They Always Come In Three’s !

Have you ever sat and thought about how complex the human brain is, I mean it must store absolutely millions of memories in an individuals normal lifetime and it can recall a vast majority of them, almost instantaneously, at the merest trigger, a single event, or piece of music, or photograph and whilst doing so, it can still continue to develop and learn and store even more information throughout a person’s lifetime. It is the same organ that can also stimulate, through memories, sights and sounds a whole range of different emotions, happiness, sadness, excitement, fears etc. So, well to me at least, it also seems strange that such a powerful and intelligent organ can, for no apparent reason, just suddenly start to power itself down, erasing some of those memories, information and even emotions, for reasons that even top neurological scientists cannot, as yet, fully explain 🤷‍♂️ However, whilst in the process of powering down, it would seem that, whilst it can still retain memories from many decades ago, rather surprisingly it often fails to be able to recall much more recent events, or even remember names, or faces, of close personal relationships. Okay, I know that you may be thinking that this is a somewhat strange subject to commence this ramble, and no this ramble is not going to be about ‘Dementia’ or ‘Alzheimer’s’ disease but, as my regular readers will already have assumed, somewhere within these ramblings, there will be some sort of relevance to that subject matter 🤭 and also, just before you start thinking about it, no I am not suffering from either cause of memory loss, maybe a bit of brain fog occasionally, but that is most likely due to me over medicating on Anti-Covid Vaccines 😂

As you may have already gathered, yes I was sat in the piece and quiet of my balcony one evening very recently when this subject popped into my thoughts, Shazza had, as usual, retired to her own personal space with her book, and so I too was having another one of my quite regular thoughtful moments, which I guess was prompted by our upcoming trip to the UK. I mean it was, when all is said and done, only really a bit of a short holiday, albeit a slightly longer one that we would normally take these days. But with everything we were doing in advance of that trip, the emotion my brain was stimulating within me, just took me back to the times just prior to the end of our numerous ninety-day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ trips, the period when our time in Spain was coming to an end and we had to leave our apartment which was always, without exception, a very reluctant sort of affair for the both of us, as neither of us were ever anywhere near ready, or eager, to return to the UK.

We would have spent most of the last seven of those ninety-days getting the whole apartment cleaned, Shazza would empty, and clean, all the kitchen cupboards and clean the kitchen appliances, hob, grill, oven, all that sort of stuff, just so that we wouldn’t have to do it when we returned ready to enjoy our next ninety-day stint. Shazza also ensured, through her domestic accountancy skills, that we would have eaten all of the contents that were in the fridge and freezer so as not to waste anything, we don’t like throwing good food in the bin, and then those two appliances could be defrosted, cleaned and switched off. Then, finally, after covering all of the furniture with dust covers, we would close all of the security shutters then turned off both the electricity and the water at the mains, our last day here was without any stretch of the imagination, always a sad one 😢

So okay, wake up and smell the coffee Eric, I said to myself, or at least I thought I had said it to myself, but had to question that assumption when Shazza called through from the bedroom, “Who are you talking to ?” 🤭 Now, in all reality, this was actually nothing like those past ‘Schengen Shuffle’ events, as there was no need for Shazza to completely empty the food cupboards, or the fridge, or freezer, although she would still of course make sure that we didn’t waste any of the fresh produce, which of course meant that our final week here would involve eating lots of vegetable stir fry’s, roasted med veg dishes, mushroom carbonara’s…………yes, I am sure you get the picture 🙄 Although, on the positive side of that, at least during our daily walks, which we have still continued with over this last week, we were not at least having to go on any mandatory visit’s to any ‘fruiterias’ or farmer’s markets, so a bit of a blessing in disguise really 😂 Neither would we have to cover the furniture with dust covers, however, we did still do a full ‘normal’ weekly domestic clean, so at least we wouldn’t have to do that when we came back and, Shazza had done all of the washing and ironing, and changed the bed linen, it’s always nice to come back to a nice bed with fresh linen and pillow cases and, in case you were wondering, yes I did also do my usual fair share of the weekly domestic cleaning tasks, we each have our own set tasks and routines, although this time we did spend a little extra time on the guest bedroom and bathroom, as we were due to receive some family visitor’s to us, within just three days of our return from this trip 😲 We both went and re-fuelled the car and put it through the car wash, then I went out and cleaned the car interior, as well as all the lights, wing mirrors and all the windows, inside and out, because the wax that the car wash puts on to the windscreen tends to linger for weeks, smearing the screen everytime you use the wipers and, additionally, and yes it may be another OCD thing, but I do like to at least start a long journey with a clean car, albeit it wouldn’t take long for it to be covered with the remains of suicidal insects and other bugs 🤷‍♂️ Neither would we need to turn off the electric at the mains, although we would unplug all of the unnecessary electrical items, water boiler, kettle, TV etc. although we would still be turning off the water at the mains stop cock, as living above another apartment we didn’t want to risk suffering a leak whilst we were away which, in the unlikely event of one happening, would impact not just in our own property, but potentially the one below us too 😲

