Discovering a new life in Costa Almeria

No New Year Resolutions

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:27:24 GMT

Sitting last night chatting about what's happened in 2010, it seems very little of it would have been in the conversation last New Year's Eve about the coming year.

We were in our renovated house, high in the Spanish mountains living a life of solitude and retirement with the pups. Although I was unsettled, I never could have imagined that I would be seeing this New Year in, back in England, among my family and friends.

So, I am reluctant to speculate on what 2011 will hold for us. However, I think it is important to have dreams of what we would like to happen. Without these dreams, you do not have goals. Without goals, you do not make plans. And without plans - you do nothing but let life pass you by.

I do not want to be sitting here this time in 2012 and be looking back on a year without fulfilling some of the dreams and so, this year I am not making any New Year resolutions which will have been forgotten in 2 weeks. This year I am making a list of dreams. Some that we will be able to achieve this year, some that will take longer to achieve but at least will be past the dream stage and into the planning stage.

I want 2012 to be a year when some dreams were fulfilled rather than the year when resolutions were broken.

I hope you all have a wonderful 2012 with your family and friends, wherever you and they may be

Unwanted Visitors.

Wed, 05 May 2010 17:08:19 GMT

A couple of nights ago, we had a fabulous clear sky and a million stars twinkling, so I was tempted to sit outside for a while and gaze. People keep telling me how many shooting stars we see up here because of the clarity of the skies due to the absence of any street lights, house lights and any other type of lights, but so far I haven't seen any. Maybe if I sat for a while I would see my first.

As I sat I became aware of a scratching noise close by. I know we have mice living near the house and they don't worry me so I started to listen closely to see whether I could work out where they were.

As my hearing focused in, I realised that the scratching was coming from inside the bonnet of my car! Now, I have a pact with the mice, the same as I do with spiders: I don't have a problem with them PROVIDING they remain outside the house. That ruling stretches to include my car.

I called to Neil to come and listen, just to make sure I was hearing right, and he agreed - the noises were definitely coming from under the bonnet.

I ran over to the car and hammered on the bonnet making enough noise to wake the dead in the hope I would frighten the mice away. As we listened, the scratching stopped but the entire valley was suddenly filled by every dog in the area howling and barking at this sudden noise that had woken them all from their slumbers.

We waited a little longer and still heard no more scratching so I started the car up and moved him away from the front of the house, where there are mouse holes.

The following morning I went down to our local store that sells fertilisers, poisons etc and explained in my best Spanish that I had mice that were eating my car. I expected a response, but not the one I got. 'Claro! Vives en el Campo'. Of course, you live in the Campo.

What I thought to be an unusual event turns out to be perfectly normal and well known by most people, just not us. They are known for nibbling through cables and can lead to some very expensive repairs. He showed me some pale blue tablets and told me I needed to put several under the bonnet in nooks and crannies where they wouldn't fall out and the mice would nibble them and, then he stopped talking and simply stroked his finger across his throat signifying my mouse problem would be no more.

Back at the house we did as instructed and also pushed a tablet down each of the mouse holes in the hope that we could combat the attack.

2 days later we took our big car in for a service, only to be told that the mice had been in there too, but so far only nibbled at items of insulation rather than cables or other rather important items. So, having put more blue tablets around the engine we hope we have controlled the situation and will make sure to check the tablets from time to time and replace as necessary.

Whatever next?

Hard Hat Required.

Sat, 01 May 2010 07:32:30 GMT

Any ex-pat living in Spain will tell you that the 'Health & Safety' measures in the UK are seriously missing here in Spain. The more rural you get, the further they get from any H&S manual.

And so, H&S on a home building site is pretty much non-existent and it's easy to fall into the same mind set.

We're doing fencing. We're not up ladders. We're not using sharp tools. We're just doing fencing.

So why am I typing this whilst wearing some very fetching new head gear?

Well,

Before we totally enclose the paddock (as I refer to it) we needed to shift about 50 large plastic drainage pipes which have been left here since the house was built, someone really over-ordered! The plan was to put 2 large metal posts at the bottom of the next hill and stack these pipes between the hill and the posts. If we moved them now, we could just roll them down the hill, in another couple of days we would be man-handling 4 metres of drainpipe through a single gate while balancing on a steep slope. Moving them today seemed like a good idea.

