Many articles that I have read, which agree with common sense, says that those living in another EU country to their nationality before the vote will more than likely be entitled to such privileges after the vote due to a pre-existing situation.
I do wonder if a lot of ex-pats who've never bothered to fully regularise their situation might suddenly discover things aren't quite so easy, though...
3 This is a long shot but you might be able to get some business from the Summer Camp business. Middle class spanish kids all go to summer camp for 2 weeks over the summer - often out in the sticks somewhere. Adding English is an additional attraction. when i first arrived in Spain i taught English at a summer camp run by real Madrid football club for rich kids - the kids only wanted to play football but the organisers added English lessons to sweeten it for the parents. An English mountain biking camp could have a certain niche appeal. Although I've no idea what the regulation / insurance etc would be like.
We considered doing this when we lived in Madrid. We did some English classes on the side and ran one weekend for a group of about 20 people. Even when there was a huge downturn in the economy and money was tight people wouldn't give up their English classes. It can be pretty profitable even without any mountain biking.
Morgrim, agreed. Just like businesses in the credit crunch: would be a good excuse to clear out some deadwood......
[i]mogrim - Member
Still, well done for getting so far! [/i]
Cheers - it's certainly not a bad place to have time on your hands as long as you have your MTB with you 🙂
[i]mugsys_m8 - Member
Sounds good Spekkie!
Many articles that I have read, which agree with common sense, says that those living in another EU country to their nationality before the vote will more than likely be entitled to such privileges after the vote due to a pre-existing situation.
As a british passport holder with a british passport holder son a french passport holder daughter and a french passport holder wife living in France and resident here for tax purposes, I suddenly had a panic then did some reading and am now fairly relaxed about it. [/i]
We're not worried either way. We will have to make things work, whatever happens.
[i]eckinspain - Member
We considered doing this when we lived in Madrid. We did some English classes on the side and ran one weekend for a group of about 20 people. Even when there was a huge downturn in the economy and money was tight people wouldn't give up their English classes. It can be pretty profitable even without any mountain biking. [/i]
The youngsters are keen. The old folks not so much - but I guess they don't feel the need to.
Just picked up the July edition of Bikes World, bargain at €1.95, and it includes a trail guide to a route starting in Ainsa which goes through your village. Hope you can cope with the crowds 🙂 I buy it as a way of improving my Spanish and building up a library of trails.
Hi Spekkie, mrs PB and I are going to the TDF tomorrow,riding up from Sort, if you're about it'd be good to meet. I'll be on a Litespeed road bike and she'll be on her Focus. Probably dressed in Penya Ciclista Ribera D'Ebre kit.
We are back in Spain now, safe & sound after a few weeks in the UK with friends & family.
It was a long drive through France but the countryside and villages are beautiful and once we get down to the Spanish border we're only 45 mins from Home 🙂
Yesterday first thing we met with our architect at his offices to discuss the last of the obstacles holding up our planning application and today we met with him again (acting as our interpreter) and with our neighbours at our property to discuss the issues further. It looks like everything is going to work out ok. There are just some concerns regarding where exactly the boundaries of our respective properties lay. One of the little oddities you get when buying a rural property surrounded by fields 🙂
Let's hope we're nearly there now - all the cycling and sight-seeing we're doing to keep ourselves busy is exhausting!
Hey PB. Sorry I didn't get back to you - we only left the UK on Wednesday night in the end. Are you guys back home by now?
Hi Tony, we were in the UK last week so missed your post. Finally completed the sale of our house so had to go back to clear out a few bits and pieces and sign the contract. Got the final word whilst crossing into Spain at Vielha. So we're now exclusively resident in Cataluña hooray!!
We've got a few visitors in August and Mrs PB has a 50km trail race in Rialp, middle of Sept. Thinking we might have a trip up to Ainsa at the end of Sept when it's a bit cooler. There's so much to fit in,some house renovations can start now we've got the cash from our house. The almond crop seems poor this year, apparently it goes in a 3 year cycle, last year was good. Hope your project is progressing well and the balls up with the Brexit and exchange rate hasn't caused too many issues. Needless to say we won't be turning the proceeds from our sale into euros anytime soon.
We want to get some additional building quotes - so just spoke to 2 different builders on the phone, neither of whom spoke any English.
Mrs Spekkie and I between us seem to have successfully arranged meetings for Monday morning and afternoon. Funny how the words go out of your head as soon as the person answers the phone and you break out into a sweat!
?#?Livinontheedge?
🙂
In Spain doesn't a meeting arranged for the monring actually take place in the afternoon ?
lol probably. And the afternoon meeting takes place in the evening over tapas!
Last night and continuing over this weekend in Ainsa is the annual "Fiesta of the Meteor Shower" . . .
The meteor shower, which occurs every August and falls on August 11th & 12th this year - comes as a result of the Earth moving through the trail of debris called the "Perseid cloud" which stretches along the orbit of the Swift-Tuttle Comet.
Here in Spain any excuse to "socialise, dance, drink alcohol and eat rich food" will do apparently.
🙂
Here daan saarf, its the beach festival of our local village where everyone decamps to the seaside which is about 10km away. Today was the children's day which involved planting bouncy castles/slides half in the sea and letting the kids run riot. My wife was volunteering and was having kittens that the electrically powered fans which kept the things inflated were also half in the sea!! Luckily no-one was drowned or electrocuted. Tomorrow is dancing, starting at about midnight and Sunday there's live music and a picnic for the grown-ups, unfortunately no bouncy castles. I'll keep an eye out for the meteors, it's been very clear the last few nights.
Tomorrow, GF and I start a roadtrip to Ainsa, arriving Sunday night (28th August).
We'll have 7 full days in Ainsa, happy to meet up for a few rides.
The Long and Winding (and treacherous!) road to our ongoing quest to obtaining planning permission for our project . . . . . . (Part 1)
Most of our posts on here have tended to be light-hearted and happy - and for the most part that has been exactly how things have been going for us over here in España. We have been very lucky - we've made some very good friends who have taken us into their homes & lives and treated us amazingly. We've been given help (and food!) without asking and generally treated like family. When the Spanish people say "mi casa su casa" (my house is your house) they really mean it. On top of that, the riding here is out of this world!
The professional people we've dealt with, the architect, our translator & solicitor and our financial advisor have become friends. All going "above and beyond" in order to help us with anything unplanned that has come up or anything we've struggled with. We are grateful to them all for making our lives easier than they could have been. Of course it's not all down to "luck" - I'd like to think that we're good people ourselves (well Mrs Spekkie is anyway) so maybe it's true that you do get back what you put out there . . . .
However, as with any good story, there has to be a couple of "baddies" in the plot. Too much sugar will give you diabetes after all . . . . .
We applied for planning permission back in the middle of March. We knew that it could take a bit of time and we were prepared for that - mentally and financially. We chased-up the office of the municipal architect ourselves for the first ten weeks or so - but then when we really seemed to be getting nowhere our architect started chasing for us. Initially he had left it to us because he felt the municipal office would take us more seriously than they would take him - on the basis that at any one time he might be chasing them for half a dozen different projects.
Once he took over the chasing it became apparent that "all was not well". There was some confusion in the municipal offices as to whether we'd received a particular letter from them or not. (despite me visiting and asking for it a trillion times!) Adding to the confusion was the fact that we'd requested any post they sent to us to go to the previous owners house (Ramon the farmer) - because our property didn't have it's own post box. Eventually our architect went with us to the municipal offices and we discovered that the letter we'd been waiting for had been sitting with them for seven weeks. . . .
Not cool, but what's done is done. The seven weeks had gone and we just had to get over it and move on, which we did. (I have mentioned this missing letter on here before, so for some people this might be a repeat, but it's important with regards to what happened next).
Thinking that everything would now be ok we fell into what turned out to be rather a false sense of security. It didn't take long before the next bomb-shell came our way. While our letter had been sitting in somebodies "In Tray" the Spanish law regarding what you can and can't do when renovating a rural property had changed! They had now placed percentage limits on the total area of a finished project when compared to the original pre-renovation property . . .
Oh joy . . . 🙂
Our architect consulted with a local lawyer, with an old friend in the government in Zaragoza and with a couple of local municipal advisors. The situation was clear - in this case where the change in law was nothing to do with public safety or similar, the municipal architect was obliged to take the date that we applied for planning permission, some weeks before the law changed, into account. To cut a long story short, after some badgering and raised voices the municipal architect agreed and our original plans & measurements would again be accepted.
Thinking that everything would now be ok we fell into what turned out to be rather a false sense of security. It didn't take long before the next bomb-shell came our way . . . (you will see that this is a recurring theme!)
Whilst on quick trip to the UK to see family and friends we received an email from our architect. One of our neighbours - a 90 year old man called Pepe had been to the municipal offices and objected to our planning application . . . .
In Part 2 you can find out what happened with 90 year old Pepe - now nicknamed "the busybody with far too much time on his hands!" . . . . .
The truely worthwhile often seems impossible at first. Chinese Proverb.
