Bedrock

Archive for the ‘spain’ Category

We’re coming to the end of our first week and up to now we’ve seen 2 drops of rain, yesterday which lasted a short before the clouds magically disappeared – and now we’re back to beautiful sunshine.

As you can see from the photo, the first grapevine is coming along splendidly, we’ve just added another to the other side of the Pergola we well as fixing some wear and tear to the sun-shades.

There has been a very slight mist for much of the week which has kept temperatures in check to a magical 30c mid-day – which is just about right IMHO. Yesterday after a late start we went off shopping and Maureen did a spot of painting while I caught up with emails and added some finishing touches to the revised “IT Cave” which as you can see is coming along nicely.

Last night we popped into the village to meet up with friends and ended up spending most of the night sitting in front of the pizza cafe. We met up with a couple we’ve known for some time now and while the girls went off to investigate the Flamenco dancing and a chance to do a spot of line-dancing (over my dead body), Len and I decided instead to sit outside and watch the Olympic opening ceremony – and I have to say, very, very impressive it was.

The colours of the stadium itself and the various teams were just stunning and as for the “Bond” scene – magic… though it’s going to take something to beat the 1984 Olympics in which Bill Suitor flew into the Los Angeles Olympics wearing the Bell Aerodynamics rocket pack (Jet pack) in a real-life scene straight out of science-fiction, a scene watched by 2 billion awe-struck people. That jetpack is in use today for search and rescue. It would have been nice to see a 21st century version of that stunning display at the Olympics yesterday but none-the-less yesterday was an event to be proud of.

You might be interested in this reminder of the amazing 1984 display. If you can see past the dodgy video quality and bear in mind they had no-where near the technology we have today, this was a pretty stunning opening.

This morning we had a lie-in, by the time I got up Maureen had the paint-pot out again – and apologies to any of you who’ve been trying to look-in via the www.bedrock.es domain – I just discovered that 123-reg had screwed up the linking – that is now back in working order.

We’re having a night-in tonight having well and truly overdone it during our first week – perhaps a trip to the lake tomorrow assuming the weather holds out.

Arrived late Sunday, bought some cement Monday to fix potholes. Yesterday we headed off to Baza and beyond so Maureen could get her share of plants and a new olive tree, calling in at the Chinese junk store in town for a new sunshade for the beach and a nice sandwich at Sevillanos (opposite Lidl and one street behind the main street) before heading off home to do a spot of maintenance painting and decorating.

Sat next to 3 young women who we guessed were not academics as their entire conversation was based on discussing how much alcohol they’d sunk, punctuated with the odd “and I was like, wow”.

Picked up a new test meter as the old one had succumbed to software rot and refused to display anything other than 1.1volts regardless. I’m testing some solar cells and power units I brought over (a super capacitor and a lithium button cell) to see how well they charge under Spanish sunshine! Also picked up some material to improve the pergola (sun blasts in the side in the mornings).

Huescar market tomorrow – no doubt we’ll bump into friends.

So much to do, so little energy…

We’re here! Arrived last night (Sunday), beautiful night, got into the (Murcia) airport around 7pm Spanish time and headed straight off down the road (maybe 10 minutes drive) to San Javier and to the shopping Centre which was heaving with happy shoppers (take note, lazy MetroCentre which will be more or less dead at that time of night on a Sunday).

This morning we’ve been checking what repairs need doing – always on-going in a cave-home and re-arranging the furniture to give me a little more room to work (I’ve plans to work on some solar projects while I’m here and later in August of course I need to video conference back to the UK).

We’re off now for a brief trip to nearby Huescar for some paint, an extension and other general goodies and to see if anyone has a solar water-fountain following up my inspirational idea that moving water might keep the wasps occupied instead of invading the hot-tub (or as it’s used here – the cold-tub – it’s warm already and we’ve not put the heater on yet).

And that’s it, perhaps a pizza tonight and tomorrow there is some repairing to do.

What a cracking last day – we drove down to the coast much earlier than usual and headed off to San Javier for some last minute shopping, unsure what the opening situation would be for shops on a Sunday. Any fears were unfounded as most of the shops were in fact open – certainly the shopping centre containing EROSKI was open – and on the way, a BRAND NEW super Chinese store.

