A good day for a list

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Paul

It’s a while since I’ve done a list and today it feels right to do so for it has been quite a frustrating day.

I was awoken by the shrill tones of my Spanish mobile phone, for which I have still to find the volume adjustment, at the unearthly hour of 8:05. It was Facundo, with some problem regarding the bathroom tiles I’ve ordered, but at such an ungodly hour and still wiping the sleep from my eyes, I was at a loss as to what. We agreed to meet at the building supplies place an hour hence. But he didn’t show, even after I waited for the best part of an hour past our scheduled rendezvous.

I then went to site to find it deserted except for a few upturned wheelbarrows so I did what you should always do in such a situation, I tried to salvage the day by going to buy some wood from the timber merchant for whom Neil had kindly e-mailed me the co-ordinates.

I followed the satellite navigation instructions and drove past an immaculately clean lumber yard with the system still telling me that I had three kilometres to drive.

Then, exactly where Neil had said it would be, was a ramshackle merchants with cut, and uncut, wood wherever they could squeeze it, knee deep mud, and not even a simple doff of  the cap to health a safety. What a brilliant place!

I found the boss, Jose, explained my requirements and placed my order. When I asked if I should pay now or on collection he looked at me like I had gone mad (which I interpreted as ‘on collection’), before helping me plot a safe route through the mud back to my car (which I’d sensibly left by the roadside).

So, onto the list;

  1. An Englishwoman with a leaky roof trumps an Englishman with a porch to construct in the Facundo division of labour calculations.
  2. I’m none-the-wiser as to Facundo’s no-show, but after talking to the guy at the merchants I have sorted the issue and he will now tell my builder.
  3. We have two choices to get Internet at the barn, neither are perfect or fast, but at least we appear to have a choice.
  4. Our neighbours from Madrid are lovely, but struggle to understand my Spanish. Perhaps everyone else is just being nice, and they are being honest.
  5. When agreeing to take a coffee with neighbours Miro and Elena there is only one permissible answer to the question ‘would you like some chupito (the local home-brewed fire-water) in it’, and that answer doesn’t begin with an ‘N’.
  6. Miro and Elena have a water supply from a spring in the hills, which runs through our property, and which had I not known about it would have seen us cutting them off at some point in the next couple of weeks as we dug the channel for our septic tank.
  7. You don’t have to have a manly handshake to own and run a timber yard.
  8. Enrique, the donkey, now definitely associates me with apples and I feared for my life as he cantered towards me when I was in his field earlier today.
  9. Everyone is keen to know when Amanda is next coming out to Galicia. Not that I am developing a complex about it.
  10. Cascade taps are four times the price in Spain that they are in England.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a day of work. After bumping into Angel at the house at 5:30 tonight he assures me that they will be there tomorrow, mob-handed.

 

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Bad parking, the long drive, and a plate of fried fish

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Paul

I have a friend back home who provides a public service by photographing badly parked cars and submitting the images to a website, with a particularly vulgar name, to out the offenders and subject them to public humiliation. He’d have apoplexy here, and ultimately no-one would care because everyone does it. There is no shame.

The tactic is to find a piece of tarmac, verge, pavement or wasteland as close to the place you want to visit and leave your car there, preferably at a jaunty angle which blocks in as many of the other inappropriately parked cars as possible. For extra effect, leave on your hazard warning lights, but lock up the car with no intention of returning until you are ready.

Cars park two or sometimes three deep. They block the main carriageway of thoroughfares, park across pedestrian crossings, on the corner of blind bends, over people’s drives or in the entrances to shops. There appears to be zero enforcement, and zero implications for the offender. The bizarre thing is that there are plenty of public car parks and these are usually have empty spaces and are totally free to use. It’s laziness or the Spanish mentality, or both!

Yesterday I visited a new (opened April 2011) retail park in A Coruña called Marineda City (the largest in Spain) with our friend Dolores. I took Dolores mainly for her company on the 3½ hour round trip, but also so that she could ask any questions of the shop assistants in IKEA (looking for a sofa-bed and kitchen) and El Corte Ingles (perfume for Amanda) in a far better and more persistant wat than me. It was another ‘details’ day.

The roads were as glorious as the weather, with not a single hold up and barely another car in sight for the 200 mile round trip. I stuck to the limits, to save any further points against my NIE number, and the tolls were just fifty cents (40p) each way. The retail park was only finished last year and it is absolutely massive, guarding the entrance to A Coruña from the motorway.