The pipes haven't moved for almost 2 years so we knew there would be 'things' living in them and we would be about to evict some very cross little animals, especially as we would be working through the day and many of them could be nocturnal.

Once we had donned big boots and large gloves we set about making as much noise on the drainpipes as we could with a big stick to try and scare whatever was in them, out.

Then we began moving them. There was trails of debris falling out of the pipes as they were dragged across the lumps and bumps of the paddock, left from previous years ploughing. Bits of old straw nests, empty almond nut shells and the occasional signs of animal droppings.

After we were about halfway through moving them, I suddenly saw my first evictee, a lovely little bunny. He scampered out of the end of one of the pipes and up the hill into the overgrown Cacti near the ruined 'Nave'. I left him to settle and carried on moving the pipes when suddenly, Neil called to say we needed a longer post at one end, the stack of pipes had reached the top. As I walked over to see, I suddenly saw the whole pile of drainpipes break free from their restraints and cascade down the hill, thankfully to be trapped on the trunks of Almond trees growing on the lower level.

I shall not repeat the words that came forth from my husband's mouth, but it was clear that he was not happy!

That was the start of a day, destined to get worse.

We climbed back up to the house where all the building 'stuff' is stored and chose some longer metal posts to use for storing the drainpipes. Posts and hammer in hand, we set off to repeat the mornings work.

As these posts were 2 metres long, Neil had to climb up the hill to be able to hammer them in, so he asked me to hold the posts in place while he clambered up a near vertical slope, bits of loose rock, plant debris and the remnants of last years fallen almonds showering down on top of me. It should have been a warning.

He started to hammer in the first post with the lump hammer, and I could see the line on the post where we had marked how deep it needed to go, getting nearer and nearer to the ground, when all of a sudden.............

....... my hands left the post and flew to hold the top of my head. Wow, it hurt. I clung on to my head, screaming in pain. Neil flew down the hillside to me, shouting for me to keep still.

He reached me in seconds and threw his arms round me. He lifted my hands and uttered a few words, ' Keep your hands pressed on hard, back to the house, quick. It's bleeding'. The head of the lump hammer had come off the handle and hit me on the head!

Of course it was bleeding!

He almost had to push me up the 2 steep slopes to the house. The dogs had heard my screams and come down to see what was wrong, but I didn't have time to stop. By the time I got halfway up I couldn't breath. It appears I cannot scream, sob and breath ALL at the same time.

Eventually, we got back to the house and Neil went into action mode. Towels, ice pack and a glass of water with painkiller were brought and I allowed him to remove my hands to review the damage. Practical thoughts ran through my head. We have no phone at the house because of the satellite mess up and the mobile phones don't work here. Our neighbour was in the UK so we had no-one nearby to call. Our health cover ran out last month and I haven't sorted anything out yet because in 2 years neither if us has needed a doctor. Meanwhile Neil was sorting out my new headgear. A damp cloth, an ice pack and a pretty scarf to hold it all in place.

Gradually, I calmed down. Although the hammer head was heavy (1kg of steel) I knew it had only caught me a glancing blow, it could have been a lot worse. Neil asked if I wanted to go to hospital but I said not, I wanted to wait a little while to see if the bleeding would stop and we could see how bad the cut was. I wanted to be left to sit quietly for a while.

Neil was shaken up by what had happened, even though it was an accident, he felt responsible. Now I was sat quietly, he didn't have anything to do, the panic set in. I told him I was fine and just needed a few minutes.

10 minutes later we removed the ice pack and could see that I had been very lucky, if such a phrase could be applied to being hit on the head with a lump hammer! It hadn't cut my head, more grazed it and the bleeding had almost stopped although by now, my hair was thick and matted with blood. I put the ice and towel back on my head and rested my head back against the chair while Neil removed my boots - there would be no more work today.

