May 1st - 15th 2005
Written by Geoff Forster
A beautiful day for today's communions and celebrations.
There's going to be a huge party in the plaza.
Juan killed a pig on Thursday for the occasion.
It's going to be wonderful for Marta and Tamara, lots of family have arrived from the coast for the big event.
Jane's ironing, showering and getting ready its only 9:30am, I'm drinking tea, doing the blog and keeping out of her way.
We walked down to the church at 1pm it was packed inside and a lot of people outside in the street.
Here's Marta and her family after the communion, it was also Francisco Jesus's Christening.
Here's one of us in the beautiful church in Benarrabá.
In the plaza the tables were set for a really good meal.
It started with jamon, lomo and cheese.
There were lots of prawns and different meats brought out.
Everyone had a good time.
Here's Marta enjoying her day.
It was a beautiful sunny day in the pretty plaza.
We visited all three fiestas. Alicia's party was in a building just off the plaza. Tamara's party was in the lower part of the village.
We were made very welcome and offered food, cake and wine throughout the day.
We danced into the small hours.
Juan tried to persuade us to go to Genalguacil Feria at around three in the morning. They'd been drinking all day and planned to take the 4x4 across country through the Rio. They said the Fiesta in Genalguacil would go on until 8am or later. We're not sure if they went, but if they did, they got back okay, the 4x4 is outside Juan's house.
It's a fiesta day here! Considering the day and night we had I'm feeling pretty good.
We had a couple of light showers early this morning. Good for the campo!
We've just seen Juan, he has a hangover after getting back from Genalguacil at seven this morning!
A very quiet day around the house.
Watched TV in the evening.
We went to Gaucín this morning to post some apartment advertisement sheets to the UK. We also got some tablets for our cat Lucy.
We sunbathed most of the afternoon.
We were walking to Pepa's when we bumped into John and Chris returning from Carrefours at Los Barrios. It took little persuasion to get them to come for a beer.
We had a good chat and caught up with what they've been doing.
We've been invited to the Restaurante Kábilas for Chris's birthday on Thursday, it should be a good night.
We got back home, Jane went to sit on the sun terrace whilst I watched the Liverpool v Chelsea game on TV.
The match was interrupted by a bat coming down the chimney and flying around the room. Another good reason for us getting a wood burning stove downstairs!
While the door was open the dogs ran up the track and the youngest Jake disappeared for a little while. Jake and the bat spoiled the evening. We think the bat might be still in the house, probably under the stairs. I was very impressed by the way it flew around the room without touching anything. Very fast and silent. It wouldn't fly out the door but then disappeared ...
Jane's still on the sun terrace, I don't think she's coming down.
Up quite early, I'm going to try to do some work on the website.
I've just completed a web page on Grazalema
----> Grazalema
A phone call at lunchtime and it's good news! Friends Chris and Carol who are over here for a week, have just completed the purchase of their house in Gaucín. We're invited around to see the property and have a celebratory beer or two.
An hour later and we're off to Gaucín.
The house is fantastic! What a place, great views over the lower Genal valley, out to Gibraltar and on a clear day Africa.
The furniture has been left and it is in fantastic decorative order that there is nothing to do except clean the heated swimming pool!
We had a good look around and we were both very impressed, in fact Jane had a tear in her eye. We're so pleased for Chris and Carol.
We had a good chat and a few beers on the shaded terrace then went inside and had a couple of bottles of Champagne to toast the house and their future happiness here in Spain.
We got back to Benarrabá at around 8:30pm and cooked a meal.
We were just about to sit down to eat when the bat reappeared!
We put the dogs and cats out of the way and opened the front doors wide. Jane did really well and wasn't as bothered as I'd have guessed she'd have been. After a couple of hundred laps of our living room it finally changed course and went out into the night.
Jane went on Ebay and I tried without success to find something to watch on TV. Bed.
It's quite cloudy but the sun is breaking through.
I'm working on the website.
The sun did come out and it was a beautiful afternoon. We've been looking at walking books and walking routes in the area.
