Bedrock

Lake Negratin as you may not have seen before – thanks to a keen eye and the wonders of modern technology – the quadcoptor.

For once these are NOT my photos – I’ve simply done the post-editing and present them here courtesy of my neighbour John who was out and about this week and kindly took these excellent photos for us to enjoy. Those of you who are here will no doubt recognise the area.

Click on the smaller images to enlarge.

Yesterday we got into our cars and took the drive out beyond Castril – firstly stopping at a Pizzeria which Maureen and I have been to before – which for reasons beyond me does NOT serve pizzas at lunchtime despite a HUGE sign outside saying “Pizzeria” – only in Spain as they say. 

Throughout the day, temperatures were in the lower thirties and so we welcomed the water – no matter how cold – and Rio Guadelentin is COLD and mostly where we were, just knee deep.

The various waterfalls were amazing.

Despite her continued issues with the broken foot, Maureen managed with help to join us through the woods to see some stunning views.

As this post is mostly about the beauty of the area – I’ll keep the dialog to a minimum and concentrate on the photos – suffice it to say we all had an absolutely wonderful time and will repeat this in the future.

Everywhere you looked the water was different.

In some places it was perfectly, crystal clear.

And that was that, after hours of enjoying the view we headed off to the lake.

We then headed off to Embalse De La Bolera for a swim – during which I managed to swim from one side to the other – all but for 100 metres – the sun was starting to wane and the last part of the run was in shadows – I prefer my water bright so I turned around.

By the time I got back to shore (below – swam to other side all but for the shadow), everyone except Maureen had cleared off as we had a birthday celebration session that evening – the result being we got there an hour late – but at least we got there – happy birthday Les.

What a great day.

As always, photos published in this blog can generally be enlarged by clicking on them. Enjoy.

The end of another week – and what a nice couple of days. Yesterday Maureen headed off for the “4a Ruta De La Tapa De Galera” tapas competition in the morning while I got some quiet work done in the cave and put up some new lighting – though this isn’t permanent stuff as I want to bring some much better lights over next time we’re here – I’m short of basic materials like power supplies after a few incidents (ok, explosions). 

Last night we once again joined others in the town to check out the Tapas competition but it turns out it only happens during the day – so instead we went off to one bar offering 14 bottles of beer in a bucket of ice for 9 Euros!! Can’t be bad.

Basically the idea is commercial – you go have a beer or a coke (some say not coffee) and get free tapas – you have a sheet of paper for 6 bars and in order to put your vote in for the best, you have to go to all 6 – it’s basically just a way to drum up business. The drinks are cheap, the food is free so everyone wins.

Today we went down town to do the afternoon session – if I never drink a coke again it won’t be too soon. The winner – La Posa – a combination of decent grub and fast service. And the loser? Bar Cazador – quite the opposite – the most unappealing tapas we’d been served to date – and the service was awful. Like many of the Brits we’d never been to that bar before and it doesn’t look like we’ll be back.

All in all a pleasant way to spend a few hours.

It’s been a good weekend. We’ve had our friends Jonathan and Suzanne over at the cave for a few days – sadly all too short as today we’re off to drop them at Murcia airport first thing. We spent a relaxing weekend with some time spent at Lake Negratin and the Baza Sunday market (wherein Maureen bought a window frame for me to repair and her to eventually stain before fitting it internally as a lighting feature) – and of course the Medieval market in Galera – though to be fair it wasn’t that medieval – with a “rock band” in place in the square or example – but the weather was nice and everyone had a good time by the look of it.

Yesterday we did some work on the Ethernet-controlled watering system here (a trivial job but thanks to the hot weather, taking a while like most things. I needed larger piping to take into account the fact that we have fairly hard water – for reliability), neighbour John popped up with his quadcoptor to give Jonathan a quick demo and after a quick dip in the hot-tub we ended up having dinner at the Parador Hotel just outside of Galera– very nice too – If I were to be picky – there were a couple of bones in the fish – and I HATE finding bones. Starter and deserts  – excellent.

