Biking & Baking in Las Alpujarras

It’s heading towards 8am, the sun is up but has not yet touched the hillside across the valley so I am enjoying that delicious, fresh moment when the village is cool and quiet, just the birds singing out. Steve has gone off for a ride on the VFR. I think watching the California MotoGP last night has that effect - he just needs to get round some bends and open up the throttle.

Last night as we came up from the land, quite a lot of people were gathered in the plaza outside our little bar - all generations as it was Sunday, with tiny children inspecting a horn beetle, their teenage sisters sitting chatting in odd corners, their parents having a beer and the grandparents keeping an eye on proceedings. One of these, Luis, bought us a drink of local copa (refreshing when diluted with a little ice-cold water) and we joined in the general chit-chat. I learnt about Jesus’ clever psychologist daughter and talked a bit more with our resident computer artist who says of himself that he is a bit mad!

We bought a chilli plant on Friday which is sitting out on the terrace at the moment, in full sun. I need to find out how to grow it and when to pick the chillies. They are pale green now. Steve does a mean little prawn, garlic and red chilli tapas which we both enjoy. Our lunches at the moment consist of a salad dressed with olive oil, local wine vinegar and a sprinkling of salt, plus some fresh bread. Usually we put in pepinos (cucumbers), onions and olives as well as the usual greenery.

I’ve just been interrupted by the arrival of the gas men! No one told us, but here the Junta inspect your bottled gas every 5 years to see if the installation is correct and safe. Ours (for hot water, not the cooker, turns out to be unsafe and poorly installed, so I am having to pay over 300 euros for it to be fixed. It is difficult to know whether this is just a sharp company making money or a sensible, safe and legal requirement. But at least they are doing it straight away and cleaning the heater at the same time. Steve is absent at just the right, or wrong, moment depending on your perspective! He has mastered the re-lighting technique and I just know that these chaps will struggle…What goes on down on the coast, or are you all on mains with not a bottle of gas in sight? J

We have been gathering mulberries and making delicious smoothies and tarts! With two visitors in the house, it has been an ideal time to take an old bedcover and stand under the trees shaking branches and getting showered with the sweet black fruit. The end result is worth the mess so if you know of a local tree, get out there immediately! The locals also use a long hooked pole, but we haven’t found one yet on our walks…I am still looking.

Here’s my very simple mulberry smoothie recipe:

2 ripe bananas

1.5 cups of pure juice (orange, mango, apple)

1 cup of ripe mulberries

1 or 1.5 cups of natural yoghurt depending on thickness of the mix etc

Blend, chill, take out onto the terrace and drink out of your favourite tall glass. Sumptuous stuff!

On Friday we had some village friends over for wine and tapas, 10 of us in total with ages ranging from 13 to 60 and 5 nationalities: Spanish, English, French, Maltese and Australian. Interesting in that if I count some of my Italian blood, Steve’s Irish granny…we were almost fully International. I am pleased to say that we mainly conversed in Spanish. Our tapas included:

* ciabatta with olives & rosemary (Steve)

* olive & parmesan bread sticks “

* prunes wrapped in jamon & baked (me)

* grilled aubergine, jamon & cheese with oregano (me)

* toasted bruschetas with an aubergine, garlic & tomato tapenade (Steve)

* mulberry tart (Steve and a recipe off the internet)

By the time everyone left we had just a few scraps of ciabatta and tapenade - a successful evening then!

Today is MotoGP and Steve is organising his day to watch it. The ‘kids’ and I are off to the pool at Balcon de Pitres which offers a pleasant green orchard to loll in and is not usually too busy. About 5 euros per half-day. They go home again on Tuesday but have been great fun to have out here. Cam is full of wit and good humour while Jo adds sheer glamour (including her schoolmarm’s spectacles). The local young men just gawp as she passes by! They have both been keeping up with their exercise regimes and Cam has repeated last year’s test of running up the mountainside - and I mean UP - covering 1.2 miles in just over 10minutes. The gauntlet has been laid down!

We have some actual tomatoes and green peppers on our plants now, getting bigger, and the sweet corn is growing really well, about 50 in total. There are some impressive huertas in the valley and ours is just a little starter by comparison, but this is our ‘learning’ year so any success is worth having. A badger has got in and rooted about a bit but only the rocket has suffered. Pepe in the village has given us lots more lechuga plugs so our lettuce supply should last through August (people are very generous here, especially if you are growing anything).

This morning Jo spotted a huge Horn Beetle in the courtyard, slightly injured but crawling along. It must have been 2 inches long with its armoured body and long spiked ‘horn’. Does anyone know much about these? Are they common to this area? We have also seen spiders with green phosphorescent eyes, glo-worms, mountain goats and yesterday 2 golden orioles in the trees below Capileira. Exciting times.

We are having a great time! The house is fairly organised, our huerta is yielding vegetables (first lettuce with rocket today), Cam and Jo have arrived and we have enjoyed a great village fiesta to watch Spain beat Paraguay. Tonight we will go to the bar in Pitres to watch the Germany match and hope that Spain wins! Our language skills are improving and we feel less blitzed at 3pm than we used to!

On the 27^th we met up with Andrew in Trevelez, on his BMW, plus many other Spanish motorcyclists. He has kindly set us on the path to get the Suzuki re-plated, taxed etc and if we can do this ourselves we will, then the other machines. It does sound complex and a bit bureaucratic however. The burro, our little c90 donkey, is absolutely brilliant for shopping and nipping out to eat. Ideal for the Alpujarras.

Some neighbours have moved in for much of the summer with 2 lovely little girls, Claudia and Lianna. Claudia is the eldest, aged 5, and has been teaching me some Spanish - about my level!! She is very appealing and thinks I am lucky to be called Linda (linda - pretty…). While the football was being relayed in the square, she and the other youngsters ran about and played, with small babies being tossed about when Spain scored! Later on the bigger girls (aged about 25!!) danced to a video/karaoke/dance routine - by now about 2am - and we all joined in with some sort of rain dance. Great fun.

It’s interesting which clothes, brought from England, are getting worn and which are staying in boxes or the cupboard until cooler weather. We need our biking kit but have abandoned proper gear when we just go to the shop; I hardly ever put on jeans (too hot) or shorts (legs are too old and brambles too common) or anything with long sleeves. Preferred garments are either my blue working overalls (baggy, practical, not too hot) or a little dress bought in a Break shop for £2.50 (thin straps, no creases) or a pair of green linen trousers that make me feel elegant. And we do wear hats on the land, at all times. Steve looks just like a local peon especially with axe in hand.

We are eating masses of fresh fruit and veg and only cook a proper meal at night. After a long day we enjoy cheap red wine (cartons are 53 centimos in Al Campo in Motril) diluted with unsweetened fizzy water. Probably not the most sophisticated choice but we never said we were fussy! We have made about 3 litres of green walnut wine (locally picked walnuts of course) so here is the recipe: