Bedrock

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

When we got here a couple of weeks ago, there was an area of grass etc maybe 50ft long up the hill that was totally burned out..  in temperatures of 38 degrees it does not take much to start a fire.  

This morning I fixed the broadband then we headed off to see a couple we chatted with last night – I said I’d go look at his HI-FI as he was having a spot of bother with it. 

On the way, we spotted another fire starting just down the road… we saw a lady with a hose apparently unable to do anything with it, quickly followed by a guy with a hose who did know what to do – and quickly he and others put the fire out – but it could have been bad! 

As you can see, much of the shrubbery is dry as a bone and hence ready for a fire – it just takes one idiot with a cigarette…

Anyway, it’s been a good day, WIFI is working, we got to meet locals, found a new (for us) swimming pool and restaurant just outside of Huescar…. and there’s some thunder coming on which means probably a quick burst – and that’ll clear the humidity up!

Yesterday we got an early start and went off to Huescar market… super hot outside approaching 38c at lunchtime but the market had lots of shade and so once we were done there, we popped over to Embalse Del Negratin near Freila which in turn is a little west of Baza…. and spent the rest of the afternoon in the water…. absolutely marvelous… a quiet evening in EL PARADOR near Galera and after waiting in vain for the celebrations to start in the village, eventually gave up around 11pm. This morning I’ve been driving myself nuts trying to sort simple database problems out back at work…  more sun needed to calm the nerves… it’s 30c already… clear skies – lovely.

A lovely day for tiling? Well, actually it’s VERY hot out there but I gave it my best shot, bearing in mind it’s Sunday and if I run out of materials, well, tough. Today’s job was to tile the BBQ area which started off looking beautiful a couple of years ago when first built but which is looking a little ill now since the winter took it’s toll on the stone surface.

I gave up – the BBQ is no-where near square so I’m seeking advice. Meanwhile we went off to a local ancient market…

and ended up at the bar in Galera for drinks… I recall ordering a glass of wine and receiving an ice-bucket with a full bottle… what service… we came back to the cave and spent a little while star-gazing as it’s an incredibly clear night in which the edge of our galaxy is VERY clear indeed…. and once you grab the binoculars, what looks like a thin cloud… is actually jam-packed full of stars… super.

Tomorrow the girls are off shopping in BATHA, I plan to stop in bed as long as is humanly possible and then do some more work on my new hobby, the FSB FORUMS… so much to do, so few resources…

Other than that, all seems well today, no walls falling apart, no dire emergency calls from the UK (but then, it is Sunday).  Strangely I’m missing my cat – how sad is that… hoping he’s happy with whatever cats do… but not missing him enough to pay the horrendous cost of bringing animals over here…

As if there was such a thing as an ordinary day.. I started my day yesterday experimenting.. the night before I’d been on a hunt of the web for new photo toys for my iPhone and I hit pay dirt. Remember the ad for the Sony camera I think it is where they simply scan the camera across the landscape – and it captures a panorama – as against the more normal nightmare of taking individual shots and either manually or automatically stitching them together?  Well, now this is on the iPhone and I’ve been having great fun ever since. Above is a sweep across the front of the cave. Anyway, that was the start of my day, the rest was a series of comedy errors- but still fun and interesting along the way.

The plan was to head off to St Javier to pick up our friend Alison who’s staying with us for a few days and we figured we’d perhaps go spend some time on the beach down there as she wasn’t coming in till 9pm.

We set off at lunchtime and along the way we happened to go by a small town where some solar cells caught my eye. If you’ve read my blogs, most of the time in Spain the photovoltaic (electricity-generating) cells are rectangular and motorized and each one is no more than, say 6ft square of thereabouts…. just lots of them.

WELL!! This lot blew me away. It’s difficult to see here as there was an alarmed fence in the way but to the left you’re looking at rows of cells, perhaps 8ft high (at a guess) and I would not like to guess how long but you can see if you look carefully each array is MASSIVE in length, following the curve of the land. These are fixed in place.

I would not be surprised it this lot were intended to supply electricity for the entire nearby town.If anyone wants to pursue this further the factory was called CERO GRADOS SUR (Energia Solar) and it’s maybe half way between Puebla De Don Fadrique and Murcia though I could be miles out.

