Car mechanics; Galician style

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Paul

I’m reading a book at the moment about the trials and tribulations of an English guy walking the camino from the French border to Santiago de Compostela with a stubborn donkey which lies down at inopportune moments and won’t cross any of the many wooden bridges that facilitate the shortest routes.

He thought that it was difficult travelling with a donkey? It sounds to me like a nice Sunday afternoon picnic. He ought to try living with a twenty-five year old Landrover around Taramundi for eight weeks. You’ve guessed it, yet another car-trouble blog post on a building renovation blog site.

I set off for the house nice an early (around 10:15am) with the intention of getting in another full days work. The car mis-fired a couple of times as I went through Mousende (2km from Taramundi) and got increasingly worse as I passed through Conforto (5km) before a loss of power forced me to pull over. I quickly diagnosed the problem as the points, the same issue that I had five weeks ago when Amanda had to send a new set from England. I’d a new spare set at the house in Taramundi and cleaned the existing points before setting off back to get them.

Just after Conforto the car let out a massive mis-fire which blew apart the silencer. It was like a bomb had gone off, both in sound and devastation. Power deserted me and I was stranded on a blind bend. I phoned Neil…again…who must be getting pretty annoyed with my constant breakdowns, and yelled another ‘May-Day’.

When he saw the state of the silencer he couldn’t help but laugh, the exploding exhaust gasses had opened it up like a sardine tin and bent it out of shape. Neil attached the tow rope and dragged me back to his house. And this is where it all got rather surreal.

Rather than crawl under the Landy to remove the silencer, Neil decided that the best course of action was to use the crane on his DAF truck and lift the rear axle skyward to enable unfettered access.

Car mechanics the Galician way

The exploded box was quickly removed, squashed closed with one of the DAFs hydraulic feet, and a temporary piece of steel welded over the seam. Once the box was refitted and the Landy back on an even keel, we opted to fit the new electronic points conversion which Amanda had also shipped over five weeks ago (but not without additional difficulties) and she was back up and running, with just the odd burble from the make-shift exhaust.

This was the ‘third thing’ of my ‘bad things always come in threes‘, and now I am safe again for uninterrupted motoring, hopefully at least until I am back home in Yorkshire next weekend.

That said, I understand that the locals have organised a sweep-stake where people guess on the number of kilometres I will get towards Bilbao on Friday (for the ferry), prior to my first breakdown.

My departure time from Taramundi is creeping earlier each day as I try to factor in a breakdown and the inevitable low-loader to the port that will follow.

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Asturian gastronomic delight

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Paul

It’s my last Sunday in Galicia and rather than my usual Sunday routine of eggs & beans on fried bread, washed down with copious amounts of Nescafe while watching DVDs, I was invited out to lunch by Stephen, Kay, Neil and Rosa.

Our target was a recommendation of Neil and Rosa, ‘Los Arándanos‘, what seemed like a long way up a winding, twisting road in the hills above Taramundi. The name of the restaurant means ‘The Blueberries’ (or ‘The Cranberries’ depending on how you translate it) and as well as a top class restaurant the couple who run it also sell preserves and other natural products from their large blueberry plantation on the hillside next to the restaurant.

Los Arándanos is a very different eating experience from the usual hearty Galician/Asturian fare and one which I’d very much recommend trying. The emphasis is on quality, taste and combinations rather than the usual measure of quantity but you’ll definitely not leave feeling hungry.

You are welcomed from your circuitous journey by the hosts, a very nice couple who originated from Madrid, and thence on the main dining room dominated by a large wood burning fire that was doing an excellent job of taking the mid-December chill out of the air.

The welcoming log fire

We opted to share three starters and after a delicious complimentary Asturian twist on Welsh Rarebit we opted for; Asturian Cheese Croquettes; a warm mushroom and fruit salad; and pan fried sep mushrooms.

The cheesy starter...

...and the warm mushrooms and fruits

All were absolutely delicious and washed down with delicious white wine suggested by our hosts.

The main course for me was bacalao (cod) with onion marmalade and apple puree, garnished with a spicy fresh flower, and cooked to perfection fusing three strong flavours perfectly. My fellow diners ordered a couple of different pork dishes (one was pork cheeks), and one of the largest steaks you’ll see this side of an Aberdeen Angus.

The cod with onion marmalade

Fresh home made deserts, coffees, liqueurs and chocolate truffles finished off what was simply a superb meal in sensational surroundings and with great company. The chef has developed dishes with the ‘wow’ factor both in presentation and taste and the service is exemplary.

The only problem is that this was the restaurants last day of trading until Easter, as they shut down for winter due to the likely bad weather and issues for people fulfilling their bookings. That means I won’t be able to return with Amanda when we visit in January, it’s a treat we’ll have to save until the summer.

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Barn: Before and after

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Paul

There is very little left for the contractor to do on the barn to complete phase one of the works. After that we are back in the lap of the Xunta awaiting full planning permission to allow phase two, and the conversion of the barn into a family house. Our application went in at the beginning of March and our architect tells us it could take anything from another few weeks, to another six months, before we get the decision.

