Category: Uncategorized

  • Rural Depopulation – A Photo Essay

    For the first time in human history the majority of people no longer live in a rural environment. According to the United Nations, over 50% of the global population now lives in cities. The abandonment of the rural environment has grave consequences for society in general, as these areas are healthier places to live, produce…

  • Rain and Cold

    Tuesday night football playing against the year 12 boys is continuing for me as is the pain in the legs for the two days that follow it.  I am very gradually improving my awareness, touch and fitness but it’s a slow process.  Tuesday night football is also the night when I fully experience the cold…

  • Priego de Cordoba – A Photo Essay

    Priego de Cordoba is the nearest town from our village of Fuente Tojar. It is nearest in distance as the crow flies but is only accessible via a zig-zag road through the local hills; a road that is difficult for huge trucks to access easily. This is being rectified by a new, straighter road that…

  • You Can Only Chop The Wood In Front Of You

    Well, that was an interesting year.  And a good one, for the most part. I didn’t manage to finish the book that I have been working on for years but I did write more of it. I didn’t finish the other book that I started in the summer but I am very much nearly there.…

  • El Higueron – A photo essay

    El Higueron is where we live during the week, albeit on the outskirts of it. When we tell people at work where we live they always look a mixture of puzzled, slightly alarmed and unsure of what to say next. This is because El Higueron is in the top fifteen places of deprivation in the…

  • Autumnal Feelings

    The seasons have definitely changed here.  We have taken delivery of a trailer-full of olive tree wood and have stacked it in my superbly built* woodshed and have used it for a few weekends now. *please treat the word “superbly” with caution The change was, unfortunately, brought to vivid life in the disaster that befell…

  • Photo Essay – Graffiti Art in El Higueron

    This is not a blog So, El Higueron is a settlement on the outskirts of Cordoba that could be described as “Rough and Ready”, “Chavvy”, “Gypsy Town”, “A bit of a Dump” and many other similarly themed descriptions. It’s where we live. It has, next to the open railway lines, a huge piece of post-industrial…

  • Another New Beginning

    So there has been a hiatus of a few months and much toing and froing about a home for this blog and whether it was something that I still wanted to do, in part thanks to the toing and froing that was doing my head in. Anyway, it is back.  It will be here for…

  • Portugal, baby

    Apologies for the terse style and the hundreds of photos. We went on holiday to northern Portugal for a month. It was great. We needed to get away from the extreme heat of the village for a few weeks and it worked.  We had temperatures in the lower 20´s and even some rain.  We had…

  • The Remains of the Year

    Apologies for the late publication of this blog but I have been searching for a new home for it after being told I would be “upgraded” at a huge new cost.  This will probably be the last one on this current site.  Or the 2nd last one. Anyway, lots has happened.  Which means lots of…