FREE COMPETITION FOR ALL FOLLOWERS

Thousands of prizes not to win in this dangerously easy to play competition!!

Competition Question number one, which is the real cabbage?

I was driving back from Albufeira yesterday and noticed that where the orange sellers were on the main road there were several prostitutes. Quite amazing, hooker, oranges, hooker, oranges. Some of them were quite juicy!

From no work on Tuesday, I have just picked up about four weeks hard graft:-

1) Ripping out an old Lavender hedge and replacing it with native Escalonia (less water, more permanent).

2) Removing some non native pines and pruning a few vain bound citrus

3) Hanging some golf nets (well saves the man driving to the driving range so I guess that reduces some carbon use).

4) Helping Calvin at his tipi centre near Monchique - see link on right, his bookings are going really well, just shows guys, do something different and you will be rewarded!!

5) Rebuild a dry stone wall pushed over by a big Olive.

Great, just as we are heading North to see my daughter for Carnival then a few days near Almeria to see an old pal.

Quiz question number two. Why oh why didn't Portugal invent the tapa?

One of my most impressive achievements this week was buying an excellent book on identifying mushrooms, and promptly finding and identifying three different mushrooms on my own land!!

Quiz question number three. How many were edible?

The book, lest I forget to name it is The Field Guide to Mushrooms and other Fungi of Britian and Europe, published by www.newhollandpublishers.com BUT purchased through thebookdepository.com - miles cheaper than Amazon and the postage is included (still cheaper than Amazon by two or three euros every time!!)

I found the Brown Mottegill, non edible and appears after rain especially on manure (covered my garden with manure...)

Also the Deadly Web Cap, super toxic and stops your kidneys from working..

AND the Common Ink Cap, edible but very past its sell by date..

Good though, and the book will travel with me this week. Amazing how many of them seem to grow where manure has been added. Might be nice if I could even find an edible one.

This week I planted some Tomatoes outside and some melon seedlings under five litre water bottles (empty, but I guess you guessed that..) and fixed a pig of a job. The outside sink had stopped draining, I had to remove two banana trees that the sink waste waters and eventually chip around and smash the drain to find a few inches of solidified cement and sand. One of our last woofers was very keen on washing his hands so every time it started to accumulate at the end of the tube - I was impressed that the bananas showed no signs of putting roots into my drains,. Man the beer tasted good after that job!

Keyhole surgery was needed. Competition question number four. How long did it take me and how many beers did it take for me to stop swearing at the woofer??

Amazingly these drain blockers started life as a little grime on someones hands..

And Owl finally finished her blog about the Owl house, a really nice little wooden chalet that we are renting out nice and cheaply this summer. We include free bicycle hire and breakfast, for only 220 euros a week (one or two people).

Please visit her website at rusticrentaltetreatalgarve.blogspot.com

Answers to all quiz questions to stuartmerelie@gmail.com. There may actually be a few prizes!

See you next week, Stu  x