Bedrock

The weather cooled off a tad first thing this morning (I think it got as low as 25c) and for a moment it even rained… and so Maureen was sitting inside reading a book when she complained of a crackling sound. Bearing in mind we had broadband issues yesterday I thought I’d better check. Sure enough, one of the cameras which had refused to start up has a power supply which was making cracking noises.  To cut a long story short, the Chinese camera is now a pile of scrap metal (due to it’s power supply, not the camera) and in the bin. The sparks must’ve been affecting the broadband as well so my only spare has now been called into operation. All done and ready to guard the place while we’re off on our long trip up North tomorrow. No doubt once again this will be part rubbish power, part rubbish Chinese power supplies.

Our neighbours Karen and Dave turned up this afternoon so we spent half of the afternoon sitting outside chatting – great use for a Sunday afternoon.. everything is working and first thing tomorrow morning we have to take an early trip to the bank to set up Internet banking before heading up to Northern Spain – but not before one last trip out tonight to see everyone. It’s now 8pm, we’ve had a massive storm – how all gone and it’s drying up already – the puppy has been doing his best to emulate a maniac in the garden with his new toys (plastic milk bottle and a plant-pot). We’ll miss him.

Sky is clearing – could be yet another nice night…

After recovering from this morning’s efforts, Maureen and I headed off Zujar in search of a “park natural”. Well, as often happens we got sidetracked.

See the mountain in the image above? That is the view from a “kodak moment” stop in Zujar, just outside of Baza (if you’re still not sure, upper Granada area).  You can’t see it in this image but right at the top of that mountain – there is a set of dishes…… a blow-up might help – see right.

The top of that mountain is just under a mile above sea level – and it’s BIG. So as we were driving through Zujar, for no particular reason we took a side-road – which looked like it was heading to the mountain… and kept going and going and getting narrower and narrower. About half way up the drive up the mountain, my ears started popping but by then our interest was up – we were going to take this through to conclusion…..

And so we did.. approaching the top the scenery was stunning not to mention the distance DOWN – but as always photos fail to capture this – here are some attempts however – including pics at the very top with the towers… Feel free to click these images to see larger versions.  I should add that these have not been touched, enhanced or colour-corrected in any way. It’s a great trip but if you are of a nervous disposition – don’t try it – some parts of the road which winds it’s way up the mountainside is – well, interestingly narrow with a sheer drop on at least one side!

Oh and take a good look around Zujar if you’re in the area, lots of excellent houses and buildings – quite an interesting town in general. See more photos on Google.

Thanks to a converted neighbourly effort… a sparkly clean roundabout! a couple of tons of stone, large amounts of black plastic and a lot of hard work.

Of course, it didn’t take a Spanish delivery truck more than 5 minutes to drive over the edge and give it a nice new black bootprint – but once again there we were with the paint-pots – and it’s still as good as new.  Richard is also having some work done – and in standard fashion the builders have been in – carved a load of material out and simply thrown it over the wall… it’s a different world here!

On Friday we set off from Galera to see friends Angie and Dennis down to the area around Cuevas Del Almanzora, near VERA, in Almeria. One of the problems with Spain is… it’s big and in rural areas there are simply not that many main routes – so you might be looking at the map on the right and thinking “surely there’s a straight line from A to B – well, no.

However, the route is pretty much motorway except for a short stretch at either end.

Arriving mid-afternoon Friday we all promptly went off to the beach and then after coming back to their place for a chat and a dip in the pool (remember we’re talking upper 30s temperature here – water’s pretty much part of the day’s entertainment) ended up in a nice little nightspot area nearby for drinks.

The following day we went back to the beach and after a battle with the (not insignificant) waves in which I ended up peddle-dashing my knee on the rocks – after fighting to get back on my feet without getting a mouth-full of salt water, I discovered I’d lost my specs in the sea – hardly a good start to the weekend as you can imagine.

Thinking about it, writing this blog isn’t much fun without specs – so guess where we’re going tomorrow – well today as it’s 1.45am already Monday morning. Anyway, we ended up in a really nice restaurant Saturday night to finish off a very pleasant weekend break. We spent most of Sunday morning driving back up to Galera, but managed on the way to find a great market near Vera (and temporary sunglasses for me – I normally wear reactolite varifocals). Spanish rural markets are much of a much-ness – you see the same Indian guys selling fake watches and fake sunglasses, but the quantity and variety of fruit and veg is worth seeing and in this case there was quite a large covered-over area selling plants, much to Maureen’s delight.

We got home mid-Sunday afternoon and as it was too hot to do anything outside, I finally got my two new remote cameras working…lots of improvements over earlier models – these allow 2-way audio as well as quite decent imagery, though being cheap Chinese IP cameras the audio is nothing to write home about…. at least now I’ll be able to keep an eye on both the UK and Spain on the iPhone… handy given the increasing unemployment rate in both countries!!

Oh, so there’s this puppy who seems to have adopted ourselves and our neighbours…he’s cute as well until he craps in the garden and starts barking at 1.30am – just after some “caller unknown” has rang twice on Skype and THREE have left YET ANOTHER stupid message saying how cheap calls are in Spain (despite being instructed verbally 3 times not to ever send me a text again). It’s going to be a long night…

Don’t forget you can see larger versions of most images by clicking on these smaller ones. More pics here on Google Albums

Hot doesn’t explain it- 43 degrees today, we went the long way around to the lake and eventually got there maybe 2pm and spent the afternoon. About the only thing that detracted from a beautiful day was a bunch of feral British children and their parents, screaming as if they’ve never seen water before. This was the turning moment that will ensure we buy a PROPER blow-up boat next time with a MOTOR. The lake as massive but most of even the beachy areas are inaccessible – unless you have a boat.  Just something big enough to take the two of us, two chairs and a box of iced drinks….

Tomorrow is the Huescar market, no doubt more swimming and tan-collecting – then Tomorrow night is the G8 summit as the Thursday drinking session is called – wherein a select group of Brits meet up and, well, drink. So tonight I’m settling down with a glass of wine and getting on working on my Facebook developments. No sign of my remote control cameras turning up yet…

You may wonder why no blog… well, that’s because we’ve not done anything new for a couple of days. It’s quite hot here, touching on 40c in the afternoons – and so yesterday I spent the morning working on a programing issue (Facebook refusing to do as it’s told) then wasted ages trying to sort SKY out (the EPG only shows the next 12 hours and so we can’t schedule recordings) – the afternoon in the lake and the evening catching up with the new Smallville series (not to be confused with the old series with Lana Lang which was quite lame) and the new and brilliant Hawaii 5-0.

Today Maureen’s been working on the watering system for her plants, I’ve been programming and answering emails and we’re just about to go off to the lake again to spend the afternoon getting some tanning done. Forecast remains the same for the next week.