La Familia Davenpuerto

Back again on this blogging business – been far too busy over the last few months with olives, and yet more olives. Have been seeing them in our sleep. 

We were told that February was the month that it was good to see the back of – I do not know why as March has some interesting points as well. Bright clear sunny days – with a gusting wind and at night….the temperature drops because of the clear skies, and the wind puts it’s back into it. Good job I gaffa taped the roof on as I am sure it tried to part company last night. It was so cold last night that a game of musical beds was in order – with Jen ending up in Jack’s bed. She looked so sweet in the morning, as some of you will know, with thermal vest, two pairs of pyjamas, a sweater, Jacks’ anorak , bed socks, a hat, some eye patches to cut out the light, and a pair of gloves on.

Needless to say, she rose with a sunny disposition, once I had been told where to put my cup of tea. As our container has not turned up yet, it was a trip to buy another duvet or two. Jack and Caitlin will be in the bunk beds tonight – at least they can keep each other warm.

As you have guessed – we are now in our caravan – and have been in situ for just over a week – a week I do not think I would like to repeat. Power boys were told some 3 weeks ago that this was the time we needed to be in, and asked to ensure everything was ready. Tuesday dawned bright and windy, and no power boys were in evidence – ‘we are just waiting for a few bits and pieces’ – like a generator – useful, batteries – vital, and solar panels – also useful. ‘We have got the well pump tho’. I suspect that Jennifer had a use for that well pump had they been on site.

I managed to elicit the promise of a generator on loan, later in the day. Hopefully before it grew dark please, ‘tho Jen had stocked up on candles, not believing them. It duly arrived, and they sped off. Hang on – I have never used a generator before – never mind we have one – now to figure out what to do with it.

We did have a ‘cubos’ – a large, square (hence the name) plastic container that held 1000 litres of water – but no means to fed it into the van at pressure. Oh – we need a water pump – so of we traipse to ‘Leroy Merlins’ a B&Q to end all B&Qs – and purchased 9 different connectors and pipes which is what is needed to link a ‘cubos’ to a caravan water supply. Was a lot simpler in Anglesey, I seem to remember. Back to the van, and connect it all up. The pump needs power so lets fire up the genny – just like my Dad’s lawnmower surely. Well just like my dad’s lawnmower, the pull cord broke on the second pull – so back to square one. Time to darkness – 2 hours. Having a wonderful time – wish you were here.

Lit a fire outside – burnt some sausages, and Jen managed to find someone with a spare generator without lawnmower tendencies – eureka we have water – we can flush the loo, run the taps, be civilised. No electricity into the van as some kind soul had disconnected the wire from the fuse box to the outside, and with failing batteries in our torches, and lacking the requisite knowledge – we had to ditch it ‘til morning.

The kids went to bed by candlelight – ‘this is great’ – stinking of smoke and bbq, but at least they have washed their faces, and brushed their teeth!

A friend very kindly came the next day with a generator that worked, and some batteries so at least we had power of a sort, and he also connected up the gas so we could cook as well. A brave new dawn. The power boys came the next day and under threat of having various private parts removed by Jen, and none too surgically, they finally came good 5 days later. To cut a very long story short, we now have what we dreamed of. Four solar panels provide all the electricity we could need, and a well pump produces 300 litres of our own water per hour, from 125m down.

The kids have been thriving – still incredibly happy to go to school and we drop them off at a ‘tutor’ of sorts for one hour per week to help them with Catalan, which is the language they have to learn at school in preference to Spanish. Jen and I are happy to trim olive trees during the day, and run about generally. Everything takes that bit longer here – which is fine, but every now and then something surprises you. The Spanish love of forms is something we have come to live with – you apparently need one to have a bonfire. We applied for one because we have to burn the olive tree trimmings, thinking it would be nice to have one legally rather than worry every time a car went past when we were breaking the law. No stringent ‘fire safety’ test, no processing fee, no beetle-browed official interrogating us – just ‘here you are’ – so now we are free to have a bonfire but not on Sundays or fiestas, and only between 6am and midday, as long as a responsible person is present. Hmmm…. I have always loved bonfires but responsible – maybe not – I burnt down Dads fence which possibly disqualifies me.

We had 13 tons of gravel delivered last Saturday and spent the weekend raking it out into some sort of patio (actually not that grand) but at least it will keep the caravan a little cleaner, and as I write a fence is being erected around the caravan area – so that the dog can run around chasing lizards and not the lorries/vans/tractors that come down our road every now and then – another 3700 euros for the benefit of Rocky. He has cost some money – always thought ‘rescue’ dogs were better value. The kids are now mithering us for a puppy – which have put off until we have a fence up – but now we will have to think of something else. I blame one of our neighbours who came round with a 3 week old puppy that she had saved from being put down. They really are cute at that age – but like kids – you don’t know what they will turn into.

We have now settled on a red wine that is 2 euros for 2 litres – and comes in an attractive plastic flagon. We try to eat fish every week – but are still on ‘suck it and see’ mode, as apart from mackerel, we do not know what any of the larger fish are. We had dorada last night, bbqing it in foil a la Jamie Oliver. After the requisite time we opened it up, and then banged it in the oven for another 40 mins as it was still raw. I must admit to not being very knowledgeable about fish, but we are getting there.

