Bedrock

Archive for the ‘spain’ Category

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.

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.

I’m sitting here getting side-tracked reading all about Cascamorras on the excellent One Foot in the Grave blog. Over in Baza the “Festival of Cascamorras” is an interesting fiesta – but I won’t ruin it, go check out the above blog as there’s a full description therein.

So I had this brilliant idea of using a little cheap Chinese power convertor  – to take stored solar power at 24v down to 3.5v to power a set of otherwise defunct (B&M) solar butterflies. One tends not to throw them away un-necessarily here in Spain as for reasons beyond me – despite numerous Chinese stores, solar lights of any description are more expensive here than in the UK!

Well, that didn’t go so well and resulted in 4 dead lights. I’ve since realised why but the answer is a tad technical for here! I’m spending part of my Sunday afternoon fixing this lot while Maureen gets on with various tasks around the house. The sun is out but it feels significantly cooler today.

Not a lot has happened since our mini-trip to Mojacar. We popped down to the village last night and met up with friends for a while. There was some music playing in the town square but the place was generally quiet quiet. We will soon have a friend stopping over for a week.

Meanwhile on 23rd of September there’s a Craft Fair at Velez Rubo (Velez Stores, Pologono Industrial). Looks like it might be interesting – “Indian Curry Tasters” caught my eye.

Last night we visited Restaurante Ufe for the first time in outer Huescar. It took us a little while to get the street right and I commented that it made me think of one of those streets in Mexico where you might expect your car tires to last mere moments in your absence before being replaced by bricks.

However, looks can be deceiving, we parked up and went into the restaurant – or rather to the enclosed area outside the restaurant, complete with bar which has TONS of atmosphere.

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Since my last entry, our friends and neighbours Dave and Karen have been here and we’ve been travelling, usually to local pools but specifically to Toledo, a 3-day excursion. 

Our first trip to Toledo, very nice – we took the bus tour in the morning to get an overview of the place then took it again to hop on an off. As you can see in the photo above – there is lots to the place – and yes, we have walked from the bottom most of the way to the top.

A great place Toledo – I have to say we were not that impressed with the restaurants which tended to be much of a much-ness – on the surface at least not a patch on the choice available in Granada – however – other than that, a fine trip.

In the above photo, starting at the left – myself, Dave, Karen, Elizabeth, Maureen and Dale.

Thinking about it we’ve done so much recently, we’ve been to BBQs hosted by existing friends and new friends, we’ve been to new towns to check out their pools, I have the pool heating system up and running and have been on a learning kick for a while, we’ve friends coming over this weekend..

On our return from Toledo we took the back route, visiting or passing through several towns which need future examination. We came past Lake Negratin just in time for the sunset and a quick dip – which given the high temperatures was truly excellent.

A shame to see our friends leave, we won’t see them for a while now – but it gives us something to look forward to…

What a great week this has been…   on Sunday we headed off to Granada to pick up my sister-in-law Elizabeth and her husband Dale. We stopped overnight in Granada and as we’ve done before took the opportunity to experience the Flamenco dancing up at the top of the hills in Granada overlooking the Alhambra. Our visitors of course had spent the morning at the Alhambra itself.

Maureen and I arrived in Granada in the afternoon – and it was HOT – thankfully our hotel, the Five Senses Hotel (on Calle Gran Via De Colon) had a little (and I stress little) pool on the top of the building which was kept VERY cold.

Just as we were about to arrive at the hotel I spotted a little Indian dealer in Calle Elvira (I think #67 – next to Marchica Shawarma) and the first thing we did after parking the car was to go back to that store – and as I suspected she sold incense sticks – lots of them – they turned out to be winners all but for one packet which was almost empty!!!

The first thing we did after meeting our relatives in a local cafe where Maureen and I stopped for lunch, was to go and  soak in the hotel pool followed by a shopping trip in the middle of Granada – around Calle Ermita – which I have to say was excellent – in the car the town is a disaster but on foot there is just so much to see and do. 

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