Category: Non classé

We harvested our olives We were told that the beginning of december is the best time to harvest our olives. The fact that they began dropping off the trees reminded us of that fact. So we set out to harvest what we thought would yield a good return. Only 3 of the 41 olives trees we have qualified or had any fruit in the first place. We are told that good years and bad years alternate. I think this was a bad year. Anyway, we spread out our nets on the floor and… well, look for yourself:

A few days later we went to the industrial olive press that we see every time we go into town. We had no idea how it all worked but managed to get our harvest of 43kg pressed and 30 minutes later we had 8 liters of olive oil. We were so excited.

A few days later, we had a little tasing. We compared 4 olive oils: The one Mark and Jacky gave us, one that was store bought, one our neighbor Angel gave us and our own. Needles to say, ours won with flying colors. Mark & Jacky’s was good, but we had to scrape the bottom of the bottle they gave us, because we had used almost all of it already. The store bought one was smooth, but tasteless and Angel’s was nice, but not as nice as ours. 🙂

Spot the (3 main) differences

Click here for the solution

The odd things we have We realize we have quite a few things that are quite unique to us, or our house or both. For instance:

We got married, again…. OK, we love each other and all that 🙂 and that was a good reason to get married back in 2019, but another reason was to make sure we would be each other’s heir in case something would happen. Once we got to Spain, we found out that things are a little different here and that even when you are married you are not automatically each other’s heir and we will each need a will to specify what we want to happen with our estate after our deaths. Being married here does have influence on the amount of estate tax you pay. In 2019, we registered as partners (almost the same as married) and we wanted to make sure that that was noted correctly in the Andalusian register. To get that done, we filed some papers and were invited to come to the Social Services office in town. When we went there we were asked all sorts of questions, such as if we were married at that moment (???) and needed to sign a good many documents. When we left the office of the kind lady, her “congratulations!” made us realize that we just went through what we had already done in Holland in 2019, but now for Spain. Do we need to get more wedding bands now?

Next steps: Get registered as Spanish residents and then get our wills sorted.

Our fields got plowed Our neighbor, the farmer, has been using the two fields in front of our house to grow food for his sheep, with permission of the previous owners of course. We gave him permission too, because having those fields cultivated looks nicer than having them bare or worse, grown over with weeds and it helps him out. As long as we are not using them, he can use them. So, his son came to plow them in the beginning of December:

And then there was light Now that it is proper winter again and the days are shorter, we decided that the hallway upstairs needed a better light. There is a ceiling light, but that is too bright. Good for some of the time, but not all of the time. We felt we needed something that could just be on all evening, helping us get up the stairs without blinding us on the way up. We think we found an elegant solution:

Click on the image for a larger view

On top of the mountain I took a hike on the mountain behind our house. It gave me spectacular views of our valley and our house. Here are some of the images:

Satellite view The Google satellites noticed the changes we did to our place and updated Google Maps and Good Earth. You can now see the petanque court under construction behind the pool and the roofless carport with our car in it, which means the new picture was taken mid May 2021.

More of Mirjam’s culinary delights.

Limburgse vlaai. A traditional pie made in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg. Mirjam made hers with a homemade apricot jam filling. Absolutely scrumptious.

Dutch oven bread. Douwe was showing me over WhatsApp how he was making bread in a Dutch oven – a cast iron pan with lid that you put in the oven at a very high temperature. That bread looked (and sounded!) so good, that Mirjam wanted to try it too. The result was wonderful:

Flora & Fauna

We have been here 1 year! It has been a great year. You have been able to read about much of what happened to us in these blogs. To avoid repeating myself, this will be my last blog for now. We will continue to post pictures and videos though.

Thank you for spending your time with us.

TV Cabinet In Holland, months before we moved here, we decided it was a good idea to have a TV on the porch. For evenings when it is still nice and warm out and you feel like watching a movie, but it would be a shame to move inside, to the living room. We also didn’t want that TV to be in sight all the time, or worse still, blocking the view from the porch. So, it needed to be either easy to move, or somehow ‘hideable’. A roll up projection screen perhaps, with a projector hanging from the ceiling?  We looked into that, but it was quite an expensive option, because of the need for synchronous sound from wireless speakers. In the end we decided on a TV on a lift in a cabinet, so it can come up from the cabinet whenever we wanted it. We bought a TV and a lift in Holland already. All I needed to do in Spain, was build the cabinet. I had never built one before and this one had a few specific requirements: It had to be strong enough to hold the heavy lift and it had to be on wheels, so we can wheel it into the house in the fall and back outside in the spring. Since there is no electricity in wall behind the cabinet, we would run an extension cord from the opposite wall. I also decided to add an electrical socket to cabinet, so that the fan can stand next to it and can be plugged in. The cabinet needed to be water resistant as it might get a few drops of rain on it.  And finally, it needed to have the right measurements; not too tall, or we would lose the nice view from the couch on the porch and not too deep, or it would become too bulky. It took me a while to build and would have taken even longer if Mirjam hadn’t helped with some of it. I am quite proud of the result. All the wood was found in the shed. The top of the cabinet is part of an old table top, the rest of which I used for a table outside. To make it water repellent, we stained the outside and lined the inside with self-adhesive plastic. I used the same hinges and door knobs as Mark used for the other cabinets on the porch and I used the same stain as well. This makes it look like the new cabinet has always been there and has been part of the porch’s furniture for years. I sent the video below around to many of you already. The video is inspired by a Dutch beer commercial that shows men making things with their hands, just like the brewers of that beer, ending with the slogan “Craftsmanship is mastery”. I used the same music, but my slogan is “To do is to learn”.

Almonds Beginning of September, time to harvest our almonds. We have 13 almond trees, but some are too young to produce anything worth mentioning. There are 2 ways to harvest almonds: One, shake the tree really hard, which is how most of the almonds around here are harvested, mostly using tractors with special attachments. And two, pick them from the tree as if they were cherries. We opted for the second one, mostly because we don’t own a tractor nor the special attachment. You can also tap each branch, for instance with a rubber mallet and the almonds will fall out of the tree. We tried that and Mirjam got one in her (open!) eye. That hurt! Luckily no permanent damage.

