Bedrock

Archive for the ‘spain’ Category

Today we’re planning a shopping expedition to Baza then back, armed with sandwiches to Embalse Del Negratin for some more sun. Some of the internal patching is now done, ready for a coat of paint, I suspect external fixes might take a little longer and we’re just recovering from a quote to fix the roof – after recovering from the shock it occurred to me I could buy a car for that amount.

But for today, the important thing is to enjoy the glorious sunshine. Temperatures yesterday hit 33 degrees and I suspect will do again today – the sky is clear blue as it has been pretty much all week apart from the occasional light, puffy cloud. You just can’t beat swimming in a nice cool lake when it’s as hot as this outside.

A little more painting later today and the plan is to polish off the evening sitting outside with neighbours to enjoy the evening sun and possibly the odd glass of wine. Jonathan is taking care of the barbeque.

It’s wonderful out here… we’ve been out since Saturday with friends and the weather has been exemplary – topping 33 degrees in the afternoon and a nice 25 degrees in the evening.

It’s been busier than we expected as we’ve had damp problems – a learning exercise and some shoddy Spanish workmanship combined to give some of the furniture gangrene (a Geordie joke I think, it’s “gan green”) and so we’ve had some stuff outside drying out and quite a bit of PVA is currently on the walls awaiting a coat of paint…. but we’re getting there.

Today is a lazy day, I’ve been cleaning the shed and PVA’ing but that’s about it apart from a trip to the post office to fail to pick up a notice that someone sent a month ago when we were not here, but oh, while I think on,  we have put up some new solar lights, I’ll try to remember to take a picture tonight. Very impressive.

While I have no doubt any of you who’re over in Spain with us will have already checked out Galera and surrounding places on Google Earth or Google Maps, I wonder if you’ve seen the place in 3D ??

No??? Well, pop along to Google maps (not Google Earth) – and lookup Galera….

Then under MORE – select “street view” – I had NO IDEA they’d been around with the cameras, you can go most of the way up to our place! Anyway, here we are in street view at the plaza mayor. That’s pretty impressive – but it’s nothing compared to right-clicking the street view image and turning 3D on!!

I’ve just ordered a couple of pairs of red-blue specs from Ebay….. I can’t wait…

You will have to have figured out by now that the weather here in Blighty is just NOT going to get any better. As we prepare to leave to start our hols, the weather in the Northeast continues to remind us why half a million Brits have cleared off to Europe – rubbish climate. I’m updating this blog at 8.30am in the morning here in Northumberland and the weather is AWFUL.

Meanwhile over in Spain the weather has apparently been pretty consistent recently, between 24 and 30 degrees during the day – and most of it without clouds! We’ve bought a place over there – and we’ve a series of planned trips in the coming months to turn it into a functioning second home. The location is Galera, near Huescar in Andalucia.

Of COURSE I’ve packed everything but the kitchen sink, some of which is going to be MURDER to actually get there – I can only hope the car rental place is VERY near the airport.

Current state of play is that the cave, from here on in referred to as “Bedrock” is empty but the movers have already shipped lots of stuff we need (including a large bed and an all-important Jacuzzi) ready for delivery next week. We need to sign some papers, move imported furniture in, buy some more furniture and assemble that in blazing heat, get the broadband working, get the drinks organised…..

This blog then will be in reverse order with the latest developments at the top. My job as well as signing papers and dragging gear over there is to get the technology organised – we’ve no telephone but they have what’s referred to as “rural broadband” so by now that roof below will have a little box on it pointing to a transmitter somewhere in the mountains and hopefully in a few days I’ll have WiFi running throughout the building – and of course there’s the all-important satellite dish – which has to be twice the size over there…. of course with SKYPE you always have a phone – and we’ve bought a little Internet radio for music-while-u-work… there’ll be a lot of that at first.

There is a tremendous amount of work involved in a project like this – electricity and water are in but that’s about it. We’ve bought dishwasher, Microwave, washing machine, kettle, iron, furniture – it’s FRIGHTENING how much stuff you need to set up a house.. at least the logistics of it have thankfully been made as smooth as possible by an excellent sales organisation over there. More as events unfold.

The empty house as it was a few months ago in winter, (early 2008)

It all started when Maureen watched a travel program on SKY. There was a company over there selling cave homes – Spanish Inland Property Sales … sounded interesting so first opportunity we took a trip to Galera to meet Sean and Les – who were very keen to get us on-board and took us for a guided tour of various properties from completely finished to bare, untouched caves – yes, actual caves – i.e. holes in the mountains. It’s a long story but suffice it to say that we have taken the plunge and bought one. Maureen has spent endless hours on the phone learning the ropes but it helps that there are lots of people in Galera who speak English. Just as well because right now we can just about manage to ask for 2 beers and a bag of crisps – as long as the waiter answers in English. Oh, the one we bought doesn’t look like the example below – but that’s how they start. Ours already has floors, electricity, double-glazed windows and hot and cold water.