I confirmed that IKEA has the sofa we’d spotted in England, and the kitchen that Amanda likes in the colour she wants, so my mission was quickly accomplished. Dolores was the only one who left with ‘items purchased’; two cushions, a lamp, some toys (for her consistently hungry cats) and perfume.

As we made it back to the motorway to Lugo, it turned 3pm and we agreed that we’d stop for lunch at the first services. No concrete monstrosity housing McDonalds or Burger King here though, instead a functional roadside restaurant on what used to be the main road before the motorway was built. Drinks, bread, a massive tuna salad, and a big plate of fried fish and potatoes all washed down with a nice milky coffee, quickly made me forget that I’d not eaten for twenty-four hours.

All the above was consumed for a measly 8.50 Euros each, just under seven quid. Much cheaper, much healthier, and much better for the body and soul than the rubbish we’re expected to pay for and eat when held hostage on England’s motorways.

After being away for the whole day I couldn’t resist visiting the barn on the way home to find that the outer skin of the porch was almost complete and the barns internal walls were being prepared for plaster.

All-in-all a good day, which deserved a few Friday night beers with Neil in Casa Paulino to give me chance to recover from the exhaustion of listening to, and speaking, Spanish for the previous nine hours.

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A turning point is reached

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Paul

Today marked a turning point in the barn renovation, my builders descended on site in numbers (well…two of them) and actually started construction.

To add to my levity I awoke to found that Ramon’s Internet has been switched back on in the apartment, the downside being that I don’t have the excuse of no Internet access to justify a couple of beers in the bar.

Also, the sun shone, for the whole day. It has been a good day here in paradise.

There was a general strike today, as Dolores said at the bar last night, ‘there is a lot of very angry persons’. Riots in Madrid and across Europe were the order of the day as the working man (and woman) protested the austerity measures which have brought Spain and Greece to their knees. But it seems that no-one told Galicia where is was business almost as usual. The only effect that I felt was the failure of the architect, and architects safety person, to arrive on site as previously arranged.

The strike must have affected the telephone network and e-mail too as neither was used to communicate to me the cancellation of the appointment, nor to apologise for the ‘no show’.

But in reality I didn’t care because when I arrived on site at 8:30 this morning Angel and my new friend from Mondoñedo, Obi ( desperately want to add Wan Kenobi each time I say it), were hard at work installing the tube for the bathroom extractor and hiding it behind a new section of traditional stone. This wall will eventually be left as natural stone, so it is important that the work looks authentic and I am delighted that it is Angel who is doing it.

After four days of inactivity the excitement hit fever pitch when Facundo arrived with the housings for the sliding doors which will be installed in the bathroom and bedroom. These are hefty contraptions which are built into the partition walls, and this is what Angel and Obi spent the rest of the day doing, until is was too dark to see how much mortar they had on their trowels.

Once they start work, they do work hard. But not too hard to stop them being led into conversations at regular intervals. These are mostly about football, drinking, eating, the economic situation, and their other English client – who shall remain nameless). I’m glad we’re paying a fixed price.

I decided to spend the day moving a big pile of wood and slate, which used to for the roof of the pre-renovation cabazo, and which had lain across the old road through the property since the work took place a year ago. I salvaged all the wood which could fuel our stove and then shifted a dozen wheelbarrows full of broken slate onto the dump, all the time thinking that the same stuff would be over a hundred quid a tonne back home for use on peoples rockeries.

Now my back is killing me. I need to get back into the swing of things. Pass me the painkillers.

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The rain in Spain stays mainly in Galicia

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Paul

When I was here last year the weather was glorious. Long sunny spells punctuated by the occasional downpour with temperatures in the mid to late teen centigrade. This year, so far, has been totally different with downpours, fog, frost and wind punctuated by the odd sunny spell. That all leads to me living in a very cold apartment. I have bought a little convector heater but with such tall ceilings, and heat always rising, I think that it takes a couple of hours to heat the top six feet of the room that I am using it in and I am feeling very little benefit.

On a dank and cold Sunday morning, I made a ‘between deluge’ rush to the car and headed to the fortnightly market in Meira. The windscreen wipers worked overtime but with very little traffic the journey only took a steady half hour.

Although the market was reasonably busy, none of the interesting stalls containing bric-a-brac, old farm implements and antique oddments and fittings had braved the rain and set up to sell their wares.