There is a little carpentry, and the slate window sills need to be fitted, and then it is a matter of Facundo cleaning and clearing site and moving onto the next job. I’ll be sad to see them go, we’ve had a good laugh over the last few weeks, and the site seems eerily quiet without their machines and chain saws.

Here is a look at the barn ‘before and after’ so that you can see what has been achieved in the last seven weeks (click on the image for a larger view).

Barn: Before & after Phase I

The ‘before’ was taken mid-May 2011, the ‘after’ on December 7th 2011

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The welcome return of Enrique

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Paul

Ever since I bought Enrique two kilos of finest apples at the Feria in Meira he’d been missing from our finca. The big bag of apples spent some time in the Landy, more time hung in their bag from an impromptu hook in the horno, and when I had finally given up hope of seeing the donkey again I handed to full bag to Carlos’s mother insisting that they were for the donkey, but resigned to the assumption that they would end up in Carlos’s packing up for the next couple of weeks.

The frustrating thing was that every day I could hear him with his occasional ear-shattering braying which had earned him his name. Perhaps I was being punished by Carlos for having electrocuted his donkey through the unexpected combination of an apple and an electric fence. Or perhaps Carlos had just used his animal for some menial task and forgotten to return him to his pasture on my land.

I’ll admit it, I’d gone from not wanting his donkey on my finca to wondering why my finca had been shunned in such a way.

But now he’s back.

On Thursday Carlos finally got around to chopping up the remains of what used to be his garage (on our land) which the builders had demolished to rebuild a bulging wall. He’d asked me nicely if he could take the wood for burning and I’d agreed, mainly because it meant one less job for me sorting out the ‘jenga‘ that was the result of a hurried demolition.

 

Enrique put to work

Having created a big pile of wood the only option was to fetch Enrique from wherever he was being hidden, attach the cart, and use donkey power to take the wood back up the steep road to the house that he shares with his Mum.

Transport complete the cart had to come back to our other garage, the one still standing at the other end of the property, and in which Carlos now parks his car and keeps his donkey cart. As a result Enrique was back out to pasture on my Finca, the status quo has returned.

Now I just feel guilty that I don’t have any more apples, and frustrated in my suspicion that they never made it as far as Enrique!

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What a wonderful (part of the) world

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Paul

I’m coming to the conclusion that there isn’t a nasty, unpleasant or even bad tempered person in the whole of Galicia, be they Gallego, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, Ecuadorian or English, and what a great place it is as a result.

As you can probably tell from my ‘what a wonderful world’ opening paragraph, I have got the Landy back, well before I expected it and for much less of a financial dent in my pocket than I had feared.

Fear of not getting the car repaired before needing to set off for the ferry from Bilbao in a weeks time had me awake at the crack-of-dawn (around 8:30am) and on the Internet. I found two possible in-country suppliers with the required part at a reasonable price and rather than try and explain myself on the phone I elected to go to the garage in Castropol, a thirty minute drive, and give them the details face to face. On arrival the mechanic (called Domingo – Sunday) was out but his nice receptionist took the details from me, smiled sympathetically and said she’d call when she had news, knowing I was stressing about the time it was likely to take to get the part to this Spanish outpost.

I’d been at the house for a couple of hours when my Spanish mobile rang. The receptionist explained that the work was ‘finished’. My initial thoughts were that the ‘car’ must be ‘finished’ as in not going anywhere anytime soon, but I double checked and she did mean that the work had been done. The total cost was just under 150 euros, and I was a happy man.

On arrival at the garage this afternoon to collect the Landy, Domingo explained that it was a reconditioned part off a Landrover TDi but that the universal joints were both new and it should be fine for another 100,000 kilometres. When I had visited that morning he’d already set off for Lugo to collect it but the receptionist didn’t want to get my hopes up in case it wasn’t any good. I think he ‘pushed out the boat’ for me and did everything he could to get me back on the road. He was nice, and his receptionist was nice too.

I’ve had help over the last couple of days from Stephen and Neil and they are both nice, happy to give freely of their time and assistance, and drop what they were doing to come to my assistance. Galicia must attract a nice type of Brit.

Dolores heard about my troubles and called offering assistance, and Pepe passed me on the road to Ribadeo when I broke down on Wednesday and stopped twice to see if he could help.

The friend of Stephen with the SEAT garage in Ribadeo could tell a motorist in distress and was very kind to hire me his courtesy car. When I returned it today he gave me his personal mobile phone number and offered help in the future should I ever need it.

Carlos is nice, so is his Mum. Miro and Elena are really nice, and the young couple and their kids from Madrid who have a holiday home in Liñeiras were nice. And all my builders have been nice.

Forget the spectacular countryside, the great food, the fabulous local wine. Come to Galicia because everyone is nice. Even the policeman who stopped me and checked my documents Vegadeo, and the woman I accidentally reversed into in Pontenova were nice!

What’s the betting that I find someone ‘nasty’ tomorrow?

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