Whistling at wasps

A Summer Sauna

High temperatures and high humidity, in other words a typical August. Dragging my heels, head down, teeth clenched... and that's just walking to the fridge to get a beer. A pigeon hurls two feet over my head propelled with lead... bloody hunters. Two flocks of pigeons continue to fly round and round in circles. Sport no, cowardless pig headed slaughter yes.




The tipi is the coolest room at night...... get one!!



Work in progress. This is going to be three solar showers and three compost loos


The Cheeky Chapati Cafe, finished!!



New extended dining area in front of the C.C. Cafe



Kitchen started in the C.C.C. All the marble was found in various gardens!

Owl is heading off next week to do a Permaculture Design Course at the fabulous retreat of Chris and Kris near Aljuzer (see www.icanfeedmyself.com) The ten day course is being led by Lesley Martin (Hi Lesley, promise to share a Medronho with you) and starts on the 10th September. There are still two spare places for anyone to grab?

Ah yes! Latest tip, whistling gets rid of wasps (sometimes..)

Can fish smile?

17kgs of pumpkin. There is a reason for my nakedness. Nice prize for anyone who can guess!!

Finally home from a 7100 km Odyssey.


Funny sometimes that it takes sitting on the motorway for a few days until your mind can wonder to the more important things in life.
Rolling through Southern Spain, you can not avoid looking at the rubbish on both sides of the road. Bottles, bags, plastic, paper.. they really must assume it all comes free and disappears the same way. Dirty dirty buggers. Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, germany - not a grain of litter. Italy a little, France a little, then hit Spain; you may as well save a years worth then release it bit by bit every 50 metres , especially when you are 20 feet from the beach.
In "Five Acres and Independence" (M G Cains, published by Dover), published in 1940 comments " The average smallholder has no need of a rubbish bin since he produces no waste."
Crumbs. Guilty as charged. So what do I do?

1. Food waste.

Any waste, which is little (ever read about the English that throw away 30% of their food?? Hang 'em!!) Anything we do not eat goes for tomorrows lunch, chickens or compost. Zero waste

2. Paper waste.

All our waste paper goes into the bread oven, but unless we cook bread a little more regularly, it really just goes up in smoke and leaves a big pile of ash... could do better. Ironically, any plastic that burns without a coloured gas is safe to burn as well, Owl's brother Hugh told me which ones were which but I had a little drink about a while ago and need to re check which is whicch.. watch this space!

3. Glass waste.

Up to now, we have managed to fill and smash our (sometime to be finished) BBQ / Bread oven / Rocket stove station. We have to do another glass smash then it is full. Then I intend to collect the bottles to make a Moroccan sauna (Hamman) but it is a worry, a perpetual stream of non returnable bottles - any ideas anyone? I can take used wine bottles and buy dodgy red draught wine, Holly makes lemonade but every beer, decent white wine etc creates a stockpile of glass..

4. Plastic waste.

Now we have installed a three stage water filter (Leroy Merlin) we refill any plastic water bottles and more importantly don't buy any new ones. But every bin within 100 miles of here is overflowing with plastic bags and bottles. Recycling is ok but we need to stop the initial phase of packing and bottling. I can buy all my vegetables at Sao Bras market on a saturday morning without a trace of plastic but followed by a trip to Lidl, the car is awash with oil based products.

