Finca project - the kitchen

Regular riveted readers may still be aware of the tortuous ongoing project of revamping the finca.

With the sitting room and dining room completed earlier - and that was probably the worst half of the house - I said the next room to do was the kitchen.

When I said 'do', I didn't actually mean finish it, and make it into a perfect kitchen. Oh no. What I meant was paint it so that it looked presentable, rather than looking dusty and dirty as it had suddenly become.

When we first bought the finca many years ago, the kitchen, was well, basic. There were cracked white tiles from floor to ceiling around the sink and cooker area and not much else. There still isn't much else, but at least we got rid of the cracked white tiles.

We also got rid of the nice white sink that was - natch - cracked, and full of ants. The cooker didn't last long either, one of the burners was dodgy so it went out. The cooker, not just the burner. We have bottled gas in our village, and the idea of a dodgy burner and a full bottle of butano is no fun at all.

Once the tiles were gone, the walls were re-rendered. I say this as though it took no time at all. It took months of course. What took even longer was choosing tiles. Tiles, it seemed, had become computer generated. Or at least the design had, and, there were irritating little pixels all over the place. Probably ok if you are not short-sighted, but I needed to find the least irritating design without pesky pixels.

Eventually I found some and they were duly applied. The golden rule in our village is tiles should be a metre high to prevent the damp sucking through the soft stone that our houses are built from. We stuck an extra layer of tile above the metre rule, plus the border tile on top of that.

Because tile adhesive is expensive, the way to tile in our village is to stick a blob of adhesive on each corner, and if they are feeling flush, possibly one in the middle. This is NOT a good idea. Do you know what can lurk in those nice gaps between the tiles and the wall? Yes. Dear little, and not so little, cockroaches. We knew an English couple who had a bar (don't they all?) and when they retiled the kitchen in the bar, the walls were full of cockroaches happily nesting behind the tiles in the lovely gaps. Just cover the tiles with adhesive, people. Unless you want a cockroach sanctuary of course.

Tiles are expensive. Paying someone to put them would be even worse, fortunately I didn't have to do that. But, I actually reckon they are a good investment. 1) blocks the damp problem 2) Incredibly easy to clean 3) They don't need replacing as often as the walls need painting.

Onto the work. The walls above the tiles had been filled when we were attacking the dining room, so that was part of the prep done. I washed the tops of the border tiles down to remove the dust so we could cover them with masking tape. Same with the light fittings.

Next, all the pans came down to be washed and stored in the dining room while the walls were painted. We sheeted up and brushed the dust off the walls.

Then, a coat of Benjamin Moore white paint. It covered so well, that apart from touching up a couple of pan marks, we decided one coat was enough - the other two rooms all needed two, plus stain stop. Our fastest job to date. Done in a day. Dust sheets removed and pans back on the wall.

It was a bit of a shock when all the other jobs have taken weeks. So - next - the bedroom. Another long job, and we will probably move into the back house to sleep so that we can work more easily.

Anyway, some comments about my minimalist kitchen.

First up, the fridge is Fagor, a Spanish company and is excellent. We bought it from the shop down the road that sells seconds. They don't deliver so we had to take it home and wait 48 hours for it to settle. It had a couple of dents in the side. So did our AEG in the UK for which we got £40 off when it was delivered less than perfectly.

I can live with cheap and less than perfect these days. We still get the two year guarantee. So why pay more??

Table with rather rusty legs and corner cabinet are both IKEA from many years ago. Legs on table may get sprayed. Corner thing was actually part of an office suite but it serves for a good spice shelf.

Plastic chairs came from my mum and dad's since the pine ones got moved to the dining room.

Oh, the sink. Yeah, we'll get one of those white ceramic things one day. But for now it's a red plastic bowl stuck on top of a Black and Decker workmate. It works well enough, so, no rush. We chuck the water out on the street. Hopefully missing our neighbours.

Filled walls, pans already down

Lots of pans to take down and wash, more filler on top left

Copper engraved prints to take down, light fittings washed off

Sheeted up - but don't disturb Pippa

Pans already back in place - and gleaming clean

And round to the fridge, chattering away in the corner to itself

Yet more clean pans, painting, engravings - all back

Door still needs painting, solid wood, originally from our neighbours

Also, note the feature stone arch above the doorway

Always need a food piccy. Mozzarella and tomato salad with capers

Recipe to follow

Gibraltar National Day 2011

Well, it's that time of year in Gibraltar when, if, you aren't wearing red and white that you look rather odd.

Red and white are the Gib colours and today is National Day. It is party, party, party from first thing to early tomorrow morning. Not for oldies like us of course.

