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October
'07
Catalan
lessons
This
month we started going to school four times a week for Catalan lessons.
All the villagers in Mas de B. speak Catalan amongst themselves,
so when we are at the bar, it will be nice when we can understand
what they are talking about without them translating into Castillian,
or having the bar men interpret into English.
Water
woes
Just
after the beginning of the month our borehole was started. The water
diviner said we had a strong supply of water 160 metres down. Two
days later, we reached 180 metres and not a drop of water was found.
There were many shrugs and a large bill for a dry borehole was presented
to us. Bugger.
Now
we are going to have to arrange for regular deliveries of water
from a local town and store it in a Bassa (30,000 litre reservoir).
Luckily, we had not spent any money on the pump and generator required
to pump the water up from the borehole, so at least that expense
has been spared.
Weather
After
a slightly colder period and a bit of rain, the weather returned
to its usual 18-20c daytime dropping to about 12-14c overnight.
There have been windy days when it blows a Mistral like wind off
the mountains, but most of the time it is just sunny and clear.
Invasion
of foreigners
Twenty
or so people from around the world invaded the village for a week,
so they could meet some of their friends and it culminated in one
couple having their baby baptised in the village church. I think
the locals were a bit taken aback when they realised they were hosting
a group of South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders, a Finn,
a Czech, a Swede and a few English peeps. Guess who was most pleased
with the result of the Brazilian F1 race. :)
Eating
the wildlife
Last
week one of the locals presented us with a dead rabbit. His wife
had been concerned that we had not enjoyed some of the local wildlife,
PG had to pop the rabbit in her handbag, so we could take it home.
I casseroled it with garlic, herbs and vegetables. It was delicious.
The next week when we were walking up to Bar Mario at the far end
of the village, we looked into an open doorway and two men were
getting ready to butcher 5 wild boar they had shot earlier in the
day. Hopefully we will get our hands on some of that before too
long.
I'm
sure I could think of a recipe which would use our chillies in it
and a bit of the local olive oil. If no Boar if forthcoming, then
its going to have to be one of the shepherds flock that ends up
on our table.
As
we were walking through the village last week we saw this Racing
Bike parked outside one of the houses. Could one of the village
teenagers become the next Jorge Lorenzo?
Google
Earth Us
High
resolution images of our Mill are now on Google Earth The
Moli de la Torta
PB
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