January 16th - 31st 2005
Written by Geoff Forster
The sun is shining it's another great day .. so do I go for a really long walk with the dogs through the blossoming Spanish countryside or do some painting in the apartment?
Well we painted on the sun terrace for an hour before deciding it was too hot, so we had a bottle of Rioja to cool us down.
Another bottle to wash down the first while we cooked some Benarrabá Salmorejo, a local specialty made with pork pieces, garlic and onions, we added a little chorizo (spanish sausage), Jane did some mashed potato. Then we watched The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the twentieth time at least!
Yet another early night ...
Up early again, unexpectedly the builders turned up, the long awaited tile delivery was about to happen.
We checked with interest the four small tiles needed to finish the main room were the right size and colour, they are perfect.
We headed to Los Barrios to change the kitchen sink ... wrong type for fitting under the work top.
We were also going to buy more bedding and going to Gibraltar if necessary .. it wasn't. We got our money back from Leroy Merlin's no questions asked.
We got a lot of blankets in Carrefours, we drove home from a grey Los Barrios to sunshine in the mountains. We ordered the sink from our local ferretería (ironmongers). We watched a couple of new cheap DVD's The Cube 2 Hypercube ... rubbish, the first Cube film 'The Cube' was strange and gory, the sequel is pants.
Jane bought Enemy Mine a strange tale about an alien and human who are at war. They crash land on a planet and learn to love not hate ...
Another early start tomorrow ...
After a cold pre dawn start, the sun rose above the Sierra Bermeja and we had another day of glorious sunshine.
We went to Algatocín to Pacxi and Charro's electrical goods and bottled gas shop. Where you can buy almost anything you need for your home from the hundreds of catalogues. Charro knows these catalogues inside out so as soon as you mention you want a tumble drier ... out come at least three or four catalogues from different manufacturers. She speaks good English and she really likes to talk ... she often has a sore throat! It is an excellent shop and they are very kind people. We went in the summer during a heat wave to buy a fan, but she had sold out, she was going to lend us the one cooling her in the shop until the next day when she got restocked! Tel: 952150185
The tiling is nearly finished jut skirting and grouting to be done now, we need a little brickwork doing in the kitchen around the oven and it is all finished!
I worked on the website for a few hours and we cooked a tortilla.
The carpenters came and we checked the design for the kitchen and chose the doors and handles. All the wood in the apartment from doors to fitted wardrobes, tables, dining chairs, kitchen cupboards +++ .. is all in solid pine stained a light honey with clear matte varnish. It should look beautiful.
We We were lugging leña (firewood) into the house from our pile Juan lets us keep on his families land. When Cristóbal offered to saw up a couple of palettes the builders had left. Its not very good wood for heat but great for getting the fire going.
Jane took this photograph.
We watched Lord of the Rings pt2 The Two Towers again. Brilliant battle scene!
Someone saw the Three Kings blog from January 5th and has decided to book the apartment for at least two and a half weeks over Christmas 2005-6!
Up before 8am again, the builders are finishing the rodapie, which is a skirting tile around the rooms downstairs.
We took Mota de Oro to the vets to have her stitches out, there is a bit of swelling but this should disappear over the next few weeks.
We collected our new kitchen sink, dropped the cat off home and headed to Ronda.
The people cutting the granite work tops need the sink so they cut the hole for it properly.
We found more bedding in Hipersol and bought the kitchen light.
We had a pizza in Da Vinci's, the best pizza restaurant on the planet!
We spent a few minutes bird watching in the gorge, there was nothing but pigeons.
We did some shopping in the supermarket Plus and came home.
We had tapas while we watched the Lord of Rings pt 3 Return of the King.
It's a local fiesta Day in Benarrabá, the Fiesta of San Sebastián, the Patron Saint of Benarrabá.
It's also a year to the day that we arrived in Ronda at around 7:00 am after driving from La Mamola on the Granada coast all through the night. It was -4C in Ronda that morning, our first ever visit. We were due to meet our Estate Agent to come to Benarrabá to look at the house we now live in.
This year however we spent the morning waiting for our builders (not residents of Benarrabá so they were working) to finish the new guttering, it took three men five hours to do this .. hope they don't expect double time and a day in leau!
When they had gone we had a few (quite a few) beers on the sun terrace, it was really hot.
I spent some time on the website and we went to watch the procession.
