Probing for Nectar

Thrilled to see a couple of butterflies on the Mexican sunflowers - anyone know what they are?

A day of recuperation from the last trip and preparing for the next one (we have to be in Lisbon tomorrow), with several setbacks, including the washing machine giving up, but we had an alternative. Didn't get as much done as we'd planned, but we did catch up on sleep, which is probably the important thing.

At about midday, loads of sirens starting going off in town, and went on and on - no sign of smoke and the sirens never went off on the road to Évora. In the end, I rang Ermelinda to ask what was going on - apparently, it was the voluntary fire/ambulance brigade celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Gratefuls:
- a beautiful day, so we got all the washing dry on the line in spite of hanging it out a lot later than I'd planned
- cleaning the car inside and out
- listening to Paul practice his sermon, it's another good one, on Genesis 5, a list of names, basically, but he's got some hugely relevant truth out of it