Idle Thoughts

This was my second trip of the year and I decided to take the car over (I sold the van in 2008. It had done it's job and was taking up too much space) with a smaller load of bits and pieces. A back of the envelope calculation shows that it's cheaper to fly and hire a car for short trips, but anything over about 3 weeks, depending on the time of year and hence the air fare/rental rate works out cheaper to catch the ferry and drive down.

One of the chores that confronts me every time I arrive at the house is sweeping up all the dust that has fallen off the walls. The "paint" used out here is extremely friable, so the slightest touch - or brushing it as you walk past, causes a fall of white powder. Even without any outside assistance, small flakes regularly fall off the walls. While it can be a pleasant, relaxing end to the day: sitting quietly with a glass of wine, listening to the paint flake off, the clean-up and ever expanding patches of bare concrete means that this is not a satisfactory situation.

By the start of 2008 I'd had the house for a couple of years. While not everything had gone well (such as having the water and electric cut off), most of the setbacks I had suffered were either of little consequence or down to my own failings. Some of the events of 2008 were to put severe dents in my normally optimistic outlook.

This was the second furniture run. During the summer of 2007 I had been squirreling away furniture in the UK. Some from Freecycle and some that I bought from eBay. In mid-Septemnber 2007 I took the van on it's last month long trip to Spain.

I’ve mentioned several times the issues with furninshing a house in Spain. If you’re not near to a large city there’s very little choice of shop and anything you get made by one of the local carpenters will be expensive. Always assuming your communication is excellent and they understand (and are capable of building) precisely what you ask for. Also, being away from “civilisation” means you are outside most shops’ delivery radius, so even if they have the items you want, you’ll either have to own, hire or borrow the means of getting it home.

One of the jobs I had planned for my April trip was to paint the outside of the house. Traditionally this is a taskthat is done at easter - every year. When I bought the house, it was sporting a nice new coat of paint, but in the couple of years since then the paint had degraded. It had also suffered from the vibrations during the building work which has caused patches of paint to flake off. There are two reasons why houses have to be painted so often. The first is that the sun is much stronger in Spain and this causes paint and most other outdoor materials to degrade quicker than in the UK.

After my patio building trip in April 2007 I had got the house furnished to a basic standard. There were still some things I needed to get, such as a washing machine. I had also transported my telescopes, a couple of PCs and workbenches for the office. It was time to take stock of my experiences to date.

The plan was to spend a part of my month in Spain building a patio. In preparation, on my previous visit I had (well actually, Yolande at http://www.tierradeandalucia.com did the hard work. I just paid the tax) applied for a building license.

One thing about astronomy, the best time to do it is when the moon is new. The reason is that when the moon is in its brighter phases, the amount of light it casts into the night sky is enough to wash-out the detail from a lot of dim astronomical objects. It’s a sort of naturally occuring light pollution. Since it takes 4 weeks for the moon to go from full through new, back to full again it means that about 2 weeks in every 4 are the best times to get your telescope out.

By the end of October 2006 I was ready to make my first long trip to Spain. I had a van full of furniture, telescopes and a 2kW generator, as the power had been cut off (see article The van). There are two basic options when driving to Spain: either get the ferry to a french port and drive through France and Spain with some overnight stops, or get the ferry to Spain and drive down in one go.