I want to develop the Walking - Hiking pages of the website to contain details of walks in the Genal - Guadiaro - Grazalema - Libar areas.
The first Passion Flower came out today as did the Lavateria and Gaura. They are all planted at the front of the house. All are flourishing and should provide a riot of colour during the next few months.
A lot of the Bougainvilleas in the area have been killed or have died back to the ground and are very slowly recovering. An unprecedented cold spell in the winter was responsible. We've lost two out of four.
We went out with John and Chris to celebrate Chris's birthday.
We met in Bar Andrés Sánchez for a drink before going to the Restaurante Kábilas for a meal.
We all ordered different dishes and we were all more than happy with the quality.
We had ordered a birthday cake for Chris as a surprise. It was decorated with cream and had a candle.
The staff in the Restaurante Kábilas are excellent! Thank you.
We came back to watch the early part of the election.
The BBC's special effects were amusing.
Got to bed quite late.
Up a little later than usual.
We're off out for a stroll to the market in the plaza.
There are only five or six stalls and we rarely buy anything. Jane likes looking and you never know ... apparently.
Back from the market and we didn't buy anything!
We have an invitation to test out Chris and Carol's new swimming pool this afternoon. So we're off to Gaucín.
Here are our friends and near neighbours Carol and Chris Scotford in the pool with Jane.
The pools a perfect size.
Jane swimming style means water never touches her face ...
On this photo you can see House Martins collecting water when we weren't in the pool. One is near the surface of the water, there are two others near the ladder.
Here's a close up, its head is to the left and its tail in the water.
We had a lovely afternoon, the sun was hot, the pool perfect.
We hope Chris and Carol can move here permanently in the next month or so.
Chris and Carol's lovely house has some wonderful features, we all like this archway. There are some wonderful angles here.
We dried off and said goodbye, we hope to see them again very soon.
We sat at the side of the house in the evening sun and drank some wine.
Later we went to the Restaurante Kábilas for a beer.
Never Again! We've both stopped drinking!
A drive to Algatocín to buy lots of vegetables for a detox.
We turned down John and Chris's offer of a night out in Pepa's Disco Bar.
A quiet day recovering.
We made some Gazpacho. We have a Visor juicer which is slow but very good. It chews the vegetables slowly instead of using a high speed blade. It doesn't add air or destroy vitamins.
We also cooked a good beef curry and watched 'The Chronicles of Riddick' with Vin Diesel ... again.
We're going to stay in and watch a film on TV.
We're both feeling good today!
It's another lovely day, blue skies and a perfect temperature.
Jane's decided to spring clean the house, a room a day.
We sunbathed for a while and later had a stroll around the village.
There are lots of Philadelphus bushes in flower around the village, the fragrance standing under this stunning shrub is incredible.
Roses always seem to do well in Spain.
We walked through the pretty plaza, the orange trees are in blossom and they smell great as well.
Near the end of the plaza we turned to head down into the village.
Our apartment that we have to let is the highest house in the middle of the photograph.
If you look very carefully at the chimney of the house in the bottom right hand corner you can just make out a male Blue Rock Thrush one of our favourite birds.
Here's the bird with 10x zoom.
They are very sleek and slender and a lovely dark blue upper body and head. They are masters of flying and often play games in the air, great to watch.
This is Calle Rosario it is very near to the church. Someone here loves plants. This is always one of the prettiest streets in Benarrabá.
Jane took this one of Mota de Oro (Speck of Gold) our Spanish cat. She's sitting on the base of an Olive tree near the house. She likes chasing grasshoppers and flies.
It was quite hot but there was a lovely breeze. The village bars were busy but the other streets quiet. At our end of town all you could hear were birds singing in the trees. Jane got a really good sighting of our local Great Spotted Woodpecker. She was within a few feet of it!
We sat on the steps and ate a salad. Then we decided to make some more Gazpacho. We love it.
We had a quiet night watching films.
A little hazy today, but the sun is trying to break through.
We have to phone Charro in Algatocín about our water boiler, it's not working properly.
We may go to San Luis de Sabinillas to check out a couple of fruit and vegetable shops we've seen down there.
