Bloody Volvo Drivers!

Now for as long as I can remember (which, when I think about it, is a VERY long time) I have been of the camp that does not like Volvo Drivers. I remember saying 'Bloody Volvo Drivers' when I saw one on the road - every time - despite having a very good friend who drove one. Who drove worse than anyone else I knew at the time. Like no one else on the road mattered. Like he was totally untouchable. Like he didn't care.... And he was a lovely man... until he got into his Volvo.

More recently, travelling on Spanish roads, my attention has been drawn not by Volvo drivers but by Portugese lorry drivers. They are the worst on the road. They will ALWAYS pull out in front of you whether there is anyone in front of them or not. They swerve irrationally as you approach them and they go either very, very fast or ridiculously slowly.

Some few weeks ago, we.. sorry, I ...had an accident in our English car. Someone ran into us on a roundabout and smashed the back window and the door. We've had the window fixed and Cesar pushed the door bulge out a bit and now, it doesn't look too bad. Not much different from the other cars around here, actually. But we had some sad news from the insurance company. Because it's not overly new, because it's here in Spain and won't be going back to England and because the estimate to fix it was 1500 euros, they have decided it is a write-off as far as insurance claims are concerned.  So after much humming and haaing, we decided we would collect the insurance money and look out for a secondhand Spanish car.

(You know where I am going with this, don't you...)

Cesar took a train at 7am this morning to travel 500kms to fetch his chosen vehicle from Navarra. It's a silver Volvo; (it gets worse) it's an estate; (and worse) it's an automatic. I feel my heart sinking as I write these words. And it gets even worse. He arrived home, very pleased with the car, which had cruised beautifully all the way home and been economical on fuel and was comfy and has leather seats and a sun roof, blah, blah. And we piled into it (what an unfortunate phrase) for a trip around the block.

And someone ran into us and scratched the door and broke our mirror.

Do you think they did it on purpose because they were a Volvo hater? And I am feeling a bit guilty for my bigoted past.

On the swingy thing

There are lots of little green spaces around La Flecha, in amongst the apartments and official buildings and almost always, there is a climbing frame or swings or slides for the children to play on. My children have done tours of the place and have found their favourite spot. It's the 'Swingy Thing' and the boys insisted I went with them today to see it. Romy was out with los abuelos somewhere, so we left her a note, knowing she'd be pretty mad when she came back and found we'd gone out without her. (It doesn't work the other way round - she's allowed to go out without us!)

And off we went.
It's quite a simple but interesting design concept, going up and down as well as round and round, though I did considered it on the dangerous side of 'fun' seeing as how the tyres are heavy, move fast and could easily knock even a large child flying. However, I put these thoughts to one side to watch the fun.

First challenge

is working out how to get on

You first?

No, me!

Next challenge is staying on

Hang on in there!

Arrival of trouble..?

A bit of showing off now

FASTER

All together now.

Yes .. I did!

(Well, wouldn't you!)

Longing for Chocolate!

Is it just me? Or is chocolate calling everyone at this time of year?

Just look at this amazing creation!

 And how awesome would it be to eat a bar of chocolate called 'Dragon's Breath'!!

I found them on Jade's Chocolates site and oh, how I envy this woman for so many reasons!!


It is the time of year when normally, I would be stirring away at big bowls full of melted chocolate - milk, white and my favourite, the dark, rich 60%+ cocoa variety - but this year, I don't have access to chocolate and I am missing it dreadfully.

I have been hanging around shops in Valladolid that sell chocolates, turning my nose up at inferior selections in the supermarkets and searching for websites to try and satisfy the urges I have. To no avail - it's like the itch that can't be reached!

But then I stumbled on Mindy's website and just reading the descriptions of different flavours and seeing her beautiful presentations sort of stopped me in my tracks. She is so good!

Whilst I can't compete right now (and probably never should!) - her work and her wonderful chocolates are a real inspiration and I can't wait to get started as soon as is physically possible.

