Happy Solstice all!    

 I promised Jade a special Garden edition, quite right too...

The vegetable garden is in fact looking pretty goood...

All is changing here as usual - the only constant is change, and plenty here at the moment - Jade has left, as I mentioned was about to happen, leaving fond memories and a garden in great shape, as well as beautifully ordered and mapped - if I had a scanner I would show you the garden map with the colour-coded-for-rotation vegetables - its a nice art-form.  

It just got hot with the Solstice, after a very cool spell,  33C....Came in from work earlier, very thisty...  Megan: "Do you want to finish my water daddy?" me: "No thanks, I just drank 5 glasses",  Megan: "Dear good lord!"

...and it's been a brilliant time here the last few weeks, with not just André and Kate, from the wild east of Poland,,,, (here with Megan)

...but also my brother John...

....from the mountains of North Wales....

John was here for 12 days, much relaxed these days having, after 15 years of writing, published his book, the life-story of Mr Andrew Still, who founded Osteopathy at the end of the nineteenth century - a great account of one man's single-minded pursuit of truth in the face of public hostility.  It's pretty good, really! (see www.atstill.com)

We alse have had Kaya here, from even wilder east, Estonia - it fact she's still here.... currently painting a beautiful tree-mural on our barbecue-area wall - I would show you a photo but my camera's gone belly-up, so next time for that.   Meanwhile, we all had a top day out at Odeceixe beach....

John                                  André                 Kaya

All this and more!! - Finally, after much technophobic prevarication, installed solar panels and my second-hand bore-hole solar pump, which pumps our house water up from 55m down, to the top tank in so doing taking one humungous pump and a secondary one out of the equation. Pumps 1000l a day, frreee!!! Now I can create funky channels and pools on the hillside to plant little trees... the possibilities are multiplous.

A special happy solstice to our Russian (and Estonian) readers!

Connection and creativity!

Chris xx.