¡ Arriba !

We walked into town today, down the steep hill and along the seafront. At my slow pace, it took an hour, so not something we are likely to do on a daily basis! 

It's a bank holiday today, so no shopping was planned, although there were plenty of open shops, including our nearest small supermarket, about a kilometre away. The walk back took even longer as we stopped at old favourite La Cabaña for a drink and a free tapa, and then again at a popular bar on the seafront for another drink and tapa, plus an unsolicited plate of rice with a bit of chicken and one mussel.

When we reached the point in the photo, we paused to try and identify our house. It's almost invisible – you can just see a corner of the terrace balustrade poking out from the mass of trees at the top of the hill in the centre. The garden is somewhat neglected, and unlike the neighbours' there are a lot of mature trees that partly obscure the view and make mysterious bumps in the night on the roof when it's windy. Directly below, immediately overlooking the beach, the white structure is the terrace of our favourite restaurant, the Balcón.

The house itself is quite an interesting structure … As you can see from previous blips it's in a wonderful situation but it has some odd quirks. It was probably built in the late 70s or the 80s and hasn't had much done to it since. All the windows are ill-fitting, rattly, and single-glazed, with slightly warped timber frames. The house is arranged in Moorish fashion around three sides of an internal patio, so the bedroom windows open onto an internal corridor running round two sides of it with wonky uPVC sliding doors opening onto the patio, and on the third side the living room runs the width of the house with a glass wall of patio doors overlooking the sea – flooded with sunlight in the mornings.

The electrics are a museum piece …  one particularly, er, interesting feature is the mysterious electrical appliance with dangling lead fixed to the wall actually in the shower cubicle. Luckily there's no socket in there. In the kitchen, we figured out the gas hob, but not the fact that turning the hot tap on produces nothing, not even cold water. “Oh,” said Ines when we queried this, “it's always been like that. They just never connected the tap to anything.” But hey, there's a kettle and a dishwasher. 

Meanwhile, when I washed up after lunch today I was puzzled by the absence of forks in the cutlery drawer. “Have you been putting them away somewhere else?” I asked S. No – it's just that there are only two forks. The shopping list grows longer!

Not complaining though – there are no problems that are insoluble, and there have to be reasons we can afford to rent this place :) Now the fire is blazing with olive wood, and aperos are on the table. ¡ Salud !