In the ‘almost two year’s’ that we have now lived here, this would actually be the first time that we had left our home empty, for such an extended period of time, so although logically, we knew that it certainly wasn’t the same as when we had left it during those frequent ‘Schengen Suffle’ trips, both our brains, for some inexplicable reason, stimulated the same type of sad emotion that we had experienced during those periods, a feeling of sadness, even an element of reluctance and lack of desire to be going back to the UK, which when we analysed it later, really is crazy because we are both genuinely looking forward to seeing our respective family members, our three granddaughter’s and some of our friends 🤷‍♂️ So, getting back to the subject in my introductory paragraph of this ramble, you just knew that their would be a link somewhere didn’t you 😉 The brain, although very powerful and complex, does sometimes it would appear, well to me at least, seem to confuse some of those past emotions with similar events in the present 🙄 Anyway, enough of that Eric, this ramble is digressing a long way from the much simpler direction that I had originally intended it to go 🤷‍♂️ And to think that only a couple of rambles ago, I was concerned about having enough content to keep you my reader’s enthralled 😂😂 So it all comes back to the good old brain subject I suppose and, as one of my longstanding reader’s actually commented, ‘you’, as in my reader’s, can choose for yourselves what content you want to take on board, or just select ‘memory dump’, my reader statistics will inform me of what decision you selected 🤭

So getting back on track, unlike those previous ‘Shengen Shuffle’ trips, when we would stay here in Southern Spain until the very last possible minute, and then have to race to do the long 10-12 hour journey, to either Santander or Bilbao, which usually entailed having to depart in the very early hours of the morning when it was still dark, and even well before the birds had started to rub the sleep from their eyes, this time, we would be in no hurry, well so I thought, stupid me 🙄 we were in no rush to catch our ferry, as fortunately for us these days, their is no such thing as a ticking ‘Schengen Clock’, so we had the luxury of allowing ourselves four days to get to our ferry this time, with some selected overnight stops en-route 🤗

We had checked all of the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts, but not for what was to greet us when we arrived in dear old Blighty, we had already been keeping a constant check on those temperatures for weeks in advance of this trip, and it was not looking too good 🥶 No, these particular ‘Works of Fiction’ checks were for the weather situation further North in Spain.

As British ‘Citizens’ we are of course well versed with the the expression, ‘The North South Divide’, with this common statement implying, more in a humorous way than with any seriousness, that the North actually commences as soon as you get beyond the ‘Watford Gap’. However, at this juncture I must now apologise to those of you, my reader’s, who may not be familiar with the geography of the United Kingdom, and so may not know where, or what, the ‘Watford Gap’ actually is, so by way of a brief explanation, it is a bit of an ‘in house’ British joke, as the ‘Watford Gap’ is a Motorway Service Station just outside of London, and even well below the area of middle England, that is quite appropriately called ‘The Midlands’, let alone the actual real ‘Northern area of England’ and so the term, ‘North South Divide’ is a statement made, mainly for political purposes, to differentiate between the ‘inequalities’, perceived or otherwise, of those that live in the alleged wealthier South of the country, well to be more explicit, London, as opposed to those that reside in the alleged poorer North. For obvious reasons, personal views differ on this subject which is very much dependent on an individual’s actual wealth and where they happen to live in the country enjoying that wealth 🤷‍♂️

