Bedrock

We briefly made a new friend on Tuesday – a large black beetle about the size of a large thumbnail and built out of what looked like black iron. He put up a valiant fight. The next morning we discovered another resident – a scorpion – I must admit my first reaction was to run as far away as possible – especially when the tail went up – but like the beetle, he’s now gone to meet his maker. This morning’s job then was to get the mesh up on all the windows – done – granted I’m now covered in silicon sealant. Maureen is outside attending to the builder who’s going to put in a platform and she’s unpacking the jacuzzi – my computer desk should hopefully be here in a couple of hours. Place is starting to take shape but I’ll save the photos until we get a little further along. Yesterday (Wednesday) we went off to the garden centre to see what had happened to the promised delivery of a garden table and chairs – turns out they’d written the wrong telephone number down – the delivery guy had gone out for a wander about with the furniture and broken one of the chairs in the process. Anyway, all sorted now… we have our external furniture.

Meanwhile last night we saw an interesting sight – we were just coming back into the village when we noticed another solar farm… sun was going down and the cells were all dutifully pointing at the dying sun. I took a photo, put the camera away and next time I looked around, all of them (several dozen huge photovoltiacs) swung around ready to face the morning sun the next day. Most impressive. The camera shot doesn’t really show the scale of these things.

We had the guys over yesterday fitting the satellite up – and what a time they had – apparently there’s a shortage of cement in some of the rendering so their bolts would not stick – but after a couple of hours it’s in and running. Later this year we’ll see if we can get one of the new FreeSat boxes running but for now at least we can catch up on the news – including the immensely important news from Tuesday that the first practical jet pack was indeed demonstrated successfully in Oshkosh. Apparently another thing that’s taking off especially around seaside resorts is WIMAX – but nothing like that here yet as far as we can see (though you could describe the rural broadband as being not a million miles off it).

Maureen’s been adding a little colour to the place – one issue here is shortage of vegetation due to the heat and lack of water and so it always help to put some flowers out on display – and we’ve bought a range of items that don’t require a lot of maintainance (aloe vera)… I’ve been trying to find the best way to make use of the solar lamps we’ve dotted all over – and it looks like within a couple of days we’ll have the platform ready to fire up the jacuzi. A nice surprise was the inclusion of an MP3 socket on the built-in CD so we can hook in the Internet radio.As “Riviera Radio” is now Maureen’s favourite station that’ll keep her happy. Personally I’m more into rock so the upstairs den will soon be getting a bass unit once the computer desk is in place.

At the time of writing it’s midnighy on Thursday, it’s been a lovely day, I’ve finished the insect screens and I’m catching up on a few FSB jobs on the computer not to mention an email mountain. After a much-bodged telephone conversation in Spanish (lots of groans and ERMS from me) – Maureen went off and met the furniture delivery people – I’ve fitted an outside lamp and things like loo roll holders to one bathroom (haven’t touched upstairs yet) and the builder has finished the level platform for the jacussi and fitted us out with an outside socket – and a hose connector. The picture of the pots above is now out of date – we have plants. More later. IKEA next….

On Monday we spent most of the day waiting for deliveries and by teatime the place was transformed from a pristine cave to a cardboard mess. Until then, without tools or even a brush we couldn’t do much, now we had fridge, washer and microwave all shipped from the UK mainly as the prices for that kind of stuff over here can be a little over the top – for the rest, we had planned several trips to Ikea but as it turns out – many of the local shops have really good pricing – so we’ve bought a couple of sofa-beds (and very comfortable too) as well as a china cabinet locally all of which turned up Monday. A trip to the local gardening centre (half an hour) proved interesting – the people there spoke no English – so if the stuff turns up next year instead I won’t be too surprised – but in theory we’ll have an outside table and chairs today (Wednesday). BBQ is in as you can see – and late last night we sat star-gazing until the early hours.

On Tuesday we had our first visit to the local hardware store to eat into our list of 1000 items we need – amazing what you miss when you’re away from home then we went off to the next village, armed with solicitor, builder and Les to the NOTARY office to sign papers -the place is now officially ours. It turns out that while the shops close at 2pm, the restaurants are just opening up then so we had a very pleasant lunch /(which seems to involve chips no matter what you order) after which we narrowly avoided serious burns getting into the car. It’s now mid-afternoon and we’re in here now until 6pm when we go off to yet another hardware store and a large cash and carry to further narrow down the huge list which is growing by the minute. Items of major importance included mesh for the windows – and beads for the door – so as to keep out the nasties.

So the general trick appears to be to get up very early in the morning – and get anything done that needs effort – then have lunch and a nap mid-afternoon – in preparation for shopping followed by evening entertainment and food which seems to start no earlier than 9pm and goes on through the night if you’re up to it. Once the sun goes down, the temperatures are comfortable t-shirt weather until way after midnight. Oh check out the image at the garden centre.

Incidentally, check the slideshow of images – there are far more than you see presented here – covering everthing from the cave as it develops – through the solar panels you’ll see in the countryside here and huge windmill farms. As a Brit I find it a little painful that while we’re endlessly talking about this stuff – they’re doing it… but there you are.

I’ve already bought and wired up a boatload of Spanish mains plugs and extensions and asked the builder to triple the number of wall sockets.

We’ve paid several trips to the municipal “tip” – I don’t even want to go into that one – a far cry from Hexham’s organised tip with containers for every substance known to man, over here we have basically a large open area of land which everythign gets thrown into.

On the way is more furniture including a computer desk (I’m currently working in the kitchen) for the office upstairs…. and we need more solar lights.

