Reviewing the situation

I have often spoken of my distaste for Magpies, for their predatory habits, their raucous behaviour, and their bullying of other species, but apparently they have a tender side to their nature.

Aperture on Life has a far better shot of a family group, but I have been stalking my pair for yonks and only by crawling under the sumac and using my long lens did I manage to grab a quick photo before they rose clattering into the hedge. Recently I have seen an interesting reversal, the wood pigeons that nest in our oaks have taken to quite visciously mobbing the handsome rogues when they approach the nest, driving them away with a huge flutteration of feathers.

They reverted to their normal behaviour yesterday though , (no camera to hand, alas) when they ganged up on a jay and drove him to seek shelter among the tangled stalks of the sage.

Apart from that another day of eccentric endeavour ,trying to fabricate a small fountain to aereate the fish tank which is becoming choked with algae. The pump I have is far too powerful, it sits on the bottom of the tank and dances in circles, causing the fountainhead to rotate wildly and the height at 6 metres or so is washing the second floor windows. Prototype mark 1 is under improvement, it now does the foxtrot quite sedately rather than the Highland Fling , and the spray height is down to 1 metre. The fish hate it and are sulking at the bottom of the pool, the water lilies wrapped themselves around the tube and pulled the roots from their pots, so they had to be re-potted, so all in all it has turned from a minor project to a major disaster, I have been here before.

My attempt at adding a lighting effect caused the ground floor circuit to blow, Spanish electricians!! The garden lights have gone on strike, and the gates no no longer respond to the remote control, the security lights have chosen to beam on and off at random and we are now only receiving Norwegian television because somehow the satellite dish has self rotated and is now focussed on a satellite station from Moldovia which only has Norge TV and some channel which shows large ladies doing gymnastics with no clothes on.

I actually found it a refreshing change from Eastenders ,but the PPO demands that we revert to the wall to wall coverage of euro 2012 so she can admire the thighs of the Croatian goalie.

All this and a blood test administered by the vampires of the Catalan health service tomorrow morning, what absolute joy.