I cannot remember what day it was, too much water has passed under the bridge since then, quite literally, but by the powers of deduction, it was obviously at some point between publishing my last ramble, and publishing this one, 🤔 However, I can confirm that it would have been on a rare non-rainy day, so now I come to think of it, as we hadn’t had many of those, I remember that it was Friday the 13th February, we were sat in one of our favourite seafront Cafe/Bars drinking our Cafe con Leche’s, nothing new there then, but thinking back, Tina Turner was crooning away in the background, 🎶 I Can’t Stand The Rain 🎶 and we both commented on just how appropriate that song was at that particular time. However, what I remember most about it was how it felt so good, to once again feel the warmth of the sunshine, and the warming breath of a very mild westerly breeze, on my face. Shazza and I used this time to each sit in silence, well we had done a lot of chitter chattering the whole way along the first part of our walk that morning, so we agreed that we had probably both used up our allocation of words for that morning 😂 So we were each able to just sit, gazing out upon the vast wide and empty expanse of shoreline that stretched out in front of us. The sea, having worn itself out after such a long period of turbulence, was now a picture of serenity once again, with its calm turquoise greens and blues just sparkling away in the sunlight. The scars, wreaked from the havoc created by the seemingly never ending storms, had now all but gone from the beaches, although some work was still in progress, repairing the damage to underground water drainage pipes that had been displaced, along with the tons of sand, such had been those extreme forces of nature. However, the extremely efficient army of local council workers had now very quickly removed the mountains of debris, the co-ordinated teams had scraped, raked and manicured the whole foreshore, bringing it back to looking a lot more like its more normal ‘Blue Flag’ award standard. These are unsung heroes in my book, they barely get noticed by passers-by as they toil relentlessly under the sun in their green ‘high-vis’ uniforms, conducting what must be a very monotonous task. But I for one noticed them, for there is absolutely nothing that evades my prying eyes constantly seeking out ramble worthy content. Not even the dog walker on the beach who allowed her dog to crap on the beach before hurriedly scampering away, without cleaning it up, did not escape my scrutiny and which got her a very much deserved loud ‘tut’ from your’s truly I can tell you, she was lucky that she was too far away to be vocally admonished, it is dog owner’s like her that give responsible owner’s a bad press, I thought to myself. There will of course be those who will spring to her defence with statements like “It will wash away with the tide”, and yes, hopefully it will, at some point, although perhaps not before another unsuspecting beach walker, or jogger, finds it adhered to the bottom of their flip-flop, or trainers 🤷‍♂️

It had been good to get out for a longish walk, and to see other’s out in abundance once again too, all taking the opportunity of another, albeit brief, respite in the weather, not having to rush around between torrential raindrops, or walking, bent over double, protecting themselves from the gale force wind, eyes fixed firmly on the ground directly at their feet, so as not to step in lake-sized puddles, or dog crap. Now they, and we, were able to just saunter, making the most of every valuable second of this unexpected change in the weather. These few dry hours of the day had truly been totally unexpected, because the ‘Works of Fiction’ had actually predicted, forecasted, or probably more accurately, just used the less technological ‘Madame Zelda’s Mystic Fortune Telling Service’ and guessed, that we were once again supposed to have wall to wall rain again on this day, dawn til dusk, which would continue for ‘at least’ the next forty-eight hours, well I suppose they did have a 50/50 chance of getting it right 🤷‍♂️

The Cafe/Bar was not as busy as it often can be, probably because we had arrived slightly later than usual that particular morning, but all the usual suspects were still there, including the German expat couple we had come to know, for not even the weather, good or bad, can interfere with the mandatory leisurely Spanish morning coffee routine. Upon arrival we of course engaged in the traditional round of pleasantries with our fellow customer’s, as well as with the two lady owner’s who, on this particular morning, were both stood side by side on the steps at the entrance, “Dos Cafe con Leche” one of them simply said, “Si Gracias” I responded, and within a minute or so our ‘Vaso’s’ (Glasses) of piping hot coffee were delivered to our table, by the more elderly of the two lady owners, whom we engaged in a brief conversation with, primarily about this unexpected, but very much welcomed weather, well it would have been rude not to have at least acknowledged this moment of rare sunshine and warmth.

I was well overdue a haircut so, after our leisurely coffee’s, we bid ‘Hasta Luego’ to our fellow customers, many of whom were now indulging in slightly stronger beverages 😲 well I suppose the sun was very nearly over the yard arm, to quote a nautical expression, depending on which direction you were looking at that yard arm I suppose, but it was far too early for either Shazza or I. Whilst I called in at my usual Moroccan barbers shop, Shazza wandered off up into the town’s Main Street, you won’t need many guesses at to which shop she would almost certainly be stopping off at 😂 Although, as you read on, the question is, could this be the beginning of the end of us giving our routine custom to this particular favourite trading post 😲 When I was finished having my hair cut, and feeling a little more lightheaded 🤭 I found her sat in the sunshine, on the wall overlooking the beach, my barber’s was just around the corner and she had already informed me where she would be waiting. Neither of us were in any hurry to walk back to the village to where the car was parked, so we discussed finding somewhere for lunch, we wanted nothing too heavy though, so we spent a few minutes trying to decide whether to stay in town, or whether to walk back to the Marina. We agreed that it was too early for the Spanish lunch time, which would have meant us being sat at a table in an empty establishment like a couple of ‘Billy No Mates’, and we certainly didn’t want to try and kill another hour and a half just waiting for more diners to appear so as to create a better dining ambience.

We sauntered back towards the Marina, allowing us more time to soak up every ray of golden sunshine, whilst looking out at the gorgeous sparkling colours of the sea, it is amazing at just how the feeling of warming sunshine can make you feel so happy. We were just casually chatting about this between ourselves as we walked and talking about just how relaxed we both felt right at that moment, “Neither of us really needs a lot to make us happy and content these days do we ?” Shazza commented, and she was right, for generally speaking, we now find ourselves just being happy with our lot, even our previously intense ‘Itchy Feet Syndrome’ has quelled somewhat these days, leading her to ask, “Do you think that we are both just getting old ?”. Mmmmm 🤔 I didn’t like the sound of that word ‘Old’, so I paused for a moment before answering, “Well yes, it is a fact that we are both getting more ‘Senior’ in years, one of us a little quicker than the other, but”, I paused again, before finishing my response, “I actually truly believe that we have now found the ‘sweet spot’ in our lives, no longer needing to seek out the next adventure, just being content with what we have in the here and now”. She half muttered an agreement, but not convincingly then, after a few moments I saw the scowl appear on her face, “But that doesn’t mean that we cannot still have some travel adventures if we want to, does it ?” She said. “Of course not” I replied, for it is true that we do still have those moments when the ‘Itchy Feet’ return and we find ourselves having to scratch them, when we do, we generally go somewhere and do something, whether that be going somewhere different, either for a day, or even a few days on a Spanish mini-break, or sometimes a longer extended holiday break like we are going to do in only a few weeks time, however, in the main, nowadays, it would be true to say that we tend to just relax and enjoy the moments we have here, in this small corner of the Iberian Peninsular, although, we will see just how true that last statement is in a few months time, when we are once again dealing with Spanish bureaucracy, applying to extend our residency permits once again 🫣

At least in the Marina complex it was much busier than on the seafront in the town, with the usual menagerie of International Expats, who tend to eat lunch much earlier in the day than our Mediterranean cousins. Of course, us being us, we wanted to sit outside, and not just because of the sunshine, regular readers will know our particular reason for that 😉 However, with the sun shining, the very calm water in the Marina sparkling alongside the shiny white hulls of the different sized boats, which were sat quite sedentary on their moorings, everybody and their dogs, and I mean that quite literally about the dogs, also wanted to be sat outside at tables in the sunshine and yes okay, who could blame them I suppose, and so, as a consequence, our choices were somewhat limited.

The last time we ate at the ‘Mexican’ Cafe/Restaurant in the Marina, which happened to be a good couple of year’s ago, we found that, unfortunately, they did not cater very well for Shazza’s more ‘Plant Based’ palate, or indeed for anyone of a more Vegetarian/Vegan persuasion, unless you wanted a basic Salad. However, on this occasion, with it being one of the few establishments that had an outside table that was free, and right at the front and immediately overlooking the Marina, we stood and perused the menu board that was attached outside, this time Shazza identified a whole host of things that she could eat, they had obviously had a change to their menu options since our last visit and not one menu item mentioned the words ‘Goats Cheese’. We both ordered ‘Burritos’, Shazza a Mediterranean Vegetable and Black Bean one, myself a Chilli Beef one, which also came with both black and red beans, lots of them, I guess this is why Mexicans always seem so jovial, they are always ‘Full of Beans’ 🤭 Both came with Mexican Rice and three bowls of dips, Sour Cream, Guacamole and a very spicy Chilli Salsa 🥵 Shazza settled for her more usual bottle of sparkling water but for me, finally, after weeks of incarceration with no dining out, I finally got to treat myself to a very nice (large) glass of Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷 Should I really still be calling it that I wonder ? In truth we do ‘occasionally’ open a bottle of wine at home, where we will both have a glass (or two), but that is, in all honesty, a very rare occurrence, for some inexplicable reason 🤷‍♂️ Although we always have plenty of bottles of the stuff on the wine rack, it is my emergency fluid supply, just in case of another drought, although not much chance of that happening this year. Somehow though, drinking wine at home just never seems to quite taste the same, not like the stuff you quaff when you are out in public, perhaps because it always tastes better when combined with a spot of ‘People Watching’, or when conducting our moral duties of ‘Fashion Policing’ or ‘Body Beautiful Observations’ 😂

It was mid afternoon when we drove back into our small residential complex, our slightly younger Spanish neighbours, Miguel and Katya, who are probably in their late forties or very early fifties and who live directly above us, had followed us in through the gates in their car, we have not seen them for several weeks, partly because of our incarcerations due to the weather, but also because they both still work on a full-time basis. We stopped and passed the usual pleasantries and chatted, just about general stuff, as you do and, although they both speak excellent English, we always try to converse with them, initially at least, in our stumbling erratic Spanish, they acknowledge the fact by giving a warm appreciative smile and they never criticise us, or make fun of us, when we occasionally get some of the words not quite right, or in the wrong place in a sentence, or when we have to slip back into our own mother tongue, which I do have to say, is getting less and less. I remember a few years ago when Miguel had told me, in a casual conversation, how it irritated him that a lot of other ‘International Expats’, not just British I hasten to add, and who have resided in our small community in excess of 10 years, still do not speak the most basic of Spanish words which, I guess subconsciously at least, is probably why we always attempt to speak to them both in Spanish, and to be honest, after three years here, I guess that is the way it should be, even if it isn’t perfect. It reminded me of an answer to a question I had seen about whether, in these more touristy areas, you really do need to speak Spanish.

It is warm enough now, well on some days, to spend the afternoon and early evening on the balcony, the daylight hours extending now to a little beyond 7:30pm, and in just a few more weeks, when the clocks go forward by one hour on to European Summertime, it will be more like 9:00pm as the sunsets get progressively later 😁 One evening, whilst we were sat on the balcony, the sun had just begun to disappear behind the thickening night clouds, although there were still some flickers of hazy blue sky obstinately hanging on, the calm sea reflected a much softer blue now, no longer were there any sparkling turquoise greens. I could hear the Gulls circling noisily overhead, above the foreshore, the evening dinner bell must be close to sounding I thought to myself as the evening tide made its way inbound. The freighter’s on the horizon were becoming more of silhouettes, they were getting much harder to distinguish through the descending veil of light grey haze and then, the next time I lifted my eyes from the book I was reading, the horizon had disappeared altogether, making it impossible to distinguish it from the natural line that separated the sea from the sky. As I sat just looking out upon the various landscapes surrounding my elevated observation post, the lights in the grounds of the neighboring complex came on, albeit dusk had still not yet fully arrived, but I noticed that the earlier much lighter breeze was beginning to turn into more of a stronger wind, the heavy leaves on the palm trees starting to sway rhythmically with it, and beginning to make much more noise, the temperature also started to fall quite rapidly as the sun disappeared behind the mountains. Shazza had already retreated into the living room by this time and had turned on the three bar halogen heater, and it wasn’t long afterwards that the orange glow of the fire tempted me inside too. I sighed a contented sigh at what a very enjoyable day it had been, amazing how just a little bit of sunshine and warmth can physically, and psychologically, do to brighten up your day’s.

There is a saying that goes, ‘Enjoy each and every day whilst you can’, well that saying is most definitely true at the moment, for whilst we had enjoyed that previous days weather respite, during the very early hours of the morning, I heard the now familiar tap tap tapping on the external window shutters, and the wind blowing outside had certainly picked up and both lasted well on into the night, I lay awake listening to the gentle rhythm of the rain and wondered what the daylight of morning would bring, for right now it is more like a ‘Lucky Dip’ and certainly much like that famous Forrest Gump line, “You just don’t know what your gonna get”.

What is that other saying ? the one about ‘Giving with one hand whilst taking away with the other’. The ‘Works of Fiction’ had at least got one prediction correct, the previous warm and sunny day had only been a ‘very brief respite’ and what followed was to be another forty-eight hours of incarceration 🙁 As I skimmed through the usual array of ‘Doom and Gloom’ articles in the morning’s media over those following two days, it did serve to remind me that it wasn’t just Spanish people that were rapidly growing webbed feet, for many parts of Europe were suffering their own, not so pleasant, meteorological events, some suffering more than other’s and it reminded me to be grateful for the fact that, at least in our particular corner of Southern Spain, that we had in fact been extremely fortunate in the grand scheme of things.

We do not have to count down the number of weeks it is before our first vacation of the year, because our Grandchildren are already doing that for us, it is the very first thing they say to us on our weekly video chats with them, followed by, “Will you take us bowling again ?”, “Can you take us to the Park ?”, “Can we go to the Pizza Restaurant ?”, they each reel of a long list of the things they want us to do with them, each one making sure they include something different to what their sisters have asked, to which we of course just simply reply, ‘Yes’, in the full knowledge that we will not be able to fulfil every single one of their requests as we only have so much time to spend with them, but ‘Yes’ is much easier than trying to explain the ‘Adult logical reasons’ why not everything will actually be possible, within the time frame we have with them. However, it also serves as a timely reminder to the two of us, that we only have a few weeks remaining to up our stamina levels, in readiness for what will certainly be a full body and mental wellness workout 😲 So, our current, more sedentary exercise regime, will be totally insufficient for the demands of three ‘very active’ grandchildren, our fingers are crossed that, hopefully, the weather will soon change and we will be able to extend our walks a little more, and of course up the pace 😮‍💨 as their will be no opportunity, when we are with them in a little under five weeks, for me to grab my more customary afternoon Siesta’s 😲 “Shazza, as you are the younger, perhaps you may consider having some dedicated Girlie time with them for an hour or so 🤔”, reply unprintable, “No, I didn’t think so 🙁”

The weather did eventually change for the better, we were now, once again, awakening to the much more desirable blue skies and sunshine and, although the different ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts were still squabbling with each other, like a bunch of school kids in the playground, over how warm the daily temperatures would be, or the strengths and directions of the wind, it really didn’t matter to us, as long as we saw that sunshine symbol in the forecast, that was all we needed, so confident was I that there would be no more rain in the next ten days or so, hopefully much longer than that, I even let ‘Forrest Gump’ go on vacation for a while, although I do have him on speed dial just in case he is required at short notice 😁

I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say that not only had the meteorological conditions resumed their normal sunny service in our part of Spain, but so did our normal daily routines, we went out ‘every single day’ on our usual walks, occasionally extending them but not, if we are honest, for any reasons of upping our stamina levels, more a case of having been incarcerated for so long we just wanted to enjoy most of our time outside of the confines of the apartment.

Shazza informed me one morning, whilst enjoying our first coffee of the day, taken now back in my happy place on the balcony, that she had discovered an Organic Fruit and Vegetable Farm just on the outskirts of Estepona, on the Northern side of the town. Obviously the reason she was informing me of this was because it was more her way of telling me where we would be going that morning, that was as soon as I got my arse into gear and got washed and dressed 😂 The ‘Works of Fiction’ predicted the afternoon temperature to climb to 24 degrees(c), it was already 18 degrees(c) at 10:00am so they may just have guessed correctly this time around. I put the route into ‘Google Car Play’ and off we went, it didn’t take long before we remembered that we needed to re-set the Air-Con system in the car from warm to cold 🥵 The location was a little further outside of Estepona than it had initially looked, but not that far. Now it is not often that you get personal service from a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a firm, unless of course you are from a more entitled background and the chauffeur drops you off at the door 💵💰🤑 and to be honest, we didn’t know that we were at the time. The sales area was a metal shipping container set at the entrance of a large field, we waited for the only other customer to be served and then a very friendly youngish chap, early to mid thirties I guessed, dressed as you would expect a land worker to be dressed, introduced himself in perfect English, “Hello, I am Carlos, Is this your first time here ?” he asked, when we answered ‘Yes’ he said, “Okay, it is quiet this morning so let me show you around my farm”. We chatted as we walked and we learnt about Carlos, his previous life and how he came to own this farm, his family was originally from up in the hillside town of ‘Antequera’, before they then moved to ‘Cordoba’, he had left home and worked in the ‘Science Based Agricultural Industry’ in Northern Europe, before returning to Spain and starting this farm just three year’s ago. He was ‘A Very Happy And Pleasant Chap’ and we both took an instant liking to him, he was very enthusiastic about his farm and his plans for the future and was keen to confirm that all of his produce was grown without any chemicals or pesticides, 100% Organic he proudly stated. There was not much produce on the hand-made wooden racking in the container, but he explained that the rain and flooding had taken it’s toll on the ground and crops, but he had plenty out in his fields that had survived and ready for cultivating, so out we went back into the fields stopping to cut handfuls of fresh ‘Kale’, Bright Green and Dark Purple varieties. As you may imagine, we came away with two plastic carrier bags full of different fruits and vegetables and he said that if we wanted anything specific that he didn’t already have available, just to let him know and he would grow it, Shazza suggested Fresh Ginger and he said that he already had plans to grow it as part of his expansion plans. As we left he gave us his card, so that we could contact him if we had any other suggestions for produce that he didn’t already grow, but to be honest he already grows such a wide range and much more than there is on our local supermarket shelves, but that is when I noticed his official title of ‘CEO & Owner’. I chuckled and said that I had never been dealt with personally by a CEO before, he laughed, “Nothing but personal service here’ he says, and then thanked us for our custom.

Now okay, for Shazza this farm produce location was a major discovery for her, she waxed lyrically about it all the way back to Estepona and I knew from that, that this would not be our last visit, and that it would probably now extend the distance we travel on our weekly shopping trips 😲 For me, somewhat of a ‘Plant Based’ heathen in her eyes, I wasn’t convinced that I would be able to tell any difference in taste between these fruit and vegetables, from the the ones that we have been eating from both the Supermarket, or the Fruiterias, in our local town 🤷‍♂️ Although, some of the local produce in the supermarket has been seen to contain labels stating country of Origin in countries as far away as Peru, not very local eh, considering that much of the same produce is actually grown here in Spain 🙄 So at least she will know that by purchasing from the local farm, that we are actually supporting the local Spanish economy, now that cannot be a bad thing can it 🤷‍♂️

We parked on the waste ground in Estepona, opposite the large Carrefour supermarket, and walked into the town along the seafront promenade and, in the rapidly rising heat it felt a long walk, but we were definitely not complaining. The first stop was my E-Cigarette supplier, the last time I had visited to re-stock my supply of vape fluids was nearly six months ago, and as we do not have a ‘Vape Store’ in our own town this is the nearest, so I ensure that when I come here I purchase in bulk. The shop is at the top end of the town but just around the corner from it is a very pleasant Plaza, with a couple of ‘Taperias’, so just right for a nice ‘Vermut & Tapas’ lunch, yes of course we did, it would have been rude not to. Estepona is such a vibrant place and we love coming here, although, even though it is only a twenty-minute drive from home, we probably do not come as often as we could, not only was it a very productive day, but it also made for a nice change of scenery.

