This week's catch up

The spell of bright weather (and the accompanying cold!) continued which was good news from an electrical power perspective and allowed the track down the hill to dry out a bit more. Not such good news for the stocks of wood but, with the help of a friend from across the valley and his beefy chainsaw, that was swiftly remedied when the beams that were taken down during the re-roofing of the bathroom got a chop.

Monday marked the 'passing of another year' but the birthday post (thank you) which had been sent well in advance was not to be seen when I took a trip to the pharmacy in Torvizcon. Having made the trip out I decided to explore and took the back road from Torvizcon which heads southwards (but circuitously!) up the to ridge of the Contraviesa range. With fabulous views looking back to the Sierra Nevada and a surprise at the top (not telling!), it will be a wonderful route to take in February & March when the almond blossom is all out. The trees are all bare now but the valleys leading up are full of them and I look forward to seeing them fully clothed.

Much effort has been expended this week in finding a replacement for 'La Furgoneta'. With sister Karen having agreed to re-house her in Northampton, I had to find something to come back to when I return from England after Christmas. After dropping Adam off last Saturday at Granada airport (no snow but VERY thick frost), I took the opportunity to view a Suzuki jeep though was unable to drive it. Bank holidays here complicated arrangements for seeing the vehicle again. With Thursday and today being fiestas, a lot of people take the day in the middle ('el puente') off as well. Eventually managed to co-ordinate the vendor plus a mechanic plus the insurance company to set things up for a visit last evening and, although I have to go to Granada next week to complete the transfer in a couple of government offices, am pleased to report that my new means of transport is, as we speak, sitting outside the house having bought it last night and driven back from Granada. I feel slightly disloyal driving it with 'La Furgoneta' still here and pray that I can bond with the jeep in the same way when I'm down to one vehicle. With the advantage of 4 wheel drive, it should open up a lot of areas of the Sierra Nevada and Contraviesa for exploring which I'm looking forward to doing.

Before the solar engineer arrived today to complete the work started on Thursday to fit two extra solar panels (yesterday's efforts being postponed due to a small of amount of rain that rendered the roof a bit slippery), I took the jeep up the steep tracks on my land for a work-out and she came through it successfully. This now opens up the  land to me and makes life one hell of a lot easier.

One of the pieces of news that I haven't reported so far is extremely good and regards a small piece of land (known as parcela 58) which sites well away from the main block of land and is located, in fact, alongside a neighbouring group of houses 10 minutes walk away. I've known about this land for a while and visited it in August after I had bought the house. Though smallish (allotment size), it is flat and holds the only examples I have of an orange tree (withered with one orange when I last saw it) and an olive tree. The recent visit, on the day before Adam left, revealed a revitalised orange tree full of (currently) green oranges and olives on the cusp of needing picking. On the way back we met an English couple who are resident there and, over coffee, determined that there was every likelihood that I would be allowed some of the spring water being fed to the surrounding land. Subsequent investigation by incredibly well-networked neighbour José has confirmed that I am allowed water (3 hours every 16 days!) and this should allow me to eventually be pretty much self-sufficient in vegetables, a.k.a. over-run with tomatoes.

Unfortunately (though not for the animals involved), the 'matanza', i.e. the despatching of the wild boar next door, has been postponed until the New Year but it does free this weekend up a bit.

Having secured the car, this morning has been a frantic rush to book ferries/planes for the trip back for Christmas when I hope to see quite a few of my 'avid readers'!

My 'to do' list before I go is somewhat large so there may not be too many more updates before Christmas.

'Sunrise' at 9 ... PM

Having reminded Adam that he ought to look at the night sky before he leaves, he got something of a shock when he stepped out last night. In the exact spot where the sun rises, there was a yellow blob yet, being 9pm, all around was dark. 

The quite surreal spectacle was, of course, caused by the almost full moon and some weird refraction away to the east.

We had been treated to a spectacularly large moon on Tuesday evening as we travelled in to Cadiar.There have been clear skies for many days now and the predicted temperature drop has well and truly kicked in. Whilst walking across to my 'orphan' parcel of land this morning, we actually encountered frost. 

Today is Adam's last day at Los Ruices for a while and it will be a 6.30am lift-off in the morning as we head off to Granda airport for him to catch his flight to Barcelona where he's meeting some friends before returning to Bristol. The threat of snow has lifted and, as it's been dry, we're hopefully not going to encounter any 'excitement' on the journey (though it will undoubtedly be a struggle getting out of a warm bed at that time).

Snow on the way(?)

Having enjoyed some beautiful weather here over the last few days which has allowed lunch, at times, to be taken on the terrace (sorry sodden Englanders!), the weather turned cloudy today. I subscribe to a daily email weather forecast and it had been saying for a few days that this would happen and that we would be experiencing a 10 degree drop in daytime and nighttime temperatures from tonight.

