A Cause For Celebration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was nice to eventually start the descent 🥵

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until the next time……………………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena