We had a lovely week in Norn Iron with Laurie and the children at the beginning of December. She was off work so really all our time was spent with her, and of course when the children finished school every day we wanted to have as much time with them as possible. As usual, this meant that we didn’t see nearly enough friends at home, there simply wasn’t enough hours in the day to get round everybody. So, for those we missed this time, we are very sorry and hope to see you next time!
This is who my heart beats for…
Lucy has done the 11 plus and will get the results in January. Marshall and Scott are also growing up so fast, I can’t believe just how quickly time passes, and it seems to get faster and faster the older we get.
When coming back to Spain we have usually stayed the night before in the Maldron Hotel at Belfast International airport, as we always have an early flight and it’s not possible for Laurie to drag the children out of bed at 4am to take us to the airport! This time, however, we booked a B&B near Antrim, called Antrim Heights, owned by Alan and Charlotte. It was a great place to stay, very warm and comfortable, and our hosts were amazing. They wouldn’t hear of us getting a taxi to the airport and Alan insisted on driving us there at 5am…over and above the call of duty! Lovely people, lovely accommodation. and a quarter of the cost of the Maldron!
I’ve booked flights to go back over again in about 11 weeks, just for a few days, as I’m finding it more and more difficult to be without my wee dotes. We are now seriously talking about selling this big house and buying somewhere smaller in both Spain and Northern Ireland, so I can pop over any time. Bring it on!
We had another little pre-Christmas break, in Altea, about an hour and a half up the coast from us. We’d booked a full board, 3 night stay in the Hotel Cap Negret, and it was just fabulous. We have never booked full board before, but this was a special offer and meant we could keep our options open. As it turned out, the buffet food for breakfast, lunch and dinner (including wine!) was so good we didn’t need to eat anywhere else! The hotel was wonderful, the room was gorgeous, and the bed was huge! Peter is 6’3″ and we reckoned the bed was at least 7′ wide – and extremely comfortable!
We had a lovely view of the pool area and the beach from our balcony, it was just a great wee break and we would recommend the hotel to everyone!
When we were in the square by the church in Altea we stopped for a drink, and met some lovely people at the next table, Kat, Bruno and Gabriel.
Kat is from Ohio, the boys are both Spanish but one studying in Ohio, and the other in England. It was lovely to chat and hear their views about Spain, England/UK and US. We always seem to manage to find someone to talk to when we’re out and about, usually Peter starts the conversation, and I think it’s great to be able to share experiences with a wide range of people. So cheers to Bruno, Kat and Gabriel, we very much enjoyed meeting you and we wish you a very happy and healthy new year!
We went into Murcia city before Christmas, just for lunch, to one of our favourite places, the Mercado de Correos.
We were a bit early in the day to see the Christmas lights in all their glory so will be going back in on the tram in a day or two to view! Most of the little shops in the city have done some decorating in honour of Christmas, and it all looks very festive, but I can’t wait to see all the lights, trees and artisan market stalls after dark.
And yes, that really IS a red carpet running the length of the street! They are everywhere in the little streets round the city centre, very festive.
One of the things I love about city culture is the street performance artists, and the day we were there recently there were two who were just so wonderful! We really did think initially that they were statues before we realised they were live performers who managed to hold their poses for a very long time! They were brilliant and we happily donated as they earned it. And yes, that really IS Peter’s hat, he always gets a friendly and smiley reception when he wears it!
Spain has had yet another spell of really bad weather,with furious storms, leaving a lot of areas with much damage – no wonder the Spanish word for “storm” is “tormenta”. This was why we weren’t able to get into the city to see the lights before Christmas, but happily we’ll be on the tram in a couple of days for a good look around. We were very, very lucky to not have been adversely affected by the shocking weather, it seemed like incessant thunder, lightning and torrential rain. All calm again now, but still cold! In fact, this is the coldest recorded winter in Spain for the last 15 years. Roll on summer when we can all moan and complain about the 44 degree heat again!
In the meantime I am very glad that our main fireplace in the sitting room is almost finished, thanks to both Peter’s cousin Tom and to our builder friend Jake – Peter just wants to build up and finish off the sides, then we can paint the wall to the right of it , and the sitting room will be complete. The before and after photos remind me how good it is to have a proper fireplace at last.
That’s before – obviously, with the last bit of the hearth tile ready to be laid.
…and after, looking better now!
After all our gallivanting, to Norn Iron, Altea and in and out of the city, it has been rather peaceful to have Christmas at home. We cooked for ourselves and could eat what we wanted and when we wanted and for once I could have a glass of cava! That’s about my one glass a year! Peter did all the decorating of the tree and the house, I’m happy to let him get on with it as he does such a good job, especially the tree.
It might be that tree’s last Christmas, I bought it about 30 years ago and we have to keep putting more decorations on it to hide the gaps! I do love it though, it’s gorgeus once Peter has put all our special wee bits and pieces on. (I also love my new velvet frock and long jacket, in fact I love that blue velvet frock so much I’ve ordered one in green and one in purple as well!)
Oh, here’s another bit of colour and brightness at this time of year, which I thought the EU had done away with? Painted pigeons are what I’m talking about – the people who race pigeons paint their feathers so they’re easier to identify. As far as I know it doesn’t harm them at all, and I think they look fabulous!
This is definitely a colourful time of year, it needs to be in the dark of winter while we ait for the return of the light! So here is Señor Kopczynski’s contribution to the parties we’re invited to – he makes little layered, bite-sizes vodka jellies, and they seem to go down a treat. Very easy to make, look them up on Pinterest. And yes, he even decorates a board for them to sit on!
On the subject of little treats to eat, I’ve made my usual big batch of “Auntie Stella’s fudge”, mainly to put in jars and give as little gifts. I only ever make it at Christmas, it’s very sweet, none of your salted caramel stuff here! Probably best to make a dental appointment and sign up for Weight Watchers before indulging, but as it really IS only once a year here’s the recipe if you want to make some…it’s too delicious for words!
Ingredients:
900g sugar (told you!)
500 ml whole milk
115g butter
pinch of cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150 ml evaproated milk, (like Ideal Milk).
Method:
Put sugar, butter and milk into a large pan and boil for 10 minutes.
Add the evaporated milk, boil gently – maybe between a simmer and a boil – for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring all the time. (That’s the boring bit!)
When it starts to “fudge” round the sides of the pan drop a spoonful into a saucer of cold water.
If it rolls into a ball, take it off the heat. If not, continue on the heat till you can get it to roll into a ball and hold its shape in the cold water.
Add a good pinch of cream of tartar, and the vanilla extract, and beat with a wooden spoon for a few minutes.
Pour into a buttered tin and when almost cool cut into small pieces, then pop into jars to give as wee gifts.
Enjoy!
That’s it for now, we’re off to get ready as we’re going out for dinner to celebrate a friend’s birthday, then out again tomorrow night to other friends for feasting and fireworks to bring in the new year.
To finish, I just want to say that I’m very aware that this year some of us are having to live with the loss of the light of those they loved so much. I hope that those of you who have lost your light will remember that those of us who care about you will lend you some of our light until your own can rise and shine again.
We wish you all love, joy, light and laughter for the new year, and for all the years to come.
It has been a bit too long since the last blog, forgive me, life has a way of interfering with the best laid plans! We are now racing towards Christmas and summer seems a long time ago. Where on earth has this year gone?! It seems to have vanished in the blink of an eye. We had a last gasp of real heat where the temperatures exceeded 38C in the shade, but are now sliding down to a very pleasant 24C or so in the sun, in the daytime. Night temperatures from this weekend are expected to fall to single figures, so it’s time to put the duvets back on the beds, instead of just using their covers, and get the big log burners fired up. The clouds down the valley are starting to look quite amazing, like ribbons of candy floss – this always heralds the changing of the seasons. This is actually the view from our en-suite bathroom, definitely a loo with a view!
Peter has been busy cleaning the chimney flue things from the two big log burners. Not the nicest job in the world but at least when he goes up on the roof to get the brushes down the flues he doesn’t break any tiles. So now both fires are clean and safe, ready for the colder weather. He even treated himself to a special vacuum thing for cleaning out the remaining soot and ash…how very grown-up are we?
We had Peter’s cousin Tom, and his wife Carmel, over to stay for a few days. Tom was a builder, and he helped Peter close in the fire surround and chimney breast in the sitting room, right up to the ceiling. That probably isn’t the technical term but I think you know what I mean! Then our friend Jake came over to plaster it all, and now, as I write, Peter is getting the last coat of paint on so we can light the fire tonight. It is so brilliant to have the flue etc all enclosed now, it looks so much tidier.
I went with Peter to collect some of the building stuff we needed, from a massive B&Q type place the other side of the city. We had pre-ordered and paid online so thought it would be a simple matter of just rolling up and collecting the stuff. Good grief, we couldn’t have been more wrong. We kept getting directed from one area to another, and becoming more and more frustrated by the minute, nyerping away at each other. Well, that’s not strictly true, I was the one doing all the nyerping, the husband is usually very calm, but even he was beginning to lose patience – probably with me! The moral of the story is …..never bring your wife/husband to a builders’ merchants, unless you are keen to meet again in the divorce courts!
