October 16th - 31st 2006
Written by Geoff Forster
A cloudy day. Rain is forecast for later in the week.
We were going to Tarifa but there's little point when visibility is poor.
I worked on more graphics.
Esther, Bob and Jane had a walk around the village.
We collected some straw for the donkeys, cleaned and fed them.
The skies look ominous but no rain yet.
The valley looks beautiful as the clouds tumble over the tops of the mountains like slow moving waterfalls.
Jane and I have been to Gaucín to buy animal feed and to Algatocín for our food.
We cooked a chicken curry, Rogan Josh style.
Great news from Stoke! Stuart has e-mailed, he's home convalescing after a quadruple bypass operation. Hope to see him in the New Year.
It did rain during the night but not a lot.
We've checked on the donkey's and walked the dogs.
No plans to go far because of the weather.
I've been working on the graphics for our new websites.
Jane, Bob and Esther went to buy a chicken from Juani's small shop. The chicken should be fresh, and organic from the village but may come with giblets and head to remove ... my job!
After buying dinner they called into Bar Andrés Sánchez for a beer.
Jane cooked a beautiful roast chicken dinner and we watched My Big Fat Greek wedding and then Cats and Dogs on DVD's.
It rained quite heavily during the evening and was as we went to bed.
It has rained all night really torrential at times. Our neighbours will be pleased.
It rained most of the morning, ten minutes of really heavy rain, followed by forty minutes steady, then a ten minute dry spell. Which meant you could dash out with the dogs and feed the donkeys without getting too wet if you timed it right.
Jane, Esther and Bob watched a Richard Gere film with J Lo about dancing, not my sort of film, but apparently it is so good that I must watch it ... so I have it to look forward to.
Jane and Esther are cooking tonight. They are doing a curry, this is usually my specialty and they've been watching my last few attempts and feel confident they can do one. This is from scratch using no pastes or jars, just piles of seeds, cloves, cinnamon etc I'm hoping its a success and they'll cook them for me from now on. Although I do enjoy a good Rioja whilst I'm throwing all the spices in the pot.
The curry was good, it is still raining heavily. Satellite TV reception is terrible so more DVD's. Tonight we watched Feeling Minnesota starring Cameron Diaz and Keanu Reeves.
It was still bucketing down as we went to bed, a good day for the campo. Hopefully it will rain all week and the water table will begin to return to a higher level. It will also be good to see green shoots appearing over the next few days. Germination in Spain is very rapid with the mild temperatures, seedlings seem to grow at a very fast pace.
More heavy rain overnight but its clearer at the moment.
We're all off out for a walk around the village. It's Bob and Esther's last full day here they fly back to the UK mañana.
We bought organic pork and vegetables for a last big meal and called into Bar Andrés Sánchez, Pub Bar Dami and Café Bar Guayacán to say goodbye to everyone and to toast the health of San Miguel, it has to be done.
We called into the pharmacy. This is Ramon he's always helpful. He's often seen peddling his racing cycle up the steep hills out of the village.
Back home after tapas Bob and I are tired but Jane and Esther go back out for a walk. Jane took her camera and got some great shots of the rooftops of Benarrabá in difficult light.
I'm going to do a page of Janes photos.
Pretty cat taken near the church in Benarrabá. We think it may be Maria and Andrés cat who live nearby.
This is John and Janet Patrick whom Jane and Esther had a coffee with.
John and Janet are staying in the area, they are from Nottingham, UK.
We cooked a lovely piece of pork for dinner.
An early night for everyone so that we're all fit and ready for tomorrow's journey.
It rained again during the night. Good news for the campo.
We set off just after 2pm.
A quick stop off at the Gasolinera in Gaucín to buy a new windscreen wiper, which the assistant kindly fitted for us.
The clouds around the mountains looked full of rain but it looked clearer down near Gibraltar where we were heading.
We parked in La Linea and walked over the frontier.