And In Other News……….

Perhaps the reporter for the European Weekly News (EWN) had some insider information that the other Global Tabloid Press do not have, for when reporting on the Supreme Courts ruling in the USA very recently, it would appear that, according to the EWN this is, and not a case of you saw it in Eric’s ramble so it must be true, that TRUMP is now the ‘Former’ President 🤔 Perhaps this could just be a ‘typo’ ? or perhaps a case of CNN and FOX News being a little slow off the mark ? Or perhaps…………. the Iranians got to him first 🤷‍♂️

Until my next scintillating ramble, from what is now a Sunnier part of Spain, wherever you may be in the world right now, stay warm, stay dry or just enjoy the sunshine, but ultimately, stay safe 😉

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

When the days are more wet than dry, when incarceration, over our own freedom to choose becomes a choice that is taken out of our own hands, then, having a ‘Comfort Zone’ in which to feel safe and secure, is definitely something of a luxury. There were times, not very long ago, when being incarcerated, for more than two consecutive days, even within the relative comforts of our own home, resulted in the onset of ‘Cabin Fever’, our need, not just a leisurely desire, to get out on our walks along the seafront, to feel the fresh air upon our faces, the wind in our hair and, the sights and sounds of life going on around us, were quite overwhelming. However, over the last few months in particular, when those incarceration periods have become more frequent and much more extended periods, four to five days at a time, but where we now realise that ‘Cabin Fever’ no longer strikes, I have to wonder whether this is just a case of putting our positive heads on and saying, “It’s the weather, we have no control over it, so it is what it is 🤷‍♂️”, or, is the reason for that lack of feeling that we are being forcibly imprisoned in our own homes, a little more sinister ? A case perhaps of us becoming just a little too comfortable in our ‘Comfort Zone’ where Lethargy overrides personal motivation to want to get out and move ?

For those of you who are regular reader’s, you will already be familiar with my more ‘contemplative’ ramblings, I don’t necessarily need to have any excuses, to write about the numerous things that are going on in my thoughts at any given time, and I certainly do not necessarily have to feel incarcerated before willingly sharing such thoughts with you, whether you want me to or not. However, these recent, and much more frequent periods of incarceration, have entailed me having much more time on my hands, and subsequently as a consequence, with I hasten to add, some other coincidental things being thrown into the mix, I have had a lot more time to do a lot more contemplating but with a nagging voice inside my head screaming, ‘Don’t Get All Philasophical On Me !’ So on yet another stormy and miserably wet morning, I found myself sat on the balcony staring into space and posing myself a question, ‘Is having a Comfort Zone a good thing or a bad thing ?’

Now this wasn’t a question that I had just conjured up from thin air, in fact it was a comment that was made recently, during one of the ‘many conversations’ that Shazza and I often have between ourselves, on a wide variety of subjects. We had made the decision to come and live permanently here in Spain in June of 2023, in complete acknowledgement and agreement, that in doing so we would be away from all of our immediate family, including our three grandchildren who, at the time of our move, the twins were 7 years old and the youngest just 4 years of age. Although we knew that they would be keen to come out and stay with us at least once a year, and we would occasionally return to the UK to see them and other family and friends, but we had told them that we did not intend to return to the UK on an annual basis, perhaps every couple of year’s or so, as we wanted and intended to use the opportunity, of us being based in Europe, to travel to and explore many other European countries, and perhaps even some countries further afield that were on our personal bucket lists. However, in the very nearly 3 year’s that we have lived here in Spain, whilst we have had some extended road trips exploring other areas of Spain in this time, a few days with our daughter in Germany one Christmas and, a few days in Austria attending a large family wedding event, we have not travelled anywhere else in Europe on personal holidays in this time, although we regularly both sit and watch ‘You Tube’ tourist documentaries on countries within Europe, and of course, we make all the right noises about visiting them 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, on a wet and dreary afternoon we were scrolling through the lists of programmes on the TV when we came across one entitled, ‘Old People’s Care Home for 4 Year Olds’ and that gained our interest. Now I won’t go into too much detail but basically, it was a ‘Social Experiment’ in an Australian Care Home where they introduced a group of ten, 4 year olds, to a similar numbered group of elderly residents aged 84 year’s and above and over a period of seven full weeks these individuals spent everyday with each other doing a variety of things, both in and out of the care home environment. As you may imagine, it was quite amusing to watch, especially as 4 year olds do not have any sort of ‘Filter’, they say exactly what is in their heads, likewise the ‘Older Adults’ were set in their own ways, it was set over six separate episodes and we binged watched the first series in one day, we found ourselves laughing, tutting and even shedding a tear at the end. But why am I telling you this, well initially, our reason for watching it had nothing to do with the ‘Old Age’ aspect, I mean this was about ‘Old People’ so, as far as I was concerned their was absolutely no correlation there, I mean I am not even a ‘Septuagenarian’ yet, well not for another seven months, but in my head I am still barely fifty-years old and still as healthy and fit, although yes I will admit to making some old people’s noises occasionally, when I first get out of bed usually or, on sitting down when we get home after one of our long walks, but to be completely truthful I have probably been making those exact same noises for the last twenty-years 😂 But here is the real impact the programme had on the both of us, we missed the one-on-one ‘in the flesh’ contact with our three grandaughter’s, it reminded us of just how much fun they are, the energy they have, and the energy they make us have in doing things with them, and the conversations we have with them. It made us realise just how much of their growing up years that we have missed out on and why, perhaps, when we have so much free time in our retirement, that we can not hop on the relatively short flight back to the UK, to go and see them a little more often.

We already knew that we would get to see them all again this Summer, for whilst they have confirmed that they are definitely coming during the school holidays, the exact dates still have to be determined, but we will be here nonetheless. However, it got us to thinking how we could kill two birds with one stone as it were, by also satisfying one of our own personal holiday trips. One of the biggest regrets I have is in not actually taking the opportunity to do any real travel explorations of France, whilst we were living in our Motorhome full-time, yes we had done a bit but not a great deal, we were always in a rush to get elsewhere, France was always just on the doorstep and we all know that we never usually visit places that are so close to home 🤷‍♂️ Whenever we travelled from the UK to Spain, in either the Motorhome or the car, we always took the ferry directly to either Bilbao or Santander then drove straight down here to the apartment, to what was then just our holiday ‘Bolt Hole’. So, we have made the decision and have booked the ferries and, in a little over six weeks time we will head up to Bilbao, where we will spend a couple of days exploring the city before departing for the UK. Strange how many times we have departed, and returned, via Bilbao but never stopped to look around 🤷‍♂️ We will put this right this time. We spent a little over three weeks in the UK last year, visiting family and friends, this time we will spend only one week, stopping first in Wiltshire to spend a few days with our grandchildren whilst they are on their Easter school holidays, then driving up to South Yorkshire to spend Easter with Shazza’s mum, then we will return to Wiltshire to spend a short time again with the Grandchildren, before catching an overnight ferry to the north coast of France. I have made a rough route plan, there are far too many places to explore in just one trip, so we have a general direction to head towards but with no definitive locations to stop at, and no time period for how long we will stay at any one location, but we will celebrate Shazza’s birthday whilst we are there and the France part of this particular trip could well stretch to just beyond three weeks, then back into Spain with stops at San Sebastián, Zaragoza and Toledo, which are three major places in Spain that we have not yet visited and are on our ‘To Do List’, before then heading home once again. We need to be back at home in May to get all our ducks in a row (Administration) in readiness to submit our annual Spanish Tax Return, and then, at the end of May, our daughter and son-in-law from Germany, will be our first scheduled visitors of the year.

Now, with June and July having to be spent here in Spain, as we have to apply to renew our Spanish Residency Permits (Mid June) and then wait to receive our new Identity Residency Cards, which could take between 4-6 weeks and then, with the two-week Summer visit to us by Chris, Sarah and our Grandaughter’s, we may, or may not, get a chance for a mini-break somewhere before those two events. One of my nephews and his wife and young son, who live in Australia, have also said that they are potentially planning a Summer trip to Europe and would like to come and stay with us as part of that trip, so that will fit into the schedule of visitor’s somewhere 🤷‍♂️

However, earlier in this ramble I also alluded to a certain ‘Septuagenarian’ event taking place later in the year. Shazza has decided that as we only really marked my 50th, and did nothing special to mark my 60th, this time she wanted us to make a memory, with the proviso that she will be organising it and that I am not to question any unscheduled withdrawals from the Bank Account 😲 My OCD Buddy certainly had some concerns over my agreeing to that one I can tell you !! My sole input, I have been informed, is to decide only on which European City, excluding any in Spain or UK, in which I would like to celebrate this event. Oh my goodness, choices choices, Copenhagen ? Oslo ? Florence ? Rome ? Athens ? Although, coming to think about it, I seem to recall seeing something about an annual five day wine festival in Budapest ? 🍷🍷🍷 Although I may not have too many memories of that city, or my birthday, afterwards 😂

So, it looks as if we are going to have another busy year ahead of us, with Shazza’s mum scheduled to arrive for her two-week stay in October, which quite conveniently brings me back to my original question, ‘Is having a comfort zone a good thing, or a bad thing ?’ Well we certainly do have our own very nice ‘Comfort Zone’, both within our safe and secure home and also, with our location, we have everything we need on our doorstep, a swimming pool just steps away from our front door, an incredible choice of a number of lovely sandy beaches, the nearest just a five minute drive from our front door, a lovely long seafront and promenade to walk along, so many Cafe/Bars and Restaurants to choose from, when it isn’t raining of course, we have all the day to day shops we could ever need, top notch medical facilities close by and with two Airport’s also nearby (Gibraltar and Malaga), within just a short drive away, which enable visitor’s to get to us quite easily. So yes, being in our ‘Comfort Zone’ is definitely a good thing, in my humble opinion. But, just because we have a perfectly good ‘Comfort Zone’ should not mean that we should not, or cannot, step outside of it occasionally, especially whilst we are both still capable of doing so, for we just never know when the time may come when we cannot do so, for whatever reason 🤔

Unlike our prolonged periods of recent incarcerations, where we have had little choice in the matter, we do still have the freedom to decide for ourselves, if, when, and on how many occasions, we may choose to leave our particular ‘Comfort Zone’, only ‘other’ external global factors can interfere with that, if we allow them to.

If this stormy weather doesn’t stop soon, you may have to persevere with even more of my ‘Contemplative’ thoughts 😂

Until the next time………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

My favourite place in our apartment is the balcony where I am protected from the outside elements by the large glazed windows and the two double ‘French Style’ glazed doors. I spend many hours in here, no matter the season or time of the day, although at night in these Winter months it can get a little too chilly without any heating, although I do occasionally make use of a small portable fan heater. Once any of the routine domestic chores have been done, more usually the weekly cleaning regime or, like on one morning recently, fitting a new lock and handle mechanism on the kitchen door or, after we have returned from one of our walks or shopping trips, this is where I retreat to, for this is my ‘Haven of Peace’. We often eat our lunch in this space, although if it is a bit chilly Shazza will eat her’s in the living room where it is much warmer, but the cooler balcony doesn’t tend to bother me so much. I can spend hours in here, doing stuff on my iPad, or reading whatever book I have on the go on my Kindle or, much more usually, just sitting gazing out of the window, often in my own little world where I sit and contemplate things, which can be about anything and everything. The important thing is that this to me is a place where, whatever is going on in the wider outside world, it doesn’t encroach into here, other than in my thoughts that is. I have been spending a lot of time sat in my happy place recently, due to the adverse weather conditions we have been experiencing in our small corner of the world, although, reading the media headlines from around the world I am very aware that we were not the only one’s suffering an unusually prolonged period of very wet and stormy weather.

As I sit watching the fast flowing raindrops cascading down the windows, and listening to the gale force wind whistling relentlessly outside, sometimes not even being able to look out upon the sea as the rainfall is so heavy that it creates a curtain of thick grey mist. At one stage my thoughts drifted to when we were living in a house back in England on days such as these, we would have awoken, listened to the wind and rain outside and, although being in a nice warm centrally heated home, we would have probably still have scrunched up our shoulders and rubbed the palms of our hands together as we gazed out upon the wet and wintry scene before us, “Oh well, just another couple of months to go and Spring will arrive, with hopefully, a bit milder temperature” I would most likely have said, for I do tend to make such profound positive statements like that from time to time. The difference about living in England though, was that this type of wintery weather would have been quite normal, and it would almost certainly have been accompanied with frost, ice and snow but there would be nothing unusual about any of that. Even so, and I chuckled to myself as I thought about it, even though we were used to living through such Winter weather, year in, year out, without fail, we would still have moaned about it, for it’s a British national pastime, this moaning and groaning lark, it’s a compulsory subject in our education system don’t you know 😂 Some, more privileged members of British Society, even go on to University to get a degree in the art, and that art, of moaning and groaning, is not just confined to the subject of the weather either. Now let us also be honest, for the Brits are not alone in having specific traditional national behaviours, other countries around the globe also have their own specific education priorities too, and equally mandatory subjects that must be taught, learned and practiced for their regular use in daily life, of course these specialised arts vary, from country to country, for example, some teach their citizens how to queue jump, without feeling any guilt or embarrassment, I mean they have very busy lives, unlike everyone else, so they do not have time to stand in a line waiting for something. With other’s it is the art of never saying Please, or Thank You, probably the most globally recognised one though is the art of ensuring that one’s towel gets on to a sun bed before anyone else’s 😂 I find these human behaviours to be really amusing to watch and they can be easily turned into a game to pass some time, a bit like when travelling on a long journey in a car, bus or train and you have to count the number of certain coloured cars on the road, or horses in a field, but this particular ‘traits game’ is called ‘Guess The Nationality’, it can be especially fun whilst doing a spot of ‘People Watching’ in busy tourist locations 🤭 However, this game is not as easy as it once was, perhaps a reflection on the state of our world today, for now it seems that a lot of these once specific Nationality traits, are now becoming more common and widespread in their use throughout many different Nationalities 🤔

Over the last couple of months, since the beginning of December last year, we have been pestered by the presence of numerous ‘Unwelcome Visitor’s’, they arrive, without being invited, and each one, without fail, overstays their welcome 😲 I will publicly name and shame them here and now, although they already know who they are, Alice, Frances, Ingrid, Harry, Joseph and now Kristin. Okay yes, you have probably already guessed that these particular ‘Unwelcome Visitor’s’ are all major storms, which have followed swiftly on the coat tails of each other providing little, or no, respite from the trail of devastation that each one of them had created, although it has to be said that these trails of devastation have varied dramatically, dependent of course on which areas they had hit the worst, fortunately, in our small corner of the Costa del Sol, we have certainly been spared from any of the more ‘serious’ devastation, only really suffering from the inconvenience of not being able to get out as much for our regular walks. However, and yes, somewhat surprisingly for our area, even the snow had stretched its long white arms down to within 15km (9 miles) of Estepona, and that, I do have to say, is just a little too close for comfort for my liking ! Strange when I think about it now, but this time last year we were actually praying for ‘some’ rain, in order to end the previous two year’s of severe drought but now, we are frantically praying for it all to just stop, I guess we are just never happy eh ! 😂

Anyway, enough about the weather, because we cannot do anything about it 🤷‍♂️ although I afford myself a bit of a chuckle when an amusing thought suddenly enters my head, for without a doubt it will not be too long and then Shazza and I will both be moaning and groaning again, about it being too hot, the crowds of tourists and of course those bloody mosquito’s 😂

Personally speaking, the one biggest casualty of all of these storms was the potential for them to have had a devastating impact on my rambles, although I am sure that there may be some who may have welcomed that devastation 😂 They have certainly made it more difficult for us to get out and about in order for me to find some little anecdotes to write about in respect of our everyday life here in this part of Spain. However, that little voice in my head says, “When has anything ever really stopped you from finding something to ramble about Eric ?”, it may have a point 🤔

So, as the very noisy and whistling gale force wind almost relentlessy permeates my ear drums and rattles the windows, accompanied by the seriously heavy rain, which continuously hammers on the windows, I sit, with a steaming mug of coffee on the table beside me and my iPad on my lap, I place my fingers, well the usual two of them, on to the keyboard, and await for my brains cognitive diary to release the information about the things that have happened since my last publication, a couple of weeks earlier………………….

Now you will recall that on one of our recent walks, along the seafront promenade, their was an incident with a large turtle that had become entrapped in a fishing net, by the way, it has since been confirmed that it was in fact a ‘Loggerhead’, well that incident, fortunately, had a happy ending and ‘Tommy’, which I nicknamed him, although not actually knowing what gender it was, but he was released from his constraints and lived to swim, probably into another fishing net, on another day. Now, as I wrote at the time, these sort of incidents are not an everyday occurrence here and, generally speaking, we rarely witness anything too exciting happening on our daily walks. However, just like standing for hour’s waiting for a Bus, then eventually two turning up together, so it was that we encountered yet another incident, just a week later, on another of our walks and, quite coincidentally, within just a few metres of where the ‘Tommy the Turtle’ incident had unfolded.

There had been a short break in the otherwise elongated period of stormy weather, the ever present dark rain threatening clouds had suddenly parted, revealing just a glimpse of blue sky and some weak hazy sunshine managing to break through briefly, it was still a pretty blustery day but we took the opportunity to break free from our recent days of enforced confinement, dressed appropriately, prepared for the possibility of getting caught in yet another downpour. It felt so good to be able to get back outside, into the fresh air, surprisingly it was a little warmer than we had anticipated and we both unzipped our outer rain jackets. Due to these constantly and rapidly varying weather conditions, on this occasion we had decided to drive straight into the town, rather than park up at the bottom of the hill, in our usual spot in the village where we would normally take the longer walk along the seafront promenade. However, we had parked not in our usual town car park, but on the opposite side of the busy A7 road that dissects the town, the reason for doing so was actually two fold, firstly to compensate for the lack of distance we would be walking on this occasion from our more usual route, and secondly, we were parked just a shortish distance from our local high street supermarket, which we wanted to call into on our way back home, after we had called in to the ‘bank’ and ‘fruiteria’ of course. Anyway, after having crossed the footbridge that stretched across the four lane road below, we made our way down a back street towards the seafront promenade, we could see the flashing blue lights on the two Ambulances parked on the seafront, but before we got there an elderly lady, wearing slippers, I notice these kinds of small details, probably due to my previous long career as a Police Investigator 🤭 she was coming from the direction of whatever the incident was, she stopped as she reached us and rattled several sentences off, at machine gun speed, in Spanish, but we missed most of what she said apart from the words, ‘Hombre’ (Man), ‘fallecido’ (Died) and ‘caminando’ (Walking). As we approached we could hear the quite obvious sound of an elderly woman crying, quite loudly, in between these bursts of tears she was saying something, between heavy sobs, we couldn’t decipher her words. The ambulance crews had sealed off the promenade with blue and white tape, to prevent passers-by from ‘rubber necking’. We veered away from the scene and although we didn’t know the details of the actual incident, or of the people involved, from what we had been told, by the elderly slipper footed lady, and from the wails of the woman at the scene, we had already made our own assumptions. As we continued our walk, we both agreed that this incident had had a bit of a negative impact on our mood, that led to us both discussing, during our routine ‘Cafe con Leche’ stop, our own mortality and some of the realities of either of us passing away suddenly, here in Spain, without any close support from family or even friends. We have often discussed this subject, since moving here permanently and both not being spring chickens as it were, in those previous discussions we had considered the practical formalities that we would have to conduct, we both had Wills, but then there were the peculiarities of the Spanish Funeral system, burials/cremations must take place within forty-eight hours of a persons death, unless they are under suspicious circumstances, then their were the financial aspects and complications of having just one ‘Joint Account’, they freeze bank accounts totally upon a persons death 😲 So yes, we had discussed all of these things, on several occasions, but we had never really considered the immediate effect and aftermath. What if we had come out for our normal daily walk, or to do some shopping, then either one of us had keeled over and died, suddenly and right there on a public street, how on earth do you deal with that ? And for us, with no immediate family to call upon, or no real close friends, just neighbours or acquaintances, the last thing on your mind would be the formalities or practicalities, there would be the initial distress and the shock to deal with 🤷‍♂️ To say it put a real downer on our morning would be a gross understatement and whereas the ‘Tommy Turtle’ incident had had a happy ending, this one most certainly hadn’t. We both deem ourselves to be very fit and healthy, no serious underlying medical conditions and on no medications, medically prescribed or over the counter, but we have never had our good health actually medically confirmed for a long long time, but then again, why would we, surely you only visit the doctor’s when you feel really poorly, or you know that you have some sort of a medical issue that needs a specialist medical consultation 🤷‍♂️ Or perhaps Eric, you ‘are getting old’ when you start talking about getting old ?

