Archive for the ‘Mojacar’ Category
The Mojacar Mini Trip
Sometime last week, Maureen spotted someone selling coal on one of the Facebook sites and though of course we don’t need it now, it seemed like it might be a good idea to get some for October just in case (our burner here, unlike many, is imported and is multi-fuel and so won’t buckle if using hot coal).
This required a trip to Albox – well, we just had to take up this offer as there are some decent stores in Albox. We decided to make a mini-holiday out of it and I remembered being told there’s a half-decent Indian restaurant in Mojacar. Accordingly we booked an overnight stay in the old town.
Bloody Hell its Friday
That was a quick week – which started last Sunday when I was supposed to pick Maureen up from Alicante but a friend of ours, Jackie kindly volunteered as she was already picking up someone at the airport at the same time.
We met up at the pub in Galera and had a few beers before heading off home so Maureen could unpack.
On Monday we went off to the local bank to put an American cheque in. Well, you could not make this up. The bank seemed unable to handle the date on the cheque which of course being American has the day and month reversed compared to ours and looked like it was in the future. We were asked to come in the next day. I don’t know about you but I’ve known about American dates since I was pre-teen, reading DC comics but hey-ho.
Tuesday and we headed off to the bank again – only to stand there for something like half an hour with the aid of an interpreting friend – the end result – the bank just cannot handle an American cheque for reasons still not properly understood. Is there a pattern here? The Spanish customs would not handle life-saving medicine for our friendly god-daughter, the only time I get customs issues is when buying stuff from America.. could well be a pattern?
Anyway – I’ve had it with the bank – 8 years of business, always polite – no problem there – but they could not put in that little extra effort for something out of their usual – not impressed – their cash machine is in such bad condition you can’t read it in bright sunlight – and the online banking is nothing to write home about – worse - they don’t seem to have that many branches in far-away places either and that means charges from other banks to withdraw money – so first chance we get we’re going to investigate the alternatives.
In the time in between I’ve spent a LOT of spare time getting to grips with some technical protocols (I2C and SPI) – for my little home control projects so I can drive a range of displays and sensors.
Meanwhile – the old pergola was being dismantled this week in preparation for the new one.
Wednesday Maureen went down to the local market and we ended up in the pub again at night but not before getting out of the car to be greeted by this (dead) fellow.
Thursday – nothing – we decided to have a relatively early night because we were going down to the coast the next day – I spent most of the day either dozing off or chatting to friends in Canada and the UK.
So much for the bright idea of getting extra sleep on Thursday – because early Friday morning I was woken up to the worrying feeling that a bloody SCORPION was trying to take my hand off – and indeed he was – but despite my advancing years it seems I was fast enough to wake up and slam him into the bed sheets James-Bond style (except the Bond scene featured a spider) because within what seemed like milliseconds I was out of bed and off to get a slipper to give the by now buried-in-comforter scorpion a good telling off.
Of course several bashes across the head had little effect from soft sandals and an even softer bed so, for good measure, I suffocated him in fly-spray before Maureen slung him out of the house.
No way was I going back to bed after that and so by evening time, while getting ready to walk down to the village for the beginning of the August festivities to meet with friends – I have to say, after a beach trip to Mojacar and a shopping trip to Albox (including the garden centre) followed by groceries in Baza, a round trip that started at 9am and finished late afternoon with temperatures peaking over 40c…. I was feeling totally knackered.
The funny thing is that after an initial tingling, my ravaged thumb was fine – I suspect he grabbed onto me in preparation for sticking his stinger in me and didn’t ever get the chance to complete the operation before he was being suffocated.
We left his broken body outside as a lesson to other scorpions and for the ants for lunch.
Anyway – off we went with our friend Debbie down to the town and met up with loads of the guys in the village – I have to say – we had a nice time – great entertainment, too!
Saturday the new Pergola turned up first thing in the morning – and of course it was hot as hell throughout the day – a day where I was not at my best due to having a late night…
Anyway, Maureen and I rolled up our sleeves as the sun went down – and by late evening after a few beers and a lot of work – we were up and running at least in part, with the new Pergola. Solid as a rock but not yet acting as a sun-shade.
Meanwhile down in the town the festivities were just starting up – thankfully due to zoom lenses – we didn’t miss a thing..
I believe the Orce Medieval Market is on tonight (Sunday) and late Monday my friend Simon is coming over from the UK for a few days for a visit.
Busy-busy… I’ll leave you with more pics of entertainment – Galera style.
A Day by the Sea
After spending Wednesday largely working (as I am today), we went off in search of sea and sun yesterday, starting our trip here in Galera with a visit to the post office and then heading off down through Maria to Velez-Blanco to visit the old castle.
The castle has had quite a lot of re-building done on it so it’s not just an old ruin. Well worth a look and free, just drive straight up and into the entrance.
Once we’d had a good look around we then went off down through Velez-Rubio and onto the motorway.
After maybe an hour, we arrived at VERA (down on the coast) at the PLAYAS at lunchtime and had a nice lunch by the beach, temperature was fine at around 33c but as the sea was a little choppy and I have memories of being bashed all over the rocks down there, we skipped swimming there and then headed off down to Garucha for a little sunbathing (no showers on beach – bad idea) before finally getting to Mojacar (showers on beach, good idea) late afternoon. By then we were running short of time but managed to find a superb hardware store and made the decision that we need to give the place a couple of days.
After driving along the sea front looking for suitable hotels and restaurants for a while and generally checking the place out (Mojacar is very touristy but non-the-less looks well worth a stay and the beaches look nice) we headed off to Lorca to pick up a printer at the big shopping centre there.
We settled on an Epson – cheap printer, expensive supplies but the supplies on Ebay were among the least expensive of the lot, totalling £5 for a complete replacement set of black and 3 colours. As we only infrequently use the printer over here that made a lot of sense. It’s all installed and working – and not that bad, really!
By the time we got home and got the printer working it was really too late to go down and join the G7 at the pub and so an early night.
Today as well as doing various work duties and answering a ton of emails, I need to get some more cement on the driveway gateposts to finish off that job after some pretty poor work by our original British builder who put the gateposts together originally. Still, it’s important to have a challenge.