Life & travel scribbles

Finally, here came the day, mwaaahaha, after all the movements associated with life in SW England and short-term stopover in Poland we landed up in Spain. On the 4th day of April and after a not-too-bad, nearly 3-days journey across Europe we got to Ourense, Galicia, where a new chapter of our lives was to come. One may ask, why there? I lived in Ourense city for ¾ of the year 2014 participating in the project subsidized by EU, working for the local group of Friends of the Earth (here: Amigos da Terra). It was the year we set off to India too. For me, Galicia, as the second place in Spain I lived in for a while, appeared to be something I didn’t know about Spain. Green, lush and very Nordic-like region, full of mystery and rich in remnants of the Celtic culture charmed me entirely. The land of rivers, valleys and canyons, roman castros , beautiful estuaries and around 1600 km of coasts. There is a commonly known phenomenon called “morriña” which means not more not less than a longi...

Some time ago we were invited, by our neighbour living on the same property, for juice making! He's been making it every single year since he was 18. So probably for over 30 years now! (although I am not entirely sure how old he is ;) ) The juice. It is made from apples picked from a few places where Sebastian works as a handyman and there are  sacks of them offered to him as the owners are not going to make any use of them. This way, every year at early fall, he starts his apple juice production in his hut, which is built in the furthest corner of 'our' garden. He lives there, in that hut. He built it himself many years ago out of recycled material and made it self-efficient energy-wise.  Now, to the point > about the juice: To start with - cleaning the bottles: Using branch shredder - apples are getting shredded to a pulp: then it's taken in a bucket to a tumble-drier (yep, the one for clothes) and part by part ...

We went for a ride on Saturday, one of those that we just jump on a bike and head towards some, previously determined, point but being more focused on a trip itself rather than its destination. Actually we went to Swindon to pop over into the Outdoors store and motorcycle outlet, for we need some equipment for our July's bike-trip to Northern Spain (Basque country hopefully). Unsuccessful shopping it was, unlike the bike ride itself ;) So this time we somehow came across, in the middle of 'nowhere' (I would say that, without remorse), an event which happened to be a Hot-Rod cars & motorcycles local festival. There, unexpectedly, we got to see the guy who built his unique motorbike e.g. from a pair of aircraft cylinders :O The Flying Millyard it is called, just stunning and unique on the world's scale: http://www.brm.co.nz/flying-millyard And he was one of the bunch of people who also came along to show off and gaze at others motorbikes and ca...