The sunflowers that we sowed are now 3 inches tall, and onion bulbs are doing well, but the tomatoes need a little coaxing still. We now have a 5 foot square veg patch. Jack and I dug and raked out all the stones from it for about an hour, before Santi – he of digger fame – came and double or treble dug it in two minutes with his digger. I think he had been watching us struggle and enjoying it.

We have had rain now for the last 3 days – which together with last week’s winds – remind us of Rhosneigr, but it is warm during the day, and actually quite pleasant – but I wish the sun would return. We had an important meeting at the town hall yesterday with our neighbour to settle the ownership of what transpired to be 2 journals of land that lies between us. It has about 30 more olive trees on it,, and to be frank I went into the meeting not caring who had it – it would not do to upset one’s neighbours so soon into our stay here. I was also prepared for a Spanish stitch up – where after a lot of gesticulating and rapido Spanish, the main man would shrug, and tell us that it was not our land, and that there was nothing to do. As the dispute or more accurately – clarification, concerned our boundaries, I was prepared for the long haul, with ancient relatives being called in to swear all sorts of things, but a very nice man just took out a ruler, read our deeds – measured the land from a web page printout and pronounced in our favour. We now have 2 more journals, and 30 more trees than we first thought. ( A journal is an old measurement of area – being the amount of land a man is expected to plough in day). After we had signed in triplicate – four times – we emerged and repaired to the bar with our neighbour for a celebratory beer – well it was 11:30. He also informed us that we can apply for a grant for the trees as well – some 1,200 euros per year – which sounds good. A very nice man, our neighbour – although he thinks we are mad for wanting to live in el campo – the fields. With the rain crashing down around me at the moment I can see where he is coming from. At least we have plenty of water.

Aunty Cara is coming to stay on Friday for a week so it will give us the nudge we need to get out and explore a little. There are some great caves not too far away, and the delta has some great beaches and restaurants, and a river cruiser as well. All of these things we have put off, but the kids will break up for 10 days now for Easter so it will be nice to get out and about a little.

Hope all well with you – I read that the council tax is rising again – if ours goes up by the same amount – it will be 17 euros per year.

We have now been here just over a month – which in itself is frightening. The weather has been good to us – a few bouts of rain – but otherwise mostly warm and bright, if not hot on occasion. The wind however has been an altogether different feature of our lives here. In November and February – the windy season here – it can become quite violent – and last week it topped about 80km/hour here – mostly in gusts. Further down the coast – it hit 160km/hour – and brought down power lines and roofs etc. Another interesting facet of our life here.

The kids are doing well – happy to go to school most days – and we are hopefully starting a tutor for Catalan next week to kick-start the language for them both. Caitlin played in a handball match yesterday – her first – and scored on her debut so she was really pleased. Jack is enjoying a lot of football, and we hope to have him at football practise this coming week.

Rocky has broken his duck also – he caught his first rabbit last week – poor little thing ran out in front of him on the land – and Rocky shot off his lead after it. Cues several moments of frantic screaming and chasing (from us) and he has it cornered. Daft sod did not know what to do next – so he let it go – and then chased after it again, only to lose it in the undergrowth. Silly sod – I really believe he did not know what to do next.

Met up with a really nice English couple next door but one – well half a mile away in real terms, they have three younger children, and hail from Crewe. Small world, as usual.

We are out of our flat this week – our caravan is almost ready for habitation – well it needs water power and gas but hey you can’t have everything – we have a nice swing so maybe that will compensate for the lack of basic facilities. We have planted tomatoes, onions and peppers – but I think we have positioned them badly – when the rains come in September it rather appears that the veg. patch will be 2 foot deep in water. Should help with the watering – or maybe we should grow rice.

Will be nice to live on the land at last – for at the moment we are ferrying about a lot – 4 trips to school everyday from here is 40 miles – and then handball/dentists etc bang it up to a minimum of 300 miles per week – doesn’t sound a lot but we are supposed to be living the ‘relaxed’ lifestyle here, and 300 miles is 300 miles. Jen is a little fed up of this but she is enjoying herself – her Spanish is coming on great guns, and she is proving herself adept with the olive tree pruning.

We have now done 25 out of 160 trees – some take over an hour to prune, as they have not really been touched for over 5 years, whilst others can be topped out in 30-40 minutes. All our almonds have finished flowering – which was lovely, and one very large tree, which has looked dead thus far, has just begun to bud so we have great hopes that this could be an interesting one – I have hopes of it being a cherry. We have also found two nispernum (sp) trees on our land, which apparently produce an apricot-like fruit which is very sweet and good to eat.

