Bedrock

Archive for the ‘spain’ Category

The last couple of days have been quiet – we’ve been to the Orce Mediaeval market and down to Galera at midnight – sorry to say photos a bit grim as I left the proper camera at home and the lighting down town was terrible – they must be on budget cuts this year.

Weather has been mixed – it’s been super sunny most of the time but occasionally we’ve seen clouds – that’s not stopped temperatures topping 36c and so no-one’s complaining but by 1am this morning it was starting to chill – down in the lower 20s (it’s amazing how you get used to the heat, lower 20s at home would be hot!).

More later. Today I have some SKYPE meetings to attend then it’s all down to the weather.

We started yesterday off with a trip out to Purullena to do some pottery shopping after which we headed off to the lake. Click on (touch) photos to see larger versions if you’re interested. There are a bunch of pottery stores along the side of the road – if you’ve not been there – you won’t BELIEVE how much pottery is available.

After a slight spend there, Maureen and I headed off to Lake Negratin for a soak.

After an afternoon at the lake –  stunningly warm weather, stunningly cool water but sadly too many noisy dogs and kids (we must find another place to land – it’s a big lake, surely enough room for all) we went home for a while then late evening headed down to Galera town centre.

At this time of the year, Galera always has a fair – and fireworks at midnight. Predictably the weather was excellent and we stopped at a friends’ place for drinks and to watch the midnight festivities – sadly I left the camera at home but the trusty Galaxy S4 managed to take some not unreasonable photos.

We took some pics well before midnight as they were setting up in the town centre, then after a superb snack went back up to La Posa and off to see friends – the pics you see below are from their place.

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.

Got up sharpish this morning – for the market and post office. As is often the case the first stop was the bins – we package up our stuff into recycle and non-recycle bags and drop them off on the way into town at the various large bins by the roadside. A little odd for anyone used to having their own green, brown, black bins etc. at home but it’s no big deal. 

At the bins on the main road this morning the funniest thing.. the cat on the left was sitting dead still facing the wall all the time we were there as if he was praying… then as we left he calmly turned around, walked across the main road and headed off down presumably home. The term “cat mosque” immediately sprung to mind.

After a failed trip to the post office (the post lady is on holiday this time of year so it’s always best to check in at the post office) we headed off to the Huescar market for coffee+churos (and as it turns out – Zumo Naranja – or orange juice – in this case freshly made), to see what’s new and to meet friends – the market is always a great place to meet informally. I bought a new white hat and Maureen bought a new dust pan!

After checking out the market we ended up back at the cafe – I’ve now realised that to use Huescar free WIFI you have to sign up with all sorts of information – the form was in Spanish so I gave up – next time I’m bringing the dictionary.  A chat with one of our pals gave me the idea to check with our service provider for a new router to replace the one that’s being less than reliable… good idea – I’m waiting to hear back from them.

By lunchtime we were back at the cave armed with new broom and shovel!  This afternoon I’ve some FSB work to do, emails are all caught up and a little wiring to attend to – nothing onerous before heading off to the town this evening for the “G8” – or put another way, lots of British and a few Americans getting together at various bars to chat. A very pleasant way to while away the time.

Got some work to do on the remote control system, I managed to get the first lights running on remote control (smartphone) last night – I’m building up another board right now but I have a few missing bits which a pal is bringing over for me shortly. It’s coming along just nicely.

And now… WOODLICE in the beams – remember that Star Trek movie where the thing came out of the guy’s ear.. well, they’re dropping out of the beams at about the same time as I’m being gassed by the stuff Maureen is painting on the beams – that’s it – I’m out of here.

Another nice evening at the bar downtown last night with friends but we managed a relatively early night and today we took a drive (about an hour or so) to Embalse De La Bolera (on recommendation last night) – i.e. a lake – but not just any old lake – the place is clear blue-green – superb and the water not only looks great but feels great.

Yes, that’s Maureen in there in the image above – we certainly had plenty of room – there were others but we weren’t in each others way at all.

Along the way we went through Castril – it’s not the first time we’ve been there but I love to stop and take pics – it’s a very special looking place. The whole drive in fact is nice but the party piece has to be the lake – where we stopped there’s a little bar/restaurant though we could not tell if they actually do food – no matter it has seats with spectacular views.

Don’t forget you can blow most of these pictures up to a larger size just by clicking on them so for example the map on your right is quite readable when enlarged. We went over just before lunch so sadly all the shops were closed in the various places we passed through. Sandwiches out of the way we went for a dip – I have to say that at first getting into the water I felt a heart attack coming on but it took only minutes to get used to the water – which will warm up further in the summer – by mid-August I should expect it will be heavenly.

I think we stuck around for an hour or so then headed off to Lidl in Baza for supplies before returning home. I’ve a little more plastering to do and some work on my home control stuff – I hope to start building a second board this evening but you never know, in Galera there’s always a chance of someone popping in and that’s not so bad. Next time we come back to Bolera we’ll be staying somewhat longer – great trip out.

When you get to Castril, Pozo Alcon is another 25km and the lake is around half way on the right.

Tonight is likely to be a quiet BBQ night, once I’ve finished plastering I’ll be fit for nothing by lying around with a glass of wine – another benefit of this area, there are some decent inexpensive wines and we just stocked up!

Check out the colour of the water in the photo below – just superb..

I think I can honestly say that even the Chinese could not beat this – today we went to the hardware store in Baza to get a gazebo to cover the hot tub so as to keep the wasps out… I’ve never seen anything more badly designed – the holes in the metal rods were so big that when you tightened the bolts, just after they started to deform the extremely thin metal tubing, the heads disappeared inside!

Tomorrow I’m off to buy a bunch of oversize washers to put 2 on each bolt and nut set to do the job properly!!

But for tonight – that’s it – giving up – an early night and so hopefully an early start. We need to get this done, get the top on – get the LED lighting in – and get in the TUB!! It’s hot out there!

Just fitted an Android HDMI box to the TV to convert the TV here into a smart device – only to discover we’ve not brought a single mouse from the UK!!!! Nor keyboard…… all working – however the first attempt did end up with a loud bang as a pitifully under-powered Chinese USB power supply exploded thankfully NOT taking the TV etc with it…

On the upside, the first grapevine is coming along just nicely…