Bedrock

Archive for the ‘Scargill’ Category

Arrived yesterday (Saturday), after doing the usual shopping round in San Javier and visiting my favourite Chinese junk store therein.

As you can see, the weather here in February at the coast is not that bad – it’s not summer that’s for sure but you could sit outside and drink coffee at the coast, no problem. For the first time we picked up our own car (usually we do car rentals but if you check earlier posts, we bought a Spanish car in the summer and so this was it’s first test). The storage company guy who dropped it off at the airport (right at the arrivals door – we only ended up walking 4 metres out of the airport!) spoke good English and warned us the battery had gone flat in storage (they check the car and get it working if there is an issue), perhaps not surprising as it’s been sitting doing nothing for 3 months – but as we found out – it was working perfectly and still is 30 hours later.

Our new (old) Spanish Renault Mégane is so quiet when idling you would think it was turned off… and so we had a great 2-hour trip over to our place but not before checking out Aldi and the Chinese store and getting supplies for the week over at San Javier – definitely my favourite place to shop for food and rubbish up to now.

We arrived at teatime Saturday to discover that AT LAST we had proper electricity but no water… it’s sunny and several degrees here in the mountains during the day but it’s been quite cold at night. This morning Maureen got the hair drier out and the water is running but there’s a hairline crack in the cheap Chines crappy water valve…  no surprise there, most of the other stuff the original builder put in was, well, crap.

We took a slightly different and longer route than normal, partly as we decided to manage without the satellite and partly because – well, it was such a nice day.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not summer and along the way we could see the snow in the mountains but for much of the trip the temperature stayed up near 10 degrees or so and perfectly clear skies, dry air and no wind which makes all the difference.

We opened the place up – no surprises other than the odd length of silica trying to fight it’s way through the concrete walls – nothing new there and easy to sort out in the summer… and after getting some heat going we went off to the local pub for a pint – so much for the diet.

Today, as I promised the neighbours, I put up some solar lights we brought over onto the tree on our newly re-furbished roundabout (not enough, needs more) and spent some time getting the NetFlix TV working properly on our limited broadband here in Spain – with great success – see the blog at www.scargill.net for getting Netflix and iPlayer working over here…  and I caught up with paperwork – not to mention both of us watching the best movie of all time (IMHO) – Iron Man 2 – AGAIN… the opening scene with AC/DC playing and Iron Man landing on stage has to be the best movie scene ever. I can’t wait for the Avengers movie coming out in May which will also feature The Hulk, Thor and Captain America to name a few – now they’ve pretty much gotten over the need to make these movies funny for people who never read Marvel, they really are doing a good job. A shame the CD Comics people seem to have missed the boat.

Tomorrow we need to get a hairline crack in the cold water feed tap fixed (well, we need to replace the tap – easy enough other than finding out where on earth the main tap for the area is!) so we need to organise a plumber, then we’re off to the local market to see what’s new. As always you can click on these pics for larger versions, hope you find this interesting.

To our friends in Spain – and also to those we’re just getting to know… a very merry Christmas!

The new Pergola is up and running and just as I was getting the camera out to take a pic, I noticed the most amazing rainbow just across the valley.

This one’s even better – honestly – THIS is what it actually looked like this afternoon, looking down the valley..

and that’s about it – nice day for the time of year, the Pergola is now all wired up again, expecting our new car to arrive tonight – just in time to store it away for a while over the weekend!

Believe it or not, after 3 years of builder’s electricity, it looks like we’re about to get "proper" electricity. The pylon is up, wired and apparently ready to go.

After some disappointing weather over the last few days, we’re set for sunshine today so we’re off to the Orce market to see what’s new there.

After bringing some new lighting technology over with me to add atmospheric lighting to the cave, I’m now onto my second Chinese soldering iron which utterly refuses to do the job and I’m convinced it’s actually the solder. The last one I bought was a 60w device and I bought solder and flux to go with it, yet after 40 years of soldering I cannot even START to tin the iron bit never mind do some sensible soldering – so the logical conclusion is that this is something ELSE the Chinese can’t get right (at least not in the stuff they sell here). So I’m off in search of good old-fashioned European-sourced solder!

Yesterday we went off to the lakes with friends – too cold to go swimming but just to show them around. We’ve also been to the Huescar fair which ended on Sunday night, not much to write about, just a standard market, the same people as usual.