Several hours later, I am perfectly fine. I managed to hang my head upside down in the shower and run lots of warm water over my hair to remove the blood. I doubt I will be able to brush my hair properly for a few days as the top of my head is very sore to touch, but otherwise is fine. The lump hammer will be repaired for future use and I have added 'Hard Hat' to my shopping list. I know I had a very lucky escape and it could have been so much worse.

I am now hoping that when I go back to the paddock today, the fairies have been and stacked all the drainpipes away, but somehow I think my luck will fall short of that happening.

Our new gadget.

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:21:03 GMT

Bad weather in Spain has consequences not normally experienced in the UK. It doesn't have to be extreme weather - just a heavy downpour, high winds or even heavy cloud which is low enough to cover us. As well as the direct effect of the weather, a lot of rain or a howling gal, the main indirect effect is thay we can lose our TV signal, and the bad weather doesn't even have to be over us, it can be anywhere between us and the UK, and we don't regain the signal until the weather passes. The other indirect effect is loss of power. This happens more often with heavy rain or snow and normally there will be a series of very short power cuts but can often last several hours.

It was always our intention to buy a generator as a back up power supply and with this in mind Neil and the electrician had installed a socket in the utility room where we could simply plug the generator in to run the lights and sockets in the house if we had a power cut for any length of time. This would make sure that we didn't have to worry about the freezers defrosting (we have 2, one in the kitchen and a second in the utility for when we are snowed in), so that we have heating through the winter and also lights for night time power cuts and of course, power to the sockets also means we continue to have the phone, internet and TV.

Neil had calculated that we needed a 3kw genny and we started to look around for one just last week. There is the usual concerns about where to buy them. We could get them cheaper from the UK than in Spain but that raises issues over the warranty, should anything go wrong. We can buy them from the internet in Spain but again, should anything go wrong it is more difficult to get it sorted dealing with companies over the phone. I know this from personal experience as I am still trying to get the phone we bought replaced because the slave handset doesn't work. This has been going on for 6 weeks and we still haven't got the replacement.

We then managed to find one in a local hardware store that fitted the bill and the budget, so after a couple of days thinking about it, last Thursday we finally decided to bite the bullet and buy it. The owner of the store asked us to call back the following day so that he had time to test that it worked ok and we finally went back on Saturday to collect it.

One of the things I still find amazing here is that they never seem to want to take your money. Having called at the store he told us we needed to drive to the other side of the Poligono to his warehouse where he had been testing it. I expected we would have to pay before we collected it - but no, they wouldn't take my money until after we had checked that it worked ok. After loading it into the back of the car we drove back to the shop so we could pay for it but it did make me wonder whether such a system would work in the UK without having to leave proof of your name, address, phone number and car details.

Anyway, genny paid for we called at the petrol station for a can of petrol and brought it home. Neil sorted it out with a cable and plug and started it up and it chugged away nicely. As our electric supply is from the little casita on the hill, about 400m over muddy, hilly terrain, we decided we would try plugging it into the house on Sunday morning so that if it tripped the fuse we could walk up to the casita to reset it in daylight.

Of course, Sunday morning dawned and we completely forgot to test the genny into the house supply...........

until 3.30pm..............

when the power went off and didn't come back on!

There was nothing to lose. We turned off the main fuse and all the individual fuses to the lights, sockets, cooker, hot tub and went and plugged in genny. Then we fired her up and turned on the fuse to the lights. In excited anticipation we turned on the hall light switch.........

and there was light.

We turned on the fuse to the sockets and all the lights on the computer servers lit up. We had power. Now we just had one problem, how would we know when the mains power was back on?

The only way is to turn the genny off every half hour and see. We don't overlook any other houses, we cannot see the town and there are no street lights in view so there is no way of knowing when the power is back on other than to try it.

Looks like we need a contraption to tell us when we have power again, but at least future powercuts will be less stressful, if a little noisier.

Finally, no more changing gas bottles before showering.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:53:04 GMT

A recap.

We decided to live in a house in the countryside 3,000 metres up a mountain. It gets cold in the winter, there is snow in the winter which is deep enough to stop us getting the car out for days at a time. We decided we would put gas central heating in running on propane from a tank as we are way too far away from any mains supply of gas. Natural piped gas is not common in this part of Spain although highly populated areas are beginning to get piped supply.

