Author: Eric and Shazza

Although I have to confess at being a little disappointed, with the rain finally succeeding in thwarting our last couple of days of sightseeing in Northern Spain, we should I guess be thankful for at least having managed to drive, what had been a little under 700 miles, from our home in the South all the way to Santander with some pretty decent weather throughout and, in-between, spending a good couple of days in Segovia. We had seen the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast for the UK, as well as being told by family and friends, that the British Isles had been experiencing a heatwave over the last couple of weeks, so our fingers were firmly crossed that this would extend a little longer, especially as we would be travelling quite extensively up and down the country during our time in the UK 🙏

Now prior to our departure from Santander I had received a text message from our friends Paul & Debs, they were currently in the UK, but would soon be on their way to their holiday home in Spain, in their Motorhome and via a road trip tour of France, Northern Spain and Portugal on their latest 90 day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ trip. Out of sheer coincidence, their ferry to France, from Portsmouth, did not depart until 11pm on the very same evening that we ourselves were due to dock in Portsmouth at around 5:30pm. They suggested a brief coffee and catch-up somewhere just outside of Portsmouth, although we often speak with them on-line we had not actually seen them, in the flesh so to speak, for eighteen months. However, my concern was that we didn’t know whether our ferry would actually arrive on time, being very much dependent on the sea conditions, this can often mean docking much later than scheduled and then, once we had, disembarking the ferry has, on a lot of previous trips, taken as long as one hour before finally joining the queues of Cars, Caravans, Motor Homes and Camper Vans waiting to get through the UK Immigration and Customs control point, so the combination of these things could all have had an impact on the time that realistically we would get ‘On the Road’ to commence our road journey. We were intending travelling straight up to Wiltshire, hoping to get there before it got dark, at around 8pm, as after that we would need to use our headlights which, since importing our car into Spain, were now set for driving in Europe. We had been unable to purchase any headlight ‘Beam Benders’ for use in the UK so, any delays upon our arrival could make it touch and go as to whether we would make it in time. However, as it happened, we were able to purchase some in the on-board ferry shop and using the ‘free’ onboard WiFi to message our friends we contacted them and arranged a mutually convenient location to meet up, which was only only a short drive from the Port.

Over the last twelve year’s, we must have been using this ‘Bay of Biscay’ route back and forth on around at least fifty separate occasions, and I can count, probably using no more than three fingers, how many of those were calm crossings, although it now looks as though I will have to utilise a further finger in any future references 🤭 as this turned out to be one of those rare, but very pleasant, super calm crossings, much to Shazza’s pleasure, as she normally has to confine herself in a horizontal position in the cabin for the full duration of the crossing 🤢🤮

Now we are by no means flushed with money, but we do like to splash out and pay an additional cost for access to the on-board ‘Premium Lounge’, which is a very comfortable seating area which means that we do not have to do battle in either of the two on-board restaurants as food and drinks are also provided in the lounge. The two main restaurants, one of which is table service which in truth isn’t bad, although you do have to reserve a table in advance and they tell you what time your table reservation will be available, the other entails a canteen style affair and by the time that you have made your selections, followed the line down to the pay point, find a table, then your meal is, at best, Luke warm, unless of course you select the salad options. Although, you do also have to book the ‘Premiere Lounge’ at the time of booking the actual crossing, as access numbers to the lounge are limited and so, if you leave it too late it is ‘usually’ already fully booked. The Premier Lounge, as I have said, is not a Restaurant facility as such, although it does have a wide selection of self-service buffet style food available, both hot and cold, and cakes and desserts at Breakfast, Lunch and in the early evening, with an assortment of drinks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, teas and coffee, all of which is included in the cost of the Lounge Access, their are no restrictions on how much food, or drinks, you can help yourself to. The seating area in the lounge is large and very comfortable, with large panoramic windows and I think many must spend most of their time in there, as we tend to observe the same people occupying exactly the same seating areas whenever we return to it, all areas of the ship provide free ‘ninety-minute’ access to the WiFi, although you can purchase packages that give longer accessibility so, using this lounge during the crossing can be a lot more comfortable than staying in your cabin. However, Shazza and I like to roam around the ship, exploring the inner and outer decks, and even if we do not require to purchase anything we still have a walk around the gift shop and duty-free area, but on this occasion we did purchase a bottle of Shazza’s mums favourite tipple and I treated myself to a bottle of my favourite Cologne and Shazza bought a new Perfume, and of course not forgetting the necessary ‘Beam Benders’. When the crossings are as good as this we like to get outside on deck and enjoy a breath of fresh air and, if we are lucky, to do some Whale and Dolphin spotting. We had seen a pod of dolphins swimming off the bow just as we left Port, but no more Dolphins, or Whales, during the rest of the crossing ☹️ Then, feeling re-invigorated and windswept, we returned to the cabin to just prop ourselves up on our respective single beds and flicked through the TV channels, as usual there was nothing much of interest unless you are interested in afternoon ‘Soaps’ in Spanish, French or English so we just relaxed on our beds and read our books on our Kindle devices. It wasn’t long before I was enjoying one of my favourite bits of these crossings, the impromptu siesta’s 🤭 But to be perfectly honest, for us this really is an opportunity to enjoy some enforced relaxation, which is the very much required calm before the storm of our upcoming hectic period in the UK.

With such a calm crossing we docked on schedule and, after a slight delay 🤷‍♂️ we disembarked and made our way to the holding area until we were waved towards an Immigration booth. The young, friendly female Border Control Officer obviously hadn’t noticed our ‘foreign’ registration plates when she asked, “How long have you been away for ?”, an answer we suspected she already knew, as she had checked our passport stamps before asking the question and which reflected that we had last departed the UK on 12th June 2023 with no European exit stamps except for the recent Santander one. Shazza responded in a matter of fact sort of way, “Nearly Two years”, she said, “Oh, do you live in Europe ?”, again an answer she already knew, from our Spanish Residency Visa’s, “Yes, in Southern Spain” Shazza responded, “Are you back in the UK for long” came the next question and so Shazza explained that it was a three week visit to see Children, Grandchildren, other Family and Freinds, “Oh very nice, enjoy your holiday” she said, handing us back our passports and then we were on our way. It hadn’t felt like a ‘grilling’ but we knew that it was 😉

We sent a text to let Paul and Debs know that we were on our way and soon, the four of us were sat around a table in a Cafe having a well overdue catch-up and general gossip. Although texts on on-line social media channels are fine for short conversations and exchanging the odd photo’s, you cannot beat a good face to face chin wag 👍 Although we didn’t make any firm commitments we agreed that, once our family visitors had departed, we had got our car serviced and had the bathroom renovation completed, if the opportunity arose, before they had to return to the UK, we could both try and find some time to have another meet up, somewhere in Spain. I was a bit frustrated with myself as usually I would take such opportunities to take a photo of the four of us together, for our personal photo album as well as one to put in the blog, but we knew they needed to get to the Port to check-in for their outbound ferry, and they knew we needed to get back on the road to make our way North, so after hugs and kisses and saying our goodbyes, we waved each other off. But it will be another one of those ‘Chance Encounters And Fortunate Coincidences’ that we have had several of over the year’s, and will remain in our memories for when we do meet up again and say “Do you remember the time when…………….”

Due to our stop to meet Paul and Debs, once we got back on the road the traffic had become much lighter and so we had a relatively easy run to Swindon, the majority of it on dual carriageway or motorway and mainly in daylight, although it was just turning dusk as we arrived, so it wasn’t dark enough to be able to check whether I had fitted the stick-on beam benders in the correct place, we didn’t intend doing much night driving so I wasn’t overly worried, and as long as it didn’t rain and become overcast when we would then of course need to use our headlights 🙄

We had booked into a local hotel for three nights, it was one that we had used on previous occasions, it was clean, comfortable and quiet and would serve to give us some space at the end of each of the hectic day’s, having three very excitable and energetic granddaughter’s demanding our complete attention and, very recently, the addition of a new puppy, which apparently cries at night. We rang to tell them that we had arrived safely and were inundated with millions of questions, okay, a slight over exaggeration, but all three granddaughter’s asked the same questions, repeatedly, “Are you coming for breakfast ?”, “What time will you get here in the morning ?”, “Are we still going bowling ?”, something that we had arranged to do in our earlier on-line video calls before leaving Spain, “Can you take us to the park ?”, “Why are you not sleeping at our house ?”, ‘How long are you staying ?”…….. well I guess by now you get the picture, so although we had enjoyed our calm before the storm relaxation on the ferry crossing, we still doubted whether our ageing batteries would last very long, perhaps they may allow us a short siesta break at some point during each day, but somehow we doubted it 🙄

We had a fantastic couple of days, the Twinnies are now rapidly approaching their 10th birthday’s and the youngest her 7th, so at least now we can have proper conversations with each of them, although there is now a downside, the twinnies are much more ‘streetwise’ and so tend to be more prone these days to disbelieve, rather than take at face value, many of Grandad’s tall stories anymore, although the youngest, still innocent and naive will still spring to my defence and tell her big sister’s “Of course it’s the truth if Grandad says it is” bless her little cotton socks 🤭

