Seeing Is Believing.......Or is it?

I love the fact that there is never a part of the year when we don't have flowers in bloom. Recently I noticed this prickly pear beside the road from Frigiliana down to Nerja on the coast. It was surprising to see it flowering so early in the year, but what really hit me was that it was producing two different colours of bloom. Now that is unusual, so I had to have a photo (several actually). However, once I got close enough to take the photos I realised that all was not what it seemed. A prickly pear producing red and blue roses? They turned out to be silk, planted by someone with either a sense of humour or of beauty. Never mind, they still brightened up my day!

The Drought Is Over - I Hope!

No sooner had we bought our jacuzzi and installed it in its special corner of the roof terrace than notices went up all over the village informing us that the water company for the region had finally managed to get us included in the drought order (the village that is; not the two of us as a couple.) which applies to the rest of this area, the Axarquía. One consequence is that mains water cannot be used to fill pools. For other towns and villages it's understandable as the rains have never properly arrived for about five years and so local reservoirs were perilously low. Lake Viñuela, from which Frigiliana draws a little of its water had fallen to only 16% of capacity.

That shouldn't be a problem for our village, however. The bulk of our water comes from the mountains behind us. These start out in life as the Sierra Nevada, with Mulhacén being the highest peak in the Iberian Peninsula. The Sierra is a huge lump of dolomite limestone topped off with a thick coating of snow for around eight months of the year, snow which slowly percolates down into this giant sponge, emerging as numerous springs when it finally reaches the clay base. So many of the springs arise around the village that for centuries the people of Frigiliana were known as "Los aguanosos", the watery ones, by the rest of the Axarquía.

Finally, though, the proper seasonal rains would appear to have arrived. We've had substantial rainfalls on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday night, yesterday evening and today. It's not a scientifically accurate measure, but the bucket out on the terrace, which was empty at the weekend, now has 5 inches of water in it. On that basis Lake Viñuela should be filling up nicely, and when the water in the jacuzzi needs changing in April, we should be free to get on with it. Fingers crossed!

IV Festival de las Tres Culturas 2009

In one of my early postings (22.08.08) I sang the praises of Frigiliana's festival of three cultures. Online a few minutes ago I came across a reference to Fitur, the major annual Spanish tourism convention in Madrid. Frigiliana is promoting this year's festival at the convention, from which I learn that the dates are 27th to 30th August. If you're free that (long) weekend, it's a great event to head for. If you read Spanish, you will find more details here .

A Taste Of Things To Come

Wednesday night the wind finally blew itself out taking the clouds with it. Thursday morning thus dawned with a clear blue sky and not a breath of wind. We sat outside on our small side terrace for breakfast in the sun. Jackets, jumpers and sweaters were put aside when we went out and the few holiday makers wearing shorts did not seem quite so mad as for the past couple of months. By the afternoon, the temperature had climbed to 21 degrees and we spent half an hour in the hot tub up on the roof terrace and afterwards sat there soaking up the late afternoon sun. The weather today was very similar, and we were over in a neighbouring village having lunch with friends on their terrace, which only ten days ago had two inches of snow cover.

The weather will soon change again, I've no doubt. We still face at least another three or four weeks of winter, but this was a very welcome interlude that we enjoyed to the full..... and will again tomorrow if the weather holds.

La Cruz del Pinto

One of the things I promised myself back in England was that once in Spain I would get properly back into my stride - forgive the pun - so far as walking is concerned. At a very simple level, if going somewhere within the village I always go on foot, never in the car. But I also wanted to take advantage of the fantastic mountain country that we have literally on our doorstep. This first year has demanded so much time with builders and bureaucrats that up to now very little time had been left to do anything about the walking. Today though I finally went off on a walk into the mountains.

It was only a short walk, four miles, and my wife and a friend of ours in the village who was also keen to do more came with me. We went to the top of a hill on the other side of the valley that I have looked at with intent for several years. In local terms it is simply a little hill, but at 2,000 feet above sea level, it impresses this Englishman. You begin by dropping steeply down into the river gorge and then climbing all the way up the other side before setting off along the ridge, skirting round the eastern side of another hill on the way and then climbing steeply up to the summit from where you have magnificent views up into the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, and down to Nerja and all along the coast.

There is a cross cum shrine on the summit, and the name of the hill recalls a sailor of (I think) the sixteenth century whose ship ran into ferocious storms on its way from Motril to Malaga, and the whole ship's company were convinced they were going to die. The captain, whose surname was Pinto, reportedly went down on his knees and prayed for deliverance, promising that if they safely reached land he would climb to the nearest summit and build a cross in thanksgiving. Well the boat ran aground on Burriana beach in Nerja, the whole crew got safely ashore, and true to his word, Captain Pinto built his cross on the hill which now bears the name of La Cruz del Pinto. Down the centuries, the cross has been replaced several times, but I thought that if Pinto took so much trouble, it was not too much to ask for me to venture up to see it one day. It was all well worth the effort.

Oh, and my new boots behaved impeccably so I didn't need to change into the pair of trainers I took with me, "por si las moscas"