Bedrock

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Finally the first grapevine is starting to look serious… mind you it’s a good job it’s been rainy as my watering system had fallen to bits on this particular plant.

A lovely day here in Galera – could have been sunnier at times but most of the day it was clear skies and maybe 25c – not enough to warrant a trip to the lake but fine for getting jobs done along with the odd spot of sunbathing.

Tomorrow I’ve a brief trip to pick up Maureen after some shopping, the list for which is growing by the minute then we’re off to a BBQ at night.

Weather at the coast is apparently marvellous so I may set off extra early – there’s a rather nice coffee stand just outside of San Javier airport. That and a spot of shopping at the REALLY large Chinese store down there.

Got some good advice on weed-killing today, apparently the weedkilling (herbiceda) stuff here called “Glyfos” is cheaper and more powerful than the UK and now I know where to get it… watch out, dandelions….

Not the best start to a holiday… we set off 10am on Saturday morning ready to enjoy a nice quiet break over in Spain… no worries, just a nice, relaxing holiday with sun.

So first things first, by the time we’d driven up to Edinburgh airport, the keeper of the keys realised she’d left them on the hook back in Wark. We deliberated but really, there was no going back.

The lady at the airport parking company had all sorts of ideas about putting the keys on the plane – ideas instantly dashed by the ever so useless attendant at the Easyjet stand who simply said that Easyjet don’t do packages. I don’t think they’d ship their own dead mothers to their funerals – but hey, they’re cheap! Before getting on the plane, Maureen rang up our friends here in Spain to see if they could help with the no-keys-for-the-house situation.

We arrived (after I have to say quite a pleasant flight in which I slept for all but the part in which I watched Prometheus for the umpteenth time) in Alicante around 8pm – dark outside but really quite pleasant temperatures. Our car was waiting for us at the airport – and looking at the queues for Goldcar rental we reminded ourselves why we go through the hassle of having our own car!

We figured we might have to stop over in Alicante until the key situation was resolved but on ringing up we were told that the locks had been bypassed and we were ready to go!  Well done Shirley and Cyril.

Of course it didn’t take me 55 minutes to find the Chinese junk shop in Alicante and Maureen needed groceries. Thus, a quick spot of grocery shopping and a few photos and we started our 2.5 hour drive to Galera, arriving around midnight

We’d had the sense to have the heating turned on before we left and so while not cosy, the place was quite liveable once we arrived. One pizza and a bottle of wine later we gave up for the night.

This morning, Shirley and Cyril came over to give us the loan of a chain-lock as the builder won’t get here until the morning to sort out replacement locks. Excellent.

That means we can pop out tonight down to the village to see what’s happening.

Not a lot, I should guess, at this time of year.  It’s been foggy here today but the sun keeps trying to sneak out and occasionally succeeds. My solar lights are out there praying and we’re in here watching TV and blogging. By teatime, we’ve spent the day relaxing (not much else I can do until I get access to my tools) and realising that of the new LED lighting I brought – I forgot the WHITE! Ah well. Thank heavens for Ebay.

Even on a Sunday, the FSB emails keep coming in so I’ve filed all but the most important and we’ve just returned from dinner – a night at LA POSA with friends –priceless…. the sun never really did make it out – which is strange because apparently until today it’s been fine here with 21c at lunchtime not being uncommon!

It’s been a very busy week having spent the latter part in Dublin visiting Google’s HQ over there (and learning LOTS from a bunch of talks and chats), I came back in time to grab a quick night’s sleep before driving up to Edinburgh.

We hardly got off to a good start to our break…. the plan was simple… because flights to Murcia were a tad expensive this year, we would fly into Alicante from Edinburgh and the company looking after our car would meet us there with the car.  We’d then drop the driver off at San Javier on the way to Mojacar where we’d booked a hotel for the night – with enough time for a spot of shopping and dinner.

