LATEST NEWS!

Drilling starts a week before Christmas....

Due to our location, we live in fear of a housing development appearing in the open fields of the valley below us, which would spoil our fantastic view. So we were delighted to hear from one of our neighbours that the field directly adjoining our land is to be planted with olive trees.

We have noticed that there are large numbers of young olive trees being planted locally, so one can only assume that there is a subsidy available from the town hall.

Here are a couple of photographs of them boring a well in preparation, which was really quite exciting and interesting! It took four days to complete!

A huge generator is required....

FAMILY VISIT

Our Special Little Chap...

Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of our control, we got a little behind with our BLOG during the latter part of last year, but there is one event that we really do have to report on.

I (Mike) received an early and very special Christmas present!

With our ever-growing family, it is becoming very difficult for me to get away, so you can imagine our delight when Guy and Amanda surprised us with the news that they were coming over with Ollie and our new grandson Dexter on the weekend of my birthday.

It gave me the opportunity of meeting Dexter in person and spending some time with him while he is still a baby and what a super little lad he is…. He has a great personality and was so quiet and well behaved that we hardly knew he was here.

It was also great to see Ollie again, who has grown into a charming and very special young man! From the photographs you can see that he had a great time with the animals and our dogs were all very sad when he left.

Sadly, the weekend went so quickly, but we did find time to take tapas in town at one of our favourite bars and pay a visit to the Cueva de Gato, the caves located on the road to Benaojan. The huge entrance of this cave resembles the face of a cat, thus the name ‘The Cave of the Cat’ as it has been known through the centuries. The unpredictable floods of this cave river have claimed many lives over the years and during the torrential rain of last winter, all of the access bridges were washed away.

Needless to it was lovely to see them all and enjoy many hugs and cuddles with Dexter and hopefully we can all get together again later in the year…

A devoted and doting Nanny

Gosh...Where did he get that hat?

Ollie enjoys a ride on Hector!

Shame about the washing line....

That's my boy....

BABY LIA

'Lia at 4 days'

What an exciting time we are having here at the moment with the arrival of our new baby!

Lia is now four days old and full of energy! She has put on half a kilo in that time, so now weighs in at 8kgs and is incredibly strong for one so young.

Lilly continues to be a very attentive, protective and loving mother and is never more than a few yards away from her daughter at any given time!

PATTER OF TINY FEET...

Lilly and Lia...

Linda and Mike Hall are pleased to announce the birth of their third alpaca cria…

Lia (Leah) was born at 11:30am on the 10th February 2011 and weighed in at 7.5kgs and is the daughter of our Lilly and Monty of Alpacas de Andalucia.

As you can see, both mother and baby are both doing well…

Lilly is a fantastic mother...



When Lia met Sally...

First steps...

First Meal..

This evening's sunset - What a wonderful introduction to the world...

LITTLE RED ROOSTER....

Caliph...showing off!

We have a new member of our ever-growing managerie....

At a party last summer, at our friends Norman and Viv’s house in Algodonales, we met Isidoro, a charming Spanish builder, who has subsequently done some work on our house!

During our conversation, we happened to mention that we had chickens, as did he and when he discovered that we didn’t have a cockerel, he insisted on giving us one of his as a present.

Months passed and nothing was forthcoming, so we assumed that he had forgotten. However, one day to our surprise, he suddenly turns up with this magnificent cockerel…

We have named him Caliph (Moorish leader) and as you can see from the photographs, he seems to be very happy in his new surroundings and with his newly formed harem!!

The alpaca boys look on....

Leader of the pack....

FOR ALAN AND LORNA...

Lin and her 4 faithful companions

Our first BLOG entry of the New Year is for our dear friends Alan and Lorna from Cordoba, with whom we have just spent a couple of smashing days. We had a gathering of alpaca owners yesterday at Jane’s new house in Gaucin and as it is a six hour round trip to there from Cordoba, Alan and Lorna stayed over with us last night.

Although it was a miserable evening weather-wise, we decided to go into Ronda for bite to eat at a very well known restaurant; the name of which I am forbidden to divulge, as I have been sworn to secrecy by my dear wife!!!

Alan…the mushrooms are now history!!

Since the beginning of November we have been rather pre-occupied with our olive harvest, which has demanded a lot of our time. The weather this winter has been very kind to us, so we have been making hay whilst the sun shines. To date, we have collected close to 3 metric tonnes of olives, which is our best yearly total by far and we still have a dozen or so trees to do.

We had a lovely time over Christmas with Eddie and Karen, who came over on Christmas Eve and stayed with us through to the New Year. It was really nice to spend sometime with them and due to the favourable weather conditions we were able to take a number of days walking in the mountainous areas of the Sierra de las Nieves Natural Park, including the ‘Puerta Verde de Marbella’ which is a restored network of cattle trails 43 kilometers long that weaves its way from Ronda through to Marbella.

Ed and Jack on a mission!!


Two birds eye views of the main Ronda to San Pedro Road

The remains of the Guardia Civil post that they maintained for hudreds of years to protect the merchants against bandits that terrorised the route....

An ancient collection point for water

Needless to say, Ed found some time helping us out with a number of jobs that needed doing around the place and also pitched in with the olive picking, prior to his return on the 14th January!

Can we take this opportunity of wishing all our friends back in the UK a belated Happy, Peaceful and Prosperous New Year………

Some fantastic winter views from our house at sunrise!

The sunsets are not bad either...

LUCKY ESCAPE

We had a very exciting Saturday morning….we decided to take the dogs for a walk in a local olive grove to us and collect some mushrooms, which we had seen growing there on a previous occasion.

As you can see, we had quite a success day, although we were in for a big surprise. We walked right into the middle of a local hunt and were suddenly surrounded by a pack of hunting dogs and a hunter brandishing a shotgun....

We really should have known better, as hunting is a regular pastime of the locals during most weekends of the hunting season…

Needless to say, we didn’t stick around for very long and made a hasty exit....

With winter closing in and the time for using our wood burning stove fast approaching, we thought you might like to see a photograph of our wood pile, which was created by Ed during his last visit, before it’s depleted!

This reminds me….last winter we inherited the Christmas tree of our dear friends Caroline and Robert, which we duly planted in our garden and as you can see it’s doing really well.