bacorblog

It’s now chilly in the mornings and at night in our little village in the mountains, but the afternoons are still beautiful (30 degrees on our roof terrace the other day) and this is making it all the harder to leave Spain for a while. The recession is still biting in Spain and Bob, my husband, has been offered work back in England, so we have little choice but to return to the U.K. for a while to try to earn some money to bring back out to Spain so that we can survive here a bit longer. We shall so miss our lovely home here as well as our friends, though it will be good to see friends and family in England again. Anyway, it won’t be forever and meanwhile we’ll come back to Bacor for holidays whenever we can - definitely for the village fiesta in June.

The biggest problem at the moment is finding somebody to look after Bailey, our dog, while we’re gone. The ideal thing would be to rehome him with someone else who would love him as much as we do or to find a foster family for six months until he can have  a passport and we can take him back to England with us. Under Spanish law, although he has been vaccinated, he has to have blood tests and more vaccinations, then a 6 month wait to make sure he doesn’t have rabies before he can be taken to the U.k. I have already asked everyone that I can think of and put posters up in all the surrounding towns and villages but we have had no replies, presumably because so many English people are returning home and also need homes for their dogs. A lot of dogs have been left to fend for themselves or have been put to sleep but I can’t face either of these options so, unless we can find someone,  I may have to stay here with him for six months. As you can imagine this option is not very popular with my family. The only other idea I’ve come up with is to see if anyone would like to dog and house- sit for six months free of charge, so this message is to anyone who would like a long holiday in beautiful Andalucia absolutely free apart from giving my dog his meals, a long walk each day and lots of affection. If anyone is interested, or knows anyone alse who might be, would they please leave a message on my blog or email me at c.j.england@hotmail.co.uk. Bailey and I would both be extremely grateful.

We have a lovely family in our apartment at the moment, they have travelled from Australia and are spending a month with us. There are three children and Bailey is having a great time with them; he alternates between getting very excited while they are playing and running about with him and lying in a sad-faced heap whenever they go out without him. Bob has already been gone for a month so Bailey is very bored with only me for company. Actually I have also been quite short of people to talk to, so now that we have people here I have to keep apologising for talking all the time, though my children tell me that I talk all the time anyway!

I’m going to make the most of the sunshine now and take Bailey out for a long walk through the olive groves. More soon.

Well, the excitement of Kate’s graduation is now over and I’m back in Spain again. I never know whether to say "Spain" or "home". When visiting the u.k. I tend to say I’m "going home" but get told off by people here who tell me that as I now live in Spain this has become my home. I’m not sure about this as some of my children and my grandchildren and lots of my friends live in England and it’s also the place where I was born and where I’ve spent most of my life; doesn’t that mean that it’s still my home? I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this. Anyway, I digress. Kate was awarded a 2:1 for her Bachelor of Science degree in English and Computer Science and we were really proud when she walked up in her cap and gown to receive it. This is supposed to be where the rest of her life begins but, unfortunately, she and thousands more new graduates are finding this very difficult as there are very few jobs for them. I know Kate is finding this very depressing and demotivating so if anyone out there wants to pay her to construct a website for them, please let me know!

Though England was cold and rainy I enjoyed being there. I spent time with my youngest son and his partner and their two children and now miss them more than ever. My older daughter and her two boys were also briefly back from Africa and it was wonderful to see them as it happens so seldom. We almost had the whole family together for the first time for many years but unfortunately my second son, David, was unable to get away from his job in Chicago. Anyway I met up with lots of friends and was taken out for lots of meals and as a result put on half a stone in weight! Now I’m back here and walking the dog and eating my usual healthy diet of lots of fruit and veg (easier to do and cheaper here then in the u.k.) I’m back down to my normal weight, thank goodness. I also spent a lovely few days with Kate and the wonderful family that she is presently staying with. If Ann and Rob read this then I want to say thankyou so much for your warmth and hospitality towards both Kate and me.

As you can probably tell I’m finding it more difficult to settle back into life in Spain then I usually do. One of my best friends has just returned to the u.k. for personal reasons and I’m missing her, I’m also worried about Kate and about my mother who will be ninety-one tomorrow. She is wonderful for her age and is still managing  to live on her own, grow vegetables in her garden and walk her little dog. I expect her to go on for a lot longer but every time I leave her there is a lump in my throat and a dread of maybe not seeing her again. This is the price you pay for "living the dream"! Anyway, the sun is shining here and every morning my husband, the dog and I eat our breakfast on the roof terrace, gaze at the beautiful sight of the mountains and olive groves surrounding us, inspect our thriving  "garden" and listen to the quiet - only broken by the loud horn-blowing of the baker’s van advertising his arrival to anyone who hasn’t yet bought one of his huge croissants for breakfast.

We went into Baza yesterday, as it was market day, and paid a visit to Baza Books, a secondhand bookshop selling English books. Nikki, who owns it, reminded us thet it will shortly be fiesta time in Baza again. This will be heralded by the traditional oil run, explained in one of my previous posts, and this year we are determined to go and see it so, hopefully, there will be pictures of this on my next post.

I’m signing off now as the dog needs a walk in the sunshine and so do I. Next post soon.

First post for a while. No real excuse except that I’m too lazy. We’ve had some really nice people in our apartment lately, so thankyou to any of you are reading this. My daughter has now completed the bit of our website that publishes tenant’s comments so you can now read these and If you would like to add one you can email it to Kate and she’ll put it on.

It’s Bacor fiesta again so the village is full of relatives and people from the  outlying villages who have come to join in the fun. Yesterday was the paella picnic which ended in foam and water fights, good fun! We danced till late on Thursday night, at one point doing the Birdies song - we were either very drunk or very sad. Last night the local disco was crowded and many people didn’t crawl home till five or six this morning. Today is the final day , this evening we will be joining the procession to carry the statue of Saint Bernabe around the village. I hope it will be a little cooler by then as it’s over fifty degrees centigrade at the moment.

My son came for a visit a couple of weeks ago, the first time since we actually moved out here. We had a great time with him. He brought his mountain bike with him and measured the mileage we cover on our walks with the dog up to the lake. We were quite pleased to find that we walk 9.6 kilometres each time we do this; don’t know why I haven’t lost weight, I think it must be the tapas and alcohol that we consume in between walking there and walking back.

Anyone following my blog will be pleased (and probably surprised) to hear that our table is finally completed and, more surprisingly, has turned out quite well as you can see by the picture. It has already been used during previous barbecues and we are planning another one next week.

We have booked flights to the u.k. for a couple of weeks time. We can’t leave the dog for too long but have arranged for a friend to look after him for a week then Bob will fly back. I’m going to stay there for most of July to spend some time with my mother and my children and grandchildren and to catch up with friends. My younger daughter will graduate from university while we are there and I am hoping that most of my family, who are fairly well sca ttered around the world, will be there. It’s a few years since we have all been in the same place at the same time so I’m really looking forward to it. Kate will now have to start looking for a job, which seems to be very difficult at the moment, so fingers crossed. If anyone wants her to construct a website for them, please let me know!

More news on our return from the u.k.

This week has been rather depressing weatherwise as we have had to suffer high winds, rain and black clouds blocking the sun. However yesterday was BEAUTIFUL ! I spent a large part of the day soaking up the sunshine on our roof terrace. There was not a cloud in the sky and the only sounds I could hear were from the several small birds perched on the roof twittering away and obviously enjoying the sunshine as much as I was. I should really have been spending the time studying my Spanish language books but I am afraid I read a novel instead. I started the day wearing several layers of clothes and gradually shed most of them as the day got hotter. By 6 o’clock I was down to t-shirt and rolled up jeans (to get my legs brown). It reminded me that this is what we came to Spain for.

My husband has been very busy the last couple of days as a friend of ours has been told that he can gather wood from one of the nearby fields and has asked Bob to help. This is actually a great oppurtunity for us to stock up on wood for the woodburner for next year. Many of the fields around here are planted with very tall trees with straight narrow trunks; I don’t know what they are but they are used to make furniture. Apparently this is the reason that wooden furniture is fairly expensive in Spain, the sort of large trees that are grown for this purpose in the u.k. don’t grow out here.  Anyway, the tops and bottoms of the trees are not needed and would just be bulldozed and burned but they are ideal for the fire and, with luck, a few days hard work will give us enough wood to last all next winter. It’s good for me too as while Bob is out doing his hunter gatherer bit I can laze away the day with a book in the sunshine and no-one to make me feel guilty about it.

On a more serious note, times are becoming hard in Spain as the recession starts to bite. There is now the highest unemployment in Spain for years and the service industry is suffering badly. Goods in the shops are not noticeably more expensive but gas and electricity have both risen slightly though are still a lot cheaper than in the u.k. For people whose income is paid in euros there is little difference but for people like us who are dependent on a u.k. pension, life has become much more difficult as the changes in the exchange rate has eaten up about a third of my income. A lot of English people have returned to the u.k. as they are finding it too difficult to manage financially here; however it seems to me that life in the u.k. would be just as difficult, if not more so, and at least here our home can’t be repossessed as we have no mortgage to pay, and we can guarantee that we will always have a great summer.

As soon as Bob has finished his woodgathering we need to continue with our two ongoing projects, the table we are building on the roof terrace and the still unpainted patch on the outside wall (see previous posts). Both were abandoned for the winter, partly because it was too cold and partly because we were just too lazy.  I think we must have both been Spanish in a previous life as we have so quickly adapted to the "manana syndrome". Anyway the village fiesta is in June and soon everybody will be repainting and otherwise improving their houses again. We can’t let the side down so will have to do the same ourselves.It lookas though the only answer to the wall problem is for someone to lie full length on the roof and paint downwards, I think we might have to toss a coin to decide  which of us it will be. I don’t like heights and Bob doesn’t mind them but  is extremely accident-prone. Whichever one of us does it it’s a long way down! The table, on the other hand, is becoming more complicated, and heavier, day by day. It tends to sway alarmingly when leant on and Bob spends a lot of time studying it from different angles before claiming that he now sees what’s wrong with it and how to put it right. After the application of various struts and supports it still sways and there is now not much room to tuck the chairs (or people’s legs) under it. It’s also now too heavy to move so will have to stay where we’ve built it; still the view’s nice from there.

I need to close now as the sky is blue, the sun is shining and I need to hang the washing out, get out my deckchair and top up my tan. Next post soon.

Well, Christmas is over and, hopefully, Spring is on it way. Our Christmas was very quiet this year as we had no family staying with us. My daughter, Kate, and her elder brother went to Chicago for Christmas and New Year to stay with my other son who lives there. I think they had a good time in spite of several feet of snow and temperatures of about minus twenty!

The weather here has been very mixed for the last few weeks. The temperature has been anywhere between minus two and fourteen or fifteen degrees. The cold makes me want to hibernate and the greyness of the u.k. always had a very depressing effect on me. I cope with winter better here, as however cold it is, the sun still shines for at least part of the day so that we can wrap up warm and take the dog for a long walk.

Christmas in Spain is much more "low-key" than in the u.k. The Spanish tend to have all their family home for Christmas and it is traditionally a time to stay in the warm and eat large  family meals and just spend time together. This can mean that it’s rather a lonely time for ex-pats as, although quite a lot of people live here, you see few of them about (except at Bar Jesus which gets very busy). However there are also more English visiting at Christmas and the small permanent English community we have tend to get together and party. We hosted  a party just before Christmas as it was my husband’s birthday;our friends had one on Boxing Day and there was another last week at the house of people who still live in the u.k. but come out here for holidays. There’s also another one planned for a couple of weeks time, so quite a few social gatherings. We have some new people in the village who have bought a cave next door to the bakery, opposite our house. They are English and have been living in France for a while but have decided they prefer Spain. They did the same as we did - visited Bacor and fell in love with it. They are really nice and cooked a lovely meal for us the other night.

Our Canadian tenant has now left for pastures new. We’re really missing her as she was here for three months and we became good friends. She had Christmas dinner with us and experienced Christmas pudding for the first time! Apparently it’s unknown in Canada. She has now gone to explore Costa Rica for three months and has sent some photos via Facebook. It’s obviously much warmer there than it is here! She went on some great trips while she was here, not just to Morocco, which she loved, but she also walked the coast road in the Cabo de Gata for three days, which she says was wonderful. It’s a trip we’d like to make ourselves when the weather’s a bit warmer. We now have lots of information about trips you can take, which may also be useful to anyone else staying with us. She very generously gave us the Lonely Planet Guides to Morocco and Anadalucia for a Christmas present. They are full of travel info. and great (cheap) places to stay.

This is the time of year for olive picking in Spain and we recently spent a couple of days helping some friends to harvest their olives. It was really good fun and an excellent way of keeping warm. I shall get Kate to publish a picture of Bob hard at work shaking the olives off the trees. The small olive growers take their harvest to the olive mill where everyone’s olives are mixed together and crushed. You can then be paid in cash or olive oil or a mixture of both, according to the number of sacks of olives you gathered. With luck we’ll get a bottle of oil -  delicious to cook with, on salads or just poured on fresh crusty bread.

We took Bailey for a long walk the other day as the weather was gorgeous. We walked up to the lake and back, calling in on the way at Club Nautico (the bar/restaurant overlooking the lake) for a drink and tapas; Bob had a beer, I had my usual tinto verrano and the (free) tapas was crusty bread with thick slices of fried pork steaks and some big green olives. Delicious! The countryside is already looking more springlike with buds starting to show, and our roof terrace is now warm enough to sit out  for a while most afternoons (and to dry the washing). I can’t wait for summer evenings spent, glass of vino in hand,  watching the sun go down over the mountains.  It shouldn’t be long now!

The sun is still shining here though the evenings and mornings are getting colder. We’ve had no frosts yet but there’s a definite nip in the air. My husband always does the late night dog walk and says that the temperature on the town hall is showing anywhere from about six to ten degrees; however it’s still in the high  twenties in the afternoons and we’re still sitting out on the roof terrace with a book (or a page of Spanish nouns to learn) for a couple of hours most days. We had another walk up to the lake, managing to avoid Khan, and took some good photos. The rain we’ve had has made everything very green and now that the trees are changing colour the countryside looks even more beautiful. I shall ask wonderful, clever daughter to publish some with this post, including one of Khan and Bailey. I really need to learn how to do these things myself!

Following on from that last thought, I am now on Facebook! Lots of my ex-students from the u.k. have made me their “friends” and it’s great to hear what they’re doing. (A tip for parents it’s also a good way to keep an eye on what your own kids are up to.) Anyway I’m finding I’m becoming addicted, which is a bit worrying. I log on at least twice a day and am most disappointed if no-one has left a comment on my wall. It was actually our tenant who suggested that I join, so that I could share the photos she has taken while she’s been here. She is in Morocco for the whole of November, having an adventure, and left me a message to say she is having a wonderful time and has sent me some photos. I’m extremely envious and can’t wait for her to return so that we can hear all about it. If anyone out there  wants to be my Face book friend and see our photos they are very welcome.

We are still persevering with our Spanish lessons, though not finding it easy. My plan is to label everything in the house with their Spanish names so that we see them all the time; might be a bit difficult to label my husband and the dog though! (Message for Karen - your Spanish is GREAT, I’m very impressed.)

We’re doing our best to prepare for winter; making sure the house is as draught -proof as possible, that we have plenty of wood for the fire, that the chimney is clear etc. We haven’t yet lit the wood-burner but I think we’ll have to do it this week. The apartment is much warmer than our floor as it’s  part cave and has walls about two feet thick. Our tenant will be with us till the new year and is having Christmas dinner with us, it’ll be nice to have her company. Apparently there is a fiesta in the plaza on Christmas day afternoon (free food and very alcoholic drink again) so we’re looking forward to that. Last year there was no snow in Bacor but this year there is already snow on the sierras so we could well have a white Christmas. I’ll have to make sure we have plenty of supplies in just in case, but we have a little general store opposite the house, bar Jesus always has a roaring fire going in the winter and his wife cooks up excellent hot food, so I’m not too worried!

Will write again soon.

I’m now back from the u.k. It was really good seeing family and friends again while I was there. My grandchildren change so much between visits; Theo, now eight months old and nearly walking, is so different from the baby I saw last time. The weather was awful for most of the time I was there and, unfortunately, I seem to have brought it back to Spain with me. I’m told it was lovely while I was away but we have had more storms and high winds since my return. There’s always a silver lining though, and for us the winds have been a source of wood for the fire, which will be needed in the winter. We went out yesterday, with our saw and collected quite a lot from trees that had been blown down across the river bed; unfortunately I now have a load of muddy washing, several insect bites and backache as a result of my labours!

Anyway, the weather has now improved and it’s warm again. We decided, a couple of days ago, that we would walk the dog up to the dam and have a drink at one of the restaurants before walking back; this is something we used to do regularly but have not had time for lately as we have been too busy. The round trip takes between two and four hours, depending on how many drinks you have. We set off just after lunch but unfortunately Khan, the village dog decided to accompany us. Khan is a Doberman but the most gentle dog imaginable. Lots of people in the village feed him, particularly English friends of ours who have semi-adopted him. The story is that Khan was once owned by someone who wanted him as a guard dog; when it was found that it was impossible for him to frighten anybody, he was thrown out and ended up in our village. I think he must have been locked up at some time as it is impossible now to shut him in anywhere without him wrecking the place in an effort to escape. Because of this he sleeps outside most nights but will venture into houses for food or just some affection. The Spanish love fireworks and will let them off at the slightest excuse. Unfortunately these terrify Khan. When the villlage fiesta was on in June, he was so frightened of the noise that he attempted to hide in Bar Jesus, where he was promptly sick on the floor in terror at the noise. Fortunately, as everyone knows him, he didn’t get into too much trouble for this. Anyway, our dog, Bailey, loved Khan coming on a walk with us and they had a great time exploring the campo together on the way there. However, in order to reach the restaurants you have to cross a busy (for here) main road; as Khan has no collar and lead we were not happy to take him over the road and I’m not sure that the restaurant would have been keen on a large Doberman loose on the premises, so we abandoned our walk once we reached the dam and returned home without our drinkand tapas. My husband, Bob, did try several times to send Khan home but the dog just leaned heavily on him, much to my amusement, and he gave up. Anyway both dogs had a lovely time.

It has been rather a sad time in Bacor as an English friend and neighbour died suddenly last week. On Saturday morning there was a very moving service for him at the church here. This was followed by a cremation in Granada, attended only by family, then a walk up to the local cemetery where a plaque of commemoration was affixed to the wall. In the evening we all went to a wake at his and his wife’s house. It turned into quite a merry evening (in more ways than one) which I’m sure is what he would have wanted. He was a very popular and well-loved member of the community, by Spanish and British alike. Wherever you are, Brian, we’re all missing you.

We have a tenant in our apartment at the moment on a long-term rental of three months. She comes from Canada and is lovely, we are really enjoying having her staying with us. She is using the apartment for a base to explore from. At the moment she is in Granada for a few days and next month is going to Morocco on an adventure trip which she found on the internet. She brought her mountain bike with her and is using this to explore the local area and  using public transport to go further afield. We are looking forward to her return to hear all about her adventures.

We finally started Spanish lessons yesterday evening. These are free at the school in Freila and take place on Wednesday and Friday evenings. The teacher is a Spanish girl called Maria who looks about fifteen (though I’m sure isn’t really that young). She is a very good teacher and we thoroughly enjoyed the lesson. There were about eight other English people there and they were all really nice so, hopefully, we will also make some new friends.

I hope anyone reading this post will enjoy it, please leave me a message if you have. I’ll write again soon.

I just realised that my last post was three weeks ago, so I had better update my blog. We’re still busy here, at the moment re-tiling the kitchen. This is our first attempt at tiling a wall and there have been several occasions, over the past few days, when we have watched in despair as the tiles we stuck on the day before have fallen off again; however it is now finished and looks quite good. Neither of us really have many practical skills though my husband can fix cars and I’m good at hanging wallpaper (rather an unneccesary skill out here as, traditionally, all the walls are painted). Moving out here has been a massive lifestyle change for us and I think one of the positive aspects has been that we have had to learn new skills. When we lived and worked in the u.k we could afford to pay other people to do any jobs that needed doing. Now we plaster walls, tile, plumb the washing machine etc. ourselves. At times we have found it hard, but at least we are doing things together and although there are times when we both get very irritated with each other, it has also deepened our relationship. Before Spain we both worked long hours and my job as a teacher also meant that I worked most of the weekend as well, in order to cope with preparation and marking. We  were both always so tired that we seldom had the energy to even speak to one another. We now have time to go for long walks with the dog and explore our bit of Spain together. Hopefully, as time goes on we will also gradually explore the rest of the country.

We have been to another party since I last wrote, at a tiny village called Gorafe, a few kilometres down the motorway. There are only about a dozen houses there, all caves. We sat outside and had a barbeque and enjoyed the company. We have also been to Freila for the evening where friends of ours were playing country music. Their band is called Nevada and they are extremely good and becoming very popular. They have regular bookings in this area and as far away as Albox and Almeria.  We met some very nice people who were staying in the village for a few days as well, hopefully they will read this and leave us a comment.

The weather here is not brilliant at the moment. We had quite a spectacular storm a few nights ago, with lightening surrounding the village and torrential rain. The rain is very much needed here but I’m always happier when the sun shines again. I am returning to the U.K. on Tuesday to see my children and grandchildren for a few days, I’m sure that the weather will be much worse there. The problem is knowing what clothes to pack as, though they tell me it is warm there now, I think it’s still probably a lot colder than it is here. I’d better pack some thick jumpers!