We only knew of one supplier of bottled gas, Repsol, and so spoke with them about the supply. Their tanks were massive so we would need to run off the tall bottles and were recommended to have 8 bottles and run 4 on/4 off. We weren't keen as this would look unattractive at the back of the house but, any less would mean the bottles needed changing too often and if the track was difficult to access because of snow we could run out of gas and have no heating or cooking.

In conversation with Manolo at the plumbers merchant he told us about another supplier Cespa, who did a smaller tank than Repsol, suitable for domestic use. 1,000 litres which should last for months and certainly see us through the winter months without difficulty. The tank is quite cute, if a fuel tank can be cute and it seemed perfect for our needs. Refills would be 3-4 days from order, which is a simple phone call. While we were waiting for the tank we could run the system with 4 small bottles, 2 on/2 off.

We started the process in mid-November and we received the signed contract from Cespa dated 26th November. We were given a timescale of 3 weeks for the tank to be delivered and a further 3-4 days for it to be filled up. With any luck it would all be set-up by Christmas and we wouldn't have to worry about fuel throughout the winter.

But, this is Spain. Timescales can stretch out quite a while.

The timescale for our tank has stetched way beyond expectations. In Spain you learn to be patient but this has certanly tested our patience to the limit.

The tank is manufactured in Portugal as it is cheaper than if it was made in Spain. At Christmas when we asked,it was only just in production, should be shipped early January. We had one fall of snow where we were snowed in for 3 days and on day 4 we had no choice but to dig our way out as our bottles were empty. The bottles only lasted for 4 days in really cold weather when we needed the heating on 24/7. When you run on LPG there is always a residual amount left in the bottles, normally 10% but in cold weather it can be as much as 15% - this means when you need the most get you get the least! The outside temperature affects the amount of usable gas. It also means you are paying for gas you can't actually use. Each change of bottle was costing us €10 so it is not a cost effective way of running a heating system, but it was meant to only be for a 4-5 weeks!

But this is Spain. Finally, after almost 10 weeks the tank arrived. We were told it would take about a week for the first fill and after that it would be 3-4 days for a refill from when we telephoned an order through. We were so excited.

The excitement didn't last long.

We waited for it to be filled. In the meantime we had more snow, we couldn't get out for 3 days. This time we ran out of gas on day 4, but we stayed warm through the snow. A week passed and then a second. We started calling into the shop every week for an update. Every week was the same, the paperwork is stuck in the system. We cannot get the tank filled until the paperwork is sorted.

Last Friday we finally had a call to say the tanker was coming to fill us up. We knew better than to get excited this time.

It didn't arrive.

I rang to ask why and it seems they sent the big tanker (like you see deliver fuel to petrol stations) and he was worried that the slope on our track was too much and, having got down to the house, he wouldn't be able to get back up to the tarmac road.

They needed to send the smaller tanker which has to come from further away, so doesn't come to the area every day. It would be here Tuesday or Wednesday.

It didn't come.

This morning we got a phone call. The little tanker was coming.

AND IT DID!!!!!!!!!

We now have a full tank of LPG,well 85% full - that's the maximum they can fill it. It should last us several months. We don't have to change bottles anymore.

Now, we are very excited. We're going out to celebrate tonight.

We're going to town for a PIzza!

The WInds of Change.

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:35:06 GMT

It's howling around the house tonight, gales of 45km an hour. It's been howling for several hours and is expected to continue for many more.

It's great for drying the bedding although I make sure everything is double pegged or it will end up dry but halfway down the Rambla.

As I walk round the corner of the house I am stopped in my tracks by the wind. The occasional lull allows me to continue. Even the dogs, as small as they are, struggle to walk far.

I remember last year we had strong winds in February, there were several times we didn't get to play golf because it was too windy.

It seemed to blow away winter and blow in summer, maybe this is what happens here and, once again, summer is just around the corner.

If only the wind would drop enough to let me walk around the corner!