Well this was supposed to be a travel blog–but everything changes

I obviously have too much time on my hands.  Here's my memory picture for the winter. Including our friends and the dogs, Paddy, Bree and Connie (The smelly one).

It’s over six months since my last post which was on our way down to Spain in the Autumn.
The journey down was uneventful. We had planned to stay in the middle of France until all the group games of the Rugby World Cup had finished and then race down to Albir for the knock-out rounds.  However England’s early exit from the tournament changed that.  The great thing about living in a motorhome is that you can change your plans really quickly.  So we said stuff France let’s get into Spain and the warm as quickly as we can.

A few nights in Benicarlo at a favourite campsite and then we got to Cap Blanch in Albir for about 16th October.

So back again at our winter campsite.  The same one we’d stayed at for the previous two winters, so nothing new to report there - except that they have finally upgraded their internet so at least the last month we have been able to connect reliably and with much better (if not perfect) speed.

James and Jo were already at Cap Blanch when we arrived and we also had our local friends to say hello to.  Iain slipped back into the pool team for Thursday nights and we went to the Quiz on Wednesdays – so we settled in nicely for the winter.

More people arrived and left and we made some new friends but there weren’t any new ones who were staying for the whole winter.

Parties were in full swing with a street party for 28 (half English and half Dutch) for Christmas Eve and it was so enjoyable that we did it again on New Year’s Day. Look at the lovely weather we had.

A new bar had opened at the entrance of the campsite and although we were determined not to enjoy the noisy place we fell in love with it. The entertainment at Brew Rock is fantastic, lots of variety and we fell in love with Pablo Bloom, Rafa Raposo, Mike, Rafa and Monique (well Jo and myself did, the men just don’t get it) and spent many great nights dancing away in Brew Rock.  We’ve never had so many late nights.

I have to admit to having a bit of a soft spot for Pablo, but I think that's because he reminds me of my nephew.

New friends made – Swedish Willy whom we called “Willy Won’t He” because he kept saying that he was leaving but didn’t seem to get up early enough to get away and Harald – a very noisy, often drunken, Norwegian.  Also Adrian and Debbie from Devon. 

Old friends came by for a visit –  Shirley and Mick, Frank and Flo, Ali and Steve, Ben and Jolande, to name a few – sorry if I’ve missed anyone. 

Oh and of course our Christmas visit from Iain’s dad and brother Sean.

Then there are the regular over-winterers and full-timers at the campsite, Ruth and Paul, Henk and Jenni, Joy and Nick, Dave and Jessie, Meerke and Nol, Hannelle and Thomas, Fabienne and Frey, Hortense and Anton, Linda and John, Didi and Nol.  So as you can see we’ve made a lot of friends over the three winters we have been staying here. 

Sadly we said goodbye to Jessie who passed away suddenly a couple of weeks after she and Dave returned home in March.

Oh that reminds me, I learned to crochet over the winter as you can see my Christmas Angel in the photo with Jessie.  I made lots of things including a monkey and a granny square blanket – it kept me busy.

Also oriental dancing was a favourite of mine.  Iain said that if the teacher looked like this he would come along – I retorted that this is our teacher. Lovely lady Gisele Gibaut always has a smile and a great dancer. I must admit that I’ve a lot more than her to shimmy.

Connie (The smelly one) isn’t doing too well nowadays though.  She’s deteriorated quite considerably over the winter, she’s been deaf for about a year now but she’s now struggling to walk very far - her back legs are giving her some trouble which I’m sure has been exacerbated by the fact that I fell on her a few years ago and caused quite some damage to one leg (that’s another story) also because she spins so much she’s banana shaped and we always thought that she’d have trouble with arthritis.  I suppose that she is an old girl now at somewhere around 15 so it is to be expected.  So now we have a doggie push chair to wheel her around in.  I think we need to rename her Boudica because when she stands up it looks like she is riding a chariot.  We had been pretty limited about how far we could go with her before she got the push chair so it’s great to be able to get out and about again.  She loves it though and is quite happy to be wheeled around.

Benidorm series 8 is being filmed at the moment so there have been sightings of a couple of the cast members – last year it was Janine Duvitski who plays Jacqueline but this year it has been Jake Canuso (Mateo) and this unlikely character. Nathan Bryon who plays Joey Ellis. The picture is courtesy of Jo who accosted him outside Brew Rock a couple of weeks ago and she said he sounds just the same in real life like he does in the series.  For those of you who hate Benidorm, sorry, but we love it, mainly because all the places they visit are real and the people are just what you see in and around Benidorm. You either love it or hate it and the series, just like the place – we do both. 

Now the spring is here and the winter is over it’s been a time to reflect and decide on what we want to do next. 

Our journey to southern Spain and Portugal was scuppered last year when our tenant left and we decided to go home.  Then it took a long time to get another tenant to our eastern Europe plan was cancelled.  Oh well maybe another time.

We thought that we might in a few years replace our motorhome with a smaller one to use for travelling and buy a caravan which we would leave in Spain during the summer months.  This motorhome is great for living in but it’s an expensive ornament to keep in one place for 6 months of the year, it’s very big to move around when we are travelling – I won’t go to southern Italy in this.  Also at 9 miles to the gallon it’s expensive for travelling.  So whilst it is wonderful, it’s also not that practical.

Then suddenly everything changed.  We were planning to leave on the following Thursday and we’d already started sorting out the van ready to do so.  Then the previous Friday morning, I woke up and just suggested to Iain that we get an apartment.  I thought I’d have a battle on my hands but he immediately said, and without any discussion, “I was thinking that too”.  So there it was decision made in 5 minutes.

Later that morning I went to Jo and James to break the news.  They had been our immediate neighbours for the last two winters and like us live full-time in their motorhome.  Jo’s face dropped a mile with disappointment, but that was soon replaced by a beaming smile when James said “We’d been thinking of that too”.

Oooh, exciting.  We then looked at what we would have to pay for renting a decent apartment – a swimming pool was a must.  After some discussion, we struck a brilliant idea, what could we get if we put our money together and shared – yes a VILLA, not two apartments but a VILLA with our own PRIVATE POOL.  Now don’t get too excited, you may have some idea of a VILLA being a big rambling house in the middle of nowhere with views to die for, but in Spain a VILLA is basically a detached house.  The big rambling house is more a FINCA.

