Housesitting in the Alpujarras

We stayed a few more days in our originally booked Airbnb cottage, where we were offered to stay for free for a few days. In return, we renovated a room. During that time, our host took in a little puppy from the street, so Alma had a playmate of the same age right away (and they got pretty wild!). Right after that, we drove to the Sierra Nevada, to the Alpujarra Mountains, for our next Workaway job. Our hosts are (once again ^^) an English couple, Chiara and Andi, middle-aged with two children, Emil and Nina. It's great for Alma to get used to children. For Naomi, who unfortunately is not allowed in the house, it's a challenge, but she's doing okay. The family also has two dogs, a mischievous cat, and two horses. The house resembles a hobbit hole and is very cozy but also very messy and dusty. Originally, the geodesic dome in the garden was meant for us, a dome-shaped structure covered with blankets and a small fireplace inside. It's super cozy, except for the spiders that come crawling out of every hole, especially when the fireplace is on. Unfortunately, with my arachnophobia, it wasn't possible for me to sleep in there, so we moved back into the car. That was also a challenge at first because it's quite cold here in the mountains. It even freezes at night, but with a second blanket, hot water bottles, and a heating stone, it was okay for now. Since it's technically a housesitting job because our hosts will be going to Morocco for two weeks a few days after our arrival, we planned to move into the house for that time anyway. The first few days were mainly spent showing us how to properly take care of the horses and what we should pay attention to. There's a great organic vegetable garden here, which is quite sparse this time of year, but at the moment there are at least some great different salads growing that we are allowed to help ourselves to. Chiara is a great cook and has a lot of homemade food from her own organic farm, such as chili sauce, lemon pickle, or pickled peppers. The olive oil and the pickled olives are also homemade and probably the most delicious ones we've ever eaten.

On the day before Christmas, we were left to ourselves and were glad to finally be able to move into the house. We put a mattress right in front of the fireplace in the living room, so we could sleep close to the exit to let Alma out at night. Unfortunately, the house turned out to be another spider paradise at night, so Sebastian had to remove dozens of spiders after a small panic attack from me. I still couldn't feel really comfortable the next few nights, but at least it wasn't as cold as in the car. However, since Monday, friends of our hosts, also with two children, are here for vacation. The announced 1-2 nights turned into 4-5 nights, so we have to sleep in the car again... We're not thrilled, especially since there are now more neighbors hanging around here all the time, but at least they're very nice. On Christmas Day, we were invited to a big Christmas dinner with the neighbors (all English as well), which was nice. Other than that, we didn't really experience much of Christmas. Wild Alma is still keeping us on our toes and doing great! Yesterday, we had to take Naomi to the vet because she suddenly had a very inflamed eye in the morning, which she could hardly open anymore. Now we're giving her eye drops and it's already getting better. It's definitely not boring here :-)