Bedrock

Archive for the ‘Andalucia’ Category

After a very busy day yesterday which ended up with an early night, we headed off to the Huescar market this morning (Thursday) – had our cafe con leche and Churros and did a little shopping – after a LED flood-lamp blew up last night I looked in vain to find one in Huescar, seems no-one does them so we’ll have to manage until our next trip to a larger town (no shortage in San Javier but that’s 2 hours away). For those looking in for the first time, the Huescar market happens every Thursday and is a relatively large market with fruit and veg, clothing, shoes, kitchen stuff and more – no-where near as good as the better French markets but a nice trip out for the morning. Takes about an hour at most to get from one end to the other and back.

This afternoon we spent indoors as it was a TAD HOT out there – 37c (98F) and I’ve been doing a little research on Android media players. We bought a car radio for the car here with USB connector for music and it’s basically useless with only limited support for folders – so I came to the conclusion the best way would be to put the music on Maureen’s HTC ONE X phone with a suitable player and feed that to the car radio. That is now all done with thousands of tracks on the phone ready to go. Ultimately I picked GoneMad Music player for the phone.

Right now they’re busy setting up lights and sets in the village for the August festivities and we’ve grabbed a list of events from the town hall.  Still awaiting first proof that the posty actually delivers post here in the mountains!

After a very pleasant evening last night (we ended up having a pizza locally and chatting with friends) we had a rather late start due to some folk overdoing it the night before… and headed off this morning to Baza for some supplies before heading off to Lake Negratin where we spent much of the day as the temperatures rose toward and then exceeded 40c.

After spending the afternoon paddling around and using the inflatable boat as a sun-lounge, we headed off at around 4pm – at which time the temperature was hitting 42c – a record certainly for our trips here, around the back end of Negratin and discovered a new beach (with new road) we’d previously not come across. The photos here were taken at that beach though we were not about to hang around too long as it was simply too hot.

The scenery and colours were amazing and we’ll be back soon to take another look. Even at 7pm this evening it was still 36c outside – and this is DESPITE a slight haze – thankfully the cave is relatively cool!

Tomorrow the market in Huescar.

Our last full day for this short break then it’s back to the grind for a while, but not long before we’re back here again for the summer hols. Meanwhile today, armed (finally) with a working car we went off to Huescar for some goods and "churos and coffee" – rapidly becoming an essential part of visiting Huescar.

We go to the little corner cafe you see here near the square. We also managed to get some round staples so next time I’ve some wiring to fasten up, we’re all set….  at lunchtime we returned to Galera and I fitted the new radio to the car, not without issues as the aerial socket is ever so slightly different to the car fittings as you can see in the photo below. Just found an "iso to din" adaptor on Ebay for the aerial so that’s on it’s way.

As that means no Spanish FM radio for now (which we don’t understand anyway), that’s not too big a deal, the radio has Bluetooth (tested, working), auxiliary input, USB input (tested, working) and SD memory input  so all I have to do it kit out a 16 gig SD with all of our music and Spanish lessons and we’re all set. That’ll be ready for the summer.

Bought a new storage cabinet which I’ve just spent part of the afternoon filling up with electrical rubbish and tonight we plan to stay in and enjoy a glass or two of wine and take in the view.

Next week I’ve a ton of meetings lined up in London and elsewhere but first I’m putting my trusty oscilloscope on Ebay as I’ve spotted a modern pocket version which will be ideal for the summer (I’m sure if I brought a proper scope over on the plane, they’d think it was a terrorist device and not let me on the plane. I was stopped on the North/Southern Ireland border once with the same kit and they were convinced I was up to no good).

Making the best of the REALLY nice weather as I’m let to believe that (surprise surprise) the weather back in the UK is rubbish – on the other hand I’ve lots of Chinese goodies waiting for me back home not to mention our kitties.

Incidentally, while we were over here, obviously the BBC i-Player doesn’t really like one being overseas neither does Netflix but we were fine thanks to the continued reliability of Hide-My-Ass.