We bought some stuff for our next trip and left it in the car… and I have to tell you, you have NEVER seen a range of compact fluorescents like the ones they have in this store, from the tiniest 2w jobs up to a WOPPING great 150w (yes, that’s 150w compact fluorescent – enough to light up a street I should think. if a 13w is equivalent to a 60w old-fashioned filament lamp, these must be something like equivalent of approaching a 1Kw lamp!!!

We then went off to Eroski for some last minute bits and pieces. Mobile users might be interested to know that YOIGO over there are doing the Samsung Galaxy SIII for 29 Euros a month as against much more here – we noticed they have a store within the same shopping centre (for reference Eroski close midnightt normally and 10pm on a Sunday!! – the Chinese stores appeared to be closing early teatime Sunday) before driving back toward the airport but not before stopping off for some late lunch down at the beach.

Ok, the food was just normal keep-the-British-happy stuff but the scenery – my goodness, beautiful blue sky, maybe 33c, nice breeze… we REALLY did not want to leave.

By mid-evening we were on the plane full of screaming babies, by 10pm or so in Edinburgh airport listening to warnings about importing knuckledusters into the UK while they took ages to get the bags (presumably while searching for knuckledusters) and by 1am after a drive through flooded areas of the A68 we were back home in Wark. Our two ginger tom cats are furiously huffed at the fact we have (for a short time) kittens roaming around – life is back to normal – meetings piled up for this week and next….  such a different world…. I’m counting the days to summer (of which there is NO sign in the UK) already….

That’s it for our pre-summer trip – cleaned the place up, sorted the bedroom – not too much work left to do for the summer other than repair the gateposts that ex-builder Tony put together for us and which immediately fell to bits! Now I know what materials are needed the repairs should last.

The weather here has been superb and we’ve done our bit for the community, cleared some of the weeds, put some new lighting on the roundabout etc. and done far more walking than I would have imagined. Stopped in last night

Came up with some new ideas for solar lighting which I’ll put together in the summer once I have all the bits I need (inc. batteries) and we’re looking forward to soaking in the lake (the water this time of year isn’t QUITE warm enough but give it a few more weeks of blasting sunshine).

I took the panorama above Saturday night just on the mountain, it covers around 180 degrees – quite late at night… you just can’t beat the view and it’s different every time. This morning the weather is great – probably 28c already, theory has it, its over 30c down at the coast and our flight is this evening so we’re planning to have a leisurely trip this morning, late lunch up North of San Javier then pick up a garden hose and a few other bits and bobs which we’ll leave in the car (the car is parked long-term outside of the airport at a very reasonable rate – sub-300 euros a year) for the summer trip.

Our last full day for this short break then it’s back to the grind for a while, but not long before we’re back here again for the summer hols. Meanwhile today, armed (finally) with a working car we went off to Huescar for some goods and "churos and coffee" – rapidly becoming an essential part of visiting Huescar.

We go to the little corner cafe you see here near the square. We also managed to get some round staples so next time I’ve some wiring to fasten up, we’re all set….  at lunchtime we returned to Galera and I fitted the new radio to the car, not without issues as the aerial socket is ever so slightly different to the car fittings as you can see in the photo below. Just found an "iso to din" adaptor on Ebay for the aerial so that’s on it’s way.

As that means no Spanish FM radio for now (which we don’t understand anyway), that’s not too big a deal, the radio has Bluetooth (tested, working), auxiliary input, USB input (tested, working) and SD memory input  so all I have to do it kit out a 16 gig SD with all of our music and Spanish lessons and we’re all set. That’ll be ready for the summer.

Bought a new storage cabinet which I’ve just spent part of the afternoon filling up with electrical rubbish and tonight we plan to stay in and enjoy a glass or two of wine and take in the view.

Next week I’ve a ton of meetings lined up in London and elsewhere but first I’m putting my trusty oscilloscope on Ebay as I’ve spotted a modern pocket version which will be ideal for the summer (I’m sure if I brought a proper scope over on the plane, they’d think it was a terrorist device and not let me on the plane. I was stopped on the North/Southern Ireland border once with the same kit and they were convinced I was up to no good).

Making the best of the REALLY nice weather as I’m let to believe that (surprise surprise) the weather back in the UK is rubbish – on the other hand I’ve lots of Chinese goodies waiting for me back home not to mention our kitties.

Incidentally, while we were over here, obviously the BBC i-Player doesn’t really like one being overseas neither does Netflix but we were fine thanks to the continued reliability of Hide-My-Ass.