Happy 2010.

So, the first one of El Ano Nuevo!

New Year's eve started off well, Mariano and Sigrun arrived laden with wine and grapes (more about those later) but it was very windy too. As we ate dinner, we could hear the wind howling around the house, which is difficult to hear downstairs as we are very protected there by Carmen's house on one side (the side the wind was coming from that night) and our garden. The electricity dipped once or twice, out came the candles, then it went totally, but not for long. Still, we left the candles alight and had dinner by candlelight. Because of the wind, we didn't go and set off fireworks - too dangerous!

Just before midnight we turned on the TV and watched the New Year in from Madrid - it looked very cold and windy there too - the female presenter was in a strapless evening dress and struggling to smile - why film outside, surely they have studios!!! Anyway, the grapes. As the clock chimes midnight, you have to eat a grape for each chime - I managed somehow to only get through 8 instead of 12, my excuse was that they were very big and pippy. You can buy small tins of 12, skinned and de-pipped especially for New Year, but these were fresh from Mariano's land.


Then we had a bottle of cava or two, and about 2am they left. That's when we discovered that the 2 pairs of gates we have, 1 wooden pair, bolted top and bottom and with a log store inside and the other pair made of sheets of steel mesh covered with rolls of bamboo, were not shut as we thought! One of the wooden gates was ripped off its hinges and blown flat onto the pista, but strangely the logs hadn't moved, one of the cane/steel gates was inside but off it's hinges (needs 2 people normally to lift it off!) and the other cane/steel gate was outside (didn't know it could go that way - it's somehow bent and got under the frame) So in the howling gales, we tried as best as possible to stop things getting more damaged, putting bloques (concrete building blocks) each side so they didn't blow about....and then Pip managed to get out so we were trying to call her in before she panicked in the wind and vanished!!

The next day Mariano discovered that something - a branch? - had hit his car and broken a window, it's full of shattered glass and he can't get it repaired as we have no vehicle access.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd of January are fiesta days in Yegen - yes, following straight on from Xmas, New Year and then it's 3 Kings celebration on the night of the 5th! We went up to Yegen yesterday lunchtime for a drink or two and met some of Mariano's relations of which there seem to be a lot! One young couple are getting married soon and we were told they are planning it at the chapel here in Montenegro on May 13th (our fiesta) A few years back a couple had their baby christened here at fiesta.

The rivers and fuentes continue to flow very fast, our fuente normally flows at a rate of 4 to 6 litres per second but it's running at about 20 litres per second at the moment and flowing out of holes in the rock we didn't know about!

We are told that there are 2 JCB's around clearing up after the rain/mud slides and when they have done Yator one will be heading this way. And that's the good news. The bad news is that rain and snow are forecast this coming week and they won't be able to come till they've finished what they're doing! So maybe we will be walking to the cars for a little bit longer. Today was market day in Cadiar, we walked down, took the car shopping and walked home. The sun was shining, it was warm and very pleasant. (Not sure what to do about the 10kgs of dog food though!) As they say here "poco a poco"