January 2010

Hi dear friends, relatives and peregrinos

While there is little to write about this month I seem to have not had a lot of time to myself.
One nice Email this month was from Nicholas an old peregrino friend from my walk on the Via del Plata. We had lost touch over the years and he was sweeping the web looking for information to walk the North camino and came across my web site and realised it was me and sent a couple of emails which went straight to my Spam folder!!! Luckily I saw them and took the chance of opening them and discovered it was Nico so I quickly returned one to him,. Nico wants to walk in September I believe. Great, nice to be in touch again Nico.


Maisie has had 3 ‘fun’ games at her bowls club this month, Australia Day game, the annual Champagne Breakfast game and the One Bowl Mixed Fours. Good fun, she said, but no money prizes, just a bottle of wine! ( more photos of the Australia game in the January 2010 album.- link via our web page.






















I have been busy painting this one of the North Camino I started before Christmas. It is just finished and I am very pleased with the result. Vigi discovered for me the beautiful little fishing port was called Pasaia and I looked this up on the web and the Ayuntamiento has a photo of the square and town hall on their web site so I know definitely this was the place. Thank you Vigi hope one day to buy you a cider in the cider bars of Oviedo for that help chuckle! I have several photos of the painting in various stages of completion






























The finished Pasaia oil painting


Maya and Emil had birthdays this month but we were unable to get down to see them but chatted on Skype to them. Emil drew a super green dragon, and won a Prize to go to look around the old whaling museum in Albany! Well done Emil, Josie too has been busy painting with water colours an you can see two of them on our January 2010 album which you can get to from the link on our web site and is hoping to put them in an exhibition.

We took Alex and Lizzy to the cinema to see Avatar and had a great time. The film is well worth seeing and the 3D is incredible.



While those of you in Europe have been freezing we have had the longest hot dry spell for some 30 years I think. It has been very hot with several 40c days coming close together and the garden looks parched with no rain.
The snakes have been out sunning themselves and walking as I do along riverside paths I have had to be on the look out but one day having got home without seeing any, I spotted a big one crossing the road from my front garden, outside my house! I hate the damn things and this type is very venomous! We have never seen one around here before.





Then last week I had just crossed over the road in the same spot and looked into the park and there was a fox not so far away. I managed to get a couple of snaps before he spotted me and disappeared into the long grass. They are not native to Australia and are considered a pest as they kill local wild live as do the feral cats (and do so-called tame household ones)!
As it is summer here there are few wild flowers out and the grass is all long dry and brown. Near the house the park has been cut to reduce the fire hazard. In the hills a large number of houses were lost this year to wild fires, not sure but it would be due to electricity poles catching fire or to arson. There has been a few lit in the parks near here but they were put out before doing too much damage. Fighting fires in 40 degrees of heat is not my idea of fun and these blokes volunteer! I take my hat off to them! They all deserve a medal.




The van aircon as you know went wrong as we drove up from Johns last month and I decided to take it in this week to get it repaired. First a mobile mechanic advised me that it was just the aircon cooling fan, in the engine compartment that was faulty.
Now in this other workshop, I'm now told that the engine fan is also faulty and it looks like it might cost me up to $1600 to get both repaired! I am beginning to think this Ford was not such a good buy after all! The spares are so very expensive here!

Still we are fit and well and these things are only money chuckle. I still can't book up yet for a comino trip but keep hoping next month I will be able too.
If it gets late in the year I might walk the Camino from Leon to Oveido and have been trying to make up a pocket size route book for this. It is not walked much and is a short, hard but beautiful camino across the mountains. There are plenty of lovely mountains in this area but you need good weather.

Well bye amigos, good walking, don't slip on the ice
Abrazos
Michael and Maisie