Bedrock

Archive for the ‘spain’ Category

Saturday night we were kindly invited to a party on the outskirts of the village and a very nice time we had – but we had to cut it short thanks to the need to get up in the early hours of this morning wherein we headed off early to drop our friend Marsha off at the Alhambra in Granada via the airport to drop off her bags. To fill the day, she’s planning the Alhambra tour followed by the bus tour around Granada before heading off, via Madrid, to the USA.

After dropping her off and after failing to get even a McDonalds in Granada (it’s like a graveyard on Sundays unlike the seaside resorts which of course stay open pretty much seven days a week), we headed back via a diversion to see a swimming pool somewhat south of Guadix – turned out to be a damp squib because of the fact that it’s a Sunday and everyone and their aunties were out – WAY too noisy.

Granted we did take in some nice new scenery on the way – so after taking a few pictures and using up a lot of fuel, we headed back up to Embalse De Negratin (the lake) for lunch at the lakeside. At 36c the temperature was just right for quietly enjoying the sun from an air-conditioned restaurant:-)

We then headed back to the ranch for a clean-up, blog update, phone battery charge and email catch-up before heading off the medieval market in Galera Sunday evening – and I have to say, it was very good – these fairs are a great way to get people out and talking – we met loads of people we know and chatted with them before finished the night chatting to friends at the usual local bar.

Meanwhile I’ve been experimenting with converting a standard Ikea PIR LED lamps to solar power with success… just finished modifying the first to add a charge diode and solar panels on the back – the whole lot held together and sealed with 2-part resin adhesive – that’s been sitting boiling in the sun now for 2 days and it’s now sitting on my desk blasting out free light! If this stands up to some weather I have several of these to convert over.  Lamp £3, diode 5p, 2 solar panels £1 for the pair.

This morning (Monday) after a brief trip to the post office to FINALLY get some mail from the UK, we’re back at the cave. I’ve just finished repairs to the gatepost and now I’m sitting looking at a pile of emails. No great plans for the day.

For an updated image gallery of our visit so far,minus the 3d pics as I’m having trouble reading the SD memory on the camera – check out this link. http://goo.gl/qe6Yj 

Before I forget – I took some pics of the fireworks in Galera the other night – here’s a composite – very good entertainment (and free).

After enjoying the fireworks over the weekend in Galera, yesterday (Monday) I did as sadly life insists I must – I got lots of business done – but today we headed off to the coast. We started our trip in Galera, drove through through Orce, then (the somewhat deserted) Maria, Velez-Blanco, Velez-Rubio and onto the coast.

We had a brief trip through Lorca where I managed to get a somewhat half-hearted (but free) repair to my specs – before heading off through Aguilas and on through San Juan de Los Terreros to ultimately reach Cuevas e Almanzora (Dennis if you’re looking in we didn’t have your phone number and assuming Angie is in the UK) before ultimately heading back, stopping briefly at Velez Rubio to show Marsha the castle (which was closed). Along the coast there are some incredible variations in architecture – WELL worth seeing – some of this stuff is worth forcing down the throats of Britain’s somewhat lack-lustre building designers (though I’d not want our lot to copy the building practices).

In the process we wandered around the back of Vera – and some of the natural sights there are fabulous – fruits I’ve only ever seen in supermarkets or on TV! We just picked roads at random – on the assumption that worse-case the sat-nav would get us out of a mess – which it did.

We finished the early evening with a trip to the Galera Hotel before coming home (to find no post – again). The girls are watching a movie, I’m doing the blog.

Still watching TV awaiting more images from the Mars explorer – the most impressive thing the human race has ever landed on another planet. Meanwhile Spain has it’s own impressive sights.. album update here..

Tomorrow more important stuff to do – but Thursday, we’re back a the coast for some sunbathing!

We’re onto our second full weekend and it looks like the weather is going to hold. Friday night we went off to the pizza cave up the Fuente Caliente turnoff for a pizza. The place doesn’t show up on the map but it’s just south of the A-4302  turn-off to Huescar, under the motorway and on up past the pool to Huescar, it’s on your left 2/3rds the way up – looks like a deserted Western movie set.

We arrived early and were the first in which was nice… sun setting, 32c, ice-cold coke.. what more could you want?

After a very nice evening, having overdone it the night before, we retired early and hence first thing Saturday morning, the girls walked down to the village for coffee and toast+tomato+olive oil. I followed shortly thereafter in the car (I started the morning off watching “District 9” on the tablet and checking the email for even more urgent stuff) but not before dumping the venerable and much-loved S600 printer in the skip!

