Another day in paradise.

It's been a week now since the weather morphed from merely good into glorious. Blue skies, the mildest of breezes and temperatures that are still cool enough to work in. All the things that we left beautiful ,but damp, Scotland for.The boyz are having the time of their lives stretching out in the long grass under the pine trees in the courtyard, chasing lizards , and bothering the workmen. On the morning walk with the two troubadors I came across a gladioli like plant that has sprouted in the olive groves - yet another wild flower that will need to be researched. Are they native plants or have they somehow escaped from a garden?

A troubled night. After the burglary we have now upgraded our alarms and had security lights installed - hence the reappearance of workmen in the house. The lights are supposed to come on whenever anything weighing more than 30 kilos crosses the movement detector.That at any rate is the theory. Last night they were coming on and going off every twenty minutes - boy, do they generate a lot of light! This constant triggering of the system either signals that the wild boar / deer are using the garden as a shortcut or ( more likely ) that the lights have been installed incorrectly and are coming on whenever a porcupine shuffles past. I'm preparing for a long conversation with the electricians.

The olive groves are now nicely ploughed, fertilized and weeded. There soon won't be much more to do other than keep their bases from growth. Not that we will be able to do much more outside once the temperatures rise into the 30's.