On the lifestyle front – we have now comes to terms with the prices and have settled on wine @ 1 – 1.50 euros per bottle – the mackerel we had last week form the market was 2 euros per kilo – and did not taste of mackerel – it was heavenly. Fish – ridiculously fresh fish – is so inexpensive here – and at the moment we are juicing oranges every morning which are either free – our new neighbours just handed over bags of them, or else about 1 euro for 4 kg. We received a red cross parcel from England yesterday, in the shape of 160 PG Tips Tea Bags which was very welcome. We now have a stockpile of 230 – but horrendously only about

30 Yorkshire Tea bags left. We had not quite got to the stage of drying them on line, re-using them but needs must.

Internet access has been patchy – we have a mobile card which works well in the towns, but is useless in ‘el campo’ – the country – so we have been investigating the ‘RURAL ADSL’ option which necessitates clear line of sight to Mount Caro – some 30 km away. After exhaustive studies, which involved climbing up trees, and on the top of our generator shed, we had found that we can nearly see it from our land but only if we lost a tree or so. Ah well – what’s one less tree – chopped it up yesterday and now we can have ‘full-fat broadband’ so hopefully it will be a little easier to get on-line shortly.

The delta itself is quite ‘alternative’ – it is huge, and flat. Currently nothing is growing there – but a large amount of the rice grown in Spain comes from here, and it is chock full of birds – herons of all shapes and sizes – yesterday Jen saw a massive eagle on her journey inland with the handball team. Wild life is certainly different here – what with ‘processional caterpillars’ – like the furry ones in Anglesey but lethal to dogs, and various creepy crawlies all of which seem to have unpleasant stings or bites. We have not found any yet tho.

We have mapped out the camp-site on the land – and whilst we will not be able to provide electric hook up this year, (we have no power ourselves yet!) we can offer sea views – albeit through a gap in the trees. Will be putting up pictures on the web site shortly – once we have decided it is safe to do so. Our landlord from the shop is still sniffing around after us.

We have a busy week ahead of us – what with hopefully getting some sort of power and water on the land on Tues/Weds – Spanish time Saturday no doubt. We still have 140ish trees to top out – and need to get through the weeds which will swamp us if we do not attack them now. We have a patio to gravel, and more good wine and food to consume but I am sure we will make it through another week.

All the best to all

Los Davenpuertos.

Well, what a 2 weeks we have had. Goes something like this…

All arrived safely – I drove down which took a leisurely 48 hours with 2 nights stop – Eurotunnel very good – Rocky was good in the car. Jen & kids flew over the next morning – they had picked up a sickness bug from school and jen was wiped out for two days when we got here. We are currently staying in a very nice flat in a nearby town whilst we get ourselves up and running.

To get the kids into the local school we needed all sorts of paperwork – which we finally got on the Monday – and they went straight in – not speaking a word. After two tearful days from Jack he is now having good days – ‘that was the best day so far’ has been uttered for two days on the row now. They go to school – which is very small – from 9-12 and then from 3-5, which is quite nice once you get used to it. Caitlin got off to a flyer – there is an English girl in her class so that has helped immensely. All in all they are now picking up words, and things are a little smoother.

The well – which was only supposed to go down to 90m has been finished at 124m – which has cost a bit more, but at least we have water. They have made a tremendous mess, but were really nice people and have helped us immensely. We have bought a caravan, and it was delivered to our land last week. Amazing journey bringing it into the land – chopping down trees etc. It is a really nice van – only 3 years old – very posh compared to our van in Wales. The local lunatic with a digger was engaged to dig a septic tank, and trench from the van – we then found out that the van is in the wrong place and has to be moved as when the rains come – a river flows through the land – where the caravan has been sited. Aforementioned lunatic then drags the van to higher ground – digs a new trench – fills in the old one and manages to remove three olive trees that got in the way. The look on Jen’s face was priceless – she returned from walking the dog to see a tree flying through the air.

Lunatic also does everything else, and just spent Saturday building a septic tank, and cementing in the van so that it does not go walkabout – and then bricking it in so it looks nice. Now need some power and we are ready to go – some chap is building us a shed next week to house the power bits and bobs so we are moving in the right direction – hope to be in the van in two weeks – will probably be three.

We have seen plans for the house at last – looks good – and the necessary permissions should be granted or otherwise in the nest 2 weeks so watch this space.

We have met our neighbours – most of which seem very kind – although one has bollocked me for ‘pruning’ one of ‘my’ olive trees badly – the thing was knackered so I reduced it to a stump with arms. My bloody tree – so piss off my land – cheeky bugger.

Took the dog to the vets for a check up – he ended up biting Jen in the wrist when being over excited at a cat in the surgery. Net result – dog gets no injections as Jen has a whole in her arm – took in a vein apparently – Jen patched up by vet and sent her off to the medical centre. Didn’t put a collar on her ‘tho. She is fine now – barks a little now and then.

Food is amazing – we are eating really well – it all tastes good. Jack is a confirmed carnivore – and with mussels at 2 euros per kilo and a cheeky little red at 80 cents per bottle – we are coping OK.

We have gone a long way in such a short time, and there is still a long way to go before we can relax a little – but it is certainly interesting – no two days are the same. And some of the beaches we have found thus far are huge – Rocky is in heaven.

That’s all for now – will go and wake up the family – another beautiful day – clear calm and sunny is starting