We’ve had our first log drop from Angel, our great log man. His Dad is also called Angel and is a bit of a pet – I always get a hug when we go to the yard to order the logs, and he often gives us lots of fruits which are in season, like pomegranates and almonds. He gets jars of home-made lemon curd and home-made limpncello from us in return.
Peter has all the logs stacked away now in the big dry store. We actually still have quite a lot left over from last winter but wanted to get at least one load in before the rain came, and we’re very glad we did! We’ll get another delivery next week and that will probably be enough to keep both big log burners going all winter. Angel is great, he always delivers when he says he will, and he always leaves us 4 huge crates of kindling at no extra charge. I’m glad we’re well stocked up now for winter – we’re too old to be cold!
There have been severe storms again along the east coast of Spain, though mostly confined to the Valenciana community. Barcelona has been hit quite badly, as have some areas near Malaga, and Mallorca has also taken a battering. Some areas have suffered awful flooding again, but hopefully not as destructive as last year’s disaster. Very scary weather patterns all over the world at the minute. We always seem to miss any of the more extreme weather where we are, thank goodness. Let’s hope for a calmer and more settled winter.
Now this wouldn’t be much of the usual blog I produce if I didn’t mention where we’ve been out to eat recently, would it?! Well, on the recommendation of quite a few people we headed out for lunch recently to a restaurant called El Don, set in an industrial estate in the nearby town of Aspe. Before some of you query what a restaurant is doing in an industrial estate, it’s quite normal here! There are great units available to let, it’s very convenient for those who are working in the vicinity, and parking is a doddle.
El Don is a family concern, and on the day we went, there was Elana, her husband (who does the cooking) and her brother all in attendance. They are known for their big platters of barbequed meats including pork, chicken, sausage, chorizo, along with chips, salad, crusty bread, various dips, and their own blends of five different kinds of salts!
Well let me just tell you that the food was just fantastic! Flame grilled meats, so tender, brilliant breads and salads, all so tasty. I was really taken with their home-blended salts, and was lucky enough to receive a sample of each as a gift!
We will most certainly be back before very long.
At the minute it seems that life is one long round of little home projects that need doing, interspaced with medical appointments. Peter has been to hospital to have two little basal cell carcinomas removed. One was already done before, but the surgeon wanted to make sure it was okay so he chopped out a bit more. That should hopefully be the end of the matter. I’ve had to play nurse again, changing the dressings every day. The stitches are now out and everything looks grand.
As for me, I am so NOT used to being unwell that it makes me a very bad patient. I’ve had some really annoying breathing problems which means I can only walk about 50m before needing to stop and catch my breath. I had an angiogram done – worst thing ever! It took two hours and was seriously far more painful than giving birth. If they ever want to do another one they’ll need to give me a general anaesthetic first. Anyhow, the upshot was that my heart seems to be fine. That is a relief, given that my mother had a heart attack, her brother had a heart attack, my paternal grandmother died from one as did my Dad. So, the next round of exciting investigations was to do with my lungs. Now, my Mum died from lung cancer, and even though I stopped smoking more than 15 years ago it was hanging around in the back of my mind as a bit of a worry. Well after various scans, X-rays and MRIs, and something right up my nose (dear goodness that was horrible, I thought I was going to be sick in front of people!) it turns out I don’t have lung cancer, and I don’t have COPD. What I do have is chronic asthma, and it’s entirely manageable and I’m very, very happy with that. Now that the fierce summer heat has left us I’ll be back on my exercise bike on the terrace clocking up the kilometres and hopefully doing the old lungs some good.
To celebrate the fact that I’m not actually dying (I’m really not joking, I was seriously worried for a while) I was treated to lunch at one of our favourite restaurants in the city, the Mercado de Correos. Fabulous place, with amazing variety of foods, from Chinese, to traditional Murcian, from seafood to grilled meats, from brochettas to pulled meats in bao buns, from full courses to tapas, all delicious. I have written about this place before, as we like it so much! All along the sides are little stations serving the food, so you can choose anything and have it brought to your table. Spot the happy chap waiting for a beer to enjoy with his food!
They also have the most delightful patisserie, so of course we had to choose as few little cakes to bring home. One of them didn’t make it as far as the house – I made the mistake of driving so the husband managed to eat one straight from the box on the way back!
I think we’re now both finished with the medical stuff for a while, as my next two review appointments are April and September 2026, so we can relax into winter and enjoy ourselves, even if it is at a slower walking pace!
Oh, but speaking of medical stuff, I love that when we’re in the health centre waiting to be seen, everyone who rolls up, without exception, looks at every single person waiting, and with a big smile says either “hola” or “buenos dias”. It’s so polite and also so very friendly.
When Tom and Carmel were here we were able to take them to see a cooperative wine bodega in the Jumilla valley, the Bodegas Almazara BSI winery, which is a famous wine-producing area near to us. This bodega works in partnership with producers and retailers, and was an extremely interesting tour. It’s the biggest bodega we’ve ever been to, and was just fascinating.
I couldn’t get over the size of some of the barrels used to store the wines – here’s Peter beside one, and remember he’s 6’3″ so these things are huge!
Our guide was Victoria, whose command of English was excellent, and whose knowledge of the bodega was first class- and she made it all very, very interesting. She was accompanied by Maria José, and when the main tour was over were treated to sampling red and rosé wines, as well as their utterly delicious olive oil. To accompany the drinks, we had plates of beautiful cold meats and cheeses, and gorgeous fresh crusty bread. No need for lunch after that feast! And no, I wasn’t able to sample any of the wines, as I was driving, but I have to say the bread dipped in olive oil was fabulous, and we came away with quite a few bottles!
That’s not the clearest photo in the world but I think you can tell we had a great time! There are many worse ways to spend a Sunday morning…and via Groupon the whole thing cost €18.74 in total for the four of us – bargain!
One of the things I still find difficult to get used to here, even after 17 years, is that almost everything closes down in the afternoons, at 2pm, not opening again until around 5pm. I get caught out now and again when I might need a specific shop or garage or whatever, and then remember they won’t be open until later. Restaurants, bars and supermarkets stay open, of course. In fact, I find the best time to do a grocery shop is around 3pm as most of the population is living it up at home with big relaxing lunches, meaning there’s no crowds to push through with a shopping trolley! Saturdays are another thing altogether. I used to love Saturday afternoons at home when we could indulge in a bit of shopping, meet with riends for coffee, and the towns were generally very busy. Here, anything that closes at siesta time, ie, 2pm on a Saturday, doesn’t open again until Monday. Very different!
Oh I have to tell you about an interesting encounter Peter had recently in town. He was having a coffee when a fairly bedraggled man asked him if he wanted to buy a razor for a euro – he produced a couple of wrapped razors. Peter declined but bought him a beer which is really what the chap was after in the first place. The man then produced some cannabis resin and asked Peter if he wanted to buy it! No harrassment, no rudeness, no threatening behaviour, the chap just wanted a beer, which Peter bought for him, and I believe he also treated the man to a card trick or two!
That’s about it for this time, I shall try to be a bit more on time in future! I’ll leave you with my poem written in honour of my maternal grandfather, to remember Poppy Day.
Firstly, I need to say that very recently we lost a wonderful, funny, knowledgeable and long-standing friend. Peter Thompson was a well-respected local historian from Dervock and Ballymoney – and had a phenomenal collection of military memorabilia to prove it! He really put our wee village, Dervock, and our market town, Ballymoney, on the map, and raised their profiles to give them their proper place in the history of our island.
On a more personal level, I have known Peter and his lovely family just about all my life. Every time the husband and I made our journey home to see friends and family Peter was always included in that group, and was really more family than friend. We always came to him armed with some special Spanish brandy, and equally, we never left his house empty handed!
The craic with Peter was always great, and we shall miss his humour, that wee twinkle in his eye, the wealth of stories he had to tell and the laughs we had while remembering times past. Never forgotten, always missed, always in our hearts. I just can’t believe we’re not going to see him next time we’re over home. I shall miss you forever my friend, I hope you’re having fun somewhere. Cherish your friends, amigos, you never know when is the last time for everything.
Quite a few people have been asking me about how easy or difficult it is to make friends when you move to a completely new area. The short answer is that it is and it isn’t! If that sounds more than a bit of a cop-out, what I mean is that it is really easy to gravitate towards people who speak your own language, especially if you are trying to learn a completely different language altogether.
But beware – not every smiling human is your friend! One of the things we all miss when we move to a foreign country is our friends. If you’re fortunate, then you will still have a circle of friends “back home” with whom you regularly keep in touch. Over here in Spain, as in probably every other foreign place, if you want to make friends you need to go out and find them. There are always lots of “extra-curricular” activities and clubs you can join, chances are you will meet a group of people who share your interests. However, a word of warning – unlike your friends back home they won’t share your history, nor you theirs, so it may not always do what it says on the tin!
