Occasional en-suite shower rooms

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Paul

As you’ll know from reading these pages our pressing priority is to appoint a builder and execute the Obras Menores (minor works) license that we were granted back in April 2011 (and which theoretically has to be started within six months). Shhh!

When we visited in late July we met with a new builder, the third that we’d consulted, to get his appraisal of the works and give us a quotation so that we can finally feel happy with the prices that we’ve got, and place the work with someone. We met at the house and spent half an hour discussing the specification for the barn before his attention was drawn to the main house.

‘Mucho trabajo’ (much work) he volunteered. We agreed through animated nods.

We told him that the roof was in a poor state but from the roadside, viewing the north facing roof, he told us that it didn’t look too bad. So for a chuckle we invited him in, cautioned him about the pig in the cellar, and showed him the holes in the south-facing roof which, in times of precipitation, give us an en-suite shower in every room.

One roof collapse/en-suite shower

And then I spotted a new problem, one which had been skillfully secreted behind some old wardrobes and masked from me for over a year.

In the areas where the roof had not already commenced its collapse, it was held up by pit props!

Twig holding up a main beam......

......and others, hidden behind wardrobes

Our new builder friend took a close look, scratched his head, and then assured us that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, pulling the kind of face a builder pulls when he sees his retirement plans edging ever closer.

Then he pulled a ‘builders ace out of the hat’.

He offered, should he get the work on the barn, to put one of his men on the roof of the main house for a day and repair all of the holes to at least give it another couple of years of being water-tight. And…he wouldn’t charge us! Not bad to say that the last people we approached about repairing the roof (not replacing, just repairing) came up with a ludicrous price for their services.

It’s amazing how little, things like this now phase us. On first spotting our Jenga roof I remember shouting to Amanda, ‘the roof beams are held up with matchsticks’, she shrugged her shoulders and scrunched her nose, then I did the same.

It must be okay then, or we’re past caring!

Posted in The House in Liñeiras | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Never buy a Ford

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Paul

I’ve broken one of my own rules…in the interests of thrift…but it might have just been worth it.

Travelling to Spain last week we opted for the new Manchester to Bilbao route with EasyJet. We were going for our final (honest) meetings with the two candidate builders in the frame for the Phase I works on the barn conversion. Flights booked I went online and committed the cardinal sin of using a broker to book the hire car. I’d found a great price, upgraded to a category D vehicle as we would be doing about 1,200km in three days, and paid my money, all without really thinking.

Then the confirmation arrived detailing the tortuous instructions which would see us collected by minibus and taken to a local Holiday Inn Express to collect the car. Damn, it was cheap because it ws inconvenient. I’d committed the cardinal sin of not securing the car hire from an outlet in the airport terminal.

Initially the collection seemed to go well and we were picked up promptly and conveyed to the collection point in the blink of an eye. Not so bad I thought, and then the problems started.

There was an American woman already in the process of checking in, and despite the attendants perfect English, it took an age. Twenty minutes later and it was my turn. First they debited by credit card by 95 € as their fuel policy was a previously unheard of; collect full, return empty…now there is a challenge if I ever heard one. They then took 850 € as deposit for damage, before returning my card now looking a little worse for wear. Forty minutes later and I had the paperwork I needed for us to get underway. We then went to the car for the first time.

Determined not to lose my ‘damage deposit’ I noted every scratch and minor ding and went back to the reception, waiting another twenty minutes while the solitary attendent fleeced some other poor unsuspecting souls credit facilities. Once again at the front of the queue he marked and signed for the damage and we were ready, ninety minutes after landing, to get on our way.

Settling into the drivers seat I plugged the pre-programmed satnav, with all our stops for the trip, into the cigarette lighter…..and nothing. A three thousand kilometre, near new car, and the power socket was dead. I stormed bak to reception, waited the now customary twenty minutes, and drew the cars failing to my new ‘friends’ attention.

He shook his head, ‘never buy a Ford’ he said. ‘They’re rubbish…terrible….awful.’

