Bedrock

Archive for the ‘Markets’ Category

The Orce market was ok – could have been a little more exciting – but the air was really nice and warm and so it was worth the trip. (Don’t forget to click on these images if you want to view larger originals)

Some old cars on view, lots of stalls selling everything from soaps from France (everyone seems to sell the same ones – even in France – it’s nearly always the Provencal soaps) to locally-produced wicker baskets, jewellery.. you know… market stuff.  Best of the lot however are the many and varied herbs on sale claiming to cure everything from cancer to diabetes.. not sure how I feel about that as clearly they DON’T but then LORDES gets the crowds in as well and clearly that doesn’t perform miracle cures either…  for my own purposes I assume they’re just being light-hearted about this…

After that we cleared off to the local Pizza place in Galera for a few quiet drinks and finished the night off in the Jacuzzi (which is currently cold – strange you may say, well ,it was still 30c outside when it turned dark!!) 

Today I’ve spent most of the day glued to the screen learning how to program Facebook Apps and writing reports, Maureen is glued to the TV, I’ve fixed the nodding solar Queen (again, it keeps getting dropped)… and neighbour Richard is back and we’ve agreed that this Wednesday night we’ll take our shovel and cement and fill in a couple of holes in the road (well, someone has to do it and there’s no-one else here!) and tonight we’ve been invited to a local BBQ – I’ll take the camera.

Oh and people keep asking where we are.. I keep saying north of Granada which is not strictly correct. Here’s Orce in respect to Galera and Huescar.

So in the map below, Galera is highlighted with the A symbol, Granada is lower left, Murcia upper right… maps clearly are copyright Google!  Tomorrow I think a trip to Cullar pool which we’ve just found out about! (directly down from Galera in photo below)

For those of you who’re in the area on holiday or staying here I’ve created a twitter feed you can follow if you’re interested. I’ll put in updates about what’s going on – if you know of anything in the area I don’t – please do comment.

www.twitter.com/cavehome

Yet another lovely day, temperatures in the upper thirties at peak.  Yesterday we had our treat for the week – CHUROs at the Huescar market…. then a cracking night last night with some Brits down at the local pubs, today we went to the Orce pool – mid-afternoon – almost deserted – lovely, followed by a spot of shopping tonight for supplies in Huescar (wherein I discovered free WIFI in the square which is nice – better than Scarborough’s supposed WIFI on the beach which turned out to be not yet commissioned) and a quiet night in Orce for a pizza in the square there.

Back in the cave now, I’m writing the blog, Maureen’s sitting outside on the patio, pitch black apart from our coloured solar lights, talking to her sister in the USA on video Skype on her iPad. I put some acid down on the weeds today, we’ve a few more bathroom repairs to do and looking forward to more sun at the weekend.

Orce market is on Sunday night – WELL worth the trip if you’re nearby – I’ll drop some pics in here after the event.

Currently suffering with wasps outside – Maureen’s convinced they’re hiding in the hot tub so I’ll be taking panels off –looking for a smoke-bomb solution to get rid of them – ideas welcome.

Got streaming video from our PC at home working – but the broadband is not QUITE up to it, Habland (who are most helpful and speak English – forget about Iberbanda) have promised options from September on for varying the data rate – clearly they can handle up to 4 meg either way, it’s down to getting the funding model right I suppose – but for me, slower broadband when we’re NOT here – at lower cost – and faster when we ARE here at higher cost would fit the bill nicely.

Still no sign of my new cameras from China – which is a bit of a worry as they need forwarding from the UK to here! Existing cameras work a treat but I’m hoping to add audio to them before we leave later in the summer.

Pete Scargill

Early start this morning, sun was blasting and off we went on our trip to Velez Rubio and Blanco – but this time armed with the camera!

Velez Rubio is the capital of the Velez region – a small town in the province of Almeria with something like 6,000 inhabitants whereas Velez Blanco has just over 2,000 inhabitants. Saturdays at Velez Rubio – the market – we didn’t think it was QUITE as good as Huescar but worth a visit non-the-less. In the afternoon we went to Del Castillo De Velez Blanco – currently being reconstructed – I mean with marble and stone!! Large and very nice indeed, lots of information inside – free entry, photos permitted. For lunch after chatting with a couple at the castle who recommended where to eat, we stopped at Restaurante Asador Del Indala which is half way between the two towns – extremely nice but also potentially extremely expensive.

The photo on the right looks down from the castle at Velez Blanco. The scenery is second to none.. until someone brings out practical 3d cameras, panoramas are really the only way to convey the beauty of these areas and so here are a couple I prepared earlier. The first shows the church at Velez-Rubio, then the entrance to Velez Blanco, Maureen having lunch and some scenery on the way back home.

Wednesdays is market day in BAZA – not the easiest thing to find if you don’t know the place – but worth the trip. A fairly big market – with a massive variety – though most of the food is as you see here – to wrap up and take home – if you actually want to eat at the market your choices are a little more limited. We ended up having the menu del dias at a nearby Chinese. 

I don’t know what it is about us and markets… maybe it’s just the fact that there is so much variety – and we always arrange to go when the weather is nice (not difficulty in Spain as in summer it’s almost ALWAYS nice).

There’s always that chance of finding something “special” though most of the time we simply wander about spending very little money (I have to steer Maureen away from the handbag stalls though).

There’s street after street of market and being Baza, some of it is quite hilly – we got there a little late and so some stalls were starting to close by around 1.30pm therefore for anyone reading this and planning a trip to the market, a good time to turn up might be around 11am. The Baza market is on every Wednesday.