La vendimia ha comenzado (or The grape harvest has started)

The whole morning was spent finishing off preparations for the next pressing. This involved 'bodegal gymnastics'  which is a new sport I have invented here at Los Ruices. The various disciplines of this include:
a) long-distance siphoning
b) climbing a ladder with another ladder and inserting second ladder into a wine vat
c) barrel dis-orienteering [involves darkness, sweeping round the barrel and guessing which way you're pointing when you've finished; one is always wrong]
d) the suplhurous 10m dash [to be done when the neighbour has lit several sulphur candles to fumigate the vat and a swift exit from the bodega is required; extra points if you don't use a handkerchief)

FINALLY at about 4pm I heard the news that my neighbour (the one who is 'attached' to my house and has come down from Madrid for the vendimia) had started picking. This set in train a rapid movement of personnel (Adam, Elsie & I) and machinery ('La Carretilla')up the hill and picking commenced. Just over and hour later, we returned with approximately 100kg of grapes which are now sitting in the cool of the wine room waiting to be joined by lots more grapes over the next 2-3 days and then be pressed.

The cavalry arrives late tomorrow afternoon in the form of a certain Mr Gribble who will be a most welcome addition to the task force for Tuesday's picking.

Yours truly inside a vat

Adam thinking "If I put the lid on, noone would hear him scream"

My revenge

The grapes arrive!

Thunder & rainbows & bubbles

The wet weather we experienced on Wednesday has continued. The noise of the rain early this morning (5-ish) woke all bar our most elderly resident up. Thunder was heard yesterday and today and the valley has been pretty much filled with cloud all day today. There have been a couple of breaks including one where we were treated to a beautiful rainbow. The forecast is better for tomorrow and we're now hoping to start the grape harvest on Sunday. It will have to be a vendimia rapida as we've only got until about Thursday before another turn is forecast (and that is also the day of the Los Ruices fiesta). The sequential plan for the harvest followed by party preparation has gone for a burton and it's going to be very busy next week. Luckily, more help is arriving and I have been offered additional help (in exchange for wine!) which I may well call upon.

'Work' is mainly house-focussed at the moment with Dad in the workshop repairing furniture, Adam laying in stocks of firewood and clearing the stables (corrales) & Elsie and myself tidying & rearranging the house while (finally) unpacking my non-urgent belongings that arrived 6 weeks ago.

I am pleased to report that fermentation has kicked in with the Tempranillo grape must in the bodega, somewhat over-vigorously as we had to deal with a leakage through the 'exhaust' valve on the tank as wine bubbled out with the carbon dioxide that is produced. We are still working our way through some grape juice that we have kept in the fridge but I swear that that has also started fermenting (hic).

Here's hoping for some sunshine to aid our final preparations tomorrow.

After the rush

Crikey! It's been nearly a week since I gave any form of decent update. That's not been for want of trying but down to complete lack of time.

As reported, the builders and plasterers finished last Wednesday, the solar engineer was here Thursday & Friday to fit and commission my new system, I did the grapes on Thursday, the cleaner was here Friday & Saturday to reclaim the house after the builders/plasterers and I left at 8am Sunday morning to pick up my Dad, his wife (Elsie) and my youngest son Adam up from Malaga airport. WHAT A MAD WEEK! (Apologies to all and sundry if they've not had replies to emails etc but I present the above as mitigating circumstances.)

My neighbours Jose, Pura & son Jose were absent when we arrived back here from the airport as they had gone to Granada for the christening of their grand-daughter. They fetched up early evening in their finery, met my visitors and then swiftly changed so that they could feed their goats before nightfall. The usual inflow from the neighbours of little presents (regalitos) for the visitors was therefore delayed until the following day when grapes, chestnut honey (delicious!), soft goats cheese & persimmons (kakis) arrived. My reciprocation of lifts to/from town and picking up groceries/bread for them feels inadequate but as that means they avoid a mile walk downhill, two bus rides and a mile walk uphill then I guess they feel it balances out.

The arrival of help has made so much difference. As previously blogged, we've managed to press the grapes (photos will follow) with a lot of help from Pura and just under 400 litres of Tempranillo grape must is now sitting in my new stainless steel tank and (hopefully) thinking about starting to ferment. Everything then had to be cleaned down ready for the grapes that will come in from my harvest. That was due to start tomorrow but we have had rain today with more forecast tomorrow and we need 2 days of sun after the rain to dry the grapes before picking. So that won't start until Sunday at least. My friend Chris arrives on Monday so we will have more hands to the pumps to get the harvest in quicker which will be useful if the weather is going to be flakey.

