The Spanish tourist board should shortly be agreeing to a refund to fend off charges of “unmerchantable quality”, “not fit for purpose” or “not as advertized”. Assuming that you have seen previous pictures of the view down the Jalon valley from our borrowed house, take a look at this picture for comparison. Apparently, even the locals can’t believe this run of weather. Mind you, I heard similar stories of Spanish disbelief over their summer weather which was also pants. Basically, the weather in Europe this year has been completely screwed up.
On a brighter note, we did host a dinner party with Chris and Yvonne, our very first house-sitting customers and proud owners of Scamp, el perrito. The only decent pastime today was planning a menu, shopping for ingredients and preparing food. A swift trawl of the Internet netted us an authentic-sounding zarzuela recipe so, in a fit of bravado or stupidity , never having cooked one before, we settled on that. Zarzuela is a sort of Spanish bouillabaisse, a fish and seafood stew. Mercadona’s fish counter supplied a fine array of zarzuela ingredients: hake, black bream, prawns, langoustines, mussels, cockles and squid. A starter of baked asparagus wrapped in Serrano ham and individual pear tarts dressed with a pink peppercorn glaze for pud completed off the menu.
A bright evening to round off an otherwise dull day.
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