So from Friday morning when we decided we wanted an apartment, to Saturday when we decided we’d share a house, to Monday and Tuesday seeing Estate Agents and viewing in Alfaz del Pi, La Nucia and Albir, by Wednesday we’d put down the deposit on our VILLA. That obviously meant that we wouldn’t be leaving the following day as we wanted to get everything signed up before we left.
It was all very exciting, despite the fact that on the Saturday our tenant sent us an email saying that he would be leaving the house at the end of April.  Mmmm – bad timing or what – actually no, it didn’t dampen my enthusiasm and at least it’s better than him leaving in September when the contract comes up for renewal.  At least it’s the spring and we can go home for a while.

So we get our VILLA in September as it’s already promised for holiday lets in the summer.  It’s somewhere near to the arrow head, nestling at the foothills of the Sierra Helada natural park.  Unfortunately it’s up what is locally called “Cardiac Hill” so either we’ll get very fit or we’ll use the car a lot – yes we’ll be returning with a car.  But we will be getting "classy?" neighbours.  It’s just along the road from the Sha Wellness Clinic whose clientele includes Simon Cowell and Kylie Minogue!!! However at 400 Euros for an afternoon's treatment (actually I think that is for a swim) I don't suppose we'll be visiting it very often.

Of course, everyone who knows anything about living in Spain will know that you now hit the Spanish bureaucracy.  NIE numbers must be obtained before you can enter into any contract in Spain, whether it be to buy a car, open a bank account or to rent a home.  This entails filling out forms and visiting the local police station in person.  Although this can be done yourself it is much easier to pay a lawyer to do it for you.  Then you have to wait for the paperwork to come through.  This also puts you on the radar for the authorities that you are living in Spain and that then connects you to the tax office to pay Spanish taxes.  More of that another time maybe.

Once we had the NIE numbers which took about a week, we were in a position to sign the contract on the house.  Well no, not quite.  Despite having asked the Estate Agents twice if we needed to have a Spanish bank account and being told that we didn’t, when the contract was ready to sign they then told us that we needed to. Had they told us that at the beginning we could have arranged it at leisure.  So there Iain and James were running around getting bank accounts, which like everything else in Spain takes ages.  It actually took two days, come back manana and get the account numbers.  So at last we have signed the contract and we are now sitting here waiting for the debit cards to come through.  We could have sorted out the bank account weeks ago and be on our way by now.

When the bank cards arrive we’re off back to the UK.  Live in the house again until we get another tenant, buy a car, sell the motorhome, visit friends and family, go to my Nephew’s wedding then head back to Spain for around 1st September or before. The only problem is that if we sell the motorhome and the house gets rented, then we’re truly homeless until September – anyone feel sorry for us?

Maybe we’ll try real camping and live in a tent.

I DON'T THINK SO!!!

Onward Quizteam Soldiers– South

Friends are the family you choose for yourselves

When we started this adventure, our (Iain’s) plan was to tour Europe and be in the warm all year round.  Personally I would rather have had a small cottage by a river and eked out my days relaxing and “playing” with my crafting things and sewing.  So neither of us got our dream (quite).  I do love living the life we live and the way we live it but I would never have come up with the idea in a million years but then I would have missed out on so much.

What we didn’t expect was that we would stay put for 6 months. We have met so many wonderful like-minded people from many nationalities who are easy going and doing a similar thing to us, although a lot swap their motorhome for a mortarhome in the summer months.  We can now count amongst the friends we have made this winter the Dutch (well some of them), Belgians and French.  So that will be a lot of visiting.

So it was time to leave El Albir and the many friends we had made and relationships that we had fortified over the winter.  Everything was ready to leave, the dog washed, the van packed and we had to say our goodbyes.  It was really emotional, big hugs all round.  Plans made to meet up in England in August to celebrate Joy’s birthday.  Over the last three months the Ingles seem to have become a group of 6.  We did do our own thing sometimes but quite often it was the same group of six that would be walking together through the campsite to go out for meals, events etc.  At last we have a picture of the six of us without someone missing, taking the photo.


Here’s also a collection of my memories from the winter.


And I did promise Emma to post the video of the pseudo bull fighting – talk about last of the summer wine!!!!  When I was younger I hated the program “Last of the Summer Wine” as (in my mother’s words) it just showed that men didn’t grow up, they just grew old and their toys got more expensive. But now, 30 years later,  I’m in there amongst it and I laugh with everyone else.  It seems it doesn’t matter that you have to be over 55 or disabled to hire a madge, there's no sensibility guarantee and they still get abused. Enjoy.

And for those of you with one of those posh, flashy, expensive, crappy apple devices that can't open files that everyone else can, because the company wants to convert the world to their way of doing things - here's an Ipad/Apple version. Sorry about the rant, but I just don't like Apple!!!!!

Duck Update

Sorry there isn’t one!! After months of feeding by James and taming, the duck is still missing.

Moving on

As I said before, I hadn’t driven for 6 months, well apart from playing on Jo’s madge and if you remember I managed to crash that into their awning (actually into the van, but don’t tell James). Mmm – so tom boys don’t grow up either.  It was with a certain amount of trepidation that I took to the wheel. I was feeling a little nervous, especially as the exit from the campsite is quite narrow with a 90 degree turn at the top into a narrow road and then a very sharp roundabout to navigate.  I was also nervous because for the first time we don’t have any breakdown cover (explained in my last post).  I’m such a worrier. 

Before we had left, there were more people to wave at, so that is a little distracting and this wasn’t helped by Martina, one of the receptionists shouting her goodbyes and her surprise at the fact that I was driving.  Unfortunately it wasn’t that easy to get out of the campsite because one of their trucks had been parked opposite the exit and it meant that I had to do a bit of shuffling back and forth to get through the exit.

First stop Benidorm Repsol garage to fill up with LPG, about 4 miles away.  I was absolutely stunned, I was a lot more comfortable than last year when I left the campsite but then maybe it was because I’d another 4,000 miles of experience of driving this truck behind me.  There were no dodgy moments, no wobbly legs, not even at the “London Underground” junction to get out of Albir and onto the N332.  WOW!!!!!

