Biking & Baking in Las Alpujarras

At last!  The dead chestnut is down, laid full length on the ground like a beached whale or an old elephant...and no damage done  to man, beast or electricity cable either!  This last point was our main concern and right up to the last minute we were spending a fortune trying to contact someone at Endesa to come and lower the line...in the end we had to get on regardless and luckily all went well. 

Our friend Giles, a trained arboriculturalist, got up to about 30metres and carefully trimmed off the main overhanging branches.   Steve had already put  a rope onto one of them, so it pivoted in a very elegant fashion and dropped into the barranco; the other, bigger set of branches did catch the cable on the way down but there was enough slack for it to take the hit and bounce back up again.  The final job was to bring down the rest of the tree, main trunk et al which Giles was able to do on the ground.  He cut a 70 degree wedge on the side that we wanted it to fall (away from our neighbour's swimming pool), then chain-sawed the other side until there was just a sliver of wood holding it all upright.  Then he hammered in a few iron wedges, swung the sledge at it a few times and ....down it crashed, to a round of cheers and claps.  We were delighted and we now have a lot of firewood for next winter.

The other, live tree has also been trimmed down and cleaned out by Giles, adding to our supply.  The next challenge is cutting it all up and hauling it up to the village.  There is no vehicle access within 100 metres so it's a case of 'have wheelbarrow, will travel' and a lot of sweated labour.  Our new daily workout!

A bit of the wood has already been burned on the village bonfire (the Chisco) but this was nothing compared to the Torviscon celebrations...bonfires blazing all through the town, fireworks and fairgrounds and hot chocolate...the winter cold has been kept at bay and we've all had a weekend of hangovers, but also lots of fun!

It's getting much cooler up here and we are anticipating some rain and snow over the next few days.  Today I made a yummy soup which we ate out on the balcony, but then the clouds came over and now we are inside with the woodburner!  No doubt it's cool 'oop north' as well, so here's the recipe in the order in which you'll need things:

40g butter, 1 onion chopped fine, 675g parsnips, peeled and diced or chopped fine, 1 leek (optional) chopped fine, 3 or 4 stalks of celery chopped fine

1 tsp ground coriander, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp ground turmeric, 1/4 tsp chilli powder

1.2 litres chicken stock,  150 ml single cream

1 tbs sunflower oil, 1 x garlic clove finely sliced, 2 tsp mustard seeds, salt & pepper  seasoning

Melt the butter in a big pan, add the onions & parsnips and fry gently for about 5 mins.  Stir in the spices, put the lid on and sweat for a further 5 mins.  Add the stock and seasoning if required.  Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for about 45 mins or until all the vegetables are tender.  Take off the heat and cool slightly, then puree in a blender (if you don't have one it doesn't matter, it will be just as tasty left au natural).  Return the soup to the pan, stir in the cream and heat through very gently.  Heat the oil in a small pan and quickly fry the garlic & mustard seeds.  When the garlic is browned and the seeds popping, remove from the heat.  Ladle the soup into warmed bowls and garnish with the hot spice mixture.  Serve immediately with some fresh and crusty bread.  Expect everyone to have second helpings!

Hasta luego!

After 2 late nights in succession, we blew away the cobwebs today with a 5 hour walk above Berchules in the Eastern Alpujarras (Walk 12 in Jeremy Rabjohns' book) and had the hills all to ourselves except for a brief encounter with a horned mountain goat and several grouse.   This walk is really worth doing just for the beautiful mule path up the hillside and the amazing stone-built acequia on the ridge.  Also stunning views to the south and east.  Even at 1700m it was T-shirt weather - Steve still in his shorts but he had the grace to pack some lower 'legs' in his rucksack just in case!  I boiled in lined trousers and tied my jacket round my waist for the whole trip, but  I was glad of it by the time we got home (after another stupendous red/purple sunset.) .   If you decide to give it a go, we would suggest that you allow a good 5 hours for the walk, take water and don't whinge on the steep bits!!   We had coffee before and a cerveza afterwards in the excellent bar at the bus station car park...lots of photos of James Dean & Marilyn Monroe on the walls, with guitars and motorbikes hanging from the beams and a very genial owner who speaks some English.  

Back to normal routine now and I must make some lemon and ginger marmalade...