Quite coincidentally the following morning, whilst speed reading some of the Global News Headlines, I came across an article, re-published from one that had first appeared in August 2025, something news media publications do regularly as ‘page fillers’, but again the timing being quite coincidental bearing in mind the nature of the previous days tragic incident, which had prompted personal reflections on our own health and rising age related senior status.

In 2025, Singapore became the world’s 6th ‘Official Blue Zone’ country, although, it is a little different to the other five. Researcher’s had discovered that in the already established five ‘Blue Zone’ areas, Longevity had been derived naturally, or to put it another way, nothing had been changed in these areas natural environments, their cultures, dietary aspects or traditional social lifestyles, people were living the same way today as they always had. However, in Singapore, this Blue Zone area has been physically engineered, by the Government, to promote Longevity, by providing better more environmentally friendly areas by building more Green Spaces, providing funding to promote social aspects and of course promoting and encouraging healthy dietary and fitness regimes. None of the things that had been engineered were mandatory, or enforced, but somehow it appears to have worked and over a period of several years research, the results comparisons show that more people in Singapore are living for longer.

Now I am sure that many of us know that there are numerous other countries, globally, where people can, and many do, live to be ‘Centenarians’, the main difference being that they are not in the high concentration of numbers that there are in the officially categorised ‘Blue Zone’ areas. But that got me to thinking once again, because I have visited this ‘Blue Zone’ subject before, but I continually hear the claims being made about the ‘Healthy Mediterranean Diet’, so why is it, I ask myself, that only one Island area in Greece, and one geographical area in Sardinia, has attained this ‘Official’ Blue Zone Status ? Or could it be that ‘Netflix’ documentary film makers just keep going to the same already established ‘Blue Zone’ areas or, perhaps, there are other areas currently being researched but not yet given the Longevity status 🤷‍♂️ Now of course, me being me, and nothing better to do with myself on these stormy wet weather days, I went to the font of all knowledge, yes ‘Senor Google’, well it would have been rude of me not to, and I asked the straightforward question ‘Are there any Blue Zones’ in Spain?’ However, this is the unexpected response I received………………

It took a bit of time to work out the correct phraseology, but eventually I succeeded and discovered that there is a small geographical inland area in the Region of Galicia, Northern Spain, that has a higher than average number of Centenarians but, research is still ongoing before it can be officially designated as a ‘Blue Zone’. It had been hoped that this area in Galicia would have made it into 6th place in the Blue Zone listings, unfortunately, Singapore has pipped it to the post 🤷‍♂️

Having now watched a lot of documentaries on these ‘Blue Zones’, on both ‘Netflix’ and ‘You Tube’ over the last few years, I have come to realise that this Longevity stuff is not solely about the kind of diet that you eat, although certain ‘foodie’ groups will attempt to hi-jack the ‘Longetivity’ label for their own ends, that includes ‘Vegan’, ‘Plant Based’, ‘Vegetarian’ and ‘Carnivore’ groups. Not that dietary considerations are not important, they are, but when you watch and listen to a wide variety of these documentaries, they all confirm that it is not just one thing that has been responsible, for these areas having larger than average groups of people who have become ‘Centenarians’, but it is actually a series of normal everyday lifestyle habits and behaviours, conducted over a period of decades, that have combined to create these ‘Blue Zones’, apart from Singapore that is, which has been physically engineered to promote Longevity.

One of the things that really grabbed my attention and intrigued me, and not every documentary mentioned this, but what grabbed my attention about the larger majority of these ‘Centenarians’ within the established ‘Blue Zones’, was the fact that none of them suffered with any major medical issues, No Cancers, Diabetes, Respiratory Issues, Cardiology issues and very few, if any, were medically categorised as being Obese 🤷‍♂️ Did some of them eat red meats in their diets ? Yes they did, although moderate consumption. Did they drink Wine ? Again Yes, in moderate consumption, which as you can imagine was actually music to my particular ears 😂 But what I did find amazing was, that these groups of Centenarians had all survived the Pandemic, whereas during the Covid outbreak, globally, it was the elderly (Over 65) and those ‘generally’ suffering with underlying medical conditions, who accounted for the majority of fatalities, although not all. Now most of you who have come to know me, through these rambles, know that I have a cynical and very skeptical nature, I don’t just accept what someone says, or by which spreadsheet of facts they opt to show to prove their case, and that also applies to the ‘Blue Zone’ research, but I do have to say, I found these ‘Blue Zone’ documentaries, more so the actual ‘Centanarian’ characters that were interviewed, quite inspirational and although I am not a betting man, on this occasion I would like to wager that none of these current ‘Centenarians’ give a damn about their official title, or that they live in a ‘Blue Zone’, they just carry on as normal, happy with their everyday lives and lifestyles. But here is the important ‘key factor’ that I personally take away from watching such documentaries, ‘You do not have to live in a Blue Zone to live a long, happy and healthy life’, but perhaps by adopting some of ‘their’ normal lifestyle behaviour’s and habits, within our own environments, it may just help in achieving it 😉

WOW ! All of this latest ‘Blue Zone’ stuff, that I have just rambled on about, was prompted by that one sad incident down on the Promenade, by the joint conversation that Shazza and I had had shortly afterwards, and perhaps, my own individual thoughts on it for days afterwards. It just goes to prove that things that you see, or hear, even though they may not directly involve you, can have an impact on you 🙄 However, on a much more agreeable note, to end this particular ramble, I am going to now go and engage in one of those ‘Longevity’ positive attributes, time I think to partake of a ‘large’ dose of Anti-COVID Vaccine 🍷

Wherever you may be in the world reading this, please stay safe in whatever climatic phenomenon you are currently experiencing 🙏

Until the next time………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

There has been a cold icy crispness in the air for many weeks now, the rainy season had started right at the beginning of December, much earlier than normal this year, but what was more unusual was its persistence, for usually there would be three or four days of continuous rain before the sun would re-appear again, for up to a week or so, before another three of four days of rainfall. Although, the last two winters have actually been the opposite, unusually warm and dry, hence the following two years of severe drought, no chance of that happening again in 2026, as our local Embalse is currently sitting at 85% of its total capacity and, for safety reasons, they are actually having to conduct controlled releases of some of it. However, like most of Europe, North, South, East and West, last year, since the beginning of December and right through until the first week of January this year, the whole of Europe, including our location right down here in the South, the place everyone associates with perpetual winter sunshine, was being battered with persistent storms, many wreaking havoc and causing widespread floods as they do, and sadly, causing some fatalities as a consequence.

In our immediate area we have not suffered any major flooding since the devastating flood of December 2016, but this year, in a space of just seven days, between Christmas and New Year, we had received two ‘Red Alerts’ on our mobile phones warning of a ‘Danger of Flooding’ in our immediate area. Fortunately, although the storms did arrive as forecasted by the ‘Works of Fiction’, the threat of severe flooding didn’t, it appeared that we had escaped the worst, we discovered later that we had been extremely fortunate, as the small community of Manilva, which is just a ten minute drive further up the hill from us, and Estepona, just across the bay and only a twenty minute drive away, were not so fortunate, with flooded streets and homes, rivers and storm drains had been breached by the rising floodwaters and there just seemed to be no rhyme or reason for why we hadn’t suffered the same fate as our neighbouring communities, or was there ? Before the rainy season started we had witnessed the local council cleaning out all of the street drains, and clearing the storm drains of any debris, going as far as cutting back a lot of overgrown shrubbery lining the flood drains and the river beds, which could hinder the rapid free flow of flood waters from escaping into the sea, perhaps they had learned the hard lessons from the devastation caused nine year’s previously, prior planning and preparation had obviously payed off on this occasion.

Apart from the days when it has been particularly wet, and I have to say that there has been rather a lot of those wet days over the last few weeks, even so, we have started this New Year with pretty much the same pattern of activity as we had ended the previous year, that being with taking our daily walks along the seafront. Our walks are generally just about maintaining mobility, rather than for any real fitness objectives, although when we want to treat them as more of an ‘Exercise Session’ we just tend to up the pace in which we walk and often just extend the distance slightly, but the majority of our daily walks generally tend to be a distance of between 3-4 miles, with of course the mandatory refreshment stop at the midway point, well it would be rude not to wouldn’t it 🤭

One of my particular ‘quirks’, and yes I know that I have many of those, they come naturally, with the privilege of age and that is my excuse and I am sticking to it. So, in addition to my other quirks, or shall we just call them casual pastimes, such as the ‘People Watching’, ‘Fashion Policing’ and of course the ‘Body Beautiful Observations’ is the listening to, and observing, the sights and sounds of nature that is around me. Currently such observations are more related to the noises that accompany the strong, and extremely blustery winds, as they unceremoniously barge a pathway through the Palm Trees without even an excuse me, or to the high pitched whistling as this invisible force makes its way down narrow streets and alleyways kicking out of the way anything in its path, paper, tin cans and sometimes even empty wheelie bins (Trash cans to my readers over the pond). I particularly enjoy listening to the sounds of the waves as they crash on to the shoreline, or watch them, like Olympic gymnasts, leaping much higher than the thick block on block sea defence boulders, that protect the small entrance to the Marina, whipping up a spray of sand, grit and often larger pebbles as they do so, which then lay scattered on the surrounding roads and pathways. As I sit hugging my Vaso (Glass) of Cafe con Leche, I watch, almost hypnotically, at the white clumps of cloud as they race each other across the sky, like busy commuters in a hurry to get to their destinations. The debri strewn across the beach serving as evidence, not that any was required, of the very recent raging ‘Storm Francis’ that had hit our coastline. So I guess, if I really want to analyse my own behaviour’s, our walks are not solely as a means of exercise, or just to get from one point to another, they are actually also an excellent medium by way of promoting a good feeling of mental health, now you cannot argue with that and, as an added bonus, neither do you need to queue up at your GP’s surgery to get a prescription for it 😉

However, one of the downsides of this mental awareness activity is that I could also hear ‘other’, more familiar seasonal wintry sounds, although this time they were an unwanted intrusion emanating from the human element, namely the harsh and persistent guttural sounds of phlegm choking coughs, often going hand in hand with the sounds of sneezes, some gentle whilst other’s were much more boisterous and louder in their nature and, no matter where we walked, or sat, there was to be no respite from them, they attacked us from all directions. So although the weather may not have been the best, even in these much chillier conditions, Shazza and I still choose to sit outside in the fresh air, rather than being inside in the much warmer but more confined spaces, where bacterial infections are able to breed and multiply and are more easily distributed to newer hosts, even without any formal pre-arranged invitation. So yes, as a consequence of the Covid Pandemic, both Shazza and I still suffer with that same ‘paranoia’, although perhaps that is not such a bad trait, as we have both managed to remain free, although probably more by luck than judgement, from any of these more ‘usual’ seasonal bugs, as well as some of the more newer more recent one’s such as the newer strain of Covid, or the more recent wave of the Nora-virus that is doing the rounds. I find it interesting that the media refer to these rampant wandering bacterial infections by their respective official titles, whilst the Government’s and associated Health Authorities are still only loosely referring to them as just ‘Flu Like’ viruses, I wonder what they think they could be 🙄 The mandatory wearing of face masks, in clinical and medical environments and in care homes, has been extended here in Andalusia until the 6th February, this, according to the Regional Health Authority is, more of a precautionary measure, rather than an indication of anything more sinister, and hey, why would we have any cause to disbelieve them I ask myself ?

One morning, when we reached the sanctuary of one of our more usual seafront Cafe’s, two of our four ‘preferred’ choices of hostelry still remaining closed for their extended seasonal breaks, we sat outside, overlooking the promenade, beach and sea but were sheltered from the strong wind by their very efficient external patio windbreak, which was conveniently closed to the windward side but open on the opposite side and to the front. We were warmed a little, from both the piping hot coffee and also from the weaker, but still warm, rays of sunshine that occasionally managed to force themselves through the somewhat swiftly moving blocks of thick white cloud. Many of the locals, who were sat on tables around us, obviously because all of the inside tables were occupied, huddled beneath their own deep layers of weather protection, many of whom we observed were constantly sniffling into their paper tissues 😲 As is usual they acknowledged our presence in the usual polite manner, which we obviously returned. Their response, to my comment that it was ‘Muy Frio” (Very Cold), was to give a shrug of their shoulders, smile and respond with, ‘Es Invierno” (It is Winter), but their response was not given in a clever or rude manner, just in a matter of fact sort of way, for yes it was indeed Winter, although some did acknowledge that this latest extended period of cold and wet weather was a little unusual for these parts. We had to smile when a woman, who was in a group of other, more elderly ladies, sat to one side of us, pointed at a person passing by the Cafe, this particular individual was wearing Summer shorts and a tee-shirt !! The elderly woman said, not in what you would reasonably consider to be anywhere like a hushed voice, “Obviamente un visitante del Ártico” (Obviously a visitor from the Arctic) before letting out a loud chuckle, her colleagues laughed, we laughed and several of the occupants on other tables laughed as well. Who says the Spanish don’t have a sense of humour ?

This sort of un-orchestrated chatter amongst strangers is common in Cafe’s and Bars but initially, not long after we had come to live here permanently, when our understanding and knowledge of the local lingo was in its infancy, we could never understand what was being said, or why the sudden laughter, Were they talking about us ? Were they laughing at us ? and although we were never made to feel unwelcome, we couldn’t help but feel a little isolated. So, now that we have a little better understanding, we are happy and much more comfortable in our surroundings, it has been worth the effort trying to learn Spanish, although we are both still a long way from being anywhere near perfect, but we have enough knowledge and understanding to at least now be a part of, and not just on the periphery, of such normal daily interactions.

In recent days, the storms have quelled, the mornings and evenings in particular are still pretty cold for this part of Spain, and the rain has not stopped completely, being more of drizzle or light rain rather than the heavier more torrential stuff, and that wet stuff only appears now for much shorter periods during the day, either at some point during the morning, afternoon or evenings, but rarely now for the whole day. The blue sky has returned, bringing with it longer periods of warming sunshine during the afternoons, and being back to the normal expected winter temperatures, which vary between 14 degrees(c) and, on a really good day, 18 degrees(c) although the strength of the wind remains variable from one day to the next, but we can handle going out in the winds.

Now the storms have passed, well for now at least, and the blocked roads and flooded streets in the nearby villages and towns have been cleared, we decided to go and have a change of view for our daily walk and headed the short distance into Estepona. It was a bright and sunny morning, although as we left home at 10:00am the mercury was still only registering 10 degrees(c) but that was better than the more recent 5-6 degrees(c) 🥶 However, by the by time we had reached our destination it had already risen another 3 degrees(c). We parked on a piece of waste ground opposite the large ‘Carrefour’ supermarket at the Northern end of Estepona which appears to also be the new home for the abundance of Winter Sun van dwellers, some temporary whilst other’s looked a little more long term. Recently the local authorities had put a height barrier across the wasteland by the Marina, this is where the majority of Motorhomers used to congregate, including ourselves in our former nomadic Motorhome days, but now they have re-located to this new piece of wasteland, which is right opposite the large Carrefour supermarket, where I suspect they will now choose to stock up on their groceries, beer and wine, whilst also being able to utilise the convenient eateries, situated both inside and outside of the supermarket, and of course their very convenient toilet facilities, during the hours when the store is open 😉 Now of course this will inevitably mean a loss of revenue to the numerous Cafe/Bars and Restaraunts, and the smaller Supermarket, that are located in the Marina complex. However, looking at it from both viewpoints, this large group of nomadic travellers, in their variety of vehicle sizes, shapes, colours and varying states of aesthetic beauty, will no longer be ‘eye-sores’ (Local media description not my own) for the occupants of the numerous expensive apartments that had to once overlook them. This new location, well currently at least as their is a new block of Apartments being constructed to the side of this wasteland, has no such overlooking issues and to be honest, from a motor-homers perspective, it is probably a much better location, as in addition to the large Supermarket across the road, this particularly large area of wasteland is on much higher ground and so not affected quite as much from the flooding issues as was often the case at the other location, which was often water logged, created by the waves that constantly used to breach the sea wall and from the rain filled potholed ground. The new location has partial views of the sea, and is quite literally just across the road from the promenade, beach and sea and still within a very easy walking distance of the town and all its facilities, probably a little closer than the original waste ground park up, so in the end it has turned out to be a bit of a win-win all round for both parties I suppose, but for how long it will stay that way for the Motorhomers, well that is always the perennial question ?

As we walked in to the town along the promenade we saw the state of the long beach, which was in an identical condition to our own after the latest storm and, as we wandered along some of the smaller back streets we could see that a lot of the litter and debris, washed down on the floodwaters, was still very much evident along with water soaked furniture, and personal possessions, strewn outside homes and the small businesses that had been victims of the flooding. The main reason for visiting Estepona on that particular day, a Sunday, other than the change of views for our daily walk, was that for months Shazza had wanted to go and take a look at the Sunday Farmer’s Market that set up in one of the Plaza’s just behind the main promenade, but we never quite found the enthusiasm to do it 🤷‍♂️ It was a very pleasant walk along the long promenade into the town, their were lots of people, either sauntering, like ourselves just enjoying a period of warm dry weather, their were joggers, cyclists, dog walkers, pram pushers (Some even had children and not dogs in them 😂). Unlike our own town,which is just really a normal working town that just happens to be situated right on the seafront, Estepona is a larger and more of what you would consider a holiday tourist destination, although behind the very long and wide seafront promenade is the main town, a combination of the old town and the new much more modern architecture, but it generally blends in well. I must admit that, had we have been able to have afforded it at the time, we would have preferred to have bought a property here, but even then, back in early 2015 , the property prices were out of our price range, now over ten years later, they are way beyond it, so beggars cannot be choosers, as the saying goes, although we do just happen to live in a pretty nice and slightly less touristy location, beauty is in the eye of the beholder as another saying goes.

We made our way to the location of this advertised ‘Sunday Farmers Market’ only to discover that their were just two stalls, each of which displayed the barest minimum of produce, the bulk of it being Oranges, this being the picking season for them. So it appeared that this is more of a Summer Attraction, and our lethargy in not getting here sooner had been to our own detriment, well for one of us it was, speaking for myself, I wasn’t particularly that bothered, I mean ‘ just how many vegetables can a person eat 🤷‍♂️’ Although instant reflection on that question, what with Shazza still well into her our ‘Plant Based’ dietary regime, that was probably a very stupid question Eric, just plain stupid ! Although ‘our’ local Fruiteria owner will be pleased to discover that he won’t be going out of business any time soon 😂 We had not come with any intention of visiting the main shopping area, it would have literally have just been window shopping anyway, because the majority of the retail shops in the main town area were closed, unlike a lot of places these days where Sunday’s are just normal shopping days, Spain still adheres to the Catholic principle of it being a rest day, that is apart from some specific periods during the Calendar year when it would appear that commercialism overrules principles 🤭 Anyway, the temperature had continued to rise as we walked around, it was now a very pleasant 18 degrees(c), so we walked back along the seafront, stopped at our usual seafront cafe when we are in Estepona, for a coffee and sandwich. The seafront was well busy now, not quite the levels of the Summer crowds, but it provided more than sufficient ‘People Watching’ opportunities, I could have stayed in that exact spot for the rest of the afternoon but Shazza had other ideas. She needed a new large saucepan and ‘Carrefour’ would have exactly what she needed, and it was the last time, after the recent festive period, that it would be permitted to be open on a Sunday. Strange really, before arriving Shazza had told me that she only needed one new saucepan, yet we left the store with not only the said saucepan, but also two new cutlery knives and a couple of new pillows for the bed, items that we also apparently required, although were never once mentioned before entering the store 🤔

A couple of days later when we went out on one of our normal daily walks, ‘It Had Commenced Just Like Any Other Day’, it was a bit overcast and chilly, but dry, the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast some rain for later in the afternoon, and for many more days in the coming week, so we decided to get out whilst we still could. We were just approaching the Southern end of our local town when, in the distance at one end of the promenade I could see a Guardia Civil police vehicle parked up by the promenade wall, on the actual pedestrian walkway, with its blue lights flashing. My curiosity was raised, could it be that they were waiting to intercept another inflatable dinghy with ‘unauthorised’ Immigrants about to be offloaded on to our beach, or drug smugglers ? These are regular activities that occur all along the whole stretch of this coastline, from La Linea in the South all the way up and beyond Malaga to the North. As we got closer we could see a second Guardia Civil vehicle, one uniformed Officer was stood right on the front of the beach and it looked like he was filming something in the water on his mobile phone, but their was no vessel anywhere nearby, three other Officers were stood on the promenade, one had binoculars hung around his neck. We stood and looked out to sea, at first we could not see anything, then as our gaze went to just in front of where the Officer on the beach was standing, we saw something in the water, it appeared to be floating on the surface, but barely moving, with the swells of the waves we could not make out what it was, perhaps a clump of bin bags, a stash of drugs which had perhaps fallen overboard, or been discarded, by smugglers, or perhaps a body 😲 We watched for several minutes, intrigued as to what this shape was in the water, it was close to shore but just a little too far out to wade in and retrieve it, we could hear conversation going on over the police hand held radios that they were carrying, perhaps they had called for a police boat to assist them ? A small crowd had begun to form, we were part of it, and so Shazza asked one of the locals, in perfect Spanish, if they knew what was going on. “Una gran tortuga quedó atrapada en las redes de los pescadores” (A large sea turtle is trapped in fishermen’s nets) they told her. As we continued to watch we saw a large flipper, and I do mean large, it appeared out of the water and was thrashing around frantically, then its large head popped above the surface, this was certainly no small turtle you see regularly in the rivers here, but what was this large species doing here, and this close to shore ?The poor animal was gasping for breath each time it managed to raise its head out of the water, but the weighted net was pulling it down and keeping it under the water, it was obviously getting extremely tired as it struggled continuously to free itself, the frequency of it coming up for air was getting fewer and fewer.

I have often watched nature documentaries on TV which show the impact of pollution in our oceans, many that show a wide variety of species getting trapped in discarded fishing equipment, nets, ropes and many other plastic products, but I never expected to witness it happening before my very eyes on our own stretch of public beach here in Spain. Now to be clear, this turtle was not trapped in a ‘discarded’ fishing net, this small net was one which the local fishermen stretch out from small fishing boats that are, when not in use, parked up on the beach and then hand hauled into the shallow water, they are put out and recovered in the same day but the timings vary according to the tides. The nets remain close to shore to catch generally the small Boquerones (Anchovies) that swim in huge numbers up and down the coastline. We do on occasions during our walks, or whilst sat enjoying our coffee, see pods of dolphins hunting and feasting on them, but we have never seen large turtles like this one along our coastline before. We stood and watched as this terrible scene played out before us for around twenty-minutes, then with no obvious signs of help arriving from land or sea we decided that we didn’t want to watch the animal drown, so we continued with our walk into the town.

After first visiting our usual Fruiteria on the upper high street, where I thought it best not to mention that we were only there because Shazza could not find anything at the Estepona Farmers Market 🤭 We then headed back down to the Plaza where we had noticed earlier that ‘Annie’s’ Cafe/Bar had re-opened. Shazza claimed an empty outside table whilst I went inside to order, on warmer days we would usually just sit, soaking up the warm sunshine, waiting for Annie, or her son ‘Juanma’, to come out and take our order, but as it was overcast and still quite chilly in the Easterly breeze, we chose haste over leisure. Annie was stood behind the bar when I entered and a big beaming smile came across her face when she saw me walking towards her, she scurried around and gave me a hug, and the traditional friendly greeting of a kiss on either cheek, “Hola, Que tal ? (Hello, how are you) she enquired, “Feliz Ano Nuevo, soy Muy bien gracias, et tu ?” (Happy New Year, I am very well thank you, and you ?) I responded. I placed our usual order of two coffees but also added a bacon roll for myself, a rare occurrence these days I hasten to add, Shazza had her much healthier breakfast before leaving home. When Annie delivered our coffee’s outside, she copied the same friendly greeting with Shazza, this extra friendly behaviour is what probably makes this particular Cafe/Bar our favourite, that, and the fact that Annie is our unofficial local language tutor. Not that any of our other three usual Cafe/Bars are unfriendly, quite the opposite, but in them we are just like the other’s, a couple of their regulars who exchange the basic verbal pleasantries.

On our walk back we could see the larger crowd that had amassed around where there was now a turtle rescue operation in full swing. A small motorised Guardia Civil vessel was on the scene, the two people on board attempting to cut the fishing net, but it looked difficult, the swell kept moving the boat dangerously close to the beach where, under the water were sharp rugged rock formations, so every so often one of the rescuers would have to rush back to the wheelhouse to re-manoeuvre the vessel into a safer position. Of course the additional problem was that the turtle was in a distressed state, it had no idea that these people were trying to help it, for all it knew it was they that may have been the one’s whose net it had been entrapped in and they were going to kill it, so it became a tug of war as, even in its exhausted state, it still attempted to swim clear and thrashed its large flipper in and out of the water. Thankfully, after watching for what must have been another thirty or forty minutes, one of the rescuers gave a thumbs up signal and we saw the large shape swim out to deeper water and disappear under it. We hoped that it had not been injured, either from its own initial struggles to free itself from the net, or from the resulting rescue attempts.

There are many days when we make this same walk where we see nothing out of the ordinary, but then, very occasionally we witness events like this, or a pod of hunting dolphins rounding up a shoal of sardines then feasting upon them or, fuel smugglers loading large containers from the beach onto a waiting boat and even, although some years ago now, a shootout on the beach between the police and drug smugglers who had had their motorised dinghy forced onto the beach by an overhead Guardia Civil helicopter. Over our past ten year’s or so we still consider our lives here to be a bit ‘Forrest Gump’, not with just the weather but with daily life in general, ‘You just never know what you are going to get’.

When we returned home I had to satisfy my curiosity about what sort of large turtle this could possibly have been so ‘Mr Google’ was called upon to assist. I discovered, to my surprise, that there are several species of Oceanic Turtles that survive throughout the Mediterranean, but the largest are the endangered ‘Loggerhead’ and also the ‘Green’ turtles, but which one we had seen we couldn’t really establish, the size could have matched either but if it had have been the Loggerhead, weighing in at an average of 180Kg, then I can understand why the rescue had been so difficult.

The forecasted rain from the ‘Works of Fiction’ predictions, which was supposed to arrive at around 3pm, finally made an appearance eight hours later 🙄 I awoke several times during the night and could hear it tapping quite loudly on the external security shutters but, by the morning, when we got up, it was dry and bright, but no sunshine. This, according to the ‘Works of Fiction’, would be the same weather pattern for the coming week, so we would have to rely on our own ‘Forrest Gump’ methodology to determine whether when, or if, we could get out for more of our walks 🤷‍♂️

Just before I finish with this latest ramble I have to just provide you, my reader’s, with some evidence to support my belief that this world of our’s has actually gone ‘Stark Raving Barking Mad’, and yes, the Pun is intended.

Until my next ramble…………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

As this is the first of this new year’s rambles I would of course like to commence by wishing you all a, ‘Feliz y Prospero Ano Nuevo’ (Happy and Prosperous New Year) and both Shazza and myself trust that, wherever you were in the world last year celebrating the festive period, we hope that you had a safe and very pleasant one.

Now then, there is a popular saying, one that is used in a variety of ways, and on a variety of different occasions throughout a year, generally associated with when there is a clearing out of possessions that are no longer required, or just general clutter that accumulates over time, when perhaps people move House or do major Spring Cleaning, or when there is a Change of Government, even a Change of Management or staff etc. etc. but, it is also a statement that is heard more traditionally at the start of each New Year, and that statement is of course, “Out With The Old and In With The New”. I have repeated that same sentence myself over the years, not just at New Year, although now, as each year seems to be racing by, and far too swiftly for my liking, I am beginning to find myself a little less fond of its use, especially when it is a phrase aimed directly at me from my own beloved’s lips, “Happy New Year darling, out with the old, and in with the new” she said, as we both awoke on a rather grey and miserable wet first day of 2026, making sure of course that she put an emphasis on the words ‘out with the old’ and doing so in a mischievous manner, with a wry smile on her face, followed by a cheeky chuckle and wink of her eye. I quickly remind her that we now live in Spain where, ‘officially’, people are not considered as being ‘Old’ until they reach the age of 74 years, “No need to worry then my darling, well not for another five years at least” she says, with a much too hearty a laugh for my liking. So, should I be concerned that she is now looking for a newer, more younger model, rather than the older more familiar one I ask myself 😲 I am confident that I don’t really have anything to worry about, well not for the time being at least, for there is something to be said for us more senior models, familiarity, reliability (If you exclude DIY skills 😁), and there is even a certain comfort in already being aware of all the quirks, groans and squeaking parts 😂

Anyway, what have we been up to since the last ramble ? Well, we entertained what were our last visitor’s for 2025, my Sister and Brother-in-Law from Australia, but I already referred to that in my last ramblings. They arrived with us on the 18th December and departed again on the 22nd December, ready to take on the next stage of their ‘Grand-parenting duties’ back in the UK, before returning home to the land down under, armed with the knowledge, from people already well experienced in the Grand parenting field, that this would be the start of a very long journey for them, and we didn’t mean it in the context of their personal holiday travels, although with two of their three new favourite ‘little people’ now living on the other side of the world to themselves, those long haul trips may also become more regular events 🤭

I think they agreed with us, due to the much cooler Spanish Winter temperatures, and this year, the much wetter conditions, that perhaps their next visit to us should be in the Spring or Summer, to see Spain at its best, with its colourful countryside and Fiesta’s and of course its warm temperatures. But nevertheless, they had enjoyed their few days with us and between the clouds, that brought some light rainfall, we did manage to get out on the three full days that they were with us and they commented on just how relaxed everything felt. I guess living in a busy city the much calmer vibes of this part of Southern Spain is very noticeable.

Once we had driven our guests back to the airport on the Monday morning, we returned and, after a brief stop at our local supermarket, got ourselves settled down at home again, where we enjoyed a somewhat quiet, but very enjoyable, Christmas and New Year period by ourselves. We had our ‘British’ traditional Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve and then, throughout Christmas Day afternoon, and early evening, we had a selection of both Hot and Cold ‘Spanish’ style Tapas, so keeping a foot in each camp as it were. We of course ignored the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts most days and trusted once again in our own ‘Forrest Gump’ methodology, which you will not be surprised to hear, turned out to be much more accurate than the official predictions 🙄 so we were able to get out for our regular walks along the seafront on most days, which was nice in the sunshine, although we did have to get wrapped up against the bitterly cold and icy ‘Polar Blast’ that was impacting the whole of Europe at this time. However, the cold didn’t prevent us from partaking of our usual refreshment stops and people watching opportunities, after all their are some traditions and routines that still have to be maintained, festive season or not, it would be rude not to.

We did however take a break from our walking routine on Christmas Day, not for any religious reason you understand, no purely practicalities, because all of the Cafe/Bars were closed on that particular day, how inconsiderate of them 😂 Fortunately for us, the Spanish do not celebrate ‘Boxing Day’ (26th December) as a National Holiday, so the majority of the shops and Cafe/Bars were once again open and so we were able to once again resume our more usual daily routine. Apart from the almost mandatory over-indulgence of Christmas food, Christmas Music and Christmas Movies, this year’s festive period had been pretty much just normal days on our own particular Calendar, although we had of course spoken, via video calls, or text messages, with our family and friends located in the various different countries around the globe, to exchange festive wishes. To be honest even those family communications are just normal regular events that ordinarily take place throughout the duration of the year anyway, but we at least did get to share the excitement of our Grandchildren as they opened up their presents 🤗 Apart from the calls and texts and consuming some of the more specific and traditional festive fayre for this time of year, for ourselves it wasn’t really that different from any of our normal day’s. But then of course, being retired and already living a life of leisure, we don’t have cause to celebrate, or perhaps fully appreciate, the extended time off from work like a lot of other’s still have to do. All in all, the Christmas and New Year festive period were just normal kind of days for us although, and I say this with a smile on my face, without as many of the vegetables, legumes and many other of the more usual ‘Plant Based’ delicacies we would generally consume on a daily basis, so yes, for me in particular, it did feel rather like a bit of a holiday, as I got stuck in to my Turkey, Mince Pies, Christmas Pudding and all of the other totally unhealthy delicacies that are an essential part of the festive celebrations and, with their only being the two of us, well somebody had to suffer and eat, and drink, the majority of it 😂 However, I am sure that I will pay for that over indulgence when I next stand on the bathroom scales 🫣

Now I cannot say this with any certainty, but perhaps their may be some of you reading this ramble that ‘may’ probably think that we are a couple of lonely old sod’s who live in isolation, but that would be a totally wrong assumption, for whilst we do tend to choose to live a more ‘secluded’ lifestyle, enjoying doing things together by ourselves, rather than in wider social groups, that should not be confused with us being lonely or anti-social. We do still actually enjoy being amongst other people, and also enjoy speaking to them, as and when the opportunities arise throughout the year. Even at this time of year, we have lost count of how many people we have said ‘Feliz Navidad y Una Prospero Ano Nuevo’ (Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year) to, people that we do regularly see and speak to, and even complete stranger’s that we see on our walks or meet in the Cafe/Bars, or exchanging the pleasantries with the familiar faces of the shopkeepers and staff in the retail shops, the owner’s and staff in the Cafe/Bars that we regularly frequent.

I do confess that sometimes we even ask ourselves whether we are a bit of an oddity, preferring our own company rather than joining the multitude of ‘Expat’ groups that exist, so it was a bit reassuring to talk with a German couple we have come to know, who just happen to frequent the same Spanish Cafe/Bars as ourselves. They came over for a chat, and of course to exchange festive greetings, and we discovered that they, like ourselves, were spending the festive period by themselves this year, after having a hectic Christmas in 2024 visiting a whole host of relatives and friends back in their native homeland. We of course also saw some of our Spanish, and other International neighbours, who live in our own residential community, whilst we were coming and going, as well as the Cleaner and Gardner, whose only day’s off were on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, so I don’t know, perhaps it is just an age thing, where we no longer feel that we have to be out partying, or house hopping, or travelling hundreds of miles to be with family and friends at this time of year 🤷‍♂️

We do of course sometimes miss the much closer proximity of our immediate family, that goes without saying, but that also applies to at any other time of the year, not just during the festive period, but we already knew beforehand that this would be one of the more negative aspects of coming to live permanently in another country. However, we do still get to see and speak with them on both Christmas Day and on New Year’s Eve, as well as throughout the rest of the year, thanks to the advances in communication technology, but also, their enthusiasm in wanting to regularly come out to visit us here in Spain, both during our former ‘Schengen Shuffle’ periods and since permanently re-locating to live here, probably more than we had initially envisaged means that perhaps the time and distance apart is not felt as much. So, ‘Isolated’ we are not whereas, our choice of ‘Seclusion’, does have its own advantages 😉

What came as a bit of a surprise for us this year was a rare occurrence, for our particular area of Spain, was the sight of snow on the ‘lower foothills’ of our surrounding mountains, we rarely get to see snow even on the higher peaks that surround our particular area and, whilst frost, snow and ice is not unusual in many other parts of Spain, even Granada has its Ski slopes up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, but you can be Ski-ing on the ‘Pistes’ in the morning and Sunbathing on the Costa del Sol beaches in the afternoon, but the white stuff is not a common sight in our particular area, we are much more accustomed to reading about it in the media, as opposed to actually seeing it with our own eyes, fortunately though, even those lower foothills are still a good drive away from us.

Additionally, some of the Costa del Sol beaches, around an hour or so away, in Malaga City and extending further North along the coast, found people waking up to what they initially thought was snow covering the sand, promenades and streets, but it had actually been due to a heavy hailstorm and, as a consequence of the very cold temperatures, it hadn’t melted away.

During the evening of the 27th December, around 9pm, we were sat watching a film on Netflix when we both nearly jumped out of our skins, both of our mobile phones, in unison, let out a high pitched beeping alarm. It was a ‘Red Alert’ from the local ‘Civil Guard Authorities’ warning of ‘Extreme Danger’ in our local area and wider parts of the Malaga Province from rising flood water, even instructing people living in low lying and coastal areas, or by Rivers, to get to higher ground 😲

Now I may have mentioned this once or twice before in these rambles, but neither Shazza or myself are what you would call particularly religious, although Shazza can often be heard in prayer, or at least I think she is praying, for she often uses the phrases ‘Oh My God’ or ‘Jesus Christ’, and not just at Christmas 🤭 However I did just happen to remind her that, very recently, the ‘Authorities’ had held a Tsunami exercise, and on top of that we have also, very recently, experienced several ‘Earthquakes’ in our immediate local area and now, a ‘Red Alert’ informing us of ‘Extreme Danger’ from ‘Flooding’. Now it cannot be just a coincidence that all the world’s Media is full of stories about the increase in the number of ‘Food Banks’ that exist, and of course, the wide assortment of various ‘Bacterial Viruses’ that are currently in global circulation which, once again appears to have increased in this last year, so perhaps these may be considered, although not vocalised by any Governments as being, ‘Famine’ and ‘Pestilence’ 😲 But somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory, I recalled very similar references, to all of these types of events happening at the same time, and published in a certain globally popular book, more usually found in religious buildings, as well as bedside lockers in hotel rooms where, in it, in a chapter that made numerous ‘Revelations’ (You may need to have read this certain book to understand that little quip) but in that particular publication it associated the combination of all of these things coming together as being events that would mark towards the end of the world and humanity as we know it, they used the word ‘Armageddon’ to describe such an apocalyptic event 😲

However, after the loud beeping had stopped, I went on to the balcony and looked out through the windows at the stormy weather, and whilst I could certainly see through the flashing lights in the dark sky, the cavalry of white stallions riding in battalions on the tumultous waves towards the shoreline, and I could hear the heavy rumbles of thunder, created by their rapidly approaching hooves, but I didn’t see any evidence of them being led by the ‘Four Horsemen Of The Apocolypse’. So although it was quite a nasty and chaotic night out in the stormy weather, I assured Shazza that I could not see the troublesome foursome riding towards us, and as we were living on a hill and excess water tended to run downhill, I considered that we were safe enough in our elevated sanctuary, so I sat back down, picked up my glass of Anti-Covid Vaccine in one hand, and grabbed a handful of Salted Peanuts with the other, and we both finished watching the film 🤷‍♂️

I have mentioned on numerous occasions in these rambles at just how strange it appears, that we seem to sit between two weather systems, one to the North of us from Estepona, which as I keep mentioning is only a 20 minute drive away, the other to the South of us, and in the area around the town of La Linea, which is only a 30 minute drive away 🤷‍♂️ So although the media reports from around our own area, and further afield, reflected a weekend of devastation we had appeared to have escaped. We went for a walk the following morning, just to see with our own eyes, whether there had been any sort of localised flooding or damage in the Village, Marina or our local town of Sabinillas, which may not have been disastrous enough to make the media headlines, but there was absolutely nothing, other than the puddles of water after the weekends heavy rainfall. We both asked the same question of ourselves ‘How can this be ?’ but as usual, we could find no answer, not even the locals in the Cafe/Bar that morning could believe the carnage created just a few miles up the road, was this divine intervention ? or, as we more realistically suspected, just another case of sheer good luck 🙏

The remaining days before the next festive event, New Year’s Eve, was just back to the more usual daily routines, walks, coffee stops, shopping, post Christmas clean of the apartment and the laundry. The Spanish celebrate New Year’s Eve a lot more quietly, although the larger Cities and Towns do celebrate with fireworks when the clocks strike midnight, but usually family events are spent at home and the Bars, Cafe’s and Restaurants are not generally open, at least to the general public although larger Spanish family groups may hold events behind closed doors in some of them. The Marina’s, who cater more for the tourist and expat communities do however hold the usual New Year’s Eve parties, but these are generally closed events, where attendance and tables have to be booked months in advance.

