Monte Luz

[smokingboot]

Means 'Mountain of Light.' It's where my aunt co-bought a plot of land that was developed into a kind of chalet house in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, outside Granada. Thing is, much as I love Granada, 40-42 degrees in summer downtown is a bit much for everybody. Everyone goes home for siesta, or hops into a bar and hides, because you really can't do anything else. And when the weather finally hits the unbearable, the whole family heads for the mountains, where the pool is as important as the kitchen and everything is decked out in traditional Spanish wall tiles.At Monte Luz they spotted the UFO that no-one talks about. At Monte Luz my mother had her greatest rows with her mother about not cutting fish heads off before you cook them, not uprooting favoured honeysuckle trees, and basic but bitter paella-based rivalry.

Well, my aunt and my uncle, her brother-in-law, sold the house. I just learned about it. He is so old and his arthritis is so bad that now he can't deal with the upkeep, and she is asleep all the time in her house. I'm sad, we had some great times there. So what will happen in the summer? They'll probably all pile out to the cool again - not Nerja, no, that's way too far from Granada, somewhere nearer the actual city... Somewhere like Monte Luz... and hire a house for a month or so. They understand there may well be one available. Exactly the same one.