Life in Extremadura - Winter to Spring

January 12 2008

Well what a quiet Christmas and New Year we had all on our own for once. Just the traditional meals and rubbish TV programmes. We skipped the tree and decorations and at least Val was grateful for a proper rest from the usually endless cooking of earlier years.

The other English family living here signed a contract to run the village Hostal at the end of August and by Christmas were so busy that our friendship that begun when they arrived in November 2006 was by Halloween wearing a little thin. By Christmas it was over.

The friendship ended owing to personal difficulties that were minor but many such as damaging the tow-ball head on my trailer and not telling me and borrowing my ladder and leaving me to have to badger them for it's return to fit the chimney for my wood burner. Ordinarily I can handle this sort of thing without any effort but when I'm made to feel somehow in the wrong for wanting my gear back I draw the line.

Some people understand friendship and put as much in as they take out but others use "friends" as a source of free labour and tools and even then they fail to pay for what they use. Money is all to them.

Well here we are heading for mid January and well into what is usually the distinctly wet part of the year. The colder weather of December with clear skies and 0° minimum and 10° maximum has been replaced with cloudy, cool days with mist, drizzle and showers. Night temperatures fall to a reasonable 4° and in mid afternoon it can be 15° with bright sun. While taking your mid afternoon stroll, if the sun decides to come out, you have to be prepared to take off the thinnish jumper you put on under your waterproof jacket or risk breaking into a heavy sweat. There is now, whenever the sun stays hidden, a very pleasant blustery west wind blowing in from Portugal to accompany the cloud and drizzle. It reminds me of those first hints of Spring you get in England around the end of March.

The locals never give up moaning about the cold and regard us as members of some strange northern semi-naturist organisation with our minimalist approach to winter clothing.

Although we light the stove on getting up in the morning we now tend to keep it just smouldering through the day. Around dusk as the sun leaves we crank the fire up a bit to compensate for the creeping cold but this doesn't need a great amount of additional heat and we can normally allow the fire to run down for the rest of the evening. If we decide to stay up after midnight another large log added at that point will keep things comfortable into the early hours. Well there's a little gem of trivia for you!

Having had a bit of a sniffle in November I'm just recovering from another sore throat and cough that has been plaguing me for the last few days. We have a Portuguese friend who twice daily walks her dogs with us. She has the same cold but has been really laid low with it. Val took her shopping in Trujillo this morning and says that the trip really knocked the stuffing out of her. Well it could have been worse I suppose.