A paddle in the Mediterranean would be very nice as well!
We got a lot of good ripe tomatoes in Sabinillas.
I bought a book on Wild Flowers of southern Spain and Jane got a novel from 'The English Bookstore'.
We then had a walk along the beach and paddled up to near Duquesa.
The sea is a lot warmer than it was a couple of weeks ago.
You could comfortably swim in it now.
We went to Carrefours in Estepona, it is the first time that we've been to this store, although we have visited the car salerooms next door.
It's a little closer than the Carrefours in Los Barrios. We can also call into Sabinillas on the way. We both prefer the Manilva road to the Algeciras road, it's a little bumpier but the trees, shrubs and flowers are superior.
We saw the first Foxglove and Verbascum of the year today.
When we got back home we had some wonderful homemade Gazpacho.
Jane is reading her book. It's a soppy one and she's in tears already ...
We cooked another curry, with cous cous instead of rice. This works really well.
We watched TV. An old episode of Morse.
No haze today it's a fantastic day. Jane has plans that I'm painting the back bedroom downstairs ...
I'm going to tidy up the 'Entrada' and water all the plants before they dry out too much. I also have some planting to do.
I'd been working at the side of the house for a few hours when I noticed a couple looking up at the house. They looked British.
They saw me at the side of the house and came up.
'Geoff' the chap said.
'Yes' I answered.
'I'm Stuart Nicholls'.
'From Stoke' I said. The T-Shirt he was wearing helped my memory.
It was Stuart and Christine Nicholls who have a holiday home in Montejaque.
Stuart had e-mailed me a couple of times.
He and a few others from Stoke enjoy reading the blog each day.
They are over on holiday and had dropped in to see us.
I showed them the apartment and had a photo taken with Stuart on the sun terrace.
We were talking at the side of the house when Jane joined us.
I took this photograph of Stuart and Christine near the Entrada.
They asked about our dogs so I let them out.
The dogs went crazy running around showing off and barking.
Stuart wanted Christine to take a photograph of him with them, I'm not sure they were still long enough for her to take one!
They were having a drive around and were planning to go to Gaucín next.
It was lovely meeting them, apparently there are a few people in Stoke who will be pleased to see these photographs.
I did some replanting and a few troughs with a mixture of seeds for later in the year.
We did a double batch of Gazpacho, which tasted really good.
Chris and John phoned but again we resisted the temptation of a night in the bars.
Another quiet night in, drinking natural spring water.
No getting out of the painting today. It's a lovely day outside but Jane's spring cleaning is gaining momentum and it needs to be done?
I scraped the paint work and and then put a coat of paint on the bits I scraped. I hate painting, especially when its 90F outside and the sky is so blue.
I finished by about noon and did get outside to water the plants.
We decided to go for a walk into the campo with the dogs. We walked along the track that goes to Algatocín but stayed on the lower path. It's a fairly flat walk and is shaded in parts. The dogs are clever, they run ahead when the path is in full sun and wait for us in the shade. They did this all the time on the way back. We walked as far as the large rock where the path forks the main track twists down to the Rio.
We did an about turn and headed back home.
We'd been walking back for a few minutes when John and Chris came from behind in their 4x4. They were going to Benarrabá and had planned to pop in to see us. We said we'd be half an hour getting home. They went to Pepa's for a beer whilst we drank spring water and walked home.
Sally and Jake got covered in smelly mud near the spring and I had to hose them down when we got home.
John and Chris popped in and we arranged to meet later at the Restaurant Kábilas for a Coke. It's great there in the evening sitting on the terrace as the sun goes down.
An e-mail from Lyngard and Jean in Stoke saying they'd cracked up when they saw Stuart and Christine in the blog.
We had an enjoyable two hours sat in the sun outside the Restaurante Kábilas with John and Chris. We watched them drink beer and did very well sticking to our Coke and later coffee.
They fly back to sunny Bradford tomorrow and we hope they arrive back safely.
We had another quiet night in.
It has finally rained! It sounded quite heavy at times during the night.
