Although some of the tourist books for the area state that Molino Charrara produced olive oil, this is incorrect. It is in fact an antique flour mill and as such most of it is listed and cannot be altered. Because of this we were a little worried about our inspection by the authority for our Hospederia upgrade as a couple of the rooms and bathrooms are a little smaller than would otherwise be allowed in modern hotels. We need not have worried, in an historic building such as this it doesn’t matter and we can bypass some requirements. So we do apologise in advance if you bang your elbows in the shower or are unable to jump off the top of the wardrobe onto the bed without banging your head on the wall. You are staying in a living museum and can enjoy the peace and tranquility of your countryside surroundings in a place where generations of people have struggled to work throughout history. The Moors first built a mill on this site around 1000 years ago and they didn’t have wardrobes or beds, so count yourselves lucky. You have a private bathroom too but please consider the environment as we are not on mains sewage, anything you throw down the toilet other than toilet paper can block the septic tank causing it to overflow across the lower patio where you will be eating, into the water supply for the olive growers further down the Rambla who will not be too happy if they try to have a drink or a wash.
We also apologise that disabled access is very limited but again due to regulations and our cliff side situation this is beyond our control. We have provided ramps where ever we can but these are a little steep in places.
We have been inspected, we passed, we are fully insured and we are 100% legal to offer you accommodation, food and drinks in this beautiful area.
Registration No. ATE.MU.287.
Enjoy your stay.
This morning as I opened the gate to the spring at the end of the garden I was as usual greeted by a load of fat waddling ducks calling for their breakfast. But wait a minute… Where’s Daphne? Daphne the daring duck is missing. She has been experimenting with flying for about a week or so now and although she is so fat she can hardly walk she doesn’t do a bad job of climbing up to a great height and then jumping off into an almost controlled downwards flap followed by a crash landing. Well obviously that was good enough because a quick look over the cliff saw her about 100m below enjoying herself in the stream created by the overflowing water from the acequia. I like that word now, acequia, and if you don’t know what it is, read this. Anyway there was Daphne down below so Nicky starts trying to get her attention by calling “Daphne”, “Daphne” and rattling the food pot etc. which went a great way to attract a local farmer who stood about 100m higher on the other side of the cliff watching in amazement at what English people go through to avoid their pet ending up on somebody else’s dinner table. It worked in a fashion, as Daphne waddled, flapped and scrambled her way up to about 25m or so below us before needing a rest, and then slipping and crashing all the way back down to the bottom again. Twice in the next few hours I scrambled down into the Rambla Benito after looking at Daphne standing there in the boiling sun, staring up at the cliff, standing still on the hot ground like she was just waiting for the “ping” to say she was cooked to perfection so we could just pour over the orange sauce. But to try and get her to follow me home was impossible, she is just so fat that the climb was too much and she wasn’t going to attempt it and kept running back into the oleander bushes for a rest. I followed her a short way but in flip-flops & shorts I wasn’t really up to treading on a viper or being chased by a boar so thought better of going in too far. Plan B was called for. When Andrew finally got himself out of bed, he donned his flip-flops & shorts (15 year olds just don’t listen do they?), we grabbed the food tin and a great big stick and went on a duck hunt. Down in the valley I poked & prodded with the stick from one side of the oleander bushes until Daphne waddled out the other and then Andrew stuck the food pot under her nose to keep her occupied. Then after a few flying feathers and a rugby tackle Daphne was safely under my arm, her wings trapped down by her side and her head still in a bucket of food ready for the climb back up. Luckily I didn’t have to scramble all the way up one handed because there is a fence to our spring half way up so I just adjusted position, keeping her wings well by her side and launched her over the fence like a rugby ball then she flapped again, lost a few feathers and hit the water feet first to be greeted immediately by her friends, who to be honest hadn’t cared less and were enjoying having more room to themselves. So now what do we do? Go through this palarver every time Daphne decides to go on an excursion, or clip her wings to keep her grounded. Now where did I put the strimmer?
STOP PRESS: Just done it, secateurs and scissors, now let’s see their next trick.