Once the almonds are harvested, they need to be taken out of their fuzzy hull and then dried for at least 2 to 7 days. Next, you need to crack the shell, to get to the actual nut. Quite labor intensive, but worth it, because we use almonds quite a bit.

Lights We improved the light plan outside. We fixed the lamp post, so that it now has a better light, and can be switched on and off using a remove control. The light plan now also includes solar lights that shine on all the cypresses along the drive way. It looks really good, but is hard to capture on film or photo. Below is a video of the area in front of the porch, taken august 22nd.

Mirjam’s cooking I could make a separate blog about Mirjam’s cooking and baking. It is absolutely fabulous and never dull. Here’s a few examples:

Chili oil. From chili peppers we bought at the market and our own olive oil, Mirjam made chili oil, which she now uses to spice up dishes. It is a really nice way to make sure you use all the peppers you buy and to always have the flavor available without having to use chili flakes.

Courgette walnut cake. Our neighbor Angel gives us tons of vegetables. He has so much that I think he is supplying not just his family and us, but quite a few other households as well. Broad beans, red and green sweet peppers, courgettes (or zucchinis), potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes and more.

Not the biggest fan of eggplant, we gave the last batch to the mechanic at our garage, when he repaired a faulty windscreen wiper for free. And Mirjam found a great recipe to do something new with the overload of courgettes we are getting: a Courgette walnut cake. It is surprisingly nice; sweet, but not too sweet and moist, but not too moist.

Sun off a Bench. The only thing that didn’t come out of the moving truck in 1 piece was a wooden bench that used to serve as the “we can sit in front of our house and watch the world go by”-bench in the front yard in Breda. I now had time to repair it. I took it all apart, sanded it down, replaced all the rotten wood with new bits, glued and screwed the whole thing back together again and then Mirjam whitewashed it. It now sits in a wonderful spot in the front garden. A good place to have your first cup of coffee and watch the morning sun play with the flowers.

I got sick No pictures, because no fun, but I got really sick. Mirjam thought it was odd that I was feeling really cold and was shivering on a day that wasn’t really that cold. I wanted to go and do some work, but decided to lay down on a bench on the porch first. Not normal. My left leg started to hurt and I decided to go back to bed. I slept for a very long time, waking up every now and then with a high fever. My leg hurt so bad I was unable to stand on it and could walk only with a cane. This went on for a few days before the fever broke. Mirjam was quite worried and took care of me like a true Florence Nightingale. She insisted I’d go see a doctor. This was the first time we needed medical assistance and thus our medical insurance. We called around to find a GP (=huisarts in Dutch), but they are hard to find and when we did, they didn’t do emergencies and could see me 3 weeks later. And the local hospital turned out not to work with our insurer. In the end we found a clinic with a general medicine practitioner in the next town to the west, 40km from our house. The doctor and the assistant were wonderful. Bonus was that we could speak English with both of them. I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection of a wound on my leg; erysipelas (wondroos in Dutch) or perhaps cellulitis. The treatment is the same: an antibiotic and rest. We picked up the medicine on our way back and a week later I was my old self. The doctor however wanted me to continue with the antibiotic a little longer and assess again after 10 days. All was fine and Mirjam was happy again, and yes, me too.

Letterboxes in rural Spain In rural Spain you used to be responsible for putting up your own letterbox. This is why you can find a variety of them huddled together on a street corner.

Now they are trying to standardize them and replace the old happy mix with bland grey ones.

But because there was no standardization the post office doesn’t know what size a letterbox might be. Will a package fit or not? They don’t take the risk and whenever they have something that is larger or thicker than an envelope, they keep it at the post office and drop a note in your letterbox to come and collect it.

In our case, packages do not get delivered to our house ever. The address is too obscure. As I mentioned in the previous blog, even Google doesn’t know our address. What many people do who live out in the country is have package delivered to a commercial address, such as a supermarket. We use the Ideal British Supermarket in town for our parcels.

Our 2nd wedding anniversary We had our second wedding anniversary and celebrated that with a dinner in the best restaurant for miles around: Los Lucas. It is hard to get a table at this place as they are booked solid for weeks out for both lunch and dinner. We were lucky to have booked well in advance.

Ria & Anton We had our first visitors! Mirjam’s mom Ria and her husband Anton. They stayed for 2 weeks. It was really nice to finally show them our new home, life, rather than in a video call. I think they enjoyed their stay and managed to get some rest.

Ria even took a dip in the pool. It was October 17^th and the water was 22⁰ C! She is a trooper!

The next day we played some petanque on our petanque court behind the pool. A lovely time was had by all.

Van Gogh Loes, Ria’s oldest friend, sent us 3 candle covers featuring Van Gogh’s Almond Blossom. Sitting on the unused log burner in the living room, they brighten up the place.

† Mother. My mother passed away on November 2nd. Mirjam and I drove back to Breda for the funeral. She was 89 and passed away in her sleep. We have peace with that. She was loved and respected, not only by her family, but also by 100s of people who witnessed her work and leadership in so many places in the community.

Sunny November 16th, back in Spain and having breakfast in shorts, outside in the sun.

Flora & Fauna Like I do in every blog, here are some pictures and videos of the beauty nature provides us with:

Yuccas The yuccas started to bloom:

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Pomegranates We harvested our pomegranates. We have 3 pomegranate trees. One barely gave any fruit, but it is young still, one had most of its fruit eaten by the birds and one we managed to net just in time to have its fruit for ourselves. We are quite happy with the amount and will be eating them with soja yoghurt for breakfast for some time to come.

Bougainvillea Mark and Jacky gave us this bougainvillea. We gave it a new pot and a new spot and it seems to love it there.

Thank you again for taking the time to read and watch all this. Feel free to leave a comment below. (Only constructive criticism please, I am very sensitive.)

Mark & Jacky left – July 2021, the month that Mark & Jacky left. Quite a thing for Mirjam and I, because we had been relying on them somehow. If we had a question, not just about the house but about anything, we could always walk over to their house and ask them. The idea that they are gone now feels odd. It is like the day your older sibling moves out or something. On the one hand we are happy for them that they were finally able to take the next step in their journey home, but on the other hand we are full of both sadness and trepidation with the idea that they have left and we will have to fend for ourselves.

The day the lorry came for their stuff we spent some 12 hours hauling items from one of our sheds – where they had stored their things temporarily – to the lorry that had parked in the riverbed. There were quite a few big items and some of them were very heavy. Mark loaded those with his digger. And eventually, the digger itself had to be loaded too.

Because of all the awkward items from Mark’s workshop and that digger, it was hard to stack thinks and make good use of the available space. And that resulted in the need for a second lorry, which came a week later. It also resulted in Mark and Jacky leaving things behind for us. It was almost embarrassing; they gave us so many things, not in the least a huge shelving unit for the garage, a great bookcase, that we put in our office, a huge dinner table and many plants, to name but a few.

Once all their things were on their way to the UK, we tried to help them out to by inviting them over for dinner a few times. Mirjam outdid herself with a pizza night, an Indonesian night and on their last night, death by cheese, with a homemade lasagna followed by a cheese platter consisting of some 8 different kinds of cheese.

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A second (hand) car – We knew Mark’s brother who owned the house next door, also owned a car. He had asked Mark to sell the house and everything in it. We declined the offer to buy the house, but we told him we were interested in the car. And we bought it! It is an old Volvo 850, which means it offers plenty of space and allows us to move larger items and pick people up from the airport, if needed. It is a UK import (with the steering wheel on the right), but with Spanish plates. We now refer to our cars with the word ‘fleet’.

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Ice-cream cone holder – Mirjam said she would like to have an ice-cream cone holder, because when she was scooping us a homemade ice-cream, she would have to hold her own cone in one hand and with the other hand close the container and put it back in the freezer, which is just not easy. So, I set out to make one and am quite pleased with the result. And more importantly, so is Mirjam.

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Table saw – With all the things that I want to make with the wood Mark kindly left, I decided that I needed a table saw. We ordered one from a Makita dealer in the next town over and it arrived within a few days. Once we put it together, it seemed a little low for me and making it higher would not only be better for my back, but it would also mean that it could be flush with the workbench, which would make the awkward front and side extensions unnecessary. Mark gave me a steel angle bar, from which I cut 4 leg extensions to the right size and used those to lift the table 15cm. The result is perfect for me.

Tabletop – The first project for which I was going to use the table saw was making a table top for the table that Mark & Jacky gave us. The steps to do this:

• Selecting the wood
• Cutting it to size
• Sending it through the planer (which I bought from Mark for next to nothing) to make sure all the boards are flat.
• Cutting the edges straight using the table saw
• Cutting splines that will help keep the boards together
• Creating grooves in the edges where the spines will go
• Putting it all together
• Creating a nice edge
• Sanding
• Installing

Cutting, not buying – One of the things Mirjam really really loves about living here is the fact that fresh herbs grow either on the property, or just outside it. Often, before starting cooking our evening meal, she goes off with a pair of scissors and comes back with what is needed for that day.

We enclosed the triangle near the pool – There are quite a few flies this time of year in Spain. They are really annoying and seem to love trying to get in your nose or in your ear. Not sure what the fun of that is, but we weren’t having it. We already have a fly-free zone on our porch, because it is screened in, but the flies were taking away the enjoyment of the pool. So we decided to make that shade-providing triangle fly-free as well. With things we had laying around:

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Swimming in the morning – Now that summer is here and the water in the pool is nice and warm, we go for a swim most mornings, before breakfast. It is a great start of the day!

Number of steps per day – Because we moved from a house of 103m² on 141m² to this house of 230m² on 7500m², we walk considerably more. My steps are tracked by my watch and compared to last year, I walk more than twice as much. Effortlessly.  It was part of the plan: be active, but with no stress.  

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No water – And then, one day, we had no water. I checked with the Spanish neighbor up the road and he also had no water. He said he was going to call the water board to come and repair the mains. Since he has livestock, they typically come out fast, but that could still be a few days. I then contacted an acquaintance who lives a few kilometers north of us and who we know is on the same water supply and asked if they had the same problem. They didn’t. So, the problem was somewhere between our house (we are the last house on that water supply) and his house.  Some of the water mains pipe runs above ground through the riverbed and we decided to go and investigate. We took one of the cars from the fleet and drove slowly north. We thought that perhaps we could see where the problem is and then perhaps even fix it temporarily until the water board people would come out. We didn’t find the problem, but we ran into the neighbor’s son who found the problem, but couldn’t fix it.

The good news is that we have a backup water tank. A few valves in the utility room switch our taps from the mains to the tank. I had never tried it, but now seemed like a good time. It worked like a charm. For about 3 minutes and then the 20,000 liter tank was empty. So, next step was to get that tank filled. There is a water truck that drives north to be filled up and then south to supply houses that are not connected to the water mains with water. It makes that trip 5 to 6 times a day and we see him drive by every day. It takes about 15 minutes for the truck to come back when you see him go north. So, I watched out for that truck and when I saw him go north, I went up to the road about 10 minutes later and waited for him to come back, so I could flag him down. When he came and stopped for me, I explained the situation and asked if he could fill our tank. He was able to come the next day, with 12,000 liters. Perfect. We could easily manage a day without water. We have bottled water for coffee and tea and cooking anyway, and we could skip 1 morning shower, surely. And taking a dip in the pool is refreshing too, so no problem.

The next day the water truck came around 10 in the morning. And the water supply was fixed about 3 hours later. But, next time, we will be better prepared with 12,000 liters sitting there waiting for us to need it.

