Wednesday 30-8-2006

I went down to Turre to load up the blog whilst Elayne stayed back at El Pinar doing ‘women’s things’.
I had a long nice chat with Mike Newman via Skype. He and Joan have been working and busy none stop for several months now, what with the Wharfedale festival and then ‘the wedding in America’ and they have just yesterday finished with the church flower festival (they make me tired just listening to them, they both put so much energy into everything ,they are like a pair of human dynamos). They and their team have raised another two thousand pounds, from the flower festival for the church organ fund, well done. They are both going for a well deserved ‘chill out’ in Devon for a few days.
Debs sent us a picture of their two lovely black and white kittens. They are about six weeks old and are called Shimona and Magic. They have just got them so they will have great fun with Ivan and Ollie.
I’ll try to get the picture on the blog if I can find out how to do it.
As we have had a cushy day we went for an evening drive to a little place called Agua Amarga. It is North East of Almeria and South of Carboneras and about 50k from El Pinar. It was recommended to us by Eric (across the road) as a nice little sea side place. Eric is from Oldham so perhaps we should not have put too much store in what he said (an in joke with MHN who’s also from Oldham, but despite that he‘s OK). It turned out to be a really nice small place with lovely sands and a cove type of bay. We paddled as we always do and I tried really hard not to look at topless, and in some case bottomless, ladies on the beach. We then took the coast road back up to Mojacar via Carboneras. It is a spectacular drive zig zagging up mountain roads that are actually over hanging the cliff face and are suspended off the mountain, thank goodness we have an automatic car.

Tuesday 29-8-2006

Great evening at Mojacar last night listening to a Spanish pop group until two then watching a spectacular fire work display and getting back to El Pinar about three.
We have been up to Taberno today to have a look at the site after we were told that Javier was starting work there yesterday. What an amazing difference, the ruin is demolished and gone and the drive way, the parking area and the house area are all flattened. The ‘hebe’ water deposit tank site has been dug about three meters cubed and the three huge potto pipes are on site ready for sinking about three meters down for the caravan waste water etc. We expected quite a mess but they have done a really good job and the site is not a mess at all.
Four pictures today. One of a weird sort of grasshopper that was on the patio at El Pinar today. Three of the site at Taberno, one of which has the caption ‘Bob, I told you not to upset that gravel truck driver’.
BTW 33 today!

Monday 28-8-2006

It’s back up at thirty two today, and more down in the town.
We took extra passport pictures to Isobel Lopez (our lawyer), recovered our passports from her office and then went into Mojacar to see the lunch time grand procession of San Agustin from the church with the local Senorita Mojacar and attendants plus the Mojacar municipal brass band (I would have had them marching properly if it was my band, give me six weeks with them and I knock them into proper shape grrrrrr!!). As the procession wound it’s way all around the back and front streets of the pueblo it was proceeded by a guy letting off enormous sky rockets with his cigar and from only his gloved hand. These exploded high into the air with a terrific bang that shook the whole town (was San Agustin something to do with fire works perhaps?). It was great with all the children and ladies in their Sunday best and the gents with clean shirts, best trousers and shoes on. Later we had a drink and tapas in our favourite little bar, did some shopping and came back to the pool in El Pina. We will chill out for a few hours and then perhaps go back down for the final night of music, entertainment and a fire work display at about two (were starting to get into the swing of nocturnal things a little here).

Sunday 27-8-2006

Three o’clock we arrived home this morning, after a fabulous fiesta night in Mojacar pueblo. We listened to two live Spanish popular bands, who between them were playing tango’s and rumba’s as well as Spanish and UK recognised hits, when we arrived at ten o’clock, and were still going strong until we submitted and set off home at twenty to three. The atmosphere was brilliant, with children and old folks all singing and dancing for all they were worth the whole night long. We were only dressed in our day wear, tee shirts and shorts etc and we were splendidly warm all evening, even though the pueblo is actually very high up.
The fiesta actually goes on for four nights. How they manage all that drinking, eating and dancing is amazing. All round the back streets of the pueblo the bars were all playing their own loud music and the customers were spilling out into the streets ,quite apart from what goes on in the plaza. The cacophony of noise and music at times is quite breath taking in and around the narrow streets of the town. The Spanish must think an awful lot of San Agustin to warrant so much partying.
I am writing this at half past ten Sunday morning and we have just crawled out of bed feeling very ‘fiesta lagged‘. We didn’t have anything alchofrolic to drink, after a pint at El Pinar, before we set off for Mojacar, so we are not really hung over (well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!). I think a gentle sort of a day is perhaps demanded today.
The pictures are of a superb sunset over El Pinar at about nine o’clock last night and of course the magic of the Mojacar Fiesta.

