Bedrock

Archive for the ‘spain’ Category

After a particularly drab start to April with rain, more rain and the worst of the Sahara desert falling on us, things are finally looking up… the last couple of days have been just fine and today it got as high as 24c.

Despite frantic tech blog writing since Christmas, it seems I’ve somewhat ignored this blog, our window on life in Galera and thereabouts. This was brought to my attention by a nice couple we met in Galera’s La Posa Pizzeria (Jamie and Lindsay – I hope I spelled that right – if not, let me know, guys) who it seems know all about me due to this blog…. so here’s something hopefully of interest.

Maureen and I have been travelling back and forth to the UK since November and soon after our return to Galera (late February) we discovered our attempts to sell up in the UK were bearing fruit – so once again we headed back to the UK (this time by plane, so much more civilised than driving much of the length of England, spending a full day on the boat then driving much of the length of Spain) to start a clean-out operation over there (so much for retiring) and I came back on April 7, just in time for a local dental appointment (Mrs Sanchez in nearby Huescar) with Maureen returning to Spain a week later.

Neither of us have been out much in the village, so much to do but now with the prospect of several uninterrupted months here in Spain (rather handy for making postal delivery arrangements for my tech blog) I’m beginning to focus – just a slight matter of de-oranging the cavehome after the storms.

Coming up to date, yesterday was an important religious ceremony in Galera (all 15 minutes of action before we headed off the bar) and fortunately the weather held up so I could capture the essence of it on video (see below). I hope someone likes it. If so, view it in YouTube for best effect – and in case the embed doesn’t work – here’s a link to the video). Note: in the video I refer to clan – YouTube videos are a pain to edit – I meant Klan.

Here in Galera I’ve noted many Facebook discussions about broadband issues and I was just responding to one in particular when I realised an in-depth response might annoy people for whom broadband reliability and speed is not an issue – so I said I’d follow it up in here. This post, then, is only of interest to locals I guess.

Ok, I’m based in Galera and in the Baza (Southern Spain) area we have a broadband company called Habland who we’ve had for years. Until recently my wife and I were Spanish part-timers and in the months we spent back in the UK, Habland would (year after year) reduce our broadband in speed and price to the lowest level, just enough to run cameras and give me access to stuff I needed. Fine – not stunningly fast but fine.

Today of course, increasingly, fibre broadband is the norm and Habland offer this too. a year ago, despite our street having no phone lines – they (a fellow called Jesus) promised we’d have it “in the coming weeks”. well, that didn’t happen and NOW they want my retired neighbours and I to fund and fit POLES before they’ll fit fibre.

The time for sitting outside at midnight taking photos is once again gone for the year so instead, showing them off at the local photo club… it’s still lovely and warm during the day but as the sun disappears it will soon be time to consider heating.

Our September mini-adventure got off to a flying start after visiting L’Ametlla De Mar late Monday just in time for a quick look around and dinner after checking our our hotel for the duration.

After many years of service, our old hot tub finally gave up the ghost here at Bedrock, so now we have a brand new POOL… just filled today. And there it stands at 3m length and about 1m high. Needs varnish before we start enjoying it but it’s up and running (top is already done)! The pergola has been getting a makeover – we’ve had our new patio installed and this is the finishing touch, on its own concrete base (will will soon have Spanish tile sides and surrounding “grass”.

Thankfully the heat has broken (probably temporarily) so we can start varnishing tomorrow – now the tanker guy has done his job. That’s a LOT of water and we got all of it (that’s next door neighbour Dave’s plastic rat front left).

We had a lovely trip out to Velez Rubio today to meet an old friend (Angus Lyon) and his partner Suzanne and daughter Eliana half way as they are currently staying in their apartment down in Mojacar just off the sea front. Nothing rash – just a quick meet-up for coffee and tostada as a prelude to them visiting us in Galera, maybe in September. Last time we met his daughter she was really tiny.

On the way back as we were on our way to Orce, I took this snapshot – really pleasant weather after the heatwaves of late. We have of course been to both Velez Rubio and Velez Blanco many times – some day I’ll find an explanation of what “Velez” actually means.