For the past few days The Boss and I have been preparing the place for winter. We've moved everything - garden furniture and pots of plants - from the small back terrace to the more sheltered one at the front of the house.
In summer, our back terrace is the perfect retreat from the heat, with lovely cool breezes wafting up the valley. In winter, it gets no sunshine, is permanently damp (with an unattractive green film on the tiles) and is in the direct line of fire of any north wind whistling our way - and that wind can be mighty fierce. One night, we sat indoors on the sofa watching the French doors flinching in the chilly blast of gale-force winds. Expecting the doors to burst open at any moment, we hastily moved a piece of furniture up against them to act as ballast. Imagine what that kind of weather can do to a few pots of pelargoniums!
The wooden steamer chairs have been put away for the winter, along with the hammock in which I passed quite a few lazy hours reading and snoozing in the height of summer. And the BBQ has been wheeled away to a spot under cover. It all feels a little bit sad . . .
You've probably guessed that I'm not really an autumn person, which makes it somewhat ironic that the colours that suit me best are from the autumn palette! This is a time when we've probably seen the last of friends and family members coming to stay with us; we've had our last swim in the sea, and I've eaten my last fish finger lunch at our favourite beach café. (I'd never eat fish fingers at home, but for some reason they taste great by the sea.) It's a time when we get out the plastic buckets to catch the drips leaking through the roof into the sitting room (despite countless workmen climbing up there to try and fix the problem) and have to start using the generator more often to support our solar system.
But one thing compensates for all of this: it'll soon be time to light the wood-burning stove. In anticipation of cosy nights in front of the fire, the logs have been sorted and stacked and it'll take only a small drop in temperature for The Boss to whip out his box of matches. Soon the cats will be stretched out on the rug, basking in the heat of burning almond and olive wood.
Our first autumn here was chilly, damp and - without electricity - pretty uncomfortable. Memories of the super-efficient gas central heating system and inglenook fireplace we'd had back in the UK didn't help. So buying the wood-burner was probably the best investment we've made here.
And, as I discovered last year, it doesn't just heat the house. Tuck a couple of foil-wrapped potatoes inside, away from the flames, and about an hour later we can tuck into delicious steaming jacket spuds . . . and those are definitely something else that's great about autumn.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
FEELING DRAINED . . .
One of the many repairs we hadn't expected to make – and so hadn't budgeted for – was to our water cisterna. What could go wrong with a basic concrete cube, with a hatch door on top for access and an outlet pipe on the side? It could leak, that's what.
The Boss noticed the thin but constant trickle of water running from a small crack in the side of the cisterna. He'd been out with the long-handled loppers, cutting back the wild olive shrubs that had encroached all over that side of the cisterna, when he spotted the tell-tale signs.
It wasn't a serious leak, but even a small loss of such a precious resource was too much. It was time for a visit to see Juan 1 (the owner) and Juan 2 (the foreman) of our friendly local building company. Juan 1 – a keen antiques collector, by the way – arrived to inspect the problem.
He wasn't surprised to see the crack, the trickle or the thin film of moss growing in the damp patch of concrete, guessing that the cisterna had probably been leaking for some time.
As with previous building problems (and there have been more than a few), we were offered two solutions: one expensive, the other less so. He could knock down the existing cisterna – the concrete block walls of which had weakened under the weight of regular 15,000 litre deliveries – and build us a smart new one. It sounded the ideal solution but would cost too much – as well as leave us without water for longer than we could bear. Alternatively, he could line the cisterna with a special kind of safe plastic paint which would seal the crack; this cheaper option would mean we'd be without water for less than 48 hours.
No contest. The date for the work was set and when it arrived, we reluctantly had to empty the cisterna. To give us at least some water over the next 48 hours, we first filled the bath, then every decent-sized receptacle we could find: saucepans, jugs, and watering cans full of water were stored in the guest bathroom. At least we'd be able to wash ourselves, the dishes, and have some for cooking and making hot drinks.
Next we gave the garden the best watering it had ever had (and were later rewarded with some particularly perky plants). A passing tortoise stopped to lap at one of the many pools of water forming in the garden and even drank from the end of the hose – a magical moment.
Time was running out and within half an hour of the scheduled arrival of the builders, water was still gushing out and turning our garden into a paddy field. At last, the job was finished, with just minutes to spare. We waited. And waited. Then, we received the phone call informing us that the builders had had to delay the job by a day.
Deep joy. An extra day of not being able to flush the loo . . .
The Boss noticed the thin but constant trickle of water running from a small crack in the side of the cisterna. He'd been out with the long-handled loppers, cutting back the wild olive shrubs that had encroached all over that side of the cisterna, when he spotted the tell-tale signs.
It wasn't a serious leak, but even a small loss of such a precious resource was too much. It was time for a visit to see Juan 1 (the owner) and Juan 2 (the foreman) of our friendly local building company. Juan 1 – a keen antiques collector, by the way – arrived to inspect the problem.
He wasn't surprised to see the crack, the trickle or the thin film of moss growing in the damp patch of concrete, guessing that the cisterna had probably been leaking for some time.
As with previous building problems (and there have been more than a few), we were offered two solutions: one expensive, the other less so. He could knock down the existing cisterna – the concrete block walls of which had weakened under the weight of regular 15,000 litre deliveries – and build us a smart new one. It sounded the ideal solution but would cost too much – as well as leave us without water for longer than we could bear. Alternatively, he could line the cisterna with a special kind of safe plastic paint which would seal the crack; this cheaper option would mean we'd be without water for less than 48 hours.
No contest. The date for the work was set and when it arrived, we reluctantly had to empty the cisterna. To give us at least some water over the next 48 hours, we first filled the bath, then every decent-sized receptacle we could find: saucepans, jugs, and watering cans full of water were stored in the guest bathroom. At least we'd be able to wash ourselves, the dishes, and have some for cooking and making hot drinks.
Next we gave the garden the best watering it had ever had (and were later rewarded with some particularly perky plants). A passing tortoise stopped to lap at one of the many pools of water forming in the garden and even drank from the end of the hose – a magical moment.
Time was running out and within half an hour of the scheduled arrival of the builders, water was still gushing out and turning our garden into a paddy field. At last, the job was finished, with just minutes to spare. We waited. And waited. Then, we received the phone call informing us that the builders had had to delay the job by a day.
Deep joy. An extra day of not being able to flush the loo . . .
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
TAP TURNS ON THE WATER . . .
Until moving abroad to live in a finca in rural Mallorca, I took it for granted that water came out of the tap if I turned it on. But it's a very different matter here in the country, where there's no mains water and we have to buy our supply by the tanker-load (15,000 litres at a time).
When we need a top-up, we ring Jaume (our local water supplier) to request a delivery. He doesn't seem like a man who really enjoys his job, despite the fact that, whatever the time of day, the background noises suggest that he's in a bar - probably not drinking water. We're never quite sure whether or not he's going to arrive because his only response is to grunt and hang up. Clearly not a graduate of the academy of telecommunications skills . . .
Without fail, though, Jaume arrives in his large white tanker and stops in the lane alongside our cisterna - the rather unsightly large concrete cube which houses our water supply. Next he unravels the vehicle's mighty elephant trunk-like hose and yanks it into the gaping mouth of the cisterna to begin the job of transferring the water. It takes up to 15 minutes from start to finish and blocks the narrow lane to all traffic for that time. Hours can go by without a vehicle using this lane, so why does he always arrive just as our mallorquin neighbours are leaving for work, thus delaying their journey?
Thus replenished, the cisterna feeds the house with water - courtesy of gravity, an electric water pump and several metres of black tubing. A bamboo pole is the essential tool for the weekly task of measuring how much remains in the cisterna. When the water reaches only as far as the little red paint splodge on the pole, it's time for another meaningful conversation with 'The Water-Bored' . . .
Jan Edwards Copyright 2008
When we need a top-up, we ring Jaume (our local water supplier) to request a delivery. He doesn't seem like a man who really enjoys his job, despite the fact that, whatever the time of day, the background noises suggest that he's in a bar - probably not drinking water. We're never quite sure whether or not he's going to arrive because his only response is to grunt and hang up. Clearly not a graduate of the academy of telecommunications skills . . .
Without fail, though, Jaume arrives in his large white tanker and stops in the lane alongside our cisterna - the rather unsightly large concrete cube which houses our water supply. Next he unravels the vehicle's mighty elephant trunk-like hose and yanks it into the gaping mouth of the cisterna to begin the job of transferring the water. It takes up to 15 minutes from start to finish and blocks the narrow lane to all traffic for that time. Hours can go by without a vehicle using this lane, so why does he always arrive just as our mallorquin neighbours are leaving for work, thus delaying their journey?
Thus replenished, the cisterna feeds the house with water - courtesy of gravity, an electric water pump and several metres of black tubing. A bamboo pole is the essential tool for the weekly task of measuring how much remains in the cisterna. When the water reaches only as far as the little red paint splodge on the pole, it's time for another meaningful conversation with 'The Water-Bored' . . .
Jan Edwards Copyright 2008
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