It seems some people are reading this Blog so here is what has been happening recently.

Our land has now been ploughed by Luis which enabled us to empty the contents of our swimming pool onto the land which will really swell the olives. They are looking good and we hope for a decent return this year.

The pool has had a tough time this year coping with algae. We managed to keep it under control with chemicals but, after a three week visit to the UK, it had turned a beautiful shade of green. Emptying the pool was the best option, although my mate Pete suggested a pool cover. “No sun no algae”. Well, a new cover is over €400. To fill the pool with fresh water next spring will cost about €30. So, no contest!

Once the waste water had soaked in to the land (also giving sustenance to a variety of weeds) we were able to spray with weed killer along the walls and where Luis had not been able to turn the land over with his plough. We have been using Luis now for about 8 years and he is still only charging €70. He is a great bloke and despite speaking very broad “Murciana” Spanish, we get on very well. Maybe it’s the occasional bottle of Rioja red wine I give him from time to time.

We have stocked up with 1.2 tonnes of logs for winter. We always order 1 tonne from Jose Leon but he always brings more. Again his charges over the 8 years we have used him, have never altered. 9 cents a kilo meaning we pay about £70 for our winter warmth. This years batch is excellent but contained no smaller stuff for starting the log burner so I was forced to start cutting bits off the massive stock of “kindling” from trees I have cut down or pruned. I will probably need to do that once a month.

Our friend, John, has returned from his Mediterranean Cruise. He enjoyed the fact that he could visit places on the west coast of Italy he had always wanted to visit but the cruise itself did not persuade him to do it again. Very much the same as us after our Norwegian Fjord adventure. A couple on our trip were celebrating their 50th anniversary. No, not wedding but their 50th Cruise, including the very same Norwegian cruise itinerary twice. No doubt they have their sea legs by now.
We have been planning a short break in Reykjavik next year. We are really looking forward to it. They eat a lot of horse and Minky whale. We are not sure if we will partake. We are hoping to catch a view of The Northern Lights. It certainly will be dark enough with only 4.5 hours of sunlight each day. No need to pack sunglasses I think.

Fiesta season in the region has now finished for the year. Our neighbours in Cuevas de Reyllo celebrated their last night on Monday (Spanish National Day) with fireworks we could hear 6 kilometers away. That said, all the Fiestas we have seen this year (Fuente Alamo, Alhama) have cut down considerably over the past couple of years. Even Fiesta street lighting was on one occasion, replaced by shiny paper being strung across the Main Street. It shows how bad things have become with Town Halls in financial difficulties. Complex floats have been largely replace by local groups dancing down the street in fancy dress, usually following a car and trailer loaded with massive loudspeakers and bottles of cola, laced with rum no doubt!! It doesn’t stop the locals turning out in force though who make every effort to dress up and have a good time. Good for them!

As I am about to post this, our Mitsubishi Spacestar is on a garage ramp. It feels, whilst driving (all speeds and gears) as if someone is “feathering” the brakes. It is very worrying and feels expensive. The car has 305,000 kms on the clock so maybe we should expect problems now. Hopefully it will be simple to fix as within the last 12 months our turbocharger “blew”  and two weeks later, so did the cylinder head gasket with a total cost of €1,500. Such is life.