Having said that, we have made some wonderful friends here in Spain. Some have turned out to be a lasting delight, and we are always cheered when we get together. Others have fallen by the wayside; some are simply no big loss, some have turned out to be a crushing disappointment, and some have eventually shown themselves to be just out-and-out nasty! It’s actually no bad thing to let go of the ones you don’t need – your job is not to obtain approval from everyone you meet, that’s something you’ll never get.
Goodness knows there are weirdos everywhere, and it’s best to keep well clear and don’t engage with them. We know a couple of people who have turned out to be very, very odd, who used to be friends – or so we thought. One person now seems to view me as the wicked witch of the west – I’m really not, though, I’m actually quite nice! It is indeed often a relief to separate from such toxic ones. Here’s something to make you wonder – were told by a number of people that a certain person’s husband had undergone fairly major surgery and that they all believed she was hoping he wouldn’t come round from the anaesthetic. Good grief, when I remember how desperately ill Peter was a few years back,and how he nearly died, I would have moved heaven and earth to make sure he recovered, and happily, he did. Mind you, that same woman also told a lot of people that she thought my husband was “drop dead gorgeous” and that she thought she “might have a chance with him”. Err….quite right to the first part and utterly, utterly deluded by the second, and gave us both a good laugh!
Another idiot who decided he no longer liked me spread lots of lies about me. Actually he seems to lie about quite a lot of things – for example he apparently knows Phil Collins well. Err, don’t think so! I gather while he was working in a supermarket he caught sight of him once. In fact he’s simply another unhappy, deluded and jealous person whose life hasn’t quite turned out as well as he had hoped, a bit like the woman I mentioned. Beware, there are quite a few of them around, and it always comes down to jealousy on their part. It’s not your job to soothe the jealous feelings of those who can’t stand their own failings and their own less-than-perfect lives, so just walk away. Life’s too short to deal with unnecessary drama. A great Polish proverb says “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” Very liberating!
Ideally you would want to have a fairly wide circle of acquaintances, and within that circle there will be a couple of people you can really trust. Like I said, life is far, far too short to bother with people who are never going to be part of your “tribe”, so love the ones you’re with, and set the rest free to annoy somebody else!
Our friends back home are still so cherished, especially my best friend Wendy – we’ve known each other all our lives.
This photo, I think, was taken at my 40th birthday party, we look so young! Err, that’s because, compared to today, we WERE so young! Wendy sent it to me in a wee special frame, for my birthday – very precious memories!
Now, I know you think I’m always talking about food….here’s some more! On the “let’s get a bit healthier” mode, we make banana and porridge oat muffins, great for breakfast, great any time.
Here’s the recipe:
225g porridge oats
Small pot of plain Greek yoghurt
2 eggs
Big tablespoon of honey
2 tsp baking powder
half tsp baking soda
2 ripe bananas, peeled and cut into chunks
Grease muffin tins with non-stick stuff or with butter – don’t use paper cases as the muffins will stick to them.
Put everything in a big jug and use a hand blender, go for it till the mixture is mostly smooth. Give the batter a stir once or twice to make sure all ingredients are properly mixed.
Pour the batter into muffin tins dividing equally among 10 muffin holes.
Bake in a pre-heated 200C oven for 15 ish minutes until a toothpick inserted into centre of muffin comes out clean.
Let them rest for a bit in the tin, then carefully remove them and allow to cool completely on baking rack.
Makes 10 muffins.
If I’m adding Nutella, I put a wee bit of batter in the pans, then put a wee dot of Nutella in, then top it up with batter. If you’re adding herbs etc then just mix it straight in to the batter.
This one’s my favourite – if I have frozen raspberries or whatever I do the same as with the Nutella – half fill, add a raspberry (or blueberry, or whatever you like!) and then I top with a raspberry and a bit of mint, or whatever takes your fancy. Very healthy. very good for you and very tasty!
Yum! Incidentally, if you spell “muffins” backwards, it’s what you do when you take them out of the oven!
More food….there’s a Chinese restaurant in San Javier we go to now and again. I just can’t believe the feast they serve you for about €10 per person. That includes starter, main course, pudding and half a bottle of wine each.
Couldn’t beat it! By the time I remembered to take a photo we’d already gobbled down our starters, so here’s the mains – chicken and almonds, and shoulder of lamb, with rice and noodles.
One of the nicest places to eat locally for us is Restaurante Esquina de San Anton, owned by our lovely friend Beatriz.
(Photos by Efren Sanchez).
The food is absolutely delicious – definitely a cut above the ordinary. Prawns, steaks, fish, everything freshly cooked and beautifully presented.
We often call in for tapas, not just the full lunch menu, and always find the food to be just sublime – little cod balls in the lightest imaginable batter, huge langoustines in a light, crispy tempura coating, smoked salmon rolls….the list goes on! It helps when you get a great welcoming hug from Beatriz as well! Actually the last time we were there she gave us a bottle of the restaurant’s own wine to take home, and very nice it was too.
Hard to beat a well-rounded rioja!
The other night we went over to Ciudad Quesada for dinner at the restaurant of another friend, Joe. His restaurant is the Patagonia Grill House, and is famous for its steaks, burgers and mixed grills. So, for two people, this is what a mixed grill looks like – it’s accompanied by baked potato, chips and salad, and it takes some eating!
The mixed grill comes with flank steak, pork, chicken, Argentinian chorizo, black pudding and ribs. Just as well that for the previous day we’d eaten very little, in preparation for a bit of a feast! Joe, like Peter, has Polish family origins, so they always enjoy a bit of a chat.
Oh good grief after that last lot you’ll think we do nothing over here except eat from one day to the next! Well you wouldn’t be far wrong, but we do tend to only eat one meal a day, and most often at lunchtime. I can’t understand how Spaniards can sleep at night after a big heavy dinner, often not even starting to eat until at least 10pm!
Okay so here’s something I’ve been banging on about for far too long now – the fact that our water supply is so unreliable, not to mention such poor quality.
We’ve lived in this house now for more than 6 years, and we have never had a single day of uninterrupted water supply. Either the pipes that serve the area get so clogged with calcium that the water can’t flow, or the neighbours using hoses, washing machines etc mean the water pressure isn’t enough to ensure it reaches our house further up.
I’m sick of it. Absolutely and utterly sick of it. For goodness sake Fortuna was a Roman town – those Romans weren’t daft, they knew there was plenty of water underground, which is why they settled here and, more to the point, why we have a beautiful spa centre with outdoor pools heated all year round due to thermal springs. Remember, the Romans could make water flow uphill…why on earth can’t the Spanish do the same?! It seems like I’ve turned into a “Karen” by continually complaining to the water provider here, Aqualia. Well, not quite, because at least my complaints are entirely reasonable and justified!
When my daughter Alice and her friend Helen were here with us on holiday recently, we had the worst stoppage to date. It happened the day before the girls were due to fly home – we had no water at all for more than 24 hours. Drinking is not an issue as we use bottled water for that. Washing, brushing teeth and flushing toilets is another matter! Baby wipes are always in plentiful supply in our house, and we are always careful to keep plenty of spare bottles of water in the bathrooms to get a bit of a wash, helped along with baby wipes.
.
It’s just as well we have a pool, as we can use buckets of water from there to flush the toilets successfully. We thought that the recent power outages all across Spain and Portugal were bad – well I can assure you that it’s a heck of a lot easier to do without electricity for 24 hours than without water.
Now, here’s a thing – we kept checking with out range of elderly neighbours if their water supply had been restored – always a negative answer. But….nobody had contacted the emergency phone number for Aqualia to report the fault. Well, nobody except us. We phoned continually, to no avail. Eventually, the next morning, we went to the local Aqualia office – only open from 09:30 until 13:30 Monday to Friday. I was determined to sit there until I got photographic evidence that someone was actually in our wee hamlet doing whatever they needed to do to restore the water supply. However, I was really pleasantly surprised – the chap in the offic was most helpful, and got on the phone straightaway, directly to an engineer who promised to effect the repair that morning.
We bailed out for brunch locally, and it’s no exaggeration to say we were overjoyed to meet up with our lovely friends Julia and Kelvin – such a lovely interlude to a very stressful time! By the time we got home the engineer had been, cleared the cal from the pipes supplying our wee road, and the water was flowing freely again. Hooray! However it always begs the question – why don’t the neighbours ever phone to report a fault and see when it might be repaired? The Spanish seem to be more content to generally just follow the “wait and see” routine. Anyway, we’re all back to normal – for now. And as a result of all that we have arranged to install a big water deposito hat the house, with electric pump, so if the mains water ever stops for any reason, the pump will come on and we’ll have all the water we need. Assuming we don’t get a water AND electricity stoppage at the same time….
All this week it’s fiesta time in Fortuna, when there is a full programme of events from 8th to 17th August. The days – and nights – include lots of activites for children, foodie events, music shows, sporting events like cycling races, football tournaments, parties, and last, but not least, a massive parade through the town, celebrating the Roman history of Fortuna and its opposite celebration of its patron saint, San Roque.
