Bedrock

Archive for the ‘Markets’ Category

Considering the time of year, the weather today was not that bad – sunny pretty much all day and heading toward 20c. We took a trip over to Orce market, which was a little disappointing but while there we noticed a sign for the museum and headed over there. A small entrance on the outside hides a 16th century very nice building which houses the museum.

Once inside we were welcomed in and given full instructions in English before being left to roam freely, not signs to tell you not to use your camera, no big-brother cameras. Very civilised.

We left the museum towards lunchtime and headed over to Huescar (just a few kilometres apart) where FINALLY after much effort and wasted money I found some solder that actually works at the local Ferreteria. There was most likely nothing wrong with my original soldering iron – just the cheap rubbish Chinese crappy solder they supplied with and sold separately from the irons – hard to imagine as to why a retailer could be so thick as to sell soldering irons along with solder that isn’t suitable for those irons – but there you have it. Anyway, along the way today I took some photos and here they are. You can click any photo to enlarge it.

Enjoy the pics… click to enlarge…

The weather cooled off a tad first thing this morning (I think it got as low as 25c) and for a moment it even rained… and so Maureen was sitting inside reading a book when she complained of a crackling sound. Bearing in mind we had broadband issues yesterday I thought I’d better check. Sure enough, one of the cameras which had refused to start up has a power supply which was making cracking noises.  To cut a long story short, the Chinese camera is now a pile of scrap metal (due to it’s power supply, not the camera) and in the bin. The sparks must’ve been affecting the broadband as well so my only spare has now been called into operation. All done and ready to guard the place while we’re off on our long trip up North tomorrow. No doubt once again this will be part rubbish power, part rubbish Chinese power supplies.

Our neighbours Karen and Dave turned up this afternoon so we spent half of the afternoon sitting outside chatting – great use for a Sunday afternoon.. everything is working and first thing tomorrow morning we have to take an early trip to the bank to set up Internet banking before heading up to Northern Spain – but not before one last trip out tonight to see everyone. It’s now 8pm, we’ve had a massive storm – how all gone and it’s drying up already – the puppy has been doing his best to emulate a maniac in the garden with his new toys (plastic milk bottle and a plant-pot). We’ll miss him.

Sky is clearing – could be yet another nice night…

On Friday we set off from Galera to see friends Angie and Dennis down to the area around Cuevas Del Almanzora, near VERA, in Almeria. One of the problems with Spain is… it’s big and in rural areas there are simply not that many main routes – so you might be looking at the map on the right and thinking “surely there’s a straight line from A to B – well, no.

However, the route is pretty much motorway except for a short stretch at either end.

Arriving mid-afternoon Friday we all promptly went off to the beach and then after coming back to their place for a chat and a dip in the pool (remember we’re talking upper 30s temperature here – water’s pretty much part of the day’s entertainment) ended up in a nice little nightspot area nearby for drinks.

The following day we went back to the beach and after a battle with the (not insignificant) waves in which I ended up peddle-dashing my knee on the rocks – after fighting to get back on my feet without getting a mouth-full of salt water, I discovered I’d lost my specs in the sea – hardly a good start to the weekend as you can imagine.

Thinking about it, writing this blog isn’t much fun without specs – so guess where we’re going tomorrow – well today as it’s 1.45am already Monday morning. Anyway, we ended up in a really nice restaurant Saturday night to finish off a very pleasant weekend break. We spent most of Sunday morning driving back up to Galera, but managed on the way to find a great market near Vera (and temporary sunglasses for me – I normally wear reactolite varifocals). Spanish rural markets are much of a much-ness – you see the same Indian guys selling fake watches and fake sunglasses, but the quantity and variety of fruit and veg is worth seeing and in this case there was quite a large covered-over area selling plants, much to Maureen’s delight.

We got home mid-Sunday afternoon and as it was too hot to do anything outside, I finally got my two new remote cameras working…lots of improvements over earlier models – these allow 2-way audio as well as quite decent imagery, though being cheap Chinese IP cameras the audio is nothing to write home about…. at least now I’ll be able to keep an eye on both the UK and Spain on the iPhone… handy given the increasing unemployment rate in both countries!!