About a week ago we had to get our hands on more cash than we had in our pockets so the best idea was to change some UK Pounds that we still had knocking around. Could we change them? Could we buggery. We have a bank account here yes, but our bank is about the only bank in Spain without a branch in our nearest town and no bank at all would change our money unless we had a bank account. Okay, so lets see, Banco Santander, they are all over England too so let’s go open an account and get this waste paper changed – So we did. Now today we thought that as we still has just £100 to remind us of home we had better get rid of it too so orft we jolly well went to Ferrari’s favourite bank and slapped a hundred quid on the counter. Well the look on the blokes face could have sunk more ships than my old Grandmas Yorkshire Puddings. He poked it, prodded it, held it to the light, crinkled it, stretched it, then took it to his manager and exchanged a few words and then came back to the counter. He played with his computer, obviously “Googling” Pounds then kept hold of the money and asked us to go and take a seat. In that seat we sat for over 20 minutes until finally the manager came back over to him and they locked themselves away in their little cell for a while and had a chinwag and the out popped the manager and asked us back to the desk. Finally we got our hands on 116 Euros and 65 Cents – That was hard work, we could have robbed the place faster than that. The moral of this story is, if you are coming to Rural Spain bring your Euros with you – The Spanish do not want to see your Pounds, they are totally useless and worthless and now our poor little bank stuck out in the middle of nowhere has got to go to loads of trouble and through loads of paperwork & red tape just to get rid of those five scraps of paper we handed over. Benidorm & Marbella may take your English paperwork but the rest of Spain will tell you to stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Yesterday after a trip to the airport at Alicante we decided to go for a drive into the city to see what it was like. We found a huge market which will certainly be worth a visit on another occasion and then we came across the shopping centre “Centro Comercial Puerta de Alicante” so we parked up in the huge empty underground car park and went for a look. Bit of a let down really, not a patch on Nueva Condomina here in Murcia which does after all boast to be the biggest on the Mediterranean and you can see why. So all we did was go for lunch in Fosters Hollywood (buy your first drink and all the rest come free, next time I am not driving) and then head home.
Salto de la Novia lies on the road between Ricote and Ojos.
Driving through the Ricote Valley past something we see every day I caught a glimpse of a sign saying “Salto de la Novia” & was sure I had seen this in one of our tourist information guides. Getting home I looked it up and sure enough “Salto de la Novia”, Brides Jump, is where a Christian noblewoman jumped to her death off the rocks when her Castilian Officer lover was killed in battle by Moorish troops who were trying to conquer Ulea. Quite why she picked this rock is anybody’s guess as there are a million and one places to jump from round here if you get the urge, must have been an easier climb up than the other rocks. As an anecdote, Ricote was the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain and they were expelled between 1610-1614 and their culture is a very important part of the history and character of this land and evidence of their occupancy is still to be seen throughout the area.
Anyway you can read all about this and loads of other things to do in Murcia in the new tourist information guide that we now give to all of our guests on arrival. Yes you do have to come and stay to get a copy 
Doing the school run at about 7:30 this morning we had to drive around a dead fox lying very neatly in the middle of the road. It’s a very twisty road and it seems strange a car could be moving fast enough to hit a fox before the sprightly animal could get out of the way and judging by the condition of the fox it had not been there very long. Our Son did comment that you would think who ever hit the animal would have stopped to move it into the gutter as the road is so narrow it would be difficult for vehicles to drive around it rather than just slowly flatten it into the ground causing quite a mess, I had to admit I agreed. On my way back I found Basil still laying there so decided to stop and move him myself and as I got closer I could see he was quite small, lovely and clean, no apparent damage and not a spot of blood around. But wait, what is that in his mouth? A snake about 30cm long (a foot to those of you who still speak my language), whitish in colour with black markings, and also very dead. A viper I think. So as I dragged the fox off of the road I couldn’t help wondering, was it a car that brought his demise or just an unfortunate choice of breakfast snack that bit back while it still had the chance leaving poor Basil to make his last few steps before finally giving up on his short life halfway across our road? Answers on a postcard please…
6Z3JXE2NUSPY
I could get use to this country life – Well in fact I already have but it’s non-stop work. Every morning up at 7:00 ready to do he school run at 07:30 and then once I get back at about 08:10 it’s time to feed the ducks and open the gate so they can run around and then I let out the chickens too. Then it’s a full days work not forgetting fitting in things around guests if we have them, then after that it’s back to work around the place and doing repairs. Like this weekend for instance, the ducks finally found out how much they like the vegetable patch so I have had to create a fence all the way around it to keep them out, which was fine. The trouble is it not only kept out the ducks, it kept out Nicky with her watering can too so I had to rig up some kind of irrigation system as well. It’s a little “Heath Robinson” at the moment but basically it’s a water pump dumped in the spring (somewhere under the ducks arses), pumping water up through a hose pipe with holes punched in it and the other end bunged up. It needs some fine tuning to get it to water everything but it’s not far off, trouble is every time I punch a new hole I get a face full of very dilute duck shit which is not too nice. Anyway it waters & fertilises most things, and I could put a timer on it – But that would take away any fun left in walking up the garden to switch it on. This is just one classic example of everything that happens having a reaction which creates two more jobs, it’s never ending, at least at the end of the day we get to bake some bread in the outside oven or have a BBQ – Or watch Lost!! It’s a good life, an enjoyable life, but I could do with another 20 or so years of it before I make my mind up properly.
