Moving home across the way

After a happy summer in our one-room, oven-ready casita we’ve moved to a house nearby. It’s much bigger, has a downstairs space you could play boules in and an audience of geckos that dart around the walls trying to escape the cats’ claws.

They’re being kept in for a week or two to stop them returning to their previous home – but they’ll be back there in no time, wondering why there’s no-one to feed them.

After carting our belongings by hand, we found a baby snake on our first day (collected in a jar and put back where it belongs). We’ve been told wild boar have appeared in the garden.

We now have a slightly different view of the omnipresent Sierra de Lújar with its sunset furnace and glitter in the dark (thanks Bat For Lashes).

There’s an open fireplace that should keep us all cosy in the winter, though it’s hard to imagine while temperatures are still in the 30s. September has surprised everyone with some dramatic thunderstorms, but the blue sky and sunshine still dominate.

We’re lucky enough to have a swimming pool. Once a hundred flies, wasps, spiders and moths are skimmed from the surface, we take the plunge. This evening, bats swoop and scoop off the remainder. They are silent.

The figs are bursting off the trees – their dark purple skins slashed like victims of a knife fight, wounds dripping jammy blood. The pomegranates are also opening up. We have grapes along the fence and in the olive grove and want to make wine from them.

The oranges and lemons are still green and will ripen in the next few months. We’re told Christmas time is marmalade-making season. An avocado tree shades a derelict building next to the house. It was perhaps used to slaughter pigs. Our bedroom was once a ramshackle space and no doubt has seen its fair share of chickens. The downstairs area was where animals were kept. You’d never know it now – a bit of Órgiva’s rural past buried beneath terracotta tiles and cotton rugs.

The avocado tree bears fruit in October – we’ve never seen one before. We can expect fruit the size of a boxer’s fist which will only ripen off the tree – about five days at room temperature.

Yes, we think we’ll enjoy living here.

The photos below were taken as this post was written.