I’m starting to get jaded with the smaller markets you rarely see anything new and interesting… not so bad in the summer when you can just enjoy the weather but we really could do with finding a really large and varying market.

Our Spanish-licenced car should be arriving this week, just in time to go into cold storage until our next trip – but at least this means we can kiss goodbye to extortionate car rentals once the paperwork is sorted and it gives me greater possibilities for short trips over here when there are last-minute cheap flights available, something we’ve not been able to do up to now.

I’m looking forward to some sun today so I can try out some new hi-def video capture software for the iPhone. Yes, I’ve a decent camera that can do video but I get sick of lugging a camera around. A phone on the other hand sits in your pocket – the problem being, the quality is usually rubbish. Well, I’ve already gotten around that with the HDR software on the iPhone to some extent (most of the photos here are HDR taken using the phone) and so now it’s time to turn to video.

Many problems with amateur videos taken on phones can be improved on the iPhone with a little care and the right software. Firstly clean the lens every single time you use it – and secondly use software to turn off the automatic controls. The stuff I’m playing with turns off auto-focus, exposure control, white balance and lets you take 16:9 format video – I’d prefer cinema format but the phone isn’t fast enough for that.. iPhone 4s to the rescue (if only). With these settings as seen in the phone in their normal default it really doesn’t matter what you do – your videos are always going to look home made.  Easy to say, let’s see what I can do with this – results in a later blog providing the weather holds out.

Oh yes, it’s around 20 degrees MAXIMUM here during the day, a far cry from September… and no sign of the builder!!

I was just thinking how crappy the weather was in the UK when what do you know, the day before I set off, a nice day in Wark!  Maureen and I spend the day gardening and got LOADS of stuff done.

6am this morning we were up to drop me off for my flight to Murcia – probably my last as apparently the military want it back! I  don’t know the politics of this but WHY did they have to grab the most friendly airport of the lot… Malaga is AWFUL.

Sunday lunchtime – after an effortless flight (no really, non of yer EasyJet squabbling like animals, seat booked (exit seat) and I just walked into the airport and onto the plane after a few minutes being checked to see if I’m an Islamic terrorist. I’d filled the iPad with movies but only had time for one – "G.I Joe – The Rise of Cobra" – if you’ve not seen this – it is worth the effort of getting the DVD – ok, it’s silly but the effects FAR exceed what you’d expect in a less than blockbuster movie – indeed they rank along with the very best.

By the time that was over it was time to land – I was a little worried as just approaching land there were some horrendous clouds – but I should not have worried – 26 degrees in St Javier. Now remember – this is a Sunday… everything was OPEN! So a brief trip to the Chinese supermarket then off to Eroski for groceries.  About the only notable part of the journey was the fact that they gave me a completely trashed car. I grabbed the car guy and pointed out that the rental form said nothing about scrapes etc. at which point he noted down the major gash on one side of the car and laughed at the little bumps and scratches I pointed out elsewhere. Regardless I took a video of the whole car while I was there -  just to be sure.

Got here late afternoon after having a good look around Caravaca De La Cruz – which I intend to repeat at some point as they have a nice little town square with cafes etc., looked really neat. 22C when I got to Galera and all looks well, everything works apart from one cheap Chinese power extension which is easily replaces. All my solar stuff is working, one camera needed a reset so tomorrow I’m off for a 24-hour timer to give it a 5-minute reboot first thing in the mornings – better safe than sorry.Other than that, nothing new… no-body us here, Maureen joins me next Sunday and we have friend coming over… I expect I’ll pop down to the village to see what’s new there but for tonight – a quiet drink, a little blogging and a nice fire.

Tomorrow – shopping, a little R&D and no doubt the usual cacophony of phone calls and emails. But at least it’s warm.

Sunday August 28th 2011: Apart from a few seconds in the morning, for just about the time since we arrived in Southern Spain this summer, not only did it rain…  and suddenly at that, but as we sat having our dinner in Huescar (thankfully inside a restaurant) we saw hailstones the size of peas (click on the photo to enlarge and see the hailstones on the road), for just a short while and then it was all over. In the process I captured one of the best sunsets yet (see next blog item).

Monday: On our last morning, the love affair with the puppy ended as he ripped one of our plants to pieces. We started our long journey back to the UK at 8am, went off into Galera for coffee followed by a trip to the bank and then we started our long journey to our next stop, Zaragoza.