In one wild day

During the holiday Cris and I found time to and pleasure in reorganizing space and things around the house. There was a lot of cleaning, tidying, bleaching off mould and shelf making too, with all its sanding and varnishing and drilling. The house feels more and more like home, like where we blend in. Sometimes it does not completely, though, like when mould seems to take over every single piece of clothing, furniture and even food. I never thought that I would call bleach my best friend, but after lemon, sun and sodium bicarbonate had the fungi laugh at my face, it is happening.

There is another reason why we sometimes feel like we do not belong here, in the wild hills of Ouro Preto. I do not particularly mind the neighbour's dogs (all of our neighbours' dog are apparently male and want to mark our house as theirs). I feel sorry for the mice that get caught between our cat and dog's paws. I was relieved the day my friend told me how to painlessly end their agony. I do not mind the frogs and rats so much. They avoid us, anyway. As I mentionned before, I am not a big fan of the spiders of all sorts and sizes that we get around and in the house. In this case I call Cris or, when he is away, the bravest part of me steps in. The one on the terrace last night fascinated all of us with its slow monkey-like motion and must have scared Coline a bit too, given how she woke up in the middle of the night, worried that she had one on her. She quit painting at noon when she did find one (not so big but not small either) on her arm. The three of us held each other, all of us a bit shaky. Most of the time, though, we marvel at the hummingbirds, butterflies and all kind of beautiful insects that fly around us, like this perfectly flat and round ladybird we saw today for the first time, and the firefly that spark the sky at night.

Drama sometime hits us too, as it did tonight while Leila and Coline's pre-bed-time frenzy (them running around in the school uniform tee-shirt and underpants, singing "I am a princess"  - Leila - and "I am a mummy fairy" - Coline - while flying they long hair in the wind of their run - actually a silk scarf) was cut short by Leila being stung on the leg by a very hairy caterpillar (which her scarf most likely picked up from the floor), after which Cris, who had gone out (barefoot) to release the caterpillar heard Coline's little voice saying excitedly "daddy, there is a spider" only to find out that the spider was actually a scorpion, and the scorpion was next to Coline's little bare feet (and he had almost stepped on it too). As I am not a big fan of this type of drama, tomorrow I will just focus on the view and on where we step, and keep gardening in my long sleeves, jeans, boots, hat, leather gloves, no matter how hot.