Our invisible residents ……

Two years ago, Jodie lost her sunglasses.  It was a complete mystery as she had been wearing her new Ray Bans with pride and they suited her very well, so the day they went missing we spent a long time trying to find them. There are many hiding places at Cortijo Las Salinas, the cortijo

The Spanish 7 – The search for treasure and an old ruin

I rang our large bell rather overzealously as the Spanish 7 arrived, although today it was only the Spanish 6. They drove their cars through the archway and parked up, we jumped around excitedly saying our hellos as Picasso watched on in his aloof way as we hugged and kissed. Irish pulled a small cage

The Art Studio

The two large garages at the far left of Las Salinas looked very menacing with their large regulation ‘Spanish green’ metal doors. As we turned the rusty key in the very small padlock a feeling of trepidation welled up inside as I wondered what might sit behind them. The doors were on rusty runners and

An Early Legend

The year 1875, and so it began … Night had fallen on the farm, Cortijo Las Salinas, and a stormy grey sky was overhead. Candles were burning by the large stone fireplace and in a large clay pot cooked the hare that José Maria had hunted for dinner that afternoon.  Natividad poked the fire and

The Ruin

We aptly named a group of old, worn out buildings in the centre of the Cortijo as ‘The Ruin’ which later became Villa Romana when the restoration of this section had been completed. The Ruin was the original and oldest part of the cortijo, possibly with Roman origins, and had been made from the large

The Ancient Haunted Tower

The local area around us has many towers.  They were used as look out posts when villages were under attack and are strategically placed to get the best view possible of the enemy coming from any direction, also to send messages to each other via the towers.  Today most of them are falling apart and 

The return lunch but at Cortijo Las Salinas

It felt like we were having royalty come to visit.  It was mid October 2009, although still warm and sunny the weather could change at any moment, so eating inside was the best idea. We cleaned the house from top to bottom, the outside patios, driveway and most importantly, the cocinon, our entertaining room where

Cat coincidences … ?

I picked up my coffee and headed towards my laptop, through bleary eyes I opened my mail and was excited to see an email from Irish.  There was a photo attached which I hurriedly opened to see an old sepia brown/grey and white photograph.  There were 4 people in the picture, 2 adults and 2

The Lunch

Irish had told me that she lived on the outskirts of Granada with her family.  ‘You will never find us, I will meet you and you can follow me in your car’ she said. So we met at the designated car park and followed her, she was right we would never have found it!  Tucked

The Spanish Seven – How we met our Spanish ‘family’

So this is what happened ……………………. The sound of a group of very loud Spanish people could be heard from the cortijo.  I put down my glass of wine and the novel I was reading, and went to the balcony to see who was there.  It was a Sunday afternoon, hot and sticky, and quite