I suppose we have to start with Betty. She’s had a lump on her back leg for a number of years now, it’s never affected her walking (or indeed chasing after anything) so we’ve not bothered to have it seen to. Then over the last few weeks it became larger and redder and she seemed a tad lethargic. A wound appearing meant we had no choice but to take her to the vet’s to have the lump removed. Given her…
In many traditional Portuguese houses the ground floor was often used for non-living purposes: keeping animals, storing foodstuffs, making wine etc. The house next to our rented one was full of their produce: onions hanging in plaits from wooden beams, potatoes supported in hessian sacks, wooden boxes full of eggs, buckets and buckets of dried beans; it was choc-a block with goodies and cobwebs. This house, Casa Lima, used the ground floor for making wine. It contained huge wooden barrels,…