Bedrock

Archive for the ‘Andalucia’ Category

A great weekend so far, but not entirely without it’s issues. For the second time in a year, after lots of flawless, smooth driving over the past few weeks, the car has decided to have a fit – the gears and wheels won’t talk to each other and so it’s dead in the water, as it were. The gears and clutch work – but there’s a disconnect between the power train and the actual wheels.

This time, thankfully, it packed in locally (and not on the motorway like last time) so  it is now languishing at the Renault dealer in Huescar and we’re picking up a rental car on Monday – having no car for a week is great for exercise but pretty much a disaster otherwise.

All of this happened on Friday and the guy at the Huescar Renault dealer was very helpful despite our language incompatibility – when I called in armed with my Google translation to find out what the damage was, he had the thing up on the ramp in no time and after prodding with a various metal rods for a while he managed to get one of the wheels to turn for about 2 seconds so I’m hopeful it’s not a new engine or something equally traumatic… but hey, you buy a cheap second hand car, you expect issues. It does make you wonder about the benefits of owning a car and having this hassle as against rental.

After a little rain around Huescar which we missed here in Galera, the weather here has been fabulous – the mist has cleared and there’s a great view of the mountains in the distance. Yesterday, Maureen spent much of her time putting bits and pieces together for our party while I built a music playlist on the computer – that of course and spending as much time as possible in the (cold) hot-tub.

My new lights never did turn up from China but then I was probably being a little optimistic – they’ll probably turn up Monday. We borrowed (with permission) tables and chairs from absent neighbours, ice came from La Posa thanks to incredibly helpful neighbours and we kicked off at 7pm, finishing around 2am – despite having a slightly fuzzy head this morning I’m pretty sure everyone had a good time and thanks to people helping clear up, this morning was not the usual post-party nightmare.

Just as well as it’s quite hot, with clear blue skies again and I foresee a very lazy Sunday ahead of us. The first neighbours up this morning took the garbage away – what more could you ask for…when I’m done here I’m off to soak in the (cold) hot tub and work on the tan.

Tomorrow I’m planning to catch up on emails and work while Maureen and Alison head off to Granada to get a rental car while we figure out what to do with our own slightly disabled Renault.

Regards – Peter Scargill

Yesterday was great, the humidity dropped markedly and the skies cleared – which made the 36c temperature even more pleasant than usual. We had a quiet day at the cave and I got some work done, in the evening we went off to Huescar for a spot of shopping and inevitably ended up in the Galera Hotel for drinks and tapas. What little clouds were in the sky went, in a short period, from white to a magical shade of red as you see in the photo.

After a short stay at the hotel we then headed back up to local cafe La Posa and met up with a South African couple who’re working in Qatar and had a really interesting conversation with them before settling down to chatting and drinking with friends from the village.

I finished the night off by taking my chair up to the top of the mountain to do a spot of star-gazing but no matter what, I could not see any meteors – must be the wrong part of the sky.

This morning I was up in the early hours – around 6am – it’s amazing how quickly the sky lights up – one minute it was pitch black – the next thing the sky was blue – and so on – I’m not normally up that early and I did notice that though almost all of our solar lights were dead, having lit up our cave all night, the new super-solar lights I bought from Maplin (larger cell, much brighter light) were still going 100% strong and continued to do so until the ambient lighting turned them off automatically – I so wish I’d bought a dozen while they were on sale (£4.90 each) back in the UK.

As the sun was coming up I noticed the moon and an incredibly bright star just above it – and took the pic you see here – according to my iPhone star guide that was Jupiter.  As it was nice and cool I’ve done a spot of outside painting, all that remains to do now, having written this blog and an article on external drive access for the Nexus 7 (see the tech blog) is fill a hole that’s appeared in the bathroom before heading off down town for coffee and to perhaps meet up with our new South African people who are apparently planning to pop into our place this morning to take a look around.

After I catch up with emails the plan is then to clear off to lake Negratin to progress the suntan. There is no doubt, it’s going to be a lovely sunny day – again.

The smaller images you see above can be zoomed in by simply clicking on them.

Saturday night we were kindly invited to a party on the outskirts of the village and a very nice time we had – but we had to cut it short thanks to the need to get up in the early hours of this morning wherein we headed off early to drop our friend Marsha off at the Alhambra in Granada via the airport to drop off her bags. To fill the day, she’s planning the Alhambra tour followed by the bus tour around Granada before heading off, via Madrid, to the USA.

After dropping her off and after failing to get even a McDonalds in Granada (it’s like a graveyard on Sundays unlike the seaside resorts which of course stay open pretty much seven days a week), we headed back via a diversion to see a swimming pool somewhat south of Guadix – turned out to be a damp squib because of the fact that it’s a Sunday and everyone and their aunties were out – WAY too noisy.

Granted we did take in some nice new scenery on the way – so after taking a few pictures and using up a lot of fuel, we headed back up to Embalse De Negratin (the lake) for lunch at the lakeside. At 36c the temperature was just right for quietly enjoying the sun from an air-conditioned restaurant:-)

We then headed back to the ranch for a clean-up, blog update, phone battery charge and email catch-up before heading off the medieval market in Galera Sunday evening – and I have to say, it was very good – these fairs are a great way to get people out and talking – we met loads of people we know and chatted with them before finished the night chatting to friends at the usual local bar.