PS: Happy 12th Wedding Anniversary to Steve and Debs for today, HANDayXXXX I & O XXX

Saturday 26-8-2006

We have had a gentle day today after the excesses and excitement of last night. We went down to Turre to do the blog and then because it was hot (still around 29-30 ‘ish) we went down to the Mojacar beach area in the hope that it may not be too busy. What a shock when we got down onto the beach road. For five weeks now we have had to queue up just to get onto the round-about that leads onto the beach road. Today there was no queue at all and we drove along the sea front at fifty k/hr. It was just as though someone had vacuumed the usual mass of people up and away. There was still quite a few Spanish families there but by comparison it was very quiet. We have been kidding and saying that we’ll be glad when the damned holiday makers go home, and now they have and we can walk along the beach and it’s lovely and relatively uncrowded. How’s that for selfish??
Tonight we are going to go again to Mojacar pueblo to see what goes on with their Fiesta of San Agustin, we know that they have pop groups on in the plaza so we’ll set off around ten and see what transpires. The fiesta finishes either tomorrow or Monday, we think. See pictures of the preparation in the plaza (also the static caravans that we saw yesterday). We’ll report back tomorrow if we wake up in time J Turre has a Fiesta of San Ramon on Thursday, talk about any excuse to party, we like it.

Friday 26-8-2006

We sent a thank you email, from the internet café at Turre, to some really super friends at Pool who sent a nice surprise gift to us by post on the 3rd August. It only arrived yesterday and so has taken over twenty days to arrive.
We went up to Antas and found the two caravans that are for sale. Although they couldn’t really be described as immaculate they do have some potential with a bit of TLC, and providing that they can be transported to our site OK. We will visit a few other sales places before making a final decision on the matter early next week.
We came back to the rental very hot and sticky this afternoon but half an hour in the pool soon had us cooled down, it was quite chilly in the water and there was a warm but stiff wind blowing.
There is some sort of celebrations/fiesta taking place in Mojacar pueblo this weekend (probably celebrating a bank holiday or that the kids will be back at school soon) so we will go up there tomorrow evening and see what’s to do.
No pictures of any inspiration today, we will try harder tomorrow, promise.
We went over the road to Isobel and Eric’s last night and had a really nice supper together with friends from the village Roger, Nancy, Frank and Chris. It was a lovely warm evening of excellent alfresco food in very good company. After supper Eric staged what we called a ‘Crepe Cabaret‘ (which very quickly degenerated into the ‘Crap Cabaret‘ after us all having several small libations). This involved a long and hot session for Eric where he cooked personalised and individual crepes for each of us. He cooked them on a tableside serving trolley using just a his trusty and old single burner camping gaz stove and a small frying pan. This stove has travelled with Eric and Isobel all over the globe and has been used even in preference to buying a cup of café at a motorway service station on a wet winters day I Belgium (I think it was Belgium). The crepes cooked very slowly and were then doused liberally with Cointreau and flamed. As each crepe was served the rest of the company could only sit and watch it’s rapid consumption before the next crepe was prepared and cooked. The end result was brilliant and the chat and banter became very funny. It was not unlike watching one of Tommy Coopers sketches. It was an all-round super evening and a big thank you to Isobel and Eric for inviting us.