Sorry I haven’t got anything exciting to report but it did a lot for my blood pressure.  We arrived at the garage with NO incidents.   Refuelled, 200 litres of LPG later (the garage attendant couldn’t believe how much gas we bought)  we left for Carrefour to do a stock up.  There is a fantastic area for motorhome parking so it’s really easy to get in and out.  Whether this is a rumour or not we weren’t taking any chances.  Carrefour in Benidorm is apparently renowned for motorhomes being broken into.  The decision was made – Iain would stay in the van whilst I did the shopping – yippeeeeeeee going to a supermarket and and a large one at that on my own.  It was like a kid being let loose in a sweet shop.  Some hour later (or maybe longer) I emerged with my trolley full of STUFF.  But I’d forgotten the tyres and the innertubes for the dogs buggy.  So I had to go back again, result, that meant that Iain had to find a home for all the goodies that I had bought.  Lunch and then off about 100 miles to La Manga.

Again no dramas and only one time did we have strong words when the motorway split into two.  The conversation went something like “Which way?” (me) – well that always starts something.  “Head for Murcia” was the response.  Both options were sign-posted Mucia so I was none the wiser.

The choice was becoming imminent – the chevrons were appearing and I still didn’t know which way to go.  So I have to admit that I did shout “Which Way?” of course expecting that more volume would encourage a more positive response (I must have got that from my father).  It worked – “Take the right” – now I’ve told you before that I’m left handed, on the wrong side of the road, in a left-hand-drive vehicle and I really do struggle with left and right when I’m behind the wheel so it always takes me a few seconds to react to a left or right instruction.  If only I’d looked at the SatNag, I would have seen the direction I needed – something I had forgotten in the six months being off the road – a lesson to be learned.

Anyway we were on the correct road, which happened to be the right road, so no major drama.
We arrived in La Manga a little after 4pm so had plenty of time to pitch up and sort ourselves out. I was surprised at how tired I was, it was only just over 100 miles, but maybe it was the excitement of my trip to Carrefour.

We had been to this campsite before so knew what to expect. People either love it or hate it, with over 1,500 pitches it is the largest we have ever been on. I’ve written about it before so I’ll just point you to my post last year rather than eulogising about it – click the picture.  


We have a toilet and shower block just next door – result.  We have a washing machine at the shower block – result (except that I broke it this morning).  We have fresh water and drainage on the pitch – result.  We have a restaurant/bar and beach within about 100m – result.  So facilities wise it is soooo much better than Cap Blanch – but it doesn’t have the town location so apart from the campsite you need to go on a 20 minute bike ride to get into town.  We have done that once since we got here, but with the dog being so much older, she wouldn’t be able to walk that far so it’s the buggy for her and the bikes for us.

Not only that but I’ve been cooking. In Albir we ate out nearly every day, either for lunch or dinner, but in the four nights here I have prepared – healthy salad, chicken curry, spaghetti bolognese and pulled pork fajitas.  Tonight we are going out – well it is Saturday and they do have entertainment on Saturdays. I understand that couples generally argue most over money, well we have most of our heated moments over food.

 Iain is so fussy and eats like a sparrow.  Sometimes I see him staring at his plate of food waiting to see if it is going to eat him first.  I causes me so much angst and worry about what to cook.  It’s not that I’m a bad cook, because although a little out of practice,  I am not a bad cook, it’s just that I hate the thought of spending hours preparing nice food, only to see it being left on the plate.  Often when we are in a restaurant and his plate looks as full when he is finished as it did when it arrived I am just relieved that I didn’t choose it and cook it. The waitress often asks if it was ok, only to be told that he’s had enough.  I digress.

The Plan – Gibraltar, Seville, Portugal and then home for an MOT – OR NOT

Having spent a few days, just the two of us, and engaging in some useful conversation, we were just discussing on Wednesday that we hadn’t heard from Paul, who looks after our house in the UK and that surely we must owe him some money as we hadn’t had a bill for a while.  I said that I didn’t want to contact him and tempt fate as it seems that every time we hear from him, something goes wrong with the house.  We also discussed how nice it would be if our tenant decided to buy our house and what we would do if he left.

Lo and behold, that afternoon, Paul sent an email with his invoice for 3 months maintenance.
Then out of the blue, after Iain had gone to bed that night, an email arrived from our tenant giving us notice to quit.  Oh no!!!! Not what we wanted to hear.  Sometimes I just wish I didn’t look at my emails late at night.  I couldn’t wake Iain up for that but then I just couldn’t sleep either thinking about it.  Iain then awoke about 4am to use the facilities and I got my opportunity to tell him.  There was no reaction from Iain but at least it meant that having shared the burden I could get a good night’s sleep.

So yesterday was spent contacting agents for re-letting and discussing what to do next.    So looking at our options – 1. Head directly home and be there about the time the tenant leaves – approximately 1,450 miles, or 2. Do the original plan to go via Gibraltar, Seville, Portugal, Northern Spain and then home – approximately 2,450 miles.

We have decided to get back to the UK about the time the tenant leaves, which gives us a little less than 4 weeks and then we will be able to check the house over for new tenants and if necessary we will live in it until it is re-let.  There’s not much available in the countryside that competes with our house at the moment, so hopefully it won’t take long. I have looked at properties for sale but that seems to be stagnant so we won’t bother putting it back up for sale at this time. I must admit though, I’m a little excited at the prospect of living in a mortarhome for a while, being able to shower when I want, do washing when I want and above all having a bath for a change.  One thing I remember as a bonus of living in a motorhome is when you are cooking you don’t have to go too far for the bin – strange things we think about and compare.

Not only that but it would be a saving of something over 500 litres of gas.
The feeling is strange, we were to cut our journey home down from 2 months to 1 month.  Most people (and us in our past lives) only get two weeks together for a holiday and here I was panicking that we only had one month to get home.

At least the tenant is leaving in late spring and we just have to come home early, if it had been in the winter then that would have been a lot more difficult for us.

So we’ll stay here for a few days more and then head up north again along the east coast of Spain.  The weather is really rather pleasant now, although still not hot enough for me to want to swim.   I’m sorry that we won’t be able to spend some time on the south coast during the nice weather, I’m sorry that we won’t be able to meet up with my old school friend Loreley who after years of looking for her, she finally popped up on facebook a few months ago living in Gibraltar and I’m also sorry that we won’t be able to go to Seville, where with my new found love of Flamenco I was really rather hoping to get to see and hopefully join in with some more dancing.  Portugal – well I haven’t been there and whilst it would be nice to see it, if just to compare it with Spain, that doesn’t really bother me.

