Sold

 

On the 17th of December we signed the sale of this magnificent property. 

 

 

 

It's been 15 years since we built the house, 17 years since we bought the property. 

So many good times with family and friends, so many long nights next to the chimney, so may long afternoons under the oak trees and so many hours mowing the "lawn" I loved every minute of it, ok may I could have skipped those hot days in august. 

So many memories, so many good times, it's impossible to them justice in a blog.

We started with little money but lots of energy and enthusiasm. Our first night in the house was in December 2005, it was really cold, we had an air mattress that we put up next to the chimney, I don't know how I didn’t burn the house down that very first night.

We had no kitchen, we used a microwave oven and a portable grill to cook with. The property wasn't fenced so occasionally we would find ourselves surrounded by goats, sheep or cows.

 

Bilbo 

 

 

was born in Candeleda, as was 

Vera

  

Mika came into our lives here and gave birth to two litters of kittens, how sad we she disappeared.

 

I feel as if I'm abandoing all the trees we planted as if we'd given up on them. I hope the new owners care form them as much as I have, I guess if I had cared form them more I wouldn't have put the house up for sale, hard choices have to be made.

 

We had hoped to send our last new years eve here

 

and launch the Chinese lanterns one more time, but with Covid no one could come so It's just Maria Jose and me with the two dogs. a sad way to end this adventure, but also fitting. we invested a lot of our souls into the house and the gardens, we will miss it more then we know and while we are off on a new adventure a small importan piece of us will remain here, tugging at us, waiting for us to return home.

It was a full moon last night.

 

 

Woof

This little  bundle of joy turned up on the 21st of August 2018

After much discussion, she has been baptized "Vera" because of the proximity of "La Vera"

She came from a close by farm. I ran into the owner earlier on in the year and asked asked him to keep a puppy for me if any of his border collies had a litter, lo and behold he remembered and this was the result. what made things more interesting was that my brother in law's dog tragically died that summer and when he saw photos of Vera asked if there where anymore like going, unfortunately not was the answer, but a few weeks later the same farmer stopped us as we where arriving in Candeleda for the weekend and told us he had another two if we where still interested. We where and we picked "Senda" (track or path in Spanish) she was the shyest of the two and in need of  a good home,. which she now has. Vera and Senada geton like a house on fire. When I get a chance I'll post of photo of .
 

Vera, after a hard mornings play in La Navata, she hated stairs

After a bath, she had found something to roll in so what choice did we have

A different view

It rained

Spain has been and still is going through a period of drought, last week it rained,

 

One of the nice things about Candeleda, there are many, is that as it lays at the foot of Almanzor, when it rains it has the capacity to collect a lot of water. The Rosarito dam therefore has the potential to quickly fill up, I was once told that the dam actually receives 5 to 6 times more water than it is capable of storing, on a normal year. This year has been far from normal, as you can see by following the red line, we have been a long way from normal levels so the rain over the last week has been warmly received, it still needs to rain a lot more, and hopefully it will but at least this is a good start.

Chilla - Fountain in slow motion

Behind the house - the stream

Chilla - mountain stream

Chilla

Almanzor - covered in snow

FIre!!!

Each year in December we take advantage of two public holidays at the start of the month to spend a week in Candeleda. This year was no different, we gathered the family and turned up as usual on a Friday afternoon. The routine, open all the blinds, check for issues, start the fire,wonder around the garden and if there is enough light go for a walk before getting ready to go into town for a nice dinner. Unfortunately this years routine was interrupted by the fire. 

While the rest of the family went to check out the countryside I decided as usual to stay behind and wonder around the garden a bit more. As I was stuffing my face before hitting the garden trail I happened to look up at the chimney, I guess something must have caught my eye, when I focused I notice flames licking at the roof, calm panic set in. I ran to the shed, pulled out the hose, pulled out the ladder, called the family so they could help, luckily I manged to get through to them and they came running (walking fast in some cases) back to help out.

If you've never been in this situation its interesting to see how the mind works, I had mixed feelings about taking a hose into the house to douse the flames, I wanted to put out the fire but I was concerned about wetting things inside the house, those feelings became less mixed once I saw the extent of the flames.

