National press – A stone & the difference some years make

Two weeks ago we made it into the national press. El Pais,  a bit like the Times, featured an article about us in their Saturday edition.

De la aldea rural a la global  Translated it would be the global little village.

Xurxo, who is a well known photographer and journalist visited us one Saturday and exhaustively let us tell the story of our life (so far).

He made a nice article about it and yes, it is absolutely true, the Internet, if you can have it, helps to overcome boundaries. It can enable a life style unimaginable 10 years ago.

If you want to know more about us, just follow the link above.

As you may have read in the last blog we had the final bits of the village waste water put in. The mechanical moles have left and the scars in the land are starting to heal, I’m happy to write. Nevertheless, we took advantage of having some real power tools about. Our neighbour had asked me if I mind moving a rather large stone so he can navigate with his tractor and trailer a bit easier. So one day last week we just did.

It weighs about a ton. All one needs is  a piece of string, a JCB and its on the move.

I had just refurbished the outer wall in the far left of the corner of the picture, so patching up was easy. For me it pays to use a premix of lime (hydraulic) that is also consistently coloured (stone), I don’t have to worry too much about matching,  just use the same technique.

 Here is the wall in all its new glory. It will age nicely and thus wont be as bright as it is at present.

There are some small holes, as whilst I was rebuilding it, two masonry bees let it be known that I may own the property but they live there as well. They are not aggressive or sting they just buzz you and you know.

So just as a little reminder:

This is how it looked in 2006 when we bought the property.

And this is how it looks today.

Yes, sun shine always helps.

For the sharp eyed ones, 73 is the old Fenosa (electricity) number. 54 is the official one although asking for zapatero, los ingleses will also land you on our door step.

Expat