Sunday 15 May 2016

Las cucharas, la última noticia

The Spoons, an update.
Well, last time I posted it was frickin' Jan! Cor heck!
After our housesitting stint in Extremadura, we headed on to Andalua, to Órgiva, where we volunteered for some loverly peeps, the reason for a lack of posting was that we were off grid, simply enough, we had no electricity or internet readily available, like we did whilst housesitting. We had to walk an hour with laptop in tow to get it, that is without imposing on our hosts. So our time spent internetting was not, unfortunately blogging, but keeping in touch with family, or in my case a spot of designing. There's lots to fill you in on...I'll try and keep it brief.
We went out with a hope that we would return with a plan, and we actually did!


Caravan Sweet Caravan

So, we planned to spend 2 weeks volunteering (Workaway, naturally), this turned into 7. We stayed at Cortijo Vera, with some right lovely peeps. We stayed in a caravan on one of their terraces, everyday we were cooked a big lunch and given copious amounts of tea and biscuits, and given food and could pick pretty much anything from the land for breakfast and dinner which we cooked on a 2 ring gas stove in the caravan, I will add that within about 3 days we did almost burn the caravan down. Advice: Don't, when pissed off with Mr. Spoon and the solar shower which after many hours of 'fixing' still doesn't work, when dressing only in a towel, put the kettle on without checking the gas pipe is out of the way, and burn a whole in the pipe, setting the whole thing alight, almost the caravan and maybe almost the gas bottle itself, no, don't do that, again, ever, please!


The Solar Shower totally worked, all about the timing

These 2 weeks were spent learning how to pick olives for about 5 days straight, getting to know the family, the area, the locals, who, to our surprise were almost all English, and obviously trying not to blow up the caravan, again. We soon realised that 2 weeks was not enough, we'd just begun to scratch the surface of what these guys do, stand for, believe in and all that. We had accounted for having a few days in either Granada or Sevilla before our booked flight, so we kind of just stayed and decided what to do. I contacted school to see if it was worth us making the flight - no contracts until March, that conveniently made our decision easier and, oh no, we missed our flight. We'd been told the place was 'sticky', and yep, they were bloody right!


Peeeeeeeeeas

The coming weeks allowed us to sow, sort and transplant seeds and seedlings, learn how to (re)build walls and roofs using traditional methods and, were possible, eco-friendly ones. We stayed long enough to see our sown seeds germinate and grow: peas, beetroot, potatoes. We had days off and went to 'town', walked around the markets, looked in the super cheap Chinese shops, went for walks and found beautiful orchids sheltering from the crazy winds. Fixed and re-modelled the shower enclosure after said winds, a few times.


Or kid / Orchid?

We got to go to Granada, as we initially planned, just a few weeks later, got very wet, while obviously it was not back in Órgiva. Saw the Alhambra and it's multitude of tessellating patterned tiled walls, floors, ceilings, everythings. I got a little excited about these and took MANY pictures...

Mmmm Alhambra Patterns

We made acquaintances and had dinners, went to fundraisers, made pizzas, lunches and I may proudly add: cake in a frying pan! Designed logos, got wet, got sunburnt, got backache, got massaged. We were there long enough to even see 3 of the 4 family members' birthdays. Culminating in a 60th birthday bash, where we performed a poem Señor Spoon had written and I'd adorned, our 1st actual anniversary and some early morning bonfires.


Bonfireing

So we made our way down to Málaga, slept in the airport, after 3 months joined at the hip, went separate ways at Gatwick, but together returned with a plan!
We met loads of people on the entire trip, the majority of which were English, who travelled around, working either where they could, or spending some time back in the UK earning money which would fund the next bit of travel. We can see that there is so much more we can learn and we are super keen to learn it all. Workawaying offers us the opportunity to learn on the job, helping people as we go, learning techniques, uses of materials, theories and practical things and being welcomed into a community of like-minded peeps, it just suits our outlook and financial situation. Plus, we don't know where we want to be, apart from probably Spain.
So now back in the UK, the plan is (whilst being very open-minded and flexible):
Work, work, work to save pennies, live cheaply where possible, Señor Spoon learns to drive, buy a van to do up or part done up.
Next part of the plan:
My job (teaching English) finishes at the end of August, Señor Spoon's job (working on an organic farm) finishes in October, once the van is sorted and respective work contracts are finished, we set out on the adventure back to south Spain, visiting old and new friends in France and Spain, and volunteering: free accommodation and food as we go, with a van to exist in as we travel from one to the next.
So, let's go teacher about this:
Aims:
To visit various locations to make an informed decision of where to settle/buy/stop.
To learn skills of how to live sustainably from people who are currently doing it.
To meet like-minded people and build our own network of knowledge and amazing people.
To decide if this is really what we want to do, seriously.

Poppy

That's all for now, it wan't very brief really, was it?
More news soon!

Lady Spoon x

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