April hasn't been such a great month so far. My bunny Popsel died at the proud age of 12. He had been living with my mother in Germany for the last few years.
Matthias keeps having problems in school. Last week he and some friends got caught throwing stones over the fence, from the school grounds into the neighbouring polo club. They were not amused, and neither was the school. I don't think it was his idea, it's just that he copies his friends and doesn't think if it is ok to do certain things. We will have him assessed by the council this year, so hopefully he will get a statement of special needs. He will also see a new child psychologist, who works for a local charity.
The spring flowers are all out now, but two weeks ago we had a day of snow, which is a rare event in this part of England. Last weekend was mostly rainy, and this weekend will be just as bad. Hopefully we'll have a few sunny days during our trip to Norway at the end of May.
The first photo shows Martin wearing "scary glasses", he insisted on having his photo taken.

Our trip to Andalusia

On Easter weekend we drove up to Stansted Airport and hopped onto a plane to southern Spain. Just when we were ready to start, a blizzard moved in. The plane had to be de-iced, but eventually we took off. We landed in Jerez de la Frontera, a town famous for Sherry and Andalusian horses.

The first night we spent at a lovely small country hotel in the mountains of Grazalema National Park. It was raining hard while we were driving to the hotel, but after that we had 5 days of sunshine and temperatures around 20 Celsius.

We went for some lovely walks, during which we saw many interesting animals and plants. The area is ideal for watching big birds like eagles and vultures. We stayed in a holiday cottage for the rest of the time. It was cosy, but the neighbours' chickens were a noisy lot. Our cottage was in one of the "Pueblos Blancos", white villages, in the mountains. From the terrace we could see all the way to Gibraltar and the mountains of Morocco.

On one day we drove to Ronda, a town built on a set of cliffs around a deep canyon. It was very impressive and no good place for people with vertigo. On our last day we looked at the Roman town of Balea Claudia, which is located at a wonderful beach. At this time of year it was still rather quiet.

But I think I better let the photos do the talking:

Facebook is keeping me busy

Since I discovered Facebook, I have been neglecting my Blog even more than before. Sorry!!!

We have a lovely and quiet Christmas. No snow, as usual. We had about 3 flakes so far this "winter". The weather was so nice that I got impatient and made a new flowerbed and put lots of plants in it. Now we are having a week of frost every night, and I am worried about my little green friends. The frogs have been out and about for a while, before it got cold, and one night I counted 10 of them in our pond. No sign of toads and newts so far.

Sunnie finally got a boyfriend a few weeks before Christmas. His name is Cloud and he is a really friendly and naughty little boy. He was advertised on the internet, because his owners did not want him any longer. He had been a birthday present for a 6-year old girl, and she got bored of him after only 2 weeks. He was tiny when I got him, he got taken away from his mother much too young. He's the grey bunny in the photo, Sunnie is the red-brown one.

I am currently going insane about this year's holidays. I am trying to plan some trips, but it is all so complicated. I have found people to look after our rabbits, at least. I had booked a flight to Norway for May, but the airline decided to cancel it without telling me straught away. They might be in money trouble. I called them and asked them for a refund, but now I can't find any other flights that are cheap enough. I have to hope that some airline will do a special offer soon. I have booked a cottage at the Norwegian west coast, and also one at a lake in Sweden for the middle of August. I just love to go to Scandinavia. I had planned to take Matthias to Iceland for his birthday, but the flights and everything else up there are sooooo expensive. Eastern Canada was another plan I had to postpone, due to the flights being too expensive. Some day....!!

I am feeling a bit sick at the moment, because Alistair was watching one of those survival programmes on TV. Some guy, who thinks he's really cool, does stupid things in the wilderness, with the excuse to show people how to survive out there. What really upset me tonight is when he took a cute little tree frog and bit off its head. It was still alive. And then he killed and grilled a turtle. I don't think they need to show this on TV. I hope Matthias hasn't seen this episode, he'd be very upset, too.