Geckos, gardens and Gib

This young gecko had a narrow escape when he made a slight movement.

Out of the corner of his eye, Partner noticed it, and quickly picked up a shoe to give it an almighty whack. Fortunately he put on his glasses before he did and realised it was a gecko and not a cockroach.

Gecko was left alone to wander around the stone archway of the front door.

Lucky gecko

Later than day, young gecko had moved the full length of the kitchen ceiling, upside down, and made his way half way across the bedroom ceiling. We lay in bed, fascinated, watching him crawling happily across. What amazing suction they have – and – no fear of heights either. Our very own wildlife programme at home for free.

I like geckos. I like to think they eat cockroaches, which is a good reason for avoiding spraying nasty toxins around my home. I would rather the geckos eat unpoisoned cockies. At one point we must have had a colony of geckos as there seemed to be bits of dead cockroach legs on the bathroom floor every morning.

Geckos also eat spiders and mosquitoes. Now I’m happy with them eating the mozzies too, but not so keen on them eating the spiders. After all, spiders eat flies, and I like to think every spider in my house is a money spider. I guess that’s the natural cycle though.

But I did see a couple of pretty striped spiders who had escaped the attention of young gecko so hopefully they found a safe place to catch flies. Meanwhile the last I saw of young gecko was when he had travelled into the bathroom and was winding his way around the railings on the windows. Cute.

During the day, I saw a far larger one shooting around the garden but he had disappeared before I had chance to even think of a photo.

However, in the heat of August, here in the garden, is my escarole, still going strong courtesy of my wonderful neighbour – and – new parsley seeds that I scattered from the old plant seem to have sprung into life. The mysteries of gardening are beyond me, but if it works and survives great. Letting plants go to seed, look scruffy, and then saving the seed, or letting them reseed themselves is one of the many things I have learned here in Spain. Hardly difficult, but a more natural way of life than tidying those scruffy plants.

Escarole and new parsley shoots

Geckos weren’t the only contented animals we saw. En route, there is what looks like a horse/donkey animal sanctuary. I wish. If only I could do that too.

Happy donkeys and horses

But still, geckos and spiders are a start.

Continuing with the animal theme, I visited our vet for some Cox-2 inhibitors (NSAIDs) for our dog. And took a couple of pix of our former flat where we rented ten years ago, and the green park we looked over.

Third floor flat

I found it very strange living above the trees on the third floor. Most unnerving. Little Roughseas would climb trees, but live above them? We would watch the locals wander into the park every morning with their bottles and their joints and they happily passed the morning away causing no trouble to anyone. The park hasn’t changed, but the people are no longer there.

Peaceful – empty – park

What doesn’t change is the sea. On the way up, the beautiful shimmering, glistening sea.

Sunlight on the Med

And when we left Gibraltar, what amazing light.

Gibraltar North Face

But on the way back – where had Gib gone? Who had put down a filmy cover and stolen her?

Hey! Where is Gib?

Ah, phew, here she is. Here we are in the boring old queue for the frontier, looking at western beach. Good to know the Spaniards hadn’t towed you out to sea after all.

Enjoying the sun at western beach

Courtesy of The Pink Agendist I discovered there had been a suspected bomb in Gib last night.

Apparently a rucksack was exploded remotely by the Gib Reg bomb squad and the frontier was closed for three hours.

Good to live in a safe place like Gib? But great to have the Royal Gib Reg and all the other armed forces on hand. Round of applause for people doing a very special job.

But while all this excitement was going on, we were happily ensconced in King’s Bastion Leisure Centre, celebrating my partner’s first day of freedom after being sacked due to lack of work. There was a Bourne film advertised so we happily went along.

Another unfull cinema, and a good film – The Bourne Legacy.

Plot: Nasty CIA are still messing with people’s heads and turning them into robots and then deciding to kill the ones that malfunction. Or something like that. But one always gets away and needs to be chased.

No Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, who was no notable absence in this film, but a great new character in Aaron Cross played by Jeremy Renner.

Top marks to Renner, who I really liked. Looked like a cross between Steve McQueen and Daniel Craig, so not a bad start.

Rachel Weisz is OK as female lead, but the character struck me as being a bit naive. You work in a government lab, faffing around with DNA and don’t realise what you are doing? Even though you have a PhD? Huh? Nowhere near as good as Olga Kurylenko who played the excellent Camille in the last Bond film (Quantum of Solace). That’s a comment on characters not actresses. At least I think it is. Speaking of Bond, Skyfall is due to be released in October/November this year depending on your part of the world.

Back to The Bourne Legacy. Partner met a couple we had noticed in the cinema last night. She liked it, the kids liked it, he didn’t. That’s 3/4. We liked it. 2/2. So that’s 5/6 on the scale of nothing to do with rotten tomatoes, so worth a watch if you like a shoot the shit out of them action film. NB, it includes a long motorbike chase. Well these sort of films always include some sort of long chase don’t they?

If you want an incisive critical review, there are plenty on the internet. They basically say the same as mine but take longer to read.

Sources: The Pink Agendist (as cited above) and the Gibraltar Chronicle.