No Place Like Home

By the time you get to read this current ramble it will probably have been close to a month since I published my last literary masterpiece 🤭 But whilst I may have provided you my reader’s with a bit of a rest from my usual constant publications of verbal diarrhœa, for me, well I have been continuing to draft paragraphs for this latest ramble throughout that period, bit by bit, for as you may already know, I do not actually make any notes so rely purely on my memory, or from any photographs that I may have taken, to piece together my ‘rambles’ so, I guess that I can understand if, at times, you sometimes wished that I suffered with ‘Alzheimer’s’ 😂 So let me bring you up to date with what Shazza and myself have been up to over these last few weeks………………..

In the three weeks, after Stacey and Dean had returned to Munich after their brief five day visit to us, to be honest, we had not done too much, other than just continuing with our normal Summer daily routines and, whilst the temperatures have remained searingly hot, with daily highs ranging between 38-42 degrees(c) 🥵 we did, somewhat surprisingly, still manage a few morning walks along the seafront and into the town, some of those being out of necessity, haircuts and bits of grocery shopping, whilst others, upon reflection, were out of complete and utter stupidity, why would we go out unnecessarily in that sort of heat 🤷‍♂️ but to be fair they did, occasionally, come with the advantage of stopping for an unscheduled tapas lunch and of course the mandatory re-hydration stops and they had provided us with a change of scenery and routine. Although, in the main, the majority of our morning’s started as usual with a slow relaxed start to the day, with our morning coffee’s and catching up with all the daily ‘doom and gloom’ that is continuing to go on in this world of our’s, then, generally by 10:00am, we were down at our swimming pool, getting in our exercise regime, and a spot of sunbathing, before the tourist hoards descended with their ‘Little Darlings’ and took over the area with all their inflatable pool toys, which would then make any serious swimming virtually impossible, and then, as the noise from the excited children started to increase, at points almost piercing our eardrums from their highly pitched and somewhat overly enthusiastic screams, which spoilt our earlier tranquility, we knew then that it was time to retreat to the sanctuary of our much cooler, and quieter, home sanctuary. I often make comments about these little darlings, making it sound as if we are just a pair of old grumblies, which at times we are becoming, but as you may already have worked out, a lot of that is actually just a bit tongue in cheek, as we know that when our own grandchildren arrive and get down to the pool, which will be on a regular daily basis whilst they are here, they too, like all the other ‘Little Darlings’, don’t appear to have a volume adjustment switch 🤭

Once we get back up into our apartment we usually just sit and enjoy a leisurely lunch, it’s amazing how hungry you get after swimming between 50-60 lengths of the pool, although worth it when that bit of daily exercise can almost instantaneously lose me 0.7kg, where, in comparison, our walking regime only makes a difference of 0.3kg. After lunch, we would spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in the cool of the apartment, unless of course it happened to be a ‘Treat Weekend’, when we would shower and get dressed and then venture out for dinner. I think that if it wasn’t for the views of the sea from the balcony, with lots of nautical stuff going on to keep me occupied, and the adjacent communities pool which is located directly opposite my private raised viewing observatory, affording me lots of people watching opportunities, those long and searingly hot afternoons could become a bit boring, but we always managed to pass the hour’s doing something or other, as you do.

The un-relentless searing heat of the day’s sunshine started to dissipate in the evenings, but only to be replaced by warm and sticky humidity and we are utilising our air-con system far more this Summer than we had in previous year’s. Over the last couple of weeks we have seen, and heard, the inevitable increase in the number of tourists in our immediate area, although still not in the number’s that we have seen in previous year’s, albeit that the reports in the local news indicate that there have been record number’s of tourists arriving into Malaga airport this Summer so far, we suspect that upon arrival the majority must head towards the other more popular ‘Costa’ locations 🤷‍♂️ So, during these busier months we tend to generally just rely on ‘pot luck’ as to where we manage to find a place to eat over the busy weekend periods, but we are spoilt for choice, either in the Marina or in the town, as long as we don’t have a particular preference for the type of food we want to eat. We could of course pre-book a table in a restaurant in advance if we really wanted to dine somewhere specific, but to be honest, we never really know what type of food we fancy eating until we actually get out, too many choices I guess 🤷‍♂️

