Tuesday 30 May 2017

Summer happened

Summer happened, just like that, a couple of weeks ago now. Where everything that was once green, has turned brown overnight. The spring flowers have withered leaving grass seed pods and allium skeletons, petrified and roasting.

The horses routine has turned upside down, inside in the day and out all night. The cat has turned into her Magaluf - party style cat, hunting and vomiting by night and comatose in the day.

Ice lollies are mandatory, bikinis live at the front of my drawers, swimming lessons have started in school, the air con is permanently on in the car, I am dirty brown, the duvet has disappeared from the bed, the mosquito repellent is on, BBQ's every weekend, siestas imperative and luke-warm showers save our electricity bills.

Summer has happened. I can hardly believe we have another 9 degrees to go.


Spot cools down in the sprayers and mud


The other one is a bit mental and sunbathes at lunctime


Psycho cat

Thursday 11 May 2017

La Gordita

Podgey. Porky. Rounded. Full. Well-conditioned. Chunky. Plump. Heavy. Big-boned. Over-weight. Large. Solid.

There is no getting round it, my mare is FAT.

I am not entirely sure when it happened. Some time between this:



and this:


Fat happened.

It always takes someone else to point it out and I felt as bad as taking a child to the dentist with tooth decay. It is my fault she is large and I can no longer feel her ribs.

The diet started today and she was not amused. She probably lives in fear that she will look and feel like this again:


Thursday 4 May 2017

Multas #2-7, (and very nearly #8)

I seem to be very good at getting multas (fines). In fact I might crown myself the multa queen, or Queen Multa - which sounds a little more formal.

Multa number 1 as you may remember was a little misdemeanour - just a wee bit of parking on a wee bit of grass. Easily done, not easy to pay.

Multas numbers 2 to 7, that's six more fines, were found by looking for them on a website, roughly translated to lookforyourdrivingfines.com. Some kind soul had told me that you can look up your fines and I had just a sneaky suspicion that I may have driven down some roads in Palma that I perhaps shouldn't have. Turns out I have done it six times.

Once again, near impossible to pay these buggering fines. And if you don't pay, they accrue interest. And when they have accrued the maximum interest they (not sure who they are) whip it out of your bank account without telling you - which kind of figures, as they never tell you about the fines anyway.

It's an insane system. Beautiful Spanish bureaucracy. Thank goodness for bilingual friends who have held my hand throughout this process and dried my tears over the 600 euros lost. I now have one (legal) way into Palma and one way out, without incurring crazy costs.

Spain enjoys a good fine. They fine you for washing your car in the street, for playing music too loud, for not wearing a shirt, for not carrying poo bags for your dog - and if your horse craps on the road. I was told politely about the 120 euro fine for my horse pooping in the street, since then I have diligently kicked it into the hedge and remounted or driven back to pick it up after the ride.

After a beautiful ride on the horse I look after, waving to all the farmers and greeting the cyclists with a grin, we met the Ajuntament of Calvia. Basically the town council were out in force. As I nodded a polite 'Hola' the horse I was riding proceeded to do a big, fat steaming, squishy pile of poo - all the way up the road, I look round and there stood two burly Spanish men with reflecting aviators - I leapt off my surprised horse and kicked the offending caca into a sort-of hedge. Dredging up all the Spanish I knew, I grovelled apologising for the timing of the horses poo, that I was cleaning the roads, although my nice new leather boots were now covered in brown digested grass.

Sorry I said.

Que guapo! They replied, referring to my horse. Guapisimo!

I grinned, they cooed over the horse's beauty and multa number 8 was swiftly avoided.


The great poo-er himself (the horse not me)