Well there’s always big adventure 3 ………………………………….

Long time no see

I just can’t believe how fast the time has been going.  We’re due to leave here in a couple of weeks and then we’ll be on our travels again so I’ll have more travel news to report then and hopefully a lot more time to do some blogging.

So it’s nearly two months since my last post, here are some of the highlights well things that particularly stick in my mind.

Nick and Joy finally arrived in January and our feet haven’t touched the ground since, almost literally, I haven’t been out dancing so much in years – I don’t know where Nick gets his energy from.

In February, there was a Dutch 50th wedding anniversary party and Clara, our flamenco teacher did a performance and the flamenco group had a photo

Joy, Ronnie, Betty, Frieda, Fabienne and yours truly. Missing were Hortense and Cora

This brought me onto doing a website for Clara to help promote her business.  So one afternoon Joy, her friend Ellie who was visiting and myself went onto the beach to take some photos and videos.  Here’s a couple – they were pretty good I thought for amateurs.

Then another day, Clara and myself went up into the mountains and took some more pictures and videos. This then got me into photo manipulation and I rather liked the result of this one. Clara is dancing with her shadow which is in black and white and she is wearing vibrant red.


If you liked those then have a look at her website www.claratierra.sbw1.co.uk

I have really enjoyed doing the website although it has taken up quite a bit of time.  But anyone who knows me, knows that I’ve always got to be learning something new and I’ve learned a lot about photo manipulation and videos and YouTube – so for me it was all worth it.

After some inspiration from Joy, I’ve also been working on a couple of websites for myself that I’ve been meaning to do for ages, but they took a bit of a backseat because of Clara’s so they haven’t been finished and will be revealed soon. Oh and look, I’ve got into Pinterest and you can now pin any picture on my blog.

Clara, bless her, than offered in return to give me some private Flamenco lessons and I’ve been learning the four parts of the Sevillana, which is a dance that all Spanish people seem to know but it really is very difficult and takes ages.  I think I’m just about there now and I can get up and dance with the Flamenco dancers at El Cisne and Kaktus and actually look like I know a bit of what I’m doing instead of just jigging around – more of that to follow.

In March, there was another party to celebrate the Dutch leaving – sorry that was for the Dutch to celebrate the end of the winter season, when they all go home to check on their tulips.  Apologies to our Dutch friends Meerke and Nol, Henk and Jenny, we don't see you in the same way as some of the others.

So in one of those inebriated moments, we thought it would be a good idea to put on a “Flash mob” during the party.  Only planning it a week before, we actually only had 2 hours to put together and practice the dance (I did mention the Sevillana takes ages to learn).  Clara was brilliant and this is the result which also gave me another opportunity to play around with videos. It’s only a couple of snippets but hopefully it will give you the idea. Even Iain, Nick, Jo and James were involved as they were the “Clappy Happers” backing group.  Hope you enjoy it, it was just a bit of fun and it proves that old birds still like to get up and dance, the oldest in our flamenco group was 82.

We’ve met some new friends

Paul and Ruth from Wiltshire stayed for a couple of weeks.  Paul has just finished his self-build and it’s all orange inside – yes, even the orange squeezer. Apart from the fact that they were real party animals, my most vivid memory was of a fairly cold evening (still able to sit out until gone 9pm) when Paul was sitting outside wearing an orange and black “Tigger” style onesie.  I couldn’t believe that he would actually wear that in public there could have been a bit of the confidence-juice that had been consumed responsible for that.

Ruth and Paul

Mick and Shirley returned again, we had met them last year and that meant another few nights out. They’ve now moved off to Calpe for a couple of weeks before returning home.

Dave and Pam from Grimsby became new friends and they are planning to come back next year.

We’ve had some birthdays to celebrate

Jo and mine fell at the same weekend in early March so we did a whole weekend’s celebrations.  Meals out, dancing at Kactus (posh hotel on the seafront) – you get the picture.
Nick’s fell on 1st April and I made him a card.  Inspiration is always the problem, but just recently, as I said we’ve been out dancing and partying a lot and Iain and James are a bit light-weight when it comes to staying up late, so Nick always seems to be left with the women.  He was left to entertain 5 women one night, so we have “Nick-named” (rather apt I thought) him “Sultan Nick of Albir”.  Of course he loves all the attention.  Here’s the card I made for him.  We then did a surprise lunch at Wyndhams for him and managed to pull it off without him finding out.  But I don’t think he appreciated this picture too much though.

We’ve also had some falls

James was the first – fell over and dislocated his finger – mmmm well they do call it falling down water. So that meant a few visits to the hospital and a couple of weeks in a sling.
Then Pam, tripped in the street and ended up 4 nights in hospital.  Badly bruised but gladly nothing broken.
The following night,  Liz who lives in Albir  – fell on her way home from the quiz on Wednesday night and we haven’t seen her since but we have been getting regular updates. Hope you are doing ok Liz and also hope we will see you before we go.
Jo finished it off (we hope) by tripping on a piece of metal  on the campsite.  With her already dodgy ankle that meant a trip to the hospital but thankfully nothing broken. But that does of course mean that the Madge is back in action.  It was the day of “all day” rugby so nearly everyone was out at the time.  I’m sorry to say this Jo, but it must have been a sight to be seen with only Jo and Pam down our end of the campsite at the time and Pam, who had only come out of hospital  that day had to walk using her walking frame over to Jo and help her up.  Glad that it’s improving now Jo, hopefully you’ll be up and running again soon.

We’ve found some new places to go

Kaktus

– the posh hotel on the seafront. Last year, Nick always took Joy out on Saturday nights to the Kactus – they do a really good act each Friday and Saturday and there’s dancing of course.  Last year we just didn’t get ourselves organised enough to go, especially as the act doesn’t come on until 10.30pm which was always far too late for us.  But this year we have been making the effort sometimes.  The acts are really good and we do have a great time.

Goa

– not the holiday resort in India, but a Spanish bar just down the road and on the seafront.  I can’t believe we didn’t discover it before.  On Friday nights (late) and Sunday evenings they have Spanish entertainment.  This normally consists of a Flamenco band (no dancer though) which we think is one family. They are fantastic and whilst Iain really doesn’t like the wailing singing that they do, the guitarist is brilliant.  Having done some flamenco lessons we have learned not only the dance but also an appreciation of the culture and the rythms.  I’m really getting into flamenco and I’m sure it is mainly because I understand it so much more and can appreciate it – even the singing sometimes.