The next major celebration for the Spanish is, as I may have mentioned in a more recent ramble, is ‘Three Kings Day’ on 6th January, although the large parades are held the day before. This celebration is actually more like our Christmas Day for the Spanish, when gifts are exchanged and festive meals are consumed, including the traditional ‘Roscón de Reyes’, although I must confess to having our’s a little earlier than we really should have, but just so that our visitor’s could experience something that was Traditionally Festively Spanish, as they would not actually be in Spain for either Christmas or New Year.

On New Year’s Eve Day, Shazza and I conducted our own personal review of 2025 and, we agreed that whilst initially we had thought that we hadn’t done that much throughout the year, it had actually been another reasonably active, and productive one, we had enjoyed several travel experiences of our own, both extended one’s and some mini-breaks, we had hosted and entertained several family visitors, met up with some friends in different locations in both the UK and Spain and, we had completed two major projects in our apartment (En-suite Bathroom and complete redecoration of the apartment), so we had agreed that at least we had not just been sat on our arses over the last twelve months.

So, what do we have planned for 2026 🤔 Well I am certain that this will come as no surprise to you, but again we actually have nothing actually planned, we will just go with the flow again 🤷‍♂️ We do know that their are a couple of official ‘Bureaucratic’ process that we will have to conduct this year, the most important one being the renewal of our residency permit for another two year’s, but that isn’t until June, before that, in May, getting together all the documentation ready to submit our Annual Spanish Tax return, although to be honest they are both primarily administrative processes. We already know, although not exact dates, that at various points throughout the coming year, we will again host family and friends, other than that there will be the annual Fiesta’s and of course our own personal travels, which we have discussed and will hopefully involve city breaks around other parts of Europe and also a bit more exploration around different parts of Spain.

There is one immediate task I now have to complete, as we move into a New Year, and that is to conduct my 2025 end of year Financial Review. I did the same last year for 2024, which I shared with you, as many people who were themselves thinking of making the move to Spain were interested in, although I have to say that the interest came primarily from those living in the USA and Canada. However with that 2024 Financial Review, being our first ‘full’ year of living in Spain, there was nothing to compare it with, so it will be interesting to see how we have done, in respect of any ‘Cost of Living’ variations and what amendments and increases we may need to make to our monthly individual budget pots 🤔 Although I do this review for my own personal benefit, do let me know if you would be interested in me again publishing my 2025 review, but with one proviso from me, this review is based on our lives here, just the two of us, owning our property with no Mortgage or Rent to pay, retired and with no other income other than our Pensions. It will be different for people who are younger and have to work or indeed come with other family dependents.

In conclusion to a slightly longer first ramble of the year than I had initially intended, so at least some things don’t change eh 😂 But can I just say that no matter where you, my reader’s, may be living in the world, yes the grass is ‘sometimes’ greener on the other side of the fence, and sometimes it isn’t, depending on what your expectations are and, of course, if you elect never to cross that fence then you will never know 🤷‍♂️ Yes, the world can sometimes appear to be an unpleasant place to live in, no matter where you live or, what you choose to believe, from reading the usual Media publications or on the numerous Social Media Channels, but remember, especially with the Social Media one’s, the publishers of that content are there to solely make money for themselves, from you, although you cannot criticise them for that. Even the mainstream media headlines, they are only a very small snapshot of what may, or may not, be going on in the much larger outside world and they too, like the individuals on Social Media, are ‘Influencer’s’ trying to influence your thought’s and actions. Yes there are a multitude of bacterial viruses in circulation, some more usual ones and other newer one’s, but that is the same almost anywhere these days and the majority are treatable, either by regulated medications or via your own safeguards and common sense actions. There are lots of things going on this world that do not, or quite possibly, will not, impact on ‘you’ personally and, there are also many things that may, but for which you personally will have no control or influence over, and I wonder where you may have you heard that many times before 🤔 So, let 2026 be the year where you just ‘Live The Best Possible Life That You Can’, yes you may have to navigate some challenges put in your way, but also remember that when they arise, take any opportunities that may also be available to you. You never know, upon reflection, you may already acknowledge and accept, that you may already be living that best life, you just hadn’t realised it because ‘others’ influenced you to believe otherwise, sometimes though, you just cannot see something that is already right in front of you, because you were looking in a different direction 😉

FELIZ ANOS NUEVOS 2026 🎉🍾🍷

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

As I mentioned in my previous ramble, the cooler Winter temperatures had started to descend upon us just as we commenced our short mini-trip to Almeria and although, once we had returned home, the temperatures did start to return to their more normal milder highs for this time of year, between 18-20 degrees(c), with warming sunshine, it was to be only a temporary reprieve. The first week of December arrived with a bit of a surprise, but not a pleasant one, for it started with a whole week of extremely cold air temperatures, not just the normal downward trend that we have become accustomed to here. We both found ourselves having to dig out our warmer longer sleeved shirts, our thicker winter sweaters and even warm outer coats, we couldn’t honestly recall ever having to resort to wearing three thick layers of clothing whilst spending any of our previous Winter’s here in this part of Spain. Sod’s Law struck as well, as our two bar halogen electric heater, that we rely upon to keep us warm during the chillier Winter evening’s, also decided that this would be an opportune moment for it to give up the ghost, so whether we wanted to or not, we had to brave the elements and go into our local town to purchase a new one. So 2025 has certainly been a funny old year, weather wise that is, as we have experienced an unusually and excessively long, and much hotter Spring and Summer period, temperatures up to 45 degrees(c) which, for these parts at least, had been some 10 degrees(c) higher than normal 🥵 and now, here we were, at the beginning of December, experiencing a very much earlier, and very much colder, Winter period 🤷‍♂️ Although putting it into some sort of perspective, as yet, our Winters in this part of Spain do not involve having to face Frost, Ice or Snow, but with the climate changing globally, who knows what we may encounter in future year’s 🤷‍♂️

It had been just a couple of days or so after publishing my last ramble, when I was sat on the balcony enjoying my usual morning coffee, gazing out of the window lost in my own little world of thoughts when Shazza graced me with her presence, “Did the earth move for you this morning my darling ?”, she said with a rye grin on her face. ‘Oh my God !’ I thought to myself in horror, dementia must have finally set in, quite suddenly and with no prior warning, for surely I would have remembered such a rare rampant bedroom olympics event like that happening 😂 I hadn’t at that point perused the morning news media, I am never in a hurry these days to see what ‘Doom and Gloom’ is happening around the world, usually it is just the same shit just a different day, however I guessed that somewhere here in Spain there had been yet another Earthquake. They are not that unusual here and happen many times throughout the year, although usually they are minor quakes, or one’s that occur up in the more mountainous areas, like the Province of Granada for example, or even out in the Alboran Sea, the part of the Mediterranean which lay between Southern Spain and the coast of Africa. So it did come as a bit of a shock (No pun intended) when she informed me that the latest ones had occurred in both Fuengirola, only one hour North of us, and a smaller one even closer to home, in Estepona, just twenty minutes away 😲

However, unlike a James Bond Martini, we were ‘Niether Stirred Or Shaken’ 😂

There was another local media article that morning, and one that did grab my attention, one which involved an event that we both agreed that we should make the effort to go and see as, according to the journalist who reported on it stating that we ‘may not’ get another opportunity to see it for another 17 year’s, this event being a ‘Super Moon’, although I did mention to Shazza that, if all goes according to my personal mortality plan, thinking of my ‘Blue Zone’ age target here 😉 then we should both get to see at least another one, perhaps even more. Shazza just gave me one of her looks and then said, in her pessimistic tone, “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself my love, what with all of these viruses doing their rounds once again, Super Flu, Covid, Nora Virus, Monkey Pox, Avian Flu, Wild Boar infected with African Swine Flu, Western Nile Disease and TB, and that’s only if World War III doesn’t kick off and get us first” 😲 I laughed, “Is it staying so cheerful that keeps you going my darling ?” I asked her 🤭

Now in relation to this ‘Super Moon’ and to be completely truthful, I should say that it was perhaps just one of us that was probably more eager than the other to go out in the freezing cold to stand staring up at a moon and, as the less than enthusiastic one pointed out, we would very likely get to see it anyway from our very own balcony, Mmmmmm 🤔 she may have a point, I thought quietly to myself. However, as quick as a flash I asked her, by way of an example, “Would you have preferred to have gone and actually looked at Van Gogh’s Paintings, in an exhibition hall or, just to have looked at pictures of them on Google 🙄” She smiled mischievously, “But ‘you’ would still actually physically get to see this Supermoon with your own eyes, and not just a photograph of it, and from the warmth and comfort of your own home” she said. I laughed again, “Damn it, okay you have got me there” I replied. She then smiled and said, “But, if you do really want to actually go out and see it, we could always go to the Marina where we could perhaps partake of Dinner whilst watching it, so we could enjoy a nice meal and a dose, or two, of Anti-Covid Vaccines into the bargain, Win Win !” She said with a smile, and in a manner that sounded very much like I had been manipulated, once again !

As it happened, neither of us actually got to witness this ‘Super Moon’ event, as the ‘Works of Fiction’ decided not to play ball and instead, on the one night it was due to appear, they served up a thick carpet of cloud, that not even the golden rays of a ‘Super Moon’ could penetrate, so it wasn’t that ‘Super’ was it 🤷‍♂️ So, in the end we did not bother going out for Dinner therefore I lost out on two counts, no Super Moon and no Anti-Covid Vaccines either ☹️

Now those of you with a good memory may recall that, in a very much earlier ramble, nearer the beginning of this year, I mentioned that once we had got our new bathroom renovation completed, that our last major task was to finish re-decorating the whole apartment. We had initially re-decorated it throughout, when we first bought the apartment in 2015, which although that may seem to be a long time ago, in all fairness, for the first eight years we had owned the apartment, we had not been living in it full time, just for two ‘separate’ three month periods every year during our ‘Schengen Shuffle’ trips, so in my view it wasn’t looking that bad. We had however, already made a start on some of the rooms earlier this year, just before the arrival of our Summer guests, that included the guest room and bathroom, the kitchen and the balcony but we now had the master bedroom (the en-suite already having been done as part of the renovation work), the inner hallway and the Living/Dining room to do and Shazza was insistent that she wanted to do two coats of paint in each of those rooms 😳 Although she said that she had no start date in mind, she did want to go to the Pinturas (Paint Shop) as soon as possible to get the paint, masking tape and new rollers in readiness for when she decided to fire the starting gun, so on the day we went to post our Christmas Cards at the main Correos (Post Office) in town, we also made a diversionary port of call to the Pinturas and acquired everything that was necessary.

Needless to say, Shazza fired the starting gun on the decorating task the following day, which in truth I had already suspected that she would, I know her too well for it to have come as any sort of a surprise 🙄 “Well, your sister and brother-in-law arrive in three weeks time, just before Christmas, and I want it to be all completed by then” she said. Now normally I would do all the ceilings and coving’s, and she would do the walls and skirting boards, but this time she said that she was going to do it all herself, what the cheeky bugger actually said was, and I quote her word for word, “At your age I don’t want you climbing up and down ladders or over stretching and falling off 😲” Well, you can probably already imagine just how hard I remonstrated with her, it must have been at least a full two minutes 😂 So we did come to a compromise, whereupon I agreed to become her labourer, which involved me being the furniture shifter, washer of accessories (Removable Light and Electrical Socket covers and surrounds, glass book shelves, ceiling light glass lampshades, ornaments and all that sort of stuff etc), also I would be responsible for keeping the kitchen clean and tidy throughout the day, washing and tidying up after our meals, do the bit of outstanding ironing that was on the side waiting to be done, and of course the very important task of being the tea boy. I actually think that, upon hindsight, I probably pulled the short straw on this occasion, I mean how hard can it actually be to spread paint across a wall using a roller 🤔 However, I kept that thought to myself, more for reasons to do with my own personal survival 😂 At the end of the day, well a total of six full days actually, when all is said and done, it was still a sort of joint effort, and I do have to say that Shazza had made an excellent job of the re-decorating, so good in fact that I almost suggested that I could rent out ‘her’ decorating services to our neighbours so that ‘we’ could earn some additional income to top up our Pensions, however, that was another thought that quite sensibly I believed, was probably best kept to myself too 🤭

We did take a day off at the mid-way point, partly because after a period of four nice warm and sunny days the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecasted that we had a mixed bag of drizzle, rain and falling temperatures coming, so we wanted to enjoy what may have been our last chance of enjoying a walk in some pleasant sunshine, and an opportunity to sit having a morning coffee, looking out upon the Beach, Sea and Mountain View’s and of course engaging in a spot of ‘People Watching’, it would have been rude not to of course. The other reason being that Shazza was getting withdrawal symptoms from not visiting the ‘Fruiterias’ for several days 😂

As we strolled along the promenade, the bit between the Marina and the town, there was not a single breath of wind, the flags high up on the flag poles by the beach, lay limp and motionless, the sea was virtually a still calm, although there was a sea haze that partially obscured the view of the mountains that were located across the other side of the bay. We saw one of the local fishing boats just a short distance from the beach, actually it was unusually close, normally the local beach fishermen use much smaller boats, which they either row out, or which are powered by small outboard motors, but which run no risk of running aground in the shallower waters in order to fish this close to the beach, usually in search of the vast shoals of Boquerones (Anchovies), a particular delicacy of the Spanish. So we were intrigued as to what this larger boat was up to, we stopped and watched, had they run aground we wondered 🤔 As we looked out at the boat we could see a line at the stern of the vessel, stretching out in a seaward direction, from the Starboard side (Right), I realised that this was an anchor line, preventing the boat from actually drifting too close to the shoreline, and so not risking their vessel from running aground, and then we saw one of the two occupants on-board throw out a small net on the Port (Left) Bow side, obviously trying to get their share of the Boquerones. Our curiosity satisfied we continued with our walk, we never know what we are going to see on our walks, sometimes nothing out of the ordinary but then, on another day, well who knows what will catch our attention, a pod of dolphins close to shore, working as a team to create a tight ball of fish, which they then force to the surface before plunging into them to feed, or perhaps a flock of cormorants following a shoal of fish then diving and splashing into the water, like a squadron of fighter aircraft picking them off one by one, paddle-boarders, wind surfers, sailing yachts, dog walkers, even those brave enough to take a dip into the much cooler Winter water and then, sometimes, we see absolutely nothing at all out on the water and we just listen to the waves as they wash up onto the shoreline, sometimes just gentle ripples and sometimes crashing white horses, it is all just a feast for the senses and food for the soul 🤷‍♂️ Whether we choose to live the remainder of our lives out here, or we elect to move elsewhere, as we never know what the future has in store for us, but if we do move again, by choice or otherwise, then Shazza and I are in full agreement that that location must be, by or very close to the sea, for their is something just so magical and tranquil about it.

As I made reference to a little earlier in this ramble, my younger Sister and my Brother-in-Law are coming to stay with us for a few days just before Christmas, although they will be departing just before the big day itself. They have lived in Brisbane, Australia for somewhere near 25 year’s, perhaps even longer 🤔although we have seen them several times during that period, once when we went on our own month long mini-tour of Australias Eastern Coast, Sydney up to Cairns, and again on several of their own visits back to the UK, although the last time we actually saw them was last Summer, at my daughter’s wedding reception in Austria. They now have two, of their three son’s, living here in Europe, with their wives and two Grandchildren, so they are on their own pre-Christmas family tour and using the opportunity to come and stay with us for three full days. They have never visited us, or this part of Spain before, so let’s just hope that the weather does not live up to the advance dismal forecast that the ‘Works of Fiction’ are currently predicting ☔️

Now although I do have a very strong urge to now burst out into a rendition of a ‘Wham’ Christmas song, which I am sure you will be pleased to hear that I am not going to do, although the damn tune is already tumbling around in my head as I tap away on the keyboard, 🎶This Christmas🎶 we are spending, once again, by ourselves here in Spain. We have done this several times and, more often than not, we have pre-booked a table at a local Restaurant, usually in the Marina complex, to go and have a traditional Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day. However, we didn’t have a very good experience last year and it certainly wasn’t worth the money we paid. However, one of the best Christmas Dinner’s that we did have one year, was when we stayed here at home and had a Spanish themed ‘Tapas’ style affair, Shazza preparing a huge selection of both cold and hot tasty treats, which were actually served at intervals throughout the day. In the morning we had played both traditional Christmas songs, and more Pop Music type Christmas tunes, from the 50’s right up to the 90’s, which we each remembered from our separate childhoods and teenage year’s and then beyond. We had also enjoyed what had become in the UK for us, a Christmas Morning glass (or three 🤭) of Ruby Port, with perhaps the odd savoury pre-dinner snack just to put us on, and then later in the afternoon and evening we would enjoy a bottle (or two 🙄) of Anti-Covid Vaccine, whilst gorging our way through our extended Christmas Tapas Dinner, and whilst watching Christmas themed TV programmes, and movies. At various points during the morning, afternoon and evening, we enjoyed making, and receiving, video calls with family and friends. I have to say that, well at least from what we could remember of that alcohol infused festive day, that we actually both thoroughly enjoyed it. So this year we have decided to do much the same sort of thing again and so, over the last couple of weeks, we have both been coming up with some ideas on what we can either conjure up ourselves, or what we can purchase from the local shops and supermarkets, ranging from Shazza’s ‘go to’ fresh Prawns, in a sizzling infused garlic and chile oil, with chunks of her home-made sour dough bread 😋 Hot ‘salt n pepper’ chicken wings, that she does herself in the Air-Fryer, home-made quiche, sausage rolls, fresh Salmon slices with soft cheese on crackers, Vegetable spring rolls, Duck spring rolls with Hoi Sin sauce, Assorted Sushi perhaps even Empanadas, or whatever else we may happen to come across, things that as yet, we don’t even know that we actually fancy 😂. Of course, this will, at some point during the later part of the evening, be completed with some traditional Christmas Pudding and perhaps even some mince pies. Just thinking about it all is making me salivate and yes, just in case some of you were wondering, our more usual ‘Plant Based’ dietary regime will go ‘temporarily’ on hold, well it is Christmas after all 🎉🥳 Of course, the bathroom scales will also, very conveniently, get lost somewhere in the apartment for several weeks afterwards 😂

For us, here in Spain, the festive celebrations do not end on the 31st December with the New Year’s Eve celebrations, for the biggest festive event here in Spain is not actually held until the 6th January, ‘Día de los Reyes Magos’ (Three Kings Day) with almost every village, town and city holding vibrant street parades, so let’s just hope that we can manage, after our own Christmas stuffing, to ‘waddle’ our way into our local town to participate 😂

So, until the first ramble of the coming year, all that is left for me to say, to each and everyone of you is, a massive thank you for continuing to read my ramblings, not just during this last year, but over the last 12 year’s, and of course, from both Shazza and myself, to wish you all