However, be that as it may, it is actually much the same here in Spain, with their being a ‘North South Divide’ I mean, but this one is a divide, and generally speaking it is primarily to do with the weather and climatic conditions. So, generally speaking, the further North you travel in Spain the cooler it gets, although probably more so inland, rather than the Eastern coastal Mediterranean areas which do remain quite warm. But ‘Up North’ it tends to be very much cooler, and often wetter, throughout the Autumn, Winter and Spring seasons than it generally is in the South, hence the term ‘Green Spain’ when people talk about the Northern coastal areas of Spain, it is green for a reason ☔️☔️☔️

So, as far as our immediate travel days are concerned, although we could have both got away with wearing our shorts and tee-shirts when leaving our home here in the warmer South, we also knew that it was going to feel much cooler when we arrived in ‘Segovia’, so Shazza decided to wait until the last possible minute before deciding what to wear on our first travel day but, as for myself, and my OCD Buddy of course, well we needed to know in advance didn’t we, we couldn’t let such an important decision wait, as we needed a few days to plan, not just to what to wear, but more importantly, as to what to pack, so me and my buddy plumped for travel day jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, Shazza would work to her own unique strategy of waiting until literally the very last moment, and deciding only after having poked her head out of the balcony windows on at least a dozen occasions 🤷‍♂️ I mean we were going to be in the car anyway for most of the day so, in the end would it really matter whether one of us wore shorts and the other jeans, it could just mean that one of us would either be too hot, with the heater on 🥵 or too cold with the air-con on 🥶

Now the map above shows just how far North we would be travelling on our first day (Blue dot obviously our starting point and the Red Pin showing our destination, which would be a distance of just over 320 miles). Initially, we would be taking our usual motorway route, up towards Madrid, before then diverting off to head more inland to our destination. Looking at the map you can probably see why I had originally suggested to Shazza that we make our first, two night stop, at ‘Toledo’, before we would then proceed on to what would have been our second stop at ‘Segovia’, it would have meant slightly less driving hours each day too 🤷‍♂️ And so, our normal journey time to Segovia would be around 7 hours, so Shazza informed me that she wanted to get an early start 🙄 me, obviously the stupid one, believed that there would be no rush, we were not on the clock, so we could have had a leisurely start, a late breakfast and early lunch (Brunch) somewhere en-route, get to the hotel mid-afternoon early evening and then go out later that evening for dinner. However, Shazza had a different plan, well she would wouldn’t she 🙄 She informed me that she would require a breakfast stop, but not a Brunch stop, she couldn’t survive that long in the morning without food, and she reminded me that one ‘enforced’ fasting day in the last week was more than enough 🙄 and so, that fact alone would add ‘at least’ another half an hour onto our journey time and then, she stated that she would much prefer to have lunch when we reached our destination 🤷‍♂️ So, just as a reminder, for those not familiar with the Spanish dining habits, lunch is more usually taken between 2-4pm, then the kitchens close until much later in the evening, usually not re-opening until around 8pm, unless of course you are in a popular tourist location where dining hours are much more flexible. So now, to align our arrival timings with ‘her’ dining requirements, we would need to leave well early to allow for her breakfast stop, whilst still arriving in good time to make lunch, perhaps it may be best if I left all the driving to my own little ‘Luis Hamilton’ for her foot is far heavier on the accelerator pedal than mine 😲 Have I ever mentioned in these rambles that Shazza and I are joined at the hip, are in each other’s company 24 hours of every day and chitter chatter about anything and everything, well obviously we do not always communicate with each other in advance of trips on some of the more finer ‘detailed’ points 😂

It was forecast to be sunny on the day we arrived, the following day, which of course just happened to be our planned ‘full day’ of sightseeing, it was however forecast to be much cooler and raining ☔️🤷‍♂️ But we cannot control the weather, it will be what it will be, it’s why rain jackets and Umbrella’s were invented 🤭 but also, we know how unreliable the ‘Works of Fiction’ can be, so hopefully they are still using their faulty crystal ball forecasting methodology 🤞🙏

