Casa Bliss Week 3 - Finding Jesus

Out the front of our cottage
Another beautiful evening with Bill telling me one of his stories!

Three weeks have slipped Blissfully past as we are surely getting Casa Bliss into a saleable condition or simply ready for next season. Our days are as busy as we deem fit but usually a leisurely start at 10ish then stopping at 5ish to catch a wine in the evening sun, often our main meal being a late lunch with a chapter of our books. Am enjoying reading again and with Micheal Kings History of NZ on my tablet is proving informative about our own country as we try to get our head around this one....
If I mentioned the barking dogs at Montemiletto well the dogs here are dynamite.

Hmmmm not really sure!

There are stray dogs wandering at all times (thankfully mostly smaller breeds and non threatening). Many are semi cared for by locals, they remain tied up but alone all day and night and when one starts howling the whole district just lights up with incessant barking which can and does happen randomly at all hours, thank goodness our double glazing alleviates much of the nocturnal noise. The mad English man up the road with 11 cats and 24 dogs at home feeds another 12 strays locally,(the cats have there own room he told me),it seems he gets some funding to be able to afford this through an animal welfare group which also funds some neutering. Needless to say the streets in town need to be consistently watched for "packages".
Water also is an issue. The area is reticulated but many locals rurally and in town seem to still get water, presumably for drinking, from the many public taps which we assume is not the reticulated supply but from springs?? The reticulated water is chlorinated but soapy almost salty. Not overly pleasant. The preponderance of water sold at the supermarket is uncarbonated water but in Italy carbonated was more popular. We buy 5L  container for 50  or 60 euro cents (double that for NZ dollars). and carbonated (which S seems to have developed a taste for) at about 40 c for 1.5 L which is about twice what we paid in Italy.

The flowers have all perked up after the rains

Arriving here and as we commented earlier, the country was certainly brown and arid and had been since the spring rains not eventuating, portending a poor olive harvest later, but the autumn rains, which we have seen, have transformed the country, with the green literally coming up overnight. The flowers particularly Bougainvillea wild on the road sides are stunning. All the barren paddocks now green with grass changes the countryside. More like Springs flush!
The road here from the "main" road of 1200 meters is a good example of regional politics. It urgently needs work and if it rains again heavily  (likely over  winter) it will disappear into the down hill neighbours.This wont be addressed, it seems, till it actually happens and locals often will get work done to improve their own situation as there is no money or the will from council to help. The road is a mix of tar seal, bitumen, and concrete. According to our host the road outside your place etc depends on your connections. Only the Spanish appear to have concrete and culverts.....
Olive harvest is starting and buy all accounts will go through till march but not sure if they hit the same tree later as there is some fruit left on after the initial harvest.
Its a matter of "sacudiendo la mierda del arbol" and making sure the tarpaulin is well placed to receive the crop as it is thrashed off the tree. Each tree yielding  12 -15 kilos and this then realising 1 or 2 litres of oil, is a labour of love often, however it appears with last season being poor as also this years production, that prices may be good for the growers, not so good for the consumer. We are looking forward to getting the real oil whilst here, being in the heart of the largest olive oil producing area in the world. (yes that surprised us as well). It seems that most of the export oil here is shipped directly to Italy relabelled, often remixed then on sold for a good margin. The loose talk is the Spanish don't market as well as they could or should and as such lose some of the value!!!to be picked up by the savvy Italians.

Bill looking out over Pizarra - I wasn't going out there.

Every knoll, nob, hillock, or lookout through out Europe has a cross or religious shrine and so it came to pass that we took a walk up to Jesus, as S so aptly put it, a good walk up to the top of Monte Pizarra - a nice lookout over nearby Pizarra town, in our area here in Andalusia.

JC in the distance

Happy to report that the track proper was clean of rubbish, not so the picnic area at the start or indeed the roads here, once more being badly littered. The track I would liken to the Centre of NZ track in Nelson but 4 times the distance with a return walk time of 2 hrs but 3 hrs with sight seeing etc.  Jesus was being  well patronised this Sunday, all of us enjoying the wide views and balmy weather.

Sheryl and JC amongst the clouds
on the knob

Interesting as this place was under the Moors (Islam) for 7 centuries indeed them being largely responsible for the introduction of the domestic olive, citrus from the East and the water technology to sustain it in the dry times, but apart from some Moorish names and ruins little else remains in the Spanish Culture that we can detect.

Bill makes me go into places I am not happy about!

There are a few places to visit whilst here and later this week will head to Gibraltar to source some Vegemite (I do miss it, tomatoes on toast don't work without it) and look across the 27km  to Africa. Apparently you can often see refugees practising the sprint swim marathon (sorry in poor taste).  I would also like to do the El Chorro Gorge (note I said "I") not sure how its going to work as we need to source a ticket, (hens teeth) and then arrange transport......If you Google El Chorro you will see why Sheryl is not coming with me, however I understand the walkway is now uber safe but still high.
English not being such a popular language in Southern Spain, it's always intriguing how the locals get round the issue. Once you establish you don't speak or comprehend they will then speak huge volumes of more Spanish at you, I guess hoping that a miraculous intervention will help you understand. To date sadly this intervention has not manifested itself upon us and we are left none the wiser!!!!

Kiwi Cafe Pizarra
No English & no
clues from the waitress.

At least they don't do what we do and just repeat it louder then louder again!!!
There are many English expats here, and from the loose talk again, many don't return home often as it is always not that easy for them to do so for whatever reason!!!!Ronny Biggs comes to mind. There is certainly a cross section of English here. If not exactly a colonisation, it can smack of colonialism with the locals getting short shrift on occasion. But handy contacts were made at the local pub so I could borrow a grinder to cut tiles. He just happened to have one in his van!