Thursday 24-8-2006

Today we went to our lawyer at Vera to start the process for making a Spanish will. We are also going to apply officially to become Spanish residents as this helps to get our full health service facilities by reciprocal agreement with the UK. I assumed that we already had these forms from our very first visit to the Mayors office in Bedar when we bought the car. However for these residents cards we have to apply via our lawyer with our NIE and passport documents and then we have to go down to Almeria with some more passport pictures and there have our finger prints taken and then at some stage after that they will send our residency cards to us, we hope. I had read about this document before and about people spending many hours waiting at the local police station to be processed. We would have left this until later except for it’s connection with the Spanish NHS so we had better grasp the nettle sooner rather than later.
After this session with our lawyer we travelled further up the coast, via a supermarket, for a paddle and picnic to a resort called Villaricos. It is north of Garrucha and a little further round the coast from the naturist beach, that we stumbled upon a while back. We bought fresh French stick bread and some ham and cheese together with drinks and a sort of sweet cake in a plastic bag, that Elayne fancied. We have not been up in this area before and it’s very nice. We got to the beach and tucked into broken fresh rolls stuffed with ham and cheese (what a life), they were delicious. As we were about to eat the sweet cake we noticed on the label that they were called ‘Fartons’. I kid you not we sat on the beach and ate fartons!!!! They were actually very nice once we had got over the name, but very sweet (I suppose they had to be really ;-)))))))
Pam phoned from Taberno to say that Javier (pronounced Havia), the builder, will start on the site work on Monday morning at half past eight, so we should see some real progress up on site. Also today via Gill and the internet, we have made contact with a chap in Essex who has two static caravans for sale at a site just north of us at Antas (about 6k away). We have arranged with a friend of his, at Antas, to go to see these caravans, described as immaculate, tomorrow at twelve. It would be really useful if we could get these two at a reasonable price and then have them shipped up to Taberno quite soon. We’ll see.
Pictures today of our drive up the coast near San Juan de Terreros, but not of us eating fartons. And an agnostic Mantis (not praying) that Elayne spotted on the patio this morning. It’s such a good picture that you can zoom in quite a long way to see it’s slit eyes and it’s markings.

Wednesday (have a rebate for Tuesday).

After complaints from ‘the readership’ this morning I thought that I’d better get back upto date with the blog.
For the past two days the cyber café computers have been running so slow that I have been unable to download any information or pictures. It has been very frustrating because the blog has already been written and the pictures taken. I have now been able to get them onto Blogger at last. The lady at the café says that Telefonica (who everyone blames, Spanish BT) has been making changes to their system. Anyway I think it should be back to some semblance of order now.
We have had another hot day up at Taberno today. We have been talking to the builder who will start demolishing the ruin and levelling areas for the new house, the pool and the static caravans. He will also dig out a ‘below ground water tank’ at the top of the land that should hold about 20000 litres of water when it’s finished. He will also do two pottos, one near the caravans and one near the house. He thinks that he may be able to make a start next week. This would be good, so that we can have the caravan site already dug out when we go to see the vans. The caravan area will be like a two tier lay-by off the track leading down through the land. The upper level will have the storage van on it and the lower level (probably half a metre below) will have the living van on it. This, we hope, will afford some prevailing west wind protection in the winter for the living van.
We did not realise how hard it would be to determine the design of the house. We have kicked it about now for quite some time now and we are not a lot further on with it. We have got to get this done quite soon now or we will disrupt the start of the building.

Monday, we missed Tuesday so next one Wednesday!!!

From Paul again, how does she get on this computer with all the security I have in place??
Last night we ended up at a Jazz bar in Mojacar, old town. We saw some flamenco dancing and listened to some great jazz music. We got home about two ‘ish.
Today we have been up to Taberno. Bob took us up to near Lorca (about 40k north of Taberno) to view some static caravans. When we got there the place was closed for August, back in September ;-((( What a wasted journey.
Elayne and I then went up to ‘our land’ and marked out things in white spray paint. We marked out the site for the water tank, the site for the ‘potto’ soak away system tanks, the area for the swimming pool and tennis courts and the area where the static’s will be parked for the duration of the build. We will not start digging the pool out or levelling the tennis court area until we are certain that our budget will stretch that far after building the house and the main essentials first.
Today’s pictures are: Mojacar at night, it’s almost like being in Polperro in Cornwall only warmer, and the flamenco dancer in the jazz bar