Bob and Esther's flight wasn't until 20:30h so we were there in plenty of time. We didn't stay to see them take off, as the heavens were looking ominous as we looked inland. So we said a tearful farewell to them and walked back into Spain.
We called into Carrefours at La Linea, we'd never been here before. The shop is large, laid out identically to the store in Los Barrios which was useful as we knew where everything was. There looked to be an arcade of shops and a six screen cinema. There are other supermarkets in this area so we'll have to return and explore them ... apparently.
It started raining as we neared Jimena de la Frontera. The skies were black. We stopped off at Venta Carrasco to break the journey.
The venta is one of our favourites. Tonight it was buzzing, there were around twenty men inside the bar, either rained off or finished the day. The noise was incredible as they all seemed to be talking louder and louder. We enjoyed listening from our table and sat there for around fifteen minutes before continuing our journey back up into the mountains.
It was now raining very heavily, just as well we changed the windscreen wiper, they were barely coping.
We got to Gaucín were it was torrential. We decided to stop at Venta El Socorro to see if it eased. There were lots of friends in there from Benarrabá.
After a few minutes the rain did seem to lessen but as we ran to the car it was back to coming down in sheets.
We got safely back to Benarrabá and called in to see Yolanda in Café Bar Guayacán. We had tapas, neither of us felt like cooking.
Back home I got soaked feeding the donkeys and walking the dogs.
This is our little Siamese Sophie. She was warm and dry.
The rain has finally eased after another wet night, which is good news.
We like it when it rains during the night and is dry during the day, that's how weather should behave.
Jane and I decided to walk down to Bar Andrés Sánchez for a beer. Saturday and sunday lunchtimes are always good in the village with people enjoying the weekend.
Jane looking surprised ....
Jane saying "If you put that last photo of me on the blog there's going to be trouble ...".
Later in Bar Barroso ...
Curro.
Onno and Marion Henke had an art group this week they were all enjoying tapas in bar Barroso.
This is Imma and Pepé. They are from Benalmádena and were out for the day touring the Genal villages. They successfully found the best village and a great bar for tapas. We enjoyed chatting to them.
Next we walked up to Café Bar Guayacán.
On the way we bumped into José he was collecting bugs in a jam jar.
Lots of the older houses in the village have rings like this in the walls.
They are for tying up your mule or donkey.
This dog usually barks at us as we pass his house, today he was quiet.
We were invited into the outbuilding by the owner to test his homemade wine which is fermenting in large jars.
The wine was cloudy and still sweet, it tasted a lot better than I expected it to.
Jane has a try, it wasn't a bad drop considering it was only weeks old.
Salud!
The skies were clearing nicely. It was a beautiful day. Everything is fresh, damp but clean after a long dusty summer.
Jane took this one of Alpandeire from just outside Café Bar Guayacán.
Paco had a couple of horses in the Plazoleta
Inside Guayacán and Jane is continuing to have a rare bad photo day ...
Curro, Jane and myself taken by Yolanda.
This is a gourd. They grow well around here. A lot of bars have them as a decoration. I've never tasted one.
Everyone seems to find them amusing ...
We headed home. It had been a good afternoon.
Jane took these of this lady. She keeps hens nearby and makes lots of strange noises when she calls them to get their food. A nice lady, I must find out her name.
We met Eduardo, and after his kindness to us inviting us into his home last week we invited him up onto the terrace for a beer.
He took this one of Jane and I on the way to the house. He forgot to say cheese ... we both had a bad photo day. We'll smile in the next one.
A rain free night, it's very mild but we could still get some rain later in the day.
I've checked on the donkeys, Rosie looks well but Domingo has rolled in the wet mud and doesn't look very pretty.
We cooked a large steak each with mushrooms, onions, chips and fried eggs.
I've spent most of the afternoon sorting out yesterday's photographs and doing the blog.
I caught the end of the Newcastle United match and wished that I hadn't, another defeat this time 1-0 to M'Boro.
I watched the Brazilian Grand Prix before we watched the second part of the latest Prime Suspect police drama starring Helen Mirren.