In the meantime, we might just have to have a trip up the autovia a little way to La Trapa Monastery, which is where many years ago, the monks there began making chocolates. There is now a factory that carries on the tradition and just off the road, there is a little kiosk where you can stop and have a cup of hot chocolate as cars whizz by. It's like being in one of those fast/slow motions films, where everyone else is living at a  manic speed but you are slowly and deliciously sipping your chocolate in calm and peace. Yes, that's where we will go to appease the longing a little.

Houses - insides and outsides.

We are here in Spain to look for a house to make our home. I've posted a few pictures of things we've seen over the past few months but suddenly had the urge to post a few more - it helps to see them together and to imagine the range of projects we've been considering, both in the north and in the south.
When I've trawled through my photo portfolio, I discover that I have kept relatively few pictures of places that we obviously dismissed and even though we always had the camera with us, we often didn't even take it out of it's case. So the ones here are ones that appealed to us most.
Go on, let me know what you think!

The first ones are properties in Aguilar de Campoo or near there. And as I look at them again, I still love this area and wonder whether we'd be better to stay nearer family - only an hour and half away - and brave the weather and the greater isolation in the villages, many of which are completely deserted in the winter months..

Monasterio - up a steep, steep hill!

Not one wooden cart, but two

Lovely on the outside, inside....less so

St Martin de Valdelomar - roadside view

St Martin de Valdelomar - garden view

St Martin - reformed annex part

St Martin - unreformed part

Puentetoma - a personal favourite but lots of problems with the property

Like pretty shoddy 'improvements'

Pomar de Valdivia - nearly bought this one but we weren't totally convinced

Near Baza in Granada - so very nearly perfect

Even had some development options!

Cortijo Zorro - not discounted yet!

Nestling in amongst 4 hectares of land.. it has a lot of appeal but can we afford it??

Why have I no pictures of the cave houses? I am kicking myself because some of them were so gorgeous and absolutely fascinating. I have spent hours imagining what it would be like to like there. One of them had a fantastic garden and as no one was living there, we 'liberated' a huge squash, some membrillos, (quince in English) and some walnuts.

At one place in the northern area of Granada, we bought 5 litres of extra virgin olive oil from a man (who really wanted us to buy his house, of course) for the excellent sum of 12 euros - oil he had pressed himself from his own olives, no less. And it's delicious.

I already mentioned the delightful Marcelino, the baker and the apple tart and madelenas we bought from him and his daughter.

And at St Martin de Valdelomar, the estate agent insisted we collect some of the grapes off the vine in the garden - and they were the most delicious I have ever tasted! Small, purple grapes with an intense sweetness - we ate them like little monkeys in the car as we drove back to Aguilar de Campoo.

We have walnuts from almost everywhere - and almonds too in Granada - and our only unsuccessful 'liberation' was from a persimmon tree which was near one of the caves houses. Cesar and I tried one. It was clearly not ripe. It dried our mouths til they felt like shoe soles. We couldn't talk because of the involuntary curling back of our top lip - it must have been very funny to see our faces. I think to our credit, we came back to Valladolid and bought one from the fruteria just to see how they should taste - and they are very nice. I just don't recommend eating them from wild trees - whilst they are still a bit yellow - definitely not!

Oh, and on the way back to Valladolid from our Granada trip, we found handfuls of olives at one of our  roadside stops. These are currently soaking in a terracotta pot in the hope that one day they will be edible. (Something else I recommend you don't try direct from the tree.)

Plump dark olives from Jaen - Olive Country

Still searching for the best advice on curing olives, if that's the right phrase. I know that if we manage to make them edible, we'll be looking for a place with olives, without doubt! And figs; and vines; and membrillos; and walnuts; and almonds; possibly persimmon....

Fig and Orange jam.. mmmmm!

Here in La Flecha, in La Casa de los Abuelos (grandparents' house), there is a fig tree, whose fruit is different from the purple, tougher-skinned varieties that I have eaten in England. These figs stay green when ripe and the skin is soft and thin. They are OK but not exciting to eat raw as they have only a mild flavour and a rather mushy texture - I may be doing them a diservice by this description but it's how they seem to me! And they obviously were not to the children's taste because after one or two, they didn't want any more.

