What Possessed You To Choose To Live There ?

It has been an odd couple of weeks since I last published my last ramble, but it is hard to quite explain why, it is more a feeling rather than a physical sort of thing 🤔 Perhaps it is simply because we are now beginning to feel really settled in, to what on some days still feel like our new lifestyle here in Spain, although on other’s it feels as though we have been here for year’s 🤷‍♂️ I guess the big difference for us now is that we do not have to keep relocating every few months, not that I am complaining, as I did enjoy living in our Motorhome visiting and seeing many different locations, but having a bit more stability also has it’s advantages, so now each day, and week, is just normal life I suppose with normal routines, which is something that we have not experienced for quite some time.

Although we are trying to ween ourselves off following the daily news in the UK, some habits are hard to break and so of course we are reading and hearing about how the Winter weather is now having its usual impact over there, what with the arrival of the colder temperatures and of course the frosts and snow, both of which arrive every year, but people it seems are still never really prepared for it. Although we never get such extreme weather conditions over here in this part of Spain, Winter proper has now arrived, the temperatures have certainly dropped and, having now fully acclimatised, we too can feel the chill and have to dress appropriately. We still have not had the much needed rainfall, well not in sufficient quantities to make any difference to the water levels in the ‘Embalces’ (Reservoirs) although we have the odd day when we get some light drizzle. The major difference is that we are beginning to get more frequent grey days than bright warm and sunny ones, which just means that we spend much more time wearing jeans and jumpers, both when we are in and out of the apartment, and of course wearing shoes and socks, or our slippers, as the tiled floors which are cooling in the Summer are very cold during the winter months, perhaps we need to invest in a few rugs 🤔 but so far we have not yet had to resort to turning on the heating, although we are probably not far away from having to do so, more so in the evenings. On the days when the sun does make an appearance, although no longer warm enough to resort back to our Summer attire, we go out for our weekend lunches and we still try to get out most days just to stretch our legs, it is also much easier now for us to do the ‘Tourist Spotting’, as they are the ones with the pale skin and wearing shorts and tee shirts as, whilst the five degree drop in the daily temperature from 23 degrees(c) to the now more frequent 16-18 degrees(c), may feel chilly to us, it is like a Northern European Sumer to them and, as I have mentioned before, varying climate conditions are all relative really, but I am thankful that I now no longer have to scrape ice or snow off the vehicle windscreen, or pre-warm the car, before driving it somewhere.

But enough of my blathering, what have we been up to since I published that last ramble 🤷‍♂️ On the Sunday evening, two weeks ago now, Shazza and I had been sat on the balcony just having our usual chitter chatter, about something and nothing as usual. But then our thoughts turned to where we could possibly go for another day trip, prior to our upcoming Christmas trip to Munich. We agreed that our much awaited and anticipated trip to Granada would now be best done in the Spring, as the weather was now beginning to get a little chilly up there in the ‘Sierra Nevada’ mountains. Even up in our own local mountains the daily temperatures were beginning to fall, albeit only slightly, but the main change being in the much lower cloud levels, which would mean reduced visibility so that the truly awesome sights would be somewhat shrouded from view and it would feel a bit damper, so we decided that for the remainder of this year we would just explore a little more of the Provinces within our own Region of Andalusia, and to be completely truthful, part of that personal motivation had been due to watching the travel programme (Michael Portillo’s Andalusia’) currently being shown on the UK TV but which we can still tune into over here. We were not particularly looking to go anywhere that was necessarily ‘Touristy’, just exploring some of the more anonymous whitewashed Towns and Villages that we had not explored before, either on our previous year’s of travelling in our Motorhomes, or even visits we had undertaken in Shazza’s little car when we had come to what was then our ‘Bolt Hole’ without the van.

Now although we live in the Province of ‘Malaga’, we are actually located right at the southern tip of our Province, within perhaps only five kilometres of the border with our neighbouring Province of ‘Cadiz’, which actually stretches East to West along this Southern tip of Spain, so it has actually got Coastlines along both the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. For us to travel across to the other side, and by that, just to prevent any confusion, I mean the Atlantic Coast, as opposed to that other ‘Other Side’ 💀 if you know what I mean 😉 It takes us just a little over one hour, so some trips can be done very easily in just one day and, additionally, there are so many places to explore in between these two coastlines, some of which we have already done and some that we keep promising ourselves that we will do, but have never got around to yet, but now at least, we have no reason to have to rush, as they are certainly not going anywhere and we have no time restrictions in which to visit them, as we had when we were on the ninety-day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ clock.

Now I do have to be honest with you, it is generally Shazza that spends the time researching places of interest for our discussions at our “What Do You Want To Do Today ?” morning conferences, although as you already know, I use that term ‘Discussion’ in a very tongue in cheek sort of fashion 😉 If you are reading this and do not understand that comment then you have certainly not read enough of my previous blogs on going on ‘Shazza Adventures’ 😂 Anyway, I digress, so on this particular Sunday evening, after finishing singing along with some of the Hymns on ‘Songs of Praise’ 🤭 she mentions the name of this particular town and suggests that we go to have a look at it and the neighbouring area. “What is there of interest ?” I ask, a reasonable sort of question I thought, she gives me a sort of frustrated look, the one that says “Why are you asking me irrelevant questions, it isn’t as if I am giving you any choice on wether you actually want to go there or not !”, but she does try to pacify me at times, so I think she thought better of actually vocalising what she was actually thinking, she responded with, “I think there may be a Castle or something”, as she knows how much I like ‘Castles’ and I can on occasions get really excited by those ‘Somethings’ 😂 but the use of her words ‘I think’ and ‘or something’ casts a reasonable doubt in my mind on the accuracy, or even honesty, of the information she has just provided to me. But in truth, I am not really unduly worried because in her comment she had omitted any reference to Walking Boots, Backpacks or Picnic Lunches, which to me interprets as No Hiking !! and so this trip would certainly entail us having to make essential refreshment stop(s) for my our mandatory Anti-Covid Vaccine(s) and Tapas or Menu del Dia 🤗 Now don’t get me wrong, I actually thoroughly enjoy walking along coastal footpaths or through forest paths, but my knees are a little more selective these days when it comes to steeper gradients.

But it was now time for me to ask that sixty-million dollar question, “So when would you like to go on this day trip ?”, which was naturally followed thereafter by more discussions, well actually that is not factually correct, as I took no part in the conversation that ensued. Shazza spent several minutes speaking out loudly, but it was one of those debates that she was having with herself, going through a list in her mind, deciding when she wanted to go and do the weekly shopping, could she leave it for a few more days, did she have enough in the cupboards, fridge and freezer for a few more evening meals ? Did she need to do any laundry or ironing ? and then, ultimately, what did the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast would be the best weather day for the trip ? Which to me, I have to say, is a pointless exercise in the first place as they never get it right anyway ? Such things seem of little importance to me, because did it really matter when she did the laundry or ironing, or the shopping, there were two Supermarkets just a couple of minutes away at the bottom of our hill, a large Mercadona supermarket in town and another, our usual, just a fifteen minute drive away and we were spoilt for choice with a whole host of eateries on our door step, so for me, well I really couldn’t see a problem around what day we went on the trip 🤷‍♂️ After her deliberations she looks at me, and so I ready myself for the big reveal, “What about Wednesday, is that okay with you ?”, it was quite exciting, she was actually giving me a choice, although I wasn’t fooling myself, if she had decided on Wednesday then Wednesday it would be, irrespective of what I may say but at least for a couple of minutes it felt as though I was a participant on that TV game show ‘Deal or No Deal’ 😂 Now I could have delayed by suggesting that I would need to just check my diary schedule to see what other pressing appointments I had to deal with that week, but that would have been ‘pointless’ (mmm, isn’t that the name of another TV game show ?) as she, and I, both knew that my diary was completely empty, “Wednesday is good for me” I cheerfully and enthusiastically responded. Now at this point I still didn’t really know where we were actually going to 🤷‍♂️ or even what was really there or why she had chosen that particular place, but at the end of the day it wasn’t really that important, because I just like going out and exploring these new places and even more so if they were not high up in the mountains, because then there was the added bonus of me being actually permitted to drive the car 🤗

Now you may think, as did I, that we had finally seen off those infernal ‘Dark Forces’, that there was nothing now going on in our lives of any importance that they could interfere or mess with, so now it would be the turn of some other poor sole who would become the object of their unwanted attentions. It was late on the Tuesday evening when I first felt a nagging ache in my gum, right at the back of my lower jaw on the left hand side, but it wasn’t the normal sort of tell tale ache that you get with a toothache, in fact, at that point I didn’t even feel the need to take any painkillers, it really wasn’t that bad, just irritating and a little uncomfortable. But I was awoken in the early hours, which is unusual as usually, once I am asleep, that is it until around 07:00am, but the ache had gotten much worse and I needed to get up to take some painkillers, the painkillers were not that effective and so a very restless night followed. We had not bothered registering with a Dentist here, it just hadn’t been a priority, but the ‘free’ State medical cover here does not cover Dental Treatment, so at some point we would have had to find a ‘Private’ practice anyway, but they are actually ten-a-penny here in Spain, even in our local town there are at least four large dental clinics. I did the usual dual diligence of course, using ‘Mr Google’, I read all the ‘Independent’ reviews and then made my selection. I sent an Email at 09:00am, requesting an Emergency Appointment, they didn’t open to patients until 09:30am, but within ten minutes of sending that Email I had received a response telling me to go in that same morning and they would fit me in. Now I knew that a day or so earlier, on the Monday evening, that I had eaten a small amount of Hazelnuts and Almonds, so I suspected that perhaps a small sharp piece had probably got stuck under a tooth, pierced my gum and caused an abscess to form, so to me, having had this happen on previous occasions, all I needed was to have the offending object removed and for the Dentist to prescribe a simple course of Antibiotics to clear up the infection.

After filling in the initial patient registration forms, I took a seat in the waiting room and I was seen within half an hour of my arrival at the clinic. The young female Dentist only spoke a little bit of English, but her Spanish assistant spoke perfect English and, although I could now use plenty of conversational words and sentences in Spanish, “Cafe con Leche y Tostado con Mermelede” didn’t seem quite appropriate in these circumstances 🤔 unfortunately, I had not yet got to the lessons, on my Spanish Duo Lingo course, that dealt with such medical or dental matters, although I could say ‘Mucho Dolor’ (A lot of pain) and point to the appropriate area. Now I also have to say that the last time I visited a Dentist was back in October 2020, when we were in the UK at Ilfracombe in Devon, but what with the impact of Covid, and our further nomadic travels, well neither of us had had the need to find another one. However, whether it is just here in Spain or the fact that technology has improved massively in the last three year’s, but my goodness, everything here is just so efficient compared to how it was when I last needed dental treatment. No longer do they take X-Rays with you lying in a chair, holding a plastic stick in place in your mouth whilst they point a sort of archaic large ray gun sort of affair to the side of your head, then they run out the room and hide somewhere, out of the way of the harmful rays of the radiation machinery, having left me with just a heavy lead lined blanket over my vitals 😲 No, here you go into a room and stand upright at a machine, something then whizzes around your head for a couple of minutes, whilst it makes a 3D image of your mouth, then you go back into the surgery, sit back in the treatment chair, where the image taken by the machine is already visible on a screen above your head.

Now I had correctly diagnosed the issue myself, yes I did have an Abscess, which had formed under the tooth, and yes I would need to take a weeks course of Antibiotics. However, what came as a bit of a surprise, and shock, was that I had not anticipated that they would need to extract ‘two’ teeth there and then, both lower rear molars 😲😖 I have to be honest, I had not expected to come out with one less tooth, let alone two, after all, I didn’t actually have a toothache, but they are the professionals and they told me that they needed to come out, who was I to argue, so out they came. Now again, I was actually quite impressed, I don’t know what was done differently to the other times, but even injecting the anaesthetic into my gums didn’t hurt and, I wasn’t left with half of my face and nose feeling numb for hour’s afterwards, in fact the only numbed area was where the teeth had been extracted. However, when the anaesthetic did wear off, which only took a couple of hours, my lower back jaw was extremely sore and painful and, on top of the strong Antibiotics, I also needed to take painkillers several times a day, but much worse than any of that, I was instructed that I could not partake of any Anti-Covid medications until I had completed the week’s course of medication 😲 The lower left part of my jaw bone was also quite visibly swollen, as if someone had punched me hard in the side of my face, so Shazza and I both agreed, although somewhat reluctantly I do have to say, it would be better to not go on our planned day trip the following day as the discomfort, and inability to eat properly on my left-hand side, would have spoilt the enjoyment of the day ☹️

It actually took nearly two weeks before I could stop taking the painkillers and for the swelling to reduce substantially, I had been informed by the Dentist that it could take up to three months for the gum, where the two teeth were extracted, to harden enough to have implants, if I then chose to have them. Even now, a fortnight later, although I no longer require to take anymore painkillers and am able to eat and drink normally, chewing my food has still to be done on the opposite side of my mouth. For those of you that are interested in the cost of such dental treatments here in Spain, which are the same whether you are a resident here or not, the total cost was €139 (£120) which was €50 for each tooth extraction, €30 for the X-Ray and €9 for the Antibiotics. I certainly will not be eating anymore nuts for quite a while as they can work out to be quite an unnecessary and expensive luxury and whatever has happened to the tooth fairy leaving me some money, the global economy must be in a worse state than I had imagined 😂

So it goes without saying that we didn’t venture too far from home over these last couple of weeks, with the first couple of days after having the teeth out being spent confined at home, feeling rather sorry for myself, I didn’t feel up to doing very much and found myself lacking any sort of motivation or concentration to start ‘drafting’ this ramble, never mind not having much really to ramble about, although that has never stopped me before 😂 I couldn’t even be bothered spending time doing any Spanish or German lessons, yes we are both learning a few key words for when we visit Munich, although having lived in Germany many years ago, before Shazza and I had met, a lot of words and sentences are coming back to me quite easily. However, boredom finally won the lethargy contest and so we re-commenced going back out on our daily walks, although ‘Tostados’, for me at least, were still off the agenda, but we still stopped for our usual coffee’s, well it would have been rude not to 😉

Now on the Friday, two days after having my teeth extracted, I received an Email from our Solicitor’s office, the office in Malaga, stating that they had now collected our Spanish Driving Licences from the DGT Offices and that they would be available to collect from our local office the following week. We had both forgotten about these, as we hadn’t actually needed to produce them, so the ‘Temporary’ paper licences we had both been issued with, ten weeks earlier, had remained folded in my wallet, and Shazza’s in her purse. Much like the UK, Driving Licences over here are normally valid for ten year periods, until you reach the age of 70 years and then they are only issued, if you pass the appropriate medical tests, for periods of 3 years thereafter. So as I only had three years to go until I reached my 70th birthday, I had anticipated seeing the expiry date on my licence as October 2026, so it was a nice surprise when we collected our licences to discover that they had actually given me 5 years validity from the date of issue, so I was good now until September 2028. So without doubt it really had been a bit of a topsy-turvy week for me, the downside being the unanticipated dental treatment and the upside being that we have now very nearly received all of our official Spanish residency documentation. The final piece we are still missing is our official ‘plastic’ health cards, but they are so far behind in the issue of these that we have been informed that we may not get them prior to us applying for our Residency permit renewals in April next year 🤷‍♂️ Not that they are really that important as they tend to ask for our residency cards anyway, as everything is traceable via our unique personal individual NIE Numbers, but we do also have temporary health entitlement paperwork, which we produce if we need to go to a hospital for treatment.

