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!!!!!!