That was the plan. The company screwed up big time and despite a very clear email with instructions, the driver was sitting in San Javier as normal, waiting for us there. Things went downhill from there. The driver had to come all the way up to Alicante, pick us up and drive us down to San Javier – by which time it was FAR too late to have dinner in Mojacar… We dropped the driver off any by now all our electronic devices were flat and in desperate need of charging from the multi-charge station in the car… easy enough except that someone had broken the charge unit while the company was holding onto our car… and blown the fuse – so it was impossible to charge anything. With time moving on and no ability to make a call if something went wrong we had to abandon our plans for Mojacar for the night and instead made a last minute booking at the King Alphonso 13th hotel in Cartagena after having dinner in a German restaurant in Los Alcazares. The company will soon know just how I feel about this one.

This morning after an atrocious night’s sleep thanks to round two of the flu, we had a nice room service breakfast at the hotel before setting off, devices fully charged to Mojacar where we had lunch at La Murala on the seafront as well as a trip to the local market before heading back off to Galera.

Our place is fine, the wood fire is glowing and after a couple of hours nap I’m sorting out photos and about to have my first glass of wine. The coast was really warm and sunny – here in Galera, it’s looking to be clear and dry and maybe approaching 20c tomorrow (not that we care as long as the sun is out and it’s dry, more than we’ve seen in the Northeast of England for a while).

We’ve a busy week ahead providing neither of us succumb to even more flu, we’re off at some point with friends to Marbella to see our ex-neighbours and I’ve brought a new solar panel over to give it a thrashing (ultimately I want to run cameras and routers etc. from solar in our absence for reliability) and of course I could see at least one trip to the Chinese junk store.

A fine time was had last night, we met up with Alan and Ant at Cueva Cascada and also with fellow Geordie Brian and his wife Maureen – some amazing work on lighting over at Cascada which has given me lots of new ideas for the future. We all had a great time – I spent some time talking to Ant who is Russian – he has one hell of a camera and it shows in his photos… and now I’m sitting here checking out Ebay for lighting.

We had hoped to get to the lake today for a baking but despite being 28c, it’s a little overcast. The lake is quite cool and so it really needs to be 30c+ to get the best out of it.

Maureen has been checking out properties this morning while I’ve been catching up with the email mountain and figuring out some new lighting and solar power ideas. I still have to hook up my remote controlled relay unit for controlling stuff on the mobile phone… amazing how powerful the sun is at sapping enthusiasm for projects.

I reckon I’ll implement some of this stuff when it gets just a little cooler maybe in October. For now we’ve a BBQ then there’s some horse show on later tonight and of course a trip to La Posa at some point.

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.

Yesterday morning we headed off to the Thursday Huescar market. As we passed a bank offering the advert “we speak English” I began to wonder how many of our banks advertise “we speak French” or “we speak Dutch” or whatever. I suspect very few.

We had our usual Thursday morning “Churos” – a strange sausage-shaped fried dough extraction with coffee (some have it with hot chocolate) and spent the morning enjoying the market and the many meats and wide range of fruit on offer. We ended up leaving with some very nice olives which are now, sadly, largely eaten!

In the afternoon I managed to get a little time in the sun.  I also took our Meganne for a spin – it’s first trip up and and down the hills since we got it back – seems absolutely fine – I’ve a little more confidence it will be ok – which is more than one can say for Maureen’s phone – but that’s another story here.

The evening started well with the usual Brits down at the Galera Hotel then on to Pizza Posa – but after a while we saw something we’d almost forgotten about – rain!!! The first significant rain in Galera with a considerable amount of thunder and lightning in the background. Still not in the same league as British rain but wet non-the-less and this brought the temperature down to the 20s where it looks set to stay for a couple of days.

I am determined to get to grips with the Spanish language – much as our largely British friends are great – I’m sure we’re missing something by not also getting involved with the locals. I can must about manage “beer and a hamburger but no lettuce for me” but that and a few other tricks are just about it… must try harder.