What to wear? Well, courtesy of The Paint Shop in Europort we had acquired two new free red T-shirts. Very good. I had - too late - searched the shops for some new white shorts and failed miserably.

I went out this morning and decided it was TOO HOT for trousers. I glared at my offending creamy white ones and decided to turn them into shorts. Have scissors, needle and white cotton - will make shorts.

Partner skulked off for a couple of hours work but came back before the big hour at 1pm wearing his Gib T-shirt. We were set to go.

Long trousers.

And now made into shorts.

And free T-shirt.

There I am..

Partying on in the car park.

And in King's Bastion.

Now, can we sneak in here? Unlikely.

How about this side?

Oh, yes, there is someone with a Paint Shop T-shirt - I know him!!

Party party party

Listening to the mayor's speech - Kaiane Aldorino was given the freedom of the city for her achievement in winning Miss World.

Releasing the balloons at 1pm. The 30,000 red and white balloons represent our population.

And - here is the declaration that we all listened to just before 1pm.

On this, our National Day, we, the People of Gibraltar, here gathered as a community:

1. Remember and celebrate past generations of Gibraltarians and others, who, by their efforts, sacrifices and determination made today's Gibraltar possible;

2. Celebrate and honour our country as a success, and the community that flourishes within it, and we express firm resolution to resist and overcome the challenges that we may face in the future, as all previous generations have done;

3. Declare our enduring commitment to a society based on, and upholding the highest principles of human rights, democracy and social justice;

4. Express our collective solidarity with those people in our community, and outside Gibraltar, who are economically, socially or personally vulnerable and in need of support;

5. Declare our openness to friendly relations and cooperation on the basis of mutual respect with all countries and peoples that share or respect our values as a community;

6. Acknowledge our obligation to future generations of Gibraltarians to care for our environment, and to assure the political, social and economic prosperity and success of Gibraltar in the future;

7. Celebrate inalienable right as a people to determine the future of Gibraltar, our homeland, in accordance only with our wishes, rights and aspirations;

And finally, on this, Gibraltar National Day, we send greetings to all Gibraltarians around the world, and we greet and thank all friends of Gibraltar in Britain and elsewhere.

And - when he got to number five - the woman next to us said - except for Spain. Because, she is right. Hands off Spain. Just lay off with your claim to Gibraltar. If Gibraltarians wanted to be Spanish they would have voted for that and they would have Spanish flags all over the place today. They don't. Gibraltar is an independent British Overseas Territory.

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Vernacular architecture

Although we live only a few minutes from the coast on the infamous tourist trap of the Costa Del Sol, there is nothing in our village or on our coastal strip that screams of Brits (or anyone else) On Holiday.

Walking around the beach on our usual stroll the other day, I thought I would take a few photos of the local domestic architecture.

There are a few key points to note here:

1) We live in a predominantly agricultural community.

This does not mean that people have huge fincas with acres of olives and all the rest of it - like we all watch on A Place In The Sun.

What it actually means is that most people live in the village and rent ground annually to grow their crops. A few lucky ones, slightly outside the village, have a bit of ground with their houses. These are the houses that most of the pix reflect.

They also invariably happen to be on the main road, not something your average Brit would choose, but it rarely bothers Spaniards.

And of course, in the village, there isn't enough space to have large plots of ground with your house.

2) A lot of the older houses were built out of soft stone from the local quarry. Looks great, incredibly thick walls, and - somewhat porous. Still, it's nice to have a stone house. Dread to think of the cost of that little cute stone cottage in the UK near the coast.

3) Houses when first built tended to have square rooms, maybe - but not always - an entrance hall, and to either side of the front door, a sitting room, and a kitchen, with one or two bedrooms behind. These were the posher houses. Poorer people had two rooms. One to sleep in and one to do everything else in. Cooking happened outside or wherever. Bathrooms didn't happen. Neither did glass windows, or electricity or mains water or.... etc.

There might have been a shady patio outside the bedrooms and/or a corral for the animals. And from this basic houseplan has developed today's village homes.

4) Spanish houses are rarely 'original'.

Spaniards have a positive mania for 'reforming' their houses to the latest ghastly fashion. Reforming basically means, either totally gutting or knocking down and starting again, all with single skin brieze block.

And - as they have to provide for their children - a nice looking single storey cottage will suddenly develop a floor above for their daughter/son plus offspring to live in.

Or the tiny bit of ground they do have, will sprout a single storey two room house, rapidly followed by the upper storey extension a couple of years later.