There were no more ‘large’ Fiesta’s going on in our own particular local area, well not for the time being at least, although in these Summer months there is always something going on in the area, either within our own Province of Malaga, or our neighbouring Cádiz Province, but to be honest they do become much of a muchness after a while. What we did currently have going on was the usual Summer ‘Medieval Market’, which spends one week along the seafront promenade just down from the castle, in the local village, then it packs up and moves on, spending a second week on the seafront promenade in our local town, which is only actually a further twenty minutes walk away, so it is more like a two week Medieval Market to us 😁 Whilst, at the same time, but at the opposite end of the town, still on the seafront promenade, there is also the usual evening Summer Markets, so all in all, with the neon light’s shining brightly from the individual stalls, the mixture of aromas in the air, from Candy Floss, Popcorn, an array of Roasted Meats being sold from a Barbecue grill, mixed in with the stalls selling aromatic spices and scented soaps and candles, it all just adds to that holiday resort ambience. Of course, being Spain, and much like many other Mediterranean coastal locations I would imagine, the extensive beachfront, and shoreline, is lined with families enjoying the warm calm water, some of them utilising the Council provided sand filled barbecue boats on the beach, which have to be pre-booked in advance. The vast gatherings of adults and children would remain here until after it got dark, but with the fire from the wood fuelled barbecues, and the lanterns they had brought with them, it was actually quite a lovely sight to witness as we ‘Promenaded’, along with many other’s, after enjoying our own leisurely evening meal. Even for us, it still has the sort of ambience that we remember experiencing when we ourselves were on a Summer beach holiday, although now of course we do not have to count the days before we have to fly, or drive, back to what would once have been our own home country, and that is a nice feeling and, yes, even now, on evenings such as these, I have to admit that they do still remain one of those ‘pinch me’ moments, for it just serves to remind us of how fortunate, and indeed grateful we are, to be in a position to be able to be living this kind of lifestyle at this time of our lives.

Sometimes it is difficult for us to comprehend, living in this extremely peaceful and tranquil environment, the extent of the aggression and carnage that has been going on, primarily with the street riots in the UK at this particular time. We of course do still read all the news headlines, and sometimes the more actual detailed news reports, so we are familiar with the purpose behind some of them, but to be honest, my personal belief at least, is that, as usual, and as generally happens with football related hooliganism, certain more extremist thugs are hijacking, for their own ends, what are otherwise intended to be primarily peaceful rallies. But suffice to say, ‘enough is enough’ on that particular subject from me, I am sure we all do have our own opinions on the subject, but for us it just really serves to reinforce our own opinion that leaving the UK when we did was really a matter of both good fortune and good timing. We certainly feel no desire to return to live, or, in the current state that large parts of the country are experiencing, even to visit the UK in the immediate future, although we are also very much aware that not all of the UK has been subject to these disorderly behaviours and street riots and that there are still areas of normality. Shazza’s mum lives in the North of the UK, our Son lives in the South, neither of them, fortunately, have been effected, but of course, the outside world only get to view what the Corporate Media, ‘You Tube’, or other Social Media platforms, choose to show and it is disturbing to now see the other side of the fall out from that 🤔 We have been used to seeing, over the years, the UK Government warnings to British Citizens about ‘Not Travelling’ to certain countries, on health, criminality or terrorism grounds, well the boot is now firmly on the other foot and many Countries are now advising the same to their citizens about travelling to the UK at this current time.