After breakfast we had a wander around town to get some essentials and came back to freshen up and so I could do some blogging and a little research. Saturday night we went down town Galera and enjoyed a chat with friends. Today (Sunday) we’ve been down to the Galera pool for the first time – which apart from being a little derelict (the pool is great but they’ve let parts of the grounds go to seed) and some particularly noisy children was very pleasant.

We came home to a nice email from our Internet service provider who has moved us onto a quieter link as we were getting massive download variations – which is nice – and tonight the plan is to go to the old Orce market. Tomorrow I have lots of FSB work to catch up on and I’m hoping my new iPhone replacement lens and back will turn up as there’s a very slight scratch on the current one….  we’ve promised ourselves that on Tuesday we’ll head off to the proper beach over Aquilas area to the South-East for a few hours.

After a very warm morning at the Huescar market, the girls decided to stop in for the evening, but not before dropping me off at the town centre for a night with the British locals – the famed “G7” evening.

As it happens I didn’t manage to crawl back up the hill until something like 2:30am in the morning after a very entertaining evening solving most of the world’s problems – as you do.

The image above was taken using the iPhone in night vision software while propped up against a wall (and yes, that’s the moon). The panorama above was created with PhotoSynth, one of Microsoft’s better offerings recently.

Another day with no post – and I found out today that my friend Aidan in the UK sent me a test envelope LAST THURSDAY – is it any wonder the Spanish economy is in the state it is – I ordered some small items from the UK and China about a week ago and nothing – not a thing has turned up – yet we have in the past had post turn up here so it’s not as if they don’t know we’re here.

After a very busy day yesterday which ended up with an early night, we headed off to the Huescar market this morning (Thursday) – had our cafe con leche and Churros and did a little shopping – after a LED flood-lamp blew up last night I looked in vain to find one in Huescar, seems no-one does them so we’ll have to manage until our next trip to a larger town (no shortage in San Javier but that’s 2 hours away). For those looking in for the first time, the Huescar market happens every Thursday and is a relatively large market with fruit and veg, clothing, shoes, kitchen stuff and more – no-where near as good as the better French markets but a nice trip out for the morning. Takes about an hour at most to get from one end to the other and back.

This afternoon we spent indoors as it was a TAD HOT out there – 37c (98F) and I’ve been doing a little research on Android media players. We bought a car radio for the car here with USB connector for music and it’s basically useless with only limited support for folders – so I came to the conclusion the best way would be to put the music on Maureen’s HTC ONE X phone with a suitable player and feed that to the car radio. That is now all done with thousands of tracks on the phone ready to go. Ultimately I picked GoneMad Music player for the phone.

Right now they’re busy setting up lights and sets in the village for the August festivities and we’ve grabbed a list of events from the town hall.  Still awaiting first proof that the posty actually delivers post here in the mountains!

Sunday was a fine day and we started early in the morning with a walk down to the village for cafe con leche at the local bar/cafe La Posa.

After a long walk back up the (very steep) hill, slowed down somewhat by stopping to chat with other Brits, we headed off in the car, via the back roads, eventually through Baza to Lake Negratin where we spent the afternoon sunbathing in the warm fresh water and in the process burned our as-yet untrained poor bodies to a crisp before heading back, stopping at restaurant Monte Carlo for a late lunch/early dinner. We spent the remainder of the evening washing the car, fixing lights and generally getting the place ready for visitors.

Monday we headed off early to pick up friend Marsha from Granada airport, stopping off at Brico-Depot and Carrefour on the way to pick up groceries and hardware.

Still suffering from overdoing the sun, there’s nothing better than proper after-sun (temperatures are currently around 37c or higher in the afternoon (making the car body dangerous to touch) so none of yer wimpy ALOE stuff but a good lathering of Lidocaine – no doubt banned from UK stores however happily Maureen brought a supply back from the USA some time ago. Well recommended for taking the edge off start-of-season sunburn.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Sunday night’s magnificent sunset – I’ve more including some great 3D pics of the lake to put up later.  Monday night we basically blew, eating tapas and drinking wine with Marsha – there was a slight mist preventing the normal excellent view of the milky way at night – perhaps that’ll clear today. This morning the plan is to walk down to the village for coffee, though I’m up dead early as I was a little too warm overnight (we need to start being cleverer about leaving keeping bedroom doors closed during the day to keep the heat at bay – the basic internal temperature of the place is fine but the warm air can make a lot of difference).

Tonight I’ve got to figure out what to do with the 5m of colour-changing LED strip I brought over with me to add a little ambience to the IT cave… and some improvements to the Pergola before embarking on a new solar experiment.