Another Winter Season Looms

We parked the car in our usual beachfront car park in the village, but as we opened the car doors we noticed that there was a strong smell of the sea, it was particularly noticeable to us because this quite unique scent is not something that is normal here, the more normal noticeable thing for us is the actual differing sounds of the sea, in the form of the noise of the waves as they break onto the shoreline and, dependent on the direction and strength of the wind, it can be either a gentle, rhythmic, barely noticeable sound, much like it is on this particular day, or a loud crashing noise as they break onto the shoreline but it was certainly the scent of the seaside that was today the predominant factor. Now whether that was because there was barely a breeze blowing, the flags on the three tall flagpoles that stand in front of the children’s play area and basketball court are our usual visual guide as to what direction the wind is blowing in, but they were just hanging lifeless and limp, the sun was shining and so it would be another very pleasant morning for our walk, however, there was no obvious explanation as to why the scent of the sea was so strong on this particular day but it was enough for us to feel the need to both comment on it 🤷‍♂️

Although it was rapidly approaching the end of October and now Autumn, we also commented on how we were both still quite comfortable going out on our daily walks still wearing our Summer attire, shorts and tee-shirts, but knowing that that situation could change at any moment. It is this time of year when the tourists from the more Northern European countries stand out, as whilst they like us are also enjoying being in these temperate Spanish Winter temperatures, wearing of course their shorts and tee-shirts, they stand out due to their paler skin tones, it wasn’t that long ago when that would also have been us too, but now we are more of a ‘Cafe con Leche’ sort of shade, rather than bronzed.

The Spanish media are already starting to encourage the elderly, and the medically vulnerable, a category for which I obviously do not fit into just yet, irrespective of what the date imprinted on my birth certificate may indicate 🤭 to make appointments to get the annual flu vaccinations, which of course still includes the new and revised Anti-Covid vaccine, but Shazza and I will respectfully continue to decline those, opting instead to maintain our own Anti-Covid Vaccine and healthy ‘Plant Based’ dietary regimes which appear, in our case, to still be quite effective, Shazza still of the belief that she did not contract Covid during our recent road trip and that it was more a case of ‘Gastroenteritis’, but we will never know the medical truth about that will we my beloved 🤷‍♂️

On this particular day we would, as is usual, walk all the way into the town, although there are days when we are not really up for it, so we would just stop either in the Marina, or at a Chiringuito on the other side of it, have our usual coffee’s and then turn around and go back to the car, but not today, today we would go the distance. Since getting back from our road trip, we no longer partake of the late breakfast ‘Tostados’, Shazza has reverted, somewhat to my surprise, to getting up a little earlier and eating a much healthier breakfast at home, her usual bowl of Oats, Mixed Berries and Nuts, although it is far too early for my stomach to entertain food and anyway, we didn’t have any bacon in the fridge to enable me to make a lovely unhealthy, but extremely tasty, bacon roll 😋 So generally I just wait and when we return from our walk, we both sit on the balcony and have a light lunch. Shazza, earlier that particular morning, had made a home-made Minestrone soup for our lunch but just needed to finish it off, so we would make a stop at our usual ‘fruiteria’ on the high street to pick up some Spinach to add to it, ‘lovely’ I thought to myself 🙄 She obviously glimpsed my facial expression, “You know it’s good for you, with this particular soup you actually get ‘eleven’ of the ‘thirty’ healthy and nutritional ingredients you need each week, all in one go” she said, very enthusiastically, “Great, so that should mean that if I have a bowl for the next three day’s lunches then I can eat whatever I like for the next four days ?” I replied, with a big smile on my face, she just tutted at me and gave me one of her disapproving scowls 🤭

We had really clear views along the whole length of our walk that morning, with the different colours of the sea, from the turquoise green close to the shoreline, turning to a sparkling light blue and then much deeper blue as it got deeper further out and towards the horizon, on this particular day the sea was flat and very calm with barely a ripple, we could see for miles, in all directions. The mountains and their peaks were all clearly visible too, the whitewashed villages and towns that flowed down the sides of the mountains towards the coast, then the green forested areas between and above them, which eventually gave way to the sparse and empty grey limestone and granite rock faces towards the top. There were several mountain peaks and these would continue, albeit out of our sight, right up and beyond Malaga until they almost reached the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It is the combination of these mountain areas that protect us from the Atlantic storms that blow across from the Cadiz Province in the West, and also from the worst of the storms that blow down from the North through the Granada Province, we are also afforded some limited protection from the nearby mountains that stretch along the coast of Morocco, just across the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar, however, we are totally exposed and have no such protection from the occasional wild Winter storms that blow across the Mediterranean Sea from the East and once again the ‘Works of Fiction’ were forecasting yet another storm, which was due to hit us within the next day or so, but whether that one would materialise was of course another question, just how they can get these things so wrong with such regularity truly amazes me 🤷‍♂️ I think that because we really do need some long periods of persistent rain, conversations about the weather are one of the primary topics discussed by everyone here, the difference being that in the UK it was always about having too much too often, whereas, here it is about not having enough of it frequently enough 🤷‍♂️

I have to say that these ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts are getting more and more like the fairy tale about the little shepherd boy who each night kept crying ‘Wolf’, when there actually wasn’t one, but on one particular night when he, and the flock he was keeping a watch over, were attacked by a pack of wolves, the people in the nearby village just ignored his cries for help 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, the weather, and the amazing views, gave us something to talk about whilst we enjoyed our coffee’s, and on this occasion, because the weather was so nice, and we were not in a hurry to actually be anywhere else, with no rush to return home for anything in particular, other than the large bowl of nutritious loveliness awaiting me 😂 we ordered a second coffee and talked about a whole host of different topics, just putting the world to right’s, as you do. I often say in these rambles that I always speak the truth and tell you both the good, and the not so good aspects, of living here in Spain, although I am not certain whether you actually are all that interested. But for those that are, I have decided that for this ramble, as to be honest there is little else for me to ramble on about as we are not actually doing very much, that I would highlight some topics that have been in our local news recently and which will I think show how some aspects of life here are not much different to anywhere else 🤷‍♂️

And yet another…………

We often hear the complaint about what Government’s says, and what they actually do, as being two quite different things so, having seen and read the above articles, it would appear that there is quite a lot of land available to build all of these new ‘luxury’ properties 🤷‍♂️ So what do the Spanish Government have to say about addressing the issue of building ‘Affordable’ properties ?

Now obviously I have not re-published the whole articles of each headline and, as a foreign resident, who purchased a property here a little under ten years ago, I have no particular axe to grind, but reading these news articles just out of a general interest, and with speaking to locals in my immediate area, it just seems to me to be a little confusing, as there is, it would appear, to be sufficient land available to issue licences to build ‘luxury’ properties for foreign investor’s, but there is no land available to build ‘Affordable’ housing for the local Spanish population, so apart from Profit for the corporate land developers and, the advantages to the Government and the Countries economy as a whole, what am I missing here 🤔

So are there any other similar issues here in Spain that exist within other Countries, either in Europe or elsewhere in the world 🤔 What about the state of the Spanish health system ? I have to say that in all honesty, both in the UK and here in Spain, whenever I have personally needed to access the healthcare systems, in either country, I have never had an issue and been very well looked after but now I am reading that it isn’t all rosey in that particular garden either 😲 I am unable to verify wether there is an issue, as neither myself or Shazza have had any reason since becoming residents here, since June 2023, to access any of the State Medical Facilities, either the local health clinic or attendance at a hospital for Emergency or Consultancy reasons.

Generally speaking, the health situation here is much the same as it is anywhere else in Europe, as far as the usual associated issues there are with Colds, Flu and Covid is concerned, however, there is one issue here that I have never heard of, let alone come across before, in any part of Western Europe and that is the ‘Western Nile Virus’ (WNV), but that of course may be purely down to my own ignorance. Whilst I am quite familiar with ‘Malaria’, contracted via Mosquito bites, it seems that currently here in Spain, these wee beasties are also responsible for the spread of this WNV 😲

For some reason we do seem to have been less troubled with Mosquitoes in our own local area this year than in previous years, during the Summer months we usually have the mosquito net over our bed for the full period, primarily just as a precautionary measure, but this Summer we have managed to survive without it, Shazza, who is the one who they tend to like the taste of, says she thinks she heard one, although she has not suffered with even one bite this year 🤷‍♂️ Perhaps that is because of the positive results of the spraying in these other mosquito infected areas, or perhaps just the fact that we have suffered with this severe drought in our particular locality this year 🤷‍♂️ Mosquito larvae grows in stagnant water and there hasn’t been much of that this Summer.

So as I continue to scan the local media for other similar issues with our neighbouring countries, I came across an article about the ‘Illegal Immigration’ issue they are having in the Canary Islands. We do occasionally see reports of Immigrants being apprehended in dinghies just off the Costa del Sol mainland too, but not as many as there are in the Spanish Islands just off the Western Coastline of Africa.

You will also be forgiven for thinking that the subject of ‘Brexshit’ has all but disappeared these days, consigned to the annals of historic records, well not here, this very serious subject still continues to rumble on and it still has some serious implications for both the residents of a small but strategic town in Southern Spain (La Línea) and for those residents on the small Island that is Gibraltar.

Wherever you may live in the world, reading this my latest ramble, you will probably each have your own unique issues that you have to contend with, either personally or just by being resident in that particular Country, but you may also be experiencing many of the similar issues that we too experience over here in Spain. So this ramble isn’t a ‘Woe is me’ self indulgent moan or groan, just my way of documenting that, whilst living here, for us, is very nice what with being in a good all-year round temperate climate, with nice local beaches, access to everything that we personally need to enjoy and be comfortable in our lives here and, generally speaking, not effected that much with what is going on around us, but Spain has, much like anywhere else in the modern world, its own every day issues, wether it be Political, Health and Social Care, Environmental, Migration, both Legal and Illegal, etc. and so, as I have said many times, you have to ask yourself the question as to wether you, as an individual, can influence, or change, anything that is going on and, if not, then don’t spend too much time worrying about any of it. We all need to be aware of what is happening around us which is obviously quite a sensible thing to do, but for each day you waste worrying about the things you cannot influence or change, is a day of your life wasted, preventing you from doing something in your life that you can enjoy 😉 Because I have more time on my hands these days, I can afford to use some it familiarising myself with what is going on around me, so I don’t see it as wasted time as I don’t get too involved in it, and sometimes, just sometimes, I can even manage to find some glimmers of positivity whilst reading some of this stuff.

Of course, over here our financial day to day dealings are all in Euro’s, so why, reaching its lowest level against the Pound, would that give me a reason to be happy 🤔 Quite simply because all of our income is generated from within the UK, which means that each month we need to convert Sterling into Euro’s, so at the moment we are getting a very nice conversion rate at around €1.20 to the £1, but we also know that that could change again just as quickly, so we are careful not to become too smug about it 😉 And the next bit of positivity, and this takes me nearly all the way back to the beginning of this particular ramble, the subject of the weather.

As I start to finalise this rather elongated ramble, I am sat on the balcony looking out of the large, but closed, glass French style windows, the heavy leaves on the Palm trees are thrashing away in the strong wind that has finally hit our shoreline, the sea is a charcoal colour with large areas of white tipped turbulent waves, thick grey clouds fill the sky and are now just beginning to unload their watery cargo, although I do have to say, not in the quantity that we are anticipating, but that deluge is forecasted to arrive a little later this evening. Their is a very noticeable drop in the temperature which means that we are now both wearing long cotton fleece lined jog pants, with a lightweight hoodie over our thin tee-shirts, but we are not miserable, this is what we have been praying for, for months, let’s hope that it lasts for the forecasted next six days 🤞 Alas, the track record of the ‘Works of Fiction’ is not the best so we are not allowing ourselves to get too jubilant just yet. Who would have thought that English people could actually be so happy about it raining 😂

This last weekend of October, when Summertime officially ended and, like many other Countries, we put our clocks back, daylight returned at 7:30am and I am now able to see much more in the mornings, quietly observing the awakening world in front of me, however, it is now also dark by 7pm, even sooner on days like today, which does tend to make for much longer night’s with little for me to sit and observe from my balcony lookout post. For now at least, I can still utilise the enclosed balcony but it will now be very much dependent on the daytime temperatures, perhaps the time is coming where I will need to bring the heater in although, in the evenings we are already starting to close the internal patio doors that lead from the living room to the balcony and we just hunker down in front of the TV. It is only a temporary situation, well as far as the dark days and rainy weather are concerned, for the sunshine will again return during the day, that is virtually guaranteed and then who knows when we will get some more of the watery stuff 🤷‍♂️ but as long as this period of weather fills the reservoir then that is really all that matters.

As ‘Another Winter Season Looms’ it will not be long before the more religious themed ‘Fiestas’ commence as we approach the Christmas festive period and, although, as I draft this latest ramble, it is still only the end of October, the local council are already out in force putting up all the street decorative Christmas lights, although they will not be officially turned on for several weeks yet, but seeing them makes us realise at just how quickly that another year is coming to an end.

So, until the next time…………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena