Rumble in the Jungle

The past few days have been spent on and off in front of the computer, happily busy with Twitter, Wikis, Nings, Acronyms, TEFL, PLN, CPD and Blogs, to the unfortunate neglect and detriment of my poor garden. As Voltaire famously said in "Candide" - "Il faut cultiver notre jardin". In English it means "You must look after your garden". Well, this saying has been praying on my mind recently and I have watched the huge mass of verdant vegetation above expand uncontrollably and unrelentingly. It has become a veritable jungle, with lush dense vegetation growing at a rapid pace. In fact, it has become a fertile breeding ground for all manner of creatures. The picture below was taken by K this morning. A romantic couple of Praying Mantises enjoying some R & R on our land, would you believe!


The Root of the Problem


I now have a good picture for use in future Idiomatic lessons. What is Janet holding?? One of the unsolicited bushes from the land was dug up and its amazingly long roots were extracted forcefully. They were almost as tall as myself! Have we now got rid of the deep-rooted problem? I would hope so!
Nature idioms abound here in Abruzzo and today the expresson "Idioms are the salt and pepper of speech" has just come to mind after picking my yellow pepper below.
Please click here for a previous posting on Making Hay while the Sun Shines which contains a selection of Nature Idioms.


An absolutely Divine Intervention
Drinking my post-prandial Espresso infused with the absolutely divine Amaretto, I was most surprised to hear a distant rumble in the jungle. K and I rushed to see what the noise was and.....it was the local farmer Marco, in his tractor, cutting our jungle down, with its enormous blades. We hadn't asked him to do this huge job, so we were thrilled to see the land now actually becoming more visible. It would have taken K and I probably weeks (I am not exaggerating) to mow the "lawn" down with the tools we have, so it is a big relief for us both. It has also preserved K's sanity!! I will ring Marco later to see how we can repay him. I think maybe our land stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the beautiful surrounding countryside and he has taken pity on us for the sake of his aesthetical principles. Boy, am I very happy about this!!

A Penny for his Thoughts?


What is Kelly thinking about? He does look rather deep in thought. He is a very happy dog nowadays, his tail always wagging and wanting to play games all the time. When he first showed up here totally uninvited, he was unkempt and badly injured. He had wounds on his throat which had become abcesses. He was half the weight he should have been. He had a skeletal framework. He was a scavenger. He had matted greasy fur. In fact, he was a total mess. I didn't like or trust Kelly at first as he looked totally rough and any attempt at affection could have turned nasty. We were worried about the girls' reaction. Would he transmit any afflictions? Would he turn on them? We didn't know. However, Kelly persevered with us with quiet determination and we took him in initially because we felt very sorry for him indeed. Quietly but surely, he grew in our affection and the girls love him to bits. He transformed himself to the dog you see above. With love and affection, this is the result. He is now part of the gang and no way, is he going anywhere else. Ever. He is my most faithful companion, following me around with dutiful enthusiasm.

Ad Hoc Style
Well, I've had some fun writing up this post. I really liked the title "Rumble in the Jungle" and this "ad hoc" posting is what I have come up with as a result! Totally unplanned, but it has a connection with events today.

See you on Twitter or on your blog in a mo?? Bye for now...............