Feliz Año Nuevo 2026

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Well, we may well have sauntered into the month of November but my goodness we haven’t half galloped through it, and now we find ourselves stepping through the door into the month of December 😲 So let me commence, with what I hope you will find is an enjoyable read and further insight into our lives down here on the Costa del Sol, by first asking whether you all enjoyed your recent holiday ? ‘What holiday 🤷‍♂️’ I hear you ask, with perhaps a slightly bemused look upon your face. ‘The one where you have just enjoyed an extended break from having to endure reading another of my rambles’ I reply 😂

Yes I know, it has taken me a lot longer than usual to publish this my latest piece of verbal incontinence, however, the plain truth of the matter is that there really hasn’t been very much going on in our lives over the last two or three weeks to write about, well nothing truly scintillating and to be honest, it was bound to happen at some point as normal life is, well just that, normal daily life, for it doesn’t really matter where we were to be living, we wouldn’t be heading off here there and everywhere every single day or week 🤷‍♂️ So, other than our normal everyday routines, there has only really been the usual Global media’s ‘Doom and Gloom’ reporting, and of course, for us, the very recent UK Government’s Autumn Financial Budget of course, which generally just tends to slot into that same ‘Doom and Gloom’ category, all of which appears without fail to fill the pages of all the news headlines each and every day. I guess that there may be some who will wonder why, when we now live in Spain, we should still be interested in what is going on financially back in the UK 🤷‍♂️ Probably the main reason is because we get all of our Income payed via UK Pensions and so, with the exception of the Government State Pension (Which is now taxed here in Spain) we do still pay Income Tax on the remainder of those Pensions, in the UK. Additionally, we do also maintain personal savings over there, so things like the Annual Personal Income Allowance, Interest Rates and of course the Exchange Rates (£ to €), all of which are impacted by that Government Budget, so we do still need to keep up to speed with the important stuff going on back there, as well as similar sort of stuff here in Spain too, their is no escaping the clutches of the Tax Authorities, in either the UK or Spain. Apart from that, I am not going to comment on the consequences of this current UK Budget announcement generally, as everyone will have their own personal views on how it will, or will not, effect them, although I am making an educated guess that their will not be very many in the ‘Will Not Be Affected’ category 🙄

So whilst I do not want this ramble to be a downbeat read for you, just sticking with the ‘Doom and Gloom’ topic for just a moment longer, I have to say that personally speaking I am genuinely surprised that with all of this constant doom and gloom reporting around the world, 365 days a year, that the 24hr telephone helpline service, for those with depressive and suicidal thoughts, the ‘Samaritans Organisation’, are not one of the largest global employer’s 😲 For all I know they may be, although I believe most are ‘Volunteers’. I know that I certainly couldn’t be one of those sat on the end of a telephone every day having to provide some kind of Solice and Hope to some of these poor desperate people, realistically, even as a volunteer, I would probably get the sack after only one day, due to me telling all of my particularly unlucky callers to, “Stop worrying about the things that you have no control or influence over” and then listen to the fading screams of Aaaaagh!! as they leap out of the window, or off the cliff face 😂 However, I am also guessing that you, my reader’s, are probably very well aware of much of that doom and gloom stuff in the media for yourselves, for no matter which part of the world you may live in, I feel sure that you too encounter much of the same issues as anybody else, irrespective of the country or time zone that you may be in, and so the last thing that you need is for me to keep reminding you of what terribly unhappy lives you must all be leading 😂

Anyway, and in case my lack of on-line presence did have you perhaps wondering (or hoping 🤔) whether I may have succumbed to deep depression, and thrown in the towel myself, deciding to shift my mortal coil from this world on to the next which, if I had, would then undoubtedly have been swiftly followed by me commencing to publish a completely new set of more spiritual ramblings from the after-life, perhaps even entitling them ‘The Difference Between Heaven and Earth’, or perhaps, if I did end up going in the other direction 😈 my blog may have been entitled ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Down Here’ 😂 But I am sure that you will be pleased to hear that I haven’t gone in either direction, well not just yet at least, and just to confirm that fact, I have cobbled together a few ramblings to fill you in on what has been happening down here on our little piece of the Iberian Peninsula since my last ramble.

Now of course, it would be rude of me to fail to mention the ‘biggest’ news event for down here in our particular part of the world, although the ‘Costa del Sol’ description has not lived up to its title very recently, well more at the midpoint period of November, for yes, we did have rather a lot of the wet stuff, which believe it or not, for this part of Spain at least, it was actually ‘A Cause For Celebration’, rather than a reason to be miserable like it may be elsewhere. Although I do appreciate that for some reading this, even in other parts of Spain, who live in areas where regular rainfall is a common event and nothing out of the ordinary, this may not actually come as any sort of earth shattering news for you but, in this, our little bubble of existence tucked away in a small corner of Spain, unsalted water still remains a very valuable and precious commodity, but we also know that such wet weather events never last too long so they become moments to appreciate and treasure, okay that is perhaps overstating it just a little 🤭

You may recall that over the very long two year drought period that we endured down here very recently, during 2023 & 2024, and in almost every subsequent ramble that I published over that long period, I continually reported on the very low levels of water in our particular Embalse (Reservoir), however, since the end of that drought period, which was several months into this current year, I have barely mentioned them again, primarily because we have had plenty of water in it since then, but also because the ‘Drought Committee’, and yes, it isn’t just ‘other’ Countries Government’s that like to have Official Committee’s for almost everything, they also like to have them here in Spain too, but I digress, the ‘Drought Committe’ had notified us that we were no longer on personal water restrictions but more importantly, that we had sufficient reserves in ‘our’ particular Embalse to keep us off their ‘critical’ list for risks of another potential drought in 2026, although to be completely honest, we were not given the absolute ‘All Clear’ as they stated that this would depend on whether we got the usual ‘anticipated’ rainfall during these Winter months. So, with that in mind, I have had no reason to keep a particular eye on our particular Embalse water levels, or to report on them to you my reader’s, so that is perhaps one thing that we can now take off our own personal ‘Doom and Gloom’ list, well for now at least 🤞

Now, when all of the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts, and I do mean ‘All of them’, report in their fourteen day advanced forecasts, that we are going to get a non-stop consecutive six day deluge of rainfall, followed by several days thereafter with sporadic rainfall, as a consequence of ‘Storm Claudia’, then we do tend to pay just a little bit more attention to them, but it also prompted me, just out of interest, to go and have another look at the current levels in our Embalse.

I took a look at the level of our Embalse on the day the rain started, and I would take another look once the six day deluge had finished, although there would be continued ‘Run-Off’ from the mountains for several days after that, so the level would increase just a little bit more, although perhaps not significantly so.

Now of course, as the majority of my regular reader’s will no doubt already know, what the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts predict, to what actually materialises, can, and generally is, two completely very different things. So yes, we did have ‘wet stuff‘ over the stated initial six day period, but even that was not consistent rainfall from dawn to dusk, it also varied from being very light drizzle, to what I would call ‘normal’ rainfall and, on some occasions, yes there was some ‘Torrential’ stuff, whereby the rain didn’t just tap on the windows, it hammered on them 😲 In between these periods we did however also experience some very unexpected blue sky, warm sunshine and even very brightly coloured rainbows, you can tell how rare they are in these parts when everyone is taking photo’s of them on their cameras 🤭 But yes, generally speaking, during those initial six days it was mainly very dark and cloudy overcast skies, and their was no way of knowing when, or if, those brief sunny periods were going to appear. There were the odd flashes of lightning, and occasional rumbles of thunder too, but certainly nothing very dramatic which, personally speaking, I found a bit disappointing, as I do like to watch and listen to a good thunderstorm from the safety and comfort of my balcony. Shazza and I had anticipated being confined to barracks for that whole six day period, so of course we had re-provisioned accordingly a couple of days earlier, akin to as if we were going to experience a nuclear attack and food would be in very short supply 🙄 Unfortunately, as that did not turn out to be the case, I not only have to eat copious amounts of ‘Plant Based’ produce on a daily basis but, as we purchased far too much to keep in the normal storage cupboards, we have to sleep with a lot of the extra stuff under the bed 😳 Although, on the positive side, their has been an unexpected advantage to this, as the lingering heavy scent of Garlic and Onions has stopped Shazza’s snoring 😂

As it turned out, we did also, somewhat unexpectedly, manage to get out on a couple of those wet days for our routine walks, and of course the associated refreshment stops 😉 and even an impromptu lunch on one of the days, which meant that I was not completely deprived of my regular doses of ‘Anti-Covid Vaccines’, which as you know are taken purely for medicinal purposes. I do have to say though that we were extremely lucky on that particular lunch occasion, as we had just returned home and pulled up into the car park when the heavens opened again, a good job I hadn’t decided to order a second dose of Anti-Covid Vaccine, I thought to myself. Now as for the remainder of the ‘forecasted’ days of continued drizzle, after that initial six day period, well I am sure that you will not be surprised in the least to read that the more usual standard of ‘inaccuracy’, by those ‘Works of Fiction’ numpties, returned and so the normal sunshine service was resumed, the ‘Wellies’ and ‘Raincoats’ came back off and were replaced with the more comfortable and lightweight flip-flops, shorts and tee-shirts. Oh yes, and we could return to calling this place the ‘Costa del Sol’ 😎

In my last ramble I may have mentioned, and not for the first time I know 🙄 about the normal slow pace of daily life here, and so it probably does, now I stop and think about it, go some way towards understanding the ‘Mañana, Mañana’ attitude that you often hear about, not just here in Spain but also in several other European countries too. And, although I am somewhat reluctant to usually mention anything positive about any of the ‘Bureaucratic’ Authorities or processes here in Spain, to be fair it perhaps does also go some way in understanding the reason for some of those slow services as well 🤷‍♂️ However, let me tell you, by way of an example, at just how this Mañana Mañana attitude is often not the case, especially when it comes to the normal smaller businesses promptness at getting things done. Our dining chairs, six of them, which we have had now for around ten years or so, covered in a beige coloured ‘Faux’ leather as it is better known, which sounds a little French to me, but in English we spell it ‘Fake’, which is a much less posher but more accurate way of describing it 😂 Anyway, this ‘faux’ leather had started to peel very badly, on all six chairs, and we had been saying for months that we needed to get around to having them re-upholstered, so finally we decided to get our arses into gear and do something about them. We were fortunate to find an upholsterer in our local town, so thank you ‘Senor Google’ for your assistance once again. Martin originates from Argentina, although he has lived here in Spain for the last 25 year’s, so, and as you would expect with him originating from a Latin American country, his Spanish was excellent, although his English was probably about as good as our ‘current’ level of Espanol which, in our defence, I have to say is very much better than what it was only a short few months ago, so with a mixed combination of ‘Spanglish’, where appropriate, we managed to communicate with each other very easily. We visited his small workshop, which was in more of a converted small Spanish terraced town house, as opposed to being in a proper retail shop, we showed him a photograph of one of the chairs, picked our new material, this time a cloth fabric rather than leather (‘Faux’ or otherwise), we negotiated a price, which included collection and delivery and that was that, then we just had to wait until the ordered fabric arrived at his workshop premises so that he could commence the job. It took just seven days, and that included a weekend, from the day he called to collect our six chairs, to the day he returned them completed, so no ‘Mañana, Mañana’ attitude here, and now, we no longer need to feel embarrassed when we have visitor’s. But whilst I am speaking of Mañana Mañana, I did have to smile to myself recently, there has been a massive ‘Tsunami’ exercise in the Cadiz Province, involving not only all the Emergency Services but also vast numbers of the ordinary public, but even that, as reported in our local newspaper, had an element of Mañana Mañana about it.

For the last couple of weeks or so, bearing in mind that that did consist of very nearly a week of, well let’s call it ‘inclement weather’, for the sake of a better description, we didn’t really get up to very much, just the usual routines which you will be very familiar with by now. Although, we did vary it a bit, by paying a rare visit to Estepona, strange how it is literally only a short twenty-minute drive away but we seldom go there 🤷‍♂️ However, just by way of a change of scenery and to have a slightly longer walk, we parked up at the Estepona Marina and then walked along almost the whole length of their relatively new and capacious seafront promenade, we stopped for a coffee, it would have been rude of us not to, then had a wander around the shopping streets and Plaza’s, and then we both unanimously agreed that we may as well stop and enjoy a Tapas lunch. We selected what was advertised as a Wine and Gastronomy Bar, one that we have often walked past but never stopped at, and one that serves more ‘refined’ Tapas, and very enjoyable they were too. For any English reader’s, or those familiar with a certain well know British High Street retailer with food halls, probably more specifically, their particular television advertising slogan, let’s just say that these were not ‘Just Tapas’, these were ‘Refined Tapas’, and of course, they also came at a ‘Refined’ sort of price. We could certainly have got a similar sort of lunch at one of the many other local Spanish Taperias, but without all of the pomp and ceremony, and of course without the additional Euro’s that their refinement required, but hey, it’s good to treat ourselves once in a while, the sun was shining, the ambience was good and their were plenty of people watching opportunities. As for the Anti-Covid Vaccine, which I also anticipated would come at a ‘refined’ price, well that did surprise me, for it was no more expensive, and of the same usual good quality that I can, and very often do, partake of in any number of my more usual local hostelries. Well I guess we are in Spain after all, where drinking Vino is as normal as drinking Agua (Water), that is not intended as a derogatory comment in respect of the quality of the wine, but more by way of confirmation that, whilst you can often find a large variation in the quality and standard of the food, from one establishment to another, the Rioja always remains the same excellent quality, irrespective of the producer’s label, and it will come as no surprise to you I am sure, to hear that I can personally confirm that fact 😂

The days that followed consisted of just conducting our normal routines, shopping, cleaning, walking and of course drinking coffee (or other refreshment) at our usual haunts, even a visit to my local Moroccan Barbers. But then a moment that we had both been looking forward to, a kind of mini-adventure, away from our more usual stomping ground. You may recall me mentioning many times in these rambles over the year’s, a couple of our good friends, Paul and Debs, who we still get to see occasionally and who we remain in contact with via social media. They are still Motorhome Fulltimers but they also have a ‘Spanish Bolt Hole’, that they regularly visit during parts of their 90 day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ trips. Their bolt hole lay approximately a 5-6 hour drive North of us and so, during one of their recent ‘bolt hole’ visits, we had pre-arranged to have a meet up with them, at the half way point, in the coastal city of ‘Almeria’. Now Shazza and I had briefly made a stop there, back in our own more nomadic motor-homing days, but it was as I say only a brief visit comprising of two nights and one full day, although it had rained on that full day so we didn’t actually do very much exploring. It was where I purchased my first, and only, Spanish Guitar and so, by now, a few year’s later, you would think that I should be quite an accomplished self-taught master of the strings. The truth is, that it had ended up being one of those, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time’ purchases, and only very rarely does it see the light of day. Maybe I could purchase a second one on this upcoming visit, at least then the original one wouldn’t be sat all by itself, alone in the wardrobe 😂 I know, I do have a habit of thinking about doing certain things, whether it be playing my guitar, or perhaps finally getting around to doing some of those jobs on the list of DIY tasks, but I just tend to not quite get around to physically doing anything about most of them, some may consider me as ‘Lazy’, however, I prefer to just consider it as retaining my own ‘Freedom of Choice’ 🤭

We were in no rush to leave to head for Almeria, we couldn’t officially book into our selected hotel until 3pm, so we departed at 09:45am and enjoyed a leisurely drive along the coastal A7 route. Although it was sunny whilst sat in the car, the outside temperature showed a cool 14 degrees and we found ourselves having to turn on the heating, we had elected to travel in shorts which turned out to be not the wisest decision, it is so easy to fall into a false sense of security here as, whilst the afternoon temperatures during the Winter’s here may still be pleasantly warm, the morning and evening temperatures decline rapidly, but we had come prepared with long trouser’s and our thicker hoodies, we wouldn’t make the same mistake once there. We stopped briefly on route, at the small town of ‘Alda’, quite an anonymous little place nestled on the coastline amongst the ‘Sea of Plastic’. This part of Spain is the largest growers of Fruit and Vegetables and it supplies the majority of Europe, however, that involves having to contend with far from scenic views, as the hectares of ground covered with Poly tunnels extends for miles, literally as far as the eye can see and again, quite literally from the Beaches up into the Mountains high above us, no wonder this particular Province suffers during periods of drought, although it may also be one of the major contributors towards it 🤔 However, the sea still sparkled a very bright blue, and turquoise green, and the light shimmered gently on top of the near still water. The long exceptionally quiet motorway stretched for miles in front of us, the only stimulation for our eyes being the seemingly never ending row on row of orange and white traffic cones, I guess the quieter Winter season is the ideal time for the road re-surfacing or tunnels maintenance, the continual changes to the speed limit serving to make the journey appear even longer, going from 120Kph, to 100Kph, to 80Kph and even down as far as 60Kph, along almost the full length of our route, it was pointless even considering setting the cruise control option as the speed variations were that frequent.

There were no car parking facilities at our city centre hotel, which is not unusual, but they had an arrangement with a company who operated one of the numerous underground public parking facilities nearby, so we would get a discounted rate, fortunately it was only a couple of minutes walk from the hotel, or let’s say that it would have been, if we had checked the directions from the parking location 🤭 Not long after we had arrived, Debs text us to say that they had also arrived and checked into their room and so, without further ado, we agreed to just get straight out and commence exploring the city.

Like a lot of large Spanish Towns and Cities, there is an ‘Old Town’ and then the more modern areas, within an easy walking distance of each other, even so there was still a lot of re-modernisation going on, one area, just outside our hotel, on what had been a tree-lined road, was now being re-vamped into a large tree-lined pedestrianised area, there were already pre-existing modern retail stores on either sides. Just behind the hotel were the outskirts of the ‘Old Town’ with its narrow streets and alleyways, a Cathedral overlooking a Plaza, which had been temporarily roped off whilst they completed erecting the huge Christmas Lights and, behind that, up a hill was the ‘Alcazaba’ which I have to say, from the outside and stood right at the bottom of it, didn’t look overly impressive, compared to other’s we have visited previously that is. But we would withhold our opinion until we had taken a closer look the following day. That first afternoon we just generally sauntered in between both the old and new areas. After a short break back at the hotel we then went out again, we walked just the few minutes to the harbour, where the larger freight vessels and Balearic Passenger Ferries depart from, then we took a leisurely stroll along the very nice promenade before making our way back into the old town where we stopped for a pre-dinner aperitif (Vermut) before eating Dinner at an Italian Restaurant we just happened to stumble across. Shazza informed us that during that afternoon and evening, we had actually walked a distance of a little over 5 miles, so although we hadn’t given it much thought beforehand, we were still getting our daily exercise 😉

The following day we spent doing much the same, just sauntering around various parts of the city, although we did agree to go and take a more in depth look inside the Alcazaba and boy, what a great decision that turned out to be 🤗 Now it may take a lot to impress me these days when it comes to Castles, or Alcazaar’s, or even Alcazaba’s, however they choose to refer to them 🤷‍♂️ but if you start with the word ‘Free’ then it tends to grab my attention, especially when the Cathedral would have cost us €7 each, just for going inside and having the privilege of looking at all the gold they had amassed over the centuries, yes I still have my cynical view when it comes to certain aspects of religion, needless to say we kept our Euro’s in our pockets on that particular occasion.

It wasn’t a very long walk to get to the foot of the Alcazaba but it was very scenic, through the atmospheric narrow streets and alleys with small Cafe’s, Retail outlets and Restaurants, through impressive Plazas, some with fountains other with monuments, like the one above, the location of the Town Hall. It was a friendly local man who stopped to tell us where the entrance was to the Alcazaba, and who had also advised us that it would cost us nothing to go inside and look around, “Unless we wanted an Official Guide, then we would have to pay for one” he said, in perfect English. We agreed that it must have been Paul who made us stand out as tourists, him the only one choosing to wear shorts, it certainly couldn’t have had anything to do with myself or Debs taking zillions of photo’s of the external ramparts on our cameras 😂

It had not been obvious, from our lower observation point, just how many steps there were to climb to just get up to the entrance, but the whole area was well manicured, lovely colourful plants and flowers set amongst green lush tree’s and bushes.