They were willing, however, to take a basket each and go picking and collecting so that we could freeze the crop for future use - Ruy particularly insistent that the best ones were at the top of the tree, which required climbing and balancing skills. And we collected a good few kilos, washed them and put them in to freeze.

I combed the internet for good-sounding recipes and came up with one called 'Spicy Fig Orange Jam' which appealed though Cesar wasn't keen on the 'spicy' bit. So I adapted it and left out the spices, added lemon zest as well as orange and threw in a few chopped walnuts from the tree in the Leon garden. And followed the incredibly easy microwave recipe to create a culinary masterpiece! So far, I've made five jars - using the microwave means you do small batches of about 2 jars at a time - and now only two remain. Los abuelos ate a whole jar whilst we were in Granada, which is pretty good going.

I am very pleased with it - and can only ask you to believe me when I say it is absolutely delicious. I am just so sorry that I can't get any of it back to England for my parents and family, because although my sister is coming out soon, she's only bringing a cabin/flight case and it's not possible to take pots or jars onto the flight. Hmm, on second thoughts, perhaps it's better that the whole lot stays here with us!!

Granada? Or chips?

Granada! Without hesitation!

Our recent visit to the province of Granada has moved me deeply - as much for the lovely, happy, funny people we met there as the stunning and spectacular surroundings.

Why did we go to Granada..? I need to recap to see if there is any logic at all left in my life!

• Began planning for a move to Spain in March of this year
• Cesar visited Galicia, Asturias and Leon to check out locations and potential properties
• Almost moved immediately to a village in Leon called La Urz
• Having upped sticks in August with the intention of settling in Leon, northern Spain, we deposited all our belongings in a large barn belonging to FR's parents - so that we could get at them relatively easily once we had found our new home.
• We went to stay at FR's parent's house in Valladolid, some 120kms further south - somewhere to stay free of charge; place to plan from; a known environment for the children.

(so far so good)

• Looked around Leon for suitable properties and found we were not overly impressed at what was available, the prices being asked and the access to schools for the children
• Moved east to Las Montanas Palentinas - specifically Aguilar de Campoo - which I fell in love with and where Mateo would go to school in a beautiful romanic building that used to be a monastery.
• Spent many days and weekends back and forth in glorious sunshine, checking out properties with Andres and Ramon, our two friendly estate agents in the area.
• Saw every house available that we could afford to think about.
• Put in a bid on a house there that was nearly what we wanted and that we visited twice and really liked..but.. offer rejected and we were secretly relieved.

(Bear with me, this is quite cathartic)

•  Reach mid-September and suddenly the temperature drops - frisson runs down my spine and it's of displeasure and is rather unexpected - I thought I liked the idea of hot summers and cold winters, what with chocolate and knitting being my hobbies. Hmmm.
• FR immediately suggests we move to Alicante.
• The idea leaves me with more frissons, together with shudders of aversion - the snob in me rising to the surface - Alicante is full of expat Brits and I did not want to go there.
• Managed to discover that the schools there teach in Valencian - which is a dialect of Spanish and not Spanish like what it should be spoke. (Castillian). So there I had my excuse for not going to Alicante, plus the weather there is TOO good - like living in soup. No, I would not go to Alicante.
• Had to identify another, more southerly option.
• Malaga was out - we'd lived there 15 years ago and loved it but it's too hot in summer and too coastal and just too expensive.
• And then I remembered Granada!
• Swim in the morning and ski in the afternoon - the province of Granada stretches from the sea to the Sierra. We had visited the Alhambra twice when we lived in Malaga and been totally blown away by it and the drive through the Andalucian countryside on the way.
• So I started looking around Granada and liked what I saw.

But it wasn't just how fantastic the countryside was to look at, where every turn was even more breathtaking than the last...

But the sheer joy and fun that seemed to radiate from the people who live there was highly contagious. We had limped down the motorway with a ridiculous problem with the car - the radiator cap had developed a fault and about one third of the way down, when we stopped, water started bubbling out of the radiator. Refusing to be daunted on a Sunday before a bank holiday, we waited for the engine to cool and plodded on. However, FR stopped to check things after about half an hour and as he pulled the bonnet release, nothing happened and - despite huge efforts on all our parts - absolutely refused to open again. The cable had come off but at the bonnet catch end, not at the end in the car, so getting to it was impossible. (I'll get to my point soon). With another 400kms to go, but 250kms behind us, we decided to 'keep on swimming, just keep swimming' - which is my Doryesque response to all technical problems! And FR agreed. And we got there and had no more problems.

Monday was a 'bank holiday' in Spain - or a fiesta - and so everything was closed and we could do nothing about the car other than hope it would be OK. We had arranged to see a few houses with an English agent and we had to flag him to stop at one point as the fuel gauge suddenly started to go down in front of our eyes and we were sure that petrol must be pouring out along the road behind us. But it wasn't - it's the car, poor thing, that is going through a crisis as ...it has been written off by my insurance company and it's going to be taken from us.  So we reassured it and told it how wonderful it had been and all was well for the rest of the day. 

We didn't find a house we wanted but we met a wonderful baker who would have been our neighbour at one of the properties. He was 87 and called Marcelino - like the boy in the film 'Pan y Vino' - and positively twinkled. I couldn't understand a word he said to start with but when I told him this, he immediately dropped his Andalucian accent and spoke a lovely Spanish to me, saying he used to live in Vitoria in the north. We bought bread, madelenas and a wonderful apple tart from his daughter. who was now doing the baking and we inspected their wonderful, wood-burning bread oven and he told us we could come and bake things there .... FR thought of his beloved pizzas and for a moment, it was very tempting!

On Tuesday, we spent the morning with another estate agent, this time Irish, who most kindly took us to his own home to show what is possible to make out of a cave. I thought it was lovely as it was but he has plans to create an Irish bar in his lounge and has dug the space to put in a Roman bath in one of the cave rooms, along with a cinema area...a gregarious man, he was! 

In the evening, we decided we had to do something to sort the car out, so went into Baza, which is a town of medium size near where we were staying. Enquiring after a mechanic, we were directed to a small workshop, where a blond Spanish mechanic gamely bashed, poked, fiddled and pulled at the bonnet to no avail. So he told us to try the Citroen garage at the top of the hill. But all the time he was working, he was laughing and joking with FR and thoroughly enjoying the challenge. And when we got to the Citroen garage, we had three chaps of varying ages - at least, one looked very young and one looked very old - again, poking, pulling, inserting metal instruments and scratching their heads but without result. Then one started to jack the car up on one side and crawled underneath with a long hook thing... and with a pwang! the bonnet released!! Hurray!  He then checked the radiator cap, showed us the fault, brought us another one, fitted it ... all with a constant laughing and chatting and funny comments. We'd been there for almost half an hour and we were only asked to pay the 6 euros for the radiator cap! We left feeling we'd had a really good night out with friends!

And all the neighbours around the cave house have stopped to chat and tell us how they love the village and the caves and the food and each other... and look, a man with his donkeys!

And although they were not local, I can't not mention the lovely family (whose house we really, really wanted to buy but for a few reasons that I won't go into but that were deeply felt enough for us to decide against buying) - Gayil, Alan and Jamie - who were from Scotland! And living so happily with their donkeys and ponys in the middle of the Sierra de Baza and who weren't leaving the area but needed to live closer to amenities in the town because of their health.. gosh, they were very special people and I wish them all the very best. I hope they find buyers soon and I hope they won't mind me posting a very beautiful picture I took of their house looking at it's very best..