That was a good start to the day which then went downhill – the sat-nav insisted on taking us on a back-route to St Javier and we noticed we were going past a sign that said in Spanish “no access, residents only” – well, we ignored that and went sailing down a partially completed road until miles later as we approached a motorway, the road came to a grinding halt and we realised there was no way to actually GET to the road! That ended that.

After much backtracking we arrived at the airport around teatime and decided to play safe and visit Los Alcazarez – which is just down from the airport and is a British holiday trap. Non-the-less we had a pleasant pizza and beer and then headed off to the airport. Alison’s plane was late and by now the sun was going down. I took the opportunity to try another of the new toys for my phone, an App that combines two successive shots taken at different exposures, to produce photos that are normally impossible. You’ll know that most of the time, photos are a compromise as the lens can’t be selective like our eyes, so often either the sky gets bleached or dark areas have no detail due to the fact that the camera sensors simply cannot handle the “dynamic range”. iPhone to the rescue… 2 shots and a bit of processing later… night-time photos of the airport complete with street lighting AND the night-time sky – and these really do capture the atmosphere at “Murcia Airport” though in fact it’s no-where near Murcia.

And so around 9.30pm we picked up our friend and headed off home to Galera. Sadly that didn’t work either… we tried telling our Sat-Navs to head off to Puebla De Don Fadrique  so we could take advantage of the shortcut straight across the country… nope, neither the iPhone nor Android Sat-Navs were having it and the iPhone kept insisting as we sped along the wrong motorway that we were in a field!!

Eventually we ended up cutting straight through the centre of Murcia, never a good idea on a Saturday night… and off we went home. We figured as we were now going the long way we’d take Alison through Velez Rubio and Velez Blanco to show her the sights. There’s a castle at Velez Blanco that’s really nice during the day and so off we headed through the town of Velez Blanco – BAD mistake. At or near MIDNIGHT there was a wedding still going on and cars and drunks were littered all over the place. At one point we ended up at the end of a narrow street with road works blocking further access, barely able to turn around as another car came up behind us. “Pissed as a newt” as we used to say, the driver simply could not handle the fact that he’d have to back up all the way up a narrow street and promptly switched off like a Stepford Wife. You’d think his batteries had run out – he simply sat there in the middle of the road, not looking at anyone, not doing anything. We had one HELL of a time squeezing past him and I’ve yet to look at the bodywork on the car as we heard some strange squealing noises while trying to get between him and a steel fencing panel!

We eventually arrived home well after midnight and I recall giving up around 4am this morning. It’s now mid-day and I’ve been up long enough to do this blog – well, it is Sunday after all.

After spending the day in virtual meetings while Maureen painted, I polished off the day by doing repairs to our bedroom ceiling and testing out some (blue) tiles for our soon-to-be-wonderful tiled BBQ….  and then we took a trip to Huescar to get some odds and ends before returning to the local “Galera Hotel” which has a balcony outside where you can drink and enjoy the scenery.

To the left is the view from the balcony of the Galera pool  – this is in no way recoloured or enhanced, it’s straight off the iPhone. Lovely colour. Might take a dip in there soon..

We finished the night at the local pizzeria, sitting outside talking to people we’ve already met and people we met for the first time which was nice. Interesting conversation about the weather here, it’s currently just under 40C mid-afternoon so very hot indeed yet less than an hour down the road, there are easily-accessible mountains with snow on the tops. Now we know you can get to them I can see a trip out with the camera in the coming weeks.

We must’ve had a good time as I have a startlingly bad head this morning, not the ideal way to start a day of constant meetings and some tile-cutting but there you are. I’ve an hour left before planting myself in front of a video camera for 6 hours! At least this is the last of the meetings for a while and we can get on enjoying the break.

It’s wonderful out here… we’ve been out since Saturday with friends and the weather has been exemplary – topping 33 degrees in the afternoon and a nice 25 degrees in the evening.

It’s been busier than we expected as we’ve had damp problems – a learning exercise and some shoddy Spanish workmanship combined to give some of the furniture gangrene (a Geordie joke I think, it’s “gan green”) and so we’ve had some stuff outside drying out and quite a bit of PVA is currently on the walls awaiting a coat of paint…. but we’re getting there.

Today is a lazy day, I’ve been cleaning the shed and PVA’ing but that’s about it apart from a trip to the post office to fail to pick up a notice that someone sent a month ago when we were not here, but oh, while I think on,  we have put up some new solar lights, I’ll try to remember to take a picture tonight. Very impressive.