Of course all this makes it sound like we are forever in the pub and getting pi**ed.  Well it would be so easy to do that.  There are loads of ex-pat communities over in Spain, retired, not working, loads of time on their hands, living very cheaply off pensions and with a pint at anything from 1.50 euros and large brandies at 3 Euros a shot it is very easy to fall into that way of life.  I for one, don’t want to.

Yes I’ll party, yes I’ll have a drink (and too many sometimes) but I also want to keep myself busy doing other things.  I’ve been doing a bit of crafting stuff but not enough and the days still seem to fly by.  It’s amazing the things that you did automatically seem to be a job these days – even just having a shower, or doing water in/water out is something  to tick off the list of “jobs to do” each day.  It’s also very easy to get lazy.  Each day seems to start with – “Our neighbours are up, let’s pop around for a chat and see what they are doing today”.

Jo and James, Nick and Joy and ourselves are all next to each other and it is getting like one big commune.  Even the dogs just seem to wander from one van to another as if it is just one big pack with separate kennels. Paddy often pops in for a bit of Connie's left-overs.  It’s rather nice really and we do like the campsite life, but we need to leave here for a rest.   You wouldn’t get this lifestyle in an apartment.  However it is lovely when on the odd occasion we just stay in for the night and watch TV together, just the two of us.  However with the warmer weather and now the longer evenings – already the sun doesn’t set until after 8.30pm those nights are getting fewer and farther between.

But we have taken in a little bit of culture

A couple of days ago, Joy and myself actually ventured into Altea Old Town.  It is lovely, pretty white buildings, narrow streets, a church on top of the hill.  As with a lot of Spanish old towns they are on top of hills and it’s a bit of a climb to get up there but worth it. This is much more real Spain than Albir which has really only come into being since the 1960's. For anyone thinking of visiting – we do actually walk there from Albir, it’s about 2 miles along the promenade,  then the climb up.

You can just see the massive hotels at Benidorm in the distance

These young people – just couldn’t make it to the top without a rest

Last week saw the return of the Classical Flamenco Group which we saw in November (I think).  Iain and Nick declined to join us and said it would just be wasted money on them.   As usual (this is Spain), there was very little information about it beforehand, loads of posters everywhere but nothing explaining what it would actually be – so we didn’t really know what we were going to see.  I googled everything I could and we were still none the wiser.  We thought from the poster that it might be a male dancer, if any dancer at all, but we did manage to find out that the guitarist would be the same as the previous performance. I wasn’t sure about seeing a single male dancer because I love to see the ladies dancing in their flamenco dresses, however as Joy hadn’t seen the last performance and the poster did show a man half naked,  we thought we would give it a go.

It was fantastic.  Norman (the dancer) was about 6ft 4 and was like an albatross.  How he moved his long arms and legs at such speed, I just don’t know.  His name is Norman Contreras and here’s a brief snippet of his dancing.

 He must be quite new on the scene as I could only find one YouTube video of him.



The guitarist was Antonio Munoz Fernandez and he must be quite famous as there’s quite a bit on YouTube of him, if you would like to have a look and listen.

So if you ever come across these people, they are well worth seeing.

DUCK UPDATE

The duck has become very tame, it will let you stroke it, James can even pick it up with no fuss and it dominates the two dogs, Connie and Paddy who avoid it at all cost.

However the stupid duck thinks it is a dog and kept visiting Max – now would you torment this dog? Max didn’t know what to make of it and was very curious to say the least.  We had to keep rescuing the duck from a good sniffing and chewing. One day I saw Max had pinned it to the ground.  Another time Max was standing on it’s wing and chewing it’s feathers and the duck didn’t even try to get away. Then Max must have realised that this might be food and one time the duck was rescued after Max picked it up by it's neck.  Things were getting a bit dodgy.  Understandably, although Dave was fed up with the duck tormenting Max, more seriously, Max is a big softie and he didn’t want him to actually taste blood.

One day however the inevitable happened, Dave was throwing the ball for Max and the stupid duck got too close.  Max chased the duck which didn’t take off quick enough and he caught it on our pitch.  Everyone was reluctant to get too close to Max as you don't know what a dog on the hunt might do if you try to take it's prize away. In a matter of seconds, Dave came to the rescue and managed to get Max to drop the duck. Was it curtains for the duck? Well not quite, but it was pretty roughed up, looked very sorry for itself and it lost a few tail feathers so it won’t be flying off anywhere for a while.  It seems to have recovered now but it doesn’t mess with Max any more.

So for now were still stuck with the duck and it's muck.

A couple of days later an egg appeared under James' van.  James was soooo excited - thought he was going to be a grandad. More research on Muscovy ducks revealed that they can lay up to 30 eggs in one batch so preparations were being made for the new arrivals.  Was it the shock of the encounter with Max that had spurred on the duck to start laying? Or was it just a chicken egg!!!!!  Sadly no further eggs have been produced so one solitary egg lies underneath James' van and the duck is totally ignoring it - perhaps she isn't ready to be a mother yet? I think James is now in mourning over what might have been. No one is owning up to the joke but I just wish it had been my idea.

That’s about it, I’m sure there is loads that I have forgotten and apologies to anyone who didn’t get a mention.  We’re on the move again later next week, so there should be more of our travels rather than just our living.  But to anyone thinking of spending winter in warmer climes – Spain is great. Winter lasted about 6 weeks, cool in the day and quite cold at night but I only saw ice on the ground once, early one morning where a small puddle had frozen and I still only wore a coat once and that was because it was raining.

So did we get bored staying in one place for 6 months - what do you think?

See you soon when we are on the road again.

I’m back

Well it’s been a long time since my last post. There’s been so much going on that I just haven’t had the time to think about doing my blog.  People asked us what we were going to do, were we going to get bored etc? But the days just seem to fly by and before you know it, it’s evening again.  We’ve even been trying to have a couple of nights in this week to catch up on a bit of TV and that hasn’t happened.  Now the weather is getting better in the evenings, it’s just so easy to pop round to someone for a quick drink about 6pm and before you know it, the evening has gone and you haven’t had any dinner – again.  It’s a hard life but someone has to do it.