We were both back at the hotel, in bed and fast asleep by 9:30pm on that first active day 😲😴 but we awoke refreshed the following morning ready for 🤷‍♂️ well whatever our ‘little darlings’ wanted to do that day. A walk to the park, followed by a call in to the ice-cream shop on the way back, then out to the local McArthur Glen shopping mall for a look around the shops, the toy shops, bookshops, girls make-up and accessories and then a play in the indoor children’s play area, although at least in there we were pleased to be able to have a sit down and it was only our ‘Ear’s that got a work out’, listening to three-different voices shouting from three different directions, “Nana, Grandad, look at what I can do”, I just knew that our necks would be aching the following day. We were pleased when it was time to go for our late Lunch, the girls had selected their favourite Pizza Restaurant. The three of them never seem to stop, no wonder they are all so skinny and can eat all the junk food, they are like those ‘Duracell Rabbits’ you see on the TV, whilst Shazza and I put on several Kilo’s of weight just looking at the ‘Gut Busting Menu Items !’, oh to be young and to be able to eat whatever you like 🙄

For their upcoming birthdays the girls (twinnies) want to go on a girlie shopping trip to Birmingham with mum, and although dad will be going too, Orla stated, “Yuk, I don’t want to do that”, and then pulled a face in disgust. When I asked her what she wanted to do she said, without any hesitation, “Go to watch football with dad, then go to the pub” 😂😂

We had been enjoying some fantastic weather, the UK ‘Works of Fiction’ must have an upgraded crystal ball to the Spanish, and it was showing this early warm sunny weather to continue, although chilly first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The problem we had was that we were expecting cooler weather here than we had in Spain, so of course we had packed mainly cooler climate clothing, darn this unreliable bloody global warming 🙄

We travelled up to South Yorkshire on Shazza’s birthday, she didn’t want a fuss and her family would have likely organised a surprise celebration of some description or other, had they have known exactly when we would be arriving ‘Up North’, so Shazza had purposely left our arrival date a little vague, her mother being sworn to secrecy. We enjoyed a relatively relaxed start to the Easter period with a fairly quiet ‘Good Friday’, but we had visits, on different days over the Weekend, both from and to, her three Brothers and one of her Aunt’s and Uncle, who had invited us for tea on Easter Monday. On the Tuesday we drove to Lincolnshire to spend a day visiting my mother in her care home, she is not doing badly to say that she had only been given a couple of days to live, back in October 2022 😲 We took her out for the day and had a family lunch in a local pub with my brother, his wife and one of my nieces, and once again, we had the luxury of a really warm sunny day, albeit we were in our winter woolies 🤭 but at least we had remembered to bring our sunglasses 😎

We had left home some thirteen days ago now, it had flown past so quickly but we still had another thirteen days before we were due to return to Portsmouth to catch our ferry home and we still had lots to do. We were looking forward to having an opportunity to meet up with some more of our long time friends, another couple whom we regularly stay in touch with and who have visited us in Spain several times, for this re-union visit we had arranged to meet up in a place that neither of us had been to before, but more on that in the next ramble 😉

Our journey continues…………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

It was Saturday morning, we were scheduled to board our ferry in Santander, on the North Coast of Spain, which is around a four hour drive from Segovia, but not until the Sunday afternoon. Had we have stuck to ‘my’ original itinerary and stopped off at Toledo first, then we would have had just a relatively short drive to Segovia and then had the full day to do some sightseeing, stayed overnight and then just headed straight up to the ferry on the Sunday morning. However, my beloved, having other ideas about our route arrangements, meant that we would now have to look for another place to stop on our route between Segovia and Santander. After studying the map, and not having too much time to take any major deviations from it, we realised that we had already visited most of the major places and, those that we hadn’t, well they were to be part of a ‘future’ combined sightseeing tour where we would spend perhaps a week or two in this part of Northern Spain covering four or five towns and cities. However, a bit of good timing had just happened to play a part in the choice for our next destination.

I regularly follow selected travel Vlogs on ‘You Tube’, either Motorhome or Sailing related one’s. A week before we left home I just happened to be watching one of my sailing Vlogs, they had very recently moored up in Santander and done a day visit into the city. Now Shazza and I have often caught ferries from, or returned to, Santander on very many occasions over the last twelve year’s or so, but we have never really explored the city itself in any great depth during those times, we were either in a rush to catch the ferry to the UK, or to get back home to Southern Spain. So, after watching the sailing vlog, which revealed much more to Santander than either of us had really appreciated, I suggested that this could be the perfect place to stop, we would have the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning to explore, before then going to check in for our ferry at 1:45pm. Shazza gave her murmurings of approval then went on-line to research the accommodation availabilities. She had booked us a hotel right opposite the seafront and, according to Google Maps, only a five minute drive to the ferry vehicle check-in area. Additionally, and very conveniently, the hotel was just a two minute walk from the city centre and it had secure underground parking so, after a not such a good week, just prior to starting this trip, it seemed as though the stars were aligning for us once again, although to be honest we were still a little apprehensive waiting to see what the third thing would be that the ‘Dark Forces’ may have in store for us, but this time we were both on high alert and prepared for them. We had seen all the at sea disaster movies and ‘Titanic’, at least 5 times, so we knew how crowded the Lifeboats would be and, with Shazza not liking wet environments, we had planned ahead and brought ‘Kevin’ our inflatable dinghy with us, just in case we had to abandon ship, the bonus being that we knew from the British Media headlines over the last couple of year’s that, if we were anywhere near the French Coast in a dinghy, the French Coastguard would escort us safely into British waters and then contact the English RNLI ‘Who Would Come And Rescue Us’ 😂

I conducted the ‘Forrest Gump’ weather watch process out of the hotel room window and, much like the previous morning, the sky was grey, but thankfully it was dry 🙏 We decided not to bother with the buffet breakfast and agreed to just hit the road and get an early start, we would find a place to eat somewhere along our route where we could also re-fuel the car, so we checked-out of the hotel, put the luggage in the boot and off we went, it was 08:00am. My eye was a little blurry so Shazza elected to drive, we would swap later if my eye cleared. Just ten minutes into our journey we came across a small ‘Repsol’ service station, we much prefer using these branded fuel stations when in Spain, although at a push we will use ‘Cepsa’, ‘Shell’ or ‘BP’, although the latter two are always more expensive, however, this one did not have a Cafe so breakfast would have to wait. It would take us a little over an hour before we joined the main A62 motorway at Valladolid, which would then take us North towards our destination, the A62 being a very familiar road to us now. Although the road, until we reached the major motorway, was still all dual carriageway, it was traffic free and quiet, looking out at the changing rural scenery, forested areas, undulating arable fields and the occasional hamlets which were just stuck out in the middle of nowhere, it made the time pass extremely quickly. Once we had got onto the A62 the traffic increased, although compared with the UK motorways that we would soon encounter, in comparison these were always relatively quiet, anyway, we selected the first available services and stopped for breakfast, just our usual ‘Tostados’ and a coffee. Although the vision in my eye had cleared, Shazza said that she was more than happy to continue driving, the truth being that she can at times be a nervous passenger, especially when in busier traffic and, although she doesn’t voice it, I sense that she is probably much more concerned than she makes out about the slight impediment in the focus out of my right eye when in confined spaces, so she feels more comfortable when she is in control of the car. To be honest it works out quite well as she admits that I am better at navigating than her, she can then just concentrate on the actual driving, although I get the better end of the deal because in Spain, on long stretches of the motorway, there isn’t a lot of navigating to be done 🤭 It is strange really because, when we are at home, I generally do all of the driving in our local area, unless of course we are going supermarket shopping in the town where we have to park in the underground car park, which has subdued lighting and the fluorescent lights play havoc with my vision, it always reminds me of those scary murder mysteries that you watch, where several of the lights in dark areas always flicker, before a dark shadowy figure emerges from the gloom 🫣😳 but in my case it is just Shazza with her shopping bags.

We had made very good time in getting to our destination and although we didn’t really need to re-fuel again, just a few minutes outside of Santander we decided to just top up, the fuel being cheaper here in Spain than in the UK and, by doing so, it would mean that when we got to the UK that we would be able to drive from Portsmouth to Wiltshire, and then a few days later, drive up to South Yorkshire, before needing to re-fuel again.

Santander, being a major Port and Tourist City, was very busy with traffic, three lanes of bumper to bumper vehicles, but the hotel was easy enough to find with the aid of ‘Google Maps’ although, finding the entrance to the underground parking along a semi-pedestrianised back street was a little more complicated, and then we discovered that we needed to check-in first to get the electronic card to gain access to the car lift 🙄 Shazza waited in the car, whilst I went and did the check-in process and returned with the said electronic card, the lift descended us to the third subterranean level where our allocated parking bay was located.

The ‘Hotel Bahia’ was very plush and large, located just across the road from the seafront with a nice long promenade that led to a sandy beach, to one side was a lovely spacious park and just behind it were all the main shopping streets, dispersed between a combination of the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ buildings of the city, their were modern shops, Cafe/Bars and restaurants in pedestrianised streets whilst their were also other shops along narrow streets with traffic, criss-crossing busy one-way roads, then there were churches and old historical stone buildings that were now being utilised to accommodate official Government administrative offices, it was a bit of a maze really but typical of most Spanish towns and cities, hopefully we would get a chance to explore them later, once we had got settled into our room and had a coffee, all the makings, and kettle, were provided in this hotel room.