I won't say I enjoyed reading that but it's progress. Roll on Part 2
BTW I understand planning permission in Italy takes so long people just build and then pay any fines at a later date, its just added to the project cost when they are budgeting. Could be a myth but sounds believable.
sorry to hear about the delays!
My experience in Spain has been that it is kind of traditional to "wine and dine" the neighbourhood folk a little and to introduce yourself and to get accepted into the community, this is quite important in small villages.
Going to the bar regularly for the morning Almuerzo is a good investment
This is quite scary when you are still learning the language but also quite harmless 🙂
After a meal and a few drinks and getting to know your face nearly everyone will become friendly and offers of help and all sorts of advice will usually follow along with a return invitations.
Inviting your neighbours in and talking about what you are doing is a good idea as well, they often will invent wild stories if left to their imagination. A regular pop round for a drink type thing could be a good investment and its amazing what you can learn. 😉
The older folk often have a very different outlook on outsiders but like most Spanish people friendly and warm to you quickly once they get to know you a little.
Regarding building etc finding out who the trustworthy local builder is and employing them to do some of the work can often be very advantageous as they will know how to get things done, they get paid on completion and hate delays.
Find out who does work for the Bar,Alcalde,Ayuntamiento etc.
I have found that getting in with the folk to be a bit of a prerequisite to getting anything done formally, the beaurocracy can be a nightmare or surprisingly the appropriate documents can get stamped and filed in seconds while you discuss the next fishing trip/barbacue/village event etc. Being formal is expected but being friendly and open is too from what I have experienced.
sorry if I am missing the scale of things and you have a large complex construction that has some real issues that need to be dealt with.
¡Suerte!
After living for many years in Spain i've found that there never seems to be a " right " way to get through the red tape.The position constantly shifts depending on who you talk to.
I have found that getting in with the folk to be a bit of a prerequisite to getting anything done formally, the beaurocracy can be a nightmare or surprisingly the appropriate documents can get stamped and filed in seconds while you discuss the next fishing trip/barbacue/village event etc. Being formal is expected but being friendly and open is too from what I have experienced.
This is pretty much any Spanish business - there's a social aspect to it which you ignore at your peril. You need to learn how many kids they have, where they went on holiday, etc. With government officials I don't know I find heading in with a smile, at least a quick comment about the weather or last night's match make a significant difference to how helpful they'll be. And in a small village, it's the same but a 1000 times more...
The red tape, however, is to a certain extent unavoidable.
Thanks for update and having lived in spain for 15 years can empathise entirely. Local town halls are interesting places...I have had a few interactions with mine and tbh have had good service, but then I have not tried to change anything.
My brushes with bureaucracy however have been a nightmare, civil servants at say the tax office live in a different world, fixed hours, fixed salary and it used to be a job for life. Try anything a bit different and you are up against it.
So now I get Spanish professionals like my accountant and solicitor to do everything. Saying that it looks like you do too but you are trying to change something.
A good example of above is when I bought a house here the wrong reference was logged at the land registry. I effectively bought a different house, and someone mine. This went on for 10 years with some people getting stressed out, my neighbour thinking he owned mine...Anyway, my solicitor sorted it and did not even charge me.
Good luck, be patient, be very patient.
The Long and Winding (and treacherous!) road to our ongoing quest to obtaining planning permission for our project . . . . . . (Part 2)
When you buy a property in a developed or built up area the boundaries of the property are generally clear. Fences or walls exist and all parties concerned usually know where their property ends and someone else's begins. In the case of rural properties like ours, the lines are usually just as clear, but they will often be lines formed by trees & hedges, rivers or ancient stone walls. The principal is the same though - the agreed lines are the limits of the property.
Here in Spain the department that looks after boundaries and the like is called the "Department of the Catastral" - (Department of Maps). Or as we've named them now - the Department of Catastrophies.
It turns out that some 90% of all the rural maps held by the Catastral are incorrect. They thought they were doing ok but with the advent of Google Earth and similar mapping systems it turns out that they are not doing ok at all.
It's not entirely their fault - farmers have had a habit of selling off bits of property over the years but not telling the council or the Catastral (Capital Gains Tax avoidance) and so the maps are simply out of date. Now this isn't a problem if both parties are still alive, have their faculties and are still friends, but it becomes a huge problem if any (or all) of those criteria are not filled. Guess which camp we fall into . . . . . . 😉
So, Ramon the friendly Farmers family sold some of their land many years ago without doing the correct paperwork. Then as the farm was left from one generation to another the neighbours gradually fell out with each until present time - where no love is lost between them.