But finally the time had come for us to start to prepare for our trip to Austria for the big family reunion event, which I have been mentioning in my previous rambles for some time now. You will not be surprised to know that all of our personal travel and accommodation arrangements had been made, booked, and paid for, month’s in advance of this event. Shazza, as usual, doing all the on-line booking administration, me just doing the financial accountancy aspects and ensuring that we had all the necessary physical travel documents, we still needed to carry our British Passports but also our Spanish Residency Permits, not that travelling within the Schengen Zone we have had to produce either 🤷‍♂️ Of course I had also made, or checked, the essential travel itineraries, times of flight’s, trains, location of our overnight hotel accommodation in Munich etc. yes my OCD buddy was certainly still having an input, wether Shazza liked it or not, although she constantly reminded me that the invitation to the family re-union event was most certainly just for the two of us, and not for a 2+1, so my OCD buddy would have to remain hidden away and remain inconspicuous 🤭 Our rail tickets, for our onward travel from Munich to the Alpine town in Austria where the event was being held, were also all pre-booked and we were already in possession of our rail travel E-Tickets, so, all we actually had to do now was turn up 🤗 Stacey and Dean had treated us, even though we had remonstrated with them, but they had insisted on paying for our three-night luxury accommodation at the Spa Hotel in the Austrian Alps, and for the taxi fares to and from the main event on the Saturday, which was at a separate location from the hotel, about a thirty-minute drive a little further up into the Austrian Alps, but they had also done the same for Dean’s parents as well, so that was very nice of them, I guess it is one of the advantages of now having a daughter with the title ‘Doctor’ in front of her name and now being employed in a very good Science Research based profession and Dean having a decent paid Aircraft engineering type of profession. She had told us that there were to be around fifty ‘confirmed’ guests at the event, comprising of relatives, from both sides of our respective families, and some close friends of their own, so there would be a good International representation from Australia, Spain, France, Germany and the UK.

For quite literally the last couple of months the weather, in the Austrian area that we were travelling to, had been nothing but wall to wall rain, or should that be ‘Alpine Mountain Peak to Alpine Mountain Peak’ 🤔 Anyway, I had been checking the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast, on a daily basis, in case we needed to pack our raincoats, umbrellas and wellington boots, but fortunately, over the last couple of days, the forecast had changed and, for the days we will be there, it is forecast to be full sunshine with temperatures around 28-30 degrees(C), which would actually be a bit of blessing in disguise for us, we are so looking forward to being somewhere a little cooler than we are here in Southern Spain 🤭 However, we also know that the ‘Works of Fiction’ often like to play games so my OCD buddy is still trying to get me to stuff our raincoats into our suitcase. I went to a shop in our local town, but a translation in Spanish for ‘Wellington Boots’ doesn’t actually exist, I wonder why that is 🤔 Instead, the proprietor of the shoe shop, directed me towards the Marina, thinking I wanted to purchase a pair of ‘Boats’ 😂

Now you may think that I am often joking when I mention Shazza complaining at times about my OCD tendencies but I am not. By way of an example, Shazza informed me of the times of the flight’s and so, from that supplied information I, as usual, planned the time we needed to leave home. We needed to be at the airport two hour’s before the flight departed, although Shazza had already done the on-line check-in the previous evening, so why we had to arrive at the airport two hour’s prior to the flight departure I do not know 🤷‍♂️ It would normally take us around seventy-five minutes to drive to the airport, but I would add on some time, in case of any traffic hold-ups en-route, which okay, to date we have never encountered but……… better to be safe than sorry 🤔 We had already pre-booked our car parking in the airport multi-storey car park, but for that, we could not arrive before a pre-determined time, neither does the booking give us a particular reserved parking bay, so we would have to find an available space on one of the six levels and that in itself can take some time hunting one down, so that also needed to be built into our travel timings.

