True Moments Of Pure Bliss

I often start thinking about the subjects of my rambles well before I even ‘draft’ the first sentence, that is what some of my contemplation periods are used for 🤭 As I have mentioned to you, many times over the year’s that I have been producing these rambles, I do not make any notes in advance and so only rely on what is in my brain when I do come to actually start drafting them, trying to recall things that we have done, where we have been or what is happening in our lives at any given moment in time. Sometimes, my memory can be supplemented and prompted by photographs that I may have taken, or indeed any media articles that I may have read and taken screenshots of, but generally I just ‘ramble’ and, quite often as it happens, I often find myself digressing from the intended script, well you my reader’s can certainly attest to that particular fact 😂

But why am I starting this ramble by re-stating this, something that you probably already know anyway ? Well the truth is that sometimes, even when I have already commenced ‘drafting’ the originally intended next publication, something rather inconveniently happens, which I believe could likely be of more interest to you, things that you may already have read for yourselves in your own media publications, but which you probably do not think very much about, after you have finished reading or watching them. Well sometimes, those very same things can have an impact on our lives here in Spain too, sometimes directly or perhaps even indirectly so, as your ‘man on the ground’ as it were, I may be able to provide a little more localised information but then, that sometimes mean that I need to go back to the drawing board, my ‘Draft’ Ramble, delete it and start again.

This is one such ramble so………………..

It had been like a furnace on this, our second recent visit into the city, the noise of people and traffic was almost overwhelming for us, the 40 degree(c) temperature and dryness of the heat made walking extremely uncomfortable, especially as large parts of the walk offered no shade whatsoever from the rays of the scorching sunshine, fortunately though, it had only taken us a little over a twenty-minute walk to get to our ultimate destination from where we had managed to park the car, although I have to report that on this occasion there was to be no ‘Free’ parking for us and we had to pay the extortionate fee of €1.20 (£1) for a full day’s parking ! But this, as you will already know if you had read my last ramble, and why wouldn’t you have done, but yes, it had been an essential trip, as opposed to just one for more touristic or leisure purposes, for us personally, it was to be a very lucrative one as, by the end of it, we emerged with our new updated ‘Residency Permits’ (TIE Cards).

We were however glad to finally leave the mayhem behind us and, by the time we had returned to our haven of sanctuary in our much quieter environment, we had been out for six hour’s. Although the car journey, in and out, had actually accounted for half of that time, but it had not been a relaxing journey, for either of us, in either direction, as the roads were extremely busy and so it was just one large bubbling cauldron of ‘people in machines’, of all shapes and sizes (That reference applies equally to the humans inside too 🤭) trucks, vans, coaches, car’s and motorcycles, all of whom, for whatever reason, appeared to be in a hurry to meet their maker, from the speed freaks to the one’s whose driving speeds were more of the Sunday driver type pace, but who chose to hog the overtaking lanes seemingly oblivious to the queues of death seekers behind them, which then created the impatient lane weaver’s to ‘undertake’ them which, in turn, meant that they took up other driver’s breaking distances and they would slam on to regain the lost ground, it was more akin to a fairground bumper car ride experience, but at much faster and deadlier speeds 😲 Shazza, who had been happy by the way to negotiate this nearly 200km distance Formula 1 racing circuit (100km each way), well she does go by the alias of ‘Lewis Hamilton’, but I do have to say that she actually coped with it extremely well, although I did hear her come out with quite a wide and varying range of expletives on numerous occasions. I shut my ear’s to most of it though and was happy, as the unemployed Navigator, for we knew this Motorway route like the back of our hands, to just sit and gaze out of the passenger seat window at the Sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea on one side and the Mountains, with their white-washed villages, on the other, although I had been brought back out of my semi-hypnotic sightseeing mode on a couple of occasions, when she had to make sudden braking manoeuvres and my head hit the dashboard or I was nearly garrotted by my seat belt strap as it tightened across my neck, but fortunately, no permanent damage was done, I think 😳 She of course apologised, after she had stopped laughing.

We are not really that comfortable in large cities these days, perhaps because we have allowed ourselves to fall quite easily into our much slower paced lifestyles and surroundings, which means that when we do occasionally have to re-enter, what is the ‘real’ outside world, well let’s just say that it tends to come as a bit of a shock to the system, but there are times when you just have to do whatever it is that you have to do, although in the future I may travel wearing a crash helmet and one of those neck cushions.

Once back into our much cooler apartment we agreed that we would go back out later for dinner, neither of us wanting to really think about what we were going to have, or more importantly, the enthusiasm to prepare and cook for ourselves on that day, but we both agreed that we much preferred on this occasion for it to be somewhere that was right on our doorstep, not the Marina or the local town, just somewhere where we could just basically ‘eat and run’ and then get home again as quickly as possible, as we were both pretty much knackered after our already long and extremely hot day. We both unanimously agreed on our very convenient, typically British, ‘Fish ‘n’ Chip Restaurant, which was only a two-minute drive away at the bottom of the hill, and yes we could have walked but we didn’t. We savoured every single mouthful of our Medium sized battered Cod, I remember thinking at the time, if that was a ‘medium’ sized cod then I was glad that I hadn’t opted to have gone large on this occasion 😳 It of course came with the usual portion of homestyle chunky chips, curry sauce (Although we could have selected ‘mushy peas’) and a slice of doorstep thick bread and butter (To make the mandatory Chip Butties of course, it’s a British thing 🤭). Our delicious meal was worth every single mouthful of ‘unhealthy calories’ which, just for the record, neither of us even thought twice about when putting them into our very grateful, and hungry, stomaches 😂 Shazza enjoyed a bottle of cold toasted ‘non-alcohol’ cervesa and of course, you already know what my refreshment of choice was without me having to tell you. Having enjoyed our meals and it still being 30 degrees(c) at 7pm in the evening 🥵 we both thought, ‘What the heck’ we may as well go the full nine yards, so we called in at the Supermarket, which was virtually next door, and purchased a box of ‘Magnum Double Caramel’ ice-creams, which we enjoyed whilst we sat and watched ‘Enola Homes 3’ on Netflix, which was a particular movie that had been on our ‘favourites list’ for ages, their was no FIFA World Cup football on the TV at all that particular night.

It felt so good the following morning to know that our usual, much more sedentary lifestyles, would return to normal now, well for at least the next couple of year’s, to just do what we like, when we like, if we like and even my OCD Buddy can now, hopefully, enjoy an extended vacation.

Although the daily, and nightly temperatures are keeping the mercury levels high, generally around 35 degrees(c) and 24 degrees(c) respectively, in our little corner of Spain and, as we are now utilising our Summertime schedule on a daily basis, sometimes, making decisions on what we are going to do on any particular day can actually be all about timing. Occasionally, if we are ‘both’ up early enough, we can still find the opportunity to get down to one of the quieter stretches of beach, just a couple of minutes walk away from our usual ‘favourite’ solar basting beach and where we park the car. We take off our flip-flops and stroll at the waters edge along a near empty shoreline, the tourists, who are now beginning to arrive in much greater numbers, don’t tend to descend until much later in the morning. There is just something so nice about getting off the scorching hot sand and feeling the cooler water lapping over our feet, just walking slowly along a seemingly endless expanse of beach, listening to the gentle rippling of the waves, the intermittent screeches of the gulls overhead and just the very slightest audible drone of traffic noise drifting across from the nearby A7 coastal road. These moments, for us, are one of the ‘True Moments Of Pure Bliss’.

However, the sun burning our exposed skins was a timely reminder for us not to wander too far, with each of us lost in our own silent thoughts, before turning around and heading back towards where we had parked the car. We stopped at a small Chiringuito, to partake of our slightly later than usual ‘Cafe con Leche’s’ whilst watching the local area start to wake up, the security shutters on the small village shop started to raise, the woman owner popping her head out of the doorway to see what customer’s were waiting to enter, to purchase their daily loaves of freshly baked bread, baguettes or rolls, their were none waiting on this occasion so she exchanged pleasantries with the lady owner of the Cafe/Bar that we were sat at, before then disappearing again, back inside the darker and very much cooler sanctuary of her shop. People watching and general observations of life is one of those pleasures that require a lot of patience, and of course time, for which we now have an abundance of. We both smiled at each other when we saw an elderly gentleman, sat at a table opposite us, receive his ‘Tostado’ accompanied by a pot of blended tomato, bottle of Olive Oil and sachet of salt (Tostado con Tamate), he paused for a moment, as if he was thinking on how he would construct his breakfast, would it be Olive Oil poured on top of the two halves of small toasted baguette (Pitufo), followed by spreading the tomato paste then adding a light sprinkling of salt, or would it be the Tomato first and then the Olive Oil 🤔 Either is acceptable, but he opted for the more traditional way, the Olive Oil first. What made us both smile is that it is a very similar conundrum to the British way of eating a ‘Scone’ with Strawberry Jam and Clotted Cream, is it the Jam that is spread first, or the Clotted Cream ? My answer, if asked, is always, ‘Does it really matter ?’ for you put it into your mouth and swallow it all together anyway 🤷‍♂️

It seems strange how one minute you can be enjoying the calmness and serenity of life, and then, you literally just turn around and become aware of the reality that, in the real world, ‘Things Can Change In An Instant !’. One moment can feel quite calm and tranquil, but then for some, in that same period of time that we ourselves were enjoying, that plume of smoke that we could see in the distance, in the low lying foothills of the mountain near Estepona, was about to turn some other people’s day into a less than calm and tranquil one.

We had of course been keeping up to date with the Wildfires, both those happening in Spain but also those in other European Countries too, but to be honest the first one’s reported had occurred many miles North of us, up in the Province of ‘Catalonia’ around 7-8 hour’s drive away, but within a matter of only 48 hours many more, quite shocking reports, and images, started appearing on our own Spanish News Channels, as well as on European TV News Channels and in the media, including in the UK, where reports were awash about incidents all over Spain, Portugal and France. It made we wonder on just how many times we had read news articles, or watched TV News, and seen and heard about disasters all around the world, but if they do not directly impact on us then, whilst still shocking, the often tragic scenes that we may have just watched, or read about, are quickly forgotten as we move on to another unrelated news subject. We are the same here in Spain, if these incidents are further North, or just across the borders in either Portugal or Southern France, we take note, make the usual comments and then get on with whatever it is we were doing.

However, since owning a property in Spain, and now living here permanently, we have had very regular realisations, on an annual basis, that here in Spain incidences of Wildfires are a very real threat, so Shazza and I take a lot more notice of any that are reported, both within our local area, for which their have been three so far, and also several other’s further afield. That isn’t for just ‘General’ Interest, as these Wildfires can occur without warning and spread within minutes at an extremely rapid rate, not helped by the strong winds that fan the flames, for wildfires know no boundaries. By way of an example, very recently, on the day that we had travelled to Malaga, a Wildfire had caused part of the A7, that we would use on our way home, to be closed. We were not aware of this whilst we were in Malaga, we had other things on our mind and had no reason to check our Google Maps App. Fortunately, the fire had been brought under control and the road re-opened by the time we travelled back on it and, in reality, we would have been stopped well before we got anywhere near it, but we actually only learnt about it later that evening on the local news. But it reminded us of an incident in our former nomadic lives, we had been Wild-Camping for a couple of nights in an inland forested area in Central Portugal, on our way down to the Algarve. By sheer luck, we had got talking one morning to a local, who asked if we were aware of the Wildfire a few miles away, we weren’t, as we didn’t listen to the local Portuguese news, we didn’t know the language 🤷‍♂️ A few days later, sat in the comfort of our van on a campsite down on the Algarve, we learnt that that particular fire went on to burn for many days, burning thousands of acres and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people, including those in the area where we had been discreetly hidden away 😲 The thought haunted us for many year’s after that, ‘What would have happened to us, if we had decided to remain in that discreet spot for a few more days ?’ 😲 Now, recalling that incident, serves to remind us of just how real these situations are, how quickly they can develop and just how close we now live to them.

Initially, the news articles made no reference of any of the foreign nationals fatalities as being those that were in Motor-Homes or Camper-Vans, only a general reference to ‘Vehicles’, although it later transpired that these were British and Belgian Nationals who were ‘residents’ in the area. However, recent reports from some of the survivor’s made us realise at how, during our own Portugal experience, that Motorhome ‘Aires’ or ‘Campsites had actually offered us no safety.

Another was just as chilling…………….

The following images reflect on just how close these recent Wildfires came to populated areas, and at how ferocious they can be. I do not include these frightening images for ‘Sensationalism’, just to show that there is a very thin line between a tranquil and safe existence here in Spain, much like what we enjoy on a daily basis but, there are also some less desirable realities of doing so, whether or not you choose to live in more isolated rural communities or down in the much more populated holiday hotspots (Definitely no Pun intended).

Similar scenes are being played out in several other countries too, it isn’t confined to just Spain, last year Italy and Greece made the major news headlines, especially Athens, where one such Wildfire threatened to overwhelm the city itself. These events have become much more frequent, they are annual events but each year they are getting more frequent and much more intense. It is the word ‘Frequency’ that should concern all of us, for no matter where we live in the world or whether it be Wildfires, Earthquakes, Volcanic Eruptions, Floods, Storms etc. for we are regularly being warned by the respective Scientists and Meteorologists, that all of these events are getting worse, year on year.

As if the current Wildfires dangers are not enough, now, here in Spain, it is about to get even worse as another frequent annual event returns to fan those flames of destruction, and raise the already high temperatures to yet another level.

So yes, Shazza and myself can sit and be left speechless at some of the most amazing and enjoyable Sunrises and Sunsets, we can take leisurely walks along miles of long sandy beaches enjoying the water lapping over our feet, we can sit in the shade of an umbrella on a beach, or by our swimming pool, or under a shaded terrace enjoying Cafe con Leche’s, Lunches and Dinner’s and yes, this is the serene, idyllic and pretty much regular part of our daily lives here in Spain, but as each year passes, the realities of our rapidly heating planet call by, and they provide us with a bit of a wake up call 😳. There are two questions that I am often left asking myself, about Global Warming and Climate Change in particular, they are, ‘Can we as individual’s, do anymore than we are already trying to do ?’ And the other question of course is, “Should we stop worrying about the things that we can neither control or influence ?”

So I know that this has probably not been one of my more lighter rambles for you to read, but it does show the other ‘less pleasurable’ side of living here, and I do try to be honest with you and paint an accurate picture of what life is like for us here in Spain, which like anywhere else can, more often than not, be extremely good, but then, occasionally, for a variety of reasons, perhaps be not so good at times.

In Other ‘Slightly Better’ News……………

Both my Spanish and English flags remain flying on my balcony, as both countries progress to the Semi-Finals stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup competition 🎉🎉🎉 Perhaps contrary to something that I ‘may’ have stated in a previous ramble, maybe, just maybe, we can start to believe that instead of stealing the prestigious World Cup Trophy, and hiding it in their Cabin Baggage, this England team may possibly be able to ‘Bring It Home’ and quite legally 🤔

Now some of you may recall that I have previously stated, somewhat surprisingly, that in all the times we have been coming here to what was initially our ‘Bolt Hole’, before becoming our now permanent home, that we had never witnessed any drunken or loutish behaviour in either the Marina or our local town, on any day or night of the week, or during Fiesta’s that go on until the early hours of the mornings. Well perhaps this next recent media report may provide the answer to why that may be.

Well I believe that this slightly amended Ramble, from the original one I had in ‘Draft’, is lengthy enough to enable those of you suffering with ‘Insomnia’ to at least get some relief from your ailment, so of course, it goes without saying, that I am always pleased to be of service 😂

You may also be pleased to hear that, come Floods, Earthquakes, Wildfires or the ever increasing temperatures, Shazza and I will just continue to attempt to exist the best that we can, for as long as we can, what more can anyone do 🤷‍♂️ Although on a less happy note, for some of you that is, that does mean me that I will almost certainly be producing and publishing a hell of a lot more ‘Rambles’ 😳 So, until the next time……………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos