Extreme beekeeping

An advantage of house-swapping is that when it works well you get introductions. Claire had put us in touch with a local group who go on weekly walks, so today we met up with sixteen other people, and after a rather shambolic tour of the hills around Granada in a five-car convoy looking for the starting point, we had a not too strenuous, albeit hot, walk for a couple of hours, during which we came across this beekeeper perilously tending his hives. He eventually told us to go away before we got stung, but I think perhaps he was just fed up of people gawking as the bees did not seem disposed to seek us out. The walk ended up at a hotel where we had very welcome refreshments of drinks and tapas. It was a very friendly group of people from a range of backgrounds, and conversation was lively and entertaining. Helen and Robert, who had introduced us to the group, dropped us back at our car and we arranged to meet again on Monday.

Back home we had a light lunch and a bit of a rest and then set out into the hills again on one of S's quests for places to go walking. We once again visited remote villages in the middle of nowhere; the landscape in this blip is very typical of the area except that I have managed not to include any of the acres of plastic covering many of the orchards. Note all the steep terracing on the hillsides -- much of it now abandoned. But in the village at the very end of the road, the farmers were transporting their harvest of nisperas (loquats) to the local cooperative.

On the way back we stopped at the winery that makes the excellent white wine we drank with our fishy feast yesterday. It's very much a garage wine operation (see extra); a young man unloading a van stopped to give us a quick taste at the back of the winery, and we left with six bottles of very unusual dry white wine made from Moscatel de Alejandria -- normally a sweet dessert grape. Here it's grown at altitudes of up to 1000 metres and the vines are over a century old.

A final stop at our local for the obligatory email-checking, blipping, and tinto de verano drinking. Then back to the house, chicken in the oven, and wine, ham, cheese, and membrillo on the patio -- at 9 pm the perfect temperature for sitting outside.