And Nick the 'unestatey' estate agent from the unlikely state of Idaho and on whom many of my hopes are now pinned and who is currently charged with finding us a rental place because we have to go back and we have to do it as soon as we can.. and I think he's found us somewhere but I'll tell you more when I am sure. Ah yes; Nick was lovely too and quietly so smug that he lived in this gorgeous corner of the world and so much more enthusiastic about the people than the properties, which was such a nice change from the other agents, who were only really trying to sell us a view or a pool or a sunny patio. 

And on the Sunday, we decided to look at Guadix - the other main town in the area - and it was yet another breath-taking sight (though we didn't meet any people there as we were on a drive-through visit on our way home). And all thoughts of ever living anywhere else just slipped from my mind.

Red sandstone buildings, with a backdrop of snowy mountains.

  Arabic castle remains and a huge network of cave houses - over 10,000 people live in the caves around Guadix.

Narrow cobbled streets and wide, fountained plazas.

Guadix is a stunning place and the sun shone on us all the time of our stay.

 

So that's how I changed from looking in northern to southern Spain in just three short months - sorry to anyone who was hoping to explore the area and stay with us to do it!!

Violet's Cave - Bacor Olivar

On our recent trip to the area of Granada, in southern Spain, we've been staying in Violet's cave, which has been absolutely wonderful - I am definitely a troglodyte at heart. Actually, it's not really called Violet's cave, though it belongs to Violet - and Roger, of course - it's called Cueva de Almendro and in a little village called Bacor Olivar near Baza, which is a spectacular area in eastern Granada heading out towards Almeria.


We spent six nights there for the astounding price of 150 euros - for all of us - and I have to tell you that I cannot recommend it highly enough. So this blog is a homage to Violet's cave.

This is the entrance to the cave house - Mateo took this, which is good because we forgot to take a photo of the outside, but it's a bit out of focus - we told him later how to get the camera to focus before taking the shot. He knows now.

This is our bedroom - note, there is no window (or door) so when the lights go out, it really is dark!

The intention was for the boys to share a room and Romy would have the little annex cave to herself. She had been asking for her own room for ages but when it came to bedtime, she didn't want to be alone.  Ruy pointed out to her that she'd slept on her own when she was a baby and she wasn't scared. Romy paused a while to think and then said, "yes, but I didn't know I was alone then"  - which I thought was a well-considered response and she was right. So she slept in with Mateo and Ruy had the little room to himself!
(And Ruy is blurred because he moves about so much! Nothing to do with the photographer..)



Two sitting rooms - one for us, with a log burning stove

And one for the kids, with games, tv and dvds.

And a cave kitchen so well-equipped with cutlery, crockery, pots, pans and towels that we could have stayed for a month and had dinner parties every night - I was most impressed with the sharp knives!
And a bottle of wine, milk and water in the fridge, coffee, tea, sugar and bread and loads of foodstuffs in the cupboard - all for 25 euros a night!





The other things to know about caves is the fact that they retain a lovely constant temperature, regardless of the weather outside - so even though the temperature can drop to well below freezing in the winters of Granada and up to 40 degrees in the summer, the cave stays around 18 degrees. There were a number of little 'cupboards' dug out into the cave walls, where extra blankets were kept (not that we needed them) and these were bone dry and fresh smelling. Having become accustomed to the constant sweeping of tiled floors that goes on in Spain, I was amazed to find that the cave simply didn't get dusty and after a week of us being there, all I swept up on the last day were the crumbs dropped that morning by the children having their breakfast. And no flies or mosquitos! The one barrier to us buying a cave to live in is that so few have any land with them. Otherwise, I am a convert 100% to this eco-friendly, practical and cosy way of living. (OK, Cesar coped for a week but deep down, I know he's terrified that it could collapse! So we won't be buying one for that reason too. It's irrational - caves are as safe as...houses!)

In addition to being in a lovely, friendly village, just take a look at the views of nearby Lake Negratin!

There - I hope I have done justice to this lovely place. If ever you want to visit, I really can recommend it but if anyone goes again before we have found somewhere to live in Granada, I will be green with envy!