Bedrock

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Watched a decent and original sci-fi movie “FAST COLOR” tonight while earlier today we saw a great example of Spanish driving: Maureen and I were enjoying Cafe Con Leche in a little park in Huescar this morning when along came a supermarket delivery truck. Determined to get through the very narrow road, he ploughed across the pavement and into a road sign, damaging the sign and no doubt his side-mirror in the process. I’d be surprised if his vehicle side escaped unscathed. This is not untypical behaviour but it did raise a nervous laugh or two. When done, the driver just continued on as if nothing had happened..

After that, we popped by an office building and just happened to notice the most beautiful wall tiles you see in the photo above. As always I had my phone handy to take the odd pic while out and about. See church below – also in Huescar, a town which has more than it’s fair share of Kodak moments and I can never resist, especially when the sun is out.

Next, Maureen found a new (to us) Chinese store to buy some embellishment for at least one of her dresses. The results I’ve seen so far look good.

We also had a reminder of just how treacherous our little approach road can be to someone not familiar with it. Our neighbours were getting a large delivery and Dave and I were guiding the driver from the village and to his cave. We’ve been doing this for so many years it is second nature but the delivery guy seemed absolutely mortified at the idea of driving down a road only marginally wider than his rather large vehicle. As you might imagine we found that incredibly funny.

This evening, I went with Dave who was taking the dog for a walk and I took my wanna-be dogs with me. Simba and Ruffy (our cats) both enjoy going for walks with us, something denied to them for so long in the past when we had inconsiderate dog owners for neighbours – unlike the current situation where the dogs are all well behaved, lovely animals with responsible owners. Today our corner of Galera is generally very peaceful though we did have a scare as 2 women came by with 5 barking dogs NOT on leashes, which scared the cats – there are laws about keeping dogs on leashes, sadly not too well policed and even if they were, the laws don’t seem to cover the noise aspect of unruly dogs. Thankfully in this case no harm was done as the cats were quick to find hiding places then re-joined us when the danger passed. Perhaps next time the owners may be more considerate – one can only hope.

Finally, for technical readers I’ve discovered a relatively new web browser today (always something new) called “Brave” – got it running on the PC and Android phone and it is looking very promising. Also found several new watch faces for (IMHO) one of the best watches in the world, my Samsung Gear Classic – the experience is almost like getting a new watch every day and most of the watch faces are free – I keep several dozen on the watch at any time.

Thanks to the heat we’ve not travelled too far since we got here early in July, but we’ve met lots of our friends here and below is a pic of one of our afternoon sessions with our neighbours.

The weather has been quite stunning, providing many opportunities to sit and do nothing. Now I have my Doogee camera back, I can capture the lot in style. Of course, as you can imagine we’ve also been to Lake Negratin and the pool at Orce. Sadly the regular post lady is on holiday and we’re not convinced all of our post has arrived.

Here we are at Emilios just a few km away for a quiet coffee and tostada… again, stunning weather.

Maureen has been up at the cave for a few days this month with her friend Helen and aside from a little damage to a pipe on the outside shower, all is ok. The cave is in good condition, everything works and it is pretty much ready for the summer. We’re both planning to return soon for a short trip.

It is very quiet here right now, all the holiday makers have long since gone, the village is much quieter except on market day and yet the weather is still holding out, cool in the mornings up but up to 30c late afternoon and still warm enough to sit outside at the pub.

I’ve just been sitting here putting together a series of photos to take down to the local council office to try to get them to come fix our road. As is the case with most things – if you want something doing…  I’d do the repairs myself but in a couple of cases the damage is extensive including a manhole cover on our roundabout.

The lakes have been well down this year, hoping for some snow over the winter to replenish them – but they’re still a sight to behold and we’ve spent a fair bit of time enjoying the scenery.

We’ll soon be spending some time in the UK (as little as possible) and we’re going to miss the area.

In recent months due to changes of people in the area, it has been incredibly peaceful (funny old thing – we have neighbours the likes of which you could not ask for better – and at the same time we had in the past for a time some of the worst people you could possibly come across – but that’s all history and things are definitely on the up and up)– the one remaining “odd” couple are at least quiet when they’re here, which is a blessing, though they did leave the most laughable attempt at a barrier in front of their property when they left after not saying a word. They put a chain in front of their Pergola for a time to tell everyone to stay away – but the Pergola fell down. Oh well, that’s for others to worry about – I should imagine the winds will sort that out over the winter.

Meanwhile the cars have been in for a valet at the local garage – good job too and we’ve generally had a marvellous summer – probably the best yet and we’ve made lots of friends.

I can’t believe how quickly the hot months have gone by, we came here in April and yet it seems like only a short time ago  A great time of year here in Galera as the trees start to change colour quite spectacularly – not wet and miserable like most of the UK – still a little summery.  I’m taking the opportunity to monitor my solar setup to see how it will cope with the sun at a lower angle. It’s all being recorded so I can view at my leisure.

This has been an event-filled week or so…. Friday night (1st June) we went with friends to the “Pizza Cave” in Huescar and on that Saturday, Maureen and I achieved several goals: the upstairs bedroom is now back in working order with a new ceiling, the hot tub is back in action though currently the heater is disconnected as it was tripping the 30ma mains breaker.

Read the rest of this entry »

It will soon be time for our trip back to the cold, wet, political desert known (just) as the United Kingdom just as the pound equals the Euro on its way into oblivion. I have some great friends there who do I do miss when we’re not with them – but returning to Brexit Britain is not something I am AT ALL looking forward to.

However, for now that’s just something we have to do. It won’t be long before I find an excuse to come back here and of course we’ll be back full swing in April anyway so an intermediate trip is mainly down to finding decent flights and avoiding the worst of the Andalucían winter so probably that’s February out if previous years are anything to go by.

Read the rest of this entry »