Apparently, whilst Spain on the whole has had a climate temperature increase of 0.5% since the 1980′s, Almeria has had the reverse. One Pablo Campra from the University of Almeria has made research indicating that Almeria city has in fact been subject to temperature cooling. Temperatures fell 0.3% since 1983. And the reason? The Albedo Effect.

You see all around Almeria city there are thousands of hectares of plastic greenhouses built to provide out of season fruit and vegetables for northern Europe. These, apparently, beat the global heating influence of the sun by providing greater reflectivity to break the influence of the greenhouse gas entrapment, being more reflective than the areas of surrounding vegetation.

By studying past satellite records of surface reflectivity and local temperature increases, they calculated that the greenhouses accounted for a whopping reduction in solar radiation of 19.8 Watts per square meter — equivalent to an annual 0.3°C decrease between 1983 and 2006.

You can find more here.

No one has said as such, but the implication of such information, fascinating or not, is that there are some positive benefits to wrapping the country in plastic. However let us not forget the 10,000 alleged illegal bore holes in the area resulting in the underground aquifers in the area turning saline. Let’s not forget the nitrate run off into one of the most beautiful seas in the world creating giant shoals of stinging jellyfish. And how about the thousands of tons of non bio-degradable plastic thrown into landfills, or worse, burned each year. There are even plans to divert water from areas of Spain with higher rainfall. Remember what happened to the Aral when the former USSR tried a similar idea?

Consequently I would imagine that any benefit the greenhouses have on local temperatures is negated by the sheer volumes of carbon released into the atmosphere by all the activities that surround the industry. Remember all this produce is shipped to northern Europe by lorry. We would be better off trying to save the world by eating seasonal fruit and vegetables again. As long as we have discernable seasons that is!

Two weeks ago now, we had visitors. Visitors in the form of these two wandering waifs. They were in good condition with nice clean coats but no identification. I was at first determined that we shouldn’t feed them as I wanted them to move on and find their way home. However they just hung around getting thinner and thinner. Eventually I relinquished and had to feed them to avoid starvation.

We are still looking for their owners but they have such sweet and gentle natures they may just be kept. Especially as the children have named them. Puchy and Dumbledore. (I hate Harry Potter too).

This is a bit of a departure from a blog concerning our life in Los Velez, however I couldn’t resist. You see I have this ancient book of negatives from my grandfather’s plate camera. They are not in very good condition and often the exposures are wrong. However with the aid of modern technology I am able to render them into the modern, positive world.

Grandpa was born in Latvia, of German origin, eventually marrying into an English family sometime in the second decade of the 20th century. He liked a Havana cigar, a glass of brandy and a good afternoon game of rummy.

What better way to spend a day on a cold wet October holiday than to go on an adventure. We had seen on the OS map a hermitage in a very remote corner of the Sierra del Oso. Given the lack of sign posts and the confusing array of tracks, i.e some being the road and others  farmer’s tracks to access  fields, it was a bit of a challenge for our map reader. Suprisingly Donna got us there quite easily and what a sweet place it was too.

The Ermita de Leria has long been without a hermit but even in this remote corner devotees make the effort to keep the building in good order. From here we carried on across the loggers’ tracks across the sierra going east until we came across the beautiful valley of Alcoluche. Apparently all Castillian words beginning in ‘Al’ are Arabic, from the Moors. And Moors would have farmed this land, terracing the hillsides, planting almonds and pomegranates (a fruit in Spain called granada).

Finding a track to take us home we encountered the inevitable traffic jam…

Passing a beautiful farm called El Alcaida, (who knows), we stopped by the waterfall of the Rio Caramel next to the old poplar (alamo in Spanish. And if that makes you think of Davy Crockett etc… the fort was probably made from poplar trunks hence the name Alamo).

This week the sun will shine again with little chance of rain until the spring. Days will be sunny and warm and evenings cold and starry. Perfect.

Jonathan at www.iberianatureforum.com (which is fab) directed me to this amazing film of a Golden Eagle hunting Ibex and Chamois in Cazorla y Segura National Park i.e. La Sagra, the mountain at the back of Los Gazquez. Like all Spanish film narration, in the face of the power and majesty of a wild predator, the gravitas is pumped up 1000%. Morgan Freeman eat your heart out.

The fact that it is apparently an Eagle trained for the camera doesn’t, in my view, detract from the experience of observing a wild animal’s hunting strategy.