on the bus to London

I did knitting and caught up on podcasts -  99% invisible - for a story about the worst smell in the world then a piece about 'sewbots' at Planet Money. Yesterday's best show was Freakanomics  about racial profiling in restaurants if there were shows like these in Spanish I'd be fluent in no time - if anyone knows of any good ones please send me the links.

yes I am still trying to speak Spanish like a native - did I mention that I'm off to Spain soon?

Dolores and I still have our regular spanglish meetings, we speak Spanish one visit then English the next - today was English day and, as she is a professional sportsperson, we discussed the fashion for 'cupping' amongst athletes.

When it is my turn to speak Spanish I seem to always end up talking about insects 

Doloresand I visited the river today

She produced special oily ham from Spain and I supplied a pair of pears. We ate our picnic listening to a roaring weir and squealing children then I picked my way into the river for my first dip this year.

Kale Mountain

I'd photograph it but the pile of vegetation arriving from next door has got to the point that I can no longer push my way into the kitchen, there's also lettuces, raspberries and a cabbage the size of a big man's head


In Other News

I've been scraping the rust off my Spanish - listening to Spanish radio through the computer and language exchanging with Dolores - in this dayandage we should be able to meet in a clinic, have wires attached to our heads and download each others language files but unfortunately we are still poor so we meet every day for one hour: Spanish on Monday, English on Tuesday and so on for ever until one of us leaves the country.

Blonde Neighbours

Lola came for tea today, while she was here my neighbour knocked on my door to collect some flowers that had been delivered for her. Lola noted that my neighbour is blonde and  tells me that she has a blonde neighbour but all blondes look the same to her so she can never recognise her blonde neighbour unless she actually sees her leaving or entering her house.

… last week she came knocking on the door saying that she needed some milk because she had been staying off the drink for two weeks but I had no idea who she was and then the next day our other neighbours had a fight in the street one had a hammer and the other a sword …

No Pets Please ...

I tell Lola about the dog woman

Lola says 

all animals are trouble even the little ones…

I got given two fish right but then I had to go away and so did my flatmates so I had to put the fish in a bag and put the fish tank on my back and carry them over the other side of town to my friend and I told her she had to use old water for the tank it has to be two days old or the tap water kills them but the water wasn’t old enough and the fish died and she was so sorry that when I came back she bought me two fish but one was bigger than the other and he bullied the little one and I called my mother who told me to separate them but while I was on the phone I watched the little one die he just went over on his side like that while I was watching …