I will improve, I will reduce my footprint. Buy loose beans and soak them rather than the endless tins. Do not wash tins or plastic for recycling.. water is our prime source, save it. Look at every product you buy and imagine how you can replace it when there is no oil, no transport, no packaging. All I have to do now is figure out how to repay 7000kms of carbon emissions from our recent travels.
About time I got back to work,

Stu and Owl xx

the Oldest Inbetweener

Somewhere in Southern Spain


Sunrise on the East coast of Spain

I don't know if any of my readers have ever watched "The Inbetweeners" - a sitcom consisting of cringingly embarrassing 15year old school boys trying to get a girlfriend.One of them wears a tie and specs and spectacularly can't stop putting his foot in it whilst chatting up girls. That's me, except it never ended at 15 and is continuing into my 50s... A complete inabiltiy to link brain to mouth at those vital morning.
One of those moments was this morning. A police woman was trying to explain that we - could - not - park - or - camp on the beach, even though i had passed out under the stars the previous night after a typical Spanish dinner of Biryani and Beer.
"I love you" I mouthed. "Move sherbert brains" she answered. I took this as a come on and tried to kiss her just as she tazered me with my own Sunday Times.
I moved on, what is 500 metre compared to the 6100 kms we have driven so far this holiday. we have so far driven to Spain, France,Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, France and we are now back in Spain, in Mojocar just above Almeria. Old Smokey, the camper is going well, not using water but still smoking in the morning especially over angry but attractive Angie Dickinsons..
Lots of countries in lots of days, here's the view from the top;;

1. Slovenia

Beautiful, clean, scenic, cheap -and that's just the women!! Well worth a visit

2. Spain

Good old Spain, you drive 6000kms just to discover its tanned topless beauty with great beer

3. France

Great scenery, spent more on tolls than diesel (or women). Expensive but so picturesque.



Hire boat proved too weak to handle The Merelie Family Summer Tour

4. Austria

Great drivers, tall ugly athletic women. Innsbruk was fantastic. Whole place is full of tunnels. No tolls!!!

5. Switzerland

Now officially renamed rip-off-aland. Don't visit ever ever ever. Pretty though

6. Italy

See above but 20% cheaper. Lake Garda and Sirmione were nice

And there you go, saved you 6000km. Slovenia was so nice so I will return and take in Hungry and Croatia at the same time
We are back in a few days
Only one boat was destroyed in the making of this blog
All references to women except for Angie Dickinson are fictional

Sausage of the week

Thanks to all of you who turned up to the open sexuality afternoon last week. a good time was had by all and by the end of the day some of us were walking around like John Wayne. Okay okay only kidding, this isn't some German eco village north of here, but it got your attention.

When I was 30, I bought brogues, scatter cushions and knew the sizes of all our beds so I could shop with confidence at Ikea. At 40 I bought a Mercedes convertable and knew the lingerie sizes of 4 beautiful ladies. By the time I reached 50, I lost half my wealth to the DVD Club (Divorced, vicious and dangerous), the other half to a lacklustre stockmarket and gave my suits to Oxfam.

But I digress (too much). The Owl House shade and kitchen is now finished and that completes a good year of progress at Quinta Stuart.




leiberwurst
Finished are :-

Theatre of Dreams with seven hammocks and outside movie screen
Cheeky Chapati Cafe, three season lounge with chillout zone
Villa Ganeesha, our first Goan style coco hut
Owl House, shade and outside kitchen and course area

To finish:-

Cladding of bread oven, rocket stove and BBQ
Full kitchen in Cheeky Chapati Cafe
New triple compost loo and solar shower block

To follow:-

Villa Sheeva, six person coco hut
Villa Gemini, twin two bed coco huts with a centre lounge

We have 4 volunteers coming for September / October so hopefully we can comlete one or two more projects before the rain starts. For us, we are off to Slovenia with Old Smokey, the camper..... only 3100 kms each way!!

50 and counting....... Stu's getting old!!

VIVA PUNTA MORAL

Thanks to all my friends, enemies, Slovenia, Algeria and the USA for all my birthday messages. Unfortunately I have not got time to replace Rooney in South Africa, no hair dye avaliable.

Had a wonderful day shopping in Ayamonte and lunching at Casa Simoe on the coast at Punta Moral below Ayamonte.

Villa Ganeesha Now Open

NEW HOTEL ROOM AT QUINTA STUART!!