Sunday 20'8'2006 )Ithink=

From Elayne
Paul is so laid back about being out here, that he now thinks that the 20th of August is 48 hours long. I think the sun has got to him.
We started the day in the usual way of visiting the cyber café to update the blog. We then went to the supermarket to get some supplies.
The place was so busy that it took us 15 minutes to get to our turn at the checkout.
Last night Eric had shown us some rocks, that he and his grandchildren had collected from down in the gully, just up the road from us. They have streaks of azurite and malachite in them, and look very striking, so we went down to have a poke around for ourselves.
El Pinar used to be a mining village, years ago, and the cliffs of rock were full of caves and holes and tunnels. It was also very hot out of the wind. We found some pieces to collect, then I found the beautiful large piece in the photo. It should make a good door stop, or anything else of complete uselessness, but it is pretty and I like it J We were so hot when we got back that we had a swim in the pool, which was pretty chilly I might add. We are now chilling out, or warming up, with a cup of tea, whilst we think of anything else wildly exciting to do with the rest of the day.

Saturday 20-8-2006

We contacted a Jane Clutter this morning, who does translations, to arrange for her to translate our Title Deed document. She lives just up the road in El Pinar so we said that we would meet in ‘the bar’ (what a good meeting place) at two o’clock this afternoon. We wanted first to copy the Deed ,so that we had a reserve , so we set off to look for a business with a copy facility. We hunted everywhere to find a simple photocopier and eventually an estate agent (with a shrewd eye for perhaps future business) took pity on my pleas and did all of our copying, for nothing, bless him, what a nice gesture. We went to the El Pinar taverna about a quarter to two and had a drink.
We weft, or was it night? the tar at tearly after tree o‘rock, high ditch mime we dad a grew shrinks, without even taking contact with Brane Strutter.
Knee bill now have a tort siesta and dry again tater.zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Oops JJJ (how’s that Debs?, a small in joke about my J‘s and !’s getting mixed up) we stayed too long at the bar this afternoon waiting for Jane and my head is hurting a bit now. We will make contact again and probably take the deeds round to her house. (Paul will perhaps stay more sober that way )J J
We had a lovely evening with Isobel and Eric tonight. We went round about half past seven and we found that we had so much in common that before we knew it it was eleven o’clock. Isobel’s draft book about embroidery onto and from paper is superbly illustrated, very interesting and imaginative. They are both going on a three month book promotion tour of the UK next year starting at York. What a nice and kind pair they are (hank you again both for a really enjoyable evening). We look forward to Friday evening with them and their friends.
Todays picture: Your guess. Answers to be written on a €20 note and posted to me.

Friday 18-8-2006

We went over to Vera with Gill to see our solicitor Isabel Lopez today to collect a copy of the transfer of the land documents that we all signed on Wednesday. It is called an ‘Escritura De Compraventa‘ (Deed of dealing), we get the originals later as mentioned the other day.. We now want to have them translated so that we can see the names of our neighbours and what it all says about the land, it should be quite interesting. We of course know the salient points of it already, or we hope that we do.
After the winds and sand storm yesterday we came home after some shopping, to start sweeping up the outside area of the rental and the pool area. It’s amazing how much sand we actually swept from the balcony, the outside washroom and the patio. The wind that we had yesterday is called a ‘Scirocco’ which is a hot desert wind from North Africa. It pebble-dashes the backs of your legs if like we did, you choose to walk along the beach during it L It’s a good job that ‘the pool man’ came last night, because the pool was a real mess with twigs, leaves and sand floating in the bottom. Anyway he calls twice a week so it is all nice and clean again now. There is still a breeze today but it’s quite warm again now, with lots of sunshine and a few clouds. Last night after dark we had a drink at the taverna in El Pinar, collected our mail from the post box and then we sat out on the roof under a super bright and still night sky, star gazing. The wind drops here at sunset as it does in the UK so it was very calm and quiet up there.
This evening we walked around Los Gallardos, at little town about ten minutes down from here and we were invited to supper at Isobel and Eric’s, across the road, next Friday. Isobel is the lady writing the book about embroidery.
I’m not sure if we have already posted pictures of the outside of the rental, so here are a couple to show the extent and abject poverty of our living situation around the pool, which of course we only use for drinking and washing our clothes ;-(((
BTW Any photographic requests, as long as they don’t offend the sensibilities of our adopted countrymen and women, will be given due consideration by ‘the management‘ of this blog. (That means Elayne;-))