No mortgages for a lot of families where we live. The families just pitch in to provide a small bit of space for a young couple to start off their life together. But - would you want to live on the back of your parents?



These photos, as far as I know, don't reflect that syndrome - well not over the last ten years, although some do have either a roof terrace, or in one case, a - rare - two storey house that looks older than most of the current reforms. I've tried to show some of the houses that haven't been reformed beyond belief in order to provide homes for little Maria or little José.

So, off on our trip.

I like this house. If only it wasn't on the main road! The guy went to work in Malaga, the place belonged to his parents, and when he had finished his working life in the city, he moved back to the family home. He was lucky and managed to buy a cheap plot of land next to the house so regularly grows potatoes as a cash crop. He also has a similar sized decent plot right behind his house. He has a good sized stable, and a patio and the inevitable few outhouses. Next to the house is the track to the beach. As I say, not a bad house at all.


And from the other angle, the same house.



This guy has a house in the village and this nice place here, surrounded by ground too. Hmm, not without a peseta or so.


A single storey house - where the buildings have surreptitiously crept up the back and the railings signify the roof terrace.


A good example of a classic double-fronted single storey house.


A rare older two storey house - but see the work just above the roof of the house next to it? The two storied house matches in well, but the work on the side gives it away as one that was raised a storey some time ago.


This one has been revamped recently and looks quite striking. The words over the door refer to peones - workers.

Finca renovation - Part Whatever

The last two weeks have seen another blitz on the finca renovation project.

Part of the problem is that we have too much stuff. Not only do we have too much furniture for a small house, we managed to bring every single bag of paper insecurity with us to Spain so our cupboards were crammed full of papers dating back some 20 years.

After all, when I started in journalism, on my first day, I was told I MUST keep all my old shorthand notebooks. It turned out the company had an injunction against it by an unmentionable firm, due to some rather sloppy reporting and editing, so it was decreed ever afterwards that all notebooks should be kept for centuries.

I followed this faithfully in my private life until this last fortnight when I chucked away half my life in a desperate attempt to gain decent living space.

Anyway, project dining room - cupboards and bookshelves emptied - temporarily housed in sitting room.

Walls needed repainting big time. A combination of neglect (working in Gib), humidity, and dust, had left them looking very sad and dilapidated. Still, have painter as partner and it was all soon as good as new. Took less time to paint the walls than it did to sort the wretched papers, and dust off all the books.

The window frames and shutters were washed down with sugar soap, they had a zillion coats of varnish on when we first put them in, and they looked as good as new after their sparkling treatment.

All the furniture was washed down too, and then polished off with beeswax.

Sheeted up and ready to go


Bookshelf emptied and sitting room full of transposed junk books and papers


A closer look at some of the books piled up all over the sofa - poor dog had nowhere to lie


But a quick wave of the magic wand (only took a week) and the books have mysteriously disappeared from the sitting room ...


... and are back on their shelves


Paintings back, desk clean and tidy, and shutters looking like new


Finally, we ate at our dining room table for the first time in rather too many years than I care to remember - it had become habit just to drop things on there until it was piled high with junk.



And when we weren't working on the dining room we decided to give the terrace garden a good hose down. Moving nearly 100 plantpots from one side to the other and back again isn't a lot of fun.



But there were some bright moments.

Tea kept us going (this one is Assam).



Next doors helped too - one day they cooked us tortilla and made a salad for our lunch.



And after a hard day's work, we usually chilled out with some sort of salad mix - here with olive pate and vegetarian slices.



Next installment - the kitchen.

Vroooooom

We were too idle to wander down to the lunchtime rally of Harley Davidsons in Casemates yesterday.

It was the sixth international rally with hundreds of bikes gathering in Gib.

For the first time, the bikers left the square for a tour around the Rock - so we didn't need to go and see the rally - it virtually came past our front door.

The unmistakeable sound of not one but hundreds of Harleys came roaring up Main Street (the wrong way !!) so I shot out to get a few pix.

APC - a caching tale

Flushed with the success of our First To Find, here, in spite of going via a rubbish dump, and Partner falling down a tree hole, we set off to hunt down another one which had been up for a month with no record of a find.

We figured we should be in with a good chance unless someone had found it just before we arrived. Unlikely. We set off bright and early before it got too hot and too busy on the roads.

The cache was located near to Lake Vinuela. This is the main water supply for the Costa del Sol east of Málaga, and was created in the 1980s when the valley of the River Guaro was flooded. It takes a really bad drought for the water level to drop in Vinuela, and it holds up to 170 million cubic metres of water whatever that signifies.

