After getting back fairly late on Sunday night we didn't manage to crawl out of bed until just after 11 a.m. Not sure when the last time we achieved this was, probably last week as the Light house runs on a quite a different time scale as school happens at night. It felt great but also that half the day had been wasted. So after rushed daily ablutions we scrambled over the hill to the finca. Simon was eager to get going with some tree work on the property, as he had recently bought himself a rather swish pruning saw. Unfortunately the some 80 odd trees have not seen a saw blade for over 5 yrs. This could keep Simon employed for most of the winter trying to thin out and coax all the fruit bearers back to life.On the positive side we will not be lacking in firewood or for that matter something to do. Fran also got into the swing of things by tackling one of the many bramble bushes that are choking out the trees. Spanish brambles are unlike their English or North American counterparts. They look similar, but the barbs on them are unrelenting. If they get a hold of you, watch out! We have since invested in really thick, arm length, suede gardening gloves. Fortunately in this area most of the Ferreterias (hardware stores) are geared to either agriculture or hunting, so our needs are fairly well taken care of cheaply. On our way back into Cortegana we once again stopped in at El Trueco for a wee bottle 'o' wine and got to meet Christine's Mum, who also lives in Cortegana. Very nice lady. We were heading out of town at an ungodly hour of the morning on Tuesday so as we could register in Heulva as 'Extranjeros'. Ahh yet another immigration building we had to line up outside of for hours on end. In order for us to live and work in Spain we needed to register as Spanish 'residente'. Tuesday morning we were up very very early as we had to go into Huelva, the main political center for the province. Seville is the largest city, at about 2 million people, but everything important to do with government happens in Huelva. We had to go and stand in an alley just off to the side of Christopher Columbus' house
. It was a rather drafty morning but thankfully there was no rain. It was the usual immigration line of desperate, rather seedy looking folk who all jump everytime the security guy does anything. We decided that they keep you in these lines purely to make you look desperate and seedy. Finally after an hour and a half, we got to go inside and talk to the information guy at the desk.'Diga me' was rather abruptly hurled at us. Mum launched into her spiel as to who we were and what we needed. This is not what we needor what we get . Unfortunately it turns out that we get work and then register, as this would expidiate our claim (things are beginning to ring bells again). The journey was not wasted as we now have an appointment in-get this-April, to apply to register. We figure this means we get to stand in the other queue labelled 'Con Cista' for about half of the time we did, and get envious glances thrown our way, so that's not so bad. We were also told that as Fran is a really really foreign foreigner, we have to get our marriage registered with the Huelva Civil records office. We gladly fled the packed immigration room and went and had most excellent tostada and cafe con leche at a wine bar round the corner. Duely fortified, we set out to find the local judiciary building. After a couple of sets of directions from obliging security guys, wefound the right place round the back of the police station. There was a huge crowd out front, who we think were demonstrating about being stuck on the highway for hours after an accident, who all had pages stuck to their shirt fronts and were waving Andalusian flags. We love the fact that if people here don't like things they will stand up and shout about
it. The Spanish are generally a very very vocal people anyway, so any ordinary conversation is generally loud and voluble, and when they have a beef, there is no stopping them. We navigated them to go through the security gates with 3 security guards, who after laughing at Fran's inability to get through the gate properly, sent us off to find the recors office. We joind another line, this time with 3 rather agrivated ladies who were complaining, very loudly,about the fact that the office was open to the public from 9-12.30, yet they were not letting the public in. When we finally got in, another hour and a half later, Mum explained to the woman at the desk what we needed to do. She just looked at us as though we were mad and said she had never heard of such a crazy thing. We have been married for 15 years. Why on earth would we need to reregister our marriage? Who was this crazy immigration man who told us this crazy thing? She finally decided that Juan, the more senior clerk would have to deal with this as she had no clue. We stood to one side till He was finished with his client, and then Mum launched into the whole thing again. Juan shook his head, took our passports and marriage certificate and left the room, came back and went into another room, came back again and said that nobody had ever heard of doing this kind of crazy thing. He would have to get hold of the judge, who was in court with the guy we had seen in handcuffs coming down the hall an hour before, and then maybe they could tell us what to do. Mum got his phone number and has to call him next week. Aaah ith that finally done, we set off to find the english book shop to buy us a spanish workbook. Got to laugh at that one. We then had to go find a music shop as Simon broke 4 strings in 3 songs on Sunday night and you can't buy acoustic strings in the home of flamenco. Turns out that was a bust too.He will have to go online or get Shaun to ship some out ( hint hint if you are reading this, they are DR acoustic RPM12 12 16 24 32 42 54 medium phosphor bronze rare) We were absolutley famished so asked a nice old guy in a wheelchair outside a cafe if they were open for lunch. It was a tiny place called La Graviota. We ordered sandwiches and vino tinto and all of a sudden the place was filled with Policia Local. Seems that it is the local police hangout, which always bodes well for the food and prices. We had very nice bocadillo and watched the news about the fact that half of northern Spain is buried under snow and has no power or heat. Everyone is finding this to be a very cold November, which we are quite pleased about as after Calgary it is nothing!
It was then time to set out back to Cortegana as Mum had to teach at 4pm. Unlucky her, as we were both very tired,and couldn't imagine having to get through 6 hours of noisy kids after our day long adventure. We packed up some clothes from the house, grabbed some food from Dia and set off across the hills back to the finca. After nice game of crib and some pasta and sauce in front of our own fire, we gratefully hit the sack for the first time in our own(ish) bed in the finca.
