October '08

The Dog House
Now winter is drawing closer, we wanted to give Dylan some mod cons, rather than just leaving him chained up under a leaky tree each night.

Out came the tools (Alex) and cement mixer (wheelbarrow) and soon we had the base made, with a proper damp course. Thermal brick walls to keep the cold out and a proper tiled roof. We have made a nice fitted wooden floor to keep Dylan's bum warm and set his chain stay into the floor so he can't escape. Since these pictures, we have rendered it, so the winter rains can't get in.

A walk in the country
At the end of the month, one of our friends invited us on a walk to see two giant trees that are in the Els Ports park. After an hours drive up the dirt piste, we reached the starting point for the walk and met a bunch of photographers who were out to catch the autumn colours.

There were a surprising number of deciduous trees in all their autumn glory. This is about as far south as they get and they only manage to survive up in the mountains where the temperatures are lower.

The two giant trees where true giants. One was a Beech tree and the other a Black Pine. Unfortunately the Black Pine was in such an inaccessible spot that you just couldn't get a picture of it all, there were just too many other trees in the way and the slope it was on was too steep. On the way back home we stopped off to get a picture of the top of our vallet (Barranc de LLoret) withe Ebro delta behind it.

Snow
It snowed just before the end of the month. We woke up on the 30th to find there was a good fall of snow on the mountains behind our property. This is only the second time the villagers have seen snow on the mountains in 100 years. It was pretty strange to get pictures of olive trees ready for the harvest with snow in the distance.

Finally
Our landlords daughter has started learning to play the Saxphone.

PondBoy