Posts Tagged ‘First week in Galera for the summer – Peter and Maureen Scargill’
The First Weekend
It’s been a great first week here in Galera, met some new people who’ve been great company and we’ve already gotten a fair bit of work done.
Yesterday I went off to Huescar in the morning in search of washers to complete the gazebo (or carbuncle as Maureen calls it – after she bought it!!) over the hot-tub. On the way I popped into Spanish Inland Properties to pick up the solar panel delivered from England – I’ve tested that and it’s chucking out 2.5 amps reliably during the day so now I just need to find a suitable 12v 20amp (or so) “deep discharge” battery. I can get one overnight in the UK for around £40 but they won’t deliver to Spain.
We spent the afternoon putting up screens on the new carbuncle – and immediately ran out of screen so last night we went off in search of more – turns out the local Ferreteria in Galera stocks the stuff so that was easy - of course we had to drop into the pub (La Poza) on the way back and that was the end of that night – we sat outside all night had a great time.
Got back very late but not too late to get the camera out as it was a clear night with a smashing view of the edge of our galaxy which you’ll see in the first picture. – look over on the right and you can see it coming out of the corner of the image (the left corner is light pollution from the village). That was a 16-second exposure incidentally – tonight I plan to try taking a bunch of them and averaging out the noise.
This morning I’m taking it easy – slight alcohol poisoning and it’s quite warm out there. I can see a quiet night in coming along and with luck we’ll get some more wall patching done (it’s a never ending task) and maybe we’ll finish off the carbuncle. I’m doing some work on the home control stuff but I’m kind of stuck waiting for parts to arrive from the UK which might take a few days.
I took the shot below late last night – most of the lighting you see there is either solar or LED or both.
Things I’m short of it anyone local has ideas for suppliers…. I need a couple of posts for the Pergola (to run horizontally for fencing off one side) – maybe 75mm diameter, 3 metres long.. and a deep discharge battery (camping type) 12v at maybe 20ah or so – got to be cheap as the solar panel is just an experiment for now.. haven’t even figured out where to mount it yet 🙂