I was walking the dogs this morning and we came across an interesting sight. There were huge numbers of woodlice marching down a hill in a continuous and steady stream. I have never seen this before and so we ditched our plans to have a long walk through the campo so that I could return home to grab my camera and record the spectacle. View full article »
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When Steve Lawler and I reached the second fishing spot he had planned to show me on Friday we both chickened out of the trek across an open filed to the shore of the reservoir. There were a few cattle in the field there and neither of us trusted them. In particular there were three shady characters standing in the shadow of a tree and one of them had a mean look in her eyes. View full article »
Yesterday, quite out of the blue, a bunch of photos came my way from Mark McCann as attachments to an email. Mark is an old fishing buddy and, along with my brother Sean, we are veterans of many fishing campaigns. Coincidentally Sean came across some photos as well and, while not currently in digital form, I am hoping that these may be coming my way soon. The photos Mark sent recorded a fishing trip we went on about 10 years ago. It was significant because my son Leo who was then 12 was invited along. View full article »
I went and bought three new hens on Tuesday because a bastard campo dog managed to dig into the enclosure and take all my hens a couple of weeks ago. Between that sad event and the purchasing of the new hens I planned to greatly increase the security of the enclosure. I had intended to install a moat, a trip wire that activated remotely operated machine guns, bury land mines and to install a bunch of battle-hardened mercenaries in a series of watch towers each night equipped with state of the art night vision goggles. However when calculations were done I realised that the budget for these security measures would be similar to that for constructing Trump´s idiotic border wall with Mexico. To break even I would have to have each of my three hens lay an egg each per day for the next 487 million years. View full article »
It looks like there is a crocodile on the loose! Recent sightings, including one made by a police officer, seem to confirm there is a nile crocodile swimming around in the Río Pisuerga close to the town of Simancas in central Spain. The story first came out a couple of days ago and there seem to be some inconsistencies between the different versions I have seen. The croc is claimed to be found in two different rivers (the Duero and the Pisuerga) and various estimates of its size have been offered ranging from 1.5 to 2.5 metres. View full article »
Talk to anyone about keeping poultry and you will get a familiar sad tale. These stories (and I have heard quite a few now) follow the same course and it is only the details that differ. Let me give you the general story, although you almost certainly know it already. The alternative points of detail have been put into brackets as an indication of how individual accounts vary one from the other, but the basic story is ALWAYS the same.
Here´s how it goes:
“Once I used to keep a load of (hens/ducks/geese or some combination thereof). Then one night a (fox/wild dog/leopard/alligator/boa constrictor) broke into the enclosure AND KILLED EVERY GODDAM SINGLE ONE OF THEM.” View full article »
The other day I was walking along a quiet road in the campo with my two dogs when we came across a snake. This was at around nine in the morning and the snake was sunning itself on the road. At first I thought it was a stick because it was lying quite still. As I got a little closer the “stick” transformed itself, developing a scaly skin and and a narrow flickering tongue. View full article »
My mother doesn´t look anything like a trout, which is rather unfortunate for me but probably rather fortunate for her. This observation becomes particularly relevant now that my brothers and sisters, widely scattered throughout the world, have decided to run an art competition and the subject we are asked to paint is no less a person than our mother. View full article »
I have been isolated in my little finca in Andalucía since the 14th of March and during this time my wife has been staying with her father in London. They tell us to social distance from one another and recommend 2 metres but we have managed to extend that by over 1000 miles! View full article »