With the sun now beating down upon us and with little protection afforded to us from any shade, we ventured up to the next level, then the next and the next 😲 This place was vast and their were areas that were still being excavated, this has to be one of the best that I have visited, not withstanding that it will take something extraordinarily special to top the Alhambra, although this one is by far the best, as far as value for money is concerned 😉

It was nice to eventually start the descent 🥵

Now as you can probably already imagine, for those with any sort of walking, or respiratory, impairment then this is probably not one that you should add to your visit itinerary however, for those with no such restrictions I would say that this is a ‘Must Do’ as it is well worth every Euro 😂 Upon reflection, we should probably have worn shorts and taken a bottle of water 🙄 But there was a lovely Cafe/Bar right at the foot of the Alcazaba. We wandered slowly back to the hotel, exploring other little nooks and crannies on the way. After a short ‘Siesta’ period we re-grouped and made our way to the ‘English Pier’, a historical bridge that used to take trains, filled with iron ore, to boats in the harbour, we watched the sun set, which was not as good as the sunset the previous evening but it was still nice to see it and to look back over the city landscape as day turned to dusk.

Paul had seen an Art Gallery shop that he wanted to visit so we strolled from the seafront back into the modern centre. With the ‘Siesta’ period over the shops were open once again, as were the vast array of Cafe’s and the evening Bars, the streets were busy with traffic and pedestrians, there was a busy but not rushed ambience about the place and with all the neon lights from the shop signage and display windows, the lights that lit up the Plazas and the street lamps we could have been in any city in the world. Unfortunately the Art Gallery was not open so we went to a nice music bar, not one that blasted out loud pop music but more modern soothing style ballads and we enjoyed another pre-dinner Vermut, well it would have been rude not to. We had pre-booked a table in an authentic Moroccan Restaurant in the back streets of the Old Town, so after finishing our drinks we sauntered towards it, passing through busy Plaza’s with their pavement Cafe/Bars and the older style buildings. As we passed one of the buildings I could see a light from one of the open arched basement windows and stood for a moment or two just observing a pottery class in progress.

We arrived a little early at the restaurant but the front door was open so we walked in, the family owner’s were sat around a table eating their own meal and the young male, who we had pre-booked the table with earlier that day, stood up and showed us to a table by the window. I apologised for arriving early and told him to go and finish his meal with his family as we were not in any hurry. The kitchen in the establishment was small and was located right next to the main internal dining room, from our table we could see right into it and so I watched as they hand-made and baked the flat breads which they served to us with a large plate of Humus. No alcoholic drinks were available but we were happy to sample a jug of their freshly made mint lemonade and then a jug of Orange/Lemon Lemonade, we were able to watch as one of the women peeled the fresh fruit. Initially we were the only customer’s and it was good to watch the two cooks, the elderly mother and her daughter work in total synchronisation with each other, and in such a small space, preparing each dish from scratch. As we finished each dish that had been served to us the two women looked across at the table, I signalled that it was delicious and they said ‘Thank You’ and put their hands to their heart, a sure sign that they wanted their customer’s to enjoy everything that they had prepared with their own hands, from the Flat Breads, Humus, Fresh bowl of Salad, Veal Kefta’s, Lamb Tajine, Jugs of Lemonade, and the Traditional ‘Arab Biscuits’ served with Mint Tea at the end.

It had been a long day and by the time we returned to the hotel at the end of the night, Shazza informed us that we had walked a little over 8 miles. We did not need to check-out of the hotel until 12pm but we did, although they did let us leave our bags in their luggage room whilst we had a final walk around the town. We visited the Central Market, where we also had breakfast, and then returned to the Art Gallery shop, which was open this time around and then, after a casual saunter in and out of a few shops we returned to the hotel to collect our bags. It had been a really good few days, first because we were able to once again meet up with Paul and Debs, we always meet up in different places dependent on where each of us are at the time, UK or Europe, who knows where the next venue will be 🤔 But it was also good to get to explore the wonderful city of Almeria for it truly has so much to see and do, no matter what time of year it is, and we felt completely safe wandering the streets, day and night, and without exception, everyone we met, or talked to, were so friendly so, if you ignore the ‘Sea of Plastic’ in getting there I certainly highly recommend a visit.

On our journey home we stopped at the ‘Mirimar’ shopping mall in Fuengirola, which was still about another hour’s drive from home, however, inside they have a ‘Holland & Barrat’ store that sells Shazza’s preferred flavour of herbal tea, the only shop in our area that sells it, so she got a stock to last her several months as it is not somewhere we go to very often. As it was getting quite late into the afternoon we decided to eat whilst we were there, a late lunch and early dinner sort of affair, so that once we were home, and after sorting ourselves out, we could then put our feet up and do absolutely nothing, apart from watch TV. I also suggested that we didn’t need an exercise walk the following day either, as we had plenty of credit on that score, thankfully Shazza agreed and so I was able to look forward to starting to draft, edit and then publish this ramble, which even by my own standards is, I confess, one heck of a read 😳 However, I hope that it was worth it and that you enjoyed it 😉

PS: Just in case any of you were wondering, no, I didn’t purchase another Spanish Guitar 😂

Until the next time……………………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

We sauntered silently into the month of November and, although it was just another Saturday for Shazza and myself, in the religious calendar it was ‘All Saints Day’ which, here in Spain, meant that there would be religious gatherings at many of the Churches, both large and small, in every village and town. Although neither Shazza or myself are what you may consider ‘actively’ religious worshippers, meaning we rarely attend church on Sunday’s, but we had taken part in a service in the town church on one occasion a few year’s ago, more because we were just being nosey and joined the large crowd that had gathered outside and, due to the large numbers attending, the service was held outside. We stayed to watch the full service, along with the locals, expats and other tourist’s alike, although naturally, the service was all conducted in Spanish, but at the end the head priest, for their were three priests delivering the service on that particular day, and in perfect English, also thanked all of us non-Spanish members of the congregation for attending the service, a nice touch we thought. We have not attended one of these services since though, as from that first experience we knew how difficult it would then be afterwards to get a table at any one of our favourite Cafe/Bars 😂

What is notable here in Spain is that ‘All Saints Day’ is another opportunity for much social interaction and merriment although, this event is very much generally a family and close friends occasion, and not one that falls into the category of a ‘Fiesta’, so none of the usual ‘Pop-Up’ Bars and fairground attractions. It is primarily an occasion for all generations of a family to come together to break bread and drink wine, not just the sip of wine from the chalice and thin circular wafer taken during the ‘Mass Service’, but the more substantial offerings taken during lunch in the local restaurants. The church service, the one in the main town, is held late morning and finishes just before noon, allowing people to go for a stroll along the promenade, or to take their ‘Little Darlings’ to play in the parks and burn off some steam whilst the other’s sit, or stand, just generally chitter chattering between themselves before the start of the official Spanish lunch period at 2pm. The dress code for this event, well as usual there is none, although the older generation tend to dust off their best bib and tucker, because that is the way they were brought up to be dressed when they were children when attending a religious service, as for the more modern younger generation these days, well that is always a case of whatever they feel comfortable in really, more casual attire, for this is more about getting together as a family, rather than a fashion contest. Many of the ‘Spanish’ restaurants are pre-booked months in advance, so getting an available ad-hoc table is, generally speaking, very unlikely, although, this only applies to the local Spanish restaurants in the town itself, the Marina, being a mainly tourist enclave always have tables available in their wide choice of establishments.

We went for our usual morning walk and refreshment stop, as we got into the town and walked past the row on row of restaurants, the tables were being readied for the forthcoming on-rush of diners, their were numerous place settings with tables pushed together to accommodate the six, eight and even ten pre-booked groups with almost every table having ‘Reserved’ signs placed upon them. Now of course this just had to be a day when Shazza and I had elected to eat lunch out and, as always with us, this had been a spur of the moment decision and we had forgotten that it was ‘All Saints Day’ 🙄 However, we are always confident that we would find somewhere to eat and, if the worst did come to the worst, and we could not eat at a restaurant in town, then we would just saunter back to the Marina and find something there, it would be no big deal and it was actually en-route back to where we had parked the car anyway, so we were pretty confident that we would not end up having to return home starving 😉

As we walked through the back streets, where it was shaded from the direct heat of the sun we kind of got sidetracked, as we passed by another Plaza, which just so happened to be yet another location of another one of our favourite Cafe/Bars, well it would have been rude not to now, wouldn’t it 🙄 This one however was not on the seafront and so is always generally dominated by Spanish customer’s, rather than foreign tourists. We found a table located in the centre of the throng of people which was represented by all age groups, groups of women chitter chattering whilst their children played football in the centre of the Plaza, some of the older generation, yes even older than myself 😂 who nodded their silent greetings in our direction, we smiled and nodded back, as you do, and then their was a young couple, obviously a blossoming romance as they couldn’t take their eyes off each other and were continually leaning in towards each other and exchanging gentle kisses 😍 We were not the only people watcher’s out that day, as the people sat around on the other tables were nudging each other, looking in the direction of the young lovers and smiling, of course the young lovers were totally oblivious of the dozens of eyes focused in their direction. You could see the difference in the opinions of the onlookers, the women all smiling and planning this young couples wedding day celebrations, the men folks eyes told a different story as they whispered to their male counterparts, out of the hearing of their female companions, ‘Just wait until she snares you into putting a ring on her finger lad, then believe me, things will change in that department’, then the men chuckled and their female companions asked ‘What was so amusing’, stupidly, one must have revealed their thoughts and got a slap on the arm for doing so 😂

This is what we both enjoy about this lifestyle, which I guess we could enjoy anywhere when I think about it, weather permitting that is of course. But to feel the warmth of the sunshine, to have beautiful views that extend for miles, the sounds and the sights going on around us, the opportunity to enjoy very nearly twelve months of the year being able to get out for our walks if we so choose and not dominated by the weather or climate, but generally, we just enjoy the leisurely pace of life, being in no hurry to be anywhere in particular and coming to terms that actually, nobody else is either 🤷‍♂️ Except that is if your stomach is beginning to feel as if your throat has been cut, yes we were more than ready for lunch now and so we headed back towards the seafront. Like the Cafe/Bars, their are numerous restaurants but, funny old thing, Shazza and I have our favourites which we tend to stick to. We agreed that it would be nice to try and get a table at our favourite seafront Fish restaurant. At first it wasn’t looking very good as we saw the tables and their ‘Reserved’ signs, but the waiter came out to greet us, we know several of them just through our regular use of them, they know now that we are ‘locals’ and not ‘visitor’s, he cast his eyes around the outer terraced area and then smiled, he pointed towards a table for two, positioned nearer the back of the terrace but which still afforded nice views of the beach and sea, and of course the promenade, with all the essential ‘People Watching’ opportunities. We sat with our drinks, Shazza a glass of Cervesa sin Alcohol, (Alcohol free) and myself a small beer (with alcohol) and then later, during our meal, Shazza enjoyed a second beer and I opted for my more usual glass of Anti-Covid Vaccine, it would have been rude not to of course 😉 We selected dishes that we could both share, rather than individual plates, Fresh slices of Tomato coated with with finely chopped Garlic and Olive Oil, then bubbling hot, and slightly spicy, Prawn Piri-Piri with bread, Fried Pollock fillets in Tempura Batter and Half a portion of small squid in Tempura batter, each dish served separately making the whole dining experience much like the lifestyle, something to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace. The walk back to the car did enough to aid the digestion of our filling meal, followed by, once we returned home, the mandatory afternoon Spanish ‘Siesta’ 😴

The tranquil days that followed just blended into each other, although we have certainly started to feel the shift in the temperatures now, and whilst the sun may still be shining, the early morning temperatures are beginning to feel just that bit cooler, and again in the evenings, once the sun slips behind the mountains and darkness falls, which is now around 7pm. During the day’s we can still just about get away with going out on our walks, or doing the shopping, wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts but there have already been a couple of occasions when I have had to resort to wearing lightweight full length ‘Chinos’, and a lightweight hoodie top, mainly due to the chill factor that comes with the breeze, felt more so when sat having our cafe con leche’s but not so bad when we are moving and, as yet, we have not had to resort to digging out our heavier denim jeans which, hopefully, will not be required until we get towards the end of December and into January 🤞

Shazza and myself don’t tend to do very much forward planning anymore, well not unless we really have to that is, in fact these days when we are asked by friends or family what we are doing, we are more likely to respond with “We have no plans”, when asked about Holidays, Christmas or even what we are doing at the weekend or the following week, for these days we tend to just make each day up as we go along. Sure, we have got some regular routines like shopping and cleaning the apartment, but the actual days that we do them are not exactly enshrined in stone, and yes of course there are certain times in the year when we have to do ‘some’ important stuff within a certain set time period, annual tax returns, residency permit renewals, even car service and ITV testing, all that sort of stuff, but generally speaking my OCD Buddy has all of that in his calendar and gently pokes me in the ribs just prior to needing to focus when such events are due, but apart from that, basically these days, each day belongs to us to do with as we like 🤷‍♂️

Many year’s ago, when I used to look forward to being able to retire, I did wonder what retirement would look and feel like. I had spoken to former colleagues who had retired before me, some said that after the first six months of enjoying not having to be ruled by the alarm clock, and the daily routines of going to work, and after they had caught up with the long list of any outstanding DIY or Gardening jobs that had been on the back burner, that after that initial period of relaxation, they felt lost, they missed the social aspects of a working environment, and the comfort of having a specific daily routine. I already knew that no matter how many outstanding DIY jobs that there were on ‘my’ particular long list, that that list would just continue to get even bigger as I found myself with much more time available to avoid them 😂 Other’s though had loved it, finding more time to engage in personal hobbies, or finding new one’s, or spending time with family and grandchildren, going on more frequent travel trips to places both near and far, and being able to stay for longer if they so wished.

So, we actually retired ‘properly’ in October 2022 and so the question I guess is, how are we both finding our retirement ? It is a ‘real’ question and one that we actually have both discussed between ourselves and, to be completely honest with you, we can honestly say that it looks, and feels, pretty much a lot like we thought that it would, although at that earlier point in both our lives, when at least I was first thinking about it, we obviously did not know that we would be spending our retirement year’s in a totally different country to the one that we then called home. But, would our lives have been very much different if we had remained in the UK to live out our ‘Golden Year’s’ 🤔 Apart from the obvious Climate and Language differences, we pondered and deliberated over the question and we both came to a similar conclusion in the end, that everything would pretty much be the same. the only real unknown for us was in respect of the ‘Costs of Living’ in the UK, or put another way, how well could we manage back in the UK living a similar sort of lifestyle on our personal pension incomes, maybe one day, who knows, we will discover ourselves the answer to that particular question 🤷‍♂️ One factor that you cannot put a price on though is ‘Quality of Life’ and yes, we consider that we have a damn good quality of life here, but, and it is a big but, had we not have experienced life here in Spain, who is to say that we would not have had a similar quality of life in the UK, for surely it is what you do with your life that determines how enjoyable it is 🤔 Shazza and I quite often have these contemplative discussions between ourselves, and agree that it is easy to let media articles distort your views and images of things, and so we try to look beyond many of those, which are often biased in one direction or another, and they seem to just want to provoke a feeling of disgruntlement, unhappiness, insecurity or scaremongering to do with all facets of normal daily life and that I have to say, applies Globally, and not just to the UK. Just in case you are now wondering whether this is leading to us announcing a major upcoming change to our current lifestyle status, no we are not contemplating returning to the UK anytime in the near future, but it is always good to keep you options open, for you just never know what may be just around the corner, we have had a peek and cannot see anything just yet 🤭

Now where am I going with this I hear you ask ? Because usually when I start to ramble on about certain subjects in these blogs, there is generally a catalyst for doing so, although it can sometimes take me a while to get to the actual point 😁 Since publishing my last ramble and over a period of just a few days, I had read a number of media articles that gained my interest, enough to actually go past the headline and read the articles themselves.

The first was an article in the UK media, about a young British working couple, with two school aged children, who had recently returned from Spain, after choosing to live there permanently, but very quickly decided that they wanted to return to the UK. Of course I was interested to learn what they had discovered about ‘Living the Dream’ that hadn’t turned out that way 🤷‍♂️ They stated in the article that ‘It wasn’t the same actually living in Spain on a ‘permanent’ basis, to what it was like when they had been coming here, on numerous occasions, on their holidays’ 🙄 They had initially encountered issues associated with their residency application, or at least the husband had, and of course they encountered the slow, often illogical, Spanish Bureaucratic processes. Then they had an issue with their long term rental property and so purchased a Villa, with a pool, but then, after the purchase, discovered that they had major problems with that property, subsidence which required urgent, and very costly, remedial work. So I could sympathise with their plight, one thing on top of another, the worries of not being granted residency, problems with two properties, it was certainly not the perfect start to the dream and yes, we had been there as well at one point, and I had been ready to throw the towel in, but patience, a little bit of hard work on our apartment and also a lot more patience with Spanish Bureaucracy and it all payed off. But after reading the article I remember thinking, that one of the problems was in their own pre-conceived thoughts on what permanent life in Spain would look and feel like, based on their previous ‘holiday’ experiences. You certainly have a different sort of mindset when you are going somewhere for just a holiday, than you have when you are actually living permanently in a totally different country, or at least, in my personal opinion, you should have 🤷‍♂️ Even with the problems with their Villa, although they did not mention whether they had got it surveyed prior to purchase, which would have highlighted the issues, something that you would normally do in the UK before committing to such a large outlay of capital, but I think their problems may well have started before that point with the vision in their heads as opposed to reality 🤔 Shazza and I have lost count of how many places that we have been to over the year’s, either on a holiday, or during our motor-homing travels, and said at the time, “Wouldn’t it be nice to live here”, but then when we thought realistically about both the Pro’s and the Con’s then generally we had a different perspective on those places. Some of you who have been following my rambles for a very long time 🙏🙏🙏 may also remember that even coming to live here permanently in Spain, in the very property we actually live in now, was absolutely never on my own long-term radar, France would have been my first choice to be completely honest, but now just look where we are, and thoroughly enjoying it. So for me, being probably a bit judgemental, and of course probably not in possession of the full facts, only what the reporter had edited and included in the article, but it seems to me, on just reading the article, that perhaps this particular couple let their hearts rule their heads and that there was a lack of any real Prior Preparation and Planning. But all’s well that ends well, as the saying goes, they are now all settled back into UK life 👍