To drive between the end of the municipal access road in our part of the village and onto our front garden we have to cross the corner of a piece of land that belongs to "Pepe". The distance we are on his land would be approximately 15 feet. Pepe was annoyed that his enemy (or rather his families enemy) has sold a property (to us) and made some money so now to be difficult he has decided that maybe he doesn't want us driving over his land. The land in question is actually a big flat turning area where cars and farm vehicles can park or turn. The department of planning permission in Ainsa have said they will not proceed until this issue is resolved . . . .
Now the story get both complicated and intriguing - the architect called for a meeting on site to resolve the problem. The meeting included us - fresh back from the UK, Pepe the land owner, Ramon Snr (the previous property owner), estranged Ramon Jnr - who owns property No 5, the Architect and the Estate Agent. The estate agent says she was under the impression that access to our front garden was allowed because of the "historic right of way" that has been set over the years - but she is also the niece of Pepe, so she doesn't want to get too involved. Ramon Snr insists the historic right of way dictates access, but he won't talk to Pepe directly, only to the architect. Ramon Jnr says (grudgingly) that his dad is legally right but that he told him to have this stuff written down "before the property went on the market!" because he knew this would happen! The architect who is trying to sort this all out is not doing it purely out of the goodness of his own heart . . . .he owns the estate agency who, if push came to shove, would be sued for selling a property and not disclosing existing problems . . . . Halfway through the meeting the "Family of Pepe" arrived. This is his other niece and her husband and their 24 year old son. It turns out that they actually own the house and the land, not Pepe. Now they are annoyed with Pepe for causing trouble with the new neighbours (us) but they can't show their anger in front of Ramon Snr - enemy of the family . . .. The niece and the architect come to an agreement that we will continue to drive across the land as always and this agreement is explained to us by their son - the only one in their family that speaks English.
So, we have an agreement written up, the architect draws up a plan showing all of our actual boundaries in their correct positions and everyone is happy. The agreement is signed the next day in the architects office and we take it to the municipal office for the town architect explaining to him that he can now proceed with our planning application . . . From here everything should be ok, right?
Two days later we get a message from the architect to say that Alberto, a different neighbour (and friend of Pepe's) who has a holiday home with land adjoining us, but on a different side, has issued an objection to our planning application . . . . .
to be continued . . . . .
the only one in their family that speaks English.
You really, really need to learn Spanish. And fast! 🙂
Like the Sopranos. 😆 Thanks for sharing (love a bit of gossip!) and good luck!
Was an old man in the Sopranos killed mysteriously in the night? Getting damn close over here!
Thanks for the luck - we're getting there . . 🙂
mogrim - we speak enough to make ourselves understood and to understand what's going on. It's actually almost more important to learn the dynamics of the old families in the village.
I found having a friend in Recaudación always helped for me. 
Along with regular coffee with the local Sargento, etc.
The best was regularly opening the main safe in the Ayuntamiento on a monday morning after the Alcaldé had gone out after work on friday! "No sabe dondë estas los llaves otro vece....."
All joking aside - vino, gofio y un buen discutir solved many"issues" as insults, etc are thrown across the table but not taken offence to due to how they see that type of get together.
All joking aside - vino, gofio y un buen discutir solved many"issues" as insults, etc are thrown across the table but not taken offence to due to how they see that type of get together.
I mentioned this earlier in the thread - the social aspect is massively important in Spanish business, far more so that in the UK. If someone says "tomamos un café?" at the end of a meeting, don't say no!
Por supuesto Mogrim 😉
There is no business without being social in spain - gave up on so many ex-pats asking for help to sort something out over the years when they refused to acknowledge that you needed to chat outside of the office more than inside it.
Because Ainsa is a fairly small place we often bump into various officials, bank managers etc in town and we got on well with everyone. It's true that often something that was discussed with a border-line outcome in a meeting can become a positive after a cup of coffee.
It's not a bad way of life 🙂
Must admit I miss it - especially when you have to deal with the bloated bullshit that is the day to day bollocks here in the UK.
you needed to chat outside of the office more than inside it.
totally. I'm doing translations for three big rail projects this year, after chatting to another dad at the school bus stop where I drop my lad off. Another for the local Uni because I met someone in a bar who knows someone. If I'd gone looking for the work I probably wouldn't have found it. I'm not even a translator...
Good luck with everything OP; if you need to get away from it all for a weekend there are a few of us STWers a couple of hours away in the Basque Country.
Cheers bob. We will get out that way sometime soon I'm sure. Doug from Basque MTB says he does it in about 2 hrs!
Doug has a bit of headstart from those of us on the coast! Takes me about half that to find whereever I parked the car.
Keep us posted, the riding might not be Pyreneene but there are good eats and drinks here.