The town is always packed to bursting, with crowds lining the streets especially for the final night’s parade honouring the Roman heritage and the patron saint. The events are extremely well organised, with many locals taking part in the actual parades. The restaurants which line the main street provide extra tables and chairs but if you haven’t booked a table for food well in advance you need to be prepared to stand for a long time!
Everything carries on well into the night, and the main road through the town centre is usually closed off from around 17:00 until around 08:00, so that gives you an idea of how long the partying lasts! I genuinely don’t know how the people can last, they must have an extra long siesta in the afternoon to prepare for being up all night.
Okay, as the Pythons would say, now for something completely different. I’ve said before that our health service here is really excellent, and when I hear about some of the difficulties experienced by people in the UK I am very happy with the Spanish service. It’s usually easy to get an appointment with a doctor – if there isn’t anything available online in the very near future we can always call in to our health centre and be seen by someone, as it’s a 24 hour emergency response centre, and the staff are always very helpful. I went online yesterday to look for an appointment with Andrea, our GP, and got one for today!
When Peter had a concern about a little mark on his temple he was referred to the dermatologist, seen at the clinic, and had localised surgery to remove what turned out to be a basal-cell carcinoma, all inside 4 weeks from the initial GP appointment. Very reassuring.
We’ve been decorating the pool courtyard, though I have to confess it’s been quite difficult, due to the heat. That space is a real wee suntrap, but when the temperature in the shade is 40+ you can impagine what it’s like in full sun! We have two big parasols we put up at one end of the pool to provide a bit of shade and relief from the relentless sun. I bought a few retro style tin plate pictures and Peter put them up at one end of the pool, very funky and different, I love them! I’ve also started making a “summer tree” from a big dead branch which I painted partly white, with plenty of gold and silver glitter. We put it in a big pot with a bunch of wee fairy lights round the base of the “trunk” and hung some more solar lights on the branches. It’s far from finished but looks great at night! We’ve also started adding more little solar lights round the courtyard,it’s a lovely place for a midnight dip.
Next…here’s some things I hate about my life here (yeah right!)
Finding loads of bunched up cyclists on the road in front of me. I’m actually very considerate with cyclists, I don’t crowd them, and when I overtake I leave a full car width plus between us. But…some are just so inconsiderate, they ride in big groups, often strung out so you haven’t a mission of passing them, then they slow down so you’re stuck in third gear for about three kilometres. Dreadful anos. (Use google translate for that one!)
Men who utter inane things and immediately laugh like donkeys at how clever/amusing/grown up they are. Even if they comment about how hot it is, they immediately roar with laughter. One of these days I’m going to ask them why they think that’s funny…
Peeling and de-veining langoustines. Back-breaking over a kitchen sik with the sieve to catch the bits. Missing some of the “stuff” in their alimentary canals and wondering if anyone would notice if I jsut left them the way they were. And afterwards your hands smell like pants being worn by a toddler who’s being toilet trained….
Car drivers who have no idea that their vehicles are fitted with indicators. It turns into a game of “guess where I’m going next”. If they’re indicating to turn left you daren’t overtake, even when you KNOW that indicator has been flashing for the last five kilometers. And god forbid you woud take a chance turning out of a T-junction when the approacing car indicates that it’s turning in….it’s not. Hold your ground and don;t be tempted as you’ll simply be rammed, and what’s more it will all be your fault!
I really, really hate cleaning out the washing machine drawer,as our water here is so vile the drawer gets all gungy and disgusting. Has to be done though, so good spray of something strong, toothbrush, and away we go trying to get every last disgusting flake out.
Even worse is cleaning the dishwasher filter. Vile. Just vile.
Idiot foreigners (usually from the UK) who turn their noses up at traditional Spanish food. They won’t oder albondigas, for example, but will happily eat meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce. Err….albondigas ARE meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce!
When it’s too hot for too long. Weeks of 40+ C in the shade is really not pleasant.
The cost of air travel from here to Belfast – flights to the south of England cost pennies, but very different for us Norn Iron people!
Things I love about my life here:
Eating the langoustines!
The warm weather which lasts for months.
Our lovely big house with its thick walls meaning it’s cool in summer and warm in winter.
Our two big log burners keeping us warm in winter.
The new aircon unit in the sitting room – cool or warm air, whatever we need, whenever we need it.
The aircon unit above our bed, especially in the heat of summer, absolute bliss!
Fresh food everywhere.
Fantastic value when eating out. (More of that in a minute!)
The really wonderful friends we have made here.
Our neighbours, so friendly and helpful.
Our mechanic, Javi, who always gets our cars through the MOT!
Our genius phone expert, Emanuel, who always sorts out my mobile phone when I’ve mucked it up by doing something stupid!
Cost of hotel stays in Spain, more of that later too!
The fact that we have Irish passports – makes life so much easier.
My fabulous husband.
the fact that we have an actual bodega in our house!
It’s very easy and inexpensive to have a wee break away in rather decent hotels in Spain. Prices are so much lower than in the UK and so value for money is hard to beat. For example, we have booked a full board 3 night pre-Christmas trip up the coast to a gorgeous hotel on the beach and just up the coast, for €179 each, can’t wait! We’ve also booked a very nice hotel right in the centre of Granada, for 3 nights, for a total cost of €122. Have a look at these and see why it’s not difficult to plan a couple of days change of scene. First is the Hotel Cap Negret, in Altea, wonderful! Look here: https://www.hotelcapnegret.es/
Right, back to food, as I did say above somewhere! We went out for lunch to celebrate our recent wedding anniversary, to a lovely restaurant called Roca, in Aspe, which is about 40 minutes from us.
Very well decorated and maintained, in beautiful “Scandi” type colours, very soothing and relaxing. Spanish restaurants were traditionally full of dark wood furnishings and strip lighting that did nothing to create any kind of pleasant ambience, but happily all that is now changing. Roca is most definitely at the “posh” end of the market but wait till you hear this….
To start with I had crispy cannelloni stuffed with soft pork cheek confit, with a truffle sauce. Peter had special flavoured rice with chicken and chickpeas. Both dishes utterly sublime, and beautifully presented, and actually enough to qualify as a main course. We then chose the same main course, Iberico pork fillet with vegetables and potato wedges in a merlot sauce. Melt in the mouth and absolutely sublime. For pudding Peter had pistachio and white chocolate tart, and I had a baked cheesecake with strawberry preserve. Oh. My. Word. Beyond delicious, the whole meal. And you won’t believe this but that menu del dia costs €15 per person. Extra for drinks etc, but seriously, €15 per person?! Amazing! You can see why we eat out so often here – the quality of the food is wonderful, and the value is unsurpassed! I have no photos of the food because we were so overcome that we just “got tore in” as they say in very polite Norn Iron circles!
I think I might have written enough this time so will end by just letting you know about a friend’s new business here, Flowers by Sammy. My friend Samantha has started this business since coming to live in Spain, and my word the flowers she produces for you are fabulous! I’m actually a big fan of “not-real-but-look-better-and-last-longer-than-the -real-thing” blooms, and these days the plastic look is gone, and the modern flowers are simply beautiful. The website is at https://flowersbysammy.es/ feast your eyes on these beauties!
I’m sure you’ll agree they’re simply stunning!
That’s it for this time, no doubt the next issue will be filled with more foodie adventures to make your mouths water, not to mention the brilliant time we had when Laurie and the grandchildren were here.
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First of all I really need to say we are currently living in a furnace. I’m sure most of you will be aware of the weather reports from the UK and also from throughout Europe – it is very, very hot. There is a sort of tipping point where it stops being deliciously holiday-like and becomes very uncomfortable. We really appreciate being retired as we don’t really have to go anywhere or do anything energetic for the next couple of weeks when the temperatures will easily top 38C, and will in fact reach beyond 40C as happened last year, and the year before…
It must be dreadful for those who have to work in places with no aircon or fans, or who work outside. There is a reason why the siesta is sacrosanct in Spain, usually from around 2pm until 5pm – it gives people the chance to have a rest, a sleep, recharge their batteries and cool down a bit until the hottest part of the day has passed. So the next time you hear anyone nyerping on about how the “lazy” Spaniards snooze during the day you will understand it’s a necessity, not a luxury, it’s essential for health.
This really is what it’s like:
“When southern summers come the air falls fast like a blanket, smothers the breath and wraps itself round us. We long for the cool air of autumn or even the chill of winter’s fingers on our throats. We overheat like cars with faulty radiators. To get to sleep we try lying still, but the air feels like a heavy quilt pressing down, turning breathing into gasping, and making skin shine like dawn dew. We learn in school that most things expand and lengthen in the heat. There is always an exception, of course. Tempers get shorter and tolerance diminishes as the hot days grow longer, generally it seems best to just stay out of everyone’s way where possible.The more caring days of autumn are still some time away so for now we rise early, rest when we can, and wait for the heat to lose its sting, and for the relief that cooler air brings.”
