Bedrock

The end of our summer trip and we went to the local cafe for pizza – though we’ve come to the conclusion we’re going to have to start looking to widen our options – Friday night everyone brings their kids and some of them are LOUD. As we prepared to pack up and go back to the rain, I took  a couple of parting photos – in both cases, multi-image panoramas.

I took this first one at sunrise – at the amazingly late time of 8am – the original images are as always up on FLICKR and are much larger (just click on the images to see the originals) – this is a beautiful view of the area which really needs 3D to explore properly (hmm, there’s a thought).

The other photo, taken at the same time – shows the current state of one of the rooms, tentatively entitled the living room. The 8 holes in the wall comprise the “wine rack” and we’re still waiting for a cupboard to go below that but otherwise the room is taking shape and everything works.

On top of the fridge (for now) is the broadband equipment comprising Iberbanda connection and wifi router complete with battery backup. That then feeds into the mains to supply another router upstairs.

We’ve deliberately used two convertable settees (one shown here in red, the other is upstairs) and you can see the wood fireplace over on the right. Of interest all of the windows have double glazing and internal shutters as well as fine mesh to keep out nasties. Most of the time when we’re here they are open – safe enough, as outside they have secure iron decorative (but also very functional) grates as do most properties here. We’ve ordered wood for our next trip over in October in case the weather cools off (we’ve had no need to use the fire up to now as even at night the place is comfortably warm).

Before leaving, we made sure we had everything turned off everything except the Internet (for the webcam) and started the journey back home. We set off on the two-hour journey to the airport and I checked the available miles on the digital display on the dash. Enough fuel for 225km it said – and with  a 115km drive ahead we set off.

Unfortunately, no doubt thanks to travelling WAY in excess of the speed limit at times (pretty much unavoidable as the original sat-nav estimates proved conservative – we were pushing it for time), that edge rapidly disappeared – unfortunately we didn’t spot it until we were within 25km of the airport – and there was not a SINGLE petrol station for the entire remainder of the journey. To say that the last 10 minutes was hair-raising would be an understatement – within 5 km of the airport the car gauge said we had ZERO miles left and so we were expecting at any minute to sputter to a halt. But we made it in one piece only to find that the plane was delayed for 90 minutes!

Meanwhile I’ve signed up to various ex-pat forums and posted questions about markets, shops and a bunch of other subjects. Next time around we’ll be even better armed to handle this very interesting and quite different way of life!

Of interest, we watched a show on our last Friday night on the latest solar plant that a Spanish company has put up in the Nevada Desert, 60 megawatts and they’re considering this just the baby, the start of a new generation – the scale of the “baby” is breathtaking but they insist it’s just the start.
-Apparently they think they actually can power Las Vegas by Solar. Between the solar and wind plants near our home in Spain and this, imagine how I felt when arriving home to read the local JOURNAL newspaper only to read ONCE again about people WHINGING about windmills – every time the most trivial installation is suggested, the mothers-against-windmills mob rise up to try and stop them…

Just to make the return journey that little bit more interesting, we left blazing sunshine in Spain to come home to the most ABYSMAL weather. Leaving Newcastle airport for Hexham (half an hour or so normally), we hit floods almost immediately – and without ANY alternative directions provided, the A69 to Hexham was closed. To cut a long story short, we took the main alternative route only to discover half way through that a lorry had jack-knifed and completely blocked the road. Our trip which started at lunchtime in Spain saw us arrive home after MIDNIGHT in the UK.

It seems like a lifetime since I was last in Spain (actually it’s a couple of weeks) – after coming back to pretty decent weather in the UK last week, for 5 minutes…. then the rain started and hasn’t really stopped since…  I spent the first week back in a meeting-fest (which makes it hard to actually achieve anything) and I have to tell you  -the following weekend was not been something I care to remember – HOWEVER…. here I am in Barcelona at Microsoft’s TechEd.

This time it’s not a personal trip – it’s a business trip – Microsoft’s annual extravaganza at the end of VIA DIAGONAL in Barcelona is a massive affair with thousands of attendees – indeed thousands of British attendees for that matter,  in which we learn all about their latest and greatest. For the first time I’m not alone, attending with my FSB colleague Simon.

The flight was GREAT  – got my SPEEDY BOARDING and so the first seat on the front left of the plane  -spent the 3 hours chatting to a nice couple who similarly travel a lot – and got off the plane in Barcelona to brilliant sunshine – and Sunday afternoon was the last I saw of it.

