at home again: digging and peppers

I know it's the weekend because Juan is in the garden, digging. This time it's around the pink rose that has flowered spectacularly over the east wall of the house every May. But in such a floppy, unfragant way, so unprunably high and for such a short period, that push has come to shove - and pull and removal:

The sun emerged for the short time it took Juan to spear the waste-water (?) pipe.
While we worked out what to do next rain and cloud closed in. Cooking now seemed a better option:

- (another) empanada mix plus pesto, oatcakes - all the favourites featured in earlier posts.

Saturday continued cold and wet night so we stayed home and watched Zeffirelli's star-studded Hamlet (1990) on DVD. What a hard time Mel Gibson gave his mum. And how disturbingly mad Helena Bonham-Carter was. The dumbed-down Spanish subtitles didn't do justice to the original (eg Hail! and Farewell became Hola! and Adios). I had a good evening. But afterwards, the relentless emotional intensity and violent ending contributed to a near-sleepless night. That and my busy mind whirling with domestic images (moving plants in the garden, decisions re bulbs, re-arranging the sitting-room furniture, planning the meals for Buff and Phil's visit, filling the dish-washer(!)...) kept me wide awake until 5am.

Sunday was a washout: wonky and dsyfunctional, me jetlagaged and Juan "not well". The cumulative wear and tear of two-country living or the re-emergence of a familiar existential crisis? Cheered by steak, and a plum clafoutis, he has just left for Yverdon, leaving in the dark for the first time.