We had been allocated a room on the third floor that looked out upon part of the rear of the Cathedral and directly below the window, a pedestrianised area that had several Cafe/Bars, but we were high enough above so there was no noise. For security purposes we needed to use our electronic access room cards to operate the lifts, although we had not received any information on checking in to advise us of this, we were a little confused when the lift doors closed and then opened again only for us to discover that we were still on the ground floor level 🙄 When we eventually got to our room it was very spacious, as was the en-suite bathroom with its large walk-in shower, I thought to myself, we would have one of these ourselves, in just a few weeks time, when we had our en-suite bathroom completely renovated 🤗

We don’t know when the wet stuff had started, it was a fine drizzle so we hadn’t heard it on the windows and we had both been otherwise engaged, Shazza stuck with her nose in her Kindle and me surfing the Internet on my iPad, but we both agreed that we needed a breath of fresh air and we hadn’t eaten since our breakfast Tostado’s earlier that morning. Shazza had found a ‘Vegetarian’ Cafe on Google and it was only a two minute walk from the hotel, although it didn’t open until 8pm, but we thought we would do some sightseeing first and then call in and eat before returning to the hotel. As it was, as we passed the location of the Cafe, we discovered that it had recently closed down, although it had to have been very recently as the last on-line review had only been put on two weeks ago 🤷‍♂️

The drizzle turned into light rain and although we discovered the pedestrianised streets, they were not undercover, so we went in hunt of a suitable eatery to get us out of the rain and somewhere that would offer Shazza something other than a ‘Goats Cheese Salad’ 🙄 Fortunately, being a ‘Flexitarean’, I like that description because it makes me sound fit and youthful 🏋️💪🏃‍♂️🤭 but it means that I can eat anything, at any eatery, whether it be ‘Vegan’, ‘Vegetarian’ or otherwise, however, as Shazza had treated me to the ‘Suckling Pig’ restaurant in Segovia, I wanted to return the gesture by finding her somewhere where she had a few more healthier options.

It was beginning to get dark, it was wet, although not really cold and we had wandered up and down the numerous avenues and alleyways (I feel a Tony Christie song coming on 🤭) 🎶 I did what I did for my Shazza 🎶 😂 However, whilst there were plenty of Bar/Cafe’s and Restaurants, with the usual variety of Salad options there was nowhere that specialised in, or offered, a vegan type selection, grilled or roasted vegetables with a baked potato would have sufficed and the only establishments offering anything like that were those that sold Vegetarian ‘Pizzas’ 🤷‍♂️ In the end, Shazza’s stomach clock dictated that anything would do, even a ‘Veggie Burger’ and we fell upon a small little corner eatery that advertised speciality ‘Burgers’. It was quite a popular place with all age groups and with families and we were fortunate to grab the last unoccupied table. We liked it because it had a homely feeling to it, not a ‘Burger King’ or ‘McDonalds’ corporate fast food establishment and the list of menu items, both starters and mains fitted on to one sheet of A4 sized paper, presented to us on a cork clipboard. I had a house special which was, to me, just a normal thick ‘home-made burger’, thick slice of proper bacon, cheese and a mustard sauce, not a single lettuce leaf, sliced tomato or gherkin in sight and it was accompanied with a modest serving of proper ‘skin on’ thick cut chips, ‘Muy Sabroso’ (Very Tasty 😋) as we say here in Spain. Shazza had decided against a veggie burger and opted for the ‘Veggie Lasagne’ which unfortunately, whilst being full of melted cheese and pasta, lacked any of what should have been the ‘main ingredient’, the vegetables, so she had lucked out once again 😢 We decided to commiserate by opting for a dessert, Shazza ordered a slice of Chocolate Fudge Cake and me a slice of American Carrot Cake, what arrived looked and tasted ‘Delicioso’ (Delicious) but we only wanted a slice of cake, not a quarter of the whole cake 😲 We did the best we could but in the end we both failed to meet the challenges placed before us. The photo’s below are of what we both left !!

When we left the Cafe it was properly dark, although the rain had stopped and the streets were buzzing with life, the Cafe/Bars were pretty busy and even in the damp night air the ambience was infectious, so much so that we just wandered aimlessly taking it all in.

We had slept well and awoken early but were greeted with heavy rain tapping on the window. We were disappointed as we had hoped to do some sightseeing during the morning, before having to check-out at 12pm and then reporting to Brittany Ferries for our 2:30pm sailing. We sat checking the morning news media on our iPads and my attention was grabbed by this particular headline………………

This had happened on the day that we had departed Segovia. At first I thought it was perhaps a suicide with the way the headline was worded, but reading the article it would appear that the man was taking a photograph from the viewing area when he lost his balance and fell. The thing is, the turreted wall at the viewing platform, where we too had taken some photo’s, is safe enough, unless you actually climb on to the wall to get a better photo, or perhaps try to take a Selfie with the Aqueduct in the background 🤷‍♂️ Whatever the circumstances, you have to ask what lengths, and risks, would you take for the sake of a holiday snap 🤔 I have to confess to you my reader’s, not even I would go to such lengths to provide you with better photographs in my blogs. Yes I already know what some of you may be thinking, self, self, self Eric 😂 However, at least you are safe in the knowledge that I am still here to continue to provide you with lots of future photographs from our travel adventures, I know, you don’t have to tell me just how grateful you feel about that 🤭

Fortunately the heavy rain eased to light drizzle by 10:30am and we decided to go for it, neither of us were hungry and we knew that, as we had booked access to the ‘Premier Lounge’ on the ferry, we could get a late buffet lunch once settled into our cabin.

Being a Sunday morning the streets were pretty quiet, the shops were closed, although a handful of small Cafe/Bars were open. We wandered towards the Cathedral but that was getting ready for the morning Catholic service, so we gave it a miss. It was nice to just amble through the streets and the nearby park, but we were not relaxed with having to keep one eye on the time with the knowledge that we had to complete packing the last bits into our cases and backpacks, we would leave the cases in the car once boarded and just take our backpacks and essentials up to our assigned cabin, but we needed to check-out, then go and retrieve the car from the depths of the underground car park before finding our way through the maze of one-way streets to the ferry terminal, to describe my OCD Buddy as being a bit nervous, bordering on irritable, knowing that we could not afford to wander aimlessly for too long, would be a bit of an understatement 🙄

To be honest, at this point it was damp, not particularly cold but we were just killing time, we walked across to the seafront, the sea looked nice and calm, but we knew that things could change once the ferry left the safety and protection of the inner harbour and entered the open water of the notoriously choppy ‘Bay of Biscay’. We had both had enough, to do the place justice we would perhaps need to return on another day, when it was both warmer and we would not be under such time restrictions, so we made our way back to the hotel.

We had assumed that the traffic on a Sunday would be less busy, we were wrong ! Even Google Maps couldn’t keep pace with the number of side streets, some traffic light controlled, causing the busy traffic to accumulate, other side streets were only one-way traffic, and those one way streets were not in the direction we wanted them to be, Shazza was getting a little overwhelmed having to keep her eyes going in all directions, the rear view mirror, door mirrors, side and front windows and so she missed my instruction to turn left at the appropriate time, so we ended up doing two circuits of the same streets, but at least we got to see buildings and shop fronts we had missed the first time around 🤭My next very clear navigational instruction was, “At the traffic lights, go straight across and then, immediately after the lights, take the slip road to the right”, unfortunately we were in three lanes of busy traffic and in her deep concentration she mis-heard me and turned right immediately ‘before’ the traffic lights and we ended up in a car park 😂 But all credit to her, Shazza never gets flustered, she maintained her calm, we both laughed and between us, eventually, we managed to navigate ourselves safely to the vehicle check-in huts at the ferry terminal. We smiled when we considered the fact that no other vehicle had ‘beeped’ us, not once, as we slowly and maybe just a little nervously, manoeuvred ourselves through the busy streets, and we could only assume that on another day, this may have been a different kettle of fish, if we had been displaying UK vehicle registration plates instead of our Spanish one 😂

As usual we handed over our Passports at the Immigration Control desk, but on this occasion they were open at the pages which displayed our Residency Visas, the friendly Official asked us for our ‘TIE’ Residency Cards, then checked them on his computer before inserting an exit stamp into our passports and passed them back saying, “Que tengas unas buenas vacaciones’ (Have a nice holiday). We didn’t have to wait too long before being boarded, then we got settled into our cabin before making our way to the ‘Premier Lounge’ where we enjoyed a spot of lunch whilst sat watching the ferry manoeuvre from the mooring and out to sea, through the large floor to ceiling windows, it was like being at the helm of the vessel myself. There was only the slightest of swells as we entered the vastness of the ‘Bay of Biscay’, it would be a 27 hour crossing, our next stop Portsmouth.

Our journey continues so, until the next ramble………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Looking at the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast before we departed home, it seemed as if it would be touch and go as to whether we managed to get to Segovia before the wet stuff arrived and, disappointingly, our planned full sightseeing day the following day also looked as if that could be a wash out too, so we both just crossed our fingers in the hope that it was just another one of their ‘brain fart’ predictions 🤭

We (Shazza) had decided to make an early start so, the night before our departure, she dusted off the alarm clock and set it for 6:30am 😲 We were pretty much organised beforehand though, I had already put our small individual cases, and a shopping bag of essentials 🤷‍♂️ into the car the previous evening so that we could get away promptly, and so it was that by 7:30am we were pulling away from the car park. Shazza had decided against wearing shorts, she doesn’t do wet or cold very well and having looked at the forecast for our destination she had talked herself into the safer option, albeit that it was already 17 degrees(c) and felt pretty warm when we departed with dawn just about breaking. With only around six pesky little black dots floating around in my eyeball, I had opted to take the first stint at driving, before the remaining members of the small fly family had awoken and joined them, I had planned on attempting to do around three hour’s before we made the first ‘mandatory’ Shazza breakfast stop, then we would change over driving duties. As it was I managed around two and a half hours before Shazza’s stomach clock required attention, although we also made a further two stops, but just for a coffee and ‘Comfort Break’. In the main the roads were relatively quiet, although getting around Estepona, Malaga and Madrid slowed us down a little more than we had anticipated due to the volume of traffic so, with our driving breaks, it ended up taking us a little over eight hours before eventually arriving at our pre-booked hotel in Segovia. Worth just noting, considering how I like to always mention the customary ineptitude of the ‘Works of Fiction’, from the very pleasantly dry and warm 17 degrees(c) when we departed, the temperature continued to rise steadily in the bright blue sun-filled sky all the way to Segovia, it was 21 degrees(c) when we arrived at 4pm and we had not seen a single drop of rain throughout the whole journey, so we agreed that shorts and tee-shirts would probably have been the better option 🤷‍♂️

The hotel was very nice and our allocated room, on the first floor, was clean, airy and spacious and overlooked a quiet back street. Surprisingly, neither of us felt that hungry so we decided to just relax in the room after a long drive and so we made ourselves a nice hot cuppa, we had brought our own supplies as usual as you can never guarantee getting them provided in the room, it had been a good decision.