Maybe see you again this week or next spekkie! BTW 2 hrs was at 5am racing to show the Dirt guys around the trails. The drive there was more scary than trying to follow them on the bike 😉 3hrs is a nice time to do it in. Like I said last time, if you fancy the coast give me a shout, it's great riding there too. I will cheer you up with my house building stories over a beer next time!
Would be great to catch up again if you are through this way Doug! 🙂
I suspect I could do Pamplona in 2 hrs from here but not your place. Generally I drive slower than most anyway. Mrs Bonus is not a good passenger in the mountains!
I've been riding and cataloguing the Zona-Zero trails lately and last week I popped into Intersport and introduced myself to Angel. I told him I'd be helping him with trail maintenance over the winter. Seems like a great bloke and he was really pleased to meet me. In amongst the nonsense that has been going on it was reassuring to be reminded that it's only the odd neighbour that's being difficult. Generally we are being welcomed and accepted by everyone.
We had Darran from LavaTrax-Tenerife here for a few days last week. Really nice guy. It was his first visit here so I showed him around a bit and he showed me a few trail riding tricks 🙂 Then in the evenings we all got together for dinner/drinks and had some nice chats about business ideas etc. I took him up to see our project and he liked it.
"The Long and Winding Road Part 3" . . .
We now have a second agreement in place - this time with little Alberto, the 75 year old neighbour who's land borders onto the back of our property.
The "Alberto issue" has not been a pleasant one. The planning objection with Pepe was a nuisance and a worry but it was never really unpleasant and with hindsight it was worth getting it sorted out before rather than after we did our renovations - because vehicular access to our front garden in essential. This latest issue has just been unpleasant.
In a nutshell . . . .
The architect designed our property so that the north-west facing wall of our "tower" which faces the mountains and has the best views, would contain six windows. 2 on the ground floor - lounge and dining room, 2 on the middle floor - bedrooms, and 2 on the top floor - bedrooms. In order for the council to grant us planning permission to put windows into that wall (which being a "barn" currently has none) we would either need to own the land for 3 meters in front of the tower wall or obtain permission from the person that does own it.
According to all the existing documentation, we do own a 3m strip of land in front of the tower but our neighbour, who owns the land that comes after that, disputes this fact, claiming that the existing documentation / agreement, which he signed, was incorrectly drafted back in 2008. As soon as he flagged this dispute between the two of us up to the municipality they would not proceed. They will only continue once we have a resolution. Either an agreement between us or an instruction from a court (if we were to go to trial).
So we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place. Firstly the municipality will not proceed with any dispute active. We are told that our documentation is good and that we can go to trial and almost certainly win - but it could take a year or more to get there. Meanwhile the project will just sit. Alternatively we can concede that the land belongs to Alberto, we would have to sign an agreement saying so and then he will sign an agreement allowing us to put our windows into our wall and will sign over to us a strip of land tight against the wall of the tower allowing us to get between the road and our back garden. With this agreement the municipality would be happy and we should have our planning permission very shortly.
We were not happy - it felt too much like we're being "blackmailed" by someone willing to "sit it out for as long as it takes" but the advice of our architect and all of our friends was to "sign the agreement and get on with our lives". . .
So - we've signed up and taken the agreement to the council. They say there are no further issues and hat our license should be with us soon . . . let's see 🙂
To be bonest "blackmail" or more politely "ransom" is what I had in mind as I read it. Remember you are the rich foreigners and can always shell out a little extra. Border disputes aren't just a Spanish thing we had a UK neighbour r just move a fence and install a gate for access onto private land ! She even drew on the land registery maps to show how they where wrong. She did it with us and another neighbour on a different border.
Keep the updates coming and enjoy the autumn sunshine
I had heard of the concept of "Ransom Strips" previously form people who went into the self-build game years ago. So we were very careful when we bought this place. Apparently not careful enough though.
Never mind. . . .karma will sort it out 🙂
Hi Spekkie, sorry to hear of your travails. We're briefly back in the UK as we needed to get an mot on our VW camper and are leaving it here to sell. We stopped off in the Pyrenees last weekend as Mrs PB had entered a trail race in Rialp. She was talked into doing the 54km event which involved a 20km uphill to 2800m then up and down a ridge above the ski station of Espot. It was brutal and she came in just inside the 15 hour time limit. I managed to get to the 30km feed station and it was very cold and snowing on the tops. We fly back on Sunday and will be getting stuck into installing a log burner to replace the largely decorative one that had us shivering in Jan and Feb. We also need to upgrade our solar power capacity as the current setup is inadequate for the shorter sunlight hours in the winter. We have had a similar experience of having to get our faces known in our village in order to find reputable tradesmen. Once we are sorted with the heat and power upgrades, it would be nice to pop up and say hello.
Would be good to meet up - keep me posted!
Hopefully our problems are behind us for a while now.
🙂
Hi Spekkie, was good to meet up last week. I really enjoyed my little break in Aìnsa on my way back to "work". Thanks to you and Mrs Spekkie for the hospitality, was much appreciated.
Glad to hear that you seem to have turned the corner on your planning woes and hopefully you'll get your building licence pretty soon. It's a stunning spot and what you described to me sounded incredible.
I hope to be back again to play out in the Pyrenees next year when you'll hopefully be up and running.
For now, good luck!
Within a week of buying our property in Spain the ex mayor came down with a piece of string and sectioned off part of our land. He then asked us if we wanted to buy it.We thought " old fool,he's got it wrong ".
A couple of years later a woman turned up and told us to keep off her land.After much shouting and arguing we took our Escritura ( deeds) together with plans of the plot numbers registered to us,down to the Catastro( council land registry).
Turns out he had the section of land registered to him and then sold it.No explanation from the deeds office how he did it ,probably bribery,and it couldn't be reversed unless 2 other neighbours took him to court.
He used to be the Mayor under the Franco regime and was despised by many people in the village as he stole land during that period.One of my neighbours was fearful of him.
The woman then fenced the land and said she would build smack in front of us.We had 2 visits from the Guardia after her complaints but eventually the ill feeling got too much and she abandoned the land.
The old guys son came to see us and said the woman will never return so we think that her money was returned.
The ex mayor is now in a nursing home and many in the village are glad to be rid of him.
Was a pleasure Potdog! Glad you enjoyed it. I've ridden, photographed and catalogued two more trails this last week - by the time you come back I'll be able to show you the best of the best!
joeegg - thankfully nothing quite as bad as that in our situation. In fact our guys sound positively friendly by comparison!
What a weekend! Yesterday we spent the day picking grapes with Rosa & Ramon down in the vineyard, today we spent the day at the farmhouse sorting, stomping and pressing. Tomorrow we will pick again and Tuesday we should finish the last of the processing. Then the grape just must sit for a while 🙂
We've enjoyed it but I can tell you these old guys know how to do a hard days work. And all of it with a chat and a smile - as if it were no work at all.
We have heard from the Municipal Architect in Ainsa and he is happy with our house plans and the agreements we have with our neighbours regarding access to our property etc.
He has forwarded our file to the regional architects office in Huesca (the main town nearby) for final approval. . . . we might actually be getting there now!
🙂
8)
5 days of picking grapes, stomping grapes and eating grapes! All done now - yesterday we finished cleaning up. Now we wait a fortnight for the grape juice to ferment.
We were finished by lunchtime so I was able to get back out on the Zona Zero trails yesterday afternoon for a ride 🙂
Today we are going to look at cars in the nearest big town, Barbastro. After 6 months of residency in Spain you either have to buy a Spanish car or register your foreign car with Spanish plates. It's quite expensive to do and for us, with a British car, there's also some retro work to do because the headlights point the wrong way etc.
So, we're looking for a four wheel drive SUV type vehicle with a tow-bar that will do us for day to day stuff initially but also be able to get us up the access roads in the mountains to the top of some of the climbs because we are going to offer "uplifting" to those of our visitors who "like to ride down but don't always like riding up". . . .
Personally I'm loving the climbing 🙂
Now that we're heading into winter up here in the Northern Hemisphere (although it's still lovely weather where we are in Spain) we spent some time at the weekend going through the barn that Ramon the friendly farmer is lending us to store our furniture and belongings in until our house is ready. We only expected having to use it for a few months in the Spring but of course all the delays have knocked that for six. Everything is still clean & tidy and well wrapped up though and we even dug a few more things out to use at the apartment in the meantime.
Today Ramon and I drained the 1600 litre, 200 year old wooden cask that he has in his cellar and that we'd filled with stomped grape juice two weeks ago. It's finished fermenting and was ready to store. He has 4x 200 litre stainless steel tanks and an assortment of about a zillion old wine bottles that we've now filled and shelved. At the moment he still has about 400 litres of last years wine left to finish. By then the new stuff will be ready to go. It was hard work - because Ramon insisted on us both frequently testing the wine as we drained it out of the cask . . . . a tough job, but someone has to do it!
