a promising weekend

Most excellent weekend. We went to see Ruben's property on Friday morning. It is a lovely little place down the end of a dirt road on the side of an olive covered hill. With a generator and a pump house, it is almost a self sufficient place with lots of potential. The ground floor had great fireplace, there are a few steps up to a kitchen, bathroom, and what is really a bedroom but is home to the generator and firewood at the moment. There are problems with people stealing from unoccupied places so it all needs to be indoors. The upper floor is a bedroom area that looks out over the most divine view. There is a lot of little fix up jobs that need doing, the trees haven't been pruned in a while, the alberca (resevior) needs some digging out, Ruben would ike a patio laid, al of which give us some work to do in exchange for staying on the finca. There are several people coming to see it in the next couple of days, but if it doesnt sell, we are going to trade work for rent and will have our own little piece of paradise to take care of and practice Andalusian living on for a while. aaaah bliss. As we were leaving,we met up with Marcelino, a farmer who lives a bit further down the track. He is the classic ideal of the rural Spanish farmer from the cap to the beautiful gravelly voice. He had heard that Ruben had sold his place and wanted to have a chat about getting electricity run out to the various farms out their way. A lot of the more remote farms aren't connected to the grid, and the landowners have to get together in order to get lines run out to their properties. It seems to take a lot of negotiating and everyone has to be involved in order for it to work, so it can take a very long time to get going. Everyone who has come to see the property seems to be against putting in solar panels, which seems the obvious choice to us. We think it must be to do with the look of the panels themselves, as the amount of sunshine here would supply most of your electrical needs.

We left Ruben to do the long drive back to his home north of Lisbon, and set off to spend the weekend with Simon's parents in Aracena.The town is about twice the size of Cortegana, has a huge church in the middle, a set of caves where the lost Templar treasure is supposed to have been hidden on it's journey through Europe, and the ruins of a very cool castle. The Manley's have a very nice house off to one side of town with a big garden and a view of the local hills.

We got up early and set off into town to the weekly market. You can buy food, plants, a huge selection of clothes and shoes, not to mention a whole variety of olives. Simon is in love with the styles here and probably would have bought half the market if he could(shoes being his greatest weakness).We then strolled into town to have a cafe con leche at a little bar on the town square. Everyone is out and about on Saturday afternoon and the square is a wonderful place to people watch. The Spanish are very fashion concsious and the women all look fantastic. Most of the guys look pretty good too, althouh they seem more interested in their bikes and cars.Canadian's would probably go mad trying to drive here, as people stop wherever and whenever they want, park in the middle of the road, and pay no attention to the usual rules of the road. We think a new reality show based upon North Americans trying to get around rural Andalusia and not loosing their cool, could be the latest comedy craze. After coffee we walked up to the Casa Noble, a Casa Rural Superior, to see about a possible gig for Simon. We organised to go and see Melanie, the proprietor, on Sunday and set off for a walk ot the back of town in high spirits (well Simon was having huge doubts, but that is par for the course). We went to see the Manley's first house, down another dirt track, and got to see donkeys, pigs, goats and horses We collected acorns along the path and got a real kick out of having an entire field of little piggies come running when they realised that we were carrying snacks. The noise they make is one of the funniest snorty thing ever and well worth bending over every few steps to pick up nuts.
Sunday dawned bright and clear and after a very good lunch of solomiento Iberico we went into town for the audition. It all went very well and after a tour around the premises, a long chat about the possibilty of a kitchen job as well as a weekly gig,we were happy to return to Cortegana at the end of a very succesful weekend. In all we have been here for a week, have a chance at working in lieu of paying rent, and Simon has at least 4 nights of playing music in a rather swanky, upmarket hotel bar ,with one of the coolest bar tenders we have ever met. All in all we can't complain. Let's just hope it all pans out.