After a brief cleanup at the “Barcelo Hotel Atenea Mar” – which turns out to be the WRONG hotel, the best part of a mile away from the venue (not to mention the absence of broadband which leaves me using my £8 a day flat rate Internet dongle for communications) I went off to the venue to collect my Microsoft bag of goodies – which this year consists of a t-shirt that’s too small and a bunch of papers which immediately went in the bin – a sign of things to come with a distinct air of cutting back.   On Sunday I took the opportunity to walk to the venue and in the process divert via the large shopping area just off DIAGONAL MAR. Despite what you hear about Spain and siestas –  open all day Sunday.  My colleague turned up late in the evening and thankfully the hotel did dinner till 11pm (a lesson to be learned there perhaps) and so we had a nice, quite intro to our week in Spain.

The keynote speech was pretty undramatic and there are way more technical sessions than I can handle. I intend to learn about new technical management techniques, software “as a service”, Windows 7 and the new language F# (pronounced F sharp) – I’ve already scoured the bookstore (30% off) having realised my current book on Javascript was written in 2002 – which in IT terms makes it an absolute antique and bought a cracking book on Ajax programming.

The problem is…. emails – they’re coming in faster than I can handle and today (Tuesday) I saw very little of the venue. I intend to shut the computer off tomorrow and get some training in.  Tonight could be a trip into town – I’m pretty partial to a walk up “La Rambla” though having missed lunch I’m not sure I’ll last that long without food! The photo above of the auditorium doesn’t even start to convey the size of the thing – many thousands of people there. So much to learn, so little time. Last night (Monday) they opened the exhibition and of course we all came away with pens and flashing lights but the key attraction was endless food and drink – which is a good start.

I’ve mapped out a pretty heavy set of sessions for the next couple of days, already learned a lot about the forthcoming Internet Explorer 8 – which considering the changes is knowledge worth it’s weight in gold.

Update 16th November: Some of the sessions went by the by in favour of non-stop emails and phone calls. We’ve been updating the www.fsb.org.uk website – well, updating is perhaps not strong enough – gutting and redesigning is a better description – and with 2,000+ pages redesigned I should have expected lots of calls.  We did however get our chance to get out at night as you’ll see in one of the photos herein – “La Rambla” at night is a very long street with a thriving market and endless restaurants and so we ended up in November sitting outside – lovely.

Some of the architecture in Barcelona is fascinating and you really need a few days to travel around and enjoy the best the city has to offer. This then was my third visit to Teched in Barcelona and most likely the last as I understand they are planning to change venue. A constant police presence reminds one that this city has it’s share of crime and clearly that message has had it’s effects on the organisers. Personally I was just glad of a few days respite from the really horrible weather we’ve been having in the UK and a chance to get into the latest technologies.  Windows 7 is just around the corner (yes, it looks like Vista was just a stop-gap after all) and Internet Explorer 8 has far more under the hood than at first glance –  though the current BETA kills my Exchange server 2003 webmail absolutely every time!!

My next trip to Spain will be with Maureen in Spain when we’re back to “Bedrock” armed with our new slate sign and hopefully some replacement gear for the webcam which appears to have given up the ghost – no doubt due to concrete dust in the laptop fan!

That’s it, I’m packing up the computer and we’re heading back to the UK – I have to say this didn’t feel as much like a holiday, probably because I never stopped working – between a massive website I’m managing and fixing ceilings, the jacussi and a ton of other things – Oh, I must tell you – my little idea for using a fishtank heater to keep the jacussi from freezing while I get a replacement panel… well, it works!  The little 25w glass heater, about the size of a large finger has actually managed not only to maintain temperature but raise it from 17 degrees to 19 degrees in 2 days – amazing.

So at least if it freezes over before we’re back here in December, we won’t come back to a frozen block of ice for a jacussi.  It’s 6.30am, it’s raining, it’s cool(ish), Maureen has gone a cracking job of finishing off the furnishing and decorations and we now have a 3 hour drive to the airport – but we’re going to enjoy it as the weather in the UK is FAR worse!  It’s been a nice stoppover, we’ve made more new friends and the place is really taking on the feel of a home.  I’m looking forward to coming back in December – but this time with a heavy coat!

I don’t know if I was expecting constant sunshine but it came as a bit of a shock when the rain started to fall over here. I was starting to get REALLY depressed on the second day of rain until I looked at the TV to see what’s happening back in Britain!  As I write this temperatures are down to 9 degrees at night – maybe as high as 15 during the day- but considering the alternatives back home… that’s not bad. Earlier in the week it got up to 23 degrees one afternoon over here – I don’t think even London managed anywhere near that.

Yesterday we got to the bottom of our problems with the jacussi – the main electronics panel is shot – and so Costco are sending another one to the UK and we’ll fit it ourselves when we’re back here over Christmas – so what of the meantime – well, I figured we really need only minimal heat to stave off freezing so I bought a fully-submersible fishtank heater and that’s in there now, where it will remain until I’m back here with the repair kit.  Somewhat less powerful than the 3Kw inline heater that normally keeps the water piping hot but it’ll do the job until we get the parts.