Living room concert – One day, Mirjam received a picture of her niece Tessi’s boyfriend’s keyboard, which he had built in, in an old piano. “When is the living room concert?” asked Monique, Tessi’s mom. And that is how the idea was born to organize a get together at their house in Breda and streaming it live so we could “be there” too. On July 23^rd the concert took place, followed by a 4-course dinner for those attending in Breda. This is how we witnessed it, on our porch on the elevated tv.

We bought the house over a year ago – Hard to believe, but we bought this house just over a year ago. And we have lived here for over 6 months now. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Finding us on Google – Our address is unknown to Google and can therefore not be found on Google maps. It is not that surprising, because it seems that every other official institution has a different address for us. In order to make it easier to explain where we live, for family, friends and deliveries, I marked our house as Casa Mirer on Google Maps. Just search for Casa Mirer and you should be able to find us easily.

Flora & Fauna

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Full moon

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Thanks for taking the time to look at this. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Forgive me, audience, for I have procrastinated. It has been 4 weeks since my last post.

More additions to the light plan Mirjam and I both have a thing about lights. The lighting in any area has to be just right; Not too bright, not too dim and preferably adaptable to the situation. One of the first things we did when we moved into this house, was changing the lights to suit our taste. It makes all the difference. In the past weeks, we made two additions to our light plan:

Lanterns on the outside of the porch There were two floodlights attached to the porch, but we feel these lanterns look more inviting. The lanterns outside match the style of the lights inside the porch and they were spare lights we found in one of the sheds!

Lights over the kitchen counter A wish we have had since we moved into this house 5 months ago: to have countertop lighting that comes from the wall side, so you can never stand in your own light, like when it comes from behind. We had found lighting strips with a remote control at Ikea. I made two shelves and stained them with the same stain that is used in the rest of the house. Together we fixed the lights to the shelves and hid the electrical wiring in the wall. It worked out quite well and it makes all the difference.  

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Power up! So far, to get the desired lights in the garden at night, we ran extension cords from one of the sheds, which was less than ideal. To fix that, I decided to get electricity from the porch and run it to a few sockets in the garden. As usual, I wanted to show as little of the work as possible. On the porch, you can’t see anything; I used a junction box in the wall and drilled a hole to the outside as close to the ground as possible. On the outside, you can see about 15cm of cord, but then it disappears in the ground. I was very careful to save the gravel on a plastic sheet, so I could put it back after burying the cable about 15 cm in the ground. The result is exactly as planned and it does away with the extension cord that ran over the driveway.

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Mirjam’s culinary delights Homemade yogurt ice-cream. Mirjam made both blue & blackberry and raspberry yogurt ice-cream and they are absolutely delicious.

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Chocolate cake, with a chocolate ganache topping

We are maximally protected On may 11^th we got our first shot of the Moderna vaccine against Covid-19. Two weeks later we both received the invitation by SMS text message to come get the second jab on June 8^th. In our region, the vaccinations are done in a drive through tent. Three rows of cars pass through the tents at a time. You stay in the car and they just vaccinate you through the car window. It is quite efficient. However, you don’t get a document nor a stamp in your vaccination booklet to prove that you have been vaccinated and if you don’t ask what vaccine you are getting, they don’t bother telling you. They do tell you however to wait 10 minutes before driving away, in case you have an allergic reaction. People who are on the National Health plan can get the QR code from the National Health App, that you need to get the EU Covid app to show that you are vaccinated. But we are privately insured and will need go to the local Health Center at some point to get that QR code to prove we have received two jabs. Right now, we are just happy to be max protected.

We covered the carport When we came to Spain to view the house in July 2020, just before buying it, we were very surprised to see Mark (the previous owner) had just built a carport. We were wondering why he did that, knowing he was going to sell the property and this week he told us he had the timber (or lumber) and wanted to do something with it. It turns out the wood came from an old onion drying shed and he salvaged the wood when that shed was taken down. He intended to cover the carport with split bamboo typically used for fences, but before the bamboo was delivered, the Covid pandemic started and the vendor cancelled the order. And then we bought the house, so he was in no hurry to finish the job. We however wanted some shade for the car and found mats of willow twigs that could do the job. The first place we saw these mats was in Almería and the company wanted €100 to deliver the 6 rolls we would have needed. That was just a little too much for us, so we didn’t get them there. We found a similar product at a local hardware store in town and decided to buy it there instead and drive it home ourselves. Last week we went there to place the order, but then they had them in stock, so we could take them with us right there and then. We hadn’t really anticipated that to happen, so we had to improvise and work out a way to get them home in our little convertible car along with the groceries we had just bought. But we managed! Mirjam drove, we put the back of the passenger seat all the way down and piled the mats on that seat. And I got to ride on the 30cm2 that was left on the backseat.

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The next couple of days the weather forecast told us there wasn’t going to be much sun, ideal to put these mats up. So, we did:

Yet another place to sit Mark and Jacky came over the other day and asked if we were interested in the table and 6 chairs they used to have on the patio. Of course we were, it is a lovely set. And it looked so good on the patio, that we decided to put it there again, in its old place. The only thing is that they kept the granite table top, so we are going to have to buy or make a new one. No rush though.

The set we had put on the patio now has a new location, in the grass between the trees on the north side of the property. It is a great spot and gives us yet another view of the property.

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Dressing up the pool area Now that we spend more time at the pool area, we wanted to dress it up a little.

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Time to harvest the apricots We have two apricot trees and we netted one of them to keep the birds from eating the fruit, but left the other one uncovered so the birds wouldn’t starve. The one we netted produces 60kg of fruit every year.

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We were probably a day too late picking them and many apricots had either fallen already or were blotted and not suitable for human consumption anymore. Still we ended up with 20kg. The next day we sifted through them again and selected only the best. And then we halved them, remove the stone and ended up with 6kg of good fruit. And then we made jam. Twenty three jars to be precise.

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Enjoying the Flora and Fauna We see so many things here that we don’t see in Northern Europe. This unit of a frog for instance. Or is it a toad?

We also see a lot of birds you don’t often see in the north:

And all around us, in the garden, near the pool, next to the driveway, we see the most beautiful flowers and plants.

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Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more blogs soon.

