Last year in the middle of December the rain started, and lordy Lord without a word of a lie, it hardly stopped for three months. We practically lived in our wellies, and the poor alpacas looked so glum, bless them! This year so far has been a lot better, however, when the rain began around the second week in December it was pretty torrential. "Drenching showers" the weather forcast called it! Once last year Alan saw the river flow over the top of our little bridge, ever so slightly! Oh no, not this year! I don't know if it was sheer volume of water that runs off down the hills, that filter through the gullies on the tracks, and into the little "arroyo's" that eventually join the huge Guadalquivir river, that runs through Andulcia.
When it rains hard here, we have very little solar, and the television has no satellite signal, so there was little else to do than read, be on the laptop, or gaze out of the window. Generally feeling rather miserable. We could hear our little river (arroyo) roaring with the speed the water was travelling at. Occasionally we would wander down our track in our wellies and coats to just look. At one point Alan had been looking over the alpaca paddock and he realised the bridge had gone.... disapeared.
The bridge is made up of a huge metal tube, which is basically held in place by rocks, stone and mud. An olive container (the back of a lorry) had been washed from its collection point, and had been dragged down in the sheer force of water and wedged under our bridge. Of course this limited the amount of water getting through the pipe and the water began flowing around the sides and over the top of it. The tube had been pushed further down the river, plus the olive containr too, and left a gaping hole between us and the town of Montoro............... yikes!
The following day, lots of locals, well maybe 20 or so, that's a lot for us, throughout the day, came to look at the damage done and many little meetings seemed to be in progress. Lots of shouting, wildly gesticulating , shaking heads, and then driving off was taking place. The following day, a man arrived with a chain saw and a huge eucalyptus tree was cut down, at a point across the river, so at least people could get across it. You see where we live, very few people if any use the houses around us as their permant homes. Their country homes are used for occasional weekends, holidays and through the olive picking season. They are often used solely by their olive pickers. Which could be a Spanish family of 4 or 5 adults, or even a group of Romanians. They would live there, and the farmers would come in to check on their work, maybe working with them, probably not, most days. Of course the olive pickers were in the same situation as us, as they could not get out to go to town. When word had got around, the olive pickers would walk down towards our house and climb over the tree and be collected by car from their bosses the other side, to get food in.
However we had no one the other side waiting for us!
After a couple of days, more meetings, more gesticulating, something seemed to be happening. We were sure someone official would turn up, with a tape measure at least. Nope that did n't happen, but one man put a stick in the water, to check the depth of the river. Another obviously felt he could not be trusted so he got IN the river, it was only about waist high by then. It had subsided considerably. The next thing we knew we heard rumbling and two tractors turned up, and things started to happen! It took two days for the tube to be back in place and a whole lot of mud to be dragged and pressed around it. Cars were driving over it, but how long was it going to last, was the big question?
To the left of the palm tree you can just see the corner of the blue olive container
The bridge has been washed away!
Sad looking Sunshine Santa
Its all coming back together
A tractor, a meeting, our alpacas, a man and his 2 dogs, in on the action!
Can you spot the rock of Gibralter?