Oh, so there’s this puppy who seems to have adopted ourselves and our neighbours…he’s cute as well until he craps in the garden and starts barking at 1.30am – just after some “caller unknown” has rang twice on Skype and THREE have left YET ANOTHER stupid message saying how cheap calls are in Spain (despite being instructed verbally 3 times not to ever send me a text again). It’s going to be a long night…

Don’t forget you can see larger versions of most images by clicking on these smaller ones. More pics here on Google Albums

Hot doesn’t explain it- 43 degrees today, we went the long way around to the lake and eventually got there maybe 2pm and spent the afternoon. About the only thing that detracted from a beautiful day was a bunch of feral British children and their parents, screaming as if they’ve never seen water before. This was the turning moment that will ensure we buy a PROPER blow-up boat next time with a MOTOR. The lake as massive but most of even the beachy areas are inaccessible – unless you have a boat.  Just something big enough to take the two of us, two chairs and a box of iced drinks….

Tomorrow is the Huescar market, no doubt more swimming and tan-collecting – then Tomorrow night is the G8 summit as the Thursday drinking session is called – wherein a select group of Brits meet up and, well, drink. So tonight I’m settling down with a glass of wine and getting on working on my Facebook developments. No sign of my remote control cameras turning up yet…

What a scorcher, after a pleasant if uneventful trip to the village last night which ended early despite the band starting up in the town square, this morning we headed off to the ORCE market… fairly average – it’s now fairly obvious that the traders travel from area to area as you see the same faces at each market…. but pleasant.

A quick trip to BAZA where I found a battery-operated pump for the new boat  (and a new GREEN laser) and off we went to the lake where we spent the afternoon relaxing in the water and testing out the new blow-up boat.

I’m now sitting at the computer catching up with emails – and I’m roasting – head’s red, legs are red – I reckon I’ll be suffering soon. Still – keeps me occupied instead of stewing about being embarrassed to be British (see riots on TV)

After a lazy Wednesday afternoon in the local pool, we took a trip to the Skips on Thursday (the girl in the photo is a dummy someone conveniently strapped to the entrance) to get rid of our now defunct and replaced dishwasher, then we headed off down to Granada to get some supplies and pick up my sister-in-law Elizabeth from the airport, stopping on the way at a Chinese outlet to pick up a solar car (about an inch square, marvellous – but I’ve not found a flat surface yet to test it out).

On the way back up from Granada we stopped at set of roadside stalls to pick up some pottery (I have to take pictures next week to show you – more items of pottery than you’d believe) followed by a quiet night in.

With Elizabeth staying with us I spent the morning struggling with work stuff and dreaming about nuking tech support after which we spent much of Friday up at lake Negratin, followed by a quiet pizza at the pizza cave restaurant just outside of Huescar. The reason the photos look “wet” is that the staff had just been spraying everything to get rid of the dust of the day, it’s very dry here.

As you can see in the photo above, the lake wasn’t exactly “crowded” (Maureen and Elizabeth on the LEFT, our chairs on the RIGHT) and at around 33 degrees it was an ideal say for a swim.  When we were done we went off to the Chinese store in BAZA and bought a 73” inflatable boat + electric inflation gadget and I’m quite looking forward to sinking that in the next few days. Photos will follow. We inflated it last night to test it out and it looks solid – of course that’s started Maureen off looking on EBay for a proper inflatable with electric motor – because we’d both dearly love to go exploring around the far end of the lake and much of it is not accessible by road.

Don’t forget to click the images if you want to see much larger originals. Today we went to Velez Rubio and Velez Blanco –(pronounce that “VELETH”) there’s a market on and of course we had to take Elizabeth to go looking at ruins! Finished the trip with a visit to Orce pool (no boat as the car power supply doesn’t have enough power to run the pump) and we’re back now to cool off and I’m going to get some work done.