We had a nice walk over the hills yesterday morning then a trip into town for some supplies, the rest of the day I was glued to the computer as I am now – though we did manage a trip to the “Curry Cave” last night – such nice people and the food is lovely. OF course business isn’t exactly brisk around here at this time of the year – especially in the current recession and so it was a quiet night with only two couples. Gave us a good chance to talk to the owners however.

I saw the most depressing sight yesterday – on the main road in the village of Galera. There are many, many cats and dogs in the area and one of the smaller kittens used up it’s 9th life – just before we got there – splattered all over the road – and the first thing we saw was it’s head with eyeballs popping out like something out of “Total Recall”… gross. Someone won’t be happy.

Back home on Sunday and not looking forward to the drop in temperature! Today as you can see from the panorama – the clouds in the mountains are great. It’s warm and dry for our last day here – which is nice.

Just to prove that it’s not ALL sun in Spain – it’s been a rainy day today. We’re currently fighting with the jacussi people as the jacussi has died, or rather, it’s heater has died – and so last night Maureen rang them up in the USA and amazingly they told her (remember she’s an end-user with no special technical knowledge) to open up the unit, take the control panel front off – and lift a link on the circuit board. She was convinced they’d said to do this with it SWITCHED ON!.  We’ve tried various combinations (the idea being to force a cold reset of the circuitry) to date with no effect. The device sits stubbornly at 19 degrees C – safe from freezing but not much use for anything else.

After spending much of yesterday with a paintbrush in my hand re-whitening walls after the builders, I’ve spent the day indoors communicating back with the UK on a large project I’m working on so the day was not lost. Of course having left the SKY card at home we’re reduced down to the basic non-subscription channels over here and I have to say, as someone who’s watched Sky since it first came to be, I’d really forgotten just how BAD normal TV is. BBC and ITV are by and large rubbish and of course the few remaining Satellite channels which are free – are that way for a reason. It is almost impossible to find anything worth watching on TV.

Last night we went down to the village to our local pizza cafe – the guy there is really frendly and does a cracking pizza so we had a good night. Tomorrow the plan is to go to Granada having discovered there is a variation on B&Q down there as we need a dehumidifier.

How time flies – it seems like no time since we returned to rainy old England (mainly because I’ve never stopped working on a very LARGE website) and here we are off on another trip to the mountains of Andalucia. Our first stop having flown into Malagar was a trip to Carrefour for some shopping and lunch – we did this on Saturday morning and the weather was superb!! We arrived up in Galera at around 8pm to a load of dust from the builder’s operations. Nothing like spending your first night armed with a broom!

The building work is now complete (note the new fireplace in thick stone) – which merely leaves me to purchase half a ton of white paint and re-do much of the outside. Builders have been in putting in crazy paving and done a nice job. Saturday night we went off to the village – almost everywhere was closed as apparently there was a wedding on in Huescar but we did meet up with a couple we met last time and spent the evening with them in the pub.

Sunday the weather was not good – I managed to get the morning in painting and then by afternoon it started to rain – mind you nothing compared to the lake district back home. I took the opportunity to get some work done on the web and we made our first fire. Met some potential neighbours who came with other English locals – very pleasant people who we invited in for the guided tour. No doubt we’ll see them in the pub later this week (Saturday night is reserved for “the curry cave”).

Monday we’re off to Huescar for more paint and a couple of large brushes. I’m sitting here preparing emails for work and the sun is out – beautiful sky. Assuming the weather keeps up, between the two of us we should be able to finish off the outside painting this afternoon and Maureen is planning a little staining. I’ll be back at the computer as this is going to be a working holiday, though we are planning at least one trip this week to the nearest large city as we need more materials from Carrefour.  Hot tub has packed in – heater appears to be on the blink as the water has stabilised at 19 degrees and won’t go up or down! Oh, dear!!

As the weather was quite cool yesterday we got our first chance to test the theory that caves stay a constant temperature – well of course that’s not QUITE true but the variation is minimal – despite the size of our place which is quite large if you include upstairs and below-ground-level areas, it didn’t take long for the one fire in the living area to bring the place to comfortable levels. We are however suffering the aftermath of the building work and there’s a certain level of humudity we need to address. The plan is to buy a small dehumidifier as soon as we can find a DIY large enough to stock them. Over in the UK we’ve used these for years, would not be without one and they are cheap as chips at B&Q – whether the same applies over here remains to be seen!

Brought more solar lamps to light the place up at night so I’m looking forward to a sunny day to give them a good charge. And with that, we’re off to get some white paint. As an aside the bank over here considers when giving you life insurance various disabilities – including “being left-handed”…  I must admit I’d never thought of being left-handed as a disability!!

This blog is put together by Peter Scargill and Maureen Scargill of Wark, Northumberland in England to help others who might be considering buying a holiday property in Spain.