 

Never buy a Ford

 

He came to the car and tried it himself, but all to no avail. Sighed, told us to unload our luggage, and went in to start the paperwork all over again, for another car.

Almost bang on two hours after landing, in fading light, and with 300km to drive to our overnight stop, we finally rolled out of the Holiday Inn Express car park and onto the motorway signposted A Coruña. 

I said earlier that I liked a challenge, especially with a car which tells you how many kilometres of fuel you have left in the tank, and when I returned it three days later it said zero, no kilometres of fuel left, it was running on fumes and had been for the last ten kilometres. I’d played Russian Roulette with my life (according to Amanda) but was wearing a smug grin as I pulled the car into its space at the hire company reception. I’d had full value for my 95 €, and I was happy.

When I handed over the keys I said ‘It’s very empty’, wearing a big grin. ‘That’s okay’ said the new attendant we’ll fill it and then refund you whatever is left from the 95 € that you didn’t use. I thought she’d had the last laugh. The original attendent, with whom I’d spent two hours in the company of just three days earlier, never mentioned any returned money. I’d risked life and limb, not to mention a couple of appendages that are usually tucked safely in my underpants, to take the car back as empty as was physically possible and they were going to refund me what I didn’t use. I was deflated.

But I’ve had the last laugh…

The paperwork must have got muddled with all the car changing confusion because the hire company just refunded me 86 €. That means that I paid 9 € for a full tank of unleaded, now that is a result! I’ll call it compensation for all my wasted time, and perhaps I’ll use them again after all.

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Mixed reaction to Rick’s Spain

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Paul

The BBC finally got around to screening the eagerly anticipated Spanish Cookery oddysey compiled by Rick Stein over a large part of 2010. Some of the Galicia footage, was filmed while we were house hunting and the local paper ‘Voz de Galicia’ at the time was full of excitement at the top chefs visit.

With the broadcast set for 20:00 we spent some of the afternoon texting and e-mailing people that we’d evangelised to over recent months; friends, family and mere acquaintances, and suggested that they may want to be sat in front of their televisions for one solid hour of Galicia and be awed at what they saw from our adopted homeland.

Amanda watched live alone as I was risking life and limb by dragging a set of ultra-effective lightening conductors around an increasingly stormy golf course.  She then texted me to ask when I was getting home, because she’d like to watch it again, to see my reaction. And verdicts were already coming in from across the north of England by text and phone!

At around an hour to midnight we fired up the SKY+ box for my first viewing, and Amandas second.

Rick started off sailing to Santander and then drove our now familiar empty roads through Asturias and into Galicia. He cooked, tasted and pulled approving faces at fresh razor clams, succulent hake, cocido (pigs head stew), cave fresh cabrales, various empanada, and finally blood sausage, before taking a quick look at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela and then running for the Asturian border.

It had been a twenty minute Galicia slot, time to show us some extreme traditional dishes, and then off to Asturias and Cantabria to try and do them both justice with similar short segments. It was a bit of a disappointment, beautifully filmed, enthusiastically narrated, but altogether a bit brief. We know for sure that many more cooking scenes were filmed, and widely discussed in Galicia at the time, but they must have been left on the cutting room floor.

And the feedback from our friends, family, and people we’d bumped into in the pub?

It was pretty mixed.

Most people were put off by the idea of eating ‘pigs head stew’ and pouring a two litre bottle of fresh pigs blood into a big bowl with rice and chilli to make black pudding, but each and every one agreed that the scenery looked fantastic, and the way of life that was portrayed was relaxed, friendly and peaceful. On the whole I think that the programme did us a lot of favours and sold Galicia well, but I have had to promise ‘no pigs faces’ or ‘blood sausage’ to some of our more squeamish potential future guests.

For me there was not enough time spent focussing on the sensational seafood which is the mainstay of the modern Galician diet with more emphasis on the peasant food from the hills like cocido and sausage. And what was obvious in this programme, possibly more than others I have seen Stein do in the past, is that he is a very awkward presenter. And a few words of Spanish wouldn’t have gone amiss (I’m a fine one to talk).