It is Dad & Elsie's 25th wedding anniversary today and I'd planned to take them to the restaurant at the Cuatro Vientos winery that I visited a few weeks ago. It started raining about 10.30 and we nearly didn't go out but there was a break in the weather which allowed us to go and I'm glad we did. Our meal was lovely (as was the wine) and, after paying the bill, I spotted the chap who'd shown me round on my previous visit. I explained we were up for a celebratory lunch and he gave Dad & Elsie a bottle of bubbly and organised a tour of the winery for them! After the tour, we took a scenic route back via Murtas which involved lots & lots of bends, driving above and in the clouds and enjoying some fabulous scenery.

Am currently wading through emails while the downstairs and upstairs fires are burning. It's quite cozy although t'others are currently in the process of going to bed. The benevolent autocracy I am running appears to be tiring them out even though they did almost have a full day off today.

Pressing matters

Tempranillo grapes pressed today...now the waiting begins.

Crushing news

First 30 kilos of grapes already through the crusher. Fresh grape juice anyone?

The grapes arrive

The grapes from 'up the hill' finally arrived at 3pm; somewhat later than expected, no reason given & all perfectly normal for round here. Also, as is usual, the event did not pass without incident. I spotted Antonio coming down the track in his ancient Land Rover Santana and then watched it expire 20 yards short of my wine room. Having watched it earlier in the week try and tackle a hill and observed that 'La Furgoneta' ought to be proud of herself as she had more 'oomph', it ought not to have been too much of a surprise. The Landy is currently residing in the threshing circle awaiting a visitation from a mecánico.

This of course provided us with a problem as the Land Rover contained 29 boxes of freshly-picked Tempranillo which needed to get to my wine room. At this point, my powered barrow ('La Mula' [=mule] as she is henceforth to be known) saw active service for the first time and gamely carried 8 crates at a time to the wine room. (She got somewhat sticky in the process and is up for a clean tomorrow.)

And there the grapes sit awaiting being put through the mill tomorrow. After the machinations of this week, I feel adequately qualified to advise them how that might feel...

To prepare for tomorrow, I went to Cadiar this evening to obtain a few things for the bodega and took the opportunity to get other stuff. The contents of the van when I came back read as follows:

1x 400 litre stainless steel wine fermentation tank
1 x 2 metre length of drainpipe
4 sausages, a pork chop & a black pudding (morcilla
2 gas bottles
3 x 200 litre plastic barrels
A bag of groceries
(...and me)

I assure you the tank and barrels are not particularly small but, with help of some cushions for padding, they all fitted inside the van. What would I do without her? (Rhetorical question)

The VERY good news from today is that THE BUILDING WORK IS FINISHED! Pepe arrived this afternoon and proceeded to install 2 large pieces of opaque, tinted, very thick (and very expensive) safety glass on top of the skylight mechanisms. It was not what I had expected but (as you will see from the pictures that WILL follow), an air of modernism has made it to the Alpujarras and I am very pleased. The skylights open from below and will improve the ventilation in the summer.

The plasterers have been fantastic and, as well as doing an extremely good job dealing with at least 5 different kinds of ceiling material to cover, dispensed much advice on wine-making and preventing woodworm! (The answer to the latter is to paint your wooden beams with used engine oil; apparently it doesn't smell, costs nothing and woodworm hate it.) I suspect my limited Spanish may not be as limited as I think as it seems to have stood the test of being surrounded by Spanish workmen for the last 5 weeks. As I left for Cadiar this evening, I even managed to crack a joke which caused much amusement.

It feels like I'm on the home straight now and that I will be ready for the visitors on Sunday. Just need the next two phases to come off (solar engineer [tomorrow] & cleaner [Friday/Saturday]) and I'm there.

Trapped...

Am currently 'trapped' in my kitchen as the plasterers have now moved on the hallway and I'm cut off from the outside world by scaffolding and plastic sheeting. The hall is the last room to do but it is probably the largest, highest and most complicated as the ceiling is currently wooden beams and cane. There is dust everywhere!

It has given me the opportunity though to thoroughly clean the kitchen in preparation for the weekend arrivals. This has involved opening the fridge for the first time since it was switched off 2 weeks ago (due to the power issues). I think its fair to say that NASA could have saved millions if they'd gone to my fridge instead of Mars in their search for alien life-forms...

Hot news today is that my Tempranillo grapes (due Friday) are apparently arriving TODAY as bad weather is predicted for Friday which would preclude any harvesting. Luckily, all is ready for their arrival. Now means though that as they have to 'sit' for 5 days before pressing (in order to let the skins colour the juice), it will now be pressing day on Monday. Should be an interesting first full day for my visitors!. In the meantime I know I have to keep agitating the grapes so I might be taking my shoes and socks off!

Manic Monday

So, if you've kept up, Monday's list consisted of:
a) the builders coming back to finish off
b) the plasterers arriving to do the inside of the house
c) delivery of my powered barrow
d) the solar engineer arriving to replace my batteries

My slight pessimism about all this coming off was not misplaced. The element which failed was the 'solar system' one (the only one that involved an Englishman!). Despite having paid the suppliers 10 days ago, the solar engineer was informed yesterday morning that the batteries I wanted were not in stock. Why it took until 9am yesterday for this to be 'discovered' remains a mystery but the bottom line is that I would have to wait another 2-3 weeks for replacement batteries of the same size as my current ones or pay more to get high capacity batteries that are in stock. Given the impending arrival of visitors, Mr Hobson came in to play so yet more money to fork out (although a 50% discount on the increased price has been negotiated). Oh, and the new batteries won't fit in their current home so carpentry involved... Hopefully all will be well on Thursday when they are installed. The Spanish use the same verb for 'wait' and 'hope' (esperar) which sometimes seems very appropriate out here!

The builders have finished. Was quite 'emotional' saying goodbye to Nene and Jesus as I've enjoyed their company And our lunch-break chats(Pepe will be returning later in the week with safety glass for my new skylights) but will be hopefully getting together with them one evening next week for a drink and tapas.

The plasterers are AMAZING. They managed to do the bathroom, utility room and the small downstairs bedroom in one day. The master bedroom is due to be done today with the hallway following tomorrow and then they're done! As it has to be left to dry for a month, indoor painting is off the agenda for next week when I have willing hands so it's likely (weather permitting) to be outdoor painting of the new terrace.

Looking good for all the decks to be cleared before LouLou the Cleaner arrives on Friday. Not sure she knows what she's let herself in for.

The powered barrow arrived lunchtime and I'm delighted with it. It is going to save me SO much effort carting stuff around. Various test drives have been performed (including a quick blast up my nearest field) and completed successfully. Haven't filled it with 4.5 tonnes yet (!); guess the handling performance may be somewhat different to when empty!

The wine room and the bodega are all clean now. Note to self: check that the wine room floor is sealed before applying copious quantities of water otherwise you might get a flood downstairs in the master bedroom. NOte to readers: Change 'might' in above sentence to 'will'! (Thank God for the wet & dry vac!) All is now pretty much ready for the arrival of the Tempranillo grapes on Friday and those from my harvest next week. Starting to get a bit excited...

Dashed in to Torvizcon late yesterday as the pharmacy had phoned my neighbour to say there was lots of post for me (thank you Susie). It included my new tax disc for the van and a lovely long letter from Pam bringing me up to speed on all the news from Stapleton. 

(Woke up again to snow on the mountains this morning. Although no rain here, they must have had cloud sitting on them overnight.)

Apologies for lack of recent photos; will rectify soon!

Anyone for wine?

Went for a jaunt earlier up the track'  with my neighbour Jose' to visit a neighbouring farmer (Antonio) on his vineyard.

Now I'm contemplating how much work I have to do to prepare for the 600kg of Tempranillo grapes that will be arriving on Friday lunchtime!
just like these ones...

Making red wine was not in my original Year 1 plans but I'm taking the view that life is too short and I just need to get on with it. So, come the end of the year, I'll have 400 litres of red wine to sell/barter. Was thinking of advertising an 'early bird offer'!...how does '£2.50 a litre, collection only sound'???? Perhaps I just need to offer 'drink all you like' holidays...that might work.

Another holiday!!

Today is the Fiesta Nacional de Espana (Spanish National Day). With the local holidays, that's the fourth fiesta day in the last eight! So all is quiet and the interminable rumble of the cement mixer has ceased until Monday (although the generator will be on later this afternoon as I've loads of washing catch up on).

Yesterday was a l..o..n..g day away from the cortijo. Having arranged to pick up from Orgiva a (very) cheap wet & dry vacuum cleaner (found on the aply-named 'Second hand tat in La Alpujarra' Facebook page), I got a call from the shop in Lanjaron with the news that the tracked barrows 


(remember this from a previous post nearly 3 weeks ago  )

were due that afternoon.

So having handed over my 20 euros for the vac (ideal for the pre-grape harvest cleanout that is under way), I found myself with 5 hours to kill as the alternative (come home and go back) would have meant nearly 2 hours driving. Given my push to remediate my 'overslim' physique, I went for a 3-course lunch with wine and coffee (all for a tenner) in Orgiva and then drove to Lanjaron and has a short snooze parked up overlooking a lovely gorge. Arriving at the shop at 5.15, I was told that the owner wouldn't be there for 20 inutes and perhaps I'd like to go for a coffee in the bar next door. This I did and found that the tab was being picked up by the shop.

When the owner arrived I had an opportunity to drive the barrow and it was immediately plain that it is going to be my saviour on the farm. With the ability to carry 4500kg and deal with severe slopes, it will save so much time & effort shifting crops, stone & wood around the place (plus it will be able to pull me up the hills!). It's narrow enough to get through the door of my workshop but  the sides can be pulled out to accommodate larger loads. Looks like I should also be able to attach a tow bar which may allow me to attach a harrow for 'stimulating' the soil here without ploughing which I am trying to avoid.

I stopped in Orgiva to re-stock with food and then had a drive in the twilight back to the cortijo arriving just as dark fell. Too dark to see what the builders had achieved that day so that 'excitement' awaited me this morning.

Due to the bank holidays, getting the cash for the barrow (as card won't do...) is proving problematic so not sure whether it will come Saturday (ideal) or Monday morning. 

The latter is not ideal as:
a) the builders will be back to continue finishing off (nearly there!; pictures to come)
b) the plasterers arrive to do the inside of the house
c) the solar engineer arrives to replace my batteries etc

As you can see, it's going to be a busy start to next week! The cleaner is booked for Friday & Saturday as my first major influx of guests (Dad, Elsie & Adam) arrives next Sunday. With other friends arriving in the south of Spain at the same time, it looks like (in terms of help around the place) I'll be going from feast to famine. There's plenty for them to do though!

The Bird List

The list of bird species increases (though not going to bore you with it just yet!).

Saw some Long-Tailed Tits today which took me back to watching them from my terrace in Bristol flitting through the treetops.

No pictures of them as I was coming up the hill in the van at the time but here's a photo of a Spotted Flycatcher taken from higher up on my land on Saturday.

PS. In case you didn't know, if you click on any of the pictures in the blog then you'll be shown a bigger version of the picture

Colours of the Fiesta - Part2

Colours of the bullfight... 

Bullring - Sky

Matador Cape 1 - Matador Cape 2

Matador Cape 3 - Matador Cape 4

Horse - Bull

Colours of the Fiesta - Part 1

A number of women & girls wore traditional Andalucian dresses to the Fiesta today in Cadiar.

Normal service has resumed

I'm now reconnected which is a relief. Unlikely to be much posting happening today however as I have to prepare for a visit to the local fiesta in Cadiar. While the various activities go on over the weekend, the fountain in the centre of town spews free wine. I suspect the local pharmacia has a busy time when it's over. Am going to err on the side of caution and park the van up in town and sleep in it tonight.

With some trepidation, I'm going to my first bullfight at 5pm. Despite my extensive travels in Spain I've always managed to arrive in places 2 days ahead or behind a bullfight so, with one on my dorrstep, I'm determined to go and observe. I'll report back (and try not to sound like |Hemingway).

Just a nice picture...

A flock of pigeons went past this morning in the early light.

Hace sol

It's a very sunny, calm day here today (as was yesterday).
The roof situation has MUCH improved and, while it won't be completely level to allow for drainage, it is looking a lot better than over the weekend.
Yesterday a spaceman (well that's what he looked like in all his protective gear), came and sprayed insulating foam over the whole roof and then work started on another layer of concrete.

The waterproof membrane goes on tomorrow hopefully. We're nearly there; work may just creep into w/c 15th October but that allows time for a clean-up before the visitors start arriving.

The power situation is manageable (i.e. I don't have to go to bed at 8.30 and wear a head-torch to read!) pending the decision on what to do and whether a replacement of the batteries is necessary.

Will try and post a bit more while the sun is shining and giving me enough juice to run the internet connection.

Wiring is being disconnected Thursday & Friday so will be offline and without phone until they are reconnected (hopefully, that will be Saturday); normal service will resume thereafter.