However, the latest report is now forecasting SNOW for Saturday.

As that is the day that I am meant to be having a very early departure  to get Adam to the airport for a flight to Barcelona, I will be keeping a very keen eye on conditions as they develop.

Chances are that Granada will be even wintrier than here. Perhaps my planned purchase of a 4x4 should have happened earlier...

Just like Franco

 After Sunday lunch with the neighbours (which featured for dessert fresh mandarin oranges from their nephew's finca),  Adam & I helped the two Josés (how do you punctuate that?) with a spot of (paid!) almond de-husking.
While we were all tidying up afterwards, Pura (José senior's wife) was herding the goats back in to their corral after their daily feast on the lush greenery which now surrounds the cortijo.
Obviously one of them was somewhat reticent to go in and, before you could blink, Pura produced a whip which she cracked loudly (no damage to the goat) and swiftly resolved the problem.
Now 'Our Pura' is a lovely, generous & kind woman but she takes no hostages, a point driven home when José turned to me (sporting his usual cheeky grin) and whispered 'como Franco!' ("just like Franco!).
Luckily, said lady was out of earshot as I'm not sure she would have welcomed the comparison and the whip might well have been back out again.

Christmas has come early

There is an innocuous small shed below the house which I had always assumed was used by my neighbours as a store-room. This illusion was dispelled one day when I heard coming from it the noise of a turkey. Further investigations revealed that Jose & Pura were indeed raising one and I became more aware of Pura's daily visits to feed it and, on one occasion, was invited to look at it. In true 'local' style, the rearing conditions (i.e. little daylight & definitiely no free-ranging) left a little to be desired but the bird was extremely large. I assumed it was destined for the Christmas table in some form.

This assumption was found to be false this afternoon when there was a knock on the door and I was presented with a large bag containing turkey breast which had come from said turkey which had weighed in at 20kg (that's almost 45lbs in old money!). While I'm sure the Spanish don't celebrate it, it was a very appropriate regalito for Thanksgiving Day.

Morning coffee outside the front-door will unfortunately therefore be gobble-free from now but Adam & I paid homage tonight with a rather delicious plate of turkey saltimbocca. With snow sitting on the mountains, only the stuffing was missing.

Colours of the High Villages

Still trying to catch up with my posts but couldn't resist posting another 'Colours of...' post. This time it is of the brightly-coloured blankets sold in the more 'touristy parts' of the area. These were taken today in Capiliera & Bubion.

Autumn

As a personal reward for a day of chores around the house, I took a walk up 'the land' around 4.30. While the cortijo was still bathed in sunshine on the first completely clear day for 2 weeks, the shadows were creeping down the hill as the sun set. A cold breeze was blowing but the sky was blue and lifted the spirits. The sun going down gave some wonderful light effects as I walked through the grape vines and, as I had my camera, I thought it would be nice to record some autumn tints. It did not seem possible 11 weeks ago when I arrived that the parched landscape that greeted me then could, given some rain, quickly turn into lush green fields patterned with saffron crocus and that I would get something akin to a late English autumn (complete with chestnuts!).

 

Sorry...

For all you avid readers, a note from the editor to say that, with a spare week before further visitors, I'm working on my blogging backlog! Have added a post ("A day in the hills") about a trip to the highest village in Spain from a week ago and there will be more to come, I promise.

A day in the hills

After the festivities the previous day, a day out was in order and, luckily, the day dawned bright and sunny.

It is now a standard part of the itinerary for visitors that I take them up to Trevélez which is generally regarded as the highest municipality in Spain (if you don't count a ski resort in Aragon!). It sits at a height of 1476m and, to give some sense of proportion, I've plugged in the graph below (which also shows where my cortijo, Los Ruices, sits in the 'ranking').

The thought of driving 'La Furgoneta' higher than Ben Nevis was daunting the first time I did it with Jamie but the van makes the trip with (relative) ease. This time there were 5 people on board and, especially as we took a more cross-country route, there were a couple of first-gear moments!

We took a 'short cut' across the valley through the villages of Lobras & Timar and then on an unmarked  (and almost un-driveable) road towards Nieles before shooting uphill to Juviles. On this part of the journey we caught sight of a flock of 25 Griffon Vultures trying to make the most of any thermals to gain height. This was shortly followed by the sight of a Golden Eagle being mobbed by two Booted Eagles with two Peregrine Falcons circling above keeping an eye on the punch-up. Quite a concentration of birds of prey in such a short distance.

Juviles prompted a stop for a spot of ham-buying for the visitors, a quick coffee in front of a log fire in a local bar and a photo opportunity with the 16th-century church of Santa María de la Gracia in the background.