Thursday 17-8-2006

Today is a very significant day for Elayne and I.
We have lived in Spain for exactly four weeks, and we are still OK, if somewhat a little browner that when we left rainy Manchester on Thursday 20th July.
In that time we would like to share with you some are of our more notable achievements and activities.
We are Spanish Citizens (at least I think we are as we are registered in Almeria and have all our documents, and can buy cars and land).
As of yesterday we actually own quite a fair chunk of Spain.
We have managed to buy a car from a Spanish car dealer and have the tracking done and a new tyre fitted all at different establishments.
Elayne has driven on all classes of road round hairpin bends so tight that one is on full lock, on rough tracks and then nearly 80k all the way down the motorway to Almeria airport (a big achievement Elayne, I‘m proud of you).
I have not worn long trousers since we arrived in Spain (only shorts), or socks, or shoes, or a jumper, or a coat, and we have not used an umbrella to keep us dry from the rain, reciprocal for Elayne.
We have had two very small moments of rain lasting no more than an hour in total for the whole of the four weeks. Mind it is a little overcast this morning.
We have managed to sort out our finances to the extent that we know where everything is and how to manipulate it from our banks in the UK to our bank in Spain when required.
We can get on to the internet although it is a pain as we can only go on line at an internet café in Turre. However ,we can do what we need to do from there including banking, email and web logging. As soon as we get to Taberno we will get hooked up by micro wave to broadband then rejoin the land of the cyber living again.
So you may wonder if, after only these small notable happenings that, we are actually going to stay in Spain, especially after such an idle month of sea, sun, tapas, olive oil and swimming pools. Well maybe perhaps we will give it just another month before we make any hasty decisions ;-)))))))))
Today’s pictures are of a dust storm that we had. The day started cloudy and then the wind got up. It was a dry hot wind and is locally called Sirocco with the winds coming from Africa. It lasted all day until this evening and at dusk it dropped once more to nothing and we were able to star gaze on the roof again. The problem is that there is now lots of dust and sand in all the wrong places. We are told that this happens about three times per year so I think that we can cope.

Wednesday 16-8-2006

Today has been a big day on our route to a house in Taberno. We are now Don Paul and Dona Elayne Fellowes (landowners), proud owners of 4.5 hectares (or nearly 54000 square yards of beautiful almond orchards with a ruin set on a picturesque mountain side.
The land owners’ friend John, who has power of attorney for his friend (and who happens to live in Bishop Auckland near Durham), our solicitor Isobel, together with Gill, Bob and Pam all met at the notaries office in Vera for the handing over of the monies and the signing over of the property and the land to us. It turned out to be a nice occasion because John is a real nice and likable Irishman who has 20 hectares of land and also lives in Taberno. We all adjourned to the café in the church square after the signing ,for a drink to mark the occasion. There you go, one step nearer our dream home in the sun.
On Friday we go to pick up copies of all the documents that we have signed today from our solicitors, whilst the original documents go to the Spanish equivalent of the central land registry office to be recorded and officially endorsed. We are told that they will be returned in about two to three months time but ‘as no body works in August’ it might be four months.
Then on Monday we go with Bob to try to find two static caravans, one to live in and one to sit next door to house our possessions. We were starting to be a little concerned because we have not heard anything about our possessions since they left East Keswick exactly four weeks ago today. However, when we were in the bank this morning we had a call to say that they had arrived in Alicanti. We told the chap who rang to store them for a little while and we will ring him when we are ready to receive them.
Today’s pictures are of our celebratory drink in the church square in Vera (from the left Pam, Dona Elayne ,John (rich with our brass) Bob and Gill) and then a little gecko type of fellow that was on the patio where the other one was yesterday (note the different markings and back feet)