Not knowing whether the ‘Works of Fiction’ would get it right, or wrong for the following day, we both agreed to get out and do as much sightseeing as we could in what was left of the daylight and sunshine and we both needed to stretch our legs after the long drive. According to ‘Google Maps’ on our iPhones, the city centre, and more importantly, the iconic ‘Aquaduct’, was only a thirty minute walk from the hotel. From the amount of traffic, and pedestrians, that were out and about, it was apparent that the ‘Siesta’ period was over and although normally we would just wander amongst the side streets and narrow alleys, we agreed this time to just follow the directions to the Aquaduct and then take it from there. There was quite a lot to see in Segovia, the Iconic Roman Aquaduct, is made up of 24,000 large granite blocks and they are joined together without any mortar. It has 160 arches and stands, at its highest point, 28 metres (93 feet), and amazingly it still carries water 16km (10 miles) from the ‘Frio River’ into the city. But there is so much more to see, such as Medieval Walls that skirt the city, Romanesque Churches, Cathedral, Alcazar and of course, as in most Spanish Towns and Cities the ‘Plaza Mejor’, some of which are more impressive than other’s but, just how much we will actually get to see in Segovia we didn’t know. Now, and, as you already know, Shazza and I are very much history heathens, but we do like looking at old impressive architectures like these, and no, before you even think it, with Shazza herself due to reach a milestone birthday in only a few days time, that doesn’t mean that these days we could both now just stand in front of the mirror to view some wonderful old architectural structures 🤭 What does impress us though is that these, and many other historical structures around the world, were built many thousands of year’s ago (Not of course referring to our own personal bodily structures) and they are still standing today, many of them still functional, but just how many of today’s modern structures will still be around in perhaps only a thousand year’s, let alone tens of thousands 🤔

Of course, standing at the bottom and looking up is good, but I wanted to get higher up and view it from there and that meant climbing steps, lots of them 😲 Their was a ‘Mirador’ (Viewing Point) but of course it involved waiting patiently in line, behind all the other tourists, until they had taken all of their obligatory ‘We were here’ photographs.

We were so impressed that we wandered along the base of the Aquaduct, to places that were devoid of people and not on the tourist route, but time was beginning to crack on, it was still quite pleasantly warm and we were in our short-sleeved shirts, although we had taken fleece-lined jackets with us, just in case the temperatures suddenly dropped or the forecasted wet stuff arrived. After we had exhausted viewing the Aquaduct from as many angles as possible it was time to begin our more usual exploration technique, we had got ourselves lost and disorientated, but rather than go to ‘Google’ we just agreed to wander and rely on each other’s instinct, once again that technique proved to be the best decision, as we saw lots of wonderful old style houses, churches and other religious looking buildings, hidden down the maze of cobbled streets and alleyways.

After a lot of ‘’shall we go this way’ decisions, combined with instinct, and probably quite a lot of just sheer luck, we found ourselves back in the much busier pedestrianised cobbled streets, so we once again joined the hustle and bustle, occasionally stopping to look in some of the food shop windows, I certainly put on a few kilo’s just salivating at all the meat products on display, local specialities along with the usual ‘Empanadas’ and Chorizo’s, but I resisted, although that may have had more to do with Shazza giving me a tug on my shirt as I headed nearer to the entrance, “I am just saving you from yourself” she said, with a grin and a wink, she was right of course because I have the willpower of a Gnat 🤭

We came to the end of this long but narrow street of shops and suddenly it just opened up in front of us, how fortuitous, the ‘Plaza Mejor‘ with cafe/bars and restaurants lining the square and, at one end, the large Cathedral, it was like a find one get one free offer 😂 By this time we were ready for some liquid refreshment and I can neither confirm, or deny, whether I may or may not also have suggested us partaking in perhaps a Tapa’s or two 😉 She talked me out of the Tapa’s bit by informing me that she wanted to treat me to a meal at a restaurant she had researched which had good reviews.

We should have known better, but we were both quite thirsty after our long meanderings, as well as being suckers for good people watching opportunities, the Plaza offered great views in the last of the evening sunshine and so it was that, not for the first time, we once again permitted ourselves to be mugged in broad daylight. We ordered two small beers, and yes they were cold and very refreshing, but I couldn’t recall having said to the waiter at the time of ordering that I had wanted to purchase shares in the establishment 😲 €9 for two ‘small’ beers, three times the price we would pay at home, probably a good job I hadn’t ordered the tapa’s although, upon reflection, I perhaps should have invested in a few shares in this establishment as they were certainly ‘milking’ the customer’s 🤔 “So where are you taking me for dinner this evening ?” I asked, which prompted her to give me the full song and verse but I will précis it for you, as Mr Google explains it quite well and much more concisely.

Although she had not booked a table at the ‘Jose Maria’ restaurant in advance, she told me that it was just around the corner and, if we couldn’t get a table at that particular restaurant then there were a couple of other establishments, not that far away, she assured me, that also had got good reviews. Now I have had plenty of ‘Hog Roasts’ over the year’s but I cannot recall ever having ‘Roast Suckling Pig’, so I wondered whether there would be a difference 🤷‍♂️

We managed to get a table, probably because although late for us to eat dinner, it was too early for the Spanish, so the place wasn’t that busy, perhaps the rather nice linen tablecloths and napkins had put off other tourists who may have felt under-dressed for such an establishment. We on the other hand knew, from our experience of living here in Spain that, other than for very formal occasions, their is no dress code, the Spanish enjoying a much more informal and relaxed dining experience, so although we were wearing jean’s and short-sleeved shirts we were not out of place. The uniformed waiting staff were very friendly and attentive and although we had spoken in Spanish we were a little bit miffed that they immediately spoke to us in English and presented us with menu’s also in English ☹️ I guess that with not looking Spanish, and them being more used to dealing mainly with ‘Tourists’, they had assumed that we fitted into that category 🤷‍♂️ We each selected a nice glass of red wine to accompany our meal and a starter to share, marinated roasted pepper served with white sliced onion, anchovies and a huge chunk of bread. Shazza went for a more ‘vegetarian’ option for her main course whilst I obviously went for the local delicacy of ‘Cochinillo’. Now when Shazza had this, several year’s ago when she was a meat eater, the baby piglet came whole in a ceramic dish and was accompanied with vegetables in a tasty broth and some nice crispy crackling. My version was served on a normal dinner plate, but only a leg, no vegetables of any description and the waiter ladled a clear broth over the top of it. Now I am used to Pork Crackling but whilst the skin on this portion was crisp, it was wafer thin and certainly not what I had envisiged. To be honest, it was quite underwhelming and when we did finally ask for the bill I nearly fell off my chair 😲 I can only assume that both Senor’s ‘Zuckerberg’ and ‘Rajoy’ have inferior gastronomy standards to our own. Shazza and I both agreed that it was not the experience that we had imagined it would be, we probably should have just stuck with a selection of nice tasty Tapa’s, but at the Plaza establishment which we had only just recently acquired shares in 🤭

By the time we had finished our meal and departed the restaurant it was dark outside, but still pleasantly warm, however we were tired and all walked out, it had been a very long day, so we headed back to the hotel, made ourselves a coffee and then went to sleep wondering what type of weather would greet us when we awoke the following morning 🤷‍♂️

We had both slept well and, when I took a peak outside the window I could see the wet road and pavement, although it wasn’t raining at the time, so it had fallen at some point during the early hours and, unlike the previous day, the sky was wall to wall grey cloud and when we checked the forecast it continued to show a full day of rain. We went down to breakfast, included in the price of the room, where they had all the usual buffet breakfast options, it would see us on until we decided what to do for the rest of the day. Having got back to the room we agreed to go out whilst it was dry but we would take our rain jackets instead of our fleeces.

The only place left on ‘my’ actual to do list whilst in Segovia was the ‘Alcazar’, Google maps showed it to be further away than the centre but still within a comfortable walking distance. It had been too late to actually visit the Cathedral the previous day, usually somewhere that Shazza likes to visit, and it would be on today’s route, but somewhat surprisingly she said that she wasn’t that interested really, “Seen one Cathedral seen them all really” she said quite nonchalantly. So we agreed that ‘It Was Worth The Risk’ to get out and just hope that the ‘Works of Fiction’ get it wrong once again, we certainly didn’t want to spend a whole day stuck in a hotel room, as nice as it was.

