Bedrock

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WELL that was fun. The Jacuzzi control panel needed replacing and no matter what I did I could not get it to seal properly (the panel contains the control electronics and the heater, which is a long stainless tube housing a 3kw heater elements and 2 temperature sensors). Add to that they’d sent the lot to us left in TEST mode which took some figuring, but as of 6pm tonight, it’s all up and running thanks to a liberal application of silicone – and the temperature of the water is currently sitting at 11c – only 24 degrees to go. 

Not much else is new, it’s been sunny all day but the actual air is cold so it takes until 11am to be bearable out there and the heat is dying off around 6pm or so. Lunchtime today however was MARCVELOUS. Maureen was off cave-hunting – apparently she’s found an “unreformed” cave that has potential – with guaranteed electric, water and Internet supplies – a good start!  I spent the afternoon with our local friendly builder working on the Jacuzzi.

Tuesday in Galera: Today we had a late start, mainly due to my overdoing the wine last night. After catching up with emails we went off to Huescar where we discovered a new Ferreteria and came back with rather large containers of paint and PVA to start the job of reconstructing the “as new” look to the walls. Maureen bought a curtain hanger and
I bought a roller extension so I can touch up the roof! With several hours of sunshine I managed to get quite a stretch of wall painted.

Then we had a couple in for coffee – they were looking at caves and we figured we could do with some new gossip, turns out we’ve already met their parents who live in the village.

In the evening, being still far too cold to sit out at night, we went off to a new (for us) pizza restaurant in Huescar and then briefly to a local bar in Galera to watch a bunch of guys with guitars.

The hot tub is still running off a fish-tank heater as it’s not been warm enough to sit on the ground and replace the electronics, something I’ll do this week – but if nothing else… this week’s tip – if you want to leave your jacussi on over the winter and save money – turn the heater off and stick in a £10 fishtank element. It won’t keep it warm but then – it won’t freeze!

My over-the-mains internet controllers proved they cannot handle varying mains voltages – one of them The laptop handling Skype and my webcam has all but given up the ghost due to a dodgy in internal fan… so that’s another replacement next time we’re over here. Seems being Mr Fixit is my new hobby.

Wednesday morning…. clear blue skies this morning. A little frost on the top of the roof but as the temperature is now heading up past 6 degrees (10.35am) that won’t last long. Could be a good day.

Have I lost it with this title? No I just figured I’d see what effect an evocative title has on the search engines! Hah! Probably none!

Today’s been an interesting day. Started the day with lots of clouds and a bunch of emails that I could have done well without – including a short series which proved that email is not the be-all and end-all. Somehow no matter how many “emoticons” or other tools you use in email it is always possible for the most gross mis-understandings to occur because of the lack of personal contact. Sometimes a phone call achieves a lot more.

Anyway, that aside, the plan was to go get some more paint and PVA (to prepare stone surfaces like external wind-damaged walls for paint) and to enjoy the sun – simple plan. The first problem was lack of sun – which was soon resolved as what started as a horribly cloudy day changed miraculously into a full blown sunny afternoon. We got the paint but PVA – well, you’d think we were looking for gold-dust. After a discussion with the guys who come to look after our place over here in our absence, we now have a new “Ferreteria” – i.e. hardware store to check out tomorrow – as well as a new pizza place and the “Star Trek bar” in Huescar.

Oh, while I’m on – a fuel update – fuel is STILL cheaper here in Spain – this is one of our local garages – nowhere near the cheapest but one which happened to be at the same place as my camera and I.  Diesel at 0.90 Euros… even with the current abysmal transfer rate that’s still a lot cheaper than we’re paying.

Meanwhile back at the cave, after discovering that the webcam was damaged in the winter weather (minus 10 and horrendous gales) I brought along a replacement camera only to discover the laptop fan is making weird noises – presumably due to a combination of age and concrete dust.  Still working on that one but I’m thinking the cost of an EEE PC laptop is probably cheaper than a repair.