I now have the tools I need to cover the pagoda… and fix the outside light… no more excuses.. it’s an early start today…

We were kind of caught in the middle of things this weekend – no furniture and the shops close early. Maureen went off to town yesterday (Saturday)to order a couple of beds and and a cabinet for delivery Monday. As bed-shopping isn’t my thing I elected to stay at the rented accom – and promptly dozed off. It turns out the local shops can compete with Ikea so that’s one less trip across the country. On Monday we’ve new beds and furniture coming as well as the stuff we’ve shipped from the UK. The Jacuzzi should turn up but we need to check how flat the concrete is before making use of that – to be sure the place is going to be a mess for a couple of days. Temperatures were in the mid-30’s today and it felt hot – having said that I just received an email from my pal Jonathan who’s been to Dubai where yesterday it was 53 – to keep that in perspective, my hot tub runs at 40 and it’s almost too hot to get into. (all measurements in degrees C of course).

Last night we met up with the couple who own Spanish Inland Properties and had a pleasant evening at the local pub/restaurant with them. I’m (re)writing this on Sunday morning and once again, not a cloud in the sky. Having got SKYPE working, Maureen had a chat with her folks in the USA – amazing to think you can be in a cave in Spain and chat to the USA for what amounts to pennies…. I’m updating this on the Vodafone card, hopefully if I get a few minutes later today when I’m near a WIFI signal I’ll put up some more photos. I’ve added a slideshow block on the right of the blog – apologies for lack of picks – rest assured I’ll make up for that later on. Uploading a ton of photos via mobile telephony isn’t really that practical – but from tomorrow onwards we’ll have wifi.

Today looks like a grafting day. We were planning to go off to some lakes but Maureen’s decided it’s gardening day – we’re off to get a cover for the Pergola and get some plants (the area surrounding the cave currently looks like a desert so we need to “green it up” a little. I’ll get the camera out as soon as we’ve something to show for our efforts. There’s a local store called “Combustibles” which apparently opens early on Sunday mornings! So we’re off there for the all-important coffee then off to the garden centre. I can tell this is not going to be a cheap day.

Have you ever noticed how rarely things go to plan. We were supposed to arrive last night in Galera at a reasonable hour to meet the Les from Spanish Inland Properties (I’ll refer to them as SIP from now on) – as it happens, between being given the wrong car at the airport, driving rather cautiously after last time (wherein a jack-knifed truck hit us doing 70 on the motorway) and the sat-nav maps being out of date, we actually arrived in the village to pick up keys for our temporary accommodation just after midnight. Les took us to our accomodation and left us to what turned out to be a late night after we discovered a bottle of red in the fridge. We sat outside and chatted till 2am – clear night sky – t-shirt weather at night.

Friday: I was up first thing this morning and sat outside for an hour (sunny and luke warm) or so to catch up on emails thanks to the Vodafone card which I’ll have to use for the next two days. 10am this morning we headed off to town to go to the “Caja Rurul” bank to get our debit cards organised. It looked like pension day as there was a bunch of old folk getting paid cash. That went incredibly smoothly with the help of Sally from SIP and 15 minutes later we had our first debit card. Funny thing was I rushed outside to the cash machine to try it out and change the PIN number.. thoroughly expecting to see something like a “change language” button – well there was one – but the text was in Spanish of course!

Next stop the police station at BAZA to pick up our NIE numbers with the aid of an English-speaking Spanish solicitor. Again, a no-brainer – simply a matter of filling in forms and paying out money 🙂 By now it was well after lunchtime and the temperature was heading up toward 30 degrees C so doing anything strenuous was out of the question.

Having grabbed the keys for “Bedrock” in the morning – we headed back to Galera to take a look at our new property. As you might expect, we put together a short list of things that need fixing but generally it’s all ready – an empty shell with running water, electronicity and broadband – all the essentials.

The rural broadband isn’t fast but it works – I checked 450k download, 350k upload and it comes complete with an Internet phone and a decent high speed 4 way + wireless router.

Friday night we’re back at the rented accom, bbq on – it’s 10pm and still nice and warm so I have my bottle of diet fanta and a glass of wine… and tomorrow we’ve a clean up job to do in the new cave, then we’re off to buy some furniture. Can’t do too much as the delivery van from the UK isn’t turning up until Monday.

Of COURSE I’ve packed everything but the kitchen sink, some of which is going to be MURDER to actually get there – I can only hope the car rental place is VERY near the airport.

Current state of play is that the cave, from here on in referred to as “Bedrock” is empty but the movers have already shipped lots of stuff we need (including a large bed and an all-important Jacuzzi) ready for delivery next week. We need to sign some papers, move imported furniture in, buy some more furniture and assemble that in blazing heat, get the broadband working, get the drinks organised…..

This blog then will be in reverse order with the latest developments at the top. My job as well as signing papers and dragging gear over there is to get the technology organised – we’ve no telephone but they have what’s referred to as “rural broadband” so by now that roof below will have a little box on it pointing to a transmitter somewhere in the mountains and hopefully in a few days I’ll have WiFi running throughout the building – and of course there’s the all-important satellite dish – which has to be twice the size over there…. of course with SKYPE you always have a phone – and we’ve bought a little Internet radio for music-while-u-work… there’ll be a lot of that at first.

There is a tremendous amount of work involved in a project like this – electricity and water are in but that’s about it. We’ve bought dishwasher, Microwave, washing machine, kettle, iron, furniture – it’s FRIGHTENING how much stuff you need to set up a house.. at least the logistics of it have thankfully been made as smooth as possible by an excellent sales organisation over there. More as events unfold.