Salobreña December 2013

A merry Christmas and happy New Year.

For us 2013 will be remembered as the year of the house, In early January we completed the purchase of a property in Urbanización Alfamar, the same development as Sandra’s sister Cheryl and her husband, Tony. We have always wanted to build an energy efficient home with a garden and this property ticked all the boxes. The existing house is 47 years old and it sits on a lot with a 180 degree view of the Mediterranean. The plan was to renovate or replace the existing house with a modern design which capitalised on the fine weather which this part of Spain enjoys. We engaged the services of an architect in Granada and set about planning the design. What we had not bargained for was the instability of some of the coastal lands. While the existing house on the lot showed very little movement some of the surrounding properties had suffered from landslips following the period of wet weather of two years back.

The long and the short of it is that following seismic and other surveys the proposal put forward by the architect was unrealistically expensive for the particular property. We were very disappointed as we had invested our efforts in developing what would have been an attractive low energy home. In the following weeks Sandra trolled the internet for solutions to the problem. Eventually she hit upon an eco village development in central Ireland – Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary (www.thevillage.ie). From what we read it looked like an extremely interesting initiative and we decided to do further follow-up by paying it a visit. So in August we headed off to Ireland for a week. The closest accommodation we could find was at Portumna, which is near the north end of Lough Derg. From there we visited the development just about every day and spent many hours chatting with the residents. The people we met were incredibly friendly and helpful. We also got to know a local builder and local architect. On the flight home and during the next weeks we realised that the eco village would provide a community where we could settle down. Building in Spain would have been fine, but integration into the local community was not going to happen (at least not quickly). Dividing our time between Ireland and Spain seems like an ideal solution.

We went back to Cloughjordan in October, staying this time at the eco hostel in the village. This way we could check out in greater detail the pros and cons of living there. We are now completing the negotiations to purchase two adjacent lots on which we will build an energy efficient home. Since planning restrictions require a two storey home Liam, the local architect (http://liamryancancerappeal.weebly.com/the-full-story.html), has designed a Y-shaped building where the stem of the Y is two storeys and the arms are single storey. This second visit enabled us to spend time with him tweaking details of his design. The design was submitted to the Planning Commission at the beginning of December and we should be able to start construction in April. With Ireland beginning to come out of recession our builder has already purchased those materials for the construction of the house which as showing signs of rapidly increasing in price.

Work at the cortijo has continued at a somewhat slower pace this year. Sandra’s gardening suffered a severe setback when 70 m of the azequia which provides us with water were carried away in a landslip. A replacement line has now been constructed, but during the crucial early part of the growing season the plants were without water. Consequently the harvest has been not as good as earlier years. Throughout the summer we were on short rations for water as well. Indeed we had our first ration in about four months in mid-November at 8:00 in the evening. There we were in the dark stumbling around filling water deposits and irrigating trees and deep beds. In October we took advantage of the fine weather to sweep the chimney of the stove. Despite this the stove did not work well. The fire was hard to light and the glass in the fire door was constantly being blacked out with carbon. We subsequently found out that it was possible (and necessary) to clean out the space around the oven. This space was seriously blocked. Since we cleaned out the deposits and soot the stove has been working like new.

Sandra has also been working hard to repair the damage caused to the internal paintwork by the extensive rains of two or three years ago. We have had a number of goes at removing flaking paint and touching up the stained patches, but all without success. This time Sandra has applied a sealer product and then painted over that. The end result is really impressive and it looks as though we may have solved the problem. However, we will have to wait and see about that. I haven’t progressed very much further with the construction of steps linking the terraces or in adding to our deep beds. This latter is fairly urgent as the wild pigs are ploughing up the soil around the raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries and the wild goats are find our almond trees tot heir taste. The problem is in getting large pieces of timber up to the cortijo. While companies say they will deliver, delivering into the countryside is not included. I hope to work out something with the building supplies company in Lanjaron which does send its trucks into the hinterlands.

Life in Venus continues as usual. The place next door has been sold and been renovated. The new neighbours live in Grenada and use the apartment for the occasional weekend and during fiestas, so we don’t see them very often. The English couple in number 13 have followed their practice of coming out for the Spring and Fall periods, the rest of the year being spent in the UK. Since they drive down each time they have very kindly brought items out for us which otherwise would have cost us an arm and a leg to have sent through the post or by courier.

During July we were delighted to be able to have Stephanie and Lawrence with us for a month. Stephanie took the opportunity to partially recover from the stresses and strains of overwork by trying out the various treatments available at the spa in Lanjaron. Lawrence enjoyed his weekday mornings in a summer school programme of sports and crafts at a local sports club in Motril and his weekends at the cortijo. We celebrated Cheryl and Tony’s 40^th wedding anniversary. This was followed in September by a visit from Michele, a long term Australian friend of Sandra’s who stopped off for a week on her way home from a trip to the Arctic and Iceland.

We plan to see the year out and 2014 in on a walking holiday. We hope to walk the Camino Mozarabe – from Malaga to Cordoba – starting on Boxing Day. This 200 km long section of the 1228.5 km camino from Malaga to Santiago was re-established last year so is well sign posted. It will be our first attempt to walk in winter and should be prove interesting.

Meantime Cheryl and Tony’s Spanish neighbour who has put in a lovely new kitchen for them is starting on retrofitting the house on Alfamar. Renovations are starting on the garage. The next phase will be micropiles to stabilise the house. Then on to terracing and planting  the garden and reformas’ to the house. 2014 is going to be quite a year!