Then, quite coincidentally, within only a day or so of reading that first media article, I just happened to be scrolling through a selection of my Canal Narrowboat Vlogs on ‘You Tube’, and yes some of you will recall that back in 2013, before electing to go down the route of the Motorhome full-timing lifestyle, we had considered purchasing a Narrowboat and becoming full-time liveaboards on the British River and Canal systems. However, even now, some twelve year’s on, that is an ‘itch’ that Shazza and I still continue to have, but we agree that it is one that we will probably never end up ‘scratching’ as we continue to list both the ‘Advantages’ and ‘Disadvantages’ of such a lifestyle, especially now having to consider our growing seniority in years 😉 Anyway, the list of ‘Disadvantages’ now far outweighs the ‘Advantages’. So back to the point, our attention was attracted to not one of our favourite Narrowboat Vlogs but to one that had the title, “Why we gave up living full time on our Narrowboat”. I looked across at Shazza and said, ‘Let’s see if any of their reasons for giving up, are the same downsides that we had thought about”. Now this was not a retired couple but again, a youngish 30’s something we guessed, but on this occasion, they were a childless couple, who had selected the lifestyle, for many of the same reasons other youngster’s have taken this route e.g. unavailability of affordable housing, cost of living, mental health issues and because they could both work remotely etc. etc. But like many of the other’s they had also elected to publish weekly ‘Vlogs’ on ‘You Tube’ about their new adventures and, because Shazza and I are both becoming very judgemental, we also assumed that like many of those other’s, they had assumed that they could earn a reasonable income from their ‘Vlogging’. Don’t get me wrong, many have and still do earn a decent income, like the many that also publish a ‘Vlog’ about full-timing in their Motor-homes and also the Self- Sufficiency one’s, you know the one’s to which I refer, ‘I bought a cheap property and land in France and grow my own produce in, Portugal, Bulgaria etc. etc. etc.’ Don’t get me wrong, some of them are actually really interesting to watch, hearing both about their back stories and then watching their progress, we have many of them on our own list of ‘favourites’ that we have been following for several years, some even started out as Motor-homing nomads and have since diversified. Being of the old-school generation, we do also often wonder whether the ‘You Tube Channel’ is their only source of income, where do they go from there, if or when, that income starts to dry up 🤷‍♂️ My daughter of course tells me off, “Dad, they are young, they are living life and enjoying it, the future is the future and they will cross that bridge when they come to it” she says. Of course, she is absolutely correct, after all, although we were hardly youngster’s, there were quite a few people who thought we were insane to sell up our home and all our worldly possessions to go off and live full-time in a Motorhome and, although we were then debt free, there was very little left in the coffer’s if it had all gone wrong, but look at us now, Immigrant Pensioners stranded in a foreign country 😂 But there is much more to ‘Vlogging’ and Publishing than just speaking into a camera or showing nice scenery, it is time consuming, editing takes hour’s even days and their is no guarantee that you will get the subscriber’s to your particular channel when there are so many other’s out there doing exactly the same thing 🤷‍♂️ But at least this couple both had ‘proper’ jobs and so any additional income would just be a bonus 👍

However, from their viewing figures we could see that, if gaining any sort of reasonable income from it had been their motivation for starting ‘the channel’, then they were failing miserably. This of course was not one of the numerous reasons they said was responsible for them deciding to go in a different direction, without the Narrowboat I hasten to add. So some of the reasons they listed were, having no regular social life with ‘permanent’ neighbour’s or friends………. hang on a minute 🙄 It was they that had opted to become ‘full-time’ live aboard ‘Continuous Cruisers’, meaning that they had to move on from their ‘temporary’ moorings every fourteen days, rather than them electing to rent a permanent mooring in a Marina 🤷‍♂️ Then they complained that the constant movement was too transient 😲 but isn’t that the point of being ‘Continuous Cruisers’, the clue is surely in the wording on the type of licence they themselves had chosen 🤷‍♂️. Now the Narrowboat they had purchased for their particular adventures was 60ft long x 6’ 10” wide, pretty much the maximum length and width if you wish to cruise and explore the ‘full extent’ of the interlinked British Canal and River waterways system, however, they found that the space in their ‘Narrowboat’ was too restrictive, did they not go and look at it and thought about the space they would have, or needed, before purchasing it 🤷‍♂️ Then of course the quite important and extremely relevant matter of living in a steel tube on water in the extremely unpredictable British climate, generally with regular rainfall for at least 9 months of the year, meaning wet and muddy towpaths, and at least 3-4 months of Frost, Ice, Snow, Strong winds and freezing temperatures 😲 The list of complaints went on, not always being conveniently close enough to life’s essentials (Supermarkets, Club’s and Bars, Retail Outlets and other transport links) and so, with all of these things combined, they have said that, …………… yes wait for it, for you already know what is coming………….. it was now having a major impact on their ‘mental health’, which I believe is now one of the most common medical disorders of the younger generation 🙄 To be honest the list of their complaints just went on and on and on, even worse than some of my rambles, if that is indeed possible 😂 Of course we agreed with many of the issues that they had identified, especially the weather and seasonal stuff, but we had already said, that had we have chosen that lifestyle, over the Motor-homing one, then we would have prepared ourselves mentally for it, as for the lack of social interactions, well you know how anti-social Shazza and I are, so that aspect actually went into our ‘Advantages’ list 😂 Anyway, we only got half way through the half hour episode, then turned it off as listening to all the moans and groans was beginning to have an impact on our own ‘mental health’ 🤭

Shazza and I then got into a conversation, about both of these couples, the one’s returning to the UK from Spain and the Narrowboat one’s. How much real thought and actual research had either of them gone into, ‘before’ they decided to jump in at the deep end 🤷‍♂️ Now of course, we knew from our own Motor-homing adventures, that you cannot foresee every single pitfall, obstacle or disadvantage that you may encounter along a particular adventure, it wouldn’t be much of an adventure if there were no moments of ‘stress’ or if their were absolutely no ‘Unknowns’, but surely you should at least be aware of the more likely one’s that you would expect to encounter, before you did actually decide to take the plunge 🤷‍♂️ But yes I know, to be fair to them, perhaps it is possible that neither of them had an OCD Buddy that they can rely on to poke them in the ribs about stuff they need to at least think about 🤔 But of course, even in our earlier adventures, although I had planned everything to within an inch of our lives, we still encountered some of those unforeseen ‘Brown Trouser Moments’ 😂

So, fortunately, my equilibrium and mental health were to be restored, when I came across a much more positive article, not in a local Spanish media publication or on a ‘You Tube’ social media channel but in a European News Media Publication. A British woman, with a young family, had recently moved from London to Spain, and what had actually attracted my interest was not that it was a story from another Expat living somewhere else in Spain, but here, in our own local town of Sabinillas and, as I read the article further there were certain similarities with what I am continually rambling on about to you my reader’s 🤭

Now reading her account of the ‘Queues’, to be honest I hadn’t heard of this invisible system before, and yes, I had been frustrated several times when queuing, like the good patient Brit that I am, when someone would walk in and appear to push in front of everyone else. However, I had also personally experienced this invisible queuing system when I had gone into our Post Office, although I didn’t know about it at the time. Now it did have one of those ticket machines where you take a number and then wait for the board to tell you it was your turn, but on this occasion the number board was out of Sync with the ticket issuing machine, indicating that I had actually missed my turn even though I had just taken the next available ticket and so it just appeared to be a free for all 🤔 There was no formal queue, which is quite normal, unless you are at a checkout in a supermarket, and I looked around with a confused expression on my face trying to work out how many were in front of me and how many had come in after me 😲. Several people went up to the desk before me but then there was a pause, although there were still three or four people stood around waiting 🤷‍♂️ A woman pointed at me and then pointed towards the free space at the desk, it was my turn and, until just recently, on reading this article, I hadn’t understood what the hell had gone on during that visit to the Post Office. There are some things that language speaking tutorials just don’t teach you and you have to just learn either by experience of living here, or reading a useful and informative media article 😉

Needless to say, Shazza and I have not been up to anything much to tell you about, just enjoying ‘The Luxury Of Making Space For Life To Happen’ 😂

And In Other News……………

Sometimes, when I am perusing the media headlines there is a photo with a headline that just makes me chuckle……….

Until my next ramble……………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida es Buena

It was just another normal Saturday morning, I was sat on the balcony in the half light of the awakening day, just enjoying my usual first coffee of the morning. Shazza was still in her silent dream world and the outside world was still in its own semi-awakening state, it was quiet and so peaceful at this time of the day, apart from the very faint hum of the traffic noise passing along the coastal road at the bottom of the hill. The lower adjacent residential communities street lights were still lit offering a gentle glow and there was not even a whisper of a breeze, the outside world was a haven of stillness and calm, the heavy palm leaves lay limp and silent and strangely, even the birds were not yet awake, although I knew it would not be too long before their morning chitter chattering would commence. I cupped my hot mug of coffee in the palms of my hands and just stared out of the windows, mesmerised by the lights from the line of freighters gliding silently by on the horizon. The earth’s night curtains slowly began to open and the sun began to rise from the sea, announcing it’s arrival by very gradually turning the sky a burnt amber colour, fading to a more subtle shade of orange, contrasting with the light blue of the sky and the thin, almost translucent wispy white streaks of clouds, the vapour trails from the unseen aircraft thousand of miles above my head gradually evaporated into nothingness. The lights from the freighters disappeared leaving just the silhouette’s of the varying sized ships as they trundled slowly North and South along the skyline. Sat there in the silence it dawned on me (no pun intended) that this would probably be ‘The Last Sunrise’ that I would witness, well at least until the end of March next year, when we would once again adjust our clock’s to officially welcome back the Summertime, I cannot see me wanting to get up one hour earlier just to watch the dawning of yet another day, although I smiled to myself, at least I was lucky enough to still awaken each morning and welcome in yet another day.

It was only a few days later when I read about the passing of ‘Prunella Scales’, an actress probably best known for playing ‘Cybil’ in Fawlty Towers, although I remember her best for watching her, and her actor husband, Timothy West, on their Narrowboat Adventures. She was 93 years old and had been suffering with Vascular Dementia for the last 12 years, but that had not stopped her from continuing to live a full and active life. I read that she had passed away at her home, peacefully in her sleep and I remember thinking that, when my time eventually comes, that’s the way I would like to go 😴

Anyway, as I commence writing this current ramble, it is now very nearly the end of October, yet here we are still with our Summer duvet on the bed, I still awake, on most mornings, to find myself sleeping on top of it, and to an external temperature at 07:30am of 22 degrees(c), it certainly does not feel as though we have now officially just entered the meteorological period of ‘Winter’, especially when, just a day or so earlier we had encountered yet another sweltering 35 degrees(c) 🥵

Whilst this part of the Costa del Sol is of course known for its all year round sunshine, and mild winter’s, the current temperatures we are experiencing are way beyond what are considered normal, which, environmentally speaking, we should be very concerned about, but somehow I don’t think that the issues of Global Warming and Climate Change will be high on the list of priorities in the minds of those that still find themselves sat around the swimming pools, or on the beaches, or sat under the shades of the umbrellas at the numerous Cafe/Bars and Restaurants, enjoying a cold cervesa, or any other refreshingly cool Anti-Covid Vaccine of choice 🤭

Their were however, cooler temperatures forecast to arrive within the next fourteen days, although I often wonder how they can justify giving advance predictions that far in advance, when they cannot get it right over a twenty-four hour period 🤷‍♂️ However, once again they are also predicting some rain during that period, there are times when I really do wish they would actually get it right, we do need some rain, just to freshen things up a bit and, it does seem to be a little unfair that the North West and North Eastern parts of Spain have been getting more than their fair share recently, why can nature not distribute the wet stuff a little more equally 🤔 So, come on ‘Works of Fiction’, put some new batteries in Madam Zelda’s Crystal Ball that you purchased at the last ‘Medieval Fayre’ and try to make yet another rain ‘prediction’ one of the few correct forecasts 🙏

For the next couple of days the much more reliable ‘Forrest Gump’ weather prediction methodology had confirmed that shorts and tee-shirts were still the attire of the day, the ‘Terrel Wind’ had finally abated and the sea state was mill pond like, barely a ripple could be heard as we wandered along the promenade and into town, however, the sun in the cloudless azure blue sky still burnt the skin on our exposed arms and, as we walked at a more sedentary pace, we could feel the trickle of the beads of sweat running down our backs well before we managed to find sanctuary, in the shade of one of the sun umbrellas at Vanessa’s Cafe/Bar on the seafront. It had felt like more of a chore on that morning’s walk, but I felt a lot better as I sat enjoying my ‘Zumo de Naranja con hielo’ (Freshly squeezed orange juice with ice), it was still far too early for my dose of Anti-Covid Vaccine 🤭 Interestingly, in a country full of Oranges, it is the only Cafe/Bar that I have found along this stretch of promenade Cafe/Bars that actually serves ‘freshly squeezed’ orange juice, the rest just have the bottled variety, and with them, you can literally taste the spoonfuls of additional sugar that they contain. Shazza, when she is not partaking of her usual ‘Cafe con Leche’ opts for ‘Agua con Gas’ (Sparkling Water) as she did on this particular occasion. We sat admiring the usual views of the sea and mountains, that never gets boring, but their was a strange quietness about the place, even though it is now the ‘Half Term’ school holiday period, it only seems two minutes since they had gone back from their extended Summer Holidays, oh how time just flies 🤷‍♂️ However, we were left asking the question, ‘Donde esta todos el nino’s’ (Roughly translated as, ‘where were all the ‘Little Darlings’ 🤭) as they were conspicuous by their absence, perhaps the introduction of the new Entry Exit System (EES) had put people off from coming 🤷‍♂️ Personally speaking we were not complaining, for we still had the sunshine, we were able to take our walks and enjoy the same views, just with less noise, although their was a downside to this, as now there were less opportunities to fulfil our more usual pastime of ‘People Watching’, ‘Fashion Police’ or ‘Body Beautiful’ observations which meant that we had to engage in more conversations between ourselves 🙄

Recently one evening we entertained some of our neighbours, the English couple that own the property below us, they are not permanent residents here, they just come out from the UK several times a year to tend to ‘our’ lovely garden area just below our balcony, well okay it is legally their garden really, but the actual reality is that we tend to get to enjoy it more than they do, but without having to do any of the essential laborious garden maintenance 🤭 We sat on the balcony chatting, putting the world to rights, as you do, until gone 1:30am, way past Shazza’s usual bedtime but just about my own more normal bedtime. The balcony doors were wide open, as were the windows, it was warm and their was no breeze so we had lit two large round mosquito repellant candles, lit a citronella aroma scent stick and placed two battery operated UV lights on the floor near the open French windows. The bites on Shazza’s legs the following day confirmed the fact that the only one’s actually benefitting from all of these things, were the companies that produce these totally ineffective products, and of course the mosquito’s who must enjoy the pleasant aromas, and soft lighting, whilst they relax enjoying their scented Blood Spa sessions hosted by Shazza 😂 I am fortunate enough to not attract the interests of these small irritating insects so I remain bite free, but as Shazza was quick to point out, as she scratched away at several large red and painful looking blotches on both her legs and upper arms, that it came as no surprise to her that ‘I am obviously not to everyone’s taste’ 😲

We began to see, and feel, a change in the weather over the next few days, the temperatures dipped to the more normal anticipated at this time of year, varying anything from between 20-25 degrees(c), dependent on the cloud density, it was certainly beginning to feel much cooler now, especially with the sudden 10 degree(c) drop, although not yet cool enough to have to put the Winter duvet on the bed, or have to have the warm air heating on and of course, rather importantly, these grey cloudier days would only be temporary. We experienced some of the wet stuff, but to put it into some sort of perspective, one evening we had no more than a ‘sprinkling’ of light drizzle which was here one minute and gone the next 🤷‍♂️ The following day, the rain didn’t arrive until lunchtime, although the morning was grey and overcast, this time it was a much heavier downpour than the previous day, but nothing out of the ordinary and it lasted for the remainder of that day, and into the early evening but with outbreaks of hazy sunshine breaking through the brief respites throughout the day, natures weather patterns can be very strange at times but it makes for interesting viewing from my elevated observation post 🤷‍♂️ However, the sea remained an eerily flat calm and once again there was hardly a breath of wind, it was a slightly different story just across from us on the opposite coastline, the Western Atlantic side of Andalusia, in the Cadiz Province, and also through the Strait of Gibraltar, who, according to several ‘Works of Fiction’ weather maps, were currently being battered by storms. Although, whilst getting rain in this particular corner of Spain is somewhat of a rare occurrence, we should put it into some sort of perspective and be grateful that we are not further South in the world, near Jamaica, Cuba or the Bahamas, where ‘Hurricane Melissa’ is currently wreaking Havoc and claiming lives 😲

And In Other News……………………

Since my last ramble there has been some interesting stuff appearing in the local Spanish, and the wider European, mainstream media, some of which may impact on us personally and some which may not 🤔

One of the advantages of changing from a UK Driver’s Licence to a Spanish one was, in the UK my licence would have had to have be renewed when I reached the Age of 70 year’s and, if it was renewed, then it would only be valid for a further 3 year’s. When I exchanged my licence here in Spain it was automatically valid for 5 years, taking me two year’s over that 70 year old UK age limit, then, when it was time to renew it, after some basic health checks, it would be extended for a further 5 years. That however, may all be about to change 😲

Now although the next media headline refers to ‘Tourists’, it actually applies equally to all vehicle driver’s in Spain and not just Tourists. There has already been some push back to these, currently only ‘proposed’ new measures and you can I suppose understand why. 😲 You have to consider the type of climate and lifestyle here in Spain, the Spanish socialise a lot and tend to eat out, or go for a drink, with family and friends. Who doesn’t like a beer or glass of wine with dinner, or whilst sat chatting with friends in a Cafe/Bar, but, if these proposed new regulations do come into force, just one beer or glass of wine would put you over the legal limit to drive home, or even cycle 😲

Now a lot of businesses these days are beginning to NOT accept good old-fashioned cash to purchase things, from a simple cup of coffee, entry to Tourist Attractions, Payments of Bills etc. etc. but Governments are still insisting that we are not becoming a cashless society !! Enter the ‘Digital Euro’ 😲

Now let’s be honest, whether we like it or not, lots of things in our everyday lives are becoming digital, ‘Apple Pay’ on people’s iPhones is being used by millions all over the world, although Shazza and I still have not succumbed, but yes, on a good day we can see the advantages, because now the youngster’s don’t get mugged for their purse or wallet but for their mobile devices and even their digital all singing, all dancing, watch, yes a watch that these days doesn’t just tell you the time, but checks your vital health statistics, can be used as a mobile communications device, a calendar to remind you to buy that Birthday or Anniversary Card, It tracks its own whereabouts, it can be used as a ‘wallet’ to digitally store your bus, train or flight travel tickets and can be used to swipe across a machine to pay for fuel, groceries, and buy you a coffee and sandwich at Cafe’s or meals at Restaurants 😲 (In my day such things were called a VISA, MASTERCARD or AMEX 🤭) and now these devices also act as your wallet or purse and give access to your bank account for transfers. Just so that some of you do not think that we, the older dinosaur generation, get completely left behind in today’s society, we do still occasionally get mugged for our wallet’s and purses, but the perpetrator knows that they run the risk of getting hit very very hard with a hefty walking stick 😂 But seriously, what I do find hard to believe, is that there are lots of people actually complaining about the introduction of a digital ID Card 🤭 It’s time to break the bad news to some of them, ‘Big Brother Is Actually Already Watching You’ and you willingly invite them to do so by putting all of your private details and data into your convenient technological devices 🤷‍♂️

And, finally……………… (Thank god for that I hear you gasp 🤭)

Whilst this new digital travel stuff called EES is currently being rolled out right across Europe, not so fast on its heels as it happens, is the next phase, yes, as from 2027, you will also see the Introduction of ETIAS…………….

Isn’t life getting more and more interesting ? I was going to say exciting but thought that that would be stretching things just a little too far 🤭 I do feel a little sorry for the younger generation, but I guess they cannot miss what they never had, the freedom to travel without too many restraints, just flash the passport and smile at the stern faced official, the ability to just turn a dial to turn off the TV or Radio so you didn’t have to listen to all the doom and gloom, and it didn’t have the ability to listen in or track your shopping habits, to be able to pick up a telephone and speak directly with another human being instead of having to go through a list of ‘Options’, or to not have to speak with a piece of AI that cannot always decipher your accent so asks you to keep repeating yourself, a time when newspapers were purchased not for their content, but to be utilised as good fire starters in the grate, or as an alternative when you ran out of ‘Andrex’ in the toilet, when you could walk into your GP Surgery and not have to do battle with Rachel on Reception to get an appointment, or you could walk into your local bank and deposit or withdraw your own money. But now just look at how easy life is made for everybody, we haven’t half had it hard during our lifetime, these days everything is made so easy for folk, so looking back on it all I find myself asking, isn’t progress a wonderful thing 🤔 As my Grandfather used to say, “Eeh by gum lad, it’s a grand life if you don’t weaken”

Until my next ramble……………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida es Buena