Apologies for the lack of text in the last blog. Good old Linux (or rather Uncle Ubuntu) likes to show my blog in html as I am typing it - including the pictures which makes editing it all rather tricky (HTML stands for "Leave it to the anoraks, I'm off to the pub"). As work is quiet I have taken two weeks off and finished Villa Ganeesha, the first of our Eco co co huts, a simple pole and bamboo net construction. Ganeesha (named after the Hindu Elephant God) is 1,5 metres above the ground, a small 3m by 3m bedroom with a covered terrace at the front.










Villa Ganeesha in its various stages of construction. The tongue and griive walls took ages, whereas the roof took a morning..... Sheets from Goa and rugs from the Atlas mountains give it a really relaxed feel. A small fan moves the air and a few meditation cds make it a lovely place to stay - please drop in and try it. We will start the next version in September.

ABUNDANCE IN PARADISE

A couple of friends called in, and described Quinta Stuart as "Paradise" Sometimes I can be blinkered when working and watering the land every day. Only by taking photos and putting them on my blog, can I see the progress. Trees are laden, courgettes, onions, nabos, green beans and beetroots, tomatoes ripening, bananas hanging laden, apricots and peaches ripening, it all is growing. Water is still a pain, we have already used a third of the water tank (my fault, left an irrigation system on all day....) and have started to buy in water already.Not too permaculture based but we will cover this summers water bills with the few weeks we have booked in the Owl House.

We will concentrate from next January re renting out our various rooms, but in case you are curious, it is basically the following:-

THE OWL HOUSE

Lovely wooden chalet with en suite bathroom and sun terrace with simple outdoor kitchen (fridge, gas cooker, work top - this will be improved over this winter)
A simple calm place to stay, ideal for a couple. A comfy double bed and just installed air conditioning. From 210 euros per week

INDIAN TIPI

A 5,5m genuine Indian Tipi. Inside is a double bed and simple lighting. You may have to prise Stuart out of there!! As the sun sets, the warm air flows under the tipi sides and accelerates out of the smoke flap at the top. In the morning, the early light illuminates the canvas to give the perfect dawn. From 150 euros per week.

VILLA GANEESHA

Our brand new Goa style co co hut. Sits 1,5m above the ground with a narrow shaded terrace and a bamboo walled bedroom with bright Goan coloured sheets line the walls. This is a good eco option as it has a high quality compost loo nearby and an indoor shower room and small kitchen. It is next to The Cheeky Chapati Cafe - a shaded lounge and outdoor kitchen and also close to The Theatre of Dreams, a shaded chill out zone with seven hammocks and outdoor movie screen!! From 140 euros per week

BECKYS HUT

A small chalet with two single beds, again close to the compost loo, shower and shaded areas. From 120 euros per week

Prices are for two people sharing - we keep the prices cheap and can do favorable deals for sinlge people. We expect a small donation on top of these prices for water, and give a small discount if you bring your own bedding. We have washing machine, wifi unlimited internet and like to organise courses and special days / movie nights / airport pick ups. Try and find something of the same quality with an eco theme cheaper!!

I was trying to add more photos but Uncle Ubuntu won't play!! Please feel free to call in for a herbal tea (often Sagres flavoured).
Take care, Stu and Owl xx

Pre Election Special

Nick Griffin now clear favorite to rule the UK Dictatorate

It was obvious that Gordon missed the boat in Rochdale. A bigot is a deep fried pizza in that neck of the woods, but to "uber" insult Mrs Jenny by calling her "that women" is unforgivable, akin to calling her a whore, a husband robber, an alcoholic and even dare I say it... a person from Yorkshire.

Kate and Rich moved on to Robin's eco centre near Aljezur (google pura vida for the link) and we now have Greg (Gandi) and Izabella (Easy) working hard here. The good weather has finally arrived and the building work is really coming on.



New seating in the Cheeky Chapati cafe - all done by Kate and Rich



The Theatre of Dreams now complete with seven hammocks