🙂
A few ups and downs here in Southern Cataluña. We have finished harvesting the almonds, mainly because the crop was very poor due to the very dry summer. Bizarrely only the trees that we didn't get round to pruning bore fruit and getting the nuts involved scrabbling around in the tops with a net underneath to catch them as they fell. Normally it's just a matter of picking them a shoulder height. We have to use our high tech machine to remove the shell, this is a process called shucking and you feed them into a hopper then a revolving paddle hits the shell until the nut falls out. This halves the weight that is saleable but at least the shells make good kindling for the fire.
We have had a new wood burner fitted to replace the totally inadequate one we inherited. Hopefully this will give us the output we need in the 2-3months when it's chilly here.
Unfortunately our solar power setup has chosen to fall over just as we get into the shorter days, one of the battery calls has failed and we cannot just stick another one into the line as they are connected in series and need to be balanced. We have decided to bite the bullet and get an improved system which will more than double our storage capacity and with the price of solar panels very low at the moment, we are looking at double the output there as well.
We've asked local suppliers to quote but each has their own view on what will work so it's taking a bit of sorting out.
The problem with this is that we will need to transfer a chunk of money into Euros and the exchange rate is killing us. We paid for the house just over a year ago with the rate at 1.43 and now it's rapidly moving towards parity.
At least the sun is shining today and there's a public holiday tomorrow. Rally Cataluña comes past here on Friday so will be off there on the bike.
Still planning to have a trip up north to see you Spekkie but need to get our power requirements sorted first
No rush - when you're ready. Mrs PB can let me know on FB 🙂
We're also looking at having a part solar system installed for the summertime.
Tomorrow is the Dia de Pilar I believe 🙂
Just had another guy come to talk about solar, even more confused now! You have to tread on eggshells so as not to appear either an easy touch or a know it all. All we want is a like for like quote but everyone has a different opinion as to what we need???
Forgot to say when you were talking about cars and tow bars, if the trailer is braked or carries over a certain weight, it will need to be "matriculated"
The 6 month thing on driving abroad seems very poorly policed, we have only just taken our camper van back to the UK to sell, we've been here just over a year. We know several people who have been driving UK registered cars here for years, they just take them back for MOT when it's due.
Hope to see you soon.
Pretty sure you cannot insure a UK registered car in Spain and no UK insurer AFAIK will cover that kind of usage abroad.
If you drive a foreign registered vehicle without insurance in the UK for years I suppose that is not frowned upon.
If you drive a foreign registered vehicle without insurance in the UK for years I suppose that is not frowned upon.
It's illegal, but without an agreement on information exchange with the foreign equivalent to the Association of British Insurers, the ANPR machine has no info to cross-reference.
Liberty Seguros will give you insurance for a UK registered car in Spain, or at least they used to, I used them when we moved over here.
Pretty sure you cannot insure a UK registered car in Spain and no UK insurer AFAIK will cover that kind of usage abroad.
You can insure a uk car abroad. You'll have to get it back to the uk for its MOT once a year mind.
https://www.stuartcollins.com/
The only problem might be local legislation. In Austria, after 3 months, the car has to be registered locally or they fine you.
Can give you the name of at least 3-4 brokers in spain who will happily sort out a UK car with insurance.
It's big business.
On Friday morning we went into our local council office to check on the progress of our planning application. We were told that the regional architect in Huesca has approved our plans and they have been returned to the architect in Ainsa, who had approved them previously. Now the local council architect just needs to make sure that all of the paperwork is in place and sign it off. We are hoping that will happen this week . . . .
Meanwhile, on Friday afternoon I got a call from Angel, the man behind the whole Ainsa Zona-Zero MTB/Enduro project to see if I was free to help him with some trail work. I had been in and introduced myself to him at the bike shop a while ago - my intentions coming here were always to get involved and help out wherever I can - and he'd said that he'd start working on the trails in the autumn and was very keen to have any help. He's a great guy, speaks a bit of English and is passionate about the trails.
We went out on Friday and again this afternoon creating a new single-track using an ancient sheep path through the forest . . . .
🙂
Finally !!!
We have been told that our planning application is fully approved and permission has been granted! We will receive the temporary "certificate of license" tomorrow by registered post and then the official certificate once we've paid the council their fee. (which is hopefully not to much!)
We can now go back to the bank - who agreed with our business plan "in principal" but could not proceed with our building loan application without the building license being issued.
#sighofrelief
Congratulations, sort of. Now you have to deal with builders, who are all sorts of fun to work with 🙂
Whether Spanish ones are worse than British ones is something I'm not qualified to comment on... just get decent local references and speak to the people who've worked with them. And make sure any contract has a penalty clause for going over time.
🙂
On trail building just curious as to who owns the land and what are the official access rules vs reality ?