More rain during the night but not very heavy.
I put some photo's on www.benarraba.com
Benarrabá Galería de La gente
I was just making a cup of tea when I heard English voices outside the window.
It was Geoff & Margaret Whittaker with a couple of friends Ray and I think it was Mary (sorry).
We met Geoff & Margaret last year and showed them around Benarrabá.
They have now sold their house in England and are touring France and Spain.
We showed them the donkeys and had a chat before they went down to Café Bar Guayacán for tapas.
Unfortunately we had plans to work all day on our new websites. So we couldn't join them.
We did go to Algatocín to the Super Genal supermarket.
Jane's going to cook a roast chicken dinner tonight, so we bought lots of vegetables to go with it.
It is raining again but nothing too bad. We saw lots of walkers on the road. The campo is beautiful when it is wet. It is good to see that hardy hikers are not being put off by the damp conditions.
Walking poles which look a little like ski poles seem to be growing in popularity. We often see people using them. I hope the benefits of using them are great, because they do make the user look a little strange. The 'look' is compounded when processionary hikers form a chain through the campo skiing up the hillsides.
More rain, quite heavy again.
The donkeys are getting bogged down in their enclosure so we cut a few small temporary drainage channels to help the surface water to escape. We also put two bales of straw for them in their stable/shed. One for food, the other on the floor.
At times the clouds lifted and we enjoyed looking over the fresh green Genal Valley.
A week of rain and there are seedlings everywhere, billions upon billions of shoots with twin seed leaves. The campo is already looking green.
Grass seeds are already ten centimetres high which is an amazing rate of growth. Temperatures are very mild. We are yet to think about lighting a fire, even at night.
I may be tempted soon as I want to roast some chestnuts we have been given.
Jane decided she needed to cheer herself up, so she got dressed up and we went down to Bar Andrés Sánchez for a bottle of 'Chinchilla' and some tapas.
The Chinchilla went down well and we enjoyed our tapas of cured goats cheese in olive oil, jamon and carne mechada (roast pork with a moist stuffing).
We were enjoying our wine when two hikers came in for refreshment.
This is Carole and Dave from Exeter.
They've been walking for seven days and are halfway through their holiday. They've had a bit of a soaking, but have witnessed Andalucía turning from brown to green during their week here.
Here's one of us taken at arms length.
Later we enjoyed the night time view across Benarrabá and the Genal Valley as we prepared and ate a romantic dinner.
Lots more heavy rain this morning.
The clouds lifted in the afternoon and I took the chance to take the dogs out for a couple of walks up the mountainside.
We passed the donkeys on the way. Domingo had a quick look out as we went along the track.
Mota de Oro our Spanish cat came with us.
You can see how green the track has become.
It was a fantastic walk. Everything smells so fresh.
The dogs bounced along in front and the cat ran behind.
In the evening we cooked a large dish of cottage pie.
We watched 'Shall we dance' Starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez. A very light romantic comedy. Cheese factor 10.
A 3-0 win for Newcastle United against Portsmouth in the Carling Cup.
A good result, I'm smiling now.
Light rain during the night, but a dry morning so far.
We've spent the morning sorting out the donkeys and catching up with the blog.
We walked Rosie and Domingo down to the spring at El Chorruelo. The arroyo was running but nowhere near as fast as I'd expected. Hopefully this means that the rain has been soaking in and not running off the surface.
Domingo.
Rosie. She looks good. Her mane and coat have never looked better.
The invasive weed Oxalis pes-caprae is growing rapidly in the hedgerows. It is bitter and can't be eaten by livestock. It stopped the donkeys getting to a lot of the new grasses.
If you don't have livestock this is a pretty yellow flowered plant that covers the campo in huge numbers.
It's leaves look very like clover
We're hoping to walk the dogs out along one of the trails this afternoon.
We had 1321 visitors on the website on Tuesday a new record!
Thanks.
Also a big thanks to Kathleen for translating our apartment page into French for us.
We had a good walk and then went down into the village.
Later we cooked and enjoyed a lovely evening together.
The skies are still cloudy but the rainy spell is due to finish today.
A very quiet day spent on the PC and around the house.
The dogs, cats and donkeys are all well.
We drove to Gaucín to the Venta el Socorro to put on our Euro Millions lottery ticket.
On the way back we called into Café Bar Guayacán to see Yolanda.
A few hours later and we're with our neighbour Juan heading towards Disco Bar Embrujo. I did briefly have a dance, this is a sure sign I've had too much beer!
A very late night we got home around 04:00h.
A fresh windy start to the day.
I'm up surprisingly early, considering ...
The sun is shining and it is a beautiful day, perfect for walking which we plan to do this afternoon.
Time for a bit of a health kick before Christmas.
Sophie our Siamese loves sitting on the window sill between the metalwork and the glass.
We set off on our walk. There are a few large puddles on our route and the dogs love them. Sally has taught Jake that if there's a puddle you must at least walk through it, and if time permits, lie down in it as well.
Our youngest Border Collie, Jake.
Jake's mother, Sally.
We got to the large rock. La piedra del reyes. The rock of kings, or the king of rocks, I'm not sure which. It seems to be a huge lump of veined quartz. Unusual for the area. The rocky crags here are limestone. The surface rocks in this area are mud slate and mica schist.
It was a lovely afternoon. The sun was out and temperatures were in the low seventies F. We both wished we'd put on shorts instead of our jeans.
We stopped to let the dogs play around a very large puddle, when a huge herd of goats came down the hillside opposite.
We keep our oldest dog Ferdinando (Ferdy) on the lead because he is deaf. He can't hear cars or commands any more.
The other two come to us instantly and never wander more than ten or fifteen metres away, so they are no problem.
However if we see animals in the campo we always put them back on their leads.
The herd belongs to Antonio. Who lives on a ridge between Benarrabá and Algatocín. He's a pleasant man and we always stop to have a word.
There must be over a hundred goats in the herd, they were all around us. They seemed to like eating the acorns which are now falling by the ton from the Holm and Cork oaks.
We headed home, we'd seen a few birds. Great Tits, Blue Tits, Chaffinches, Nuthatch, Jays. Nothing that you wouldn't see in British woodland.
Late we went to Algatocín where we saw some Griffon Vultures and flock of Choughs heading up the valley towards Ronda. Whether these are the Choughs that roost near the bridge I'm not sure.
I listened to Newcastle United v Charlton Athletic, a disappointing 0-0 draw at home against one of the weakest teams in the league.
We cooked a huge pan of stew with potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, red and green peppers, chick peas, sausage, onion, garlic, fresh oregano and a hint of chilli.
All cooked in a litre of red wine.
Later we watched a film. "The Hitcher" starring Rutger Hauer.
Jane loves/hates films where people are getting chased along roads by psycho's. The film is currently being remade with Sean Bean playing the hitchhiker from Hell.
A lovely day. The sun is shining and it's really warm for the end of October. We remembered to put our clocks back.
We fed and watered the donkeys.
We spent the afternoon working on our websites.
In the evening we lost our internet connection again. Avired - Iberbanda are still very unreliable as soon as we have chance to switch to ADSL I will. I got a phone call from Telefónica last week so it may be quite soon. It is only a 512Kb or possibly a 1Mb connection but that's better than Iberbanda.
We watched 'Badge of Honour' a Brian Dennehy film on DVD.
He's always incorruptible, always taken off the case, but carries on the investigation against all the odds until gets his man. What a hero.
We're up early. There's a mist hanging over the river down in the bottom of the valley. It's slowly rising as the sun climbs in the sky.
This Morning Glory has brightened up the front of the house all summer and continues to flower.
We took the dogs out for a walk.
The mists were burning off across the valley. It felt quite humid for a few minutes as it rose up the mountainsides.
The camera compensating for the bright sun makes the valley seem darker than it really was.
A few minutes later the skies were blue and the mist had gone ... very strange.