And so it came to pass that last weekend at very short notice we were back up in Catalunya to prepare a house for a good friend of ours who is arriving from Holland for the summer. We wouldn’t usually consider a 1200km round trip just to clean a house for someone but this house just happens to be where we parked the Renault Express last January when we moved down here to Murcia and although we did kind of drop subtle hints via email about the car being there we never actually came straight out and said it – So better get it shifted then. An email & a couple of phone calls later and it was sold to an interested party who enquired last December about buying it, and we got nearly enough from the sale to cover the cost of insuring the Iveco van, not good, but at the moment thanks to ash clouds and other recent “Acts of God” we need all the cash we can get our hands on. Lets hope that pesky cloud keeps away from the UK now and lets us get on with business. Of course whilst up there we just had to visit our favourite restaurant in Begur, La Escalopa for yet another fab evening meal, thanks Katja, we’ll be back next trip.
Speaking of meals I have a rough idea laid out for events here at the Molino. The plan is to have a “Supper Club” or “Tweet-Up” style informal BBQ get together on the last Saturday of each month on one or t’other of our patios depending on which way the wind is blowing. We supply the food and wine & light the BBQ and you do the rest. If you plan on drinking too much then a sleep-over (Tweep-Over?) is possible but beds are limited. Any guests we have at the time will of course be invited. If the wind is not too strong we will put up the Bouncy Castle too. When it is all over just pay what you think it was worth and then bugger off until next time
We may theme some of these if we get enough interest, for example I quite fancy Christmas in July. Any suggestions?
NO we are NOT eating the Ducks.
More of this can be found on our Facebook page and will soon appear on the website.
Thanks for reading.
After a quick phone call yesterday threatening us with arrival today and another phone call this afternoon asking if sleeping bags were needed (??!!), finally around 19:00 tonight our very first paying guests actually arrived. Well to be honest we had to go and fetch them because they were lost as we are not that easy to find to be honest with you. Anyway they are sitting down in the bar now watching television and piling logs on the fire like they do it all the time at home. Now on the lookout for the second lot of guests – Could it be YOU!!?? Just to be clear though, we DO provide all bed linen and towels, you do not need to bring sleeping bags.
Well there you go. Eight days on the road almost living out of the cab and am I glad to be back. The weather was crap, the delays were long, the nights were cold, the snow was deep, the rain was heavy but the van ran great – Despite over 5000km with a nail through the rear tyre. In the end everything got done pretty much on time and I got back here only half a day late. Now I need to unload the rest of our own stuff from the van then check over all the brakes and do a general once over of all the workings and old faithful will be ready to roll again when next called on to do so. Hopefully not too quickly though, doing the whole trip on my own from down here was a bit of a killer.
Well the time has come to carry out a few transport jobs that I have allowed to build up over the last few months because of our own house move. Tuesday I will leave here in “Old Faithful” which if you have been following us since up in Catalunya you will recall we have renamed “Florentinus Maria” in honour of our dear friend who died suddenly last year. With any luck Tuesday night I will arrive at a friends house in Tamariu and spend the night there before loading up and then sneaking into my old car (which is sort of semi-dumped) for an exercise bike (don’t ask) which is going up to Tamworth. I have given myself plenty of time to get to Boulogne and then hope to cross to Dover & collect in Didcot on Thursday and maybe even carry on to Hereford to collect there. If I miss Thursday then that will happen Friday morning before carrying on up to Nottingham – Maybe via a delivery in Tamworth, or maybe Leicester, or both. Both of those have to be fitted in somewhere but I am not yet sure where. Saturday I need to be collecting in Bingley and then Sunday in Peterborough on the way back down to Dover. Two drops then in Begur and Calonge in Catalunya and also a collection in Tamariu. Also, depending on how brave I feel, I could pop over into our old garden and grab the goldfish, you may remember that due to travel times etc when we moved home he had to stay behind and wait for us in the comfort of his very own fountain. Quick pop in to Lloret to get some stuff out of my other van (which will find its way down here in due course) then also another delivery in Alicante and some goods to stay in store awaiting a Murcia delivery at the end of next month. So that is my next week in a nutshell, sleepless nights in a van, cold rainy, snowy days and nothing but 107.7 traffic FM on the radio. Oh happy days.