Tuesday 15-8-2006

Date 15-8-2006 Tuesday
It’s supposed to be a Spanish bank holiday (another Saints Day) but as I went to Turre, to upload the Sunday and Monday web log, everything seemed to be open as usual. Perhaps it’s only central public services that close.
Whilst in Turre at the cyber cafe I had a nice long chat on Skype with Jane (niece) in Sydney, wishing her a Happy Birthday from us both for this next Friday, just in case we cannot get on Skype again for the rest of the week. Jane told me that this week is going to be one long booze up, celebrating her own and several friends birthdays. (There Jane I’ve told your Mum and Dad about your bad habits, if they are reading this blog ;-)))))))
I also then had a long chat with Helen (our other niece) in Chesterfield. We talked about how to get her Mum and Dad (Nina & Phil) to be able to see the blog, then about cicadas and scorpions and lizards. Today’s picture shows a lizard and beetle (we need help if anyone can identify the beetle please) that we found on the patio yesterday.
Skype is really brilliant and very economical for international calls. Both Elayne and I will be relieved to get back on line when we get on site at Taberno.
We think, at the moment, that we will call our new house “Cortijo del Madrono” (the ‘j‘ is said as a ‘h‘ so pronounced as cortiho). The mountains in the background on Sunday’s picture of our ruin are the Sierra del Madrono with Madrono the highest peak at 999 mtrs (we will be at about 750mtrs or about 2500 feet). In Spanish a Cortijo is a farm or farmhouse and Madrono is a strawberry-tree.
There are also a couple of pictures of Saphi and Pip looking none the worse for their jet setting life style.
Elayne took all of today’s pictures, don’t you just hate it when someone takes pictures as good as these? J

Monday 14-8-2006

After last night we needed a quiet day today. We had to go down to meet up with Gill to talk over signing up for and paying for the land. We have an appointment in Vera at the notaries office on Wednesday. We need to go to the bank and have bank drafts made out and to have some cash to pay the taxes and the balance of the value of the property. Gill assures us that all is in order. Needed a paddle after that so we drove down to the sea at Mojacar, paddled, did some shopping and then dashed back to cool off again in the pool at El Pina. We are now finished for the day and we are going to chill out.
BTW It’s hot once more, if you needed me to remind you ;-)))

Sunday 13-8-2006

From Paul again
We were out and about early this morning in order to get the business of the day out of the way, have a swim or paddle in the sea and return to El Pinar in time for a siesta. We are going up to Taberno this evening to see the last big night of the four day fiesta. We understand from Bob and Pam that after midnight there is a big firework display, thus the siesta. More of this later.
As Elayne said yesterday, Nina (my sister), sent us a really lovely, hand made, ’thinking of you’ card. As some of you already know the cards that Nina make are very beautiful and ingenious. This one depicted a sea shore with waves, a yacht, sunglasses, umbrella, flip-flops, fish etc all in 3D(see the enclosed picture).
BTW it was overcast and windy this morning, ‘but it soon got over it‘. Now it is back to normal although there is still a nice cooling breeze (see the other unusual picture of a rough Med with clouds!!!!).
Post Fiesta Evening
We arrived in Taberno about nine and there was lights and noise and happy people and children thronging the streets. We met up with Pam and Bob together with their Grandchildren after we had been up to our plot, just to make sure it was still there. We sat talking and drinking in competition with a youngsters disco at 150 decibels at one end of the main street and a live and very noisy band at the other end of the street. The main street was blocked off where you can normally drive and we were parked by then on the upper side of the town. We were reliably informed (no names P&B) that when we left to go home, if we cut around the back of the town we would eventually come back on to the main road that then leads down once again to the motorway. We finally tackled this exit from Taberno at about three in the morning. We must have left early because we didn’t see any fire works, but by then we didn’t care. Just follow the white line they said and it will lead you round the back of town and then you will be OK. The white line stopped in the very narrowest and darkest part of the back of the town. We tried at least four routes to get back to the main road again, all to no avail. Eventually we got back to where we started and Elayne managed to flag down a lady in a car whom we had seen earlier (she should really not have been driving). She confidently told us to follow her and she would lead us out of town. Great we thought. We did follow her, until she also got lost. As we re-approached the same car park that we had just left twice before she wound down her window and advised us to follow the road down to the left. This was the road that was blocked in the first place for the fiesta!! After about half an hour of this we drove down on to the rambla (river bed) and drove down past the town on a section that was very rough, and very dark, and on which we had not travelled before. It was all a bit breath taking but we came out of it OK in the end. At the last roundabout ,above Los Gallardos, we were flagged down by the Guardia Civil! After we had wound down the window, he peered in and then told us to continue. We think that he was looking for drunks, so we were obviously far too respectableJ We finally got back to El Pina at nearly half past four on Monday morning. Yawn!!!! The pictures are of the fiesta and an ‘evening shot’ of our ruin with the glorious mountains behind just after sun set .