It has just stopped - 11am, hopefully we'll get a lot more during the next fortnight before Jane's parents and sister Carol visit us.
It's good for the campo and prolongs the life of wonderful wildflowers which cover Andalucía in springtime.
I'm off to get the bread from the Pandería while the rain has stopped.
Well I never got to the Pandería it started to rain very heavily.
It's rained on and off all afternoon it's very grey outside.
I've been online all day and Jane's been reading and writing letters.
Jane has also had a few glasses of wine ... tut tut tut.
I took the dogs out up the track. The rain has stopped and everywhere is fresh. I've never heard so many birds singing.
Jane meanwhile went to the Restaurante Kábilas and sat on the terrace with a bottle of Rioja. She telephoned me to join her, I went down later and had a Coke. (Who's a good boy ...)
Later the skies cleared and there were millions of stars out.
I sat up the track and watched them until my neck started to hurt.
We've been living in Spain a year today!!!
It's been the most interesting year of my life.
Living in a new country and culture.
We owe a big thank you to everyone in the pueblo, in particular neighbours Carmen and Cristóbal. They have made us so welcome.
Another big bonus are the many friends we've made since being here, particularly through the website. It's great getting e-mails and then even better meeting later.
It's a little overcast today, no rain which is a shame. If it's going to be grey and dull it might as well pour down.
No great celebrations are planned, perhaps we'll have Gazpacho and cook a curry!
I think I'm going to move the Blog from this website to one of our other websites.
I know a lot of people read it regularly but this website was always meant to promote the apartment and we're not getting any bookings.
I thought the blog would make people want to visit the area, because it shows that Benarrabá and the Serranía de Ronda is still the 'Real Spain'. It doesn't seem to work, lots of people with holiday homes in the area read it, but no potential guests are being enticed to give us a visit. Perhaps it has a negative effect?
Feedback about this would be welcome.
----> info@property-in-the-sun.com
The sun is shining the sky is blue, things are back to normal in Benarrabá.
Jane's gone to the Pandería for bread before we give the apartment a clean.
Ginny from Denver, Colorado, USA who has e-mailed us, is staying in the village this weekend. We hope to meet her and her friends over the weekend.
Ginny has just telephoned, they arrived safely and we're going to meet tonight.
I was going for a walk with the dogs, when Moto de Oro our little Spanish cat started to follow. I carried on walking up the track into the campo and the cat followed a few feet behind.
There are some lovely flowers out at the moment, the Foxgloves are a favourite of mine.
This is a view looking down from the track behind our house (foreground extreme right). The pueblo of Genalguacil is on the right behind the school and the pueblo of Jubrique is on the mountainside to the left.
Here are the dogs and cat a little higher up the track.
We walked up the mountainside for about ten minutes.
I hope the cat comes along on more walks.
We walked back down the track, the cat ran ahead of the dogs.
She then let us pass her, and then she ran passed us again.
She played this game all the way home.
Here she is up an Olive tree letting us walk passed ...
We sunbathed on the sun terrace. It was a beautiful afternoon. I went for a quick siesta.
Jane finished her soppy book, 'PS, I Love You' By Cecelia Ahern which she recommends.
She's now getting changed (at least 10x) and doing her hair. We're off to the Restaurante Kábilas to meet Ginny and friends from the USA.
It was a glorious evening. The sun shone on the terrace. We met a couple from the UK who were staying in Benarrabá for one night on a tour of Andalucía. They kindly took this photograph for us.
Their names were Donna Kyle and Peter Watson. Peter was originally from Newcastle (Howay the lads!) and Donna is a wee Scottish lassie.
We also met a group of artists on Marion and Onno Henke's painting holiday course.
It was their last night and they were having a traditional Spanish paella in the resataurante.
We did meet up with Ginny and her relatives and friend.
We had a cool refreshing beer on the terrace which went down well.
We had a good chat about our move here and they told us about themselves.
Ginny and her husband Steve live in Denver, Colorado.
Ginny's sister Susan along with her two daughters, Mace and Katie live in San Francisco.
