Bedrock

Posts Tagged ‘broadband’

All in all it’s been a successful if expensive few days away. The builders have just completed our new wall and drainage pipe to stop the mountain falling onto our cave and put in a brand new pathway  with several tons of gravel to cover a completely failed attempt at pavement. I don’t know why we didn’t go down this route in the first place but hey – you learn as you go along.

After a pleasant evening at a local restaurant (right)Maureen has been very busy painting and planting flowers and I’ve been experimenting with a new grout to see if it falls to bits like everything else here (it has to be made in China) or not. The weather has probably been on a par with the UK, maybe a little warmer but that’s allowed us to get lots of work done that might have been painful in the summer.

I have my new WIFI installation and it’s all up and running including the cameras, Habland (Wimax) have been most helpful unlike Iberbanda who don’t even ring you back when they say they will (they now have their marching orders and the kit is piled up for them to take away). Between that and my recent move away from Orange to Three, things are starting to improve all round.

A short trip back to the UK for some meetings and agro then we’re back again hopefully to enjoy the summer though there’s still much to be done. Lots more painting to so. I’m hoping to bring back some better lighting and perhaps replace one of the cameras with one with full audio so we can talk to builders and passers-by remotely.

Maureen has some new games for her iPad and we’ve signed up to Spotify so we can enjoy some legit music while we’re travelling.

Friday, armed with a new driveway we went off down to the village to share our news with friends and have a nice, cheap dinner out, meanwhile I’ve a new Spanish aftershave to stink the place up. More pictures of the work we’ve had done, below.

Feel free to click on any picture to get the original and larger version!

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For our latest adventure we set off from home mid-morning for our flight to Spain – weather forecast said rain all week.

We arrived at the airport in time to discover the plane being delayed for 3 hours during which my stomach gave me more grief than  I can ever remember.  We decided to play safe and book a hotel in Cartagena – very nice indeed – Hotel Los Hombreras – nice view. The bar like many over here was full of smokers, not exactly what you want when you’re feeling ill but we had a good evening totally ruined by me being utterly ill overnight.

Next morning we set off for Galera and watched the weather degrade by the mile. It’s snowing on and off in Galera, very pretty of course but we’ve a slight problem – the amateur-night-out electricity over here, supplied by the builders is running extremely low voltage, around 170 instead of the normal 220-240v.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math and discover that this means heaters putting out around HALF of their rated output (not make sense? See below) and so keeping warm is the current priority. I’m terrified of leaving the premises until my guts are in better order and right now Maureen is putting together some porridge to test the waters!

The broken broadband turned out to be nothing more than a corroded wire and so at least I can check my emails and run the iPhone without a massive bill.  Those of you who follow this blog will know that I use Vodafone when roaming as they offer(ed) a flat rate overseas – well, looks like they’ve changed their minds – I’m having it checked right now but according to the text message from them, they want £9.99 for 50 meg and then £9.99 for every 50 meg after that – can you imagine it – bunch of THIEVES.  Anyway, that might’ve been a standard message and someone in the office is checking for me – more later.

All out of newspapers and magazines to read… it’s a tough life….