Bedrock

Archive for the ‘Baza’ Category

In the build-up to our forthcoming trip to Gibraltar, yesterday was pretty ordinary – Maureen spent most of the day doing schoolwork, I spend most of my day answering FSB emails. We’ve had a fair bit of interest in Hollyberry Cottage since moving to the new advertising company so that’s taken some handling and so yesterday, generally was a work day.

We took off late afternoon to head off to Baza to buy some mains cable and to see if we could find a new lamp for our ceiling fan – with success, I have  a couple of holes to drill in metal today to modify a standard lamp to fit the fan and we should be ready to install in the living room sometime this morning with luck. On the way back from Baza we stopped off at a couple of bars and finally ended up in Galera for a short chat with friends which was nice.

Today we’d normally be off to the Huescar market but there is a question mark as to whether it will run as there’s a religious holiday so it could be a short trip, coffee and Churos and back again. Once again I’ve meetings this afternoon and Maureen has much more work to do but I want to get the fan fitted and a couple of other jobs out of the way.

It’s likely to be another clear-sky hot day – yesterday was around 36c most of the time, no doubt it will be similar today. Can’t complain as it makes for REALLY pleasant evenings where you can sit outside until midnight in a t-shirt.

Friday night we had a small party here at Bedrock – just a few friends over – sadly not enough room for everyone we know but we’ll make up for that at a later date. Cracking night as the weather was just right – I think we finally got to bed at 2am in the morning or so. Funnily enough, last night we met neighbours who we could not find to invite to our do and they just invited us over next week for their own party!

We had about 16 people over and had a great time but not before Dave and I had replaced a fence section and done some work on the Pergola – leading to me burning my head in the sun – which I’m still paying for. Some of us never learn.

Here on the right is a shot early on before most people arrived showing the new side we’ve added to the Pergola to give a little extra shade and privacy without compromising the view. Click on the images to expand.

Saturday was a relatively lazy day, time to catch up with emails etc., but Sunday morning we went off to Baza for the Sunday market – it was ok, not sure it was worth the trip other than to meet up with people – the hotel there serves a mean sandwich but the service was atrocious – there was one stand selling UK-type food – i.e. meat pies etc. which are very rare here – I bought a corned beef pastie and I have to say, nice try but next time putting some corned beef in it would be good. Essentially it was a potato pastie with a sample of corned beef. Maybe we’re in the wrong business!

In the evening we headed down to the Galera Medieval fair with neighbours and had another nice evening in town and once again the weather held, lots of people we know showed up, we didn’t stay out really late but it was still 25c near midnight with a nice breeze – lovely. All manner of entertainment including a band in the town square.

Today I have some work to do including various FSB short meetings – and Maureen has schoolwork to attend to – I suspect tonight will be a quiet night! At that point I’ll leave you with some pictures.

Quite a nice day, Saturday… the weather was sunny but not too hot, BBQ with our neighbours then off we went to Baza in the evening to catch the tail end of the horse show before returning for a mini-BBQ and a relatively early night (and I just got up at 10am!!). The horses were fairly boring but there was a mini-car show inside for Renault and they had their one-person “car” in there (see image) – granted it’s not REALLY a car as there no windows in the side (not much use in Britain then) – and here in Spain you’d end up covered in dust – but novel all the same – oh, it’s electric of course – lift a little cover on the front and plug into the mains! 

We did note however that (at least Renault) cars here are HORRENDOUSLY expensive – which might account for why the lovely modern rural roads are quite often empty!

This morning the weather is very different to anything we’ve seen up to now, it’s quite cool (relatively speaking) at 21c. Amazing what a difference a few days can make. This is more your DIY weather, but not today as we’ve a trip to the coast to take care of after checking the size of breezeblock tiles at Anna’s in town for my next building project.

Blew my first LED light to kingdom come yesterday, testing out one of the new 5w (5 leds) ES mains LED lights in the bedroom to see how it compares to Compact Fluorescent. This time I don’t THINK I can blamed the electricity – I’d left the lamps out in the damp overnight – so a lesson – these things are not waterproof.

Anyway, there was a loud BANG and the circuit breaker tripped.  I pulled the lamp apart to reveal basically a 12v lamp setup with a little power supply in the ES (screw) base which was basically reduced to charcoal. The LEDS themselves are fine in their top heatsink so I’ll find a use for that (solar?) but clearly there had been no attempt at waterproofing the lamps- but dismantled (takes seconds) it’s easy to see that they COULD be made waterproof! Something for another day.

Off we went first thing to Baza to the “Centro De Interpretacion” where we learned all about the early history of Baza. We were the first and only people there, the lady sadly didn’t speak much English but all the exhibits and interactive stuff was in multiple languages. We say ultra-wide screen video, saw 3d video, played with interactive screen tools and saw genuine relics  – everything worked.

Then having helped the lady running the place to remove a cat who’d decided this might make a good home for her kittens, we headed off to the museum – a little short on artefacts bit pleasant none the less. We’d planned a visit to the baths but that doesn’t open until 6pm tonight. Lunch in one of the many squares then back home – all in all a very pleasant day so far.

Don’t forget you can enlarge any of these photos at the touch of a finger (or click of a mouse if you’re old-school) except I suggest not the cats as they’re already zoomed in. We reckoned the cats must’ve been dumped as they were not wild – indeed the mother took a shine to me and kept wrapping herself around my ankles – I had a good mind to bring her home.