I don't like Lake Vinuela. It is outstandingly beautiful and outstandingly spooky. The water always looks cold and chilling, and deep. Very deep. Readers of this blog will know that I happily swim in the deep water of the Med near our village - but I wouldn't dip my big toe in Vinuela.

Anyway we drove past Vinuela - and away from it - in search of the cache. We had to turn off the main road - but which turn to take? When we thought we had spotted the correct turn-off, we drove slightly further on, turned round and headed off up the side road. As the road got narrower, and higher, and more vertiginous, I looked at the GPS and realised we were heading away from the cache. Ooops. A quick turn around in someone's drive was called for.

We parked up in a rather nice olive grove, said 'Hola, buenas dias,' to some workies and set off down the track. Nope. Wrong again.

Sigh. This was meant to be an easy drive-in cache. I gazed at the GPS. We were a kilometre away and heading in the wrong direction. It was just after 8am, so we decided to walk down the road rather than getting in the Landy again.

It was a pleasant morning and there was no traffic. We met a dog walker looking very British with two dogs on a lead. (Spanish people in the country never lead up their dogs). 'Morning,' said Partner in his best British ex-pat voice. 'Morning' she replied in the same tone of voice, and smiled Britishly.

We got to the cache location. We looked all around and about. For ages. It had to be there. Somewhere. But where? Of course. Hidden in a glass jar, in one of those holes for a meter box, just above a drain. Great. What was in there? Nada. Apart from the log book - which had been finally signed by someone about 12 hours previously. Damn!! It sits there for more than a month with no locals finding it, and it finally gets found the evening before we visit by a holidaymaker from Germany. Oh well, can't find them all first.

One of my friends refers to some caches as APCs. Another Pointless Cache. In his words: 'APCs are typically a magnetic nano on a waste bin in a lay-by with no views or anything of significance, beauty or anything whatsoever!!'

I have to say this was an APC. Not quite according to his description but it certainly struck me as pointless. It would even have been pointless had we been FTF. The views are ok but it's hard to go anywhere in La Axarquía and not have good views. And certainly hiding it just above a mosquito-ridden drain ranks with a nano on a waste bin in a lay-by in my opinion. It would have been better hidden under the rocks by the olive tree over the road.

The walk was good though. Had we actually managed to drive right up to it, it would have been even more pointless. Still I guess it is unlikely to be vandalised, unlike the caches we have hidden in local beauty spots.

Looking towards the northern ridge


Looking towards Comares, the white village perched on the top of the hill


Looking - er - in the other direction??

Making bread and - pizza! pizza! pizza!

Shortcrust pastry - tick.

Puff pastry - tick.

Omelettes - tick.

Soufflees - tick.

Hollandaise sauce - tick.

Mayo - well this post isn't about mayo.

Bread though - I needed to tick bread off the list.

Naturally I started with croissants. I have to say that if you haven't made bread before, possibly croissants are not the most sensible place to start. I thought they were 'cos they sounded like the puff pastry stuff with a bit of yeast chucked in.

They were terrible. Disastrous. Inedible. I left yeast alone for many years.

Bread-making did not happen again until marital bliss involved my partner making wholemeal loaves for a good few years.

Even more years later, I was still annoyed by this failure to tick bread off the list. I had a week off work. I bought a bread book. (Actually I bought two but one was better than the other). Most importantly I had a Rayburn. I figured the problem had not been letting the stuff rise or prove or whatever for long enough.

I determined that I would cook bread every single day until I had produced at least one decent loaf. And dear reader, I did, and I produced more than one.

In fact, I don't know where I went wrong before, it is so easy!!

Anyway, I have to recommend making your own pizza. Seriously. By the time you have rung up the pizza place, got them to deliver some soggy stuff with not really the topping that you want - or you have wandered up to collect your own slightly less soggy pizza - you could have made your own for less than half the price.

Should say - cost of flour (Allinsons) less than 50p. Cost of dried yeast (also Allinsons) - minimal - a 125g container costs 70 or 80p. I used to use fresh yeast but haven't found any in Gib. People living in Spain can buy it from Mercadona for around 30/35 cents. That reminds me, I started to decrease the recommended amount of yeast, you can usually manage with less.

Ingredients/quantities courtesy of Paola Gavin - Italian Vegetarian Cookery

1/2 oz of dried yeast, I use two teaspoons
8oz water
14oz flour
2 tablespoons of olive oil, I pour in what feels like enough

Add yeast to water and let dissolve until it looks nice and cloudy and yeastyish

Add olive oil to yeast and water

Add liquid to approx 8oz of flour

Mix well, then add more flour to wherever you are going to knead and put (soft and wet) dough on there to start the kneading

Keep adding flour until it is springy but still soft without being wet

Then add to bowl to rise for max one hour (in warm weather or a warm place, half an hour may be enough)

Cover with clean tea towel

When risen, knock back, and roll out to pizza shape of choice, I prefer squarish - my tins are square .....


