Andalucid at Los Piedaos

Bad weather always looks worse through a window, says Tom Lehrer. True even in southern Spain. So I put on heavy boots to make sure I won't be blown away, and take off on a storm-powered stroll around Los Piedaos. The weather readout says that today's easterly winds are running at 25 kilometres per hour in Granada - that doesn't sound as dramatic as it looks. To the south, inky clouds edged with scarlet move across the black face of the Sierra Lujar.

Down at the pool, the wooden stand of our big green sunbrella (Homebase Leeds 1995; Winchester, Chesapeake Bay, Barrio Hondillo, Calle Huelva, Los Piedaos, RIP) has snapped in two. The furled umbrella, broken-backed, is half submerged in the kids' paddling area.  I haul it to shore and leave it against the wall, nothing else I can do for it now.

Mr N. our lone guest of the week in El Azahar, is out, but Kathmandu, the most gingerly of our cats, is huddled on the high wall of the casita.  I clamber up on a ledge and ask permission to tuck him under my arm.  He comes quietly as I appear to be the lesser of two evils this evening.  On the way back I'm picking up fallen branches of cypress and chunks of succulent sempervivum blowing across the path like tumbleweed.  The courtyard Fred swept clean yesterday is bright with green-gold leaves from the two protecting elms that guard our doorway.  Maybe the wicker dog basket caught in the top branches last autumn will drift down too.

The sweet end of summer

No posts in a while I know.  But it's been a challenging summer, with the move to Los Piedaos and the morph (ongoing) into Alpujarras Campo Woman.

There's this day in July, the light so bright it's heat, the crickets blaring like vuvuzelas. Not been sleeping well, nursing two wasp stings and doing bathroom battle with another Megarian Banded Centipede in the small hours. 

Lola Spaniel hasn't come back with us from our walk in the bush hours ago. (Ever seen 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'?) I know she's up on that barbed hillside with a broken leg, parched, vultures circling overhead.  Fred sets off on search-and-rescue. He comes back dogless so we mobilise Jorge Jeep and start over.  No sign of her.

A terse message from Jorge: 'Check gauges'. He's bleeding pink water. 'Coolant' says Fred. He takes off up the next trail on foot.  I call the insurer and they call the grua (tow-truck) in Padul and the grua driver calls me. He won't come up the track, wants us to get the car up to the main road right now.  He's barking arrangements into my ear, when there's a hearty ching! on the quaint old front-door bell. I run out with the phone still to my ear.  It's our guests for La Concha ('the honeymoon cottage').  I greet them cheerfully while shouting 'no cuelgas' (don't hang up!') to Grua Man and adjusting the outsize blue plastic icepack clamped to the sizzling wasp bite on my wrist.

Fred comes back. Lola's still lost.  We get the car up the track and wave it goodbye.  We pretend we're both looking forward to the white-dust walk back. On the way, one of our guests picks us up in his car.  We tell him about the day we're having, 'and worst of all, we've lost our little dog....'  Turns out his little girls dognapped Lola at lunchtime and have been playing dollies with her all afternoon...I decide I hate it here and start planning soft furnishings for my studio apartment in Lanjarón.

Ah summer. Then just when it seems you've never slept under anything but a sheet, figs start appearing at Carmen's Fruteria.  And their deep purple skins and garnet flesh remind you of red wine reductions, of clouds and cool weather to come, of chestnuts roasting in the town square and the woodstove glowing at home. 

And I'll be there, jeans tucked into boots and baggy wool sweater, loudly and happily complaining about the cold.

Thanks to Jamie Oliver and Fred for the fabulous fig tart - the adapted version has lemon zest, orange zest, wild lemon thyme and local orange blossom honey. The frangipane nut element is about half almonds, the rest walnuts.  Let us know if you want the recipe - it is the best I have ever tasted! 

Custodians of 'The Faithful'

 
We hadn't long been living in Lanjarón when we were introduced to David and Shujata Dry to do an article about their home and estate for an outsize glossy property magazine.  As we left, I remember saying to Fred: 'Imagine living here.  Imagine calling this place home.'  Six years later, life is giving us the opportunity to live out that daydream.  A few weeks ago, we became the latest custodians of Los Piedaos ('The Faithful'), and we still can't quite believe it.

The estate (or finca) lies on a tree-covered ridge, in the centre of the main valley of Las Alpujarras, south of Granada, between Orgiva and Lanjarón. For millions of years, the whole valley was a huge lake. The red clay around the finca gave the adjoining village its name of Las Barreras, 'the clay pits'.  Originally, there were six casitas, or farm workers' cottages; three of them were restored by David and his then wife Dot as self-catering holiday cottages.  

There's a magical feeling about these old casitas. A soft light comes into them, whispering of older, simpler lives. The faint scent of last winter's woodsmoke lingers. They invite you to long shady afternoon siestas and supper under the stars...

But enough dreaming for now. A few weeks ago, we were responsible for one house, one dog and a few plants on the roof. Now we're caring for Los Piedaos itself, several gardens, four casitas and their ever-changing inhabitants.  And several furry sitting tenants.  Bonnie and Max are would-be border collies (affectionately renamed The Inglorius Basterds and entirely biscuit-operated); while Cielo, Katmandu and Isobel appear to be cats. (All freely available to give your holiday casita that homely touch).

Coming to live in the campo after six years in the heart of town is like stepping out into Spain all over again.  I'll try and share our adventures as we trip over them!

The Merchant Adventurer

It's 4.00 pm, siesta hour in the village of Chite, deep in Granada's Lecrin valley.  Hard to tell the difference really - the whole place just seems to have sunk into a deeper version of its usual slumber.  At one end of the main street, an old man has fallen fast asleep at his plastic-chair lookout post.  Shame - he'll miss seeing the one-eyed cat ambling across the otherwise empty road.

Every turning in Chite (unkindly pronounced to rhyme with 'kite' by some expats), looks the same to me. So after ritually losing our way in the maze of narrow side streets, we give up and make the ritual mobile phone call.  A moment later, Gym Halana appears from nowhere.  She whisks us around several corners until we stop at an old door in an old wall, and beckons us inside. We've arrived at Camel Stop. 

After the glare of the street, it takes a minute to adjust your vision to the cave-like interior, lit here and there by lamps from long ago.  But then, like opening the pages of your favourite magazine, you don't know what to look at first.

In her fascinating blog, Gym describes Camel Stop as 'a secondhand shop selling anything from door knobs to barber's chairs, girdles to accordions.'  There must be an object for every letter of the alphabet here.  A small chaise-longue covered in iridescent damask.  A four-poster bed from the Indian Raj, with painted miniatures set in the elaborate frame. Cupboards, tables, chests-of-drawers, painted in peacock colours.  Vintage and secondhand clothes, though many of them are Barbie-sized. "I just buy whatever catches my eye," Gym says. 

What caught our eye were two big table lamps made from old-fashioned copper canister 'backpacks' once used for spraying crops. Together, they cost the same as one very ordinary lamp half the size from any hogar interiors shop in Granada - and you won't find anything like them in most of those overpriced taste wastelands.

Film-set painter, artist and object-hunter Gym has lived in Chite since 1991, when she came here on holiday, beginning yet another chapter in an already unconventional life.  She set about transforming her 'little hovel' by painting every available surface, and ended up featuring in style bibles like Italian Architectural Digest and Country Living. Soon after arriving, Gym bought the neighbouring ruin, transformed it into Camel Stop, and has been filling it with lovely and unusual things ever since.

Next time you're planning to be in the area, go and spend a wonderful hour there. ( The shop, at Calle Carniceria 31, is usually open Mon-Fri from 5-9 pm, or call her on 669 741 859 and arrange another time). I guarantee you'll find something unique, beautiful and useful to trot away with.

 

Losing track: the rain's in Spain

“The wall that runs along our drive collapsed last night.”

 “The water table is leaking upwards through our tiled floors.”

 “We’ve just greeted our [paying] guests with buckets so they can catch the leaks in their holiday cottages.”

 “Our track was washed away just after Christmas and we haven’t been able to get the car up there since then.”

 “We haven’t been able to get out of our street to the main road for five weeks, and have to go through the Parque Natural to get to the other side of town.”

 And these are just the firsthand reports from people we know (the last one is us). Sadly, everyone around here also knows about the British couple in Rubite who were killed when the ceiling of their friends’ house caved in on them in a mudslide. 

 This week’s Sur in English printed some alarming figures for neighbouring Malaga province: €936 million of income lost by restaurants and bars, €70 million worth of rained-off street markets, €21 million wiped off the olive harvest and the citrus harvest “decimated.”  Many beaches are covered in debris and golf courses all over the region are bogged down in Andalucia’s wettest winter since records began. (Thanks to The Olive Press for the photo of flooding in Jimera).

 It’s not all bad: the rain more or less stopped here for the long weekend to celebrate Dia de Andalucia on 28 February and lots of damp, rumpled people emerged to bask in the sun on hastily reassembled café terraces. On Saturday the temperature reached 24ºC so I packed Lola Spaniel and a modest picnic and toiled up one of the steeper paths in the Parque Nacional. It was like late May - wonderful.

But today it’s raining ‘chuzos’ again (equivalent of ‘cats and dogs’) in the Alpujarras, and the local weather ‘prediccion’ site is showing those cute but menacing thundercloud symbols for at least another week.  It appears that some of the rain will be warm and some of it will be cold, but either way it will continue to bring down walls, moods and morale here for the forseeable future.

What's the weather doing to you, elsewhere in Spain, in the UK, in the States?  Comment here and share your stories!

 

 

Around corners: capturing Granada's hidden beauty

A winter morning in Granada, piercing cold. Crowd into your loud and friendly local churreria and dunk your doughnuts in sweet and sludgy chocolate as the natives do. Now, as the sun gains strength, you can venture out with fresh eyes and a curious camera. Bright winter mornings are perfect for nosing around corners to discover some of Granada's less well known wonders, not the monumental but the miniature, a moment in the life of an old stairway or stone wall.

Fred's love of crumbling walls and moody masonry is familiar to his Flicker following and collectors of his work. Just recently, the roving eye of online luxury travel and lifestyle mag Travel Intelligence shared the love.  Sketches of Spain: A Granada Photo Diary, celebrates just a few of the historic and humble beauties of a city ageing gracefully alongside its twenty-first century El Centro counterpart.

While you're there, take a minute to explore the Travel Intelligence site - unlike many travel sites, it's good to look at, good to read, and with inspiring ideas and firsthand reports from a huge range of destinations, it's much more than just a brochure for posh hotels. 

What's your favourite hidden corner of Granada, or another Andalucian city you know and love? And is there a great churreria not far away? Let us know and look out for a big guy with a camera..

Talking of the big guy, he's been busy!  Last month Fred donated five b/w images from his 'Sueños' (Dreams) series to Images Without Borders, a collaboration between 125 photographers from seven countries offering more than 400 fine art prints for sale. Profits will help to fund the work of Doctors Without Borders, currently trying to help the people of Haiti in almost impossible conditions. Today's Huffington Post showcases the initiative and Fred's is one of the featured images. 

In the meantime, his work was also picked up by the 'Artist Watch' radar of online arts mag Escape Into Life. It's a beautiful collection of essays, poetry and art, well worth a visit for inspiration and refreshment during a busy day. Enjoy!

Still dreaming of the why Christmas

Britain might have gone slip-sliding back to work today, but here in Spain we have another midweek holiday still to come for Los Reyes. In which delirious kids (and not just kids), already crazed with presents and excess calories from the imported 'American Christmas', get to do it all over again, while their exhausted parents look on with distracted smiles.

It's not that I'm feeling jaded about Christmas. I just kept waiting for the delirious kid feeling to kick in, and it never did.

I thought our journey to London would be fun.  But after a five hour delay at Málaga airport, we ended up, not at Gatwick as we had expected, or Stansted, where we had been diverted before they closed that too, but at Bournemouth, where we spent 3.5 hours on the tarmac while the landing authorities tried to make us vanish but were ultimately unsuccessful. 1.00 am found us in bed at a Bournemouth hotel eating American Hot pizza and drinking Diet Coke, so not all bad. Meanwhile, we didn't miss the party my sister had organised for that night, as eleven guests rang to cancel anyway.

About 30 hours, two trains, two taxis and PDS250 after setting off, we did arrive at our destination. Next day, the 23rd December, I took my Mum shopping.  As she is 80, blind and deaf, this was definitely a good way to foster Xmas spirit.  Steering her round M&S with one arm, I managed to grab all the wrong sizes of whatever gifts were within reach out of what was left on the shelves. Later that night, I felt ill and spent the whole night being sick. Next day I managed a cracker and a slice of toast, so at least no weight gain to feel bad about.  At the splendid 13-component Christmas Dinner organised by Maureen (my sister's partner's sister), I had everything but an appetite. Still, it was great to see the family - here's a rare gathering of the triplets!

London was icy when sunny, and wet the rest of the time, though Fred did capture this chillingly beautiful sunset on the river at Chiswick.

When we got back to Lanjarón (with a mini-evacuation of the terminal at Gatwick, and just the one lightning strike on the plane to keep us amused) everyone was depressed after days and nights of heavy rain.  Tales of vans from the Cigarrones settlement swept downriver to Motril...roofs collapsing....leaks everywhere...people cut off...

 But then the rain obligingly stopped to give us a sunny weekend that felt more like April or May. Yesterday Fred and I drove along the Sendero Sulayr, (see the link in a previous post here), far up enough into the Sierras to see some snow. A slight breeze carried the scent of rosemary, the sun was hot, it was peaceful. I remembered how lucky we are to live here, and what a great year 2010 promises to be, with some exciting changes coming soon.

New Year's Resolutions? We'd like to improve our Spanish language abilities, so I am going to get to as many 'intercambios' as I can in Lanjaron this year, and Fred is going to check out classes with Eduardo Lalanne. His courses are structured but conversational and fun. And the Notes in Spanish website will give me the incentive I need to get beyond talking about the weather. It's the best online course I know, with Anglo-Spanish couple Ben and Marina chatting about aspects of Spanish life and current affairs, complete with minor disagreements and language corrections!

Finally, in a burst of New Year energy, I am thinking about starting a new website. One that I can easily design, create and maintain with the help of the highly-enabling OKSO. They wear their expertise lightly and guide you through the website creation process in human-speak, using Wordpress as a base.  If you want to take your business online in 2010, David and Michelle will inform, inspire and encourage you to make it happen. 

What about you? How was your Xmas? And who and what is making your first days back at work a little brighter?  I hope the list is a long one, and I wish you many 'delirious kid' moments in the year to come!

Friendly, feisty, furry: Macduff 1995-2009

 Fourteen years, three countries, two transatlantic crossings, five homes; our beloved Bearded Collie Macduff made his final journey yesterday.

Woven in with our grief and some shock at the speed of events, Fred and I have started to remember the happy times: his first wintry gambol at six months old, sending up silvery puffs of Yorkshire snow against the moonlight...running the length of a long green field to greet his pretty German Shepherd friend, Lady...playing 'Lost in the Woods' with Fred in the oak copse at our home in Winchester, barking for joy when he found him...trotting just ahead of me, my personal trainer on those endless walks through Maryland's Annapolis Park. And here in the Alpujarras, Duffs and Lola with us on a picnic...our sunlit walks to the Castle and the woods...two bushy dog tails waving happily.

Of course it wasn't all good times.  I remember how disappointed we were when Duffs was expelled from Dogwood Acres, his exclusive day school near Annapolis, for excessive barking and because he kept herding up the younger dogs. But this was just a momentary blip on Macduff's popularity clapometer.  Mostly, people and dogs (except Yorkies and other small upstarts) adored him.

Over the past year or so, Duff's walkies became twice as slow and half as long. His sight and hearing had faded, and he had the spectacular bronchial cough of a retired docker.  But he was still snorfling his food with gusto, liked the sun on his back in the morning, breakfast toast crusts with peanut butter and stretching out in the centre of a circle of visitor feet. 

Then yesterday evening his back legs, which had been getting steadily weaker, gave up entirely, and next morning he wouldn't eat or drink. We took him to the 24/7 vet hospital in Granada; we held him and talked to him right to the end, when he sank into a peaceful sleep.  Before we went, I asked for some scissors and cut a small piece of matted fur from his right ear - I never did manage to comb that last bit out and now I can keep it for ever.

Goodbye darling boy. Thank you for 14 years of love and laughter.  We hope you are out right now playing 'Lost', running through endless sunlit woods with your friends.  And that you have roast chicken for supper every night.

All our love....

I can only show a couple of pics on this post, but Fred has put together a beautiful photo memoir for Friends of Macduff. Do take a look, if only to marvel at the size of Duffs' paws when he was three months old! (If this link doesn't connect, just drop me a line and I will send you a new link).

A Blessing in Ronda

I've done it in London and Los Angeles; I've done it in Washington DC and at the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens.  But I never thought I'd be doing it in Ronda.

It all started when Andy Cameron from Ronda Today recommended that Fred and I overnight at Baraka B&B by way of celebrating our wedding anniversary - yes, 18 long bitter years.  He did say the proprietor was Armenian, but I didn't know how Armenian until I called her:

Hi, is that Anahid?

Hi, yes...Arpi....that's an Armenian name.  My sister is called Arpi.

Amazing! What's your family name? My mum was a Sherbetjian. My aunt's family is Ourfalian. (There, now I've done it in Ronda too).

Sherbetjian? You're from Anjar?

Yes, my mum's family are Anjartsi. Do you know them?

