Arfa @ brazos Abiertos Casa Rural

great Sites to visit

2008-07-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

http://andaluciangems.wordpress.com

Christine and daughter Kerry are great people to know and if they can't help with a request
I don't know who can.

The info one their site is really useful and the site is easy to navigate. I am now looking forward to a visit to the wolves!

Nutty person??

My friend Amanda who is totally "nutty" and an incredible lady to know, is also a great artist. My pet Julie saw her paintings and totally fell in love with her style.
http://www.amanda-hamilton.com/

Amanda has been comissioned to paint Brazos Abiertos Casa Rural in her amazing style. Of course I am in it , doing what I do best, lounging over a chair ,looking gorgeous..as every cat would.
you can see amanda's work at ...
http://www.amanda-hamilton.com

"Thingys, wotsits and Doings" ??????

2008-07-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Isn't language a funny thing!!

After spending a lot of time trying to learn Spanish.....Andalucian Spanish is very difficult as the people here speak so fast and don't use the letter S !!! so I was wondering if the Spanish use similar words (but in Spanish) that my dad used........here's a typical example...

"Could you get me the thingy"?

"What thingy"?

"The thingy on the wotsit"

"Where's the wotsit"?

"It's on the doings"

So my Dad bless him wanted me to get him "The Thingy that was on the wotsit in the doings"

and amazingly I usually knew what he wanted !!

So I guess people all over the world use similar terms....do you know any good ones?

Brazos Abiertos Casa Rural is now taking bookings

2008-07-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

Brazos Abiertos Casa Rural (superior)
is opening in March 2009.
We are a fully accessible, beautiful Casa Rural, a perfect place for your holiday in Andalucia

The Local Area

“Wonderful people, white washed villages, fabulous food, mile after mile

of olive groves, sunshine ……… a truly magical place”

As you approach Iznajar by car you will get a stunning view of this beautiful village perched high above the 'embalse', or reservoir, this means that Iznajar now has a waterfront, overlooking an inland sea some thirty kilometres long. In the early morning mist this view will take your breath away!

New Friends

2008-07-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

Hooray!!! I've just found out that I will be getting some company in the New Year....two new friends called Sally Jefferson and Ote (as in Don Quixote), two miniature donkeys.

The donkeys will be coming when they are old enough to leave their mothers, which will probobly be in January so that they will be settled in before we have visitors.They are so cute and Julie and Sheelagh say that our visitors will love petting them.

Brazos Abiertos takes shape

2008-07-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here's my new home, Brazos abiertos Casa Rural! the building is going very quickly now and today the builders have started to put the arches in on the terrace. All the interior walls are in now and a plumber came last week and next week an electrician and a heating engineer are starting work...phew it's so busy here now. Today there were 7 men working on the build. It has been very hot here for a few weeks so they start work at 7am and finish at 3pm because after this time it's just too hot to do anything but snooze.....

a funny thing happened today!

2008-07-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

My pets van had been standing still for a 4 days because they were taking a few days of at the hoopoe yurt hotel.....they called it market research as they are thinking of getting a yurt as a treatment room.
When they returned the van wouldn't start so after numerous attempts they decided to push it back out of the parking space and let it roll down a mighty long hill to the garage at the bottom. Julie started to push and it soon became clear that it needed more people so just on queue a neighbour appeared and he joined in....still no go and so he went to get his daughter...the hairdresser who was in the middle of washing someone's hair! she came out,hands full of shampoo and started to help....she suddenly stopped and said to her dad "why don't you move your car then they can turn the van around without having to push it"!!! dhuuu why didn't we think of that??

So 5 minutes later we are at the bottom of the hill and the garage man has pointed out the problem which apparently is very common and now they know what to do!!! and better yet no charge. Maria the spanish teacher says that very small repairs are done free of charge because the big ones cost a a leg and a paw!!

2008-06-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT!!!

it's been very quiet around the build for a couple of days, mainly due to the national transport strike.

The builder can't get some of the materials he needs so until it's over I thought I'd tell you a little about some of the great things that are happening in our area.

FEISTA "Funeral for a Sardine"
Did someone mentions sardines??? There was I thinking that a tasty meal was about to appear?
This fiesta is a celebration of the time when the first sardines of the year were brought by cart from the coast........no one seems to know when the funeral element came in but it's a wonderful night. This is what happens:
For weeks before the fiesta the men plan their costumes and are expected to dress as women, the results are often hilarious as you can see from the photos,. People dress in all manner of clothes and at the head of the procession is a very large paper mache sardine on a metal frame. The town band plays some great tunes and then at certain stages the procession stops, the band breaks into the funeral march and everyone pretends to weep and wail!! After a few minutes the band stikes up a cheerful tune and the procession carries on and on into the small hours. There is huge merriment and all filmed by Rute TV the local station who films everything so that we can all see it again later.

Shame there were no real sardines!!!!

The view from above!

2008-06-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to explore the range above my new house. It was very exciting, lots of new smells and lovely flowers. The wild flowers are stunning at this time of year, poppies and wild orchids to name just two.
It's a pity there isn't a little 'cat nip' growing on the land.
As you can see the roof is going on now and I guess it won't be long before more pets are coming to stay!

2008-06-08T05:14:00.000-07:00

As you all know my name is Arfa. (I have half a tail and half and ear) I decided to adopt/rescue these two very kind and slightly crazy ladies quite some time ago when they moved to Spain. I wasn’t going to bother with them but I liked the particular brand of salami that was on offer and well……it would have been rude to refuse….and I was getting a little tired of lizards etc they are so bland!! So these two are my new pets….

They bought the plot of land where my ruin was and everything has started to change, I got a little bit worried to start with but all seems ok now that I have trained them (Julie and Sheelagh) a little but I do still have to keep them on their toes. Building started with this enormous yellow machine whose digging really disturbed my naps for quite a few weeks and then came the ‘pecker’ which chipped away at the bed rock for days on end, it was enough to give me a migraine and it did eventually drive me to the local bar for a little peace and quiet. Nowadays things have settled down a little and I can now see how beautiful my new pad will be. I have 5 acres of olive grove to hunt and play in, a well with fresh water and some rather tasty morsels from Sheelagh and Julie when they come to the land, which is every day now.

They have a strange habit of calling ‘puss puss’ when they want me …honestly it’s so embarrassing when my friends hear them .The new building is fine for me and there is a little space next to the back door where I have decided to leave my food dishes and a great shaded area under the walk way around the house which will be just perfect for my afternoon naps……it’s started to get hot here during the day and it’s all a cat can do to stay awake….well I’m off now to explore a bit more and I will write more tomorrow….. until then….toodles (short for toodle ooo) I think my English is coming on really well!

2008-06-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

My name is Arfa to be precise Arfa from Andalucia. Here's a little bit of info about the 'pets' I live with and then you can find me and my news later on....

From Julie : So where was I? so we moved to Iznajar renting a fab house with pool so that both our families and friends could visit....and they did... thank God for budget airlines. We then started the process to get permission to build Brazos Abiertos Casa Rural (which means Open Arms) it has take 18months hard slog through unbelievable red tape and just when we thought we were there another new law came in and if I hear the word 'pero' (BUT) once more from an official I think I'll scream!!! The local town hall have been excellent and the Mayoress Isabel Lobato ALCALDESA DE IZNAJAR (who now oficially walks on water for us) has been fantastic in her support
Pero we now have all the permissions and a licence to build etc etc....so we start next week (we hope)

So here are a few photos of our beautiful 20,000 sq metre olive grove and the ruin which will soon be transformed from the photo on the left to the one on the right....if only it was that easy!!!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Why are we here??

A few years ago I and a like minded friend (Sheelagh) decided to do something a little different and move to another country to set up a business (another one as we already run www.tic1.co.uk in the UK) With a background in education and working with children/adults and parents with special needs we decided to set up a fully accessible rural guest house with paying guests who would enable us to offer free holiday accommodation to a range of folks who needed time out for lots of reasons, one of which was parents/carers who had a child in a hospice.

We both firmly believe that everyone should try to give something back if they can...so this is our effort. I am not going to tell you a great deal about our journey to get here as that's for a book I want to write someday....I can hear you saying yada yada but you never know and when you see the book 'The Bus Stop in Las Chozas' you'll say Oh My God she wrote it!!

In January 2005 we went to Southern France and spent a week looking for a place to buy. Easy you would think!! We found a few properties in really pretty villages but unfortunately most of the other houses were owned by foreigners and shut up for most of the year. In addition it was mighty cold, so after numerous hot chocolates with Amaretto we both looked at each other and said "South, we need to go South" ...our search continued.

In April 2005 we visited southern Spain. Our criteria was specific, we wanted to be near water and no more than 1 hour from an airport so that cut things down quite a bit.

After driving around for a few days we decide to visit Iznajar about an hour inland from Malaga. We were driving along the A333 into Iznajar and about a mile from the village we turned the corner and there was a view that left us both breathless...a beautiful village clinging onto a rock face above the lake and we both said "this is it".

Posted by Julie at Brazos Abiertos at 10:37 PM 0 comments