Bedrock

Thursday is the day for the Huescar market. As you can probably tell from the photos, I originally wrote this back in 2009 when we were new to this part of the world. Here is an update. Huescar of course is in Granada, Andalucia, Spain but ”Granada” covers one hell of a large area and in reality the town of Huescar (population under 8,000 in 2016) is 90 minutes by car from what most people think of as Granada.

Maureen and I parked on the outskirts of Huescar and walked in (just a few minutes walk) – the town for the most part has only the most gentle inclines and is largely flat (unlike nearby – and larger – Baza) and so parking just about anywhere is easy except in August when the number of visitors swells a lot.

The market is bigger than the Wednesday market at nearby Galera, has lots and lots of fruit and veg as well as spices, pottery, clothes, shoes and more and spans much of the town. To the newcomer it may seem massive. In reality there are much larger markets at the coast (Vera for example) however this one should keep you occupied for an hour or two, longer if you meet up with friends for coffee.

Here’s one for you – a popular snack here looks like fried batter and that’s because it pretty much is. Churos. They fill up a syringe maybe 20mm diameter and star-shaped) – and inject it into a pot of boiling oil… swirling it around as they go. It is in there for minutes at most then taken out, cut up into strips and sold. What most of the locals do is shower it in sugar, order hot chocolate and dip the churos in the chocolate… Amazingly most of the locals are thin -  but then, many SMOKE LIKE CRAZY – indoors and outdoors. There’s a message in this somewhere. We tend to limit ourselves to churos once a week at the Thursday market.

For most of the morning when I wrote this, the temperatures were in the middle 20s, by lunchtime it was up to 32c, not untypical for the summer here. Maureen bought herself some fried chicken at the market and I experimented with chicken slices and tuna for lunch! We finished the afternoon at the local pool to cool off.

The next day we took a drive down to Aquilas – that’s not taking a chance on the weather of course, it WAS going to be hot and sunny, but back in 2009 we’d never been to Aquilas before and knew nothing about it – but a trip around the place on Google Earth suggests it has much to offer. It is about an hour and a half, maybe more from here in Galera, not as the crow flies but as the winding Spanish back-roads take you and we like to do things the hard way.

Here, Maureen is enjoying the fine weather in early May, down at Puerto De Mazarron.. we spent a couple of days there followed by an un-planned overnight stay in Alicante. Lovely.  Looking forward to meeting new neighbours (and hopefully some nice weather) on our return to Galera, soon.

One again we find ourselves at our home in sunny Spain. This time just for a short, 2-week break minus the kitties.

This could possibly be the last time we get to use my favourite airport at San Javier is it is about to be replaced by a new airport (Corvera) which is nearer to our home in Galera.

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Maureen has been up at the cave for a few days this month with her friend Helen and aside from a little damage to a pipe on the outside shower, all is ok. The cave is in good condition, everything works and it is pretty much ready for the summer. We’re both planning to return soon for a short trip.

It is very quiet here right now, all the holiday makers have long since gone, the village is much quieter except on market day and yet the weather is still holding out, cool in the mornings up but up to 30c late afternoon and still warm enough to sit outside at the pub.

I’ve just been sitting here putting together a series of photos to take down to the local council office to try to get them to come fix our road. As is the case with most things – if you want something doing…  I’d do the repairs myself but in a couple of cases the damage is extensive including a manhole cover on our roundabout.

The lakes have been well down this year, hoping for some snow over the winter to replenish them – but they’re still a sight to behold and we’ve spent a fair bit of time enjoying the scenery.

We’ll soon be spending some time in the UK (as little as possible) and we’re going to miss the area.

In recent months due to changes of people in the area, it has been incredibly peaceful (funny old thing – we have neighbours the likes of which you could not ask for better – and at the same time we had in the past for a time some of the worst people you could possibly come across – but that’s all history and things are definitely on the up and up)– the one remaining “odd” couple are at least quiet when they’re here, which is a blessing, though they did leave the most laughable attempt at a barrier in front of their property when they left after not saying a word. They put a chain in front of their Pergola for a time to tell everyone to stay away – but the Pergola fell down. Oh well, that’s for others to worry about – I should imagine the winds will sort that out over the winter.

Meanwhile the cars have been in for a valet at the local garage – good job too and we’ve generally had a marvellous summer – probably the best yet and we’ve made lots of friends.

I can’t believe how quickly the hot months have gone by, we came here in April and yet it seems like only a short time ago  A great time of year here in Galera as the trees start to change colour quite spectacularly – not wet and miserable like most of the UK – still a little summery.  I’m taking the opportunity to monitor my solar setup to see how it will cope with the sun at a lower angle. It’s all being recorded so I can view at my leisure.

After a very pleasant day yesterday which saw Simon, Maureen and I travel around the back of mount Sagra (the 5th largest mountain in Spain) and then onto the sadly depleted San Clemente, today, Maureen is planning a quiet day as Simon and I head off to Castril to check out the walk along the gorge.

I’ve been to Castril many times of course but Simon hasn’t so this should be interesting for him. The weather here is settling down now, starting to get cool at night but still very pleasant at 25+ during the day.

And off we go – leaving you with a photo I took looking down at the village of Galera just a couple of nights ago near sunset.