My wife and I now live part of the year in the beautiful Marina Alta region of the Costa Blanca in Spain. This is the view from our terrace!
The idea of building a small, private, 7¼in. gauge railway was conceived circa 2002 and I spent well over a year searching for a suitable plot of land on which to build it. |
About 20 different feasabilty drawings were made of different locations until in 2004 we eventually settled on one. The chosen site was about 4000 sqm (about 1 acre) and faced south with 31 almond trees, one lemon tree, one carob tree and most importantly a 35 sq.m industrial workshop with electricity & water. |
The only drawback being that the workshop is situated at a higher level than the rest of the plot, with an incline of 1in7 approx. Would I need to build a rack railway?
In the picture above you can see the workshop at the top of the incline. To the immediate right the original toilet/shower and dog kennel with the bread oven beyond. |
As the previous owner had died some 2 years earlier, the plot was somewhat unkempt when we first saw it.
It was only a few days before taking ownership that we actually
managed to see inside the workshop! |
I am in the process of getting the almond trees in order. Due to prior neglect it means serious pollarding which will take me several years to complete. I will do two or three a year, which will give us an ample wood supply for the fire back home, but unfortunately no almond kernels on those trees for a few years. |
Here we are with some friends late in 2004, harvesting the almonds before I started the pollarding. Idealy this shoulds be done late August before the autumn rain discolours the shells. |
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Here are the almonds drying on our terrace, my wife kindly shells, blanches and deep fries them ...delicious!
This takes a lot of work, now we understand why they are so expensive to buy. |
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