The smoke begins to spread

At one point my sister in law asked if we should not call the fire brigade, I was up the ladder hosing down the roof, I looked at the roof, then looked back at her, took another look a the roof then said, "maybe not a bad idea".

That's me enveloped in smoke, while onlookers talk about the weekends football match

My wife called the local police, she had to actually go out and show them the way to the house, come on guys just follow the smoke, someone called the local civil guard and then someone called the local civil protection. At this point, about an hour after the fire had started my family and I were the only people actually doing anything in, the civil guards and local police where all standing around nodding their heads gravely, I'm sure they where betting between themselves as to how long before the whole house went up in flames, my wife was livid. Luckily the civil protection team, a volunteer team of two ( think one was the local butcher), got into action, climbed up on the roof with me, started pulling tiles of the roof (FYI if you ever need to put out a roof fire remember the tiles actually prevent the water from getting to the fire). They hosed the roof with some sort of fire retardant and then did the same inside the house. 

The plot, like the smoke, thickens

While I was busy climbing up and down ladders and wondering if the roof would give way while I was up there, the family was busy moving furniture and generally doing a great job considering that the house was full of acrid smoke making it impossible to breath or see much.

Two hours after the fire had started the fire brigade arrived. It turns out that Candeleda does not have a local fire brigade, the nearest one is Avila, which is about 100K away, but remember between us and them is a mountain range, so 2 hours is not bad going all considered. 

 

By the time the fire brigade arrived it was getting dark which added to the effect of the lights 

 The firemen all trundled onto the roof, started throwing more tiles onto the lawn, pulled out a chain saw and cut through one of the beams holding up the roof, they wanted to make sure the fire was completely out, they then packed up and left.

Two hours later

By this stage most people had left, my wife and I stayed behind to clean up the mess, which mean mopping up all the water in the house, opening the doors and windwos to clear out the smoke. Lat that night we wondered into two to grab a room in a hotel grab a shaower and get something to eat. 

While I'm disappointed this happened I'm glad to say no one was hurt and the house is still standing. 

Autumn

Nice sunset.

The weather has finally turned, still great, but no longer hot and dry, I look forward to seeing this all under water in the next few weeks

Spring time

I took this photo around May this year while walking the dog, the house is just visible in the centre. Right at the foot of the trees you can make out a corner of the house, but of course what really stands out is Almanzor with snow, albeit only a sprinkling, still it was May

It's nice to see it all so green and fresh

Follow the yellow brick road

Para los que no sabéis llegar a casa

Si vienes por la A5 tienes dos opciones,

1. la salida 123 hasta Candeleda,
2. la salida 135 hasta Candeleda

(Si vienes por la M-501 es todo recto hasta el desvió)

La primera opción es mejor carretera, la segunda opción es menos carretera secundaria..

En ambos casos llegaras a la cruz AV-910 con la CL-501, desde ahí el desvió es 1.1 Km, desde el desvió hasta el camino de tierra es 1.2 Km, y desde que empieza el camino hasta casa es 1 Km  Si quieres usar google maps estos son los coordinadas 40.119483, -5.247038 solo tienes que introducir los en google maps

Sigue el camino señalado en amarillo "The Yellow brick road"

La primera parte esta "Asfaltada", la parte en verde es de tierra o baro si llueve :-)

Os animo a que llegáis temprano para disfrutar del campo.

La "comida" (gastronomía local) estar lista a partir de las las 2:30.

Solo tenemos 10 sillas así que si puedes, traer sillas, o si hace sol una manta de campo. Si llueve traer paraguas y botas de goma, la comida hay que comerla si o si :-)

Si os perdéis, llámame y haré señales de humo :-)

A wet January

At last after a very dry 2015, January 2016 has brought some serious rain, unfortunately who ever runs the weather station in Candeleda must have goon on holidays so the official numbers are useless but from what I can gather from neighboring regions we are talking in excess of 230 liters..these photos where sent to us by Aurora, wish we had been there

Missing - Mika

This is the last photo I have of Mika, we've not seen her since this was taken on the 9th of September 2015

We are all very sad :-(

This is what the inside of a hot water tank looks like when the anode has been eaten away

and this is what a wooden floor looks like after a hot water tank with a corroded anode looks like after it's had water pouring over it for about two weeks

yep, no floor boards