There was a very beautiful full moon this week. The moon rises right over the old woman, and there were some small clouds which made for a wonderful view and interesting light effects with the clouds throwing moon shadows! After the thunderstorms a few days ago, and the daily treat of sunrise over the hills I’ve decided that our little balcony has the best view in Liebana!

We went on another hike; a short guided walk up a small knoll, from which we could once again see the tantalising boundary peaks of the National Park; we also got a great view of the plot of land we were thinking of buying. The guide explained about the landscape and the local economy in Spanish as we went along, we found we could understand quite a lot of what was said, so that was encouraging. The rest of the group were either Spanish or French; we tried a little Spanish but I ended up talking in English about Brexit, much to Anna’s disgust.

The other big news was Anna found a cricket / grasshopper (let’s say grasshopper in honour of David Carradine) on our balcony.

Reaching the high point of our walk, with the National Park in the background

Our plot is on the left side of the valley, the highest clear area with one big tree in the middle

Griffon vulture scanning her / his domain

Grasshopper!

The day after the walk we went to the Estate Agent to see Francine and Veronica. They had some bad news for us. The land we were interested in buying is owned by two cousins. One live here in the Liebena and is keen to sell. The other lives in Santander, and is prepared to sell, but for an outrageous price. It seems there is little chance of negotiating to something reasonable from their starting point, so we are back to the drawing board. A bit annoying considering we initially hoped to have somewhere by September, but not an unusual situation here apparently. Richard and Suzanne have been in the process of buying a ruin in the village for six years and counting!

The garden continues to grow and develop, although we don’t have any pictures this week, we will remedy in the next post. Anna’s mum and Dad arrive tomorrow for a few days’ holiday so there is excitement afoot after a fairly quiet week!

– Dave