This Olive grove was looking very green. The weather was beautiful, a lovely warm day.
This is Ferdinando (Ferdy) he's twelve now, getting on but still active.
Ferdinando.
We enjoyed our walk, so did the dogs.
A rare one of Ferdy and his son Jake. They get on fairly well, but Jake's a mummy's boy and spends most of his time very close to Sally.
Jane was having fun throwing sticks for the dogs.
We stopped to check out the hillside where the goats were a couple of days ago. Today there was a flock of sheep up there.
We'd passed Sebastian and Paco earlier on the walk, they both had huge carrier bags full of mushrooms. We looked for some as we were walking but only found three. They didn't look like ordinary field mushrooms so we didn't pick them.
We did find some carobs. A brown pod that grows on a medium sized tree Ceratonia siliqua. The pods are also known as St John's bread, they are used to make fake chocolate and our donkeys love them.
Here's me picking them up.
It was a bright sunny day. The village looks beautiful.
Back home we fed the donkeys some carobs.
Antonia also gave us some Sweet corn stalks and leaves.
I picked some windfall olives and oranges so they had a feast.
Rosie loves fruit. Domingo prefers dry straw, grasses and thistles.
I spent the afternoon sorting out photo's. Now that we're both taking photographs it's getting very time consuming processing and sorting them all!
Jane has been busy doing the washing.
A night in watching TV. Jane's favourite, 'Hell's Kitchen'.
What a beautiful day!
Blue skies and high temperatures.
We spend the morning in and around the house.
Then we brush and walk the donkeys down to El Chorruelo.
The verges are rapidly turning green and lush. Plenty for the donkeys to eat.
I did take my camera but it wouldn't switch on.
I transferred a lot of photo's yesterday via USB. This must drain the battery. I'll revert back to using my card reader.
When we got home I charged the battery and the camera is okay.
Later I took this photo of Benarrabá from just outside the apartment.
The dog's name is Chico. He's a lovely dog and belongs to our neighbour's son.
Our Hibiscus is only a few centimetres high and doesn't seem to have grown since I planted it. Yet once a fortnight it reminds us that it is there, by bursting into flower, albeit at ground level.
Our little Spanish campo cat 'Mota de Oro' (Speck of Gold) spends most of the day out in the campo, chasing bugs ... etc.
She had a huge Praying Mantis in her mouth the other day which I rescued unharmed and returned to a safe spot.
It's two years since she followed us home and allowed us to adopt her.
She' was around six months old then, so she's around 2½ years now.
She has white whiskers on one side of her face and black on the other.
Her markings are beautiful, she's perfectly camouflaged in the undergrowth.
It's Halloween tonight. No trick or treaters called!
Tonight everyone visits the cemetery which will be spotless and full of fresh flowers. Candles will be burnt all night and a prayer vigil will be held to pray for the souls of the dead.
It's a very special night, the family is so important in Spain, this is just one of many events that help bind the society and generations together. When you die you're not forgotten. Your relatives will visit the cemetery with candles and flowers, probably on your birthday, the anniversary of your death, your Saint's day and All Souls night. If not more often.
In Spain tomorrow is a fiesta day, All Saints day.
I watched Barcelona v Chelsea in the Champions League. I now support all the Spanish teams when they play English teams. Except Newcastle United and England of course!
I played around with the camera, trying to get used to setting apertures and shutter speeds manually. The camera body (Nikon D80) is better than the lens (Sigma DG 28-300mm). I'll have to save up my centimos.
We would like to do a version of our apartment pages in all European languages especially ... Danish, Norwegian, German, Belgian, Portuguese, Italian ... etc
If any multi-lingual visitors to this page could spare a few minutes to help translate a few paragraphs for us ... We'll e-mail you the text which we need translating.
Thanks to Helena & Tina from Sweden for the Swedish translation.
Thanks to Jayne for arranging a Polish translation.
Thanks to Marion and Onno Henke for their Dutch translation.
Thanks to Kathleen for the French translation.