Abundant. Yes truly abundant.
As we shot through Murcia on the A7-E15, we passed an orange ‘factory’. There were massive containers full of shiny, bright oranges and just a second later, we could smell their beautiful aroma. We were aiming for Paul and Geraldine’s holiday house which hides somewhere between Lorca and Puerto Lumbreras. They don’t actually have an address and apart from a photo of a tree nearby, we had no idea what we were looking for. We got close, but after a lot of driving up and down country lanes, we gave in and phoned Paul (aka Charisma, aka Carisma (the Spanish spelling)). He drove out to find us and as it turned out we were within a minute of the house, so I was vaguely impressed with our navigating. Note to Paul: hang your house name sign on the front of the house, not the back….?
And so started our days of dining, drinking, talking, shopping, more talking and more eating and for some, a fair bit of hangover recovering…
On our first afternoon I squeezed at least 40 oranges and lemons which had fallen from their trees. Ah the joys of a very fresh, really fresh, orange juice. But here’s a future tip for storage, don’t keep it in the fridge with all the aioli and garlic-infused cold meats; there is something vaguely strange about garlic-infused orange juice in the morning…..
On Sunday morning, Russell and Caroline relaxed at the house while Charisma (aka Carisma aka Paul) and Geraldine took us to the local town for a roam around the market in La Estacion. Whilst Geraldine was deep in conversation on the best way to cook the local artichokes, a lot of people on horseback, carriages and a saint arrived in the car park behind. They all looked fabulous in their traditional costumes and the horses were preened, plaited and totally under control as they pranced and paraded. Apparently it was XII Romeria en honor a Ntra Sra Virgen del Rocio and this was their pará rociera, or esplanade, at the weekly market; not sure what that all meant, but we were pretty impressed. Apparently there were other things going on later in the day, but a storm moved over the house and no-one fancied going out again.
On Monday afternoon, Paul & Geraldine were driving us to a supermarket to stock up on more food and wine, when Paul pulled over on a country lane, because he thought he just drove past a tortoise. A tortoise?!! And yes, it was a tortoise and it was very, very slowly crossing the road. As we were all concerned that he might not make it to the other side before another vehicle came along, we decided to speed up his journey a bit. I picked him up, introduced myself and then Paul took him to the other side of the road and placed him on the grassy verge. Geraldine and I were concerned that he might just turn around and walk back out in to the road, so Geraldine picked him up and took him to a field of cabbages, away from the road. We all hoped he would be happy there and that perhaps raw cabbages might be a good dinner for him. Hopefully he’s still happy in the cabbage patch.
Later that day the six of us went for drinks and tapas at Loma’s Bar in Puerto Lumbreras and I managed to get drunk on one Bacardi and coke, but I swear it wasn’t just one drink, it looked to me like the barman poured half a bottle of Bacardi into my glass.
On Tuesday, our last day all together, we drove over to a restaurant which was right on the beach at Calabardina. It was a really pretty spot to drink sangria, and eat salad and paella which was delicious, especially the sticky bits on the bottom of the big pan. This was our first paella in Spain on this year’s trip, and it was a good one. We were mighty impressed.