There’s only a couple of places to be in this heat – indoors with the aircon running, or….
I’m sure we’ll survive, we have done before! However it seems that every year we, and everyone else our age, and irrespective of nationality, are finding it more and more difficult to cope with the heat. Stay indoors during the hottest part of the day, find shady places to sit, drink lots of water and very little alcohol to keep hydrated!
Now you know that we are very fond of eating out, and with the prices in Spain so low we tend to indulge a couple of times every week. We do quite often stick to tried and tested where we know we’ll get great food at great value, but it’s also a good idea to try new places. So, somewhere that’s not exactly new, but has moved a little out of town is the Barra de Fortuna. They have renovated and completely overhauled their new premises and, I have to say, the restaurant is really beautiful.
The whole place is very stylish indeed. Of course, there’s no point in style over substance, but I’m happy to report that the food is absolutely wonderful, very tasty and beautifully presented. A big asset is Marianne, who made sure we had everything we needed, she’s just lovely and very, very helpful. We’ll certainly be back!
Just a wee note to let you know about somewhere else we have eaten recently, an inland chiringuito run by Ann and Ray Perkins. There is a big community pool beside the bar/restaurant, which is great for cooling off before lunch.
As you can see, the view from our table was rather good! The food is delicious and Ann serves huge portions – I had to take half of mine home to save for later. As for value, well, between us we had crusty bread and alioli, then starters of pâté and toast, and a big house salad including tuna and beetroot. We both chose the same for the main course, half a chicken with chips and salad. For pudding I had lemon meringue pie with ice cream, and himself had blackcurrant cheesecake with ice cream. Drinks were included , we had beer and a bottle of water, and the total price was €20 – yes, you read that right! It’s no wonder that everyone eats out so often as you just can’t beat the value. We are so spoiled for choice, everything from hale and hearty big food servings, to the more refined dining in very elegant surroundings.
Okay, I have to show you this – it comes under “weird things we have seen”! On the way to one of our favourite restaurants at Guardamar, on the coast, is a huge place which sells furniture, kitchens and garden things. On their flat roof there are about six life-size rhinos. Yes, really, LIFE-SIZE! Now rhinos are fairly huge beasts, so to see these in all their glory, finished in burnished copper, on a roof, at a roundabout, is the most randomly hilarious sight!
This photo was the best I could get as we were coming off a roundabout – I’m in the passenger seat by the way, remember the driver’s on the left over here!
Nope, I have no idea why the company has a clatter of rhinos on a roof, but it certainly draws your attention to the premises! I’m not altogether sure that “clatter” is the correct collective noun for a group of rhinos, but it’s a more than useful term so shall suffice! Oh, I’ve just looked it up and apparently the correct collective noun is a “crash” or “stubbornness” of rhinos – who knew?!
Other living (well, more alive than the copper rhinos!) things here can be either terrifying or delightful. Snakes and scolopendras fall into the former category – I’ve written about these in an earlier blog and hope I never see another of either.
As for those who are delightful, we are being visited daily by lots of little swifts who like to come and perch on the telegraph wires at the house, and who are also partial to perching on our outside lights under the verandah roof. After I took this photo a lot more arrived – we counted a total of 30 on the wires – they dip to the pool for a drink and seem to enjoy keeping each other company. Who needs Taylor, we have our own group of Swifties!
The other utterly enchanting sight around the pool is when we get sometimes one but more often two dragonflies hovering about. One is always red and orange, and the other is always blue and green. I haven’t been able to get a photo yet as they’ve only started arriving now, and I’ve always been in the pool when they fly around us, but here’s one from last summer which seemed to take a real liking to our little grandson Marshall.
Incidentally, the Spanish word for dragonfly is “libélula”, pronounced lee-bay-loo-la. Lovely word!
The garden seems to have gone a bit mad between the rain we had now followed by such firece heat. Over the winter I had cut back my hibiscus shrub so violently I thought I’d maybe killed it, but it is coming back with the most glorious silky blooms. Plenty of water when the soil dries out, a bit of a feed now and again and some music by Leonard Cohen – yes, really!
I had also cut back the bougainvilleas in the tubs, but they too are coming back with a vengeance. I would say that when pruning potted shrubs the motto is “fear nothing!” Butterflies are also everywhere at the minute, as you can see. They are also really big, many are almost the size of sparrows! The Spanish word for butterfly is “mariposa” – it’s also frequently used as a girl’s name here. Rather lovely, I think.
I found some wild flowers recently down the road and had to stop to take a photo they look a bit like thistles but much bigger. I have no idea what they are but they’re absolutely gorgeous, they might be some kind of wild allium?
Next is what I’ve been buying recently. I get lots of free, or almost free books from Amazon via bookbub.com, which is a great site. You just note which genres interest you most, and they send you a selection every day, usually they’re either free or 99p. Since I would buy a couple a day that’s probably where most of my money goes, but as I don’t drink or smoke I don’t care, books are far more interesting! When I first arrived in Spain I was worried about where I might be able to access books. Well, there are always loads in the charity shops, but bookbub is probably my go to place as they download straight away onto the kindle. I read very, very quickly, in paragraphs rather than word by word or even little groups of words. I currently have around 5000 on the kindle and about 1000 on the bookshelves in the house. Love books…can you tell?!
So, other than books my passions are perfume and makeup. Spain produces some unbelieveably good perfumes, at prices to suit every budget. For the summer I like fresh, citrus scents, and I bought this one recently, it smells of bergamot, cut lemons and orange blossom, very heady! It actually looks a bit like a very small version of a bottle of gin – but it’s not!
I also treated myself to a very funky set of eyeshadows – they actually have a sort of sequin effect, so not really suitable for an old doll like me to wear during the day, but at night it’s a different matter!
Next on the list was an electric foot file. How very elegant – not! However, how very useful!
It’s only a weenie thing that fits in the palm of my hand but takes next to no time to charge and is very, very effective. Having bare feet every day for months can get a bit rough, and I’m not having that, so this wee beauty is a real boon.
My other purchases this month have been to do with getting the pool courtyard into shape. We really want to treat it like an extra, outside room, so it needs a little bit more than just squillions of different solar lights. I got half a dozen retro-style tinplate pictures of sea scapes and old adverts, to put on the walls. They measure about 20cms by 30cms and are really funky. Remember HB ice lollies and ice creams? I love this one!
That is going to look fab on the wall by the pool!
Oh, a wee quickie on the bargain buy front… I was looking for baking powder the other day and almost lifted a box of Royal sachets, when I saw Lidl own brand boxes beside the Royal ones. A quick glance showed Royal coming in at €28.88 per 100 grams, and Lidl own brand coming in at €6.99 per 100 grams. Well it’s not rocket science, is it? The difference in price is enough to cover a lunch out for us both!
We had a bit of excitement a week or so ago, when I came outside the other morning and, standing on the terrace, I could see thick, black smoke down the valley, from the direction of Fortuna. When we went out about half an hour later, we saw that one of the warehouse units in the industrial estate was on fire, really badly on fire. Traffic was being diverted and a number of fire engines were in attendance. There were also a couple of helicopters using the huge bags to fill with water from local reservoirs and flying over the building to dump water to control the blaze.
The whole building was completely gutted, along with a couple of vans and cars parked outside. Fortunately there were no human casualties, and the fire officers were eventually able to bring it all under control.
That’s about it for this time, I need to get on with the chores before it gets too hot to do anything. Some people have asked me about making friends in Spain, as friendship is a huge part of everyone’s day to day life. I’ll tell you about my experience in the next issue – suffice to say for now that we have made some wonderful friends here but we have also found very, very difficult people around who have taught us to gently but swiftly back away. More on that next time!
Once again, thank you to all of you who have clicked on the “follow” button, and who have also subscribed directly by email, I appreciate every one of you!
It has to be said that life in Spain has a lot going for it, but there are also so many things that make you want to tear your hair out too!
On the fun side, and the one everybody thinks of first, is the weather. Generally we have all-year-round decent weather, certainly compared with Norn Iron. Where we live, about 30 minutes inland, and up a mountain, we tend to have hotter summers and colder winters. So we regularly see temperatures of 44C in the shade, in the summer, but have yet to see anywhere near freezing in the winter. I actually enjoy the difference in the seasons, even though there are really only two of them. It’s wonderful to spend months being able to be outside – to cook, eat, socialise and cool off in the pool, and not a cloud in the sky.
However, there’s also something to be said for the colder weather. If we’re out during the day it’s lovely to have both the big log burners laid and ready to light as soon as we come home, and it’s also a great feeling to get all “happed up” to go outside and enjoy cleaner, colder air!
Now that the weather has improved it’s full steam ahead with the outside jobs. I keep saying this but happily the plastering of the pool courtyard is now finished and is being painted, so now I can get all our wee solar lights up to look lovely.
