The Spanish Good Life!: New Year New Business!

People might think that I have not posted anything since November as we have finish the house! Oh dear wouldn't that be amazing!

Sadly no, the house remains the same inside. We have however made some new steps up to the water level and started the dry stone wall around the bottom of the house with some great chunks of limestone. Craig Naylor our "super long term" Orange has done a great job so far and we can't wait to get that bit done!

One change we have to make is not our own decision! The Spanish have forest wardens, they are here to look after the land etc. They remind people not to wild camp or start fires which is a good thing. However, they came and visited us in September and said we had to stop using old tyres on the land.

Why we said and they just said NO! that they are a waste product which is not allowed to be used on the land as they leach out chemicals! To this we explained that we will be covering and hiding most of them in the future. Answer to that - we will give you 2 months to REMOVE them all. Hmmm we did remove all the ones at the front of the house as they really are noticeable from the road and 4 months later they have not been back. Sort of hoping we have got away with that one and that they will turn the other way and let us hide the rest!

Under bedroom window!

Around the front of the house!

So what have we been doing then for the past 3 months? One word - HORSES. It seems like we have dedicated 100% of our time to them and not the house. Every week we have a plan of attack to do house improvements and nothing seems to happen!

We had a call from a friend of a friend who was moving back to the UK and had the most lovely wooden fencing system which is hard and expensive to buy out here in Spain! We agreed a great deal with her and set about driving up the coast a few times and dismantling everything that she had in place. Wooden posts and a rather large metal shed! Now this was on the ground like a giant jigsaw, hmm that will be fun to sort out!

With the fencing we have managed to completely surround the whole hillside to allow the ponies to walk around! We installed a new water system on the top for the new arrival Lottie the Shetland as she could not reach the normal as, she is way too diddy!

Rich built some amazing gates, both massive metals one for car access and some funky little wooden ones to allow people access!

Metal shed was not too bad to put together in the end and we are not allowed to call it a shed says Rich, as it has hay in it, so we call it a "barn"! Bless Richard

Life now alot easier to feed the horses and a great area to tack up before a ride with clients.