Thoughts of our Galicia virgins

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Paul

Last weekend saw the long overdue first visit of my one-and-only brother Ian, and my sister-in-law Karen.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, they were the unbelievers, the litmus test of our madness, and it was very important to Amanda and I that they liked our chosen new home.

Rather than me go through a dull itinerary (the inevitable rain in Santiago de Compostela, sandwiches in Lugo, initial stunned silence at the house, forced alternative arrangements for dinner in Taramundi, a visit to As Catedras, and then off to the airport) I thought it would be a good idea to ask them for their ten thoughts. The only brief that I gave was that they could be good or bad, about big or small things, but basically to be honest.

Here are their ten, in no particular order, with my counter-comments in italics;

  1. The roads are very bendy, too bendy especially with Paul driving! (It was the first time I’d not been driving a Landrover for five weeks, I was going to have a bit of fun).
  2. The houses look like how I would expect Russian houses to look. (Dr Zhivago?)
  3. It is practically impossible to order vegetables in a restaurant, which is weird and a little annoying!
  4. Santiago would make a fantastic weekend break destination…..if you live within 30 minutes of Stansted.
  5. Like in England, northern Spanish seem much more friendly than southerners!
  6. You need to know a bit of Spanish…as the locals don’t speak English at all, which is very inconsiderate of them. (I think, no hope, that is tongue-in-cheek).
  7. Pig, hake and clams seem to be the staple food. You’ll struggle if you are a true vegetarian.
  8. Don’t mix beer, wine, rum and goose neck barnacles unless you want to spend some of your evening ‘talking to Huey on the big white telephone’! (Serves you right for trying to keep up with your brother – who slept like a baby!)
  9. Galicia is remote, beautiful, dramatic, friendly, antiquated, wild and just a little bit bonkers all at the same time. (That’s why we love it!)
  10. If at first it doesn’t make sense, stick with it, it really starts to grow on you!

What I get from these ten mini-statements is that Ian and Karen still think that we’re more than a little crazy to have taken on our project, but that they are starting to see why. Although they wouldn’t embrace what we’ve done, there is an understanding that we are looking for a better, healthier and less stressful life and they suspect that we may well have found the idyll for all of those things.

 

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Time to build an ark

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Paul

You may be surprised to know that it rains more in Galicia than it does in Manchester, Englands much maligned supposed capital city of precipitation. And I think that most of Galicias rain for 2011 fell within a two hour period this afternoon.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Manchester. I studied at University there, lived there when I started work in Salford, and have been a co-director of a company there for the last thirteen years. I know that it rains a lot. I was then, surprised to find that it averages just 806.6 millimetres (31.76 inches in old money) which is quite a way below the UK average of 1,250.0 millimetres (44.29 in).

In general Galicia gets much more, although it varies considerably geographically, with less rain falling both on the coast and further inland where the Atlantic Ocean has less effect. A Coruña, right on the coast gets an average of 1,008 millimetres (39.69 in) while Santiago de Compostela is perfectly placed to catch the precipitation caused as the warm air from the Atlantic is forced to rise into the hills. It can boast almost double Manchesters figure with 1,545 mm (60.8 in). By comparison Lugo, the nearest regional capital to our house in Liñeiras, gets 1,084 mm (42.7 in). This is why Galicia is a green and fertile land, the breadbasket of Spain, and when it comes to kiwi fruit, the fruitbasket of europe.

When I arrived at the house this morning, a little later than intended due towhat turned out to be an impossible quest that I’d set myself of buying a tuna empañada for my lunch, the site was bathed in brilliant sunshine. Angel was on the cabazo roof doing his stuff with slate, Alejandro repairing a collapsed wall which Amanda added to the work schedule last Saturday, and Vladimir cutting more roof tiles. I set to work in the horno/bodega and was soon without hard hat and in shirt sleeves as it was way too warm.

All was fine until just after lunch (about 3:30) when what started as fine drizzle gradually increased in intensity before the heavens opened. I started looking around the site and mentally calculating whether there was enough waste wood to build an ark, whether I’d have it completed in time to find two of each species of animal, and if there was enough time to get it afloat before we were all submerged.

Time to build an ark

I put my tools back in the house, where the dozen or so internal showers were already in full stream, and retired to the ground floor of the barn where the other three workmen had decamped, deciding to abandon outdoor work for the day and start on the building of an internal ‘tanking’ wall on the ground floor. I looked with some pity on poor Vladimir who I knew would soon have to venture outside to mix cement.

I started a discussion with Angel about the weather. Apparently the forecast this morning had been good, and we were in for a good week weather wise. He blamed the unexpected rain on the new government (the Partido Popular) who were voted into power on Sunday, after seven years in opposition.

The Spanish conservatives have been in power for just under three days, during which time Angel has told me that they have been responsible for; his car radiator not holding enough water to keep his engine cool; his lunch today not been warm enough; too many roof slates breaking as he tries to nail them to the cabazo; and, the rain coming when not forecast.

I suspect he could be in for a miserable four years.

 

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Work starts on the grain store

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Paul

My weekends distractions; Amanda, my brother Ian, and his wife Karen meant that I momentarily took my eagle eyes off the redevelopment. We all visited site on Saturday but I was too busy showing my visitors around to take photos, although it didn’t go unnoticed that work was progressing apace on the grain store.

While I have been living here I have learned that what I thought was our hórreo is actually our cabazo. It’s a minor technical difference and amongst  the uneducated (a group from which I am trying desperately to escape, one word at a time) the words hórreo and cabazo seem almost interchangeable.

Technically, a cabazo is oblong, whereas an hórreo is square. They both have the same use, are constructed in the same way using the same materials, and they are both protected (listed) buildings on a register of the Galician Patrimonio (the Heritage department).

