Well, no, actually it’s not! It’s certainly a different life, and one of the things we keep needing to adapt to is the changing of the seasons. Anyone born and brought up in Northern Ireland will be aware that the difference between summer and winter there is that the rain is slightly warmer in the summer. Think I’m joking? I think not – it seems that this summer in NI was one of the wettest on record, very disappointing. However, over here we have had four different “olas de calor”, literally, heatwaves.
We can usually expect one or two, lasting a couple of days,when the temperatures in the shade can easily top 40C, but four heatwaves was too many for most. Unbearably hot, difficult to breathe in such loaded air, and difficult to keep cool either during the day or at night. Thank goodness for aircon in the bedroom – we’d never have been able to sleep otherwise.
I’m currently waiting, with more than a little trepidation, for my appointment with the consultant about my poor wee arthritic knees. Apparently it’s likely I’ll need cortisone injections, I don’t care what they do as long as I’m able to walk, run and cycle again! We are very fortunate with our health service here in Spain, as we can go online and get an appointment with the GP for the next day. Hospital appointments are never too long to wait for either. I know a lot of the Spanish people take out private medical insurance as well as having state healthcare, but I’m really not too sure it’s always worth it. I rememeber when we both had private healthcare, before we were eligible to access the state service, and Peter had some tests done including various X-rays, when he was suffering from dreadful sciatica. We had to go to the consultant in Almeria city, when we were living in that province, and it was a 250km round trip by car.. Same thing when we went to collect the results – except Peter got a message to say he could pick up the results in the bakery shop next door to the consultant’s office, as the consultant himself would not be there that day! And yes, we DID collect the big envelope from the bakery….you couldn’t make it up!
Here’s another thing about the health service in Spain….Peter needed an eye test as he was a bit bothered about his eyesight. An appointment was swiftly arranged with the consultant at the local specialist department in the city, and off we went.
The consultant was a woman about the same age as me, very efficient, if a bit brusque. The whole appointment was, of course, carried out in Spanish, and she obviously preferred her patients to talk in bullet points, if at all, and that’s stictly NOT the husband’s modus operandi!
Anyhow, she was very thorough, and told him he needed glasses for long sight as well as for reading. She said he could get varifocals or two different pairs, the main difference being that varifocals cost considerably more. Then, with Peter’s chin still resting on the ledge thingy of the testing equipment, she looked at me, nodded in his direction and said, in perfect English, “Very handsome man!” Well, I nearly fell off my chair, and she repeated it, and we both couldn’t help laughing! Imagine if that happened in “woke” UK?! I just agreed with her, she was right!
This came up in my memories on Facebook recently, and as I thought it was a perfect example of how random my life is here in Spain, I thought I’d share it with you. Not too long ago I fancied a little something sweet after dinner, as you do. The husband suggested we have a bit of shortbread. “Shortbread? We haven’t got any shortbread”, I told him. “Yes we do”, he said, “it’s in the Biscuit Cabinet”. The BISCUIT CABINET!?!??! WE HAVE A FLIPPING BISCUIT CABINET AND NOBODY TOLD ME?!?!!? Turns out it’s the CUPBOARD where he keeps his revolting home-made muesli stuff, cardboard flavoured with beetroot, probably, as well as some very strange looking pasta and other healthy stuff like lentils. The shortbread was perfectly safe in there as I would never, ever in a million years have thought there was anything worth eating in that cupboard. Three lessons learned – 1) the husband is very good at hiding stuff, 2) we seem to have a cabinet, not a cupboard. A bit like the Prime Minister really. 3) We ate too much dinner and shortbread and felt a bit sick! I found a tiny wee bit of our friend Anna Bedford’s beautiful homemade frozen flavoured vodka hidden in the freezer that day (I can hide things too!) so we had a wee sip of that before bed. Life is good, amigos, life is good… and also a lot of fun!
I am definitely not too computer savvy and usually I am amazed when I manage to put together one of these blog posts without making too many mistakes, but there are times when I just want to cry and chuck the whole machine out of the window.
Yesterday was one of those days. I have no idea what I did but when deleting some redundant inbox messages I hit something I shouldn’t have, and managed to delete everything that had ever been there. Well, it told me I had deleted 3,743 messages from my inbox. I didn’t even know there were that many there, though it seems they were also from my deleted and junk storage, which I was sure I cleared regularly. I had no idea what to do until I spotted a wee note that said “restore messages”. Hooray! I hit the button, and 4,397 messages appeared?! Oh good grief I had to go through every flipping one and delete what I didn’t want. Managed that with a couple of breaks so my eyesight didn’t end up the same as the husband’s. Then…guess what? Hit the wrong bleeping button again, back to square one. Shoot me now. I’m sure there’s an easier way to sort this stuff but I ploughed on and got the right things back to where they should be. I don’t think I’ve lost anything vital as I keep important stuff in folders, separately from inbox things. Never again, please, never again!
We went to Alcantarilla recently, a town about 10 minutes the other side of Murcia city. We were looking for a particular shop – mission accomplished and bank account considerably lighter! We had a look online for somewhere to have a bite of lunch, and the husband found a restaurant called La Cava de Royan. It opens up from a small street onto a little square, and you’d never guess the quality of food just by looking at the outside! We had a mouthwatering selection of tapas, including little bites of succulent cod, enormous prawns in panko crumbs, skewers of the most tender pulled pork with crispy broccoli, mini pork burgers, and all accompanied by a fabulous variety of sauces like chilli mayonnaise, and honey mustard. The presentation and service were fantastic too!
We ate until we could eat no more, and the bill, including drinks came to under €30, so it’s safe to say we’ll be back.
Finally for now, we have some special guests coming to stay in a couple of weeks, I’ll tell you more about that later!
My life in Spain 