We’ve been thinking about our reasons for doing this, is it to travel Europe or is it to stay in one place and enjoy the warm weather?  Well it’s both really, so we’ve decided that we love it here so much (of course that’s all about the friends we have here) that we will come back next year (all being well of course) and probably spend the whole winter in one place.  This then brings us onto whether we should get an apartment, buy a caravan to leave here in the summer with a small motorhome to do our travelling in, or stay with the van that we have.  The decision is that we will decide in another couple of years – we love this van and although we can’t get to the smaller campsites or travel easily on the smaller roads, if we get rid of the van now, we will never have something as luxurious as this again.  The one decision that we have made is that we will NOT get an apartment. 

The campsite life is fantastic for us.  Now we have Nick and Joy here, and of course Jo and James have been here the since we got here – we are on the same block of pitches D1, D2 and D5, I have to admit it has become a bit of a commune.  The dogs (Paddy and Connie) seem to think that it’s just one big pack and they become interchangeable.  In the mornings Paddy comes around to check that the pack are ok and to finish off Connie’s breakfast.  Of course this also has the advantage that if we want to go out for the day we can leave the dogs with each other and know they are ok.  Only yesterday, Iain was ready to go for a shower at 11 o’clock, but “people” just kept popping round, Paul had a flat battery, so we asked Henk for a jump start, Henk and Jenny were leaving so we helped move their caravan – by 1.30 he gave up and we took the dog out for a walk.  The only time I get to update my blog is in the mornings before we open the door to the outside world.
So what has been going on.

Early in January we saw the arrival of Nick and Joy – great friends we had met last year, so the first day that just had to be an excuse for a get together and we started with a welcoming party.  The next day Nick and Cathy (Tales from Aurora) arrived.  It was really bizarre, we had never met them before but we had been following each other’s blogs for about a year.  It was like meeting long lost friends.  They were only staying a couple of nights before going skiing so we sent them off to have a look at Benidorm.  Nick bought himself a “selfie” stick so we just had to try it out at the Chinese restaurant.  Very successful I must say.

Nick seems to have the hang of it

Cathy brandishing her new toy

It was lovely to meet up with people that we had only known vicariously and hopefully our paths will cross again soon.  Perhaps in the summer we might visit the campsite where Nick and Cathy will be working.

Early in January, Meerke arranged for us to pay a visit to the campsite Boss’ Finca (Estate) and this was a great opportunity to have a look around at a wealthy house in Spain.  About 12 of us went.  Now I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but when dealing with Dutch people there is no approximate time.  We had arranged to do the visit on Thursday and we were to meet at 11.00am as our Dutch friends had arranged transport for us (they have caravans so cars are available).  Nick, Joy, Jo, James, Iain and myself were idly chatting at 10.30am on the preceding Tuesday about how were were going to leave soon to walk to Altea and how we mustn’t be late on Thursday to be ready for our Dutch friends at 11 o’clock exactly.

Something had got lost in the translation though and while we were chatting, Meerke waved to us from their pitch – it was now 10.45 and 10 minutes later she came to ask if we were ready.  We exclaimed that we thought the arrangement was for Thursday and she said no it was today, Tuesday.  So having really tried hard not to insult them by being late for our arrangement  it was suddenly a mad rush to get ready to leave.  Never mind, cameras thrown in bags and jumpers grabbed we only held them up about 5 minutes.

The Finca was only just this side of Benidorm so it didn’t take us long to get there. The old farmhouse dated from the early 19th Century and they are obviously very wealthy people as there were quite a few pieces of old furniture and antiques.  The house even had it’s own Chapel upstairs. 
 There were some very pretty rooms and it was kept immaculately.  The one thing I would say though is that it was FREEZING inside.  These houses are designed to keep cool in the hot summer months, but hey, this was January – no-one actually lives there in the winter (except the housekeepers) and I can’t blame them.

Every autumn the Dutch contingent at the campsite go up to the Finca to pick the oranges.  They asked us whey we didn’t go with them and I (hopefully) tactfully explained that it was because we didn’t understand the posters.  Never mind, perhaps next time.

Things soon settled down with Nick and Joy’s arrival and we got into a fair routine of partying.  However it was so long ago now that I’m sure I have forgotten a lot of what we did.  Either that or the copious amounts of falling down water that has been consumed has made my memory hazy. The problem is that Nick and Joy are on holiday and we are “living” so it’s trying to get that balance.

Oh and I forgot to mention - remember our atrocious antics at our party - getting rather confused as newts and losing our presents - well about three weeks after the party we were out one quiz night and we were handed a couple of bags of bottles of wine and a gift that had been found and were being returned to us.  We were absolutely flabbergasted and couldn't believe the honesty of someone to send them to Wyndhams for us - and we don't even live in the town.  It would appear that when I left the Beach Lounge I didn't actually manage to pick up all the bags and left some behind.  So thanks to Robyn for letting us have them - it wasn't the value of the items but the thought that we were most impressed with.

Quick summary for January:-

• Duck is still around and still making a mess everywhere.
• Nick and Joy have joined us and made up the numbers for the quiz team.
• Weather has been cold(er) but hey we haven’t seen any snow and we have seen a lot of sunshine.
• Still doing Flamenco lessons – and loving it.

See you soon for February update.

It’s not FEELING much like Christmas though

Well not yet anyway, and it’s only just over a week away.  Maybe it’s because it’s still quite warm (forecast says it will be up to 20C again by the end of the week) or maybe it’s because of one of the things that I love about Spain and that the sun doesn’t set until after 5.30pm and we don’t have those horrible dark afternoons like in the UK.

Still I’m not complaining – at all and I’m very much looking forward to it.

We’ve got family arriving next week, Iain’s dad ® and younger brother are coming on 22nd for 3 weeks and we’ve got Iain’s older brother and his wife (where did those smileys come from, they were supposed to be initials in brackets, sorry that’s just what popped up) are arriving on 28th for 2 weeks.  No they are not staying with us!!!!! No room in our motorhome for 6.

We’ve booked our Christmas lunch at our favourite restaurant, we’ve also got a party organised there for 29th December which is our 10th wedding anniversary.  YES 10 YEARS.  Where have they gone?  This is of course quite a mile-stone for me as I’ve been married twice before and they never got as far a 2 years – ADDED TOGETHER. Then it’s new year and then Iain’s (ahh, my husband is a light bulb) birthday.  So it will be a busy time for us over the next few weeks. 