Ann a friend of Ginny's from college days also lives in California.
We even sang 'Cushie Butterfield' a Geordie folk song which Ann knew the words to. I struggled lamely with a few lines of the chorus but was helped from the next table by Peter Watson.
Later I took this photograph inside the Restaurante.
Back Row (L-R) Ann, Katie, Susan.
Front Row (L-R) Mace, Steve, Ginny.
Here are the lyrics to Cushie Butterfield a great Geordie folk song.
Known the world wide ...
Cushie Butterfield
I'm a broken-hearted keelman
An I'm o'er head in love
Wi a young lass from Gateshead
An I call her me dove.
Her name's Cushie Butterfield
An she sells yella clay
An her cousin's a muckman
An they call him Tom Gray.
(chorus)
She's a big lass
She's a bonny lass
An she likes her beer
An I call her Cushie Butterfield
An I wish she was here.
Her eyes is like two holes
In a blanket pulled through
An her breath in the mornin
Would scare a young coo.
And when I hear her shoutin'
Will you buy ony clay?
Like a candyman's trumpet
It steals me young heart away.
(chorus)
Ye'll oft see her doon at Sandgate
When the fresh herring comes in
She's like a bagful o sawdust
Tied round with string
She wears big galoshes
And her stockings was once white
An her bedgown it's lilac
An her hat's nivva straight.
(chorus)
When I axed her to marry us
She started to laugh
"Noo, Nyen o' yer monkey tricks
For Aa like nee sic chaff"
Then she started abubblin'
An roared like a bull
An the cheps on the Keel sez
Aa's nowt but a fyeul
(chorus)
She sez "The chep that gets us
He'll heh te work ivvery day
An when he comes hyem at neet
He'll need to gan an seek clay.
An when he awa' seekin it
Aall myek baals an sing
O weel may the keel row
That my laddie's in."
(chorus)
Ginny wanted to visit one of the tapas bars in the village, she reads the blog and wanted to experience Benarrabá's hospitality.
We headed off to Bar Andrés Sánchez, where we had a few beers and glasses of good wine. We also sampled lots of different tapas dishes.
We had a really great time. The food was fantastic and everybody enjoyed the atmosphere.
So much in fact that we're going back tomorrow night. Ginny has booked Luis and Simon, Benarrabá's own flamenco stars to perform for us in the bar.
We walked up to the apartment, we showed them round, they were impressed by the views, even at night the village looks great.
We said goodbye and we'll meet again tomorrow for tapas and flamenco.
Surprise, surprise the sun is shining again. Not a cloud to be seen.
We went for a walk up the track to see the wildflowers. Moto de Oro followed just like yesterday.
We're having a quiet day in, we're both looking forward to tonight.
Ginny's group have gone to Gibraltar to see the apes. It's a good day so they should have good views of Africa from the top of the Rock.
It's the last day of the English Premiership today. We play champions Chelsea, I hope we stuff them.
Well a 1-1 draw, typically we scored first, then within seconds let them score.
Roll on next season.
We went to Bar Andrés Sánchez at 10pm to meet Ginny and family.
What a fantastic night it was.
Lots of wonderful tapas, ice cold beer. Then Luis and Simon played Flamenco for around three hours, there was a fantastic atmosphere and everyone had a great night.
Here's Benarrabá's famous flamenco duo brothers Luis and Simon Nuñez.
Here's Katie, she had a good night ... she made us laugh when she came back from the toilet saying that she'd " popped a squat in the mens room " ???
Jane and I hadn't heard this expression before.
There was a good atmosphere in the room, everyone was having a great time and most were clapping along with the rhythms.
Here's Mace, Simon and Luis.
Mace was very brave and got up and danced.
She's been studying flamenco dancing in the US.
We said goodbye to Ginny, Steve, Susan, Ann, Mace and Katie we hope to meet them again sometime. They are off to Seville tomorrow for five days then flying back to the USA.
If they have a better night on their vacation than tonight in Benarrabá we'd be very surprised!
Benarrabá is a great place for a holiday.
We got home well after 3am.