The Pillars of Hercules

It was when I found our two year old daughter climbing up the cliff from the house to the road that I realised that sooner or later we were going to have to move. Fabulous views were one thing but you can’t live [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 18 Downshifting to Spain

The Pillars of Hercules

It was when I found our two year old daughter climbing up the cliff from the house to the road that I realised that sooner or later we were going to have to move. Fabulous views were one thing but you can’t live on views alone. Also we became a bit disillusioned with the intensity of the drug scene in the area. The castle and its environs were improving their act month by month but it still had a long way to go. Some of our friends were also leaving and we decided after two years that a move was at least on the cards for us as well. One of our particular friends, a redoubtable 60 year old, very posh English lady who lived in the castle was the first to go. She decided to set up a legal, very high class brothel for rich gentlemen, intending to offer her girls excellent employment terms with top class pay and conditions. She persuaded the local bank manager that this was an excellent investment and secured a start up loan for the project. Unfortunately her plans came to naught when a minor complaint led to the authorities discovering that her letting property was not registered and thus did not comply with all the various regulations – and of course she was not paying tax on any income from it. Who did? She had to sell up fast and flee the country to escape arrest. Fortunately the kindly, local police sergeant gave her plenty of notice of any actions against her and she had time to get away.

The house, Puerto El Cardo and the cliff 1996

For ourselves, the decision to move Firstly though we had to sell the house and with Castellar’s reputation we knew that this wouldn’t be easy. The house was fabulous and its position even better – we had renovated and built on in true andalucian style. We had turned it from a hovel with no facilities into a well presented, good looking and comfortable home. See the picture above of Puerto El Cardo as the house was known. But it was at  Castellar and the only estate agent who woukd take it on his books didn’t try to sell it. We advertised in several places and a few people from various European countries came and looked but to little avail. After 4 months however a film director and his glamorous girlfriend came and saw and were conquered. We had sold it.

But with the fall down of a deal to purchase another plot of land, we suddenly had nowhere to go and we ended up renting an old stone mill in the middle of the hothgarganta river in Jimena de la Frontera. It had no facilities at all of course and only one room upstairs and one down. Under the mill there was a space for our borrowed chemical loo though and we used the river for bathing water. Drinking water was another problem as we had to cross the ruver, climb a steep and rocky hill to a spring and then lug the heavy containers back to the mill. But it was summer, warm and having a swimming hole right next to us was heavenly. Our gas camping cooker with two rings cooked some amazing meals and our BBQ worked overtime. The scents of jasmine and dama de noche filled the air and the scream of cicadas was intense. Despite its primitiveness we loved living there alone in the river. The town was on our doorstep and the bars and restaurants were excellent, so who were we to complain. The only sad moment was the news of Diana’s death.

In the meantime I travelled andalucia looking for another home – away from the hurley burley of the coast and a place that was good for bees. it took some doing  and eventually I headed up to Huelva province leaving Anna and Lucy in the mill. We kept in touch with our first mobile phones and eventually i found the plcae where we were to spend the next 9 years – just in time as it turned out as disaster was about to strike.

As a diversion from describing our life as downshifters, it’s worth looking at a major feature of our lives at the time perhaps as a warning to others who may mistakenly think that downshifting is all happiness and bliss. One of the features of our downshifting career [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 17 Downshifting to Spain

As a diversion from describing our life as downshifters, it’s worth looking at a major feature of our lives at the time perhaps as a warning to others who may mistakenly think that downshifting is all happiness and bliss. One of the features of our downshifting career was a constant lack of money. There is an often held belief that downshifting is all about living the simple life, growing your own and living free from the constraints of the vulgar modern world - and money.  To all those who think this, think again. Every downshifter who told me this in spain (and they were usually German hippies) were, when we got to know them better and found out – being subsidised by their parents or receiving one of the home country’s incredibly generous benefits. They had free money. They didn’t have to work. In all our years as downshifters in Spain, I didn’t meet anyone living that life who didn’t either have to work or were receiving money from parents – or even on some sort of benefit from their home country.

On one occasion, following a lousy harvest and a very poor time for us and an overspend on the house, we passed New Year’s Eve with 2 pesetas. You can’t buy anything with 2 pesetas and so I stuck them in my diary with sellotape and welcomed in the year 2000. They are still there. On another occasion, I had to borrow to fly back to the UK to be a seasonal traffic warden for 5 months. I left my wife and kids with no money at all. (Fortunately in many small towns and villages in Spain, you can buy and pay later). When I returned, I spent days going round all the small shops paying our bills.

Being rich isn’t necessarily the way to happiness in life, but it can make you less miserable. I think it was Spike Milligan who said that and he was right. Money – or rather lack of it was a constant sore point in our life as downshifters. many will immediately respond by saying ‘but isn’t that the whole point of it? Isn’t that the reason you chose this life – to get away from the problems and hassles of jobs/money/ commuting and so on? Well let me say now that that is a total misconception. If you are living in a nice place and working hard and you want a beer from a nice, local bar, overflowing with bonhomie and life, just how are you going to pay for that beer without money?

I remember moving from Castellar to Aracena and passing the lights and Christmas decorations of El Corte Ingle on the Seville bypass road at San Juan de Aznalfarache. We had just been blasted out of our Mill in the Hozgarganta river by a huge flood (future post) and were moving up to Aracena, at night, with a van full of cats and dogs in fruit boxes, ourselves and a pile of wet belongings. I couldn’t ever imagine being able to enjoy the scenes behind those Christmas lights simply because at that time, we had no money – or nothing beyond the very essentials of living. It wasn’t a good feeling and we know of many a downshifter (and downshifting families) who had to return to the UK and other Northern European countries simply because they couldn’t find the money to live.

