Monday 16 February 2009

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We have finally finished the olives, just over 2000 kgs down at the mill! The price per kilo if you want cash this year is less than half last years, at 35c a kilo, if the price of oil or olives in the shops drops by half I'll be very surprised! We will take a combination of oil and money, enough oil for 2 years use is what they recommend.

Saturday - Valentines Day - we went down to Motril to have the Polo ITV'd - the Spanish equivalent of an MOT, except you drive it through the testing bay yourself and the technician asks you to e.g. turn on the lights, indicators, wipers etc, he does the emissions test, then you drive onto the rolling road for brake tests and over an inspection pit so he can test the steering from below. He only gets in the car to check seat belts. Only takes about 15 - 20 minutes, cost us E35 and that lasts for another 2 years. That evening there was a dance in the salon (village hall) in Yator, we went down about 9.30, there were probably a couple of dozen people there, which isn't many but for a village of 70 or so, I suppose it's quite a good turn-out. Had some nice local wine, same as we had at fiesta I think and then had a very lazy day yesterday sitting in the sun reading. Yes we still have sun, it's been about 16 in the shade recently.

Today we started repairing one of the landslips, digging the banking back and terracing it, making a dry-stone wall around the base and putting plants in to make it stable. We'll continue with that as we find more big stones around and about. But at least it looks more solid than it did! There have been enormous land slides between Cadiar and Torvizcon, the road has only recently been straightened/widened and it has been down to single lane after the rains as a digger was clearing all the earth and rocks that slid down from where the land was cut back. There are still 2 diversions through parking/picnic areas! And in one place the land on the outside has slid, leaving the crash barrier suspended in the air!! Our landslip is minor in comparison.

We also got some seeds in today, a few rows of carrots, spring onions, radishes and leeks and trays of aubergines, peppers, chillis and coriander for planting out later.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Vicki and John,

    Surely a nice red or two followed all that hard work, and maybe accompanied by some hand picked olives from last year's harvest???

    Love Greg, Sarah and the girls

    ReplyDelete