We've had a home in Spain for more than 14 years and it is now our permanent base though we retain a small home in the UK.
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The Monday Experiment
Today’s experiment involves learning how much heat comes from a little plastic panel!
Now of course this will be old hat to those who have done this before but apart from heating up the hosepipe in the sun this is as near as we’ve gotten to heating the hot tub. What you see above is a plastic sheet with tubes in it, a small 12v pump, currently running off a battery but will be run off the sun (that side is already sorted – I have plenty of spare power) – and a bucket full of water.
La Dentist
Last week was a trip to the dentist – a lady called Mrs Sanchez – who’s surgery is on the 2nd floor of a backstreet in nearby Huescar.
The image you see on the right is the view out of the waiting room, a small but pleasant area in a small but modern dental practice.
I think I’ve been there 4 times now and every time I’ve been treated quickly and efficiently – definitely to be recommended.
For those interested and needing treatment it is around the back of the market – Clinica Dental Leticia Sánchez Vargas on Calle Carril. You can’t miss the sign if you look up – she’s at the end of the street on the right.
And just down that road you see in the picture, on the right is a nice little outdoor cafe with decent coffee.
I wish, when we arrived here some years ago, that there was someone local, doing a blog, pointing us to the right places to go…
Pergola is now mostly done – solar lighting is finished and the new panel provides excess power I now use internally to power up some of my gadgets. All working very well indeed and I’ve learned a lot.
Summer is Coming
Since our Valencia trip we’ve stayed largely local, visiting friends and enjoying the weather – which has been a little more unpredictable than usual for the time of year with a pretty cold breeze for most of the month up to now, though the last couple of days have been superb.
Don’t get me wrong, it has been sunny most days but the air itself when the sun dies down – has been cool. We’ve done some work around the house and garden, Maureen has been catching up with her reading while I’ve been learning some new stuff on the computer. Meanwhile we’ve had several sessions down at the local pub.
The Valencia Trip
On Friday we dropped off friends at Murcia airport and took the opportunity as we were in that part of the country to take a trip up to the area around Valencia.
After several hours drive, we arrived in our destination town called Xativa which is in the province of Valencia. Back in the day, the Arabs brought paper manufacturing to the area and Xativa was known for it’s schools, education and learning circles. The area is also famous for linen fabric manufacture.
We stopped in a little place up a side street in the middle of town – near the theatre and again within walking distance of a very nice park.
The Solar Panel
My solar panel experiments continue. The sun isn’t quite up to it yet – just as well because this gives me more personal energy to get things done. Here it is on the left, my nice 250w panel which outputs maybe 36v. I’ve yet to work out an inexpensive yet solid frame for it but at least I can experiment with the kit I have to go with it.
The panel will feed out to a pair of “buck convertors” (not seen here) which are able to put out 15 amps each at anything from the input voltage down. Because the panel regulator I have is designed to handle 24v systems (with solar panels up to 40v) or 12v systems (with solar panels up to 26v) it is not keen on the idea of powering a 12v system using a 36v panel… so I thought of another way…
A New Summer
And here we are once again in Spain, the start of hopefully a beautiful summer. The crossing was uneventful, other than THREE charging us ridiculous sums for data while on the boat.
Our trip to Bilbao turned out to be a trip to Santander (near enough) from which we travelled down to somewhere we’d never been to before – Burgos, stopping at a small hotel on the outskirts of town on Calle Don Juan De Austria.
Burgos itself has lots to offer including a fantastic cathedral. As we were only stopping overnight, we went into town first thing in the morning and took a look at the cathedral but it really is going to need a separate trip (bearing in mind we had 3 cats in the back of the car).
Also even with the sun out it was not quite t-shirt weather so despite the attractions we were as keen to get back into the warm car. Maybe later in the year.
From there we drove down to Galera, arriving late afternoon – I think something like 7 hours (plus 2 hours to get to Burgos in the first place).