More shadesails

Where the table stands we use a big parasol. It's huge. It's the hugest parasol we have.  But, with the gusts of wind we experience here (huuuge gusts of wind!) the parasol blows over. And it's not huge enough. 

New plan: more shade sails. Probably option 3.

1

Or

2

Or

3

Shadesails

Climate in the south of Spain is lovely. Temperatures are usually nice, usually around 30º max, with some exceptions. For us northerners the trouble is not temperature, but the very strong sunshine. (See: Moving to Aargh 11 - HOT!) We need to stay out of the direct sun. At least, engineer Jansen does. Engineer De Waal may have Spanish genes, and does not melt like Engineer Jansen.

Shadesails! If you’ve been to Oz you know what to do against too much hot sunshine. Engineer Jansen determined it essential to shade parts of the terrace floor, as that radiates heat into the house.

Attached to the house using 12mm x 6cm wedge bolts and nylon rope.

Moving to Aargh 14 - HOT! More shade - curtains

Still hot. 

In the afternoon the sun heats up our back terrace, and you definitely cannot sit there. And it heats up the living, even though we have roller blinds there. Those are semi-transparent though, and don't block the heat. 

We were thinking about various types of commercial sunscreens, rolling out cloth from a cassette, etc. But, in the cellar there is a pile of "old" curtains the previous previous owners had, and the previous owners did not use.  Complete with poles. Actually they are quite nice. Red, and with a backing loth too. 

So:

grmbll

Fixed that

Tadaah!

Moving to Aargh 11 - HOT!

These days are HOT, 35-37º! And if you have a house with nice big glass sliding doors and big windows, and the sun is on them you will know that it is hot. The old house had thick walls, small wooden windows and shutters, here we have big glas and aluminium doors and windows, and they are not really the non-thermal bridge type. The temperature of the aluminium on the inside is 45º!

This requires blocking the sun. We plan to move the trusses and shade sails here, but we have not, yet. So we resorted to more impromptu measures. Cardboard and geotextile. We have one big umbrella, but fortunately the nice previous owners left behind some other umbrellas. A very nice one, too.

So far we never needed airco in Spain. Here we have used it, set to 29-30º.

Shadesails

There was a time that I would not dream of drilling holes in the walls of the house. That time is over. Put two big hooks high up the walls in the corners to put up shadesails. Priorities, eh.

Quite difficult to get a triangle tensioned right! (It's not.)

Sun after rain

For a bit of jealousy :-)

windytv.com

Let me advertise our favourite weather website: www.windytv.com

Rain, wind, temperature, very well done!

Of course we keep an eye on our new home, just to be sure the temperature there is above 20º. Up until now it was, although the coming week: 11º and 15º ? And rain. 5mm in one hour.. What is "life jacket" in Spanish?

Shade

The average air temperature here varies between 25° to 30°, with blue skies, cool breezes, Campari, etc. Also at night. Nevertheless the sun is rather fierce and hot when your directly exposed, and not in the shade. It is much better in the shade.

There are various options. You can stay inside, the house is nice and cool, and has shade, but that is not our preference. You can build a pergola, out of stone, wood, pipes, or a combination of materials. Or, you can install a shadesail, as we know them from Australia. There are triangles, squares, rectangles, made of an elastic but strong material, so you can give them an interesting shape when tensioned with cables..

The real ones are available here, end they are not expensive. Montage though, is.

Or you can opt for a pergola. Freestanding, attached to your house, wood, stone, pipes...

Or the "mi casa system", that a nice restaurant here has.

After asking some quotes we know now that shade is expensive. We have at least 8x8 meter to shadow, so we chose ready made shadesail fro the Lope. For less than 100 euro there is a 5x5 meters sail made of strong materials, and decent attachments. We'll manage this season, and then decide if we want/agree to/can afford something else.

Next to the house shade is desired too. We use factor 50 sun cream, but cars don't like that.

Their fault!

Of course I blame my parents. But, in a caring way.

My parents abandoned me in my early twenties, because they were lucky enough to be able to stop working at 55, and moved to Australia, as you do. (Civil service in those days...) However, I had a good job, something with computers and programming, which was nice. And stayed.

The Netherlands is a really nice country for working, and living while working. But, summers are short, and usually cool and wet. At the same time we enjoy a long winter, that is also cool and wet. I'm not fond of cool and wet.

While on vacation in the Canary Islands, in December, long ago, I realised that when the weather in Holland is nasty, there are always places on Earth where people are in the sun, having cocktails on a sunny terrace, and are dining al fresco. And even late at night it's great outside. I knew I wanted that.

Early in the naughties tv series started like "A Place In The Sun", "Escape to the Continent", "Droomhuis Gezocht" ("Dream house wanted"), "Ik vertrek" ("I'm leaving") where they film a couple wanting to start a new life abroad. Usually without enough money, not speaking the language, and not terribly organised, starting a B&B without knowing how to make a bed, or cook for guests, getting pregnant at the wrong moment, etc etc. Else it is not amusing for the viewers. We want drama. Of course we want drama! As long as the drama concerns other people, obviously.

However, those programs did give us an idea of property prices abroad, and our possibilities. The more south you go, the lower house prices are, if you skip the Provence and the Côte d'Azur and silly places like that. Selling our house leaves enough funds to buy a place down south, AND enough money to bridge the years left before retirement and pension money... Why work till you are 67? Perhaps that nasty mr. Brinkhorst likes to work till he dies, bragging about it, but we don't. There is more in life than work. Well, there can be. My folx are proof of that. (And, we don't plan pregnancies or B&B's.)

We looked at places in France for properties where you have peace and quiet, no airplanes, no motor cycles, no sports planes circling above your head like irritating bluebottles, no neighbours unable to play the piano and with a trampoline in the house. And preferably a bit more self-sustaining energy and food wise. So, heating with own firewood, electricity from solar panels. Or, find an old watermill, restore it's function, and generate our own electricity that way. Being an electrical engineer, I can do that.

Well, France was not kind to us. There are lots of interesting places advertised on the internet, on sites like www.green-acres.com. (I'll show you some houses we were interested in over the years, but later.) However, French estate agents refuse to tell you where a house is, exactly. If they reply to your email at ALL.

We know France in summer. While visiting some places while out of season we found out that we had too positive an opinion on France's climate. In winter it's as wet and cold as back home. The summer season is indeed a bit longer, and there are nice days in winter, too, but overall it's not that great.

So we gave up on France, after a few years.

Canary Islands, after all? Over our budget, often, and the properties are not big and self-sustaining. Though the Lanzarote blog grannyp.blogspot.com drew me towards the Canaries still...
Italy? Too... complicated.
Greece? Nice, but you never know if it will stay with Europe.
Cyprus? Very nice, too. But.
Portugal and Spain mainland only presented themselves when brought up by "pensionado" friends who went there quite often, in winter. Well, we are not exactly Marbella, Torremolinos or even Ibiza people, but we started to realise that if you look inland a few kilometers you may find peace and quiet, a wonderful climate, and a lower price level for both house and living.

We found a house, in the south of Spain, in Almeria. A 200-year-old watermill, with those nice and thick stone walls we always wanted (thank you again grannyp.blogspot.com!). However, without any water to run the mill, but with agricultural water to irrigate the garden.

We are now working on actually moving there, as soon as we can. Probably somewhere Q3 2016. Exactly the same year in life as my parents.

The house also came with a single mum dog, ticks, lice, and six puppies. More on that, and other things, past present and future, later.

And yes, my parents and sister are all still happily living in Australia, 30 years later.