Another bonus for us on our travels these days is that we do not have to worry about fluctuating exchange rates between the £UK and €EU, for whilst we are living and travelling, throughout Spain and to be honest, the majority of other European countries, we just use our Spanish Bank Debit or Credit Cards for things such as fuel, food etc or of course, ATM’s if we need cash (€Euro) and then, once we have arrived on British soil, we will just switch to using our British Bank Debit or Credit Cards and ATM’s (£UK), so still having one foot, financially at least, in each country, does provide us with some advantages especially in light of current global economic events 🙄 I cannot say in any real honesty that I am an ‘Admirer’ of Mr Trump, however, I can sometimes understand the principles of what he is saying and trying to do, however, the manner in which he implements some of those ‘principles’, often leaves a lot to be desired. These ‘Tarrifs’ are actually being used as a negotiating tool and it may just end up being the correct course of action, to shake the World Globalisation Powers up a bit, but alternatively, it could actually end with it blowing up in his face, leading to him alienating the USA from the rest of the world and empowering other countries to combine their economic forces. But, as I have said many times previously in these rambles, I have no power to influence or change any of this sort of stuff so, I am not going to worry at all about it, for it will eventually sort itself out, or not, as the case may be and we will just have to learn to live with the consequences of those other people’s actions, nothing new there then 🤷‍♂️

Moving on hastily, and with the very recent introduction of the ETA, for foreign temporary visitors entering the UK, which came into force on the 2nd April, it will also be interesting to see, with us entering the UK in our now Spanish registered vehicle, which Border Control Lane they try to direct us into when we get off the ferry, especially if I wind my window down and greet them with “Hola, Buenos Tardes Senor” (Hello, Good Evening Sir) and then present them with our UK Passports 🤭 Although if it were a ‘Senora’ (woman) Border Official, perhaps my greeting may not be that overly impressive and we may end up being the subjects of a complete and very time consuming vehicle search, I may have to re-think this one through a little bit more 🤔

Now I think that it would be fair to say that, on the whole, we have had quite a trouble free couple of year’s, that was until the recent eye scare incident at the end of last week, when the ‘Dark Forces’ attempted, unsuccessfully, to ambush me. Although the ‘floaters’ in my eye have now reduced somewhat, there is still some underlying inflammation and irritation in my eye, so I am currently on a course of eye drops, which does appear to be helping, albeit very slowly. But if I thought that that would be sufficient to see off those pesky ‘Dark Forces’ I was well and truly wrong, for they were still lurking in the background, sulking over their last failure and seeking retribution. So, just twenty-four hours before we departed on our UK trip, they struck again, and we had been preoccupied so not ready for this next ambush. Our ten year old hot water boiler decided to give up the ghost, although there had been no prior indications of this, other than being informed, when we bought the property ten year’s ago, that a new boiler had ‘recently’ been installed, whatever time frame that word was supposed to imply………. a month, six months, a year, it is an often used word, but one with no real specific sort of preciseness about it 🤷‍♂️ Anyway, at that time of purchase, we were informed that these water boilers tend to only last 4-5 years, due to the hard water in these parts apparently, so we kind of knew really that we were on borrowed time, but come on ! what a bloody time to decide to pack up 🤷‍♂️ We tried, unsuccessfully, to secure the services of an emergency plumber in the tight time-frame that we had at our disposal, the best of the one’s we contacted stated “I could come and replace it with a new one on Friday” he said, as if that was supposed to make us feel any better when we would be over 300 miles away. So we now have booked a plumber for the day after we get back and to his credit, he texted back almost immediately confirming the appointment. The timing is very tight for, as I have mentioned earlier in this War and Peace novel, our UK visitors arrive within days of our return so I am sure they will appreciate having hot water for their showers, otherwise it’s down to the pool each morning, where I am sure the water temperature will be a little warmer than our’s if the water boiler doesn’t get fixed 🤭 So yes, the ‘Dark Forces’ did eventually wreak their revenge on us, so we sit now at 1-1, the bastards 😡 However I now have an uneasy feeling, for there is another well known saying about bad things when they happen, ‘They Always Come In Three’s’, so now, we are on tender hooks not knowing what that third thing may be that those ‘Dark Forces’ will attempt to ambush us with, let’s hope it has nothing to do with storms and sinking ferries 🫣

So, with the only outstanding task now being to put our suitcases into the boot, of what I have to say, is a very impressively clean car 🤭 I will leave you to contemplate on which one of us got their mode of travel attire correct 🤔 WiFi connections will dictate when my next thrilling episode(s) of these rambles will be published 😂 Will I have so many photo’s to insert after Segovia that I will need to publish another one or, will I just wait until we board the ferry to then write about our first four days on the road 🤔 and of course, for you my readers to discover the location of our second overnight stop 🤷‍♂️ I bet you are as excited as I am, and I already know the location 😂😂

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena