Police Spot Road Check!

There are not many speed cameras in Spain, unlike in the UK, but there is a much higher number of police checks where they flag you down and check your documents and that your car is ok. So far, having been in Spain almost 2 years I have avoided being stopped when I have been driving. We have been stopped once when Neil was driving for a breath test, that was within a week or 2 of moving here and a couple of weeks ago I was in my neighbour’s car with them when were stopped for a paperwork check but today was the first time I have been in my car, on my own and stopped.

I was on my way to my Spanish class this morning when I saw them at the junction of the country road with the motorway. Very often they are on the slip road coming off the motorway but because a lot of the locals use the minor roads, mainly to avoid police checks every now and again they place themselves on the local roads.

I saw them well in advance and so it was no surprise when they flagged me down. There were 2 Guardia and as one was talking to me the other was giving the car a little look over. I was in Brian as Neil had gone to golf in the big car, and I was fairly comfortable that everything was in order but as this was the first time I had been stopped I was aware there may be something I wasn’t aware of.

Firstly he asked me for my ID and I gave him my drivers licence. Then he asked for the documents for the car and I handed him the little folder where everything is kept, insurance, registration documentation, receipt for road tax (you do not display a tax disc on your screen here, as in the UK however, there is a sticker on the screen confirming when the next MOT is due), the receipt for when I purchased it was in there – lots of bits of paper for him to look at.

He took his time looking through it all, occasionally going behind the car to speak to the other officer and as he checked each document he passed it back to me. At one point he made a comment about how much paperwork there is connected to a car in Spain, but I just replied that there was plenty of paperwork in the UK as well. After he’d gone through everything he simply told me that everything was perfect and that I could continue on my way.

I was surprised I had not felt at all anxious but I was feeling very calm. It was good to know that everything is alright with the documents, I know I will not have to worry about being stopped in the future.

Strangely enough I have often felt nervous about being stopped when I was out driving on my own, but when it finally happened I didn’t feel nervous at all.

When things break.

We have been very fortunate that the majority of things we have bought while in Spain have not gone wrong but occasionally, it is necessary to return things or exchange things and this can be quite an effort.

We did have to take the cement mixer back to have a new motor fitted after only 3 months, which was a fairly easy transaction although it did mean 2 trips to Almeria which was 4 hours travelling in total.

At the beginning of the year, when we finally had a telephone line connected via the satellite, we decided we would treat ourselves to a new phone for the house. We had been using one we brought from the UK and the display didn't work properly and sometimes it was difficult to see who you were actually dialling.

We thought we'd get a really good one with an answer machine and a second cordless handset so that we could have one in the study and another in the lounge, 2 rooms at opposite ends of the house which would hopefully mean we would hear it ring no matter where we were. Also, the cordless one can be taken outside where we hope to spend a lot of our summer hours, if summer ever decides to start this year!

Within a month of buying the phone the cordless unit became faulty. At first we though it was a problem with the rechargeable batteries but after a few days it became obvious it was a little bit more than that. We were outside the 21 days return to store policy so I e-mailed the company to start the process of getting it changed.

This is where living in the middle of no-where becomes a bit of a problem. After a few conversations I finally got them to understand it was not just the batteries that needed changing, we had already tried a second set and had the same problem. They would send a courrier with a replacement cordless phone. I told them they would need to contact me in advance so that I could arrange to meet them and I waited for the call.

In Spain nothing happens immediately, so I waited...... generously, for 2 weeks.

Nothing.

I sent a quick e-mail to see what was happening only to find......

I had to start the whole process again.

To be fair, this time it has all happened much quicker and less than a week after giving them all the details again, I had a call from the courrier to say he had a parcel for me. I rang him back to arrange collection and this afternoon I have collected a complete new phone system, not just a replacement for the faulty bit. Maybe they thought this was easier than to find they had changed one bit and we still had a problem.

Once again, I am so pleased I chose to take time to learn the language to a level where I can sort things like this out by phone. I cannot imagine how people manage that cannot speak a bit of Spanish.

All I need to do now is try and remember how to program the phone numbers in and set the answer machine - after all, the manual is in Spanish - I'm getting very good at translation exercises.

Where did the rest of the world go?

We normally have wonderful views all the way down the valley across layer after layer of hills, covered with Mountain Oaks, Almond Trees and Pine Forests.

But every now and then the weather closes in rapidly and we watch the distant hills vanish one after one.

Every now and then, we lose all the hills and the world just seems to end 10m from our front door.

Weird feeling!

Could this be another bad harvest year?

One of the first things we were told when we moved to take over an almond farm was that last year's crop was poor. They were only paying €0.50 per kilo compared to the previous year of €1.50/kg. There was hope that this year would be better.

The blossom is still in the trees although looking a little past it's best after a couple of frosty nights and a snowfall, but already there is talk that this year almond crop will be a poor one, at least in this area. The almond trees are easy to grow because they don't need irrigation, they take the moisture from the ground, and for that they rely on the winter snows and rainfall. However, we are told that a lot of rain on the blossom is bad.

The nut sets at the base of the flower and if there is too much rain the base of the flower gets too damp and goes mouldy before the nut sets. This is the concern for this year's crop.

We were never going to make a fortune from our crop but if predictions are correct we won't even earn enough to pay to have the fields ploughed, something that is necessary to break up the soil and allow the rain and snow falls of next winter to get into the ground and feed the trees rather than it running straight off into the Rambla, to run away as pretty, but useless, babbling brooks.

Having checked a few of our trees I cannot see that we have a problem with mouldy, rotting flower bases, but only time will tell.

The realities of farming and the direct impact of the weather have never felt so relevant. We may not rely on the income from the almonds to eat, as some farmers do, but we still don't want to see a poor crop.

Our new gadget.

Bad weather in Spain has consequences not normally experienced in the UK. It doesn't have to be extreme weather - just a heavy downpour, high winds or even heavy cloud which is low enough to cover us. As well as the direct effect of the weather, a lot of rain or a howling gal, the main indirect effect is thay we can lose our TV signal, and the bad weather doesn't even have to be over us, it can be anywhere between us and the UK, and we don't regain the signal until the weather passes. The other indirect effect is loss of power. This happens more often with heavy rain or snow and normally there will be a series of very short power cuts but can often last several hours.



It was always our intention to buy a generator as a back up power supply and with this in mind Neil and the electrician had installed a socket in the utility room where we could simply plug the generator in to run the lights and sockets in the house if we had a power cut for any length of time. This would make sure that we didn't have to worry about the freezers defrosting (we have 2, one in the kitchen and a second in the utility for when we are snowed in), so that we have heating through the winter and also lights for night time power cuts and of course, power to the sockets also means we continue to have the phone, internet and TV.



Neil had calculated that we needed a 3kw genny and we started to look around for one just last week. There is the usual concerns about where to buy them. We could get them cheaper from the UK than in Spain but that raises issues over the warranty, should anything go wrong. We can buy them from the internet in Spain but again, should anything go wrong it is more difficult to get it sorted dealing with companies over the phone. I know this from personal experience as I am still trying to get the phone we bought replaced because the slave handset doesn't work. This has been going on for 6 weeks and we still haven't got the replacement.



We then managed to find one in a local hardware store that fitted the bill and the budget, so after a couple of days thinking about it, last Thursday we finally decided to bite the bullet and buy it. The owner of the store asked us to call back the following day so that he had time to test that it worked ok and we finally went back on Saturday to collect it.



One of the things I still find amazing here is that they never seem to want to take your money. Having called at the store he told us we needed to drive to the other side of the Poligono to his warehouse where he had been testing it. I expected we would have to pay before we collected it - but no, they wouldn't take my money until after we had checked that it worked ok. After loading it into the back of the car we drove back to the shop so we could pay for it but it did make me wonder whether such a system would work in the UK without having to leave proof of your name, address, phone number and car details.

Anyway, genny paid for we called at the petrol station for a can of petrol and brought it home. Neil sorted it out with a cable and plug and started it up and it chugged away nicely. As our electric supply is from the little casita on the hill, about 400m over muddy, hilly terrain, we decided we would try plugging it into the house on Sunday morning so that if it tripped the fuse we could walk up to the casita to reset it in daylight.