Bartering does work in certain circumstances. For example we let local stockholders use our land for their sheep. Not only did it keep the grass down (and free from being a fire hazard) but it also got us into the local community and as a big bonus gave us in return fruit and vegetables and a lamb at Christmas. Mind you, we had to kill it ourselves. (We out-sourced the job)! We also let black pigs eat our acorns and in return received fine sausages – but none of this can get you a hard earned beer, milk, tampax, decent shoes and clothes or new building materials for essential jobs around the house and so on. For that you need money and before you think about downshifting for real, do get this aspect of your life sorted out. Or let your parents subsidise you, or make sure you can claim a generous benefit. Or make sure you are rich in the first place.

OR, even better start a small business and in my forthcoming book I will explain more. Ultimately, unless you have a private income, you must earn your own money.

The problem with living in a rat infested hovel is that it is difficult to sleep at night and with the amount of physical work that I needed to do to get building materials down a near vertical slope to build a house meant that I [...]]]> Diary of a Downshifter – Part 15   Downshifting to Spain

The problem with living in a rat infested hovel is that it is difficult to sleep at night and with the amount of physical work that I needed to do to get building materials down a near vertical slope to build a house meant that I needed all of the sleep I could get.  Leaving wife and soon to be new daughter in Los Romanes, I travelled down each Monday to Castellar and set about the task of getting the building materials down the slope. With the help of a supermarket trolley on a steel cable I and a band of hippies who agreed to help in exchange for pay and beer we commenced what turned out to be one of the most difficult tasks I’ve ever undertaken. The delivery lorry would drop the sand or cement bags or bricks etc next to the track. Then we would move this to a spot near the trolley and then load up the trolley. It could take 3 bags of cement or 6 breeze blocks or 15 roof tiles. The first three bags of cement which comprised our very first load rocketed off down the hill, hit a rock at the bottom near the house, exploded and shot over the cliff to the valley far below. Spectacular but expensive and we had to retrieve the very bent up trolley. Pulling the trolley back up the cliff was a killer in itself. Gradually we got the hang of it and over the next 3 months of blood, sweat and tears we moved an entire house down the cliff, brick by brick and tile by tile. Sand was the most difficult item and also the heaviest and there was never enough. My friend from Los Romanes, Jaques masterminded the building and within a couple of months a house emerged from the ruin. The views were spectacular and the place was fit for wife and daughter – and all the furniture, boxes and other heavy belongings that we had to manoevre down the cliff. The bees were very happy at their new location producing some of the best honey and honeydew that I have tasted. An old item of furniture left over from the recent hippy occupation of the place provided firewood for our first open fire and the presence of cannabis hidden in the knot holes of the wood provided us with our first and only trip leaving  me dreaming of small and vicious teddy bears. Heaven only knows what it did to our two month old daughter but we survived and the rest of the wood was thrown out, only to attract a group of the local hippies who diligently searched it for more knot holes. After this, a stiff drink in Mara’s bar in the castle was definitely called for and as this bar was the only cannabis free environment in the area it was doubly welcome. The castle boasted a village within the walls with narrow streets, scented bouganvillia, jasmine and dama de noche climbing the walls and trellises and flamenco music from Diego’s bar (which sold my honey) adding to the wonderful atmosphere a place which time forgot. There was even a tea room in one of the tiny little bars. Many of the hippies (who lived mainly outside the castle walls) were delightful people and it is easy to remember people like Jeff who was I believe the best guitarist I’ve ever met – his rendition of Pink Floyd and other artists was supreme, or Samantha who could make some of the best jewelry items around. Unfortunately it was a culture based on drugs, hard and soft for the most part and many of the hippies ended up caught by the police and ending up inside or wasting their huge talents on doing absolutely nothing – or even dying.

It was in the castle that I came second in an international cookery competition with my special curry. (International because the hippies came from all over the place). The first place had to be won by a female Spaniard which was entirely acceptable and so my second place was all the more pleasing and Annabel has laughed about it ever since. Even more pleasing was that because I packaged my honey in small hexagonal pots and put these in little wooden crates stamped with the words ‘Miel de Andalucia’ and placed a picture of the castle on the label and so on, my honey became the accepted honey of the area and earned me more pesetas (at the time) for less actual honey.  It was good business and everyone was happy.

When friends came out from the UK to see us we put them up in the Posada in the castle, a magnificent old place owned by Jenny Hoad (wife of Lew Hoad the Australian Wimbledon champion). The place was run by Dotty, an Englishwoman in her 60s who had previously wanted to run a high class brothel in the area and had even secured a bank loan for the purpose, but eventually this didn’t work out and so she ran the posada. Her foodwas excellent and her hospitality generous and she was loved by all. Unfortunately she eventually had to flee over some petty regulation or other and was a sad loss to the castle. Fortunately the authorities had warned her of her impending doom before actually doing anything so that she had time to flee the coup. The castle was populated by a wealth of such characters often living on the edge of things and even Philipe Gonzalez the bonzai loving, first post Franco prime minister had a house there and could often be seen cooking an evening meal. All in all, definitely the perfect background for a good book.

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 [...]]]> 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.