In the heat of an August afternoon I managed to persuade my wife Moweena and Patrick 'Paddy' Callaghan (262) to help me tackle the job of tidying up our perimeter footpath.

The previous week I had twice walked the path with a 12 litre sprayer on my back killing the weeds and had decided that it would enhance the appearance of our community further if all the trees and shrubs were trimmed in the 'Spanish' style, as I'm sure you've all seen in the centre of Almoradí.

We had decided to wait until the heat of the sun subsided but early August seemed to remain hot right through to evening so we embarked upon the task one afternoon with me atop a ladder cutting and Paddy and Mow clearing the mess I made.  Two days later and after a lot of sweating and a lot of swearing (mostly from Paddy) and we'd finished (we did stop for food, drink and sleep).  

As we started on the final tree we spotted Phil Stubbs (286) supervising his wife unloading the car after their trip to the beach and enrolled his help for a few minutes in a bit of sweeping up.  It wasn't much but it did show willing and it is the beginnings of how a community is formed - by helping each other.

I'm not embarrassed to keep repeating myself, this is OUR community, we ALL benefit by maintaining its appearance and we can ALL help.  When you're out on holiday, go out one evening for an hour or two and clear up any rubbish, or pull some weeds or plant some flowers, adopt a flower bed and trim your bush - it all helps.

Whilst we we shaping the trees I noticed somebody had laid large stones in a couple of the flower/tree beds outside the sliding gate to the apartments and I thought what a good idea - it looks tidy, helps suppress weeds and stops the dogs & cats from messing in them.  Maybe others could do similar things to the beds opposite their dwelling?

If you go to the top of the page and click on photos you'll see the result.