After getting back fairly late on Sunday night we didn't manage to crawl out of bed until just after 11 a.m. Not sure when the last time we achieved this was, probably last week as the Light house runs on a quite a different time scale as school happens at night. It felt great but also that half the day had been wasted. So after rushed daily ablutions we scrambled over the hill to the finca. Simon was eager to get going with some tree work on the property, as he had recently bought himself a rather swish pruning saw. Unfortunately the some 80 odd trees have not seen a saw blade for over 5 yrs. This could keep Simon employed for most of the winter trying to thin out and coax all the fruit bearers back to life.On the positive side we will not be lacking in firewood or for that matter something to do. Fran also got into the swing of things by tackling one of the many bramble bushes that are choking out the trees. Spanish brambles are unlike their English or North American counterparts. They look similar, but the barbs on them are unrelenting. If they get a hold of you, watch out! We have since invested in really thick, arm length, suede gardening gloves. Fortunately in this area most of the Ferreterias (hardware stores) are geared to either agriculture or hunting, so our needs are fairly well taken care of cheaply. On our way back into Cortegana we once again stopped in at El Trueco for a wee bottle 'o' wine and got to meet Christine's Mum, who also lives in Cortegana. Very nice lady. We were heading out of town at an ungodly hour of the morning on Tuesday so as we could register in Heulva as 'Extranjeros'. Ahh yet another immigration building we had to line up outside of for hours on end. In order for us to live and work in Spain we needed to register as Spanish 'residente'. Tuesday morning we were up very very early as we had to go into Huelva, the main political center for the province. Seville is the largest city, at about 2 million people, but everything important to do with government happens in Huelva. We had to go and stand in an alley just off to the side of Christopher Columbus' house
. It was a rather drafty morning but thankfully there was no rain. It was the usual immigration line of desperate, rather seedy looking folk who all jump everytime the security guy does anything. We decided that they keep you in these lines purely to make you look desperate and seedy. Finally after an hour and a half, we got to go inside and talk to the information guy at the desk.'Diga me' was rather abruptly hurled at us. Mum launched into her spiel as to who we were and what we needed. This is not what we needor what we get . Unfortunately it turns out that we get work and then register, as this would expidiate our claim (things are beginning to ring bells again). The journey was not wasted as we now have an appointment in-get this-April, to apply to register. We figure this means we get to stand in the other queue labelled 'Con Cista' for about half of the time we did, and get envious glances thrown our way, so that's not so bad. We were also told that as Fran is a really really foreign foreigner, we have to get our marriage registered with the Huelva Civil records office. We gladly fled the packed immigration room and went and had most excellent tostada and cafe con leche at a wine bar round the corner. Duely fortified, we set out to find the local judiciary building. After a couple of sets of directions from obliging security guys, wefound the right place round the back of the police station. There was a huge crowd out front, who we think were demonstrating about being stuck on the highway for hours after an accident, who all had pages stuck to their shirt fronts and were waving Andalusian flags. We love the fact that if people here don't like things they will stand up and shout about 
it. The Spanish are generally a very very vocal people anyway, so any ordinary conversation is generally loud and voluble, and when they have a beef, there is no stopping them. We navigated them to go through the security gates with 3 security guards, who after laughing at Fran's inability to get through the gate properly, sent us off to find the recors office. We joind another line, this time with 3 rather agrivated ladies who were complaining, very loudly,about the fact that the office was open to the public from 9-12.30, yet they were not letting the public in. When we finally got in, another hour and a half later, Mum explained to the woman at the desk what we needed to do. She just looked at us as though we were mad and said she had never heard of such a crazy thing. We have been married for 15 years. Why on earth would we need to reregister our marriage? Who was this crazy immigration man who told us this crazy thing? She finally decided that Juan, the more senior clerk would have to deal with this as she had no clue. We stood to one side till He was finished with his client, and then Mum launched into the whole thing again. Juan shook his head, took our passports and marriage certificate and left the room, came back and went into another room, came back again and said that nobody had ever heard of doing this kind of crazy thing. He would have to get hold of the judge, who was in court with the guy we had seen in handcuffs coming down the hall an hour before, and then maybe they could tell us what to do. Mum got his phone number and has to call him next week. Aaah ith that finally done, we set off to find the english book shop to buy us a spanish workbook. Got to laugh at that one. We then had to go find a music shop as Simon broke 4 strings in 3 songs on Sunday night and you can't buy acoustic strings in the home of flamenco. Turns out that was a bust too.He will have to go online or get Shaun to ship some out ( hint hint if you are reading this, they are DR acoustic RPM12 12 16 24 32 42 54 medium phosphor bronze rare) We were absolutley famished so asked a nice old guy in a wheelchair outside a cafe if they were open for lunch. It was a tiny place called La Graviota. We ordered sandwiches and vino tinto and all of a sudden the place was filled with Policia Local. Seems that it is the local police hangout, which always bodes well for the food and prices. We had very nice bocadillo and watched the news about the fact that half of northern Spain is buried under snow and has no power or heat. Everyone is finding this to be a very cold November, which we are quite pleased about as after Calgary it is nothing!
It was then time to set out back to Cortegana as Mum had to teach at 4pm. Unlucky her, as we were both very tired,and couldn't imagine having to get through 6 hours of noisy kids after our day long adventure. We packed up some clothes from the house, grabbed some food from Dia and set off across the hills back to the finca. After nice game of crib and some pasta and sauce in front of our own fire, we gratefully hit the sack for the first time in our own(ish) bed in the finca.
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