Once outside we found that although the sky was grey, it was actually quite warm and we had to take our rain jackets off and carry them. We took a slightly different route and just followed the old city walls, which took us straight to the Aquaduct Plaza location and then on to the Plaza Mejor and Cathedral, it seemed much quicker than the previous day’s wanderings 🙄 As we passed the Cathedral, which was now open to visitor’s, I checked again with Shazza to see if she had changed her mind about going in for a look around, “We do have all day to do sightseeing there is no hurry” I said to her, but she was quite adamant that she wasn’t really that bothered 🤷‍♂️ The plaza was eerily quite, lacking any real number of other people, only the odd one or two sat having morning coffee and croissants, we made an assumption that they were probably French tourists as we saw nobody eating either ‘Tostados’ or ‘Churro’s or a ‘Full English’. We wandered along a few narrow cobbled streets until we reached the lower walled ramparts, in several areas along the wall they had viewing platforms, from one of them we could see a side view of the ‘Alcazar’, but it didn’t look that impressive and I began to wonder whether it would be worth the effort once we arrived, as we had been disappointed at a few other Alcazaba’s that we had visited. Whether it was because we had left the protection of the tall buildings in the city, or because we were now in the open, but the temperature seemed to have dropped quite rapidly, forcing us to put our rain jackets back on, although it had still, so far at least, managed to remain dry.

I had looked on the Alcazar’s website the previous evening and saw that the entrance fee was €10 each, although to enter the gardens there was no charge, but neither were there any ‘advertised’ discounts for those who were classed as ‘Seniors’. We entered the spacious building where we needed to purchase our tickets, we had arrived early and so there was no real queue, just a couple of other’s in front of us. When it came to pay the person behind the desk asked if we wanted to go up the tower, we both just said ‘Yes’ but didn’t ask if that incurred an extra charge, not that it would have mattered, we may as well do and see everything now that we were there 🤷‍♂️ I handed over a €20 note and was surprised when they gave me our tickets and €4 change 🤔 I didn’t think anything about it at the time and just put the receipt in my wallet. Now we could have paid a little extra and got one of those ‘Audio’ thingies that give you certain facts and information during the non-escorted tour, but that would certainly have been a waste of money for us history averse heathens 🤭

It was quite enjoyable just wandering in and out of all the rooms and the balconies, climbing stone steps to get to different levels and most of the rooms had displays from the different historical periods, we discovered that whilst it was used as a Royal Residence at one point, but the Alcazar was later handed over as a Military stronghold and Training Acadamy, and is still managed by the military to this day. Although there was a lot of displays in respect of the military history, which we did both find interesting to look at, Uniforms, Weapons etc. but a lot of the information was probably wasted on us, however, those interested in Military History would certainly have enough to see and read here, enough to keep them occupied for a good few hour’s, there is no time restriction on your visit. The only time constraint is for the climb up the 152 steps to the top of the tower, which is done at certain time slots in order to control and limit the numbers ascending and descending the very narrow spiral steps.

The tower was the last part of our particular tour and we made our way back down to the front public gardens. Now at this point I decided to dispose of the payment receipt, pointless carrying it around in my wallet, but taking a final glance at it I couldn’t help but have a snigger, “What are you sniggering about ?” Shazza asked, “Well, you know how you always ask if there is a discount for Senior’s and then find some pleasure in pointing out that it is just for me ?” I replied, “Did they take it off automatically without asking how old you were ?” she said. “Yes, they did” I answered, “So why is that funny ?” She said with a questionable look on her face, “Well my love, they also gave you a Senior’s discount too”, and I gave out a chuckle, needless to say she wasn’t impressed. “Just think how much money we can save now with both of us getting a Pensioner’s discount” I said 🤭 “And how do you fancy not being able to see out of your one remaining good eye ?” She said, and waved a closed fist at me 😲

We took a different route back towards the city centre, just wandering aimlessly down narrow cobbled streets as we normally do. We didn’t see many people, probably because we were off the normal tourist route, and just to confirm that, not one ‘Tourist Tat’ shop did we see, it was so quiet and peaceful and probably just as important, it had remained dry. We were both getting ready for a drink and some lunch, the Alcazar had a large Cafe/Bar within the public garden area, at tourist prices of course, so we started to look for a more suitable back street hostelry, somewhere that the locals would frequent, rather than the tourist muggers establishments.

From the outside, the entrance to the Cafe/Bar was small but, on entering, the internal space was quite large, although the majority of the tables were not occupied. There was an elderly chap stood at the bar and in one corner a table with two middle aged women drinking coffee. “Buenos Tardes’ they all said in unison as we approached the bar, which is normal here in Spain, “Buenos” we responded. The barman gave us a welcoming smile, “Bienvenido, como puedo ayudarte?” (Welcome, how can I help you ?) he asked, we of course answered in Spanish, ordering two coffee’s, a Cafe con Leche and a Cortado and asked if he had a menu. He gestured for us to go and sit at a table, telling us that he would bring our coffee’s to us. This was just a normal type Cafe/Bar, nothing sophisticated just good basic food, Shazza ordered a Calamari Sandwich with a side portion of patata’s, whilst I selected a Tortilla (Spanish Omelette) sandwich and a side portion of patata’s, expecting them to be the small baguette sized rolls that we are used to in our own area. What arrived made us both look at each other with raised eyebrows, the baguette rolls were twice the length and width and, the portion’s of patata’s, two individual bowls, were not the French fries we had anticipated, but small fried cubed pieces of potato, and each bowl contained massive portions. Had we have known the portion sizes we would have just ordered the one bowl 😲 We ordered a couple of beers and apologised for the both of us not managing to eat all of our food, we hate wasting food but we certainly couldn’t have stuffed anymore in. “No hay problema, estaba bien ?” (No problems, was it okay ?) he asked, “Muy Sabroso, Gracias” (Very tasty, thank you) we both replied, he gave another smile and we asked for ‘La Quenta’ (The Bill). Our eyebrow’s raised again when we received the bill, only €30 (£25) for four drinks and two generous sized and tasty meals. The old chap was still stood at the bar when we left, we hadn’t seen him with a drink all the time we had been in there, he had just chatted away to the barman, whom we assumed was the owner, the two women had left once and then returned again later and, as we left, as is customary, they all said “Luego” and we returned the pleasantry.

It was early afternoon and there was nothing else we needed, or wanted, to see or do, so we decided to go back and have a leisurely afternoon and evening in our hotel room. We also doubted that either of us would want a full meal later, so we had stopped off at one of the shops that I had been salivating outside off the previous day and this time there was no tug on my shirt, I purchased a small slice of something or other, a sort of outer pastry with three different flavoured meats inside, then we stopped at a small supermarket where Shazza purchased herself a pre-packed fajita with a ‘Vegetarian’ filling and a couple of packets of crisps, that would do us, probably not our most healthiest of meals but we must have already, over the last couple of day’s, walked a lot of the unhealthy calories off, well at least I was convinced 😂

Literally, just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel we felt the first spots of rain, “Perfect Timing” Shazza said, “This Forrest Gump principle of weather forecasting is far superior than the ‘Works of Fiction” I responded.

So that was the end of our two day visit to Segovia, it was well worth it too, plenty to see over the time we had spent here, and probably with even more to see within the local area had we selected to stay here longer but, for our purpose, it was enough and another place that we can now tick off our ‘To Do’ list.

Happy Easter to everyone, don’t eat too many Chocolate Eggs 😉

The journey continues…………………

Until the next ramble,

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

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

My original plan, for our proposed journey Northbound, before catching our UK bound ferry from Santander, was to make a two-night stop, first in the city of ‘Toledo’, for some sightseeing, before then proceeding just a little further North, only a couple of hour’s drive, to the city of ‘Segovia’, for a further two-night stopover, to do some more sightseeing, before we then proceeded to Santander to board our mid-afternoon, and 24 hour overnight ferry, to the UK.

I knew that ‘Toledo’ has long been a place that Shazza has often talked about wanting to visit, whilst ‘Segovia’ had been one of those places still outstanding on my own ‘To Do List’, so my thought was that we could kill two birds with one stone. It would entail a slight deviation from either of the two more usual routes that we would take when travelling up to the Northern Spanish Ferry Ports of Bilbao or Santander, but this slight deviation to our route would be a good thing, for it would provide for perhaps a nice change of scenery for part of the trip.

Personally speaking, I thought that it was a very good plan when I presented it to my beloved, but I was soon brought back down to earth with a thump, for she came up with her own different suggestion, now why shouldn’t that have surprised me 🙄 Her alternative suggestion was to miss out ‘Toledo’ altogether on this occasion and just head straight for ‘Segovia’, her explanation being, Toledo is only a one hour direct train ride away from the bustling capital city of Madrid, which is another City that we both wanted to return to, we had only really seen a small part of it on a very brief one day visit, very many year’s ago. So, she suggested that perhaps on a future mini-break, we could actually base ourselves in accommodation in Toledo, which is itself a very scenic town, and then, from our accommodation base, we could catch a train into Madrid, perhaps returning there over a period of a couple of days, so that would, allowing for travelling time, from home and then back again, mean that those two locations could be done separately, as a five or six day mini-break in their own right.

Okay, I had to admit that her idea did actually make a lot of sense because, apart from our upcoming trip to the UK, which to be honest with you, we are not actually considering as a true holiday for ourselves, more of a ‘duty visit’ which is going to entail lots of driving to different areas within the UK, and that trip itself will be for an elongated period, a little over three weeks in duration, and so, with our Spanish stops on the way up to the ferry, this will take it up to a month that we will have been away from home. We will still have another stopover somewhere else but you will discover where that will be in a future ramble (So yes, there will be a couple more rambles in the pipeline 😉)

These days, we much prefer to do more of what you may consider mini-breaks. So, as well as ‘Toledo’ and ‘Madrid’, we also have other Spanish towns and cities in mind too, many of which are also in pretty close proximity to each other, so Shazza’s thinking was that we could also group those together and perhaps turn them into similar ‘future’ combined mini-breaks 🤔 Although with Shazza, the use of that word ‘perhaps’ actually has no perhaps about it 🙄 We both do still want to continue to enjoy our travel adventures, albeit in truth we are both finding it difficult at times to drag ourselves away from our own very comfortable home, in our own little corner of the Costa del Sol but, there is also something quite nice about being able to do some slightly longer distance travelling occasionally, one’s that we can do independently, using our own transport and making stops at our own convenience. Those trips have the advantage of us not having to first travel to an Airport, or Ferry Terminal, then spend hour’s at Terminals in advance of the actual flights, or sea crossings whereas, using our own vehicle, also means not having to be concerned about weight allowances or size restrictions on our luggage, or the inevitable queues at the security and document checkpoints. No, being in control of such things is, in my opinion, far more enjoyable, much like it was when we were travelling in our Motor Home. Once at our selected destinations we can then choose to explore the local areas, either in our own vehicle, or use the local transportation if required, buses and trains, to get to wherever else we wanted to be, much like we did when we were travelling in our Motor Home, there seems to be a common theme developing here don’t you think 🤔 So best you don’t let on to Shazza about this or she will start checking the ‘Savings Pot’ much more regularly, for any sudden substantial withdrawal 😂😂

There may of course, be occasions, when getting to towns and cities further afield for our mini-breaks, may include us having to consider those alternative means of transport, for certain very practical reasons, faster travel times for example, so we never actually say never to anything, especially if our desire is to visit other Countries further afield, even within Europe. However, for now at least, we still have so much more of Spain, and of course nearby neighbouring Portugal, to visit, both of which we can do easily just using our own transport 🤗 However, I have digressed yet again, so time I think for me to get back to the current here and now.…………………….. 🤔

As you may have gathered, from my last ramble, I certainly had no intentions of publishing another ramble quite so soon, although I had planned to write one, or perhaps a couple more, in respect of our forthcoming Spanish and UK trips. As usual, the three of us, Shazza, myself and my OCD Buddy 🤭 had got ourselves organised. I had sent off the necessary annual 2024 financial data to the tax specialist at our solicitor’s, the Spanish tax year being from Jan-Dec with the initial paperwork having to be submitted in April, although the tax bill itself, once I have been notified of how much it is, does not have to be payed until June. We have also pre-booked our Spanish hotel accommodations, and the one in the UK that we will require upon our arrival and of course, we had already pre-booked and paid for our return ferry crossings, so all we had to do now was to leisurely pack our suitcases and then get on the road. The only minor fly in the ointment, for my OCD Buddy, was with the annual car tax payment itself, a mere €36, so not a kings ransom, which I usually pay online by the beginning of April, however, this year, the DGT (Government Vehicle Agency) has changed the website in which you make these payments, but there appears to be an issue with the ‘new’ website platform and so nobody is able to pay their car tax 🤷‍♂️ However, I cannot see too many people, other than the receiving beneficiaries, getting overly anxious about not yet being able to make their payment 🤭 Neither is this a major issue for us, we have until the end of May in which to make the payment, so we can do that when we come back from the UK, subject to them of course having sorted out their ‘Technical Issues’ 🤔 As I may have mentioned previously, the car tax system in Spain is different to that in the UK, here in Spain it is not ‘Illegal’ to continue to drive your car without having first paid the annual fee, although, once it is out of date, if stopped by the authorities, you can be fined for not having paid it. But for me, and my OCD Buddy, there is a little bit of irritation, as now, not everything will be as tidy, or as complete, as we would have wished prior to our return to the UK. But, even with that one minor exception, and in the grand scheme of things, everything was sorted and we were ready to go, so now we had one week to just sit back and enjoy the sunshine, to get on with our normal daily routines, a daily walk, ‘perhaps’ even an Anti-Covid Vaccine here and there with a Tapa or two for good measure 🍷🍷 😋That ‘perhaps’ of mine, of course having the same meaning as Shazza’s use of the word 🤭)

Over the last twelve months or so, with now having relaxed into this slower paced side of Spanish life, I had allowed myself to become a little too relaxed and, as a consequence, I had left myself vulnerable and off guard to the threats from the ‘Dark Forces’, who were always lurking, awaiting their opportunity to catch me off my guard and so yes, you have guessed it, they seized upon the opportunity and ‘They Tried To Ambush Us !!’ 🫣

My regular reader’s will recall, way back in March 2022, that I suffered a detached retina whilst here in Spain on a 90 day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ visit, which was prior to us taking up permanent residency here a year or so later. But the Spanish healthcare system were excellent, I had found myself, without any prior warning, suddenly and completely blind in my right eye, but they dealt with it with great urgency and within days they had conducted the necessary operation to restore most of my sight, although the retina could not be repaired completely.

So here we are, 3 year’s later and although my sight was slightly impaired in my right eye, I had complete vision in both. The only minor issue, other than the slight impairment, which my left eye had compensated for, was a very small black dot, no larger than the ‘full stop’ at the end of this sentence. This would sometimes be visible and sometimes not, but one morning, just a week before we were due to leave home, this small black dot had re-appeared but this time it had grown a little larger in size and did not disappear at all, but even then, that didn’t overly concern me, it was more of an irritation than actually having any impact on my vision, it was much like a small black fly that no matter how many times you try to swat it, it remains circling around your head, in fact many times I have been seen swatting at this imaginary fly as I am walking down the promenade 🙄

However, within only a couple of hours, that one black dot had multiplied, to more than ten, but of varying sizes, and they were all swimming around in my eye and all over my field of vision. Of course, given my history, my natural first thought was that the repaired retina, once again, without warning, had now started to deteriorate, and was starting to disintegrate into small pieces literally right in front of my eye 😲

We got into the car and Shazza drove me to the A&E (Urgencias Department) at the Costa del Sol hospital which is a forty-minute drive away. When we arrived, the place was crowded with ‘out-patients’ all waiting to see a doctor, we were processed, administratively speaking, very quickly and told to wait, in the waiting room, until we were called, I remember looking at the crowds of people, standing room only, and when I looked at my watch it said 14:55pm and I wondered how long we would have to wait. At 22:15pm, I had had enough, there were people who had been called in to see a doctor, not once, but twice, sometimes even being called for a third time, although in truth they may have been having to go to different departments for X-Rays, Plaster Casts, Bandages and Dressings, but I began to also observe that there were people who had arrived after us, walking wounded, not limbs hanging off, or blood spurting everywhere and they were being called in to consulting rooms. I started to become irritated after being sat for what had been by then, seven very long and tedious hours, in a never decreasing crowd. Shazza just said, “Same here now then as it is in the UK”, on my two previous visits we had actually been seen very promptly, very much different to how it was this time around, I wonder what the reason is here in Spain, the lack of money for resourcing of staff ? No GP appointments so this becomes the first port of call ? An increase in the numbers of the ageing population ? Who knows but what a dramatic change in such a short period of time.

I went to see the nurse in the Triage Room, the one where they had initially booked me in, and asked if she could give me any idea of how much longer I would need to wait until someone would see me. Now you could have blown me over with a feather when she told me that ‘Eye Problems’ are considered minor and come low down on the priority treatment schedule 😲 Hang on a minute, suspected detached retinas should be treated as very urgent, as my original Consultant had told me, delays in obtaining treatment can lead to permanent blindness 😡 Then this nurse went on to inform me that there were no ‘Optomologists’ on duty, so the likelihood would be that I would be told by the doctor, when I did eventually get to see one, that I would need to come back the following morning 😡😡 It was about this time that my generally more passive demeanour started to elude me for a moment or two, although I did not raise my voice or become rude, I mean it wasn’t her fault, but as I tore off my hospital wristband, that she had issued me with earlier, I told her that I was going home and would return the following day. She advised me that if I did that I would only end up going through the whole process again, but she said for me to wait and that she would see what she could do 🤷‍♂️

Funny old thing, just fifteen minutes later, at 22:30pm I was called in to a Consulting room to see a doctor, coincidence perhaps 🙄 She checked my records and confirmed that she was aware of my history, she then made a cursory examination of my right eye and told me that, although she was not an eye specialist, she suspected that I had suffered another detached retina, in my mind I just said ‘No shit Sherlock’ 🙄 She then told me what I now already knew, no specialists on duty until tomorrow morning, she gave me a copy of her initial, but brief, examination report and told me to report to the ‘Hospital Admissions Department’ in a different part of the hospital at 9:00am the following morning to ‘make an appointment’ to see an Optomologist 🤷‍♂️ By the time we had got home we had been out for the best part of 9 hour’s, sat for the most part in an A&E waiting room, we had not eaten since lunchtime but by the time we returned home we both had gone past the hunger stage, we could not see any vending machines in the area around the A&E, although we later discovered that there was a vending area at the other end of the building, a sign would have been helpful. At the end of the day though, neither did we want to leave and miss being called in to see the consultant 🤷‍♂️ ‘At least we had managed to have an unscheduled fasting day’, I unwisely commented to Shazza who, as you may appreciate of someone who is normally a three-meals a day sort of girl, did not appear to be overly impressed by that fact 🫣

The following morning we were both up a little before 07:00am, for obvious reasons I had not slept very well, the worst case scenarios had been been playing over and over in my mind, the first retina repair, three year’s previously, had not been a complete 100% success as the retina had sustained too much damage from the tear, so in my mind was the question, what if they could not repair the original repair 🤷‍♂️ I certainly didn’t relish the thought of going permanently blind in one eye 😲 What if this current delay in getting diagnosed and treated would be too late after the fact 🤷‍♂️ Then the rest came flooding into my thoughts, if I was to undergo immediate surgery again, this would prevent us from returning to the UK as planned, the recovery period would take weeks and travel during that time would again be prohibited, we would have to cancel hotel bookings that we had made on both sides, cancel the return ferry crossings and also inform friends who had already pre-booked and pre-paid a hotel booking in the UK, for an arranged meet up that we had planned for whilst we were in the UK 😲

Now, I am not usually someone who suffers with stress and, had it have just been solely the eye issue, I would have dealt with that in my more usual matter of fact manner, but there were other people involved this time, Shazza included, as one of the reasons that we were returning to the UK at this particular time was for her to celebrate a ‘noteable’ birthday number for her, with her friends and family. Shazza too had had a less than relaxing sleep, for much the same reasons, our forty minute drive to the hospital was conducted mainly in silence that morning, both of us with our own individual thoughts and concerns.