Next post on my return.

It’s over a week since I added to my blog and the time seems to have gone by very quickly. It hasn’t ALL been work. We had a great afternoon at the pool at Freila campsite, getting there early afternoon and finding that we had it to ourselves. We paid five euros for both of us to be able to use the pool as much as we wanted for that day, that included being able to leave and come back again. We spent several lazy hours there, sun-bathing, reading our books, drinking (tinto verrano again) and cooling off in the pool. Apparently the food there is also very good and they serve a traditional Sunday lunch each week, accompanied by live music. We haven’t tried it yet but will do so and report back.

Been doing even more painting, mainly re-painting the walls of the roof terrace and also attempting to solve the problem of THE WALL (see previous posts). We have managed to fix two long poles together, and with a roller on the end have now managed to shrink the size of the unpainted section, still can’t reach it all though. I’m attaching a picture of my husband, complete with pole, for your amusement.

The roof terrace looks great anyway. It’s approx. twelve by five metres and is a great place for sunbathing, relaxing, eating, partying and looking at the beautiful view. It’s so nice that we have that space and can share it with our guests.

We went to a party yesterday at the house of some friends in the village. It started at about three in the afternoon and we arrived home shortly before midnight! We had a really good time but I felt a little the worst for wear this morning.

The fiesta in Baza started at the weekend but unfortunately we missed the “oil run”, which was on Sunday evening, however we went in today to watch the parade which was fanastic! It was led by a team of beautiful horses ridden by men in traditional Spanish dress, followed by the most incredible floats, people in fancy dress, dancers etc. There must have been thousands of people lining the streets or watching from their balconies. The fiesta lasts for a week. There is a fair and lots of bars and eating places set up on the site of the local market and a large stage where there are nightly shows. We are planning to go  for at least one evening, hopefully to see some flamenco dancing; watch this space.

Thanks very much to people who left suggestions for how to solve our “wall dilemma”, they made me laugh but didn’t actually solve the problem. We’re now looking for someone who can lend us a taller ladder.

We’ve done a bit more work on the table this week, another few weeks and we may be able to have a grand opening ceremony and publish the photos. We have some geckos living on the roof terrace and were surprised to find a baby one, a few centimetres long, in our kitchen sink the other day. I mnanaged to put him out of the window and watched him run off down the wall, hopefully to find his family again. (By the time you read this Kate should have added a picture for me).

We had another really nice day at the lake this week. We found a small, deserted beach which was lovely. It was really private, probably because you had to climb down a near vertical slope covered in loose stones to get to it. Worth it though. It struck me, while we were driving there, how good the roads are in this part of Spain. The motorway system is excellent and, as long as you avoid “rush hour” you can drive for miles and scarcely see another car. The road surfaces are also much better than in the U.K. When we first came to this area to look at property, about four years ago, many of the mountain roads had no barrier to stop you driving off the edge and down the mountainside to certain death. One road in particular was  christened (by me) Scary Road, as it consists of a series of hairpin bends with a drop of what looked to me like several hundred feet. The first time we drove along it my husband suggested, while negotiating a particularly tight bend, that we might pull over onto the grass verge  (allof a metre wide) to look at the view. Needless to say I declined. My actual words were “ARE YOU QUITE MAD ??!!”  Anyway, Scary Road is scary no more. It now has a barrier along it so that even nervous passengers like me are not scared any more.

We’re going into Baza tomorrow to the market to stock up on fruit and veg. Apparently there is a fiesta in Baza at the weekend which includes, as entertainment, a large group of people with blackened faces running through the streets doing their best to smear all the passers-by with oil! It seems that this is something to do with a historical feud between the people of Baza and the people of Guadix concerning the hotly disputed ownership of the “Dama de Baza” a statue dug up somewhere between the two towns. I shall try to find out more about it. The fiestas in Baza are usually well worth visiting. As well as market stalls, activities for the children etc. there are usually open-air concerts in the evenings. I shall try to get a programme tomorrow.

The weather is a bit cooler in the mornings and evenings now. I took Bailey for a walk at about 9.30a.m. the other day and the weather was beautiful, like a very warm English summer’s day; though this is apparently something that doesn’t exist any more. There are fig trees along the road here which are now loaded with figs, ripe for the picking. Delicious! Soon it will be pomegranete time and again these can be picked from the trees at the side of the road.

Just off now to walk the dog and pick some more figs for breakfast tomorrow.

Speak again soon.