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| Jackie abseils with Mascarat gorge and the Bernia Ridge in the distance |
Another week here in Spain and numerous bottles of wine and
beer have been drunk and plenty of good food. It’s been hard work as well (I
have the blisters to prove it), but mixed in with a bit of play in the form of
mountain walking, rock climbing and socialising with friends and family.
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| Jackie, Jane, Michael, Elizabeth and Richard enjoying pre-dinner drinks |
There’s been a pretty dramatic downward shift in
temperatures this last week though, still mainly sunny with a few partly cloudy
days, but a cold wind making daytime temperatures between about 17C to about 22C
and night times into single figures of 8 or 9C so, although it’s still hot in
the sun in the daytime, gone are evenings of sitting outside after dark and,
last night the first fire was lit in the lounge. The bonus of this though is
that the cold wind is the result of a low pressure sitting over the Alps
bringing the first fairly heavy falls of snow onto the ski resorts, so it’s
looking good up there. We’ll keep an eye on that and head up there when it’s
all open.
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| Richard looking nervous as the builders unload their materials |
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| Jackie and her dad peering over the balcony |
The hard work on the swimming pool has been continuing, the
earlier wire brushing of the old grouting was not sufficient in certain areas
so serious scraping to get the old grout and mould out all the way round the
curve between the walls and the bottom was required using various screwdrivers
to get in. Taking into account that the tiles are less than an inch square
there was a huge amount of screwdriver work needed.
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| And they are off with the first bricks in place |
Back, shoulders, fingers,
stomach muscles and skin on fingers all suffering, but the job is done, the re-grouting
done and briefly looking good before the builders turned up on Wednesday to
build the new steps to give easy access to the pool. They have worked amazingly
quickly and, as I write, they are virtually finished having built five steps,
re-plumbed one of the water jets and tiled in two days – impressive work! All that’s
needed now is a new rail to be fitted once it arrives. Interesting for me to
watch and the balcony gives a great overview of how they are doing, but they
probably didn’t much like being watched. I attach a few photos of their
progress as I’m sure our readers will be very (yawn) interested (is that the
time?).
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| Jackie and I went for a coffee in town with Elizabeth leaving Richard in control at home |
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| Its all going on! |
Anyway, we’ve been out on a few walks into the mountains and
the cooler but sunny weather is really ideal for energetic walking (but
sunscreen is still required) and even out rock climbing in direct sun is no
longer a problem, maybe a bit hot in sheltered spots, but nothing to complain
about, it’s almost perfect weather for that.
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| But they make amazing progress. Here he is repiping the water jet |
Bit of an incident on today’s walk, I quite fancied a steep
walk up from Algar up to do the west summit of Pena Severino, which is the very
last, relatively insignificant peak on the Bernia ridge, which we’ve never
done. It’s not actually part of the ridge, but is a separate much lower point,
but I really want to tick it off. Jackie thought an easier walk to see the
waterfalls at Algar might be nice, which I’ve also never seen and quite
fancied. The falls are very touristy and relatively short, but are worth the €4
entrance fee, so I agreed to that and then casually mentioned that we could
continue up the mountain path towards the Pena Severino summit afterwards if we
fancied it…
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| Still the same day and now he's rendering |
Nice waterfalls, cool but sunny day, too cold for swimming
in the pools but really quite nice looking, and very few people about
(apparently they are packed with tourists in the summer months). The arboretum
was relatively uninteresting, but a pleasant walk and it finished at a picnic
area all shut up for the winter, except for the very excited, but very thin black
cat that ran up to us for fuss and to see if we had anything to eat. We hadn’t,
except for some brioche that we’d taken for a snack, but she seemed quite happy
to eat anything we gave her and wanted as much fuss as we were prepared to give.
A nice moment and she seemed quite happy when we left going off to patrol her
empty property, so hopefully she’ll managed to feed herself and possibly her
babies that it seemed she might have somewhere judging by the look of her.
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| And today its the tiling. The finished pool will have to wait until the next blog |
So the incident occurred after we left the waterfalls and
headed off up the hill towards Pena Severino on the mountain path. We reached a
path junction and there ahead were a big group of beehives (don’t know what you
call a collection of beehives). Jackie went to have a look, standing 20 or so
feet away but, after a couple of minutes several bees came after her and no
matter how much she swatted and ran away they were not to be deterred,
following her quite a distance until one managed to get into her hair and stung
her.
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| A scrambly walk over the Bernia |
I managed to pull the sting out, but a big red circle appeared in her
hairline with a smaller white circle and, right in the centre, an angry looking
red point. That was the end of the walk as we thought we ought to get down as
fast as possible just in case she got any sort of reaction. She didn’t, we got
back down, went and had lunch at a bar by the waterfalls and headed back home
for an afternoon beer on the balcony and a look at the workers finishing off
the tiling on the swimming pool steps. The mark on her head has gone, she’s
fine and the western summit of Pena Severino is yet to be done!
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| Lunch on the balcony with Jane and Michael |
The socialising has also been in full swing here, from
Sunday lunch on the balcony with Jane (Elizabeth’s sister) and Michael, a
fabulous all you can eat seafood buffet in Albir with R&E, followed by a
dancing show and a live two piece band where we were able to do some ballroom
dancing (what a pity we didn’t take the dance shoes, but we managed anyway),
fabulous Chinese meal with R&E and Richards half-sister Dee and partner
Robert and, this Saturday, lunch at Dagmar and Michaels. All very pleasant.
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