Hi everyone,
Now that we are settled at the house I will probably pen
a monthly blog.
When I last wrote we had just got back here in lovely
Casas Nuevas. Our first task was to find out how to sort the termite problem.
Last year Chris had all of the door frames removed, treated and we
painstakingly sanded them and applied undercoat and gloss paint. It was so
disappointing to find that the little vermin were back. As with anything in
Spain finding the best way forward isn’t always easy, the locals all just said
go to a hardware shop and treat the problem, usually with some noxious
substance. Chris was keen to make sure this was a definitive solution. We were
in the builder’s merchants in Mula for guttering and while Chris was out the
back finding the right bit I asked one of the helpful staff if they knew any
specialist people who would come and assess the problem. One of the lads rang
someone, with no success and then said he would look online for us. He found a
company called Higienista and later I looked them up on line and they were a
big company with a lots of experience.
Getting things sorted in Spain is one thing when you are
face to face and can try mime, drawing etc and can see the person and
understand the non-verbals. I hate having to telephone but I prepared my key
technical phrases and rang the company, thankfully I eventually got someone who
spoke good English and a couple of days later Ivan came to check out the house.
We have eight wooden doors and three of the frames had been attacked and he
said it looked very much like termites. He got out his stethoscope and sure
enough he could hear munching and thankfully the other five door frames were
termite free. He did a bit of rooting around outside and showed us some termite
activity in wood outside in the field directly behind the house. They look just
like big maggots YUK....... He said the problem is that they live underground
and have a complex tunnelling system and at the centre of the nest is the queen
and they had to keep her well supplied with chewed up wood. They come into the
house through the floor up into the wall and then into the frames and treating
the wood won’t get rid of them permanently. The next day we got two pdf files
with plans on termite extinction, one a chemical/fumigation process and the
other an eco-friendly 9-12 months of gradually killing off the nest. Both costs
were high but the latter was 1,100 Euros more and seemed like a lengthy
process. We opted for the former and booked to have it done on 5th November.
Idg came to spend a week with us in October, I met her
at Alicante and we picked up a hire car and drove back to the house. She had
been in Barcelona for a couple of days of city sightseeing. It was Sunday and
we had booked a table in the village for lunch. For starters we had fried fresh
little squid, baked octopus and mussels, main courses were swordfish, lamb and
chicken and then dessert was flan de cafe, home made by our neighbour. Sunday
lunch is now in the new “salon” which is just a little bit up from the house
and they have done a very good job of converting it and the food is good but it
lacks the village feel. It had plenty of atmosphere, as a group of about 40
local walkers were also having lunch.
We had a good week, the weather was unseasonably hot and
Monday we went for a wander round Caravaca de la Cruz on market day. Tuesday we
decided to walk from the house, we left about 10am and walked for 4 hours and
the last hour was a killer it was 33 degrees by we got back to the bar.
On Wednesday
Imogen and I went on our own to Banos la Fortuna a place with thermal baths. It has two distinct parts, a “complex” with
nice hotels and a set of thermal pools and treatment areas and a campsite. We did see a man in his white dressing gown wandering
around with a bag that looked like a colonic irrigation tube!! We had coffee on
the terrace of the posh bit and then wandered across to the other part which is
about half a mile away and is a pool in the campsite and is a better option on
all levels, the price, the availability of shade in the pool and the fact you don’t
have to wear a swimming cap, unlike at the posh place!! For 15 Euros you get
access to the pool and menu del dia, for which I had quite low expectations but
it was good and included a bottle of crisp, dry, cold rose wine.
As we had a car for a week Chris wanted to go to the DIY
shop near Murcia, it is a pain going in the campervan so he went to Leroy and
Merlin and we wandered around the shops in Nueva Condimina; an out of town shopping
complex. It is pretty soulless and has the standard fare but it is
air-conditioned and has a couple of decent shops, including C&A, long gone
from the UK but a must if you want to buy a simple cotton tee shirt as the
Spanish seem to wear patterns, logos etc. We then got the tamvia (tram) into
Murcia and had a stop off under the massive fig tree in one of the squares for
a glass of cold rose........bit of a theme!! We wandered to the cathedral
square and eventually stopped for lunch and sat outside at the boulevard cafe.
For 12 Euros we had a pretty upmarket menu del dia, all beautifully cooked and
presented and the place was packed with local Spanish people, always a good
sign.