One of the bigger gardening jobs was to remove the pink vine thing – don’t know what it’s called but it looks great! It had taken over the support structure for our grapevines to the extent that the poor grapevines were becoming completely choked. That pink stuff grows unbelievably quickly, and Peter spent an afternoon cutting it all back, giving the grapevines room to breathe. Tiny little grapes appearing already, another few months and we’ll be fighting the wasps and the birds for them! I’m going to train the pink thing up that big tree in the corner of the walled garden so it can grow there to its heart’s content and look rather decorative as well.
The hideous back wall will now also be plastered and painted white – it will be considerably more aesthetically pleasing than it looks now…
So, this is what the grapevines now look like having been freed from the pink stuff. Those grapes will be coming in thick and fast – it really IS fun watching things like grapes, pomegranates, olives and almonds growing in your own garden!
Our lovely wee elderly neighbours Bienve and Carmelo made the steep climb up our driveway the other day when we were out, and left us a bag of fresh eggs from their fairly recently aquired chickens. Have to say it’s lovely to see proper and differently coloured eggs instead of the standard supermarket brown ones. These ones are lovely shades of blue, pink and green – no idea what kind of birds they are but the eggs taste great!
With the gift of the eggs, and a bag of lemons from another neighbour, (our wee new lemon tree is just starting to fruit!) sure what else would you do but make lemon curd to share? Best tasting lemon curd ever! Oh, and we also get some eggs now from my friend Julia, who keeps chickens, wonderful!
As usual, we’ve been out and about a fair bit, mostly for lunches, definitely a bit part of the “fun” in living in Spain. We went back recently to a restaurant we hadn’t been to in ages, to find it had been closed for some time and had just reopened. It seems they had had a big electrical fire, but the whole place has been renovated, restored and redone, and it looks amazing! It now has a very contemporary Spanish feel, and, as such, the lighting is modern, instead of the typical Spanish fluorescent strip lighting that often prevails. You know the sort of lighting I mean, the kind that’s so bright and blue/white you look as if you died a few days ago. Happily Spain is moving away from this delightful trend and into something which creates a far more pleasant ambiance!
Very funky! Have to say the food was also excellent. I had salad, crusty bread with alioli, then spaghetti carbonara for a starter, followed by a mixed grill, and finished off with a huge portion of Vienetta ice cream – here it’s called “Contessa”. I can’t even remember what Peter had, and there’s no photos as we were far too busy eating! The lunch included a drink and coffee, and the total bill was €32, fantastic value!
Since we’re now coming into the real start of the summer weather there’s much pleasure to be found in just enjoying the wrm summer evenings – eating later, spending time with friends and generally being able to get out and about without worrying about needing a coat. Can’t beat late night dips in the pool when it’s marginally cooler!
Handy hint coming up if you’re going on holiday this summer – one of the things holidaymakers ask most often is where to get the best deal on exchange rates. Obviously the place NOT to change currency is at the airport, they give just about the worst deals anywhere. There are so many places on holiday where you CAN get decent rates, but you need to shop around. By far the best way to manage your money is to get a Wise bank card.
You can have accounts in sterling, euros or whatever you like. Moving money from your sterling account to euro account takes literally seconds online, and you will get the best rate going. For example, this morning I moved £100 from my sterling account to my euro account and it came up as €119, a great rate, and completed in less than 4 seconds! So, if you’re going to be on holiday somewhere in the Eurozone it’s worth having, as you can then use your Wise debit card to get cash from an ATM without paying extortionate fees.
On to some of the frustrations now! Dealing with the frustrations of living in a foreign country can be a bit of a nightmare at times! Far and away the worst offenders are the big companies like banks and utilities. So, here we go again with the water issue here, always a source of despair. Since we moved into this house more than 6 years ago we’ve not had one single day of uninterrupted water supply.
The other night we were woken by the sound of the dishwasher motor roaring away downstairs – and it wasn’t even switched on?! So, having investigated, and noticed a wee trickle of water coming out from underneath, we disconnected the intake pipe, flung some towels down on the floor, googled the problem and it seemed to have something to do with the flood pump(?!) and went back to bed. Arranged for Avelino to come and sort it when he could, he was on holiday for the next two days so we had to wait – not a big problem as I can still remember how to wash dishes by hand! Next evening – no flipping water coming into the house again! By the time I filled in the emergency breakdown form and found the emergency number – “we are at your service 24 hours a day”…yeah right! – I managed yet again to have a perfectly reasonable conversation, in Spanish, with the chap on the other end of the phone. I gave him all the details, name, address, ID number, contract/service number etc, and he hung up on me. This happens with alarming frequency, hateful, and so disappointing form a big company like Aqualia.
Well, believe it or not, the husband had had the wit to get the call-out engineer’s name and mobile number the last time he came out – apparently he lives not too far from us. Anyhow, Peter messaged him, and he said he would come over the next day. And he did. Fixed our faulty water meter which had been dripping to the extent that we’d had to turn off the water to avoid a huge bill. Wonders will never cease – we had water again as normal! Miguel said to just contact him directly if there’s a future problem, that will be much easier than trying to deal with the utility company and getting nowhere fast.
Avelino came and sorted the dishwasher problem, and only charged us €20, couldn’t bate it wae a big stick, as they say in north Antrim!
So, away from the frustrations and back to the fun…much more interesting! Here’s something to make you laugh a little, and maybe gasp in amazement? Last week we were getting ready to head down south to Nerja, for a wee birthday break. The two front tyres on my car were worrying me a bit as I thought they were starting to look a little worn. Andreas, our mechanic, ordered two new tyres for me to fit the day before we went on our holibobs. Total cost was €160, including the fitting, balancing and all that stuff. The night before, I had bought a wee ticket in a local Spanish lottery called El Gordo de la Primativa, they’re €1.50 a line. So, €161.50 was spent. Well you’ll hardly believe this, but our one line ticket on the lottery won us…..wait for it….drum roll….€161.54, a profit of 4 cents! There you go, new tyres cost covered, lottery line covered, and 4 cents to go mad with!
We thought it was a great example of a bit of synchronicity at play…must try harder now for the Euromillions and try to win a quarter of a billion euros tomorrow night….
Back to our little trip “down south” to Nerja, on the Costa del Sol. We wanted a bit of a break, and as my birthday was coming up, we decided a road trip and a couple of nights away would be grand. We found, and booked, a lovely place in Nerja called Boutique Hostal Lorca. We’ve been to Nerja a few times before, it is a beautiful town, famed for its narrow, whitewashed streets and little craft and artisan shops, and for the main viewing point over the bay, called the Balcon de Europa.
It turned out we had made a fabulous decision in choosing Hostal Lorca to stay in, absolutely fabulous, in fact! The hotel is in a terraced, narrow street of white townhouses, like countless others in little Andalucian towns. However, behind every front door is a wonderful new world waiting to be explored, and this one was no exception! The hotel is owned and run by Julien and Amber, who are really the perfect hosts, going out of their way to ensure your comfort, and really they are just two lovely people! All the rooms are en-suite, and ours had a little balcony overlooking the garden, courtyard and pool.
We had a lovely big bed which was extremely comfortable – just what you need after walking for hours seeing the sights.
When I said Amber and Julien went out of their way to welcome us, this even including leaving a bottle of cava in our room, in an ice bucket, specially for my birthday! Fabulous hosts!
Peter had booked a wonderful restaurant called Restaurante Bakus for dinner on my birthday. We were right beside the terrace overlooking the bay, and I have to say the food was fantastic! This was the view from our table…
We saw some paragliders heading back and forth across the bay, at one point it looked as if the sky was having a wee peep at what we were eating!
We walked for miles, shopped till we dropped, amd drove over 1125 kilometers in the three days we were away. We shopped in Dunnes in Velez-Malaga, amd Marks and Spencer foodhall in Marbella, those of you in Norn Iron, please don’t laugh, we miss those shops! Nerja is a lovely place to visit, and if you DO go, please stay in the Hostal Lorca, it’s fabulous and is unbelievable value! The website is : https://www.hostallorca.com/ so get online and have a wee look….and if you go, tell Amber and Julien we send our love!
Much closer to home, if anyone is looking for holiday accommodation, you won’t go wrong booking into Tranquil Stays, just down the road from us, and owned by our friends Julia and Kelvin – yes, the same Julia and Kelvin with the chickens and the eggs! It’s part cave house, and is in a wonderfully peaceful setting, yet only minutes from the nearest town, and within very easy distance of both Murcia city and the coast.
I know that Julia has been revamping the website but in the meantime have a look here at the photos and see why it comes highly recommended, great place, great hosts!
tranquilstays8.godaddysites.com
One last wee quick not here, now that the inferno that is the Spanish summer has clicked in, please, please, PLEASE don’t ever leave dogs, babies, children or the elderly in a parked car while you just “pop into the shop for a minute”. Here’s how hot it can get, we were away from the car for less than 10 minutes, and that wasn’t even at the hottest part of the day…
I think that’s probably enough for now, well done if you’ve managed to stick with it so far! A big thank you to all of you who have clicked on the “follow” button, and also on the “subscribe” option, it means a lot to me!