Since we had visited this hospital three year’s ago, it has been modernised and two additional multi floored Annexes constructed, the ‘Admissions Unit’ was in one of the new buildings but we found it quite straightforward, with a bit of assistance from a nice member of the staff who showed us how to operate the all singing all dancing automated machine, which we needed to use to obtain a ticket number just to get into the queue to make the ‘Optomologist Appointment’. Being early we were called straight up to the row of desks and, on one of the desks, there was a ‘Union Jack’ sign, so we approached that and the lady behind the desk was so helpful. It was only 08:30am but the earliest appointment she could make for me was for 10:00am, it could have been a lot worse 😲 She directed us to a lower level of the building where once again we had to obtain a ticket number from another automated machine, this was a little less user friendly, even for the Spanish we observed, but eventually we persisted and got the machine to spit out the all important ticket number we required, we ran off in the direction of the Optomology Department, before the security guard could arrest us for criminal damage to the new machine, ‘come on now’ I thought to myself, my trainers didn’t cause that much damage when I kicked it, and there were barely any scuff marks on it 😂

Although we were an hour early for our appointment we were rewarded for our promptness by me being called in to get through the first round of checks. After a few sight checks, followed by lots of drops being put into both eyes, the young doctor told me that the vision in my right eye was 40%. I commented that I hadn’t realised that it was that bad, I was confused when he laughed, “That is good not bad, last time your vision in that eye was only 5%, the original repair had worked” he said. He told me to go and sit back in the waiting room for the eye drops to work and then he would call me back in. The next bit was going to be the most important factor, the actual physical inspection of the back of my eye, I knew that he would not tell me the verdict and that I would have to wait until I was then called in to see the actual Consultant, who would break it to me and tell me the next stage of treatment, however, I was hoping that I may have been able to pick up a clue from his demeanour.

He spent a lot of time checking my eye, it was painful, as the eye drops had opened up my pupils and the bright light shining directly into them made it feel like a laser burning my eyeball 😲Then, the torture was repeated, this time by a young girl, someone who I suspected was a student doctor learning one aspect of her new career path. The young doctor, who had left the room whilst the student had been examining my eye, returned with a piece of paper, the eye examination report. “Your eye is good, no detached retina, the black dots are ‘floaters’, we all have them, some more than other’s, you get more as you get older” he said, with a reassuring smile on his face. “Is their anything I can do to reduce all of these floater’s and why did they all just appear quite suddenly” I asked, “No medical reason for them appearing all at once, it happens like this sometimes, you will just have to learn to live with them, your eye will adapt to them being there and so you will not notice most of them after a time” he said. I think he was trying to sensitively tell me that it is a price I have to pay at becoming more senior in years 😉 However, at the moment I heard those words ‘No detached retina’ the relief just poured out of me, the stress, the concern just evaporated into thin air, if I could have bottled that feeling, right then and there, I would have done. Although, upon one reflection on the news that I had just received that morning, was the fact that I had not fully comprehended, until then, is that according to him, I only have 40% vision in my right eye, although it doesn’t feel that limited, even if I close my left eye I can still see quite well out of the right one, so if I had been asked to have guessed, I would have put it at least 80% 🤔🤷‍♂️ But who cares, I can see out of both eyes, I do not have a detached retina and I am not going to go blind in one eye, well not yet at least 🥳🥳🥳

Now I must be feeling really good, because I can even make a positive out of a negative with this latest ambush by these ‘Dark Forces’. Perhaps they had been lurking over my shoulder when I penned my last ramble, and they, not wanting me to stop publishing my rambles, decided to provide me with something else to write about 🤔 Fortuitous ? Or just me looking for an excuse ? I know which one I am leaning towards, you on the other hand, may have your own opinion 😂

Anyway, sorry but I have to dash, suddenly got a plague of flies buzzing around my head that need swatting 😂😂😂

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

As the sun sets at the end of yet another day, and since publishing my last ramble, I have spent a lot of time, usually at night and after Shazza has gone to bed, sat in my favourite chair on the balcony, staring out into the night sky, in deep contemplation, as I have done so more times than I really care to think about recently, on quite a personal and heartfelt matter. That being whether these rambles are now, in all reality, getting to the end of their natural lifespan. Believe it or not, I do wrestle constantly with my conscience where I have been asking myself why anyone would now be interested in reading about our particular lives anymore 🤷‍♂️ When I started with these rambles, very nearly twelve year’s ago now, we were setting out on a big adventure, going from a safe very conventional lifestyle to one where we were heading out into the great unknown, then, I could of course understand why some people would be interested in following our adventures. Of course, for those who have been with us since the beginning of those adventures, you will know that we have experienced many twists and turns, heading in one direction only to find ourselves then going in a completely different one. However, now we have come full circle and are once again back where we started, living a more conventional lifestyle, albeit in a different part of the world from where our journey commenced but, what are we doing now that is any different from you, my reader’s 🤔 So, and whilst I have stated very many times, that I thoroughly enjoy writing about our lives, about life in our own little bubble of existence, often sharing my opinions on life in general that is going on around us, sometimes with my own more cynical outlooks on the world around us, other times with what I hope comes across as a less serious outlook, and a more humorous interpretation of it. But the honest truth is that I am now questioning whether, in reality, our lives are very much different to anyone else’s and why readers would actually be interested in knowing things like, what the weather is like in our part of Spain ? or where we went for a walk ? or stopped for lunch ? or any of the other dozens of everyday normal routines that I now constantly ramble on about which, and let’s be honest here, you must all be doing very similar things yourselves but in your own parts of the world 🤷‍♂️ It isn’t that I am no longer enjoying writing these rambles, as you probably well know by now, I would very likely win every award and gold medal going for spewing out my endless publications of verbal diarrhoea, I even get withdrawal symptoms if I haven’t published one in a week 😂 But I am left now contemplating on whether I should just stop writing them completely, or perhaps just reduce the frequency in which I publish them, or only write about places that we go to, that may be of some interest to some of you. So, I need some honest guidance from you my reader’s, has the time come to finally say a fond farewell, ‘Adios’ as opposed to ‘Hasta Luego’, or would you prefer to just continue to read about our lifestyle, albeit a little less frequently 🤷‍♂️

So, as this may well be my last ramble, I am not going to change my usual format or content, I am just going to go with my usual habit, writing as I generally do about my personal observations, and opinions, on what is going on both locally, and Internationally, in the wider world. I will of course start, without any doubt whatsoever, on telling you about our current weather situation, well it would be rude of me not to really, especially as their has been a big change in our fortunes since the last ramble. So yes, after an unusually elongated period of the wet stuff I can now very happily announce that normal service has finally been resumed 😎 We have also already observed some early ‘Tourist’ arrivals and, as usual, they are rather conspicuous by their holiday attire and pale skin tones 🤭 Although, with the return of the sunshine, and the warm temperatures, which are currently in the low to mid twenties, we too have finally managed to re-introduce the shorts and tee-shirts to our normal daily attire, and boy does that feel good 🤭 Although, to be honest with you, we are not getting overly excited just yet, as we also know that it will, for us, be a short-lived event, what with our impending visit back to the UK looming over us, so no packing away of our more winter style clothing just yet, unless the British ‘Works of Fiction’ can also manage to arrange a heat wave to coincide with our twenty-three days visit, although we will not hold our breaths. It seems that whilst the UK, and some other more Northerly parts of Europe, have been experiencing a sort of mini heatwave recently, the forecast for when we are due to arrive back in dear old Blighty is not looking good, with daily high’s only around 13 degrees(c), and the night temperatures falling to between 1-3 degrees(c) 🥶, I am shivering now, just at the thought of it 😲

Whilst we are obviously more than delighted to see the back end of all the storms that terrorised us for four very long consecutive weeks, and even though they did lower our feel-good factor mood at times, I can still turn a negative aspect into a positive one, for even those stormy events bore a silver lining because, as I type this, our Embalce (La Concepcion) is now sitting at a little over 92% of its total capacity, even though they had to continuously keep draining it over the last four weeks to prevent it from overflowing, but with the run-offs from the storm drains and rivers, continually adding to that figure over the next few days, that should edge us a little closer to the 100% mark although I doubt that they will let it get to the maximum but, as a consequence, it has recently been announced that our personal individual domestic water usage allowance has now been raised by 25 Litres to 250 Litres per day, not that between us we use anywhere near 500 Litres a day, but perhaps, now that we can, we should celebrate this increase by taking two showers a day 😂 I am of course joking as the drought periods we endured, especially over the last year, mean that we do still continue to implement our own personal water usage measures as we appreciate more than ever this essential natural resource.

