Bedrock

Archive for the ‘Galera’ Category

Last night we enjoyed a fabulous dinner with the friends and family of our Spanish neighbours, Cosme & Celia in downtown Galera, in Andalucia, Spain.

We enjoyed wine and tapas in the ancient wine cellars of Celia: a hundreds of years old Spanish house where they make wine in the cellars below the house. It was truly amazing and despite our pigeon Spanish, all the people were very kind and friendly.

How nice it was to be included with locals for their Saturday night dinner! We’ve discovered new foods to take back home including a new cold soup (Sopa de Ajo Blanco). A fantastic and relaxing evening – but more importantly, it was striking how friendly everyone was even though there was a language barrier.

A night to remember indeed. Today we’re off to the Baza market to look for a chair and then a little spot of painting – the hailstones made a bit of a mess of one of one of the walls!! Last night near midnight the temperature was down to a stunning 16c – it’s not been that cool since we got here – and I don’t expect we’ll see that again for a while – sun tanning weather today no doubt as first thing there is not a cloud in the sky.

I never thought I’d see the day… it’s not only been raining – but HAILSTONING! Last night we went off to the pizza cave with friends and it rained for a while – granted we have to keep this in perspective – raining at 28c is NOT the same as miserable cold England. When it stopped – you could tell there was still moisture in the air, we were not out of the water after a completely rain-free summer.

Today got off to a great start, by mid-day it was probably 32c – by the time I surfaced, neighbour Dave was well into painting everything in sight and so feeling guilty I joined in with my pot of cement. He’s done some nice paintwork on the walls outside and I got started doing post repairs, It was all looking spiffy by mid-day.  We’d just finished the posts and we popped into our respective houses for lunch when there was the most horrendous racket as the skies opened up…

Hailstones – the kind that stott off cars and fly all over the place and make a horrendous racket. By late afternoon this turned into torrential rain – still around 25c but the water was absolutely pouring off the roof and now.. it’s stopped.

Got a drinks and tapas engagement tonight downtown and we’ve no idea if that’s still on – can’t get email – and the Baza market in in the morning at Baza if they’ve not cancelled it – everything’s a bit damp but already there is a tiny amount of sun down in the village, though not out here.

No Internet – Dave thinks they’ll have turned the WIFI mast off in the village in case of lightning strike – and that’s not a bad theory – my internal networks are fine in here but there’s no outside connection which is a shame as I’d just signed up for a new web hosting service when the connection went dead – it’s like giving someone a large ice-cream then sowing their mouth up just as they’re about to take the first bite.

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.

It’s mid-week and all’s well. Checked the cat-cam this morning back home just as Ollie strolled past the camera, giving only the vaguest acknowledgement as I called out his name though he did eventually look up to the screen and let out a few approving noises. No sign of his brother but I understand they’re all generally home and well.

Last night we BBQ’d with our neighbours, had a nice time and saw a couple of shooting stars in the process. It was a very clear night, probably 25c until near midnight though it felt cool towards the end (after 38c all day, ANYTHING feels cool). Spotted three of the brief flashes of light – one of which was quite spectacular but of course the only way to capture images of them would be to run the camera continuously.

Maureen spent much of the day yesterday doing schoolwork while I caught up with emails. I had the one token trip to the shops and failed to get some replacement LED lighting – though I did manage to get something to tackle woodworm which is apparently working, from a very friendly neighbour down the road who gave me a can to try despite having never met us before! You can’t really ask for more.

This morning I’ve reports to write for the FSB and some testing to find out why my home control boards very occasionally miss information. The postman is apparently showing up now so you never know, we might get some post. Other than that it’s likely to be a quiet day. Very sunny outside again as you might expect and my head is just about recovered enough to take advantage of it! Perhaps a trip to the lake, later.

Looking forward to our trip to Gibraltar in a few days though I have to say rather apprehensive about potential delays in the heat thanks to Spanish customs and their political manoeuvrings. It remains to be seen whether that’s going to be a hassle or not.

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.

A very pleasant evening out with friends last night, down in the town – the famous “G8” which basically means a bunch of us out on a Thursday night for drinks. We started at the Galera Hotel and ended up at La Posa.

A favourite Spanish trick about this time of the year to terrify the wits out of the British – is to set off an explosive every time the church bell has finished ringing – which it does quite a lot. Yesterday I was reversing the car when it happened and I’m sure the thing had to be within feet of me because I was convinced I’d blown the exhaust pipe up. Talk about heart-stopping.  From a distance you at least have a chance to save on heart attacks because you see the puff of smoke before the sound reaches you – but close up you don’t have a chance.

After a couple of beers last night we were convinced someone had heard enough and decided to commit suicide. If you look at the front of the church here – the rightmost window, at first glance it looks like someone ready to jump.

Thankfully I had my camera with me and a quick zoom made it clear that’s the bell!!! I thought it was someone’s leg.

So much for the evening’s entertainment. We ended up at La Posa for drinks and Maureen and I shared a pizza.

This morning I went down to the village to meet Antonio from Habland who supply our Internet here in Spain – to get a new router as mine’s been acting up – he was extremely helpful and now I’m up and running hopefully reliably – we even have the iPlayer running without having to go through hoops. We do have a little issue that my cameras will no longer talk to me since fitting the new router but I’m sure I’ll resolve that in the next day or so.

Late morning after Antonio left, Maureen and I went off to the village for some ZUM – which is a powerful spray to kill insects – particularly those who like to eat your wooden beams. On the way back we stopped in the centre for a coke.  We’d popped up to the house of some friends who can’t be here right now armed with water to sort out their plants – but it turns out a friendly Spanish neighbour has taken on the job.

The village is being set up for the forthcoming August festivities in which we have bands playing and all sorts of family entertainment throughout the month.  Funny old day, it started off with a spot of rain which immediately disappeared in favour of stunning sunshine – by lunchtime it was up to an amazing 38c though the car even after driving for a while said 41c and I’m inclined to believe it…. then by mid-afternoon it was back to a little rain and lots of cloud – still hot of course. 

As I look outside – it’s sunny again. Apparently this will all have cleared up by tomorrow – I think it’s the first spot of water the weeds will have seen for a couple of months judging by the colour of most of them (a kind of dead orange-brown colour).

Probably tomorrow we’ll wrap our heads in towels before spraying the place with ZUM and backing out of the door for a few hours to make sure only the insects die and not us along with them. We’ve been warned – and the can looks pretty ominous – though being in Spanish I can’t follow a word of it.

If you don’t see any more entries here you’ll know what happened.