If you wanted a really big pair of underpants, garish tea-towels festooned in 1970’s designs, or padded coats made in Eastern Europe then you were in luck. Those of us who like the interesting, quirky, random stalls, and to have the chance to buy bottles of the locals ‘witches brew’, were all sorely disappointed. Having already breakfasted on toast at a local cafe, with the consistency of floor tiles, I couldn’t even bring myself to feast on a plate of freshly cooked octopus. The pouring rain drove me back to my car, past the most apt statue of the day, and onwards to the flat in Taramundi.

On the way home I called at the barn, in its hushed Sunday quiet, to take a photograph of the completed excavations of the foundations for the porch.

It’s is going to be a tad larger than the architect’s plans, to give enough space for a lift-up bench to be installed on the right as you enter, in which we will be able to deposit boots, wellingtons, umbrellas, and in Amanda’s case her running shoes.

I won’t even run for a bus, it’s not natural! I’d need to be being chased by something with massive claws or teeth, or both, to accelerate from a leisurely stroll.

Hopefully the concrete floor will be poured on Monday or Tuesday and then Facundo’s brother, Angel, who insists on calling me ‘Mr Paul’ will be on site cementing the bricks in place.

The quest for taps and other plumbing fittings goes on, but I have managed to avert one small disaster in the detail. Amanda asked me to measure the height of the kitchen window sill to ensure that the units she likes will not be too tall.

At 95cm they would have been, so I summoned Facundo to site on Friday and we discussed raising the sill and reducing the window size to make the units fit. He was surprised that I was asking for 95cm clearance as the Spanish norm is 85cm, is this just an indication that the Spaniards are generally a smaller race that Northern Europeans? Or is it that they like their worktops a little lower?

He soon spotted my real motive, which was to avoid the hour round trip to the carpenters in La Roda to explain the change face to face, and my builder agreed to call him and tell him of the requirements for a different dimension.

I’m becoming increasingly interested in football, not because of the game, but because it gives me a good excuse to be in the warmth of one of the bars or cafés of Taramundi. And that is where I am off to now, and tonight there are back-to-back games from 8pm, I sense a few beers are on my evening horizon.

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And we’re off

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Paul

With all this global warming there must be some parts of the earth which are burning, because none of the extra heat has found its way to Galicia.

Last night I sought solace and warmth in one of Taramundi’s bars and watched with the dismayed locals as Celtic beat the mighty Barcelona, eating Consuelas tortilla tapas which discussing bathroom taps with Amanda on Windows Live Messenger. It’s a strange life I am leading at the moment, almost surreal at times.

After a slight hiccup yesterday, work finally started on the barn today and I arrived to find a cement mixer, some sand and cement, timber and one of Facundos new employees hard at work with a pick and shovel demolishing a wall and clearing the bedrock in readiness for the foundations for the porch. My new friend Obi is a local, from Mondoñedo, and used to be a lumberjack…but he’s okay!

In willing conversation, anything to avoid work from either of us, I found out that he supports Real Madrid and Manchester United and is a big fan of U2, Iron Maiden and Metallica. He also cannot understand why anyone from England would want to come and live in Galicia, which I guess is the same as our not understanding why Spaniards move to the UK. Although given today’s sub-zero temperature he may be right.

Around ten, Facundo arrived with a jack-hammer, and a proper ‘mans’ jack-hammer it is too. This one looks from the photo as though it is as big as Obi, and it nearly is. He manages thirty second bursts with it before having to put it down, the street lights dim when it is on, and my back aches just looking at it. But it is like a hot knife through butter.

The day’s major excitement was Facundo based. As he went to leave he reversed his van, with trailer attached, and the trailer jack-knifed crushing the rear passenger quarter panel, with quite some force. I heard it happen, saw the impact and damage, but managed to avert my eyes as Facundo emerged from the vehicle to survey the damage. I won’t mention it (except for here), and I am pretty sure that he won’t.

I retired to the big house and had my own minor drama. One of the floor-boards that was sound enough to walk on last winter, isn’t any longer. Although there was a sickening crunch, fortunately I hadn’t put enough weight on it to plummet the three metres into the cattle pen below, but it was a stark reminder to watch my step in what is becoming an increasingly dangerous big house.

You can only stand and watch someone with a jack-hammer for so long so now I’m back on the Internet quest for a bathroom tap . I can make on the spot decisions about the exact location and dimension of the porch, materials for flooring and walls, and where the septic tank is to be installed, but as for choosing a tap, I’m clueless.

I’m obviously not a details person.

 

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