If you go down to the woods today

We are really lucky, in that less than ½ mile from here, is a small woodland area, sweeping the bottom of the ‘mountain’. The weather has been very up and down, so we haven’t been up there much recently, plus of course, we needed to be certain that the pesky processionary caterpillars have finally gone.

Thankfully, we have had a few nice days, so we took the dogs for a nice long walk. They really love it. There are many pathways, but it is perfectly ok to walk anywhere, unlike most of the UK. If you are feeling very brave, you can walk straight up to the top of the mountain (but it is much easier to use the path/road up the side). We have only done that once.

We cannot see our house from the top, as it is hidden by pine trees, but anywhere along the trail there are breaks in the pines and it is possible to enjoy the view across l’Olleria or to the far sides of the valley, 20 or so miles away.

The dogs behave very well. They rarely run more than 10 feet away. In fact, when we met someone coming the other way and they asked ‘¿estan bien?’ (are they good) before I had answered, Max had run back to Ed, and Paddy had gone round them! Later, when I put Max on his lead as we neared the road again, I accidentally dropped it, and he simply trotted on regardless, rather than race off.