On Saturday the old roof had been removed and was now just a pile of broken slates on the road through the houses. The old rotten beams had been replaced with hand carved chestnut and a big pile of chestnut boards was awaiting fitting.

After safely depositing the hire car in Lugo, doing a bit of shopping (you can tell where your priorities lie when a few tools from the hardware shop come to double what you spend on a weeks food) and wandering glazed eyed through the Spanish version of Comet, I thought I’d better stop up at the house on the way back to Taramundi and snap a couple of photos before they finish it and I have no tale to tell.

All the beams are now in place and that pile of chestnut boards has been turned into the new ceiling.

The cabazo from inside...

Angel has been hard at work tiling the west facing roof and I reckon that he’ll have it finished in a couple of days. Arturo has even cut the beautiful interlocking tiles which will form the ‘stegosaurus back’ ridge (you’ll see what I mean when you see it in a couple of days) and which are one of the works from the redevelopment that personally I can’t wait to see.

...and outside

I now just need to convince the architect that we should be able to install a waist-high balustrade and spindles on the west facing side so we can put a table and chairs in there and catch the last rays of the days sun with a nice glass of local red and a slice of tortilla Española or some cabrales and bread.

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When polish isn’t really polish

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Paul

Somewhere between collecting the hire car in Lugo on Friday afternoon, and retrieving it from the hotel car park on Saturday morning it had gained an unwanted addition. Despite my hire agreement telling me that I would return the car in exactly the condition that I received it, or face the loss of my 750 euro deposit, the blue Audi A3 (nice car, nice drive) was sporting a 10cm wide by 30cm long red paint stripe down the drivers side rear bumper.

I am pretty sure that it wasn’t me. I don’t remember and additional resistance while driving, the car was parked between two unmoved black cars at Santiago de Compostela airport when I collected my weekend visitors, and despite some congestion driving into the city I managed to keep the obligatory five millimeters between my car and those chaotically dancing around me.

I can only think that the offending stripe was obtained by the hotel courtesy driver who relieved me of my keys at the hotel reception and whisked my car to the car park, whose entrance is a closely guarded secret from mere hotel guests. But I couldn’t prove it.

My car hire company have a new policy which was clearly explained when I collected the car. The hire agreement has a nice diagram of a 50mm by 5mm rectangle which must cover the full extent of any damage, anything larger and you can wave goodbye to your deposit. Much as I tried I couldn’t get the new red stripe to fit anywhere near within the box.

I needed T-Cut, the careless motorists friend.

The shops had already shut for Saturday and I knew that the big supermarket in Ribadeo was closed on Sundays so hatched a plan to drag Amanda to Pontenova early in the morning (10am) to check the main street auto parts shop that I had seen previously, in the vain hope that it would be open.

Miraculously it was, and we explained the problem. The very nice man in the shop said ‘you need polish’. But I knew better. I knew that polish would put a nice sheen on top of my red stripe and make it silky soft to the touch, I told him that I didn’t need polish.

He went through his book of ‘supplies’ looking for anything else which might help me (such as ‘red stripe remover’) but drew a blank. Again he told me I needed polish and thought that it would work, I shook my head, thanked him for his time and said I’d think about it. I was mentally waving goodbye to my 750 euros.

The last chance was the Repsol garage two hundred metres further down the road and we decided to give it a last desperate try. We entered the small shop and explained the problem again, blue car with a red stripe we’d like to remove, adding ‘T-Cut’ for good effect.

When 'polish' means 'T-Cut' (with removed offending red stripe)

‘You want polish he said’, we both shook our heads. ‘Yes, yes, polish’ and he handed me a tin. It had instructions on the back in five languages and perfectly described what T-Cut does, ‘Liquid polish for cleaning and removing the surface layer of aging from painted surfaces’. ‘Yes, yes’ I said, feeling somewhat guilty about the attentive first man we’d just walked out on, and who had been right all along.

It worked perfectly, with the alien red stripe completely removed and the blue paintwork unbroken underneath, and all for just five euros, a kitchen cloth, and five minutes of elbow grease. Two hundred kilometres of road grime later and it’s impossible to tell that it was ever marked.

Lets just hope she stays unscathed parked in Taramundi tonight and I can get her back to Lugo in one piece tomorrow.

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Top of the world

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Paul

Today has been a perfect day.

Fantastic weather, the ‘team’ have started tiling the roof, I’ve spent a day grafting hard in the horno/bodega, Amanda arrives in Galicia tomorrow, and I didn’t even spoil it by oversleeping.

It was a perfect day for working outside, filling your lungs with fresh Galician air, sharing a joke with my multinational workforce, and catching some late November sun-rays which had us all down to short-sleeved shirts by mid-afternoon. I even ventured up onto the roof of the barn, when Facundo wasn’t on site…twice!

The following photos show why it felt like I was on ‘top of the world’ (‘cima del mundo’).

The rooftop view west, Angel tiling

The rooftop view east, Angel also tiling

Looking back from the house, this is Arturo hand shaping the tiles, as he has been doing for the last three days, and still has two boxes full to cut.

Arturo shaping the tiles by hand

For my part I’ve worked all day clearing more rubbish and collapsed roof from the horno/bodega and am quite pleased with the results. I reckon that I’ve now cleared about half of the floor area, but only about forty percent of the rubbish. Today’s finds have been a little less interesting than yesterday; a bedstead, more clothes and shoes, lots more bottles, an old plough (beyond salvaging), and a frying pan.

The fruits of my labours

Oh, and parts from yet another old washing machine. That makes four on the site. The previous owners must have done a hell of a lot of washing, but then they did have a hell of a lot of clothes!

Enrique didn’t want his apple today, yesterday must have been too painful and he now associates my hand bearing an apple with an electric shock. I do feel a little guilty.

 

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