Know them? My grandfather and your grandmother were first cousins. This is unbelievable. I thought I was the only Armenian in Andalucia! 

We duly arrived at lovely Baraka (it's an Arab-derived word for blessing) last Friday, to be greeted by lovely Anahid. I think we hugged five times before the Arabic coffee started frothing in the long-handled jezveh.

We were briefly separated when Fred and I went to lunch at Almocabar in Barrio San Francisco (952 87 59 77, closed Tuesdays and August).  It was one of my very few Author Picks for the Lonely Planet Guide last year, and as good as we remembered it. However, if you like a convivial room, don't go on Friday lunchtimes between October and April - it was echoey.  But when you go, do have the tangerine sorbet, which 'tastes like all the tangerines in the world concentrated into one shimmering scoop'. 

In the evening, Andy came over and we all hit the town for some tapas and wine to celebrate this historic occasion. Andy knows Ronda inside out, and he steered us to the best bars with the tastiest tapas (thanks Andy!). Still, I don't think Anahid and I would have noticed if we were at a Burger King, as we only stopped talking long enough to wash down a few boquerones, starting sentences in English and ending them in Armenian.  After a great evening, we clopped back through the narrow cobbled streets to Baraka, just two minutes from the famous Puente Nuevo.

We got a couple more hours of chat in before, during and after breakfast, then left to come back to Lanjarón. As no true Armenian ever runs out of stuff to say, I know we've got years of tireless conversation ahead of us.

Oh, and here's a picture of me and Fred celebrating. No, of course I'm not gnashing my teeth - that's a smile!

A Last Taste of Summer: Frediterranean Tart

Before I start this post, can I just say something about the ongoing strong reactions to my previous posts about Tony and Lil's Reigning Cats and Dogs refuge. I will be visiting Tony and Lil to see the refuge for myself, and I've also accepted Andy and Carol's invitation to hear their point of view. So look out for a post about my visits soon.

With the dark evenings almost here, I thought I'd end the summer on a flavour high, by sharing Fred's recipe for a colourful, fragrant Mediterranean Tart, which I have rechristened just because it fits. It's based in part on a recipe by Scottish chef, Alex Mackay, and it's perfect eaten out of doors on a sunny afternoon, with a crisp green salad and a glass of misty-cold Rueda or fruity Rioja.

FREDITERRANEAN TART (Serves six, or four greedy people, with a green salad)

Pastry:
(A pack of bought puff pastry will line a shallow-rimmed baking sheet measuring 30 x 25 x 1cm (12 x 10 x 1/2 inch) )

Filling:
2 x medium aubergines, thinly sliced
1 x large red pepper, sliced

4 large or 6 medium firm tomatoes, thickly sliced
3 x medium red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
4 x cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
65ml (2 1/2 fluid oz) olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
12 x anchovy fillets in oil
As many black olives as you like, halved and...stoned
200g (7oz) goats' cheese (soft for slicing or firm for crumbling)

A handful of basil leaves
salt to taste

METHOD
Take the pastry out a couple of hours in advance to thaw it. 

Cover the bottom of a large frying pan with olive oil and fry the aubergine slices (you can dip these in flour first if you like) until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

Slice the peppers and remove the seeds, then cut in thick strips and put in a large pan.  Halve and slice the onions and add to the peppers, along with the garlic, oil, sugar, cayenne pepper, a teaspoon of salt and 150ml (5 fl oz) water. Cover and sweat for 10 minutes (not you, the vegetables) stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and cook for another 5 minutes, until almost all the liquid has evaporated.  Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC, 400ºF or Gas Mark 6.

Slice the tomatoes across in thick slices.  Fry quickly in a little olive oil until just tender and set aside.

Roll out the pastry to fit the baking sheet (I smurge the regulation two sheets together in the middle with a slight overlap, and take the long sides over the rim of the baking sheet)

Layer the filling over the pastry: aubergine slices first, followed by the tomato slices, then fill in with the pepper and onion mixture. Keep the filling within half an inch of the edge so that the pastry can puff!

Scatter over the anchovies, olive halves and goats' cheese.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and scatter over the basil leaves.  Serve hot or warm with Andalucian sunshine poured over.

¡buen provecho!

For more of Fred's mouthwatering White Bowl portraits of Spanish ingredients and other foodie still lifes, please visit his White Bowl exhibit on Flickr. I'll be happy to give you information about framing and prices for his limited edition prints, and we can send matted signed copies securely to the UK and other destinations.