There’s always room for more chat here about food, life in Spain revolves around it and we’re no different to everyone else! So, a bit later about food, the importance of friends, and what Spain looks like when it ISN’T blazing hot!
We are now into May, so showery and cool weather is the norm, though we are frequently teased by really hot days with wall-to-wall sunshine fooling us into thinking summer might be here at last. The Spanish say that summer doesn’t arrive here until the 40th of May – think about it! In general they may be right. Although we usually have warm and sunny days they are frequently punctuated by cooler, wetter periods. We’ve had a lot of rain recently, though not all at once! When it comes down, it REALLY comes down and is generally rather impressive.
Well that might not look like the nicest photo in the world but that’s the view we had the other day, straight down the valley to Fortuna, and over to the mountains of Cartagena on the coast. What valley? Where’s Fortuna? Which mountains? Where’s the coast? Exactly! We could see nothing for a while, until the rain stopped. We also had phenomenal thunder and lightning, very energising! The noise the rain makes as it hammers down is incredible, especially on the roof, as old houses have no attics or roof spaces – and then came the hailstones. Well, we stood and looked at our cars being pummelled by hail but there wasn’t anything we could do, so we just admired the ferocity of nature. As it turned out there was no damage to the cars or anything else, though the hailstones here have been known to be bigger than golf balls which is quite scary.
That’s the more normal view from the terrace down the valley towards Fortuna, a bit of a difference!
Meanwhile everything in the garden is growing like mad due to the rain and now at last the really warm weather is kicking in. My wee lilac tree is starting to bloom, and the scent is divine. I think I will have to get a few more to join it – there’s that long bed of soil by the side of the house which could easily be filled with lilac trees and a rose bush or two.
At the other end of that bed is quite a lot of lavender which also smells so good. I’d like to see if I could get a couple of buddleia bushes to fill in the gaps, though I need to check to see if they can withstand the very hot summers here.
I forgot that we have a pomegranate tree on the hill round the back of the house! It’s not very big and I think tends to get a bit neglected as we forget it’s there. We need to get someone to help sort the garden next winter, when the plants are all “sleeping”, so we will move the pomegranate to the lower walled garden which is really for our fruit trees. Our three vines there are growing like mad and it won’t be long before they start to produce little grapes. Then I can plant a red seedless variety. Also in the lower garden we have a lemon tree and a blood orange tree just starting a bit of a growth spurt, and they will be joined by the clementine tree which is currently outside the walled garden. A bit of serious physical work to dig up, move and replant those trees, so you can see why we will need help.
The wildflowers are appearing literally overnight – the photo above is what we can see away over the “sheugh” to the other side of the village. I’ve had to zoom in a fair bit to let you see the flowers but really the whole hillsides are covered in these lovely see purple flowers. I have no idea what they are but I hope the bees enjoy them – they have a great feast this year!
We were hoping to get over to Norn Iron next month but it’s not working out very well so we’ll have to wait until our usual pre-Christmas visit to get there. Laurie and the children will be over with us towards the end of August, and I jut can’t wait to see them. They will see some big changes in the house as we’ve been busy getting as many little jobs done as well as the bigger ones. We’re currently spring cleaning – there’s something very cathartic about getting rid of things you haven’t used in a long time, clearing the space clears your mind and soul as well! I have more bags of clothes to take to the charity shop – the rule usually is that if you bring something new into the house then something has to leave to make room for it, so no hanging on to clothes that are too big or too small, or that haven’t been worn in a year. It is the best feeling when everything is neat and orderly, at least now we are able to find things!
We’ve had to scrape a couple of walls in the grandsons’ twin bedroom and in Peter’s art studio, as they were getting a bit flaky – old house and all that! That’s now done, and the walls have had a coat of diluted bleach, and a coat of diluted PVA glue to size them so they’ll now be painted this week. New blind will go up in the twin room, lots of pictures on the walls, and lovely rug for the floor. Will post pics when we’ve done it. Next job this week is to finish the plastering in the pool courtyard then paint all the walls and floor white. Then I can get decorating with the solar lights!
A real treat for me recently was getting my hair done – I don’t go very often but my goodness doesn’t it make you feel great to have a bit of pampering? I wouldn’t enjoy a spa treatment or massage at all, but my word I love having a cut, wash and blow-dry! Very low-maintenance, that’s me!
So, off to my friend Anitas’s son Jack, who is such a brilliant hairdresser, and look what a fantastic job he did on my hair! I love it! He works in London as well as here in Spain, so I will need to keep an eye on the times he’s here for the next time I need a wee snip or two.
I know I’ve complained here before about the state of our water – it is very, very hard, full of calcium, and that’s when we get any. We have to regularly take the nozzles off the taps and remove the cal build up. If neighbours are using their taps there’s never enough pressure for the water to get up the hill to our house, a bit of a nuisance to say the least. We moved to this house more than six years ago and there’s not been one single day where we have had an uninterrupted water supply. Empty taps, empty basins, can’t shower, use the washing machine or the dishwasher. Look at that photo, below, tap on, no bleeping water!
Mostly its off for between ten minutes and about half an hour, but the other day it was off for hours with nobody using the water, so I checked with the neighbours who said they also had had no supply for hours. Now, given that they’re Spanish, I’d have thought that they might have phoned the emergency number to report a fault, but no, older Spanish people just seem to always accept what’s going on and wait patiently for someone else to sort it. Well that someone was me! I phoned the emergency number for Aqualia, our supplier, at about 9pm, had a slow conversation with the woman there, then got put through to an engineer and had another slow conversation with him. Incidentally, the conversations were slow because it was all in Spanish and I have to think and work out what to say! To cut a long story short, I was able to make myself understood, the engineer came out within half an hour and sorted out a blockage of calcium in the main water pipe at the bottom of the road which delivers the supply to all of us. Job done, water coming out of the taps at tremendous pressure again, hooray! No matter how competent you think you are at speaking another language, when you’re older it’s flipping exhausting!
Well now, here’s a thing…while I was prepping the start of this issue of the blog we had a power cut. This happens very, very rarely here, I think we’ve only had two stoppages in the time we’ve lived here, that’s more than six years. On one occasion the power came back on within ten minutes. On the other, a line down the road had been hit by lightning in a storm, leaving all of us in the dark. On that occasion, the engineers came out around 9:30pm, bringing a big cherry picker, and were able to reconnect all the wires, including our internet cable. The chap reconnecting our internet fibre cable thingy was Colombian, he had a bit of a time reaching it – he had to go up and out onto our front upstairs terrace, securely clip himself onto a pole and reconnect the wiring. My word but he did a great job, you can see how precarious the job was, hanging over the verandah roof looking down onto the terrace below, it was difficult even just to watch him! Oh, and spot the moon up high too, it was about 10:30pm when they’d reconnected us and everyone else – they weren’t leaving till the job was done!
However, recently, the power outage was not just any power cut, but one that took out almost the whole of Spain and Portugal, as well as some of Andorra, France and Italy. We were without power from 12:30pm to 02:45am, quite a stretch.
Thank goodness most of it was during the day, with plenty of daylight. There was absolutely nothing we could do, and it was very difficult to find out what was happening. Most of the English language radio stations were down too, as were shops and everywhere else! We were able to listen in to Spanish radio stations so we knew the issue was very, very widespread. We heard the power should be back within 6 to 10 hours – with us it was 14 hours.
Happily we had plenty of diesel in the cars – I make a point of never letting the level go below half full, just in case! We also had plenty of water, and we have a gas hob so cooking and making tea and coffee is not a problem. Phones and kindle are always charged to the max. The REAL problem was that nobody had any idea why the power system had collapsed. There were official reports of solar activity which were soon rubbished by meterologists and radio hams. So, nobody knows what happened, except those who DO know, and they’re not telling us. I am so NOT a conspiracy theorist but having lived through the whole covid lockdown fiasco I do wonder if this was a planned exercise in control, again.
Anyhow, we survived. We brought in our wee solar lights from the terrace, and used some candles for extra light. Rather romantic! We had left some overhead lights on and when the power came back and the lights went on it was a bit of a shock to the face – I kept waiting for someone to ask me “Have you ever had a sneaking admiration for the Gestapo?!”
I suppose time will tell, though for now it seems reasonable to believe it was either something to do with an over-dependence on “green” energy, or it was enemy sabotage. Or maybe even a planned exercise in control, who knows? Well “they” do, and they’re not telling us.
At the minute it seems to be one little trial after another…first (and frequently!) no water, then no electricity, and now our water boiler has checked in the towel and needs replacing. Seriously, in the last year we’ve also had to replace and buy a new television, new oven, new microwave…I’m scared to mention the computer in case something goes wrong! Avelino came and installed our new boiler so we can have hot water again – I’m sure the neighbours might have started to think murder was being committed here due to the shrieks of me trying to shower and wash my hair in cold water – I’m too old to be cold!