Well done, you can get started legally now. Good builders and plumbers are worth paying extra for. I have been planning a bathroom refurb here and spent hours planning. The plumber came yesterday and in 5 mins came up with some really good ideas. He said 25 years experience you see a lot.
Good luck btw, I did not finish my letting season till last week so did not get up your way on the bike.
jambalaya - the trails are all on either "public" or council/government owned land or (occasionally) on private land with permission.
Zona Zero is a network of around 1000kms of trails, tar roads, paths, sheep track, jeep track, fire roads, access roads and singletrack.
Today after three afternoons of work Angel took me on a trail I haven't done before and we finished with riding down our brand new single track back to the car. It was, as he said, Fantastico.
8)
That looks dandy.
Keep up the good work. 🙂
Zona Zero is a network of around 1000kms of trails, tar roads, paths, sheep track, jeep track, fire roads, access roads and singletrack.
Shamefully I have never been despite it being just 3-4h away. Haven't got a MTB at the mo - is there stuff I can ride on a fat tyred roadbike?
Bob - Depending on your skill level and the fatness of your tyres . . . I'm sure there's plenty.
I think this quote from Angel at the end of the “MTB Zona Zero Documental” video sums up life here in Ainsa, Spain …
“If you see a stone that bothers you, you stop and you remove it, the same as everyone else”
A good way to get the bottom half of your car buffed up in Ainsa town!
Last week Angel (from Zona-Zero, Ainsa) and I checked out an old disused & overgrown path, around about 1.5km long, near the village of Torrelisa. He wanted to clean It up to provide an alternative downhill run on Route 7.
The first thing we did was walk the path to see how bad it was (it was bad!) and whether it could be turned back into a useable bike trail or not (It could).
Then this week we went back with tools and started work. Stage 1 consists of cutting and removing the biggest branches with the use of a chainsaw and clearing the bigger fallen rocks off the whole length of the path. Stage 2 sees us doing a second pass for the smaller bushes and branches with a petrol strimmer (weed-eater) and clearing away the debris and any smaller stones we missed the first time.
Today halfway down the path we discovered an old natural spring that riders can use for drinking water 🙂
These are some "Before/During” Pics on my Blog Page:
🙂
Found an old stone suspension bridge just off "Route 6 Light" Zona Zero the other day. You would use it if the weir just upstream of here became submerged due to a high river water-level.
You can see here how wide the river bed is and it looks like it's too wide. A few hours heavy rain up in the mountains though and this boulder strewn dry riverbed becomes a torrent . . .
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lovely
A few hours heavy rain up in the mountains though and this boulder strewn dry riverbed becomes a torrent . . .
Also during the "deshielo" in spring when all the snow melts... There are loads of "rivers" like that in central Spain, too.
We have our Building License! Finally. We went and signed for it today at the municipal architects office. Now we can move forward. What a relief . . . .
It is officially time to break out the champagne!
🙂
8)
Well done, definitely time to break out he bubbly.
We are slowly getting there as well. The new wood burner is working well, we've had a few chilly evenings lately and it sure pumps out a lot of heat. The upgraded solar installation happened last week, we've gone from 3 to 8 solar panels and doubled our battery capacity. We can also monitor performance on line and are learning the tech involved in optimising battery life and output. The last piece of the to do list is taking a bit more time. We found several rotten ceiling beams a few months ago and a local builder has been promising to renew them. He turned up a couple of weeks ago promising to deliver the beams within days to be painted prior to fitting, we are still waiting.
Had a lovely club ride on Sunday following a route which ran through an area where a big civil war battle took place, there were stone plaques every few hundred metres with tributes to the fallen Republican fighters. Need to do a bit of reading on local history.
Had a lovely club ride on Sunday following a route which ran through an area where a big civil war battle took place, there were stone plaques every few hundred metres with tributes to the fallen Republican fighters. Need to do a bit of reading on local history.
Presumably the Battle of the Ebro, I think you said you were in southern Catalonia. Last major battle of the Civil War and pretty much guaranteed that the Fascists would win...
Yes that's the one Molgrim. We often ride past caves which were used as Republican hideouts and many buildings still have bullet marks. Strange to think that less than 80 years ago, hundreds of people died in these hills. The inscriptions on the stones looked fresh. There's a museum in Corbera d'Ebre which we are planning to visit.
I'm going to post here more Often!
This afternoon 3 blokes turned up in a transit van with our long lost beams. The 6 metre lengths stuck out of the rear doors with a bit of rag tied on to pacify the mossos. We've now got to get as many coats of preservative on as possible before they come to fit then. When pressed their answer to the question ¿when? was next week possibly the week after. Hope we get them in by Christmas....