Hot Dog!

Dachshund hot dog


Garden projects in process


Hemrocalis in flower


As we approach the weekend that heralds, in Spain at least, the start of summer the weather feels more like August than June. Sunday will be be the summer solstice, but for Spaniards it is the first day of summer - and they should know since they do have a lot of it. Temperatures have already reached 32 degrees in the shade with us, thus are already hotter than last year's maximum. But curiously enough we awoke to light rain on Monday morning. The world has gone higgeldy piggeldy and this dog is hot. The two tall ones sloped off to the beach on Saturday and we have all started taking our siestas in the room downstairs, which is cooler.

In the garden work continues apace on the new seating area, despite the heat, and it looks as though it should be finished within the next couple of weeks - watch this space! Flowers come and go, at the moment we are enjoying a splendid display of hemrocalis and lilies, and the penstemens are coming into their own.

In the vegetable garden we have harvested and frozen the last of the broad beans and broccoli, but have started picking peas and, best of all, early potatoes. Raspberries will soon be taking the place of strawberries at the breakfast table. What delicacies can we culitvate for more canine tastes I wonder?

We said good to to Mark and Helen today, but look forward to their return visit. Ella has made right nuisance of herself by chasing after stones; she can't work out why she keeps finding herself all frothy with exhaustion. It's because of the heat, slow down you silly thing. Helen and John have joined us from the UK and are looking forward to enjoying shady corners of the garden. Also keeping us company once more this week has been our rather vocal frog who lives in the pond.

With summer, then, just around the corner this dachshund has hung up his walking boots until the autumn.

Yours, stretched on the cool lawn,

Fergus