Of course, Sunday morning dawned and we completely forgot to test the genny into the house supply...........

until 3.30pm..............

when the power went off and didn't come back on!

There was nothing to lose. We turned off the main fuse and all the individual fuses to the lights, sockets, cooker, hot tub and went and plugged in genny. Then we fired her up and turned on the fuse to the lights. In excited anticipation we turned on the hall light switch.........

and there was light.

We turned on the fuse to the sockets and all the lights on the computer servers lit up. We had power. Now we just had one problem, how would we know when the mains power was back on?

The only way is to turn the genny off every half hour and see. We don't overlook any other houses, we cannot see the town and there are no street lights in view so there is no way of knowing when the power is back on other than to try it.

Looks like we need a contraption to tell us when we have power again, but at least future powercuts will be less stressful, if a little noisier.

Spring Blossoms.

When we first decided to buy a house on an Almond farm we were told how beautiful it is in Spring when all the blossom is out. How the hills look like they are dotted with candyfloss. How people travel miles to come and drive through the area to admire the blossom.


We arrived at the end of the season when the nuts were being harvested and the blossom was long gone.


But it is back and it is so pretty.




The blossom ranges from white to a deep pink. In some fields the trees blossom all the same colour, in other fields the colours are varied. The blossoms are resiliant. In the UK there is Cherry Blossom, it looks very similar and very beautiful but the first wind takes all the blossoms from the trees and carpets the floor with pink petals. Here, we had hurricane strength winds at the weekend and the blossom is still on the trees.



These are a few of our trees across the Rambla. There's lots of blossom, maybe that means there'll be lots of Almonds when it's time to harvest.


I do hope so.

The snows have gone, here comes the rain.

The land had dried out nicely after all the snows and driving along the dirt tracks isn't a problem anymore, although the chance of keeping your car clean for longer than 2 seconds is remote.

Yesterday was a friend's 50th birthday and he had arranged a birthday luncheon at Casa Joya, which is accessed down a dirt track which takes about 10 mins to drive, so is some distance. My only concerns about going to Casa Joya is the condition of the track as there are some steep sections to it. Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny morning, if a bit cool, and since we hadn't had any rain for several days the track was going to be in good shape to drive.

The birthday lunch was a Greek menu and there were about 20 of us there to enjoy an absolutely fabulous meal. There was just so much food, so may different dishes to enjoy - it was really, really good. Just after we arrived it had started to rain and it continued the whole time we were there, but I hadn't realised just how heavy a downpour it was.

4 hours later we all began to leave and the amount of water that had fallen became very apparent. I had said I would drive home so Neil could have a drink, as I often do and so I ran across the carpark to the car. This was when I realised my first error - I had open-toe high-heeled shoes on. The carpark was now an inch thick with mud and by the time I got to the car my shoes were also an inch thick with mud, as were my toes!

As we set off there is a fairly steep climb out of the carpark. As I tried to get the car up and round the corner I felt the back end start to slip. Neil was coaching me how best to handle the car in the mud but I had only gone about 200 metres when it was obvious I was not going to be able to drive us out of the Rambla, I was too hesitant. When we bought the car we lived in Terreros by the coast. We had the chance of buying a 4x4 version of the car but we couldn't see any need so had bought the 2x4. We weren't to know that 2 years later we would be living in the mountains, using dirt tracks and Rambla tracks as roads and having to deal with snow, ice and everything else this winter has thrown at us. Oh, do wish we'd paid the extra for the 4x4. Still, we didn't so we have to make do.

Making do yesterday entailed stopping the car on a flat spot and swapping over so Neil could drive us back to the tarmac road. To say it was a bit hair-raising is an understatement. How all the cars managed to get out of the Rambla and onto the road is a mystery to me, I thought someone would get stuck.

Open-toed high heels is definitely NOT the correct footwear for the conditions but Neil very kindly cleaned them up for me when we got home. The meal was fabulous, the company was great fun but next time I'm there and it starts to rain, I think I could be leaving before dessert!