Been brushing up on my Android programming and finally managed to put together some rather crude thermometer code for an eventual wall-mounted display. With the cost of tablets and second-hand Android touch-phones dropping through the floor it seems sensible to start using these devices as controllers – for now it’s all about learning how to make good use of the tools – while enjoying the sun – and there’s plenty of that.

5:30am I’m up and running – it’s around 22c outside already – likely going to be a nice warm day.

And what an August it is turning out to be – temperatures in the mid-30s, superbly warm evenings and lots of late-night entertainment in Galera.

Throughput most of August there is always something going on in the area and this time of the month the focus is on Galera town square including some excellent fireworks at the weekend.

At this point a reminder that you can click on any of these images to see larger versions – and if that doesn’t work – do let me know.

Last night after a very productive day in which I finally resolved some severe issues with my home control setup, just in time for my pal to come visit us tomorrow wherein we plan to take a look at OpenHab, we had friends visit us briefly at the cave (which now sports a really neat hallway water feature).. and later we headed off down to the town, met up with friends Len and Christine for a quick beer ( don’t know about anyone else but after the first beer I really do not like that new crap that La Posa is serving up – Alhambra is much better) before heading off to the town square in anticipation of a late evening of entertainment.

We certainly were not disappointed as you can see from the pictures, firstly we met up with friends (and new friends) in the village and as usual, solved all of the world’s problems over beer and wine. Sadly one couple are heading off today but we hope to visit them later this year in the UK which will be nice. Later on the entertainment started and we enjoyed that for some time before heading off to the Kebab van – I should stress that the Kebabs here are slightly different to those  in the UK, being based more on chicken than anything else  -but non-the-less – very satisfying.

This morning I’ve been working on wiring – and filling in holes (caused by my wiring) and this afternoon after doing a little more rawlplug-drilling I’m planning some work on the home controller now that I can actually do something with it as against trying to solve radio problems. 

Watering system automation which is based on a washing machine valve and some control electronics of my own is working a treat now we have the right piping.

Right – back to the grind – my good lady wants some holes drilling in the wall – just what you want to be doing when it’s 35c outside! Tomorrow some travel – I’m looking forward to getting some neat new technology which I’ll write about soon.

The last few days has seen the start of mid-summer madness here in Galera – with people staying out until 7am in the morning! I may add I think the latest we’ve done is 2pm. This weekend we had the fireworks – and lovely they were too. We went down to Manolos bar at around 10pm or so and sat and chatted with friends – most of the guys had gone off to a party in the town but we were not in a late partying mood. We watched the fireworks go off at midnight on the bridge, walked into town where there were all sorts of things going on, crabbed a kebab each (wonderful they were, too) and headed off for an early night. As usual the neighbourhood dogs were competing to see who could bark the loudest… I wonder if people think about that when they get dogs – how annoying they can be for others.

Anyway, that aside a great night. Yesterday (Sunday we did very little other than lunch out in Cullar at Pacos where we met friend Brian – then headed off to the Cullar pool which I have to say was wonderful – we usually head off to the Baza market on Sunday but we gave this one a break.  Our new neighbours are back and last night we were treated to a night-time demo of their quad-copter – what a wonderful machine – my hand creeps toward my wallet every time I see it. I think they went off to Lake Negratin with it and I’m dying to see aerial photos.

Today we went off to Baza to buy a new water feature for the hallway – it’s a winner – and to get some supplies as we have friends coming over later this week. We came back and I’d planned to get some work done when…. the power went off. We’ve not had a power cut like this for years. Thankfully we had a dinner date with friends Debbie and John – and so we spent the evening at their place – and a great evening it was – returned to discover a new camera mode I’d not spotted before – hence the night-time shots. 

Working on a new variation of my little radio control boards – something that might just solve my range problems but for now – time to give up for the evening.