Meanwhile I’ve been experimenting with converting a standard Ikea PIR LED lamps to solar power with success… just finished modifying the first to add a charge diode and solar panels on the back – the whole lot held together and sealed with 2-part resin adhesive – that’s been sitting boiling in the sun now for 2 days and it’s now sitting on my desk blasting out free light! If this stands up to some weather I have several of these to convert over.  Lamp £3, diode 5p, 2 solar panels £1 for the pair.

This morning (Monday) after a brief trip to the post office to FINALLY get some mail from the UK, we’re back at the cave. I’ve just finished repairs to the gatepost and now I’m sitting looking at a pile of emails. No great plans for the day.

For an updated image gallery of our visit so far,minus the 3d pics as I’m having trouble reading the SD memory on the camera – check out this link. http://goo.gl/qe6Yj 

Before I forget – I took some pics of the fireworks in Galera the other night – here’s a composite – very good entertainment (and free).

After enjoying the fireworks over the weekend in Galera, yesterday (Monday) I did as sadly life insists I must – I got lots of business done – but today we headed off to the coast. We started our trip in Galera, drove through through Orce, then (the somewhat deserted) Maria, Velez-Blanco, Velez-Rubio and onto the coast.

We had a brief trip through Lorca where I managed to get a somewhat half-hearted (but free) repair to my specs – before heading off through Aguilas and on through San Juan de Los Terreros to ultimately reach Cuevas e Almanzora (Dennis if you’re looking in we didn’t have your phone number and assuming Angie is in the UK) before ultimately heading back, stopping briefly at Velez Rubio to show Marsha the castle (which was closed). Along the coast there are some incredible variations in architecture – WELL worth seeing – some of this stuff is worth forcing down the throats of Britain’s somewhat lack-lustre building designers (though I’d not want our lot to copy the building practices).

In the process we wandered around the back of Vera – and some of the natural sights there are fabulous – fruits I’ve only ever seen in supermarkets or on TV! We just picked roads at random – on the assumption that worse-case the sat-nav would get us out of a mess – which it did.

We finished the early evening with a trip to the Galera Hotel before coming home (to find no post – again). The girls are watching a movie, I’m doing the blog.

Still watching TV awaiting more images from the Mars explorer – the most impressive thing the human race has ever landed on another planet. Meanwhile Spain has it’s own impressive sights.. album update here..

Tomorrow more important stuff to do – but Thursday, we’re back a the coast for some sunbathing!

We’re onto our second full weekend and it looks like the weather is going to hold. Friday night we went off to the pizza cave up the Fuente Caliente turnoff for a pizza. The place doesn’t show up on the map but it’s just south of the A-4302  turn-off to Huescar, under the motorway and on up past the pool to Huescar, it’s on your left 2/3rds the way up – looks like a deserted Western movie set.

We arrived early and were the first in which was nice… sun setting, 32c, ice-cold coke.. what more could you want?

After a very nice evening, having overdone it the night before, we retired early and hence first thing Saturday morning, the girls walked down to the village for coffee and toast+tomato+olive oil. I followed shortly thereafter in the car (I started the morning off watching “District 9” on the tablet and checking the email for even more urgent stuff) but not before dumping the venerable and much-loved S600 printer in the skip!

After breakfast we had a wander around town to get some essentials and came back to freshen up and so I could do some blogging and a little research. Saturday night we went down town Galera and enjoyed a chat with friends. Today (Sunday) we’ve been down to the Galera pool for the first time – which apart from being a little derelict (the pool is great but they’ve let parts of the grounds go to seed) and some particularly noisy children was very pleasant.

We came home to a nice email from our Internet service provider who has moved us onto a quieter link as we were getting massive download variations – which is nice – and tonight the plan is to go to the old Orce market. Tomorrow I have lots of FSB work to catch up on and I’m hoping my new iPhone replacement lens and back will turn up as there’s a very slight scratch on the current one….  we’ve promised ourselves that on Tuesday we’ll head off to the proper beach over Aquilas area to the South-East for a few hours.

After a very warm morning at the Huescar market, the girls decided to stop in for the evening, but not before dropping me off at the town centre for a night with the British locals – the famed “G7” evening.

As it happens I didn’t manage to crawl back up the hill until something like 2:30am in the morning after a very entertaining evening solving most of the world’s problems – as you do.

The image above was taken using the iPhone in night vision software while propped up against a wall (and yes, that’s the moon). The panorama above was created with PhotoSynth, one of Microsoft’s better offerings recently.

Another day with no post – and I found out today that my friend Aidan in the UK sent me a test envelope LAST THURSDAY – is it any wonder the Spanish economy is in the state it is – I ordered some small items from the UK and China about a week ago and nothing – not a thing has turned up – yet we have in the past had post turn up here so it’s not as if they don’t know we’re here.