Bedrock

Archive for the ‘spain’ Category

A far cry from the height of summer, Galera in Autumn is, well, a little, ordinary kind of town… Thursday night, the night the Brits supposedly head off to the pubs – nothing, nobody, zilch.

After a day’s solid (virtual) meetings and website designing I headed off down to the village to check the local gossip. Not a British soul in sight!  Thankfully I’m comfortable enough at the local pizza bar to sit and have a billy-no-mates night. I could not believe it – not a single British soul – worse, no-one that looked like they might speak English either – which is a bit of a problem when your Spanish skills amount to "2 beers please" and "sorry I don’t speak any Spanish". Thank heavens for Facebook and text messages.

Still, a nice warm fire courtesy of our new wood supplier makes all the difference. I have to pick Maureen up from the Airport sometime Saturday and the car rental company were kind enough to desperately need the car back to sell it (times must be tough) so they’re paying for the trip (not insignificant – a full tank there and back to Murcia airport – though why they call it that when it’s miles away from Murcia I don’t know). Meanwhile it looks like we’re now the owners of a Spanish car so hopefully being ripped off by car rental agencies will soon become a thing of the past.

I’m counting on tomorrow being a much quieter day and maybe tonight’s rain shower (the one the  useless forecasters said had no chance of happening) will clear the air. 19c and sunny – apparently…

I was just thinking how crappy the weather was in the UK when what do you know, the day before I set off, a nice day in Wark!  Maureen and I spend the day gardening and got LOADS of stuff done.

6am this morning we were up to drop me off for my flight to Murcia – probably my last as apparently the military want it back! I  don’t know the politics of this but WHY did they have to grab the most friendly airport of the lot… Malaga is AWFUL.

Sunday lunchtime – after an effortless flight (no really, non of yer EasyJet squabbling like animals, seat booked (exit seat) and I just walked into the airport and onto the plane after a few minutes being checked to see if I’m an Islamic terrorist. I’d filled the iPad with movies but only had time for one – "G.I Joe – The Rise of Cobra" – if you’ve not seen this – it is worth the effort of getting the DVD – ok, it’s silly but the effects FAR exceed what you’d expect in a less than blockbuster movie – indeed they rank along with the very best.

By the time that was over it was time to land – I was a little worried as just approaching land there were some horrendous clouds – but I should not have worried – 26 degrees in St Javier. Now remember – this is a Sunday… everything was OPEN! So a brief trip to the Chinese supermarket then off to Eroski for groceries.  About the only notable part of the journey was the fact that they gave me a completely trashed car. I grabbed the car guy and pointed out that the rental form said nothing about scrapes etc. at which point he noted down the major gash on one side of the car and laughed at the little bumps and scratches I pointed out elsewhere. Regardless I took a video of the whole car while I was there -  just to be sure.

Got here late afternoon after having a good look around Caravaca De La Cruz – which I intend to repeat at some point as they have a nice little town square with cafes etc., looked really neat. 22C when I got to Galera and all looks well, everything works apart from one cheap Chinese power extension which is easily replaces. All my solar stuff is working, one camera needed a reset so tomorrow I’m off for a 24-hour timer to give it a 5-minute reboot first thing in the mornings – better safe than sorry.Other than that, nothing new… no-body us here, Maureen joins me next Sunday and we have friend coming over… I expect I’ll pop down to the village to see what’s new there but for tonight – a quiet drink, a little blogging and a nice fire.

Tomorrow – shopping, a little R&D and no doubt the usual cacophony of phone calls and emails. But at least it’s warm.

Even a quiet place like Galera has it’s share of Feral children – apparently two of them took a dip in our pool today in our absence.  I’ve yet to check the stills stored on the web to see if we’ve caught them on film – shouldn’t take long to track them down via Facebook etc – but thanks to Tom our neighbour at least we know that everything is ok.  An iron bar and locks will be appearing as soon as we can contact a builder.

If anyone does happen to spot something like this in future if we’re not at home, we’d really appreciate photos.

If you’re in Spain and wondering, yes, it’s raining back in Blighty – again. Can’t wait to get back…. for a little more sun before the winter sets in for good.

They say it’s all over… it is now.

Our last night in Galera saw the most amazing weather as for the first time, just as Maureen and I were settling down to dinner in a restaurant in Huescar,  the heavens opened up – not only did we get the first rain in many weeks but for a few minutes the most amazing pea-size hailstones – solid ice. Of course within the hour it had all gone.

I was convinced the top of our car would be shot but amazingly thanks to being parked under a tree, we got away with it. Typically it was all over in a matter of an hour and after enjoying our meal in fresh air you only ever come across after a good storm, we ended up back in the bar in Galera to say our farewells.

Monday: Early on Monday morning we started our long journey up from Southern Spain. The atmosphere in Galera was fantastic with a thin layer of mist over most of the village which quickly lifted for yet another day of excellent weather. After a full day’s pleasant drive, though thanks to TomTom not the most straightforward drive, on Monday night we stopped over at Zaragoza – and boy, was it worth the trip.

The hotel we stopped at wasn’t that exciting, mainly due to road works in progress and the fact that they’d demolished the adjoining building,  but the area was right next to an excellent restaurant district and some superb architecture. We had a couple of drinks before walking around the corner… the photos say it all….though you’ll have to head off to Google Web Albums to get the full picture – this is an area well worth a visit.

We sat outside near the statue of Goya and enjoyed very nice pizza. The beer looked as if it had been used once already – but the view made it all worthwhile.

