In our last post we described our annual pilgrimage to the
The news is reporting that western Europe is suffering a "scorching heat wave", and we can attest to that in our little piece of it. Here on Sunday Jun 21 it is now almost 33 C (91 F) at 5 PM in the shade just outside our window. Whew... It's much hotter inland and further south, too. It's just about time to go jump in the pool. We've been doing that every afternoon for a while now, in this heat. The pool cover is warming the water nicely with the sun, it's now up to about 31 C (88 F), which sounds too warm but is refreshing when your whole body is immersed in it.
This August 12 a total solar eclipse will sweep across the Arctic and down to northern Spain and even the very northeastern tip of Portugal. Totality in the area near us will be just before sunset, so it could be quite dramatic. We missed out on the total eclipse in Oregon a few years ago, so it's time to start planning for this one.
It is early summer and everyone's garden is bursting. Our gardener brought us some of his organic bounty (see the picture at right) when he came to do some work on Tuesday Jun 23 and he left with some cucumbers from us. He also found what looks like an Asiatic Hornet nest on the property, so we need to report it to the authorities for destruction right away. That's a really aggressive and dangerous hornet, it decimates the honeybees, and the government takes care of destroying nests when they are reported.
We found about the last available hotel room in Palencia, Spain for the night of Aug 12. We'll retire there after the total solar eclipse which happens at almost sunset. Palencia is in the middle of the path of totality, so we should get about a minute and a half of total solar blackout. It is about a five hour drive from here, so we'll have a nice Spanish meal and bed after the eclipse rather than trying to get home afterward. Gerrit figures he'll be falling to his knees and weeping with awe anyway, so that makes it hard to drive.
Gerrit found the hornet nest which our gardener had flagged, and brought some field glasses down to observe the little monsters from a safe distance. Boy, that is really difficult. The hornets only come and go every once in a while, so you're standing there staring intently until your eyes sting and your arms start to tremble and then the little buggers just zip in and out. They don't pose for identification, unfortunately. He didn't see the telltale "yellow socks" of the Asiatic type and there were conflicting characteristics of both the Asiatic and European hornets. The European are at least as big and scary-looking as the Asiatics, but much less dangerous and not aggressive at all. More observation is called for.
On Sunday Jun 28 we took a mattress and some clothes we no longer need to a charity which services new immigrants and people in need. We had a boisterous conversation with Jackie, the proprietress, who is native Portuguese but spent 25 years in New Jersey. Her English is great, with just a little of the "Joisey" sound to it. Many immigrants came and went while we were there, and Jackie (her name adopted in the US) knew and was friends with them all. There were many happy and grateful faces, from children up to the elderly. Jackie showed us her stock, all nicely displayed there in a big basement room of a community house as people milled through, and we told her we would be having much more for her as our winnowing out from unpacking continues. While we were there we saw Andy, a friend and fellow expat from the UK who had originally told us about Jackie's operation, so that was a nice coincidence and we got to thank him in person.
(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done. Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)