Casa Bliss - Week 1

Our arrival at Casa Bliss

Rosie, our lovely host, welcomed us with a big hug, bottle of wine & chocolates  on our arrival late Sunday afternoon (18th Oct).

Our first night in our cosy cottage

We moved from our Camper into one of her three cottages - Daffodil Cottage, the larger of the 3 cottages. The plan is to help Rosie (an English expat) get the cottages and property ready for the next summer season. The grounds are mostly established, just some pruning, thinning and cut back required, which we will work through. The cottages need painting through out to freshen the white wash, and a few maintenance jobs. One of the cottages needs a new kitchen, perfect for Bill. Except it will be in the rustic style of the other two kitchens,

Bill starting painting in
"Blue Bell"cottage

built in bricks & tiles. He is looking forward to the challenge of something different.
Rosie had clients staying in Rose Cottage till the Tuesday, so we spent Monday out and about with her, visiting the two local towns (Alora & Pizarra) getting some gear so we could get straight into renovation work the next morning.

Cleaning & preparing for Bill
to start painting  "Rose Cottage"

We started in Blue Bell Cottage, removing furnishings off the walls and covering furniture for Bill to get into painting. The painting will be easy in that all three cottages are painted white (Spanish White of course!)
Once Bill got underway painting, I got into the garden. The gardens are laid out beautifully, full of different palm trees and yucca plants/trees with gravel (small pebbles) as ground cover. The only grass is a small section by the pool, as you can imagine, it is just too hot here for grass to survive. Rosie was wanting more trenches

Preparing for painting
 of "Rose Cottage"

dug around the plants on one side of the property, so when it rains ( over summer it's non existent) the water will slow down for the plants to benefit. There is also an area where the water rushes out and over onto the road below, so try to divert it's path.
 We are in quite a rural area between the two small towns about 10km either side of us (Alora & Pizarra) -
Aora being closer.

  

The morning sun across the hills
looking into Olive Groves 

Lots of olive and citrus groves covering the hills. There is a small village about 40 minute walk away with a little supermarket, where they make fresh baguettes daily. Yum!

Walking up a street in Alora
Not really wheelchair friendly!

On the Wednesday another couple turned up (also through the HelpX web site like us) but there was a bit of confusion over what they wanted to do, I think they were hoping for payment for their work, which isn't how HelpX works). Anyway they only stayed a few days, but long enough to replace some stone paths around the pool that had collapsed. Bill picked up a few tips from Peter, so is keen once we return to our home back in Nelson to cover all the concrete out the back with lovely stone!

Having a lovely swim after a hot day of gardening.

Although the days have less light this time of year, we don't get up before 8 as it's too dark (although daylight saving finished the weekend just gone) and was getting dark about 7.30pm, but the days are still warm. The light looks like autumn, but temperatures are still hot enough to go swimming in the lovely large pool Rosie has.
So our first week has gone, and we have both settled in very happily here. Rosie has supplied us with some delicious meals from her kitchen, which has been lovely at the end of our days. The only blight on the horizon is the RWC coverage. We did try a local bar last weekend to watch the All Blacks play South Africa, but their "little box" wasn't working. So we came home and tried to stream it live, but couldn't! We had a bit more success Sunday with the Aussies playing Argentina, but still not that great. So we are on the lookout for another Bar that may be showing live coverage for this Saturday. Will confirm in the next blog!