Lily, the watch dog

Well, we did take the girls for 2 swimming lessons. The first one went well (see photos). The woman instructor (about 50) was terrific with the girls. Every 10 minutes or so, she would change the activity so that they didn’t get bored for the 90 minute lesson. However, they were tired on the way back to LIA. The next week we had a cold spell, which I’ll come back to in a minute. By 4:30, the pool was in shade and it was too cold. Fatima lasted about 15 minutes until she simply wouldn’t do anything. The twins were trying, but lasted only a little over half an hour. We’ll wait for the weather to get warmer before doing more lessons.

We did have a cold snap. It started with high winds that, as usual, brought down an enormous amount of debris from the eucalyptus trees all over the property, although we had only a brief power outage during the middle of the night. Usually, we have little or no breeze, but for the next 3 or 4 days, we had strong breezes which kept the temperatures low in spite of bright, sunny days. On 2 mornings when we got up at 7, the temperature was 9; it doesn’t usually get much colder than that. In the afternoons, the outside temps did not get much above 20. As a result, we have had to dress more warmly. I abandoned my normal shorts and sandals (see the 3rd photo) for long pants, socks, shoes and heavier, long sleeved shirts. However, the high pressure system that brought the cool temperatures has dissipated and the temps are 5 or 6 degrees higher and very much in the perfect range.

We had an interesting experience on Sunday night with Lily. She pounces on any spiders or cucaraches that run across the floor and kills them; we have been worried that she might do the same thing with scorpions, which are dangerous. She went over to the chest of drawers near the front door and began to bark and was very excited. This was different behavior so we immediately got up to investigate. We moved the chest, but whatever it was moved under and we couldn’t see what, if anything, was there. We sat down again, but Lily knew something was there and kept watching. Then, she began yipping again and we noticed that she was jumping back when it moved towards her. Sure enough, it was a scorpion. Lily followed it, but stayed several inches away at all times. Even after I killed it, she stayed away. We had heard that the most venomous are the small, light coloured ones; this was large (over 2 inches long) and black. It is very unusual to find one in the house; it’s been months since the last one. We are relieved because not only did Lily know not to touch a scorpion, but she also warned us and followed it like a good watch dog.