There's more to life than earth bags...

We have been busy doing the earth bags for quite some time, and to tell the truth I got a little sick of it!  My right hand decided to get sore, so eventually we had to stop for a few days.  Yes!  It is so nice to do other things.  The dome is now over one and a half meters high and we are ready to put in the door.  We have covered the outside of the building with black shade netting as the sun will destroy the fabric of the sacks.

I've been dying to play with the mud and experiment with cob, so the other day I sieved some earth and then mixed it with straw and put it on some chicken wire to see if it sticks.  It did!  It feels lovely to work with.  I then made up some more and started to fill in the gaps between the earth bags.  It sticks there,  too.  So I got very excited and have decided to make a bigger bender out of ferro and chicken wire, and then cover it in cob.  I hope to enrole some girlfriends to help cover it.  Then we can camp on the land in style.  It's ok in my little bubble tent, but crawing out (over the dog) in the middle of the night... well, I'd rather not.

 I have been to the beach once of twice when I can drag myself away from our exciting project.

Well, there's more to life in Alentejo than earthbags and benders, and last Friday I went to see Isabella perform on her last day at nursery school before the summer holidays.  The school at Castelao has won prizes for it's various good things.  One of them being the vegetable garden they have made, which they actually made money from selling the produce, to buy toys and books.  Pretty cool I think.  And it involves the parents and grandparents.  It's a great community and the teacher, Anna, is full of good ideas and love for her work.  I hope she gets reposted to Castelao, but the system isn't like that.  They get sent to wherever, usually a different school every year.  Madness.  Anyway, the parents and guardians and fairy godmothers all prvided cakes and sandwiches and crisps and juice. The table was groaning, and later so was my stomach!

The weather has been kind.  A cool breeze keeps us fresh, even though it's hot and clear skies.  When I hear of the weather that is going on in Britain I feel a bit smug.  Sorry folks.  It must be grim to have it so wet.  But perhaps it's not as bad as we hear.