Onwards then to Trevélez which involves a general climb west before turning north into the valley which Trevélez heads. This is a spectacular piece of road and one that I remember vividly from my grand tour of Spain in 2007. With pine woods on your right hand side, a very deep valley to your left and views across to the road you are on 'coming back' on its route to Orgiva. The panorama below is taken at the start of the journey north and shows the valley diverging. (Remember, clicking on the picture will open up a larger view)

This link will give you a better sense of the terrain http://binged.it/Qry9qJ

We had a lovely 3-course lunch with wine for a tenner in Trevelez, the picture below showing my regular eating spot.

The sun shone though coats & jumpers came off and went back on at various stages through the meal. Given that it's the 2nd of November, there was little grumbling!

We then retraced our steps, stopping off at the river though not to cool of feet as had been done on the previous trip here with Jamie in September. A further stop was made to take the panorama photograph above. The picture below shows 'La Furgoneta' enjoying the rest with 'my' hills (the Contraviesa) away south in the background.

We then took the road west towards Almejigar which would bring us then down to the main valley road near Torvizcon and home. I did a detour to show everyone my municipal town (Castaras) which is visible across the valley from Los Ruices. While picturesque in its autumnal setting (see below), it hasn't got much of note and we could have saved a gallon of petrol!

Though the straight line distances are short, in reality one covers alot of miles when driving in the area as you can count the pieces of road that are straight for more then 100 yards or are level on the fingers of one hand. The previous evening, our neighbour Jose had tried to convince us to visit the Chestnut festival in Nieles. That would have meant covering a fair proportion of the roads we had just driven but in the dark. Call me faint-hearted if you will but after all the preparations for the fiesta and the drive to Trevélez on the cards, I did bottle out. Perhaps next year. The thought of hot chestnuts and hot chocolate on a cold autumn evening does sound rather inviting.

The 'Los Ruices Fiesta'

Today is Día de todos los Santos (All Saints Day) which is a national holiday. As it is also near the end of Dad & Elsie's stay here plus I wanted to thank those people who had helped me settle in to Los Ruices, I decided many weeks ago to host a lunch for neighbours and friends. So amongst all the shenanigans of grape picking, processing & dealing with temperamental generators & the host of other daily problems, I have also been planning the meal.

With much assistance from the other current residents, the hall & 'dining room' downstairs were cleared & cleaned and set up with tables & chairs and a 3-course lunch was served bang on time at 2pm. Having started preparing the food at 6pm yesterday this was something of a minor miracle. The day had dawned with rain but it soon settled into being a clear, sunny day though a tad windy. Given the time of year, I had already decided to stage the meal indoors.

The main attraction was slow-cooked roast pork from a recipe I'd been given and even in the absence of an oven with a thermostatic control(!) the outcome (after 4 hours of cooking) was, I felt,  very good. This was reinforced by the various favourable comments made and the requests for the recipe. Due to the preparations for dessert (postre), I only got to eat my main course cold but it was delicious nonetheless.

I'm not quite sure what the neighbours think of me as I really don't think real men cook out here but Jose & Pura both pronounced the meal 'very good' and, indeed, had 2 desserts (my signature pear dessert and trifle) neither of which they'd had before. They may have been warmed up to the idea that I cook by the peach cake I made some weeks ago but they've had the Full Monty now. Mr Gribble believes that on the back of today's performance my neighbours are probably racking their brains trying to come up with the Spanish equivalent for 'gay straight'!

On the back of a few days of harvesting my grapes, yesterday's pressing (separate entry to follow with pictures) and last night and today's culinary exertions, I confess to feeling pretty tired and the wooden hill (well, tiled stone hill actually) beckons.

Off in to the hills tomorrow to show the visitors Trevelez; here's hoping we have a clear day like today and we're not driving through cloud! With today being a holiday and the weekend imminent, most people will be taking tomorrow off too as a 'bridge' day. Try that one at home when Boxing Day falls on a Thursday!

Notes:
Full Guest List
Mallock Family - Chris, Kylie, Lola, Isabella & Carlos (friends from Cadiar)
Jose, Pura & Jose (full-time neighbours)
Dad, Elsie & Adam (family)
Chris Gribble (visitor)
Sr Zappata (irregular adjoining neighbour)
Me

Menu
1st course (Primero)
Tomato salad
Sunshine salad (red pepper, aubergine, shallot)
Spinach, raisin & pine-nut salad
Chorizo cooked in local wine
Saltimbocca (pork tenderloin & serrano ham)
Bread
Wine or Grape juice from yesterday's pressing

2nd course (Segundo)
Slow-cooked leg of pork with roast potatoes
Carrots
Patatas pobre (courtesy of Kylie)
(Vegetarian option of spinach, Brie, courgette & onion stack)

3rd course
Poached pears with butterscotch sauce, shortbread biscuit & pear sorbet
Trifle