But, Rick, thanks for showing and exposing Galicia, we need every evangelist that we can muster. But don’t just take my word for it, here are some other programme reviews;

If you are in the UK you can watch the opening episode here (for a while at least).

Posted in Food & Drink, Local Life | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Getting a taste of the brotherhood

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Paul

I’ve mentioned ‘A Cofradía’ at Rinlo in an earlier blog, when demonstrating one of the ways to eat the delightful percebes. On our visit to Galicia in May the percebes were simply an appetiser to the main course, the speciality of the house, ‘Arroz Caldoso de Marisco’.

A Cofradía means ‘the brotherhood’ and relates to the fishermen who set sail into the unpredictable seas of the Costa da Morte (Death Coast) to bring home the finest seafood available in Spain, and probably in Europe!

Never judge a book by its cover

From the outside the restaurant looked clean, if a little unappealing. Inside the downstairs bar area is predominantly hewn from big chunks of wood with an ‘L’ shaped bar and walls covered with posters advertising the annual ‘Percebes Festival’. After a thirst quenching beer we enquired about eating and were ushered to the upstairs restaurant where it appeared we were unfashionably early at 13:45. The place was deserted, but we needn’t have worried.

The restaurant was like a different world. Airy, bright and with pristine white over blue tablecloths and shining silver cutlery. We took our seats by the open window with a view of the narrow rocky harbour.

The delightful restaurant

We’d already been let into a little secret by Stephen and Kay. They had told us the previous evening that we must try the ‘Arroz Caldoso de Marisco’, a dish cooked for two people, and essentially a cross between a seafood risotto and a seafood soup with rice in it. We ordered with anticipation as 14:00 approached, and the tables in the restaurant began to fill.

Arroz caldoso de marisco - speciality of the house

What arrived was better than we could have hoped for. A massive steaming iron cauldron of rice, prawns, clams, and what must have been a whole lobster, cut into chunks and cooked in the most fantastically rich stock. Big chunks of white bread, and a bottle of Albariño to wash it all down, and we’d had one of the finest meals in Galicia, probably one of the most enjoyable meals ever. 

As we sat back to admire the empty pot and stack of lobster shells we took a moment to look around the now full to bursting restaurant. And guess what? Every single table had the same pot as ours, and everyone eating, almost in reverential silence, was wearing a broad grin from ear to ear.

It makes you wonder why they bother with a menu at all!

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Pontenova and its puente nuevo

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Paul

It shows the depths to which we’ve sunk when we treat a new bridge as a tourist attraction.

If it was the Golden Gate Bridge, the Ponte Vecchio or the Humber Bridge then we could be excused, but not when it is the new bridge in A Pontenova. You remember, the one that caused so much controversy six months ago, and which is still upsetting the locals.

What used to be the main bridge across the River Eo, which splits the town in two, was just about wide enough to convey two cars. On the eastern side of the bridge was the main car parking area for those doing shopping on the western side.

In their wisdom the local council, and Galician government, decided to build a new bridge about 500m upstream, demolish the existing road bridge and erect a new footbridge.

No longer a vehicle crossing

 

Much prettier than the old road bridge

But the locals are far from happy. They can no longer drive over the bridge to the parking without making a 1 km diversion, and they have now decided that the new road bridge (see below) was only built as a local and unfair tax generation mechanism.

New road bridge in the distance with landscaping

The road layout is classed locally as excessively complicated for those wishing to drive to the other half of the town, and with so many ‘STOP’ signs (which the Spanish love to ignore) and a permanently placed ‘camouflaged’ police van parked near the bridge handing out on-the-spot fines for those who fail to obey. Once again their is uproar, with the finger of blame being pointed directly at the embattled mayor.

So it was with great trepidation that we negotiated the bridge, at least half a dozen times, on our last visit.

Do you know what? There are a couple of ‘give ways’ marked on the roads, and no sign of undercover police anywhere. We escaped fine-free. Perhaps it is the case that in Spain the STOP signs are considered an irrelevance, or perhaps the Spanish just aren’t brilliant drivers?

One thing is for sure, I’d never want to drive any distance on a Spanish Fiesta weekend!

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