Tips:

I use a mix of wholemeal and white strong flour, probably more white as it gives a crispier base

Add a drop of olive oil to the bowl before you put the dough in to rise

Another drop for the tin or tray you are going to cook it in

Cooking time in hot oven? About 15 mins. See? Half an hour or so to rise, 15 mins to cook, and it's ready. DO NOT forget to put it on a cooling tray immediately to ensure the base stays crisp.


Topping:

I used to use a tomato based sauce, but I have recently decided it is far more successful to just chuck a load of stuff on top like they do in pizza places.

So instead of sauce - chop up as many tomatoes as you want and cover base (I need to buy some puree to smear over too), add onion, garlic, hot chillies of your choice, olives, capers - and anything else you want.

I really dislike cheese on my pizza nowadays, I like a hot sharp and tasty veg pizza. But if you like cheese, and whatever else, go ahead, add it.

As my partner said - 'I can manage without cheese on my pizza, I can't manage without olives'.

The virgin goes to sea

Mid-July is the time for fishing villages in Andalucia to honour the patron saint of the sea - the Virgin del Carmen.

She spends most of the year locked away in the church, but in our village on the Sunday nearest to July 16, she gets taken down, dusted off, and borne away for a boat ride around the bay.

Although the centre of our pueblo is about ten minutes walk from the beach, there is still a community down there, presumably once totally fishing-based, of around 100 or more houses. And some of the people in the pueblo still have boats too, although these days, they are more likely to be used for sport rather than fishing.

So on this special day, come early evening, the virgin is put on her 'trono' (translated as throne, but it is really a float) surrounded with flowers and taken out of the church.

All the bearers and people in the procession are dressed in the traditional red, white and blue colours of the marineros (sailors), and wear espadrilles.

When we first arrived in the village, quite a lot of the procession went barefoot - for atonement or humility I suppose. Times have moved on, and everyone seemed to be shod this year.

Times have moved on in another way too. Some years ago, the bearers were all men (after all it is a religious brotherhood) but now women shoulder the weight too. And this year, there were women at the front of the various sections holding symbols and flags.

Once out of church, they parade down the main street, and then make their way to the beach. We might be ten minutes walk away but this takes them well over an hour. It would do, because apart from the fact that they walk the long way round so that everyone gets to see them and the traffic on the main road is held up, they stop virtually every five minutes for a rest and a drink of agua, while the priest solemnly intones his bell.

As dusk approaches, they reach the beach. The virgin is carefully installed in the boat, and off she goes for a gentle ride. Surprisingly she goes out for some time and for quite a way. Hopefully she doesn't fall in the sea, although some of our neighbours told us that the one in Nerja once did.

Once back safely on shore, the procession resumes and winds its way round the shorter loop back home. By now it's dark and late and everyone is carrying candles to light the return journey.

The first time we went to watch the procession we didn't follow it round the beach. It seemed too intrusive for a pair of new foreigners in the village to join in what seemed like a large family gathering.

But the next year, we did wander down the beach, and it was quite an impressive event.

This year when I went down to take photos at the start, I got lots of Holas and Buenas, and even Buenas Tardes from a few. Guess we are part of the fixtures and fittings now.

Although the annual Romeria in May is far more flamboyant, I like the solemnity and simplicity of this procession.

The only thing I have seen that lets it down was at the night-time return to church which I watched one year. When the virgen had been taken inside to spend another boring year gazing down at everyone from her perch, there was almost a fight outside as people grabbed as many of the free flowers from the float as they could get their hands on. Didn't seem quite right really.

Onto the photos.

The beginning of the procession with the local youth band. The young girl at the front is carrying one of the local penants. Bet she had armache at the end of the night. In front of her is an older woman carrying a religious banner.



One of the beautiful religious flags and a staff signal the arrival of the virgin. She is approaching down the street in the background.



The throne-bearers take the first rest, a few hundred metres from the church. It's at the main crossroads in the village so is a good place for everyone to meet up and join the procession if they didn't start at the church.



A close-up of the glorious lilies.



Ready to move on again. Note the circus in the background. Can't imagine their takings were too high that night. Who is going to pay to visit the circus when they can join in the annual walk to the beach for free with all their friends and family? Bad timing on the part of the circus methinks.