Diary of a Downshifter – Part 13 Downshifting to Spain
We had been in Spain for 18 months and for some reason we had itchy feet. The small house called Finca Granadero that we had bought was now a beautiful Andalucin cottage with beams and nooks and crannies that the previous owner had blocked up and that we had opened up and revealed. The plumbing was good and worked (by this stage I was a master plumber) and even the electricity worked as well as could be expected. We installed a brilliant little wood burning stove and built a chimney, which kept us warm and generally we were becoming comfortable. The authorities offered each house a radio phone and we quickly took advantage of this and so were finally contactable. This communications ‘improvement’ in our lives actually turned out to be one of those brilliant, modern ideas that can end up destroying the closely knit fabric of communities. Now we had our own phone we didn’t have to go to the ‘telephone man’s house anymore. Going there was like going to a form of social club. We met others waiting to make their calls and chatted and got to know them, and we caught a glimpse of real Spanish life as we became part of the telephone man’s family life. We were there for their meals, their rest periods, their arguments, their television (which was always on) and they would tell us of their triumphs and disasters. Because there was no instant communication we learned to wait; we learned patience and we learned about the rest of our community. They were all interested in us of late because Annabel had become pregnant and this news caused quite a stir.
The bees were now established in two apiaries and having got over the problems of varroa – which was in Spain but not in the UK at that time and so caught me by surprise – we were able to plan our next business moves. We survived the swarming season – just. The first swarm hung up in a tree just below the house and I went up a ladder with my box to collect it. I banged the branch with my hand and the bees dropped into the box. Holding the branch with my right hand and the box in my left, I was about to descend when the ladder fell away and I was left hanging. I called Annabel who arrived centuries too late and by this stage I had hit the ground nd was covered in bees. Even swarm bees get angry if you mess around with them enough and these got angry. As usual I hadn’t put any protective clothing on so the pair of us fled. A small gang of them got up my trouser leg and were moving rapidly upwards In this circumstance it is important to stop them at the knee, and as I hopped around holding my trouser leg Annabel rushed inside the house and locked the door citing unborn child and so on. I’m still not sure how I survived.
But as I said, we were getting itchy feet (all our lives we had moved every year or so due to military backgrounds and in my case a military childhood as well) and so we decided to move and we began looking around at suitable sites and locations that would be good for us and good for the bees. Little did we know that we would end up in the centre of a bunch of hippies in a hovel half way down a cliff with no water, no electricity and no approach to the ‘dwelling’ other than scrambling across a near vertical rock face with foot holds carved into it – with a two month old baby! But more of that later.