Our flight was an early evening one, so we decided that we would drive down to the village, with our hold baggage in the car boot, walk to the Marina and have a late lunch, before driving from their, directly to Malaga airport. Shazza had opted to do the driving, because of the tight access roads in the multi-story car park, the focus in my right eye from the detached retina incident a couple of years ago never having fully recovered, so I do sometimes tend to over compensate on distance on my right-hand side. So, being sat in the co-pilots seat I would keep a check on my watch, to ensure that at each stage of our journey to the airport we remained within my allocated time frames for each stage of the journey. But come on, surely that is not being OCD, everyone else undertaking similar travels must also do this too, and not just me, so I question wether this is really an OCD thing 🤷‍♂️ Okay, perhaps Shazza may have a minor point, as perhaps having a clipboard on my knee, with a ‘landmark’ checkpoint time list, that I tick off as we pass each one, may be considered as a little over the top 😂

Of course, being so well prepared, the ‘Dark Forces’ didn’t bother springing any nasty surprises upon us and we arrived in good time, we found a parking space without too much bother and got into the airport and checked-in our hold baggage, only to discover that our flight would be delayed by thirty-minutes, due to bad weather over Munich, so perhaps those ‘Dark Forces’ did have a little snigger to themselves 😉 The small delay didn’t really matter too much as our overnight hotel was right outside the air terminal and, the following morning, the ‘metro’ rail line (SBahn) was just a couple of minutes walk away, this took us on the thirty-minute journey to the Munich East railway station where we would commence the first of our two part onward rail journey to Austria. The train schedule meant a one hour journey to a place called ‘Wurgle’, from there we had six minutes to get from Platform 4 to Platform 11 to connect with our next train, another half hour’s journey to the town of ‘Kitzbuel’. But the ‘Dark Forces’ caught up with us and had decided to get even, after our outwitting them the previous day 😲 To start with, our train departed Munich five minutes late, giving us just one minute to make our connection, with one heavy large bag to pull, and two rucksacks to carry, we were not equipped for a sprint. We had pre-booked two seats on the one hour journey from Munich, but the train was overcrowded as it was going all the way to Bologna in Italy. people were standing in all the aisles, with large bags or rucksacks blocking any through passage, so we spent the whole journey stood all the way. The train hadn’t made up any time so we got to ‘Wurgle’ in a bit of a panic, we were told that they were holding the onward train connection for us but we had to get there quickly, on the dash up and down the steep platform steps, I tripped and stubbed my toe on one of the hard concrete steps, but we managed, only just, to get to the train, for as soon as we threw ourselves, and all our bags, quite literally, through the train doors, the doors closed and the train started moving. As you can imagine, we were both out of breath and sweating profusely, my toe was quite painful and constantly throbbing, to the extent that I could not bear to put any weight on it and, to cap off what had already turned into a journey from hell, once again there were no seats available, so we had to stand for the half hour journey in the corridor between two carriages, this had certainly not turned out to be the leisurely scenic rail journey we had envisaged. We got a message from Stacey, who we had kept informed of our nightmare journey, and she had informed us that the hotel would send a car to meet us at the station and transport us back to the hotel, we just needed to call them with our arrival time. The ‘Dark Forces’ had certainly won this particular day’s battle 🥺

The staff at the hotel were fantastic, upon arrival we were met by a concierge, who unloaded our bags on to a luggage trolley and then took them inside, when we checked-in we were greeted by a wonderful and friendly female receptionist, she told us that they had upgraded our room to a ‘Studio Suite’. Once in our room the hotel porter dropped our bags, not literally, inside our room, but declined the offer of a tip for his service. I took off my shoes and my toe was already turning a dark shade of purple, red and black, fortunately though I could still move it, although painfully, so at least it wasn’t broken.

Later that evening their was an informal gathering and buffet in the large terrace bar, we were the last to arrive 🤷‍♂️ We were greeted first by my sister and brother-in-law, who live in Brisbane and who we had not seen for nearly two year’s, then by my two nephew’s and their wives, one who lives in Australia and the other in Leipzig in Germany, we had also seen them both in the UK two year’s ago, but it was our first opportunity to meet my five month old niece 🤗 Unfortunately, my third nephew, who now lives in Marseilles in France, was unable to attend as he is a Rugby Coach and was away on a pre-season game and couldn’t get out of going, so we have yet to meet his partner and my other niece. Then my daughter took us around the room to meet all of Dean’s wider family who had all, except one, travelled from Australia. We had previously met his mum and dad, Jo and Terry, several year’s ago when we were living and working up in the Scottish Highlands and they were doing a tour and called in to see us, but we had never met any of his other wider family members, until now. We were also introduced to some of Stacey and Dean’s friends and work colleagues who were also attending the weekend event.

