March '08

Birthday celebrations

Not. PG & I spent the previous night being very sick with some sort of stomach bug, so my birthday was spent lying in bed dozing fitfully. We didn't manage to eat properly till three days later, by which time we had both lost 8lbs. This was the first birthday in years in which I didn't drink any alchohol.

Happily, the previous Sunday, we had an excellent meal in a fish restaurant (Casa Asmundo) in St. Carles de la Rapita. The menu was delivered frrom the managers memory and the courses we were served were absolutely delicious.

The hinterland

We drove up past the Els Ports park to Morella and on to Alcaniz to see what they were like. Morella is dominated by a large castle and boasts an ancient aqueduct which carried the water to the fortress from the nearby mountains. We are told there are excellent meat restaurants there and they are not too expensive. Alcaniz was more of a working town, but had an impressive Parador which we briefly visited for a coffee before we moved on. The mural is on one wall of their bar.

The Royal School, Tortosa

After Catalan lessons one day, we slipped into the old Royal School next door and snapped a few pictures. It is an amazing building, but we were not able to get to the upper floors to take any more pictures.

Random Pictures

A rainbow framed our Finca as we were driving up to the village last week.

The Cistus and the Lichen pictures are more experiments in my macro photography.

 

Plans

We are still waiting to get the full permissions to reform the Moli, but hopefully they will be granted in the not too distant future. Until then we are getting ready to build a barn to store our tools, etc. We have met the Ajuntamente Architect who has asked that we get a written "justification" from an agricultural engineer. Once the Adjuntamente has that, they will give permission for the barn as long as it has one door, no windows and a tiled roof. We are not sure if they will allow us to put solar panels on it in the future, but we will cross that bridge when we need to.

The foundations for the barn are complete and the builder will start in the 3rd week of April. We have also finished smoothing the ramp which will be part of our driveway and have filled in the huge pits near the Moli.

PB