Here's a picture of the statue of San Sebastián being carried around Benarrabá.
It is such an important day in Benarrabá that I have added a San Sebastián page in the Benarrabá section.
Festival of San Sebastián
Another scorcher, what a fantastic spell of weather we're having.
We started to paint the sun terrace and got more than half of it done.
I spent a few hours doing web pages.
We watched Star Wars 1 'The Phantom Menace'.
Not a very exciting day ...
The weather is still fantastic
We painted the downstairs bedroom in the apartment today.
I hate painting especially on sunny days.
The oven and washing machine were delivered this afternoon, so all the kitchen appliances are now here.
As soon as the work top is fitted it will be finished!
Up early working on website and sending e-mails.
Did some painting upstairs, the bedroom looks good.
Jane & I spent the afternoon shoveling building debris left from the renovations from the track at the side of the house, we managed to clear it all and it looks good. we're going to spread lots of different sun loving seeds up the side of the house and see what happens. We also planted bougainvillea and roses in large pots.
I listened to the match .. Arsenal beat Newcastle 1-0 .. I'm not happy.
I worked on the website for a while. Then we went up on the sun terrace to look at the lights of Benarrabá, Genalguacil an Jubrique. You can also see millions of stars here, as there is less light pollution here than in the UK. We were up there for half an hour but it was a bit cold so we came down and lit a fire.
We watched Snatch with Brad Pitt directed by Guy Ritchie, it's a really good film, one of our favourites.
Jane's watching Fleetwood Mac Live in Boston DVD which is a live recording from their last tour.
We saw them three times in London, 13th, 10th and then 2nd row seats! We took a lot of good photographs.
Here's a photograph of the wonderful Stevie Nicks, our seats on the final night in London were just to the right of her microphone about ten foot away from her.
Dreams unwind ... loves a state of mind ...
We have quite a few good photo's of the concert. Any Fleetwood Mac / Stevie Nicks fans get a free disc of photo's if you book the apartment. Plus you get to watch and listen to all the DVD's and CD's that Jane has. Another bonus, Jane will love it!
Another really hot day, is this really January?
We finished the walls of the sun terrace, now we only have the black railings to do.
We also painted the newly built steps up to the apartment.
While Jane cleaned all the dirt and grime of four months building work off the windows, I spread thousands of seeds onto the bank opposite the apartment we'd cleaned up yesterday where the builders had dumped broken tiles etc. We'd brought a lot of seeds from England and they were either past or approaching their sell by date, so if only a small percentage come up it should look quite spectacular.
We're waiting for Maria to measure for the curtains but it's 8:30pm now so it looks like she's not coming.
Jane's cooking a pork fillet stir fry, we're probably going to watch a DVD, we haven't seen the Matrix for two weeks so we may watch it again ... we need to do something exciting soon this blog's getting a bit boring, perhaps a paddle in the sea at Torremolinos or Benalmádena.
This is going to have to be a quick blog because I'm busy giving the website a bit of a makeover.
Jane and I finished painting the railings on the sun terrace so it is now finished.
We saw two Chough's flying overhead the first we've seen outside Ronda. We've seen a lot of vultures as well in the last month. There are definitely more in the area now than there was in summer.
The Almond trees are in blossom all over the countryside very spectacular and beautiful.
Maria came to do final measurements for the curtains.
We watched Mickey Blue eyes with Hugh Grant ... not my favourite actor or film.
Up at 7am working on the website.
We went to Ronda. We bought a really good wood burning stove and some paint for the main room of the apartment.
We also called in the furniture shop that we are getting the sofas and beds from. Everything we ordered is there just waiting for delivery, which we've arranged for next Thursday at the latest.
We drove back from Ronda in dazzling sunshine, just above Benarrabá we saw Gibraltar, the Mediterranean and the mountains of Africa about the clearest since we moved here.
Juan and Cristóbal helped carry the stove into the apartment it looks great. They think it will easily heat the room.
The carpenters are coming tomorrow and Friday.
We also saw the man from the village about the ironwork railings for the new steps to the apartment.
Everything's coming together, there is very little left to buy or to arrange.
We probably have another week or so of painting, then it is just a matter of getting the final few things fitted and it's finished !!!
We woke just after 7am, looking out of the window we were more than surprised to see it had been snowing overnight. Only the slightest of dustings but snow nonetheless. This happens only once every fifteen years our neighbours told us. Everyone was in the streets making jokes about it being just like England, then they all forgot about doing any sort of work today and went in to light their fires.
Most of them are builders, there's a bitter wind, it is too cold to make cement and concrete so it's probably a wise move.
Of course the first ground frost in Benarrabá happens just days after I plant thousands of seeds. Hopefully they will be okay, in some cases it will probably help germination.
Here's a picture of the village taken just before sunrise this morning. It was well below zero on the sun terrace, apparently the weather is coming from the North Pole.
The sun has just risen 8:50 and the snow will quickly disappear from Benarrabá for another fifteen years!
Jane's braved the Arctic conditions and got the bread, I'm going to work on the website. If it warms up a bit we'll do more painting in the apartment. I wish the wood burning stove was working!
5pm We've just got back from Carmen and Cristóbal house, Cristóbal instead of having a day off with his feet up has been digging thistle type plants out of the frozen ground all afternoon.
He had a sackful, he was stripping the leaves from the stalks, the prickly leaves are of no use but the top of the root and stalks are a vegetable called Tacarninas, you can boil it or cook in either fritters or in a soup. We're to be asked across again later to sample some.
9:45pm Adrian knocked on the door and invited us over to sample the Tacarninas. Carmen had pressure boiled it, then stir fried it with whole smoked garlic and three raw eggs. We both liked tacarninas a lot, it doesn't have a strong taste, it looked like a huge pile of runner beans and tasted quite similar ... wonderful and free if your prepared to go out, find it dig it up on a freezing day and then strip all the very prickly leaves off. Cristóbal told us that thirty years ago when he was a teenager during General Franco's rule, he, his parents and his six brothers lived off tacarninas, three meals a day (just boiled with no eggs in it), life in Andalucía was very hard then.
I worked on the website most of the day. Jane wrote letters.
The air is cold but if you sit in the sun it's beautiful.
The carpenters came and fitted the front door of the apartment.
We went out for some meat and ended up popping in all the bars.
Came home a few hours later watched Fight Club with Brad Pitt and cooked Salmorejo.
Worked on the website again.
Masked off the skirting tiles in the main salon for painting tomorrow. Still colder than it has been.
Newcastle won 3-1 against Coventry. Sheeeeeeeeearer!!!
Sat on the sun terrace and looked at the millions of stars, it was a clear moonless evening so great for stargazing.
We're going to do a lot of painting today, in fact we're going to finish the main room (hopefully) ...
We did get a lot done, the main room and most of the kitchen.
We got another booking which encouraged us to paint a bit longer.
We watched the sun shining like a spotlight through the clouds on Genalguacil just before it set.
We came downstairs and Carmen knocked on our door inviting us for a drink.
We cleaned up, changed and went over the road.
Carmen was cooking a special drink of goat milk taken from the mother within the first three days of the kid being born. A a stick of cinnamon and a lemon chopped into small chunks are added and the milk is simmered. It was served to us fairly hot in the handle less glasses used in Spain for coffee. It had the consistency of very runny cottage cheese but was a lovely tasting drink, we both liked it. Another culinary first!
Up early around 6:30am working on the website before we go upstairs to do more painting. Another effort like yesterday and downstairs will be finished. The upstairs is okay I put two coats of good quality white emulsion on ... but Jane thinks it 'needs a colour' so more painting to do!
8am Cancel the painting the builders have arrived to finish the skirting tiles (rodapie), do the brickwork around the oven and install the wood burning stove.
The builders we're just building up the brickwork around the oven when unannounced the fitters come to do the granite work tops.
In time they sort out who has priority on completing their bit and we end up with the kitchen looking pretty good!
The wood burning stove is fitted and we can light it for the first time tomorrow.
As soon as the carpenter finishes the doors, a few small pieces of skirting tile need piecing in and then our builders are finished.
We also ordered railings for the 'entrada' steps, a bench, table for the 'entrada' itself, metal poles for shading on the sun terrace until the grape vine gets to the top! So a very busy but productive day.
We may get some painting done tomorrow. It should be a lot warmer with the stove going. We have ordered 80€'s worth of wood for the stove unlike a lot of winter/spring lets we intend to provide this free to our guests.
Went to Dami's bar for tapas and a few riojas.