So I feel that I should offer some sort of an explanation as to the actual purpose of this large family gathering, something that in all of my previous rambles I have referred to as a ‘Family Re-union Event’. Stacey and Dean got married around two and a half years ago, in Winchester in the UK, where they both lived and worked. However, this was a small Registry Office affair and although they had at that time been together as partner’s for ten year’s, they were due to move permanently to Germany just a couple of months later, so for ease of bureaucracy with attaining their Visa’s they decided to get married. Due to the quick ceremony and small reception, Dean’s family had been unable to attend at that time but, Stacey and Dean had always planned to have a larger ‘Wedding Type Reception’ once they had got settled in their new Country and new jobs, so this event in Austria, just over two year’s later, was that much larger family wedding reception event.

The morning after the meet and greet we all assembled in the hotel reception and were transported by a fleet of minibus taxi’s up to an ‘Alms House’ thirty minutes further up into the Austrian Alps where the reception was being held.

Thee were two ‘Official’ photographer’s in attendance, however, at the time of publishing this ramble we have not as yet managed to get access to them, so photographs of the wider family were not available. I had my iPhone with me and had taken some photo’s early on in the proceedings and I had intended to take some more as the day’s events unfolded, however, yet again the ‘Dark Forces’ struck 😲 After doing the initial mingling with everybody, as you do at such events, I went to grab my phone but couldn’t find it, it wasn’t in any of my pockets, so we searched everywhere but couldn’t find it. Now usually Shazza and I would ‘share’ our device locations, for such unwanted occurrences, Shazza would then have been able to pin point my phone location, however, when we had purchased our new phones we had forgotten to do this 🥴 so although she rang the number we were unable to hear it, a mass search was conducted by all of the guests and the staff but sadly with no luck 🤷‍♂️ So we now have to wait for the official photo’s to be released.

It was a long very hot day, and night, we, and most other’s of a certain age group, only managed to last for ten hour’s, to around 11:00pm, before getting taxi’s back to the hotel, the younger element, including Stacey and Dean, a total of around fourteen of them out of the original fifty guests, remained partying away to the disco music until 2:00am 😲

Sunday was recovery day, for some more than other’s 😂 Once we had got back to the hotel, the previous night, I went on to my iPad and tracked my phone’s location, it was still showing as being at the Alm House. So, after another very nice breakfast Shazza and I ordered a taxi and went back to the reception location. We eventually heard the phone ringing, it had slipped out of my pocket and fallen inbetween one of the gaps in the outside wooden decking, so the owner’s got an electric screwdriver and lifted the wooden panel and I recovered my phone, in full working order 👍

After returning to the hotel, with phone secured in my ‘Man Bag’, if only I had taken that with me the previous day I thought to myself, but isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing 🥺 So relieved, we went to explore the pretty alpine town, although it was a Sunday all of the Cafe/Bars and Restaurants were open, along with several ‘Tourist Tat’ shops. As we wandered through the streets we met up with some of the other guests from the event, so stopped and chatted, as you do.

After wandering through the pretty streets, and marvelling again at the stunning alpine scenery that surrounded us, we stopped for a light lunch and cooling Anti-Covid Vaccine before making our way back to our air-conditioned hotel room. My sister and her own family members departed later that day, they were on their way to Lake Como to finish off their holiday before returning to their respective home locations. We said our farewells and said that we may get another chance to meet up again next year, at my other nephews wedding, the one who lives in France, who is holding the ceremony and reception on the Island of Corsica, where I believe his partner’s family live. Sometimes having family member’s living all around the globe has distinct travel advantages 🤭

later that evening we walked back into the town and sat outside on a terrace at an Italian restaurant and enjoyed a Pizza. On returning to the hotel we met up again with Stacey and Dean in the hotel terrace bar, and with the guests that remained and like us would not be leaving until the following morning. Shazza and I, and Jo and Terry (Dean’s parents), were the last to leave the bar that evening 🤭 Of course, we have been invited to go and stay with all of Dean’s family members, who are spread right across Australia, from Sydney in the East, to Perth in the West and up along the Gold Coast and all points in between, that is if, or when, we ever go back over to Australia. Likewise, we have extended an open invitation to them too, they really were all very nice people and it had felt really good to have met them all in person.

The following morning, after breakfast, we started our return trip to Munich, the hotel once again providing us with transport back to the railway station. This time we would have to change trains three times, and with yet another quick connection after the first one 😲 Fortunately this trip was very much calmer, we managed to get a seat on all four trains, the fourth being the SBahn back to the hotel at Munich airport, and so were able to sit and enjoy the wonderful scenery and, my toe, although still badly bruised was nowhere near as painful, I would certainly be making sure that I didn’t bang into any more concrete steps on this return journey 😁

With having an additional train to catch on the return journey it had taken us an extra thirty minutes to return to Munich. Once again we had pre-booked a hotel just outside Terminal 2, just a couple of minutes walk away from the flights departure area. After checking in at the hotel we dropped off our bags and went on a reconnaissance mission, to find the baggage drop for the following morning, we had managed to complete the on-line pre check-in and so had already got our on-line boarding passes on our phones. After that we went into the nice sunny plaza outside the terminal building and sat, in the shade, and enjoyed a late but leisurely lunch, that would see us through until we got breakfast in the terminal after dropping off our one piece of hold baggage the following morning. We had a 10:35am flight back to Malaga, although it was delayed by twenty-five minutes 🤷‍♂️ but we landed at half past one, so the pilot had made up the delay, which is not surprising as it was downhill all the way from Munich 🤭 Wow, we had forgotten how Spain was such a dry heat, as opposed to the cooling alpine breeze which cooled things down to a pleasant more tolerable heat in Austria. The temperature here in Malaga registered a stifling 39 degrees(c) and it scorched the backs of our throats when we breathed in. Fortunately the car had been parked in the shade of the multi-storey car park and so the air-con blew cold air immediately. Once we reached Estepona the temperature had dropped to 35 degrees(c) but there was a very strong ‘Teral’ wind which would last throughout the night. Fortunately we had closed all the external shutters so when we got inside our apartment it actually felt a lot cooler, but we still put on the air-con system to keep it that way. The relatively short break had been wonderful, apart from a stubbed toe and a lost iPhone 🤔, but those minor inconveniences faded into oblivion as we had come away with such wonderful memories, from the reception, the wonderful location and scenery and from meeting, for the first time, many of our much wider extended family but, like most trips, going away on adventures is very nice, but at the end of the day there really is ‘No Place Like Home’.

After several days of over indulgence, food and alcohol, we settled for a very healthy salad for our evening meal and we spent the rest of the evening watching a ‘You Tube’ video, which was nearly three hours in duration, about a middle-aged Welsh chap who mountain biked from Canada to New Mexico, having never bike camped before in his life, now that really is an adventure 🤗 but one that Shazza and I certainly have no plans to replicate, there are adventures and there are adventures and the only recycling that we like to do is of our household waste 😂

We both slept well and were awake a little earlier than usual, but we had no time to idle, Shazza put all our laundry into the washing machine and then we drove to the relatively new, but large, ‘Mercadonna’ supermarket in Estepona, to commence a mega shop, for, in less than twenty-four hours, we would have another five mouths to feed as our son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren would be arriving to stay with us until the end of the month. Although we speak to them pretty much on a weekly basis by video call, this would be the first time in a year that we had actually seen them in the flesh so to speak. The twins had celebrated their ‘ninth’ birthdays on Monday, Orla would not turn ‘five’ until next month, so we were really looking forward to spending time with them again.

So it has been nearly, but not quite, four weeks since I last published a ramble and it would probably now be another two until the next one. So I hope this one was worth the wait for you, and so all that is left for me to say is, until the next time………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena 😉