Back to a wee quickie on food and drink, as so much of our lives here revolve round this! The husband just loves rice pudding – no, I don’t judge him for it – and guess what we found in Aldi recently….
Good grief, rice pudding liqueur! The husband is in his element, he even sneaked a wee taste of it in the car on the way home, before I got a chance to take a photo! My take on it? Revolting! I’m not a drinker at all, so a wee sip every few months of my home-made limoncello is enough for me.
When you come to live in Spain there are lots of different groups you can join in order to follow your passions, meet new people, learn more about your area, or whatever. It’s a really good way of getting to know other people, and it really does help you to feel a bit more settled in a foreign land. There are two main bits of advice I would offer to anyone:
Try to dip in and out a bit, in a variety of groups, before fully committing yourself to one particular thing. It’s really important to have a wide range of areas so you don’t limit yourself to the “same old, same old”. In other words, don’t restrict yourself too much!
Don’t give away too much, too soon. I’m aware this might sound a bit strange, but what I mean is, don’t fall into new friendships straightaway just because they happen to share your language – you might find you get taken advantage of.
We have made some truly wonderful friends since being here, and I’m sure they’ll continue to be so! Unfortunately there have been a few who turned out to be real stinkers, wanting to cause trouble and spreading malicious lies and gossip about others. You really have to wonder what sort of miserable lives these people lead that makes them feel so vindictive towards others. They must be really unhappy in themselves, that they can’t bear to see other people being happy. A word of advice to those who fall into this category – you won’t be any happier by trying to bring others down, if you don’t like something in your own life then change it instead of letting your jealousy take over your life.
I have learned to just let these people go – I’m too old to deal with any childish nonsense, I just don’t engage with them. I don’t just ignore them, I give them the gift of invisibility, that’s much more efffective.
I might tell you more about one or two of these types in a further issue….watch this space!
Recently I have started a wee “Lunch Bunch” ladies’ group, We meet every month for lunch, and take it in turns to decide where and when to get together.
I have been part of a few different but similar groups since I came to Spain but one by one I left them, mainly due to the bitching and backbiting that crept into things. So, a group of us decided it would be good to have a smaller group of people who had no agenda other than enjoying each others’ company and enjoying a good lunch out. So far, so good! These women really are the loveliest bunch, you know that if you leave the table for any reason they’re only going to say nice things about you! Just as it should be, too. The other great thing is that because we take it in turns to decide a venue we are all getting to try places some of us haven’t been to before. It’s just great to go out for an afternoon of laughter and chat, and good food, wine and craic!
Crikey it’s all about the food, again! Anyhow, we’re off again for lunch soon at one of our favourite places, Frank’s Restaurant, in Torrevieja. They do the most amazing hot stone grills, specialising in steaks, ribs, lamb and lobster.
They also provide an excellent menu del dia, for only €12.95, which is phenomenal value. The food is great which is what keeps us coming back. We don’t care if it takes us nearly an hour to get there, we’re retired, have car, can travel, and like to go where the great food is! Have a look at their website, https://franksrestaurante.com/en/ and prepare to be very, very jealous!
One last thing before I sign off – the husband has just had a little basal cell carcinoma removed at our local hospital, all done successfully, thank goodness. An occupational hazard of living in a very sunny country, and a reminder to NOT cook yourself in the sun, no matter how tempting! I think as we age our skin thins, maybe making us more susceptible to things like skin cancers, so it’s a good early warning sign to take more care!
That’s about it for now, we’re off to settle down to paperwor, to look at what to do with the husband’s pensions held in the UK, as well as his state pension which will be coming up soon. It will be a bit of a boost to our disposable income… could someone please whisper to him that my shoe size is 6/39?!
Well maybe not as exotic as it sounds, as tomorrow I’m off to Norn Iron for a week! Just on my own this time – Peter will be busy at home doing loads more little jobs around the house, the ones that really need done but you keep putting off, and then realise once they are actually done that they’ve made a huge difference to the house. At least, I hope that’s what he’ll be doing! With any luck there will also be a new fireplace built in the sitting room. He’s finishing off stripping down a big beam of a thing back to lovely pale wood which will then become the mantelpiece. He’ll be doing a lot of picture-framing and hanging as well, I like the walls fairly covered as I think it looks more homely, and we have loads of pictures, art work and photos. I’m expecting to see a LOT of changes when I get home next week! In the meantime I just can’t wait to see Laurie and the children, roll on tomorrow! Love this photo, it makes it look as if Marshall can walk on water…!
My gardening hasn’t been the most amazing success, all my wee apple tree seedlings gave up the ghost and having tried a couple of times I’m not going to bother any more. I did also plant some tomato seeds which have come on brilliantly but I’m not sure they’ll ever amount to very much either. I’ll just concentrate on my orange and lemon trees, and vines, which are all doing very well. Joaquin is coming back this week to check our vines for us and make sure we’re looking after them properly, they seem to be flourishing at last in the lower walled garden. They’re starting to really fill out now and every week sees a blast of new growth.
Our almond trees have got lots of almonds appearing, it won’t be long before they’re ready to be harvested, then it will be the turn of the olive trees to produce.
One of the things we’ve learned when renovating an old house is to take plenty of “before”, “during” and “after” photos, as it’s all too easy to forget what the place used to look like before we tackled it! I have a stack of photos from just before we bought the house, and then during the start of the renovation process, as well as where we’re up to now. As it’s not finished, the album is not ready to file, but so far we’re actually amazed at how far we’ve some, especially when there are days we thought we were getting nowhere. We’re really looking forward to getting all the photos together when we’re just abut done, to compare what the journey’s been like so far. One of the many original features we love is the door from the kitchen through to the bodega. Funky or what? And such thick walls in this house! They keep the heat in during winter and keep us cool in the summer.
Some wee snippets now of life in Spain….I was in a lift at the health centre recently and saw this sign inside. Whose lift is it? (Not too difficult to work out)!
I absolutely LOVE doors, and find that many of my photos taken out and about seem to be all doors! Err…see our bodega door, above! Well here’s another one well worth a look, our farmacia in Fortuna, isn’t it lovely!
A quick note about my sort-of-okay baking skills. One of our favourite restaurants locally produces the most delicious three chocolate tart. I can’t describe it, it’s simply fabulous. Biscuit base then layers of dark, milk and white chocolate sort of thick mousse. I found a recipe and had a go, and it turned out really well, I surprised myself! I have to wait until we’re expecting visitors, to make it, as we couldn’t eat a whole one ourselves, could we?!
This fabulous liqueur is the same flavour as the delicious Portuguese custard tarts. Now I can make the custard tarts, they’re a bit fiddly but they are very more-ish. That liqueur comes direct from Portugal, very quickly, and it’s like drinking the flavour of the weenie tarts. Just lovely! As for the tarts, here’s some….along with shortbread and apple crumble, I kind of went a bit mad on the baking practice! Oh, I’ve just realised that the photo of the liqueur includes some custard creams in a jar, can you tell I love custard?!
Yes, the husband managed to demolish half the apple crumble fairly quickly!
I did mention last time how important it is to have good neighbours, and really, by neighbours I mean that extends to everyone where you live. When the town hall wants to address its residents, it starts the message by using the word “vecinos” which, literally translated means “neighbours”. Very inclusive, I think, makes us all feel part of the same big extended family, where we hope we all look out for each other. On the basis of you tend to get back what you give out, the other day I was at our local filling station where the staff are really helpful and friendly, they’re also a parcel delivery point which is great when you live in the middle of nowhere and delivery companies won’t come to the house! Anyhow, I was on my way home after filling up the car when I got a message from Antonio to say my bank card was at the filling station. I was surprised as Antonio hadn’t been at work when I was there, it had been Raul there that afternoon. I turned round and went back to the filling station, where Raul handed me my bank card. I’d accidentally dropped it on the ground beside the car without noticing. Now, Raul didn’t have a phone number for me but he knew that Antonio did, so he called him and Antonio called me. Lovely, lovely thing to do, I was so grateful and I’m really happy to know such lovely, caring people!
We went over to Lorca not so long ago, it’s a lovely town but was hit badly by a 5.1 earthquake in 2011, and is still recovering. There were eight fatalities and much structural damage to buildings. We do get earthquakes here in Spain from time to time but thankfully they are usually small and leave little to no damage. You can check out where and when they strike on http://www.ign.es then click on the box that says “Terremotos”. We had never really had a proper look round Lorca, and were delighted to find an artisan outlet, which is stocked by various artists and craft people from the area. They have an amazing range of goods, from ceramics to jewellery, to fabrics, to art works. There’s also a great castle and Parador hotel in Lorca, and a good range of galleries and museums as well as other shopping outlets and, of course, great restaurants for tapas and more. Well worth a visit, so much to see! There are often similar artisan centres to be found in many towns in Spain, we love to just wander round and admire the work, and we rarely come away empty handed!
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I have a whole list of things to tell you about more happenings to do with our lovely life here in Spain but time is running away with me and I need to check my packing is in order for my trip tomorrow so got to go and get ready!
My life in Spain 