Some reasons to celebrate

Yesterday was our two year anniversary of taking up full time residence here at Casa da Praia (Portguese for beach house) at the "other" Copacabana and our five year wedding anniversary. To mark these two occasions, and to prepare for exploring the Pyrenees and the Yorkshire Dales, David and I decided to take our new hiking boots on a test run in the nearby Bouddi National Park. The boots performed well in all test conditions - including sloshing through mangrove swamps at one point. The only problem was that some pesky mosquitoes thought they would come along for the ride so we strode quickly rather than meandering. And stopping to take photos would surely have meant death by the blood sucking bugs so here is a photo of a beautiful angophora tree that I had taken on an earlier hike:

Another reason to celebrate is that our new water tank, that has been languishing for weeks as a monument to optimism, has some water in it at last. Not much, but enough to know that all the new guttering and spouting connected to the great expanse of our ski jump house roof is working. Maybe we will return home from holiday to a full tank - that would please David as he doesn't like rain much.