Arrival!

Today is the day! The exciting package arrived from Spain, from Alora! All the way from there to here... a shabby cardboard box wrapped in clingfilm and mishappen lumps protruding. The whole thing sitting , nestling inside a black plastic fruit crate, the ones that you see lying on the ground underneath the lemon trees in the valley. It definitely brought a direct blast of Andalucia into the kitchen, the hot yellow sun escaping to vy with the silvery grey reflecting off the river in high tide. I weighted it with a luggage scale; 10 Kg. I unpacked it; the items lifted out, wrapped in soft packing, shinning glasssily, dark black bottles. silver tinwareand fat jars containing olives. Golden olive oil galore. We had ordered one of everything they had; it was a golden feastlaid out before me. Still, what were we to do with it? No one had answered any of my emails. Four tapas restaurants and now Chuster too. It was lovely to have it, really lovely, but what now?

Waiting

Well, we are waiting. Waiting for the order from Francisco. Waiting to see if Chuster would like to send us a little parcel of lemons. Jose Pizarro didn't answer our email...(which took so long to write..) so I have sent another one off to Barrafina and the Eyre brothers. Starting to think it is all a little bit mad. Where will we sell all the lemons and olive oil? And I hope that Chuster doesn't just turn up on the doorstep!

Francisco

I have managed to find an online shop for the oilve distillery but after selecting a nice cart load, got told that they don't ship to the UK. However, a few emails later, and we have hatched a plan with Francisco, who works there. David suggested that we more or less buy one of everything, to have a tasting session, so that is what we have done. Got an email back with the transport costs... very pricey! David texted Jerry in Alora, who suggested a different delivery firm and he also told us about an English couple who are making their own olive oil in Alora and has put us in contact. Meanwhile, Francisco came back to us and suggested that we organise our own transport, which suddenly seems very difficult, so we replied that we would go ahead with his original plan, even though it is pricey. Just want to get the stuff here, and look at it! Can't stop now.... Jose hasn't answered yet though...

Jose

Next thing.... Jose! We have taken ages and ages to write a letter to Jose Pizarro in Bermondsey Street. It is our top favorite tapas bar because it is so authentic and reminded us of the one in Cadiz. The whole family have helped out, editing and choosing photos. Sent it off last night after tweeting Jose for his email address. Cross fingers!

Jamies

The next thing I knew, I was walking into Jamies fruit shop (without the apostrophe) asking where his oranges come from. And his nectarines and lemons. He has no olives or almonds. He said he would be very keen to take some of Chuster's if it were possible. Plus he is expanding with a second shop soon, which will be much bigger, with barrels of produce. He wants to do a tasting first tho. Next thing... how do we get it here?

Contact

Back home, we pined for Spain. It was sunny and beautiful, but it wasn't hot and raw. After a couple of days, I noticed something on Facebook, a message! It had come from Chuster's daughter, Crista,who spoke English and she wanted to make contact on behalf of Chuster. It was strange to be making contact via modern technology, it looked odd to see photos of the Spain that we knew being shared out into the world. We swapped hellos and gathered email addresses. Our plans of bringing lemons back to Britain seemed slightly closer.

Last Day

The last day in Alora brought some surprises. We bumped into Justa again, I think that he had come to say goodbye, although he was flooding the lemon trees again and perhaps waiting for us to be gone. I tried to say thank you for everything and we gave him some wine which he idn't seem to particularly want, shoved it down on the ground by the vine. I ran in and just had time to grab a scap of paper and a pen to swap addresses. David had suggested beforehand that he may not be able to write, but he happily jotted down his email address and telephone number. We were sad to leave golen Alora, sad to leave Lobbo and sad to leave the house. It had been an amazing time. Strangely, we noticed tht Justa was actually called Chuster.

300 chickens

300 chickens. In the lemon trees, sitting in the branches. On the ground, under the lemon trees in the shade. Cockerals and chicks. Fig trees bursting with dripping fruit and pears against the fence. The little key was under a flat stone, and his dog Jacqui tied up by a piece of string to a lemon tree . And everywhere there were chickens. Inside the barn were coloured crates nailed onto the wall in a haphazard fashion. Laid with straw inside were eggs an chicks. It was a wonderous cycle of a place; a display of nature in full glory, doing what it did best, unhindered. Justa tried to give us more eggs, but we politely declined. "whatever do you do with them all?" We asked. "Give them to friends" Was the answer. Now I knew why he needed 300 chickens. It was our penultimate day. We wanted to take it all back with us. The drum of olive oil, the huge b umpy lemons, the globulous olives, the sherry. We put them in our suitcases and took them out again. What if the bottles smashed? I put them in again, wrapped in jeans. I took them out. We will have to wait. Somehow we will get them back to England. We joked with justa that we will buy a whole laod, and he joked back that he would put them all in a lorry and drive them over himself.

What happened next...

What happened next is that Justa kept on coming. Two big carrier bags full of eggs were found hanging on a wire above the door. Another big bag of aubergines, then another and another. The orchard was irrigated, canals dug around the trees, water flooded in from the irrigation. Justa proudly showed us the trees, grafted with a lemon and orange together. Meanwhile, we had discovered the markets and fallen in love with the huge Marcona almonds, warm and toasted in a little olive oil. And the huge olives, with a crumbly herby dressing. When we sked where they were from, we were told that they were Alorena Olives, the most famous, from the most fertile valley- Alora olives. We asked Justa about them. He said he would take us to a friend of his, who grew them. David thought we were meeting him at the factory. I thought at our house. We drove round everywhere looking for Justa and of course he was in the field behind our house waiting.. When we got to the factory David was disappointed. It was a depot cum hardware shop, with everything from hats to cultivators. We were introduced to his friend and then we were shown the olives sitting in jars in the fridge. It wasn't the exciting distillery we had hoped for, more like a shop. The jars contained small peppered olives, not the luscious gorda ones we were hunting for. David said it was a sign and no good. Justa bought us a jar as a gift and as we got back in the car he started talking about his land, his lemon trees, his 300 chickens... he said he would take us there.

The beginning

August 2016 This is the beginning. When we went down to Alora this summer, I had a mission. Namely, to find out more about Justa and why he was watering my parent's garden. Was he land grabbing? There had been no one there for a year, what would we find? When we pulled up in the car, I let out a gasp.. the garden looked beautiful. The trees had been carefully pruned, the ground ploughed, new grass was growing and as we walked up to the steps, I counted 12 new lemon trees. Our first evening. Dinner on the terrace in the soft light. Justa appears with a giant tubio. (hose). " I will wash down the terrace!" He exclaimed. "Eat first! Prioridad!" As we quickly scoffed our food, he was pushing back the chairs and tables and flooding the terrace with water. "Fresca! Fresca!" He cried and as we stood ankle deep in water, I realised that something had changed.