Another cracking day here in Galera and we took a walk down to the village this morning to get an early lunch and grab a sandwich.  It turns out our long-missed car was ready and friends here VERY nicely took us to go and get the car at Caravaca De La Cruz. Sure enough it was NOT the battery as the roadside technician had concluded but a filter issue which had then gone on to cause damage elsewhere – the upshot being a bill in excess of 500 Euros!!   Having said that, the car now works perfectly and we took a drive over to Huescar for provisions and a new storage unit for my electronics stuff before returning to Galera.

This evening we ventured out to the Galera hotel where there were doing, as they do on Friday nights, baked potatoes the size of which I’ve never seen before – those of us who had them were totally beaten by the end but they were REALLY, REALLY nice!!! Interestingly we met a Geordie there who used to have a shop in Bedlington and knew a pal of mine, Davy Milne from years back – what a small world.  A great time was had by all and now we’re back early, totally beaten by the food.

Tomorrow we’re off to Huescar again having been alerted to a new supermarket out there and to get some round staples to replace the ones that friend Cyril loaned to us so we could light up the tree on our communal roundabout!

It’s 10pm, still warm as you like outside and the view is excellent. Perfect… how, if we could just get the electricity to work properly.

This photo is that of the wiring to our place…… this is what effect years of regulation poured upon regulation has had… ZILCH! Yes, that’s an un-armoured mains cable – with electrician’s tape covering the joints – outside – on the top of our hill!! Lovely.

Well, not exactly blues… hard to be blue at 33c (again) – our friends helping us sort the car just rang, "waiting for a part" -  how familiar is that! So the plan to go to the Huescar market, pay the rates, get some plants and generally shop went clean gone out of the window. Another day without a car…. this is starting to get serious.

Had a trip down to Galera for the market yesterday morning (market is nothing to write home about but the guy was out selling Churos and we had a nice Cafe con Leche at the usual cafe).

My legs are kind of getting used to the idea of walking and surprisingly my hopefully temporary foot issue does not seem to be getting any worse (tendon damage). So the market trip was nice though it’s just a LITTLE market. In the afternoon did my share of emails now everyone is back from the twin bank holiday, I’m working on a project (i2c tester) and simply enjoying the peace and quiet. I’ve ordered a couple of combined humidity/temperature sensors so that when I’m back in the UK I can stop relying on the notoriously wrong weather forecasts – and instead send the info direct from the cave to my phone (well, that’s the idea). Maureen is watching movies on Netflix.

BBQ last night with what little we’ve left in the fridge and now we’re down to scraps… today we’re enjoying the sun and I’m doing some marketing for Hollyberry Cottage as well as getting shot of BT. I like the use of BT Openzone but their broadband limits and charges are just too much.

I can see a trip to the pub coming on.

It SEEMS that after a lifetime of working off "builder’s electricity" we’re now in the hands of the electricity board (we THINK). I had expected "proper mains" but when we got here we were disappointed to find that the lights seemed to be bobbing up and down even more so than usual. This morning I ran some tests…  off-load the mains coming to our place is around 220v – which is fine.. BUT – run a single standard kettle and the mains voltage immediately drops to under 200v and stays there.

Indeed, typically resistive elements as you find in kettles take MORE juice as they get up to temperature and though my digital meter isn’t well suited to instant readings I can quite safely say the power drops to 185v or lower as the kettle turns on. As you can imagine, this means the hot-tub and anything else heavy duty is a no-no.

I did some quick tests as I now have a decent meter here…  with only TWO domestic items turned on, apart from (efficient) lights, it is clear that the power would not support more than one group of us here at once and is not even good enough for that!! This is MUCH worse than it was in February and before.

In the above example the effect is obvious – with the vacuum running, turning the Microwave on causes the vacuum to slow down dramatically. Left for any length of time this would cause damage. If you’re local and reading this – this WILL damage some domestic equipment so it is vital we sort this out ASAP. Our lack of Spanish makes it difficult to argue with electricity company hence this info for anyone who wants to have a go. Mains voltage would normally be expected to be in the range of 210 to 240v but when it starts dipping down to 170 or so – you’re looking at heaters being useless and motors getting into dangerous ground.

Update 07/06/2012 – the lights continue to vary and on several occasions during the last 2 days the power has momentarily failed altogether just for a second – just enough to reset various devices… this is really completely unacceptable as a service.