So what have we been up to?

A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to highlight my hair.  I’ve been trying to go natural for nearly a year and have just got bored with grey and mouse and thought I’d like to liven it up a bit. Not really noteworthy, but something to consider when small space living and the shower blocks a cycle ride away.  So being the eternal optimist that I am I thought I’d have a go in the van where we don’t have copious amounts of hot water. When you live in a house, you take water for granted – in a motorhome, everything that you use has to be brought in manually and everything that you discard has to be removed manually – and you generally don’t add chemicals.  Now that’s not such a big deal, you get used to it, but it does make you much more aware of how you use your resources.

Now I’ve just got to get to the shower blocks without looking like I’ve a load of cheese straws growing out of my head!	And a quick selfie to show that it didn’t all come out in the wash.

The duck has taken to visiting us now and the dog is terrified of it.  She won’t look at it and pretends it’s not there.  I think the duck just likes company and we don’t mind, except that it’s not house trained and c**ps all over our benidorm blanket so we’re forever washing it off.  James has almost been able to resist feeding it so that it might leave and as I’m writing this, I’ve just heard Iain call from outside, “Oh the bloody duck’s back”.

Don’t come too close,  I’m warning you,  or I’ll just have to …………..move.	Guard duck – I’ll just sleep here so the dog can’t come out

We had some pretty rough seas the other day, we could hear it from our pitch.  Wow it was really rough for the med but it was still warm and sunny and there wasn’t much wind, so it must have been a pretty big storm from out there somewhere – we thought of Eric and Shazza as it was they day we thought they were taking the ferry to Morocco. 

That’s pretty rough for this part  of the med.	At least the dry river bed did it’s job – to protect the town from sea surges.

I’m still going to Flamenco lessons which I absolutely love.  I can hear the rhythm and I can remember the steps but once I get the arms in motion anything can happen. Also I have rather a lot of bulk (that was my rowing coach’s term for it) to move around quickly.  I’m in good company though. The teacher, Clara, speaks Spanish and a little English, Hortensia is Belgian and speaks Flemish and Spanish, Lyn is English and speaks English and Spanish and I’m the pleb who can’t speak anything other than English, so there’s a lot of guesswork going on. It’s a good laugh and at least we keep Clara amused. God help us if we ever get to use castanets and I hope that the campsite don’t ask us to do a demonstration at the end of “the season”.   No photos of this debacle.

The other day I went into reception to see if we had any post as I am expecting to receive a jiffy bag sized parcel from England.  There was one from England but there was no name on it, just the campsite address, so I picked it up and asked the receptionist if I could open it to see if it was my parcel. She offered to open it for me, which of course was the right thing to do. So I stood with my friend Joan and waited.  It was marked fragile but was a little light for the package I was expecting.  Martina opened the jiffy bag, to find a bubble wrapped item inside.  She carefully unwrapped it to find a carrier bag wrapping, this was followed by another two.  Then she opened the final one, looked in, screamed and ran to the toilet.  I thought she had gone to be sick.  No one else wanted to look into the bag to see what had caused this sudden outburst so we waited patiently for her return.  The other receptionists watched with amusement and obvious relief that they had not been given the task.  Martina returned, a little more composed.  Of course curiosity had got to all of us and we just had to know what had created such a dramatic reaction.  She finally managed to say that it wasn’t my parcel it was teeth!   Of course the problem then was whose were they?  There was no name on the envelope.  They would have to wait until someone came into reception and “gummed” at them – “anyone seen my teeth”?

A couple of Saturdays ago, Tomas and Hannelle invited us to a lovely dinner at their van. Apparently very few women cook in Sweden so it was down to Tomas.  Personally I'd rather cook so that I don't have to do the washing up after a couple of glasses of the falling down juice.  It was really nice to have a "home" cooked meal for a change and there were three wonderful courses on offer.  I'm just so glad that we had a conversation about whether or not it is etiquette to take off one's shoes before going into homes in Sweden BEFORE we stomped our way in. Hannelle even has indoor and outdoor slippers - bet that's made you smile Tomas.

We lost the quiz last week on the tie-break – our name was The Spanish Win Quiz Mission, but we picked up some new quizzing partners who are also on the campsite, Dave and Jessica.

Last Friday we had a lovely night out with Jo and James.  Brisa del Mar (where we are going for our Christmas lunch) had their party night with entertainment.  The group were really good, a mixture of Irish music and some other stuff thrown in.  Plenty of dancing and a wobbly walk home for some – not me!!!!

Is James about to make a romantic gesture to Jo? Doesn’t look very natural for you James.	No he’s just holding the flowers for the street seller who’s decided to join in the dancing

This picture proves two things:- 1.  Iain does dance sometimes 2.  I know what my new-year’s resolution will be	Oh no – I hope they haven’t come home drunk again!

On a practical note - I had a trip to the doctors last week.  This note is more for people who fall ill when in Spain rather than my ailment.  Anyway, I’d been putting off seeing the doctor and had been feeling under the weather for nearly 3 weeks and finally relented – I’ve never been one to visit the doctor unless I really have to – even in England. But my ailment wasn’t clearing up and I didn’t want to feel rough over Christmas.

Now having spoken to some ex-pats, there are two choices here, go and see the state doctor – which is free, just go up there with your passport and your EHIC card and you can register temporarily for 6 months. However the downside of this is that they speak little English.  Or you can pay privately for a consultation.  I knew that the private doctor, whilst being Norwegian, speaks excellent English and I had been recommended to both by locals so it was a decision to make.  I have to admit that it was finally decided that I would go privately.  It’s 38 Euros for a consultation (around £32).  What really made me decide to go privately was that we had recently spend nearly 200 Euros on the DOG on vets bills without as much as a flinch but it seemed a much harder decision to make when it came down to me, but in the words of the Oreal advert “I’m worth it!”

What we have found here though is that medication is quite expensive.  An antibiotic cream for the dog was 14.50 Euros and my tablets were 17.50 Euros, there’s no state prescription charge here, you just have to pay the full amount.

Anyway for those who might be interested, I’m feeling a lot better.

I don’t suppose that I’ll have time to blog again before Christmas, oh, there’s so much to do before next week – get Iain a present; get my hair cut; get some music organised for the party; go and talk about the menu for the party; decorate my dress; make “deely boppers” for Christmas day, and it’s Wednesday already. I don’t know how I used to have time to fit in everything that I used to do.

So Happy Christmas to all my readers, wherever you are.    
PS the duck is still hanging around and has now taken to nesting under OUR van!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The MOON rising over Calpe – viewed from Albir - December 6th 2014

I didn’t take this actual picture, but I did see the moon rising and I did take some pics, they just weren’t as good as this one.  The sun was setting behind me and this gave a fantastic pink glow to the sky.  I’ve never seen anything quite like this before.

So Christmas is approaching and we hear that Scotland had –7C last night – we’re really suffering here (not), it is dropping a little below 10C some nights, but once the sun is up in the morning it soon warms up.  The air is feeling cooler during the day but temperatures still reach the high teens. In the sun it’s still very warm and we can still wear shorts and sandals when in the sunshine.  Looking forward to Meerke and Nol arriving from The Netherlands in a few days and then we’ve Iain’s dad and younger brother arriving on 22nd, just in time for Christmas.

We had a bit of rain last weekend, but the weather is great again.  But rain or not, work has to go on and at this time of year the biggest job on the campsite is clearing up leaves.  Of course we only have to worry about our pitch but the sweepers are doing a great job.

Javier improvising on a raincoat, it was hilarious when we saw him walking up to us.  Like some smurf on acid.

Javier then told us about a Smurf village near Marbella, where the Smurf 3d movie was filmed.  It was one of those pretty white villages which was painted blue for the movie.  Sony were supposed to come back and re-paint all the houses white again, but the villagers voted to leave them blue as their visitor numbers increased dramatically (from 300 a year to 80,000 a year) and this has brought so much success to the economy that they very sensibly kept their new colour.  Everyone has jobs now, which is very important in Spain.  Click the Daily Mail Article link below to find out more.

Juzcar – Smurf Village Daily Mail Article

Javier always keeps us amused, as I said before he’s a happy-go-lucky bloke who choses to live in a tent on the campsite, doing whatever work he can find, but he’s obviously no idiot.  The other day he came around sweeping, pulling the leaf cart behind him shouting “Ice Cream, Ice Cream”.  We do meet all sorts of people here.

We haven’t been doing much, I’ve joined some Flamenco dancing lessons.  Unfortunately there’s only a couple of us doing them at the moment, the word has not got round, so I don’t know how long the campsite will put them on for.  I love it!!!!!!  I’ve also joined a crafting class but a lot of the women just do knitting and unlike in the ‘60’s advert Wendy is not a great knit – anyone remember that advert for Wendy’s wools – what happened to them? Nearly everyone is Dutch, but having been a few weeks now they are starting to talk to me.  There is one other English woman who goes and a couple of Dutch who speak very good English so I am able to converse with them.  But I just love making things and learning something new so I’ll persevere.

I said in my last post that I had Christmas decorations to make.  We were on the road last year at Christmas so I had very little in the way of decorations and that has made me go rather over the top this year.  I wanted to decorate our pitch and van outside, rather than inside as the etiquette of small space living is that you don’t really invite people into your “small space”.  There is very little in the way of outside decorations to be bought so I had to make my own.

Can you guess what it is yet?

 
My first bit of great inspiration was to make a Christmas tree from recycled plastic bottles.  I have to admit it didn’t get very far and was soon consigned to the bin.  I realised that although there was a copious amount of plastic bottles available, it was going to take far too much time, so I had to think again.

Inspired I “acquired” a used pallet from the “free bricolage” on site and set to.   Everyone kept asking what the hell I wanted an old pallet for – all will be revealed:-

“Free” wooden pallet.  Borrowed Saw – what was I up to?

Now can I be trusted to play with sharp objects?

Stars made from recycled beer cans	Bauble made from foam ball wrapped in garden string (lots of messy glue) and decorated with a few twigs and pods then some red beads added. Along with some fir cones, dried fruit and some leaves and more twigs and hey presto:-

The result – my rustic Christmas tree.  Spray painted green, add a few recycled and home-made decorations and hey it can be thrown away after Christmas.	What I hadn’t bargained for was that by cutting the pallet carefully, you can actually make two trees.

Now I think these would make a great outdoor decoration for any home although if it was more permanent we would have gone to the trouble of sanding and priming it first before painting.

Of course that wasn’t to be enough was it?

The van next – glitter foam rules!	More glitter foam – pointsettia (in case you couldn’t guess)

Even more glitter foam – cut out letters this time

Add a home-made wreath	And some lights – voila – looks great when the sun is shining

Of course nothing was stuck directly onto the precious paintwork of the van – all using suction pads.

Now, onwards and upwards – the inside – but that will have to wait until another day.

I move on – to Dave.  Now Dave is a fairly prickly character but once you get to know him he’s a real softie.  He lives on site with his boxer dog and hates everyone. Actually he doesn’t, but it’s just safer to be like that – I told you we meet all sorts.  Dave is an avid Chelsea fan and you may remember that we call him Chelsea F**king Dave as the F word is used very frequently in his vocabulary and we decorated an egg for him last Easter.

Dave lives on the campsite and is almost directly opposite us – yes we chose this pitch!!!!  But seriously he’s actually a pretty good bloke and keeps us amused.  Of course he sets himself up for ridicule and he likes nothing better than a bit of banter.  The other day in Wyndham’s Dave walked in and Iain said “Pull up a chair Dave, or you can go and sit over there with your mates!” 

When Dave looks out of his caravan – he sees our beautiful motorhome, but when we look out of our motorhome we see his tatty trailer.  So we decided that we’d brighten it up for him.  Dave is a character of habit and takes his dog out for a walk every morning at 10 am on the dot.  That’s gives us a full hour before he comes back.

One day we washed his trailer and then stuck this on the back – note it says Dave not Club!!!!

Then a couple of days later – this appeared - making stickers - yet another of my many talents - lol

It’s been nearly a week now and he still hasn’t said a thing. We don’t know if he’s seen the side yet, but he’s definitely seen the Chelsea sticker.

I told you the other week, it’s a bit like the “Last of the Summer Wine” here.  Bored? We don’t get time to be bored.

Quick update - Jo and James still have the duck - be careful what you wish for James.  Jo's ankle is getting better at last and the "Madge" has gone back.

Be back soon with the inside decorations!!!!!!