We’re having a night in – now we have the place up to comfortable temperatures… and Maureen is enjoying catching up with TV while I’m updating the blog – though as someone who has been using hard disk recorders for years and in recent years the Sky+ package where I can record everything and watch on demand – sans adverts, I’m having immense difficulty with the idea of watching adverts… I just want to skip over them as usual but of course I can’t without the more modern SKY box. I really CANNOT handle the muscular idiot selling car insurance…or the constant repetitious adverts for people who’ve recently had an accident and actually believe it was someone else’s fault (sorry to international readers, that’ll mean nothing to you).

Anyway I’ve put in here some photos I’ve taken through the day, hope you find them interesting… I’ve always been drawn to posters – never understood what the British government has against giant posters – as you might see almost anywhere in Europe or America and so I always take every opportunity to photograph the more interesting ones. The images you see above are part of a larger image along the roadside in Huescar – absolutely excellent art. Ok so the female covers the “sex” part of the title of this blog entry… I just need to work on the “lies and videotape” bit.

After spending our first evening over here trying to heat the place up (in February it gets cold at night – but warm during the day – today it’s been 16 degrees and clear blue skies….) we started the morning surveying the winter damage to paintwork – at first sight, pretty bad… but then I’m a dab hand with a paintbrush and having first put on a coat of PVC to stick everything together, I think you’ll see the place is pretty much back to new apart from the stone you see above which has some pretty bad cracking in it – nothing a good builder can’t put right.

We’re so used to cold weather we could not resist sitting out in the sun, so apart from a spot of painting and a short walk, we’ve not done much today..  and now the bad news… the Curry Cave is CLOSED – not just for Christmas but FOREVER…. Maureen rang them up and that’s all she could get out of them!!

Tonight we’ll no doubt trip down to the local village, our new next door neighbours are in and enjoying the sun – and all’s well.

How’s this for a start to the holidays…  Newcastle airport, good old Stelios Express messed up again as our 6.30am flight slowly slipped back to the 11am flight. After horrendous snow and threats of airport closures the previous day, we set off at 4.30am on Friday morning from Wark only to get here to find that our flight was delayed due presumably to the airport closure previous night (bad snow). Kind of interesting watching how quickly we come to a halt with the snow – it really would not take much to bring the UK to it’s knees.. Anyway, I digress.

By early-morning much of the snow had cleared up and it was  a balmy 2 degrees in Newcastle – by 6.45am our plane was still no-where to be seen with a constant 3 minute notice – until the Tannoy announcement. The plane was bust and they were sending another one from Luton of all places.  Easyjet pushed the boat out and supplied us with £3 food vouchers which can only be spent in one of two places – i.e. Burger King or the crappy buffet place next door – guess which option we picked.

With a full airport, Maureen spent her time scouring the newspapers, I stayed away from them as I’m still annoyed about the Dutch politician being banned UK entry by our spineless political leaders… and caught up with my emails instead.  The flight eventually left Newcastle at, would you believe, 11.30am so we blew half of the day. The flight arrived mid-afternoon in Spain to beautiful sunshine.

More in the next blog….

Quote of the day:
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. – John Lennon

It seems like an age since we last went to Spain – but less than a couple of weeks to go now (13th Feb) – weather is at least 10 degrees warmer over there than it is here and I’ve high hopes that we’ll see just a little sun. Currently sitting here in Northumberland surrounded by snow – and a promise of up to 12" more tonight!

The picture on the left incidentally is my grand-daughter and my new cat who, as you can see are getting along famously.

The builders have been in to do repairs on the BBQ which was somewhat damaged by the winter cold over there in Spain. This time the paintwork will be done properly with a good coat of PVC going down first. It’s all down to the weather. I can’t actually look at anything because the webcam has gone dead. We have folks over there who check in on the place every now and then and they say everything LOOKS ok but perhaps the frost got to the camera!

Counting the days…