Our House in the Alpujarras

Having completed in April I returned in July to baking hot temperatures and beautifull sunshine and spent a glorious week in Yegen. I arrived out the day after the electrician had been to carry out the work identified as essential by the boletin for safety prior to Endesa accepting me as a customer. Replacing 2 fuses in the fuse box which is fairly subjective in terms of its necessity and the completely uneccessary measure of replacing the plastic box with a window which contained my electric meter for a larger cabinet with a metal door which would now require opening to read my meter. The rest of the village appear to be happily managing with the old plastic version so the need for this particular change completely escapes me.

I also had an unexpected job awaiting me when I found that the beams in my covered terrace had been attacked by dreaded carpenter bees, which had borrowed into the beems to lay their eggs leaving sawdust everywhere. A trip to the local fereterria later I returned with a cannister of Martacoma recomended and a trusty can of Raid wasp killer. I sprayed the beams with the Martacoma and when this didn't appear to ahve the desired effect immediately i chased them round the covered terrace trying to drown them in Raid.

OUr first joint visit came in October when we spent 3 weeks in the village. Once again we were treated to glorious weather warm and sunny except for the last 4 days when the rains and mists came but as it was nearly November one can hardly complain. Yegen is 1100 meters above sea level and so it is not unusual to be enveloped in the cloud. It was truely facinating to stand in a bar at the top of the village looking out over the village below with a clear view of all below you but literaly within seconds for everything to disappear in front of you're eyes only to reappear seconds later as if it had never happened. A truely magical experience.

The carpenter bees from the previous visit  seemed to have disappeared thankfully and so we set our sights on the next task, getting a larger satellite dish and new cabling so we could get the BBC when we fancied a bit of UK TV. A local man duely arrived ( the satellite man of Yegen) and set about installing the hardware. Another e 450 later and subsequently he returned to tune everything in. To improve the experience yet further Anna and I set off for the nearest town of size Berja to look for a TV. We could possibly have saved more money with a trip all the way to Almeria or similar large superstore on the coast but then we would incur more cost getting there. The choice of shops for electrical items was relitively slim in Berja but eventually we came away with a nice LED flat screen 32 " LG TV. Another e 350 from the budget .

We also had a day in Berja to take in the shops including a visit to Mercadonna and to discover the dwindling but  well stocked open air market with fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables available to purchase a definate must to more permanent life in the area.

And so to look forward to 2013 and more visits to come.