Bedrock

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Yesterday we took a trip out to Granada. Another 38 degrees day, perfectly clear skies – you couldn’t ask for more… took us not much more than an hour to drive down to Granada and we started with a trip to Macro – not something we’ll do again – waste of time.

Macro hasn’t been up to much in the UK for a while but here, it’s worse… fortunately nearby there’s an excellent Carrefour and a Brico-Depot and so after an hour or so the car was full (mainly thanks to Carrefour which has to be my all-time favourite store)!  We had some lunch and headed off slowly back up North… but not before noticing something that looked distinctly like a modern castle just off the motorway.

Armed with sat-nav for safety we went off-road to discover a small suburb with some of the most delightful buildings I’ve seen in months. Here are a couple of examples, one looking like a castle (and there were several) and the other – well, I don’t know how to describe it other than “eastern”. REALLY nice.

Absolutely marvellous….and just to round the day off we ended up stuck in a herd of goats. On our way back up to Galera we stopped briefly in Guadix – and I have to say, it looks like it is worthy of another visit. We popped into a local garden centre to get a cement tortoise for Maureen (for the wall) and then a quick look at the shops but Guadix is one of those cities that is just chocker full of side-streets with interesting-looking shops and restaurants and so it’s going I think to take a full day to give it the attention it deserves. Maybe next time we’re here.

We’ve had a couple of lazy days hence the lack of blog entry. Mid-week we went off one day to Castril and thereabouts, a short trip of maybe 30 minutes of you’re in a rush. WELL, we weren’t in a rush and so we took some Kodak moments on the way.

Castril itself is nothing special, but the various bits of scenery on the way speak for themselves… Along the way we crossed a bridge with a deep gorge underneath (Puente de Duda)then a fabulous dam – and lakes and.. well, the colour of the water alone is enough to catch your attention… for a change instead of pointing you to Flickr or similar I’m trying out a new slideshow gimmick – hope you like it – slides of the trip. No matter what you do with photos you can never really capture the beauty and I recommend anyone travelling in the area to take the same trip. Embalse de Castril and thereabouts – wonderful.

Friday we went off to the pool in Huescar – for a spot of sunbathing. Tip – if you’re in the area, after lunch the place empties out – hardly a soul in sight – marvelous. It’s now 8am Saturday, a walk perhaps….according to the forecast it’s going to be 35 degrees today.

I could not believe this – fortunately I had the camera to hand. One minute there are vulture’s flying about waiting for people to collapse in the heat (ok, bit of an exaggeration – but there are vultures) and the next…. popped down to the local cafe this morning for a coffee, lovely day, a little cloud – then this dark cloud appeared out of no-where.  We wandered back up and I went into an all-morning meeting…. came out of it and…..

A marvellous end to the evening – Maureen and I walked down from Bedrock to the village of Galera to find the place was mobbed – everyone was out, there were stalls, entertainment for the kids, a band playing in the village square – and impressive fireworks – not at 6pm mind you – we didn’t go out until nearer 10pm and the fireworks appeared around midnight – these folk know how to party!

It’s been a quiet day, around teatime the thunderclouds appeared, massive thunder, a little rain – then half an hour later, back to sunshine – but now with the air cleared up and a wonderful sunset in progress. It looks like the weather will hold out for the carnival late tonight. Rumour has it there will be fireworks just after midnight.. so we’re going to take a walk down later.

Leg is slowly getting better I think, goodness knows what bit me but it was nasty. Still, a productive day, gotten to grips with the cartooning (I usually simply don’t have time for this stuff so it was nice to have a day to just do something frivolous) and Maureen’s done her cupboard staining. Oh and I’ve solved the age-old mystery.. ants definitely don’t like 50% hydrochloric acid. All that’s left to do is get some Alhambra and Tapas down us, make sure the camera is working and wait for the fireworks. The clouds incidentally are disappearing as fast as they came – temperature is now down to a nice, cool 24 degrees… just the job.

Taking it EASY today, my left leg has a rather angry red blotch on it almost definitely due to multiple bites. Went down to the chemist (who of course handles English as well as I handle Spanish) and after mentioning doctor (that’s the only word I got) he went off and came back with a tube of topical anti-histamine – so I’m staying out of the sun till it gets a chance to sink in. At least now it’s not itching. Maureen’s watching TV and I’ve been trying to get to grips with a complicated table in Powerpoint. I did find time to read one of the UK papers today – once again we see large industry ripping off the British public – this time the BBC – something about one of their lot getting 3/4 million pounds!!  Can you believe that, we’ve got people losing their jobs, cars, even homes and the BBC are still help themselves with wild abandon… it’s high time we modernised our media – I get everything I need from the web:

• For radio I use Winamp and go to Shoutcast
• For music I use Spotify
• For entertainment I got to YouTube
• For knowledge I go to TED 

Ok, I’ll grant you the BBC news site is good and I do use it…. but that’s not worth the licence!

Ok, it’s all bit off-topic but we’ve not been anywhere except the village today. Got to take time off sometime!