Tuesday: From Zaragoza we drove to San Sebastian so that Maureen could find a Carrefour – and it’s the funniest place – the road-signs looked far more German than Spanish – despite France being the nearest country. Nice looking place, of course being at the Northern tip of Spain it has lots of green – a bit like England really but without the rain. It’s around 26c here, much cooler than we’ve been used to but still very pleasant and clear blue skies. The difference in Carrefour is obvious – larger store, more choice, French-speaking staff and Basque-looking signs.

Even the HOUSES look German (based on our last trip which encompassed the Black Forest and saw us stopping for a few days in Pfaffenhofen – and drinking a lot of Dinkel Acker beer).

Next stop Poitiers… After figuring out how the diesel pump worked at Carrefour we headed off up to France – getting notably poorer fuel consumption (36mpg) than we did using Repsol diesel (45 mpg). About the only thing you can say about the long journey is that the greedy French take every opportunity to rob you on the peage roads, their fuel is preposterously expensive (marginally worse than ours) and their roads are crap – the A63 being a prime example – it’s like the A1 used to be before they improved it. Weather freshened up throughout the day, hitting 30c late afternoon. Bergerac – is a place to avoid, like much of our journey the road appears in permanent gridlock with the most aggressive offenders being as you might expect those driving cars manufactured by the Bavarian Motor Works.

Wishing I was back in Spain already, no doubt tonight we’ll end up eating something stomach-upsetting washed down with Freedom Fries. Perhaps we’ll be able to grab some cases of Kronenbourg to bring back – as I recall the stuff they sell in France is much nicer than the clone we get in the UK.

The A10 is a long and featureless PEAGE road – unlike the beautiful alternating white and pink flowers prevalent on the roads in Spain, this one has weeds along the middle along with the odd green bush. That’s how boring it is when you start looking at weeds.

By 7.30pm we arrived at out destination in Poitiers, the “Hotel Central” in Place du Marechal Leclerc. The hotel has a small entrance and no dining room but the bedrooms are clean and efficient and they bring you breakfast to your rooms. We spent our evening in the square which though pleasant enough, was starting to chill by 9pm and we ended up in-doors. Weather on Wednesday morning is cool and there’s little sign of the sun yet – a FAR cry from only 24 hours ago. The plan was an early start to our destination for today of Caen where we’d stop the night before heading off on the ferry back to wet and cold Britain.

Wednesday: One of the most noticeable differences between the generally free motorways of Spain and the generally expensive motorways of southern France – is that the views from the latter

are relatively boring. The best thing we did all day was to ditch the PEAGE and go on the older roads – a slight drop in miles but increase in time was handsomely repaid by the fact that the free, older roads take you either by or straight through some really interesting towns including, in our case a trip through the town of SEES – wherein we found an excellent if expensive café and a great church for taking photos. Whereas in Spain we’d be paying 1 Euro for a café-con-leche, here it was more like 2.5 Euros!  Evening came and we arrived in Caen to our destination hotel, an absolute dump called Hotel Avenida. With just about enough room to swing a cat, we dropped off our bags and enjoyed a quiet meal in town.

Thursday: After an early start, we were on the ferry (a very pleasant trip except for the worst burger in living memory which looked like one of the soles of my shoes and tasted as I imagine the same to taste) and on our way back to cold and rainy Blighty – except – it was, briefly, warm! after several hours drive we arrived at our destination, Cranage Hall in Cheshire – and the thermometer had still not dropped below 20c. As we arrived at teatime it was 23C and sunny – not a bad start… and it got better… alas this was just a brief blip… back home days later it is now drizzling as usual.

Until our next trip…

Sunday August 28th 2011: Apart from a few seconds in the morning, for just about the time since we arrived in Southern Spain this summer, not only did it rain…  and suddenly at that, but as we sat having our dinner in Huescar (thankfully inside a restaurant) we saw hailstones the size of peas (click on the photo to enlarge and see the hailstones on the road), for just a short while and then it was all over. In the process I captured one of the best sunsets yet (see next blog item).

Monday: On our last morning, the love affair with the puppy ended as he ripped one of our plants to pieces. We started our long journey back to the UK at 8am, went off into Galera for coffee followed by a trip to the bank and then we started our long journey to our next stop, Zaragoza.

The weather cooled off a tad first thing this morning (I think it got as low as 25c) and for a moment it even rained… and so Maureen was sitting inside reading a book when she complained of a crackling sound. Bearing in mind we had broadband issues yesterday I thought I’d better check. Sure enough, one of the cameras which had refused to start up has a power supply which was making cracking noises.  To cut a long story short, the Chinese camera is now a pile of scrap metal (due to it’s power supply, not the camera) and in the bin. The sparks must’ve been affecting the broadband as well so my only spare has now been called into operation. All done and ready to guard the place while we’re off on our long trip up North tomorrow. No doubt once again this will be part rubbish power, part rubbish Chinese power supplies.

Our neighbours Karen and Dave turned up this afternoon so we spent half of the afternoon sitting outside chatting – great use for a Sunday afternoon.. everything is working and first thing tomorrow morning we have to take an early trip to the bank to set up Internet banking before heading up to Northern Spain – but not before one last trip out tonight to see everyone. It’s now 8pm, we’ve had a massive storm – how all gone and it’s drying up already – the puppy has been doing his best to emulate a maniac in the garden with his new toys (plastic milk bottle and a plant-pot). We’ll miss him.

Sky is clearing – could be yet another nice night…