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.
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