Bedrock

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

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.

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.

First Sunday night of the summer in Galera. Amazing how quickly the first 6 days went by. I worked on my home control (making a complete mess as the “No Mas Clavas” I was using to stick the boards inside a case would not dry!) and then went out to take some pics of the night sky. Here’s the best (though it could be better) – combining 3 identical shots to minimise noise.

Today we’ve several jobs to do now that the shops are open. I need some mortar and filler and we need to find a source of PVA. Looks like another stunningly warm day. 9:30am and the sun is out. More later.

It’s been a great first week here in Galera, met some new people who’ve been great company and we’ve already gotten a fair bit of work done.

Yesterday I went off to Huescar in the morning in search of washers to complete the gazebo (or carbuncle as Maureen calls it – after she bought it!!) over the hot-tub. On the way I popped into Spanish Inland Properties to pick up the solar panel delivered from England – I’ve tested that and it’s chucking out 2.5 amps reliably during the day so now I just need to find a suitable 12v 20amp (or so) “deep discharge” battery. I can get one overnight in the UK for around £40 but they won’t deliver to Spain.

We spent the afternoon putting up screens on the new carbuncle – and immediately ran out of screen so last night we went off in search of more – turns out the local Ferreteria in Galera stocks the stuff so that was easy -  of course we had to drop into the pub (La Poza) on the way back and that was the end of that night – we sat outside all night had a great time.

Got back very late but not too late to get the camera out as it was a clear night with a smashing view of the edge of our galaxy which you’ll see in the first picture. – look over on the right and you can see it coming out of the corner of the image (the left corner is light pollution from the village). That was a 16-second exposure incidentally – tonight I plan to try taking a bunch of them and averaging out the noise.

This morning I’m taking it easy – slight alcohol poisoning and it’s quite warm out there. I can see a quiet night in coming along and with luck we’ll get some more wall patching done (it’s a never ending task) and maybe we’ll finish off the carbuncle. I’m doing some work on the home control stuff but I’m kind of stuck waiting for parts to arrive from the UK which might take a few days.

I took the shot below late last night – most of the lighting you see there is either solar or LED or both.

Things I’m short of it anyone local has ideas for suppliers…. I need a couple of posts for the Pergola (to run horizontally for fencing off one side) – maybe 75mm diameter, 3 metres long.. and a deep discharge battery (camping type) 12v at maybe 20ah or so – got to be cheap as the solar panel is just an experiment for now.. haven’t even figured out where to mount it yet 🙂

After a nice flight from Newcastle (well, I assume it was, I slept through most of it, one of the better results of ageing) and a spot of shopping at Eroski in San Javier, we arrived at the cave at 1am Tuesday morning after a very pleasant drive from Murcia – the temperature being around 20c at midnight!

Tuesday we spent cleaning the place up, the builder has rebuilt the gateposts so the numbers and welcome sign had to go back up – I’ve still got the letterbox to fit but the rest is done. Tuesday night we went down to Pizzeria La Posa for a beer and to catch up with friends.

Wednesday some more cleaning and some work on the hot-tub – Maureen has been cleaning it out, emptying and re-filling and it’s now just about ready for use. I fitted two new cupboards which I’d stained on Tuesday. So now much of my wiring is now nicely hidden – still can’t get the new router to work however so that’s a challenge – the existing one has a tendency to stop working without notice so it has to go).  I then got landed with a Skype video conference I’d forgotten about which thankfully wasn’t too long and last night we had a BBQ with our neighbours and some new friends and I have to say what a cracking night, 3 of us got talking, one fellow was a chemist, another a medical guy and we covered every taboo subject from politics through religion – we had a great time.

Apparently the last people left at 2am this morning, I think we were nearer to midnight. The chemist guy I spoke to says I need to use multiple spray coats of PVA on the walls I’ve been having trouble with followed by something called Capa Fina– and Maureen has a new cure-all tape which you wet then put on the wall and which ends up as a rock-solid coat which looks remarkably like Plaster of Paris – so things are looking up. The tape looks amazing and I’m convinced a heavy coat of paint will make it invisible but we’ll have to wait and see – meanwhile friend Adrian has shown me the right tool to use to get the correct wall finish after plastering.

Today Maureen and I went off to Baza to get a new “tent” to put over the hot-tub. Massive affair, the idea is to get a fly screen around the whole thing so we can relax without visits from wasps who absolutely gravitate to anything remotely like water (and who can blame them).  My work area is well on the way to being usable and I’m hoping to knock up a test controller soon – the plan being to leave accurate temperature and humidity sensing here along with control over external lighting – but clearly it has to be ultra reliable.

My auto-answer kitty-cam idea back in the UK is working flawlessly – except there are no kitties there – either that or they are deliberately hiding behind the camera. All I get is a video of an empty cat food tray…

Tonight we would normally go down to the “G8” meeting – ie a load of Brits in the bar but as we’ve been on the pop 2 nights in a row, time for a quiet night and some Coca-Cola. If it cools off a bit we might get some work done.  It is of course nice and cool in here, maybe 25c maximum…. but outside is just a TAD to hot to actually do anything!! Once I get that hot-tub cover up all that of course changes but as I don’t fancy wasp stings, the lazing around in the tub will have to wait just a little longer.

Readers of my Facebook entries may recall my griping about the price of a glass of LEFFE BLONDE beer in Brussels which can reach the giddy heights of 8 Euros in the bar. Well, as the photo on the right clearly demonstrates  they are all thieving bastards as the cost of a 33cl bottle (same size as glasses in pub) in LIDL here is 1.19 Euros !!!

More later. I need Coca-Cola. Just had a call from the delivery people delivering the solar panel that Aidan kindly gave me – they can’t find the address of Spanish Inland Properties – they’re going to try again this morning – their so-called English-speaking operator had immense difficulty getting the tracking number off me… I suppose I could have read it out in Spanish….

The plan this morning was to walk down the hill, get cafe-con-leche at La Posa bar and then walk up and start a spot of painting. The reality? We got half way down and started talking to friends, that took so long we gave up on La Posa and instead headed back up only to end up talking to more friends. At the top of the hill we stopped and talked to a third set and by the time we were done the morning was half-over!  Since then I’ve been mixing cement and filling holes in walls while Maureen has been spending her time staining windows.

Watering system repairs done, ceiling holes filled, solar lights more or less in place. Yesterday we headed off to Baza for supplies and a rather nice pizza lunch up at the top of the hill just up from Consum, not to mention re-discovering a great Chinese store at the back of the town where we bought a little clock for the bedroom and THE smallest USB power supply I’ve ever seen (I need more of these for projects – not much bigger than a European 2-pin mains plug). 

My big electronics project kind of fell to bits when I realised half the bits I needed were back in the UK but at least I’ll be able to leave a working temperature monitor here.. that is, IF the router keeps working – some cheap “Trendnet” router I bought last year from the store in Huescar, turns out it needs resetting occasionally – just been doing it the last month or so… I’m guessing the insides are covered in dust or something – in the summer I’ll bring back a Draytek. The place is starting to look habitable again – hopefully by the time we leave it’ll be all set up for the summer. I’ve given myself a couple of switchable mains sockets outside to save having to run extensions all over. Thanks to the fairly simple wiring over here that didn’t take too long.

Stopped in last night for an early night and to mess with the lighting. Tonight we’re planning a trip down to La Posa for a few beers and some company. Head is somewhat burned – it’s a tad windy out there but the sun remains far more powerful than anything you’d see in the UK.