Saturday 12-8-2006

From Elayne
We decided to go up to Bedar and have a cheese omelette and fresh orange juice for breakfast. At 10 o’clock in the morning it was becoming very hot, 31degrees C. by the bank clock! We then decided to walk up the village, taking new paths, and found a nice shady square. Whilst walking along a track, we stopped to look in the branches of a tree and found a cicada on a branch, which we took some photo’s of. They make such a noise, but stop instantly when you get too close to them. We also took some photo’s of the Chumbo fruit, which are beginning to turn red.
We had noticed another bookshop on the beach at Mojacar, so we decided to go down and have a browse. Unfortunately the books were all in Spanish, so we went for a paddle instead. Back to Turre to buy a book, ‘The Complete Mediterranean Wildlife’, which will be of great use to us in identifying all the creepy crawlies that we keep finding. It also has plants and birds for when we get up to Taberno.
Back to El Pinar for a drink and to see if we had got any post, which we had. Paul’s sister Nina had sent a lovely card, hand made by herself. Thank you Nina, and Happy Birthday for today.
After all that we went back to the villa and threw ourselves into the pool ….BlissJ

Friday 11-8-2006

It’s been a ‘not much done’ day today. Elayne was washing things this morning whilst I got stuck into a book called Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris (the author of Chocolat). We took yesterdays blog to upload at the cyber café in Turre and found that it was market day again. We browsed the market, which is similar to Otley except that it’s thirty four degrees, dusty and very noisy. People are in no hurry to move on from the shade of the market stalls so they tend to stand and talk very loudly to each other because they can’t make them selves heard because everyone else is doing the same. One then has to push your way through the melee to see what is being sold. We saw a bar in the quiet corner of a square that had some spare tables under the shade of trees so we pulled in for a drink and some tapas (you may notice that we are getting rather hooked on this lunch time routine, but it does make a really nice light lunch before confronting the heat of the day again). The two pictures enclosed give a feel of Turre on market day.
We had a paddle in the sea and came back to the rental for a swim and to catch up on more reading and today’s blog.

Thursday 10-8-2006

We set off at nine to be at the Fiat garage for nine thirty. They did the tracking but we hung around for nearly an hour for the job to be completed, hey ho. The other garage fitted the new tyre and balanced the wheel in very quick time, so all in all we hit our target spot on and at the prices that were agreed yesterday. Eureka!!!
We then went to the banks to organise the finances for completing the purchase of the land next Tuesday.
On Tuesday we have to go with Gill (our agent from Lighthouse Properties) and our solicitor Isobel Lopez (from Vera) to the notaries office in Huercal Overa where we meet up with the sellers’solicitor to complete and make official the sale of the land to us all in front of the notary. We then hand over the monies and the land is ours. In a couple of months time we get all the official titles and paperwork back to show that we are the owners and that this is logged with the Spanish Government.
We lunched on a drink and tapas at Mojacar, did some internet business and shopping in Turre. I called my sister using Skype, she sounded as if she was just next door. It was nice to talk to her. She told me that it had turned cold again in the UK and also about the terrorist activity at Heathrow. We do pity the folks with children as well as older people who are travelling to their holidays only to end up stuck at an airport for hours on end, although one can appreciate the justification for the very tight security.
The enclosed pictures today are sunrise at El Pina taken about seven thirty this morning, the colours are glorious.
Thank you to the folks that are starting to leave comments on this Blogspot, it’s almost like email.