We had the art encounter, which though tiring was fun and productive. I painted my mask. I put a light green paint with darker green Ivy leaves, a flame on the forehead and a druidic Awen symbol from the forehead to the nose. Also I did a few ATC’s or Altered Trading Cards. Started by a Swiss artist in Canada who was bored of other dull looking trading cards and introduced to me to Swiss artists in Spain lol. The basic idea is that you have a theme, and then you take 6 cards and then alter them by drawing, painting, collage, or anything else and send them to a host who collects lotsof other’s cards and sends them back out to different people. I’ve done a magic swap, emotion swap and am hosting a freedom swap. Mika and her mum run an ATC group for europe and I’ve signed up for it. I’ve been more of a poem man, expressing my art through words but for the first time in a long time I’m expressing it through images. I quickly finding my way through it and thoroughly enjoying it.

It’s been raining quite alot where we are in contrast with Britain which I hear as been having very hot weather. Since the art encounter it’s been raining nearly everyday but we’ve managed to do some things on the land. We’ve planted more vegetables in a patch with egg plant, tomatoes, courgettes and some more. All of the vegetable patches are looking very happy and healthy now.

I had my birthday, which was actually quite quiet mainly because everyone had come down with the flu. BUT I did have a birthday week or as Mika called it BOTHday week, because her birthday’s coming up soon and we both celebrated it by going to Ordesa which is a lovely country park in a valley in the Pyrenees.

Ordesa was such a lovely experience with huge trees and mountains surrounding us. We saw plenty of wildlife too, we saw eagles, ravens, lizards and others. When we got near to the top near what are called the Horse Tail waterfalls, we saw a few mountain goat and Mika said she’d never seen them so close before. Well that wasn’t the end of it, we went on and saw some more, but even closer! Of course that wasn’t the end of it either. I heard a squealing noise but just thought it was a bird of prey, that is until I looked on the ground and saw two marmots playfighting. Well we stopped for a while to watch them and then more and more appeared. At one point we saw up to a dozen. These things Mika has only seen as they disappear from sight. Later we were told by a shop owner in the village we were staying in that their appearance marks the first sign of spring. So, hello Spring!

It has been a long time since writing, but I’m getting myself organised now and I should be more regular, with blogs that is. We’ve also been doing another blog called Lothlorien Nemeton Daily News. We’ve tried to make it daily which doesn’t always work but it is more about daily life rather than daily reports lol. It can be found here ; http://lothlorienemeton.blogspot.com/

So much goes on in the land. Recently we’ve had a few days rain and a lot of things are growing, including our vegetable patches with tomatoes, lettuce and others that look quite happy with the weather. Once the sun comes out there will be no stopping them!

We’ve been busy with new animals to look after. Some while ago we got some new chicken to add to the ones we have. That’s been an interesting adventure as we had three escape. Watching out for feral chickens has been quite interesting. We have one of them back and though I thought she might have gone too feral to stay she’s settled in very well. Also we have some rabbits! Me and Mika have never had rabbits in our lives before so it’s been an interesting experience. But we’re soon learning and every day they’re fed and also given a bit of excercise around our little patio.

I’ve been investigating the land a bit, there’s a fair bit of woodland which makes living here even better. It can be difficult to get around some parts of the land but with a bit of determination I manage to move around. Some of the things I find are quite interesting, there’s plenty of evidence of boars where they dig. On one adventure with Mika we found a HUGE rock about the size of my mum’s house in england, which I’d like to clear a bit of a path to. Recently we also had a bee keeper put some hives on the land and on one of my walks I was suprised to see about 30 hives instead of just a handful. Quite a suprise but I am looking forward to the honey.

This week we’ve had an art encounter week like the one done in the new year. It’s been successful for me in two ways. One, my art is coming in leaps and bounds and I’m finding my way around the paints, pencils and collage pretty well now. Also since the people coming are Spanish I can now practice Spanish a bit more intensely. In fact I managed to put together two sentences (after a little thought) which was “Este una pagína por fin para ti” (that’s a page finished for you) then “y entonces una más.” (and then one more).
The “page” was a picture I painted with a dragon theme which was for someone to put in their altered book. I’ve got my own altered book theme “The Wild Forest” and I’m looking forward to seeing what other people create for it. It’s great, they do it and I keep it!