It has been over a month since my last post, so get ready for a long, but mostly fun, update

No more Spanish lessons Thank you Duolingo, for taking us from speaking not a word of Spanish to being able to make ourselves understood and understand a lot of what is being said to us, even over the phone. But after 575 consecutive days of at least 30 minutes (but often a lot more) of online Spanish lessons, we have decided to stop forcing ourselves to keeping this up. To be honest, I would never have been able to do this for 575 days in a row without the encouragement of Mirjam. And the same is true the other way around. But it became too much of a struggle and the decision to stop has given us a such a relief. We have learned enough to get by for now and once they start again, we will go for conversational lessons in town, probably in September. Meanwhile, we will repeat earlier lessons and review our list of vocabulary regularly.

Flowering Cacti There are quite a few types of cactus that flower, but we didn’t know we had any, until we witnessed this outside our bathroom window. The flowers stay 2 days and then die off. After a month they come back and that’s it for another year. But they are so pretty, even from the back!

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Orange Semolina cake with walnut One of Mirjam’s best cakes is this orange semolina cake with walnut. It is delicious and Grand Marnier helps keeping it moist and very tasty.

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Happy Birthday Mirjam On May first, we celebrated Mirjam’s birthday. We had a great day in the sun and Mark and Jacky came over for drinks and ‘bitterballen’ and stayed for dinner. A lovely time was had by all.

Velez Rubio Because of the pandemic, we haven’t gone out much since we have arrived in Spain. We go grocery shopping once a week and that’s about it. But our lawyer summoned us to come and work through some paperwork and that took us to Oria one sunny morning. Oria is about an hour’s drive west of where we live and we had the choice to go South and then West or North and then West. We go South once a week to get to the market and grocery store, so this was a good opportunity to explore the Northern route. We were very glad we did, because the trip North through the valley is absolutely stunning. Hardly any traffic, no towns at all, a few houses dotted along the hills, gorgeous fields with grass and poppies and the road just meanders through it all.

On the way back we stopped at a town called Velez Rubio, which is a lovely old town where we walked around a bit and had lunch.

This is the road back from the motorway through the valley to our house. I sped it up a little, but the video gives you a good impression of what the countryside looks like.

We forgot the thyme For some time now, we have been trying to buy fresh thyme, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Nothing in the supermarkets and on the weekly farmers’ market we managed to find a small pot of thyme once, but it died within days. We mentioned this to our neighbour Jacky and her response was “Oh don’t bother buying it, it grows right here in the riverbed.” And sure enough it does… easy to find too. Look:

Shower before you get wet When we were still in Holland, we had bought a solar shower for near the pool. We had picked a spot for it (north of the pool cabin), but we felt it needed some screens. I found some old gates on the premises, which I sanded, Mirjam painted, attached a shower curtain to it and we put them in the right spot together. We bolted the shower down to the tiled floor, connected it to the mains water and voila! An outside shower! Great for before or after swimming in the pool. I often shower there in the morning, although the water is quite cold then.

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The porch swing We found a great spot for the swing that I bought when I lived in California. There it was on the porch, where a porch swing is meant to be. And here, we placed it in the shade-providing triangle that Mark once built near the pool. Perfect spot!

Jeu-de-boules, pétanque, bocce Check this out !

A new spot We have so many places to choose from where we can have breakfast (dining room, porch, patio), but none of them have much sun around breakfast time. That is great in the summer when it is too warm anyway, but this time of year, it would be nice to be able to have breakfast outside, with the sun warming your bodies.

We have enough chairs, but we didn’t have a table. Mirjam had a frame from an old sewing machine that was used as a table for plants in the garden in Breda, but the table top had rotted away. We sanded the frame, painted it and then, we set out to find wood in one of the sheds. We quickly found the perfect pieces. I joined them together screwed them on the frame and hey presto, we had table. We love sitting out there, not just for breakfast, but in the evening, just before the sun disappears behind the mountain, it is a great spot too. And at night it is lovely to sit out there and see the stars.  

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Almería The other day, we had a crack in the car’s windshield. Our insurance company works with Carglass, so all we needed to do is take the car there and get the windshield replaced. The nearest Carglass shop is in Almería, 1.5 hours from our home, so we decided to make a day of it. After the window was replaced, we had lunch at the beach in the shade of an umbrella, with a lovely view of the Mediterranean Sea.

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In the afternoon we went to some stores that you can’t find around where we live and then headed home. It was a good day.

Various pictures from the past month

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In the past few weeks, we made more progress decorating the house, while Mirjam expanded her skills in preparing dishes she has never made before.

I created a cabinet for our bathroom Not a medicine cabinet, but a shallow and tall cabinet for our toiletry supplies. OK, to be fair, we bought a bookshelf and I just added doors to it with wood that I found in one of the sheds.

It took some doing though: Finding the wood, designing the doors, sawing, mitering, sanding, placing (and sinking) hinges, adding magnets and handles. But the end-result is not too shabby, if I may say so myself.

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Mirjam set out to create some much-missed Dutch snacks Bitterballen, kroketten and white rolls to go with the kroketten.

The thing is, we bought a small deep fryer on sale at the local supermarket.  Then, we needed to have something to deep fry. OK – French fries (which Mirjam made from a few large potatoes we had), but what should we have to go with that. The Dutch “delicacies” of kroketten and bitterballen quickly sprung to mind. So Mirjam set out to copy the taste of these most popular Dutch treats. And boy did she nail it. It is an acquired taste, but once acquired, they are so good. And –bless her cotton socks– Mirjam replaced all the beef -which is standard in these snacks – with chicken, because that is what I prefer.

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But Mirjam made more: Bread, for the days we don’t have fruit for breakfast, a really lovely orange cake and a great strawberry cheesecake.

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The weather sucked As the weatherman said “Dull, grey, cold, miserable… and that is just me. And the weather hasn’t been great either.” Yes, you read it right: the weather sucked. It was grey and overcast and it rained. “Come to Spain,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said. “Bring your sunglasses,” they said. Actually, the rain is welcome, because it will be dry for most of the rest of the year, but wet and cold is just not a nice combination, certainly not if that is the very reason you left Holland. Now, I have to be frank and explain that on most of these grey days, it was sunny either in the morning, or in the afternoon. And we spent most of our days outside, so not all that bad. But there have been a few days that outside just wasn’t an option. And we used those to finish our projects indoors.

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We finally got around to doing the office The room that we call the office had walls painted a sort of baby blue and that needed to be changed to white and taupe. It took two days and two coats, but the result is perfect. There is a futon in that room, which means it can be used as a guest room if needed.

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We finished the dressing room Most of that room had been done already, with the exception of some of the clothes – small detail. We finally got around to unpacking everything, storing extra duvets, pillows, winter clothes etc. under the high-sleeper in that room, hanging up the art and just finalizing everything.

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We updated the upstairs hallway It was lovely already, but adding taupe to the wall behind the mirror and whitewashing the table, lifted this area to a whole new level. As Charles Aznavour sang in ‘Comme ils disent’: “Je suis un peut decorateur, un peut styliste.” All credit goes to Mirjam.

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This also marks the end of all the painting we wanted to do inside the house.  

A work bench to die for One day, Mark came over and asked if I was interested in his huge work bench. It took me around .07 seconds to come up with the answer “Yes please”. I was going to build one myself, but mine would never have been as big and sturdy as what Mark created. Mark explained that it was simply too big for him to load it on the lorry that is going to bring all their stuff back to England. That same afternoon, Mark brought the thing over: 240x180cm, with a metal frame and legs that can be adjusted to level the top. I’m very happy, both with the table and with the fact that I can scratch “Create work bench” off my to-do list.

Mark also gave me a bunch of bits and bobs for which he will have no use in the UK. Things like European plugs and European plumbing joints. I am so lucky and realize that I am all the time.

We swam in the pool! As I said, the weather wasn’t bad all the time and one day, having cleaned the pool and gotten the water to a perfect state, we just couldn’t resist any longer; we just had to get in, despite the fact that the water temperature was just 16C, where 26-28C would be ideal for swimming.

We dipped in and then quickly came out again. It was, let’s say invigorating, but mostly just very cold. Funny thing, once out of the water, the rest wasn’t so cold anymore.

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Things started to fail

It was like we were cursed; everything seemed to fail on us at once, including the weather. But looking back, these were just minor things and the drill was the only one that cost any money.

Getting vaccinated against Covid-19 One day, I read in a local newspaper that there are many Brits in Spain who are wondering if they will get called up to be vaccinated. Spain’s policy has always been to vaccinate the entire population, regardless of nationality or status. It is Spain’s national health system that organizes the vaccination drive, but many expats are using private health insurance because they are not entitled to make use of the national health system. That is also our situation. In the article, there was a link to a Facebook post about this from the UK Embassy. In that post, I found a link to a website where you could download a form with which people like us could register to be called up to be vaccinated. The form needed to be brought to a health center, a list of which was provided on that same website. We downloaded the form, filled it out and the next time we went into town, we went to the health center. Turned out, it wasn’t on the address listed on the website. We were close to the hospital so we drove around for a while to see if we could see a health center and we did. Inside we presented our forms, but a nice lady told us we weren’t at the right health center and to go to the main entrance of the hospital and ask there. Which we did and they told us to go to the health center across from the town hall. We knew where the town hall is, having been there on numerous occasions. We parked close by and walked to the town hall across from which is a derelict and abandoned building, but no health center. We decided to walk around a bit to see if we could find a health center and then we spotted it. 

We needed to stand in line for a while and when it was finally our turn, we were told that with the form we also needed to give a copy of our taxID and of our Padron (see earlier post). As our neighbor Mark had warned us for these kinds of surprises, we always have all official documents with us when we venture out and so we were able to present those forms as well. Then she proceeded to work in her computer and after a while, she gave us a copy of the form, complete with a registration number, her signature and a stamp. Two hours after having left the house, we were registered. We consider that a win.

On the town’s Facebook page, we see that last Friday all residents born in 1961 were called up to be vaccinated. We expect to be called up soon too.

Flowers, fruits and nuts Because of all the rain, nature is having a field day. Everything is growing and the entire valley is green, which is lovely. And on our grounds, there are so many different flowers now and all the fruit and nut trees are showing off what they can do.

The flowers at the very front of the property.

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Fruit and nuts growing on the property

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And finally, Catjang watching the neighbor’s sheep from the safety of our driveway.

Just kidding. This week was April fools’ day.

Here’s a rundown of the things that did happen these past few weeks:

We got rid of the litter box

Now that the cats can go outside, I decided that enough is enough and they don’t need the luxury of a toilet anymore, with me as their personal cleaner. This marks the end of cleaning the damn thing every day for the past 2 years. Freedom!!

We made Roman Blinds

On the porch we have one ‘window’ that doesn’t have curtains because there are cabinets in front of it. In Holland we decided that a Roman Blind would be the right solution. With the leftover clipping of the curtains we had hung up earlier, Mirjam made a working Roman Blind, complete with wooden ribs, rings and cords. I was Mirjam’s big helper. We had never made Roman Blinds before, but figured we could. And we did, but it took us 5 hours.

The next day, Mirjam made a small one for the kitchen door.

We went to the Mediterranean coast

One day, we decided to go to a second hand store about 30km from our house, to see if we could find a cabinet for the guest bathroom. They had a humongous amount of stuff, but nothing much we liked. As we left the store, we found out that we were just 10 minutes from the coast. So rather than going home, we decided to go the beach. It was a lovely break from our ‘busy schedule’.

We made bedside tables for the guest room

On a TV-series about people moving to a life in the sun, we saw a lady who had a Bed & Breakfast, where she had made small shelves next do the beds, instead of bedside tables. This was the perfect solution for our guest bedroom, where we needed narrow but deep bedside tables. So, I set out to create bedside shelves with wood that I found in one of the sheds. And just to make things more comfortable for our guests, we added wall sockets on either side of the bed.

We found the perfect place for “The Greeting”

“The Greeting” is a statue by an artist that my parents knew and which they gave Antoinette and me around 15 years ago. It was to symbolized the first time we met. I am very happy that we found a good spot for it, across from the door of the porch.

Catjing is a happy camper

To thank us for all the things we do for him, Catjing brought home a life mouse one evening. Catjang was happier with it than we were and the two of them spent some time playing with it. Then, when the mouse hid under the wine cabinet in the living room and they couldn’t reach it anymore, they both went to sleep. Mirjam and I spent some time catching it and we put it outside.

The next day, Catjing brought us a new mouse. Catjing was happy. And so was Catjang. The mouse, not so much.

We gave the solar floor lamps a second life.

A number of years ago, Ikea was kind enough to sell Mirjam two solar floor lamps. We put them on the patio, where they do a really good job. They are really nice, but the shades were weathered and needed some attention. We found a nice band to finish the shades with.

Our neighbor is a modern shepherd

Sometimes, our neighbor Angel takes his sheep up on the steep hills behind our little corner of the world. The only way to do that is on foot. Sometimes, he takes them through the riverbed to one of the many grazing patches he owns or has access to. Normally, he walks in front of the sheep and they follow him, encouraged by the dogs that walk behind the herd. Occasionally, I have seen him ride a tractor and the sheep still follow him. The other day, I say him drive his car and the sheep followed him. Such a modern shepherd.

We painted the balcony and patio

Well, not entirely, we just painted some of the accents. With the petrol blue replacing the yellow, the entire look has become more crisp and vibrant. We think that the contrast the blue brings makes both areas look smarter.

The pool is looking more and more inviting

We have been keeping the pool clean and can’t wait for the first time we can take our first dip. We are using the pool blanket we have to cover the water. It will prevent the water from cooling down at night and will aid the water to warm up during the day.

I cut the grass

Now, we didn’t really know there was so much grass on the property. And then, after the rain of March 8^th, it started growing. It was knee high at some point and our neighbor Mark, said “I’m sure I left a lawnmower behind for you”. I found it in one of the sheds, but when I put petrol in it, it started leaking petrol and it didn’t seem like a good idea to try and start it. When I mentioned that to Mark, he said “Bring it over and we’ll put it on the operating table.” I had to take the excess petrol out first and I left it laying on its side until I got around to doing that.

Meanwhile, the grass kept on growing and it looked like it was never going to stop. Not wanting to impose on Mark – he had been so kind already, I decided to cut the grass with this little lawn trimmer that I once received as a gift when I bought an electric lawnmower which I had given away when I sold my house in Holland. That border trimmer is a little too small for me, so I have to hunch to be able to reach the grass. Also, the grass is so tough that it makes the trimmer fail every other minute. I figured that if I did a few meters every day, I could get all the grass cut in 2 weeks. After 4 days, I had given up, without admitting it to myself, effectively postponing the next few meters until I was able to face the facts.

Then Mark showed up one morning and said “I have come for your lawnmower.” He loaded it up on his quad and brought it back later that day, and it purred like a cat.

The next day, I cut all the grass in just under 2 hours.

We can’t stop taking pictures of all the beauty nature presents us with.

No further comment needed.

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(written on international day of happiness)

Every day, without exception, we count our blessings. It’s almost a chore, because there are so many. but not really.

This week a year ago, we saw our house online for the first time on a real estate agent’s website and we immediately fell in love with it. The fact that we were able to buy it during this pandemic is nothing short of a miracle. We spent months decorating it and making it our home, at 2150km distance from it, using computer simulation software, because of the covid19 restrictions. Now that we are here, we can turn all those plans into reality and the results are often better than what we had hoped for. Every space, inside and outside is pretty and we feel lucky to be the owners of such a wonderful place.

We are in awe with how the previous owner built this place with an incredible attention to detail. Not only the craftsmanship that makes every handmade door, wall or mantelpiece a piece of art, but also the work and love that was obviously put into every corner, nook and cranny of the grounds.

On top of that the view is lovely, the weather is great, it is quiet (traffic is virtually non-existent) and every night we can see billions of stars.

When we set out this plan to immigrate to a country with a better climate, growing our own fruit was part of the plan. Once we had bought this house, the seller sent us a list of all 180 trees on the property, which includes 80 fruit or nut bearing trees. We had no idea, even after viewing the house before we bought it, that there are so many. We feel so rich knowing that we won’t have to start with saplings and wait years to have our own harvest.

Music is important to us and every day we appreciate the sound system, which now produces great sound in every room aided by the good acoustics of the house. We now have speakers on the porch too, which makes that area even more pleasant.

We are so glad that the cats, who were our biggest worry when we moved, are not only happy here, they prefer to be around us and stay in or close to the house, despite the fact they could go anywhere.

We are also lucky with the fact that so far, everything we had budgeted has turned out to be cheaper than expected or not necessary at all. This means that our plan to live off of our savings is solid and we will not have to work anymore, effectively retiring at the right side of 60. We appreciate not having to get up early, get stuck in traffic, having to deal with less than pleasant colleagues, stressing over deadlines, attending meetings and conference calls and wondering if we generated enough income. We also appreciate that we can do what we want and like, get up whenever we want, take a stroll, have a swim (soon), not do something if we don’t feel like it and postpone it to tomorrow or next week. We have zero pressure, other than low blood pressure.

We spend 24 hours a day together and have done so for the last 3 years or so. During this pandemic we leave the house only once a week for groceries and then we are happy to be back home. To some people, that might feel suffocating, but we enjoy each other’s company and we can work well together. We can talk, laugh and cry together. We have similar taste in music, we can sit and do our own thing and not talk for a spell, we help each other wherever possible and we dance almost daily. We are so lucky to have this wonderful relationship.

Having both lost a partner, we appreciate every second we are alive and healthy. This realization strengthens our bond as well. Time is said to heal all wounds, but it is love that conquers all. And the love we feel for each other is intense and all encompassing.

The only difficult part of our plan to emigrate was to leave our family and friends behind. But then we are lucky again with modern technologies and we mail, text, call and Facetime with everyone whenever we want, so that the physical distance doesn’t feel so bad.

As we sit together in the evening, we talk about all these things and count our blessings.  

The past two weeks a lot happened.

We had rain

When it rains, it rains. So far, we had experienced a few drops of rain, but on March 8^th, it really came down. The porch got a bit wet, but nothing to get upset about. The rain that falls on the balcony flows out through drainage holes, that are elongated with pipes. From the kitchen, you can see how the water comes out of the pipes:

We had chicken

Since I don’t eat meat, with the exception of chicken breast, we often have chicken. And the nice thing about chicken breast is that you can do so much with it. Amongst so many other dishes, Mirjam makes all sorts of dishes with chicken. For instance: chili con pollo, where the ground beef is replaced with ground chicken breast, chicken saté, with a lovely homemade peanut sauce, chicken shawarma, with homemade pita bread, she makes a great chicken schnitzel, homemade pasta with homemade pesto with (or without actually) chicken squares and a wonderful dish of fried chicken breast with a cream sauce, leeks and potato wedges.  

Mirjam also smokes chicken. Last week, she used her smoking oven for the first time in Spain. And the result was better than ever: tender chicken breast smoked on hickory wood chips and BBQ herbs.

We had a walk

We often go for a walk after breakfast. We stay on the property, just walk around and discover the trees, plants and flowers and each stage we see them evolve to as the weeks pass. We enjoy that so much, but what we enjoy at least as much is how the cats come with us. They follow us where ever we go. We go around the shed, they go around the shed, we go up to the pool, they go up to the pool, we go to the balcony, they go to the balcony, we go back to the porch, they follow us.

We had the beginnings of spring

On our walks, we see more and more flowers, fruit and nuts growing on the property. Click the top of each picture to view the full version.

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We had our linen closet delivered

Doesn’t sound like a big thing, but to us it meant we could finally get all the linen out of the boxes and give them a place.

We had a go at the guest room

We are not expecting guests any time soon, but we were so much looking forward to see if what we had planned this room to look like, was going to be as good as what we hoped.

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We had sanding and staining galore

A long-time desire of Mirjam, was to give the dinner table a new life. She has had this table since 1998 and it was quite battered. We spent a day sanding down the varnish layer and then the old staining and re-stained it and put a mat varnish on. It all dried really quickly, so we had the ‘new’ table back in its place the same day.

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We had fun with curtains

We hung some curtains on the porch. We always liked the idea of having a porch with white curtains waiving in the wind. And now we have one!

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Stay tuned for more blogs

I haven’t posted anything for a while, but that doesn’t mean nothing happened.

We imported our car. Having finally gotten our Certificado de empradonamiento (see previous blog), we were now able to get our gestoría to do her thing. She told us she would app us by the end of the week when the papers would be ready. That surprised us, because we were given the impression by people we know, who have lived here for a while, that it would take two to three months to import a car. We figured that by the end of the week we would hear what the next step is. She sent us a message the next Monday that the papers were ready. It turned out there were no more steps. We were done and could go get our Spanish plates. We quickly found a garage that could get the plates made. Three hours later, they were fitted.

We have no idea why the car was imported so quickly (in seven days) and so cheaply (hundreds of euros less than expected), but we’re not complaining.

We met the neighbors. We had decided that when we would go meet the three other neighbors further up the hill, when we had time to make them something nice. When that time came, Mirjam created three small lime cheesecakes and the next day we went to say hi. First, we went to the sheep farmer. A very nice Spanish man who lives alone at the farm, while his wife and daughter are living with his mother in law, who is old and weak and needs assistance. His sons work with him on the farm, but go to their own homes at the end of the day.

Then we went to his next-door neighbor, a Belgian lady who lives there with her 13-year-old daughter. They are from Antwerp orignally, so we could speak Dutch with them. They were surprised to find two Dutch-speakers on their doorstep, especially because they hadn’t realized the house at the bottom of the hill had new owners. They invited us to stay for coffee and we shared the cheesecake, out on the patio in the sun.

The third neighbor wasn’t in, but we caught him home the next day. He is from England, but has lived here for some 20 years. He has a small house and is building a larger one on his property. He has spent the last 17 years building it and agreed with us, that at some point he has to decide that it is finished.  

We let the cats out. Cats need a period of time to adjust to a new home. If you let them out of the house too soon, you run the risk of them running away and not coming back. How long the adjustment period is differs per cat, but 4 to 6 weeks is recommended. We had been in the new house 3 weeks now and we had already given them access to the porch through a cat door that I installed in the kitchen door.

Now they were ready for the next step, which was to be able to get off the porch and into the garden.

The cats are very happy to be able to come and go as they please. We are equally happy that they like the house as much as we do and they spend more time with us in the house than outside.

Earlier, I posted some videos of their first day out.

We had breakfast outside. Lucky as we are, we had been having very nice weather those first weeks. In fact it was so nice that we decided to have breakfast on the porch on February 19^th.

We put up lights over the table on the porch. This may not sound like big deal, but to us, it was. We had bought the lamps in Holland and had generated a computer image to see what they would look like. We knew it came close to what the end result would be. But it turns out, the end result is better!

We love the way the porch looks now, but are not entirely done with it yet.

We bought paint. The house is perfect as it is, but there are just a few walls we wanted to paint a different color. We found a paint store that could mix the exact colors we had selected in Holland: a petrol blue for the master bedroom and a few borders and other accents on the outside of the house and a taupe for various walls in other rooms. The next day we painted the living room and are thrilled with the result. It is pretty much exactly as we had envisioned it.

We rested. “… but on the seventh day, thou shalt rest.” We had been on the go constantly, from a week before moving out of the house in Breda until well into the 4^th week in Spain, working down our to-do lists. So far, we had had 1 day that we decided not to do anything but relax. We have both lost a lot of weight because of all the work and the distances we walk in this big house. And our bodies are telling us that we should remember to rest every now and then.