The good weather continued so Friday we headed for the
coast and had coffee in Mazarron and then had a few hours on the beach before
heading to the marina for lunch. This
area is much more touristy and there are lots of expats living on the coast,
this keeps prices competitive but changes the atmosphere a bit. All in all it
was a good day.
Saturday we had a quiet time, Idg and I went for a mooch
around the market in Mula. We got the
disappointing news that our application for tickets for the Rugby World Cup
final had been unsuccessful , which called for a glass of rose!! A final meal in the salon, this time eating
the local speciality cabrito, which is goat.
On Sunday I drove with Imogen back to
The week was soon over and I
flew back into Murcia on the last flight from Newcastle till next Spring and
Chris picked me up in the van. No chance of a rest as I had a 10 am appointment
at the dentist the next day, he doesn’t have a hygienist so he does the
cleaning himself. It was the usual ultrasonic cleaning but then he uses a
bicarb spray before the final polish, he was very methodical and careful and my
teeth felt brilliant afterwards. He speaks good English and had just popped to
Rome at the weekend to take his mother-in –law and wife over so they could see
St Peter’s and then attend the Wednesday mass, usually his trips involve a bit
of opera but not this time.
Next day was D day for the termites, our guys arrived on
time and explained that it would take 3-4 hours and we couldn’t go back in the
house for at least 48 hours. We had already packed Henry ready but the van had
developed a problem with the radiator overheating and leaking so we didn’t want
to go far. So we parked up on a flat piece of land at the entrance to the
village and spent the night there. Our neighbour had said he would look at the
van but didn’t turn up.......manana.
The
next day we checked on the house which had a keep out notice on the door!!
We drove to a garage in Pliego, where we had previously
had some work done on Ruby, but it hadn’t overheated or leaked and the van was
too big to take into the workshop. We decided as it seemed okay to go the campsite
at Bullas, 30 minutes away. We just got hooked up pottered around enjoyed
eating in the sun and chilling. Next day we got back and opened all of the
doors and windows to ventilate the place. Around each door frame there are
about half a dozen injection points where they drilled into the wall and put in
a small plastic valve and injected chemicals and repeated this into the floor. Likewise
they have drilled outside the house, front and back. They had set off four
fumigation bombs that had burnt slowly. They had cleaned up after themselves
but we swept through and mopped and settled back in the house. Hopefully that
is that!!
Chris is in charge of the mechanics of the van and he
had brought out some front brake discs and we found a garage in Mula who have
enough space to take the van and we have hired a car locally to give us the
chance to get the brakes done. Unlike the hugely expensive work in Cork we were
only charged 22 euros an hour and they were very efficient. Henry is there at
the minute getting the radio sorted out.
Chris’ house always requires some maintenance etc so he
has been pottering replacing light switches and sockets, putting up new lamps
in the bedrooms. The hall has been decorated and looks so much brighter. After
getting new windows last year the finishing touch would be some curtains so we
went into a shop in Mula and got a quote for simple lightweight curtains and
when he said 220 euros I nearly fell over and needless to say we didn’t order
them!! For 32 euros we got some ready-made white ones with a little bit of
purple for the living room and brown for our room. Nice silver poles from the
Chinese supermarket (they sell everything!!) and the room looks so much better.
We had a delivery of a tonne of wood last week, it looks
an enormous quantity but as it is now November we will need it. It is pretty
cold overnight the forecast is for it to be 2 degrees. It took a while to move
it all and there is still some out the front as the storage we use for the wood
is full. The wood burner is so much better this year, the new straight chimney
makes it more manageable.
Last weekend we opted to have a tapas Sunday lunch down
in the bar and it made me realise what we miss by having a proper meal in the
new salon. The bar was pretty full of locals and the salon is usually full of
visitors. Chris managed to chat to the
“alcalde”, the mayor, about who owns the land behind the house and was advised
he is unlikely to be able to buy any of it!!
We have a few visitors booked in too, on Monday Glen and
Steve are coming over. They are near Torrevieja for two months. We met in India
in 2011 and planned to meet up about this time of year in Spain but sadly Steve
developed leukaemia and has had a pretty rough time but is now able to travel again.
It will be great to catch up with them. Chris’ son Adam is coming for a week in
January and Chris’ old school friend Alan in February. In between we are hoping
to have a trip to see Jaen and Almeria and I have worked out a route north for
our return in March.
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