Over the last couple of days my daughter in Germany had sent me a message, with a photo attachment of a scene taken from the front window of their house and showing their first falls of snow. The first one showed just a small smattering, nothing really extraordinary, we had camped in Scotland in the Motorhome in worse than that only a year ago, but then, she sent another one just twenty-four hours later, this time with our Son-in-Law Dean, standing in their back garden with his Ski’s at the ready. Okay, so yes, perhaps it was beginning to get a little more interesting.

Having looked at the current photographs she had sent me of our upcoming Christmas destination, it prompted me to take a look at the advance weather forecast for their area and on doing so, I have to say that it wasn’t the snow that concerned me, more the actual minus temperatures we would have to experience 🥶 However, trying to turn a negative into a positive, as I often attempt to do, I noted that actually the daytime temperatures appeared to be getting warmer as the days of our arrival neared, so if they kept rising by that one degree each day, by the time we arrive on the 21st December, perhaps it would still be worth packing our shorts, tee-shirts and flip-flops 😂 At night when the temperatures dropped we were certainly hoping that their home central heating system was efficient, I have also suggested that they make sure that the huskies are well fed and that they have serviced and lubricated the dog sleds 😲

It did seem a little bizarre that on the Saturday afternoon, whilst we were enjoying an afternoon in Estepona, my daughter sent me yet another message, and yet another photograph, of them cosied up inside their house, sat around the fire and next to the lovely tall Christmas Tree, looking out of their window onto their snowy, but picturesque, wintery scene, I have to say though that they do seem to be enjoying it. However, I know that it was perhaps churlish of me, but I couldn’t help myself, and so I sent her a message back with a few photographs of my own, with us sat, that particular day, in a sunny floral plaza enjoying a Tapas lunch whilst being serenaded by a man with a Spanish guitar 😎 and with a question to her, “What possessed you to choose to live there !!” 🤭

We finished this current weekend off by having Sunday lunch at our favourite ‘Tapas’ Cafe/Bar/Restaurant (La bodega) in our local Marina, although a ‘Tapas’ bar, it is actually all Moroccan spiced food, the whole menu is delicious, good quality and well cooked, generous portions, the staff are so friendly and welcoming and it is one of the few establishments in the Marina that offer very good value for money, and you know how much Shazza and I like our value for money options. So a Spanish Tapas establishment, serving Moroccan spiced food, owned and managed by two Moroccan brothers who were both born and lived originally in London, truly international eh ? 😂 Now last week when we went there we asked one of the brother’s if they were doing anything special for New Year’s Eve, he confirmed that they were but then told us that they had been fully booked for the event since before September, how on earth had we missed the advertisement for that I do not know 😲 However, this week, when I mentioned that we were disappointed at not being able to book a table for their New Year event, he said that he had did have a table as someone had, within the last couple of days, cancelled their booking. So now we can have a nice celebratory Christmas in Munich 🤗🥳🍾🥂and then, we come back and can celebrate seeing in our first New Year in our new home in Spain 🤗🥳🍾🥂 So I have to say that, after our first 6 months now living permanently here in Spain, all things considered, including the initial frustrations we had to contend with, everything appears to be working out just fine 😉

Until my next ramble, stay safe and keep warm my friends and, as I am unlikely to publish again until after the festive season, Shazza and I would just like to take this opportunity to say to all of you, wherever you may be in the world………………

🎄 FELIZ NAVIDAD Y UN FELIZ ANO NUEVO 🥳

(Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year)

Hasta Luego mi Amigos………. La Vida es Buena