The word that you will find in the dictionary for a mandarin-you know, the fruit- is mandarina (The word for a person of Mandarin Chinese origin is Mandarin)
• However, sometimes mandarinas are called mudarinas because there is a word to peel, which is mudar. Mudar is also something that snakes do with their skin, although you can also mudar la cama (change the bed) mudar tu opinion (change your mind) and mudarse (move house)
• Do not assume from this that you can use mudar to refer to the peeling of a potato. No! The word you need if you want to talk about that is pelar, although pelarse is to get one's hair cut.
• The verb to want is querer. However, in Chiclana older people often us tomar to mean the same thing, this being old Spanish. Normally tomar means to take or to have something to eat or drink although it can also be used in pharses like tomar el sol, that is take the sun, tomar en cuenta, to consider or tomar parte en, that is to take part in.
• A common informal address in spanish is chico/a meaning roughly the equivalent to our colloquial "kid". However, in Andalucia, chico can also be used as an adjective to mean little. So, in our local panaderia or bread shop, when I asked for some bollos or rolls, I was asked if I wanted grandes o chicos, big ones or little ones.
• Chico, however, is an abbreviation of chiquillo. And, never ones to miss an opportunity to drop a few letters, the local Chiclana word for a kid is often not chico at all, but quio. Who would have thought it?
• Finally, ser un bollo is not as you might think to be a bread roll, but to be a piece of cake, something that learning Spanish is not!

Spanish lesson over! I only wanted an excuse to tell you what a lovely day it has been here. Have a good week quios!

Are we having fun yet?

Clearly the answer is yes!

Last weekend it was a trip to el parque de los alcornales, the cork-oak forests near Alcala de los Gazules for a walk in the sunshine with Rob and Lyn.

This weekend we went to listen to jazz in Chiclana at the Teatro Moderno with a group from the language school and to eat tapas. Then on Saturday we went out to play in Rob and Lyn's new hot tub.

The week in between wasn't bad, either. We had 5 more sessions at the language school and our roof is now re-tiled so we will be warm and snug for the winter, which I guess must come soon, though it is still 23 degrees here. We are looking forward to getting our garden back from the builders sometime this week when they have finished painting the house. I'm also hoping to do a little gardening.........