Owners Direct was our original place to advertise, we started there in 2004.
After 3 great years last year did not generate one booking so it is with regret we are leaving them so if you booked a holiday with us through them in the past we are still out there just not with OD.
I think they are a victim of their own success and greed, they have so many properties now that some get lost and Vera now has 5 sections to search through.
a long lonely, lonely time….
What no blog again, it all started with internet problems..again, now seems to be sorted with a new phone line. Then Rob the Dutch guy who stayed last month did such a great job with his blog about staying here, I got lazy!
Will try to do better, maybe try twitter?
After the wettest period since we moved here 5 years ago we finally seem to have some stable sunny weather back. This has co-incided with the arrival of Rob and Lia from Holland. They are here for a month and are perfect guests.
Rob and Lia are retired and spend a lot of time travelling. Rob writes a blog, a bit more actively than me! and you can read about their time here and all their other travels here it’s in Dutch but has a google translation gadget that lets you choose your language if Dutch is not your strong point.
Just added a great tool, from Skyscanner, to help with booking flights, see it here.
Use it if you’re coming here or indeed flying anywhere.
While we’re thinking about money have a read about section 75
Basically it is probably worth spending a couple of pounds extra and using a credit card rather than a debit card to book your flights, car hire etc.
The fall in Sterling has made it even more important that you shop around to get the best exchange rate. Luckily for you Martin Lewis has done all the work here. He plumps for the Abbey credit, I would still go with Nationwide but both are better than Lloyds, NatWest etc.
Have a read and you could save yourself a fortune, nobody likes giving banks money, the Government has given them enough already.
Ryanair have flights from Stansted to Almeria in September and October on Tuesday’s for less than £2 each way which makes about £40 return including taxes.
Come and enjoy some late sunshine, you know it’ll be raining in the UK!
Local unloading his Olives wearing slippers in the rain
I normally try and paint a rosy picture about life here but this was a truly miserable day.
We cobbled together 500kgs of Olives and headed up to Arboleas, our 1st time at this particular press, for our 1 O’clock appointment. After picking the Olives in 20+ degs we now had 13 degs and rain. After hanging around for 2 hours we finally got to empty the trailer at 3 O’clock. Now we’re there we thought until Señorita Olivo decided it was lunch time, “Can you come back in 2 hours!”
We retired to the filling station next door for very nice 3 course Menu Del Dia for 8.5 euros. Refreshed we headed back to the press to be told that our 500kgs only weighed 440kgs on their scales, it started to rain again. After an hour waiting for the people in front of us to bottle their oil we were ON! We ended up with 83 litres of oil.
Dave trys the hard stuff
There are a few more pictures here
The weather on Monday and Tuesday was fantastic for picking the Olives, 20degs and sunny, today a bit cooler with the chance of a shower tonight. We have about 500kg and will load up the trailer and head for the press in Arboleas in the morning. The haul is down a bit this year and it seems a general trend in the area, a couple of neighbours have thrown their harvest in with ours as we need 500kg to get a single pressing of local organic extra virgin olive oil.
I´ll report the amount of oil we get tomorrow.
The date is set, November 20th, the day we plan to press our Olives. It’s not our biggest crop but they look very healthy and we hope the weather will be kind between now and the 20th. We will pick them between 17th and 19th depending on the weather.
We have a few local friends who have offered to help but we have space in the Villa and Apartment if you fancy a week away from it all.