The local news media headlines above did go a little bit overboard and actually print mis-leading information. There are seven Embalces that provide water to the Malaga Province, and some of them are still below 50%, so not every area within the Province will have three years worth of water supplies, typical media hype though huh 🤷‍♂️

So now, with the end of this elongated rainy period, came a task that we knew had to be completed, a task that neither of us relished, the cleaning of all of the apartment windows 😲 The last thing that we wanted to do, now that the rain had stopped and that glorious sunshine was out, and the temperatures were hot, was to clean forty-two, different sized, panes of glass, although that number includes both the inner and outer panes, so in reality it was actually a total of twenty-one windows, and of course not forgetting the six external roller security shutters to do which, with being silver-grey in colour, the brown sand that gets blown in on the rain and sticks to them like glue, making them look even worse than the rain stained windows, we cannot have that, whatever will the neighbour’s and passers by think 😲 But we knew that none of these would clean themselves and, at least it would be one of those tasks that, once completed, would not need doing again for another three months or so, longer if the rain now stays away 🙏 Now I come to think about it, it seems strange that in the UK there are window cleaners who will come around, and, for a charge of course, will clean your external windows for you, not a service that I have actually ever seen over here in Spain, apart from on tall Commercial premises that is. Perhaps with all this modern technology someone will invent a drone that is capable of doing the job on the external windows, it would certainly decrease the number of injuries that are sustained from falling off ladders and, let’s face it, drones do seem to be used for everything else these days, so why not put them to good practical use instead of using them just as weapons of destruction, or perhaps even for spying on your neighbours sunbathing nude in the garden 🤭 So, somewhat reluctantly, we both got stuck in and, once we had finished, there was no way that we had any energy, let alone any inclination, to go out for our daily walk, but to be honest the task itself took us around four hours to complete so that was more than enough exercise for one day, working our ageing muscles and joints which, under normal circumstances, would not have been exercised on those routine more leisurely walks, although the big advantage to doing the walks is that we both do generally give ourselves a small reward 🍷or a 🍺 and sometimes even lunch 😋 But a sandwich and a drink (non-alcoholic) on our balcony was still quite a nice reward at the end of it, especially as now we could actually see out of our windows again and with the added bonus, by doing them ourselves and not paying for refreshments, we had saved a few shekels in the process 🤗

So now that I have got that weather subject out of the way, and since the publication of my last ramble, there have been a few other things going on too, so ‘Where Do I Start’ 🤷‍♂️ Normally, I would just tap away merrily on the keyboard, dispensing paragraphs full of the usual verbal diarrhoea, and without giving any of it a second thought, as it usually just spills from my memory storage cells, into my finger tips then on to the keyboard with no effort whatsoever, as you my readers will of course be able to bear witness to 🤭 But now I seem to be having some minor difficulties in recalling what some of those things were 🤔

We have been experiencing a slow, but an advancement nonetheless, in the daylight hour’s over the last few weeks, but we were very much happier when we awoke on Sunday 30th March for, the night before, we had gone around changing all our watches, clocks and on all the timers on the kitchen electrical appliances, for this would be the day that Summertime officially commenced, albeit in truth, our’s had ‘unofficially’ commenced a week earlier when the sun, blue sky and sparkling blue and green Mediterranean sea, and of course the much warmer temperatures, had returned to our shores. We now had daylight until 9pm, and the prospect of that daylight extending even longer over the coming days and weeks. This of course means that I am now able to spend more time in the evenings, and night’s, sat on the balcony, for up until now, when the sun had dropped in the sky, so too had the temperatures, so it had been too cold after 7pm. The other good thing was that we could now get out of our habitual evening activity of watching the TV, instead we can now eat dinner on the warm balcony and, once we have cleared away, we continue to sit there, Shazza reading her book, or watching some of her favourite ‘You Tube’ foodie channels, whilst I sit and watch my own favourite travel ‘vlogs’, a combination of Motorhomers and Sail, or Motor, Yacht travellers. When we have been together for the majority of each day, where we chat about everything and anything under the sun, in the evenings, although we are still sat together for the most part, we tend to sit quietly doing our own thing, until of course Shazza decides that it is her bedtime and she needs her beauty sleep, I of course do not go to bed quite as early as she does, well quite obviously, and it should go without saying really, that I do not require as much beauty sleep 😂

However, even this twice annual event in the calendar (March & October) still attracts media coverage, other than just the usual reminder to change our clocks. There would it seems still be some argument here in Spain, as well as in some other countries within Europe, as to whether these changes need to continue to be made at all 🤷‍♂️ It has always seemed a little strange to me that we are only a little over three hours drive away from the Portuguese border, yet they are one hour behind us on ‘Western European Time’ in line with Ireland and the UK, whilst being a little over ten hours away, is the French border, who are on the same time as us, ‘Central European Time’. It came as an even bigger surprise to me though, to discover that here in Europe there is also an ‘Eastern European Time’, so three time zones 🤷‍♂️ I have to be perfectly honest with you, I never actually realised that there were three, until now that is 😲 Evidence, if evidence were required, to prove that no matter what age you are, you never actually stop learning new things 🤗

In these rambles I often state that we get fed up of reading all of the ‘doom and gloom’ that there is in the world, but even so, we do still continue to scan the National and International Media headlines each morning, it is one of those habits that are instilled into our morning routines, although we do not read the stories that accompany every headline. However, it is probably a good job that we do still do this, otherwise we may miss vital pieces of information that ‘could’ effect us personally, which we otherwise would not be aware of 😲

I was a little surprised, I mean I knew that some Scandinavian Countries had ‘allegedly’ issued personal survival booklets to their citizens and, even more recently, President Macron of France had ‘allegedly’ done the same thing, but the rest of Europe 🤔 My goodness, had the Spanish Government missed us off their ‘mailing list’ and was this deliberate because we are classed as Immigrants in the country (Expats) and not true Spanish Citizens 😲 But a more sinister thought entered my head, ‘Where we closer to War than any of the European Governments were actually telling us 😲’. Well for once I was grateful to the European media for providing me with this essential alert, but it was obvious that we now could not trust the Spanish Government to look after us, we needed to take care of ourselves, so we have taken it upon ourselves to conduct our own reconnaissance, to be ready for the invasion by any forces of evil.

We acknowledge that our stretch of coastline covers an expansive area, miles and miles of beaches, one’s that the drug runners regularly take advantage of to evade the clutches of the Spanish Coastguard and Guardia Civil authorities, and far too much for us to keep guard of on our own, fortunately we were to discover that there were other ‘Independent’ organisations assisting our cause and on the lookout for foreign invaders. Even so, it did come as a bit of a surprise to us when a foreign invader did actually turn up on our own town’s seafront beach 😲 although the authorities were alert and swiftly discovered the intruder.

As you may imagine, it was a bit of a bind having to now conduct this extra surveillance and, being an ‘Unofficial’ activity, we were of course not re-imbursed for the expenditure involved, so we had to foot our own bill for all the additional refreshments incurred, Tapas, Menu del Dia’s, Cervesa’s and Anti-Covid Vaccines, but hey, we felt that it was our civic responsibility, the least we could do and so yes, whilst it can sometimes be a tough life, we knew that someone had to do it and, if we succeeded in our mission, we would have stories to tell our Grandchildren about our part in the Spanish war effort and our participation in ‘Grandad & Nanas Army’, who knows, perhaps one day they will make a TV programme about us 😂 Shortly after that incident we thought unknown Invader’s had dispersed their secret weapon as the sky overhead went partially dark, shielding what had been bright sunshine, a darkness that would impact on the whole of Europe, but then we remembered it was a natural phenomenon and not the launch of a secret weapon.

I did finally receive a communication from the UK Government in my Email inbox, but not one that contained my ‘Personal Survival Booklet’, or even any mention to the potential risk of war, no this was to inform me about the change to the Residency requirements for British Citizens living in Spain, at least it wasn’t my call up papers for ‘National Service’ I thought to myself 🤭 On reading it I also discovered that the content of the communication also had no impact on us personally.

When UK citizens, who were already residing in Spain, prior to Brexshit, elected to take official residency, rather than continue to ‘fly under the radar’, they were issued with a Green paper certificate, however, since Brexshit, new residents are issued with a ‘Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero’ (TIE) which is a plastic Identification Card, the size of a Bank or Credit Card, which contains Biometric Data. With the forthcoming introduction of the European Entry System (EES), not to be confused with the upcoming introduction of the ETIAS (Electronic Visitor Visa), this old green paper certificate, without the biometric data, will no longer be accepted and so residents who are in possession of this paper certificate are being encouraged to apply for the newer TIE Card, otherwise they are likely to encounter problems when, after leaving the country, find that they cannot re-enter Spain. As well as the advice being issued via UK Channels, the Spanish, and other European media organisations and Social Media Platforms, are also publicising this information, however, I think it would still be a safe bet on there being some people who will take no notice, for whatever reason, then state, once EES is officially introduced, that they didn’t know about it 🤷‍♂️

Now that piece of information also enables me to link in very conveniently with an update on the introduction of the European ETIAS system, which is simply an on-line application process to enable visitors to obtain an electronic ‘Visitor’ Visa. The E-visa will cost €7 and, once issued, it is valid for 3 year’s. However, there has been numerous delays with the introduction of ETIAS, as not all countries within the EU are ready with the technology aspects required to seamlessly link the EU’s Border Points of Entry/Exit together, so now it has been announced that there is to be yet ‘another delay’ with its introduction 🤷‍♂️ There has been some outcry from visitor’s from other countries about the need for the ETIAS system, but this is not something that is new, other Countries, USA and Canada for example, have been operating a similar system for several year’s and, in case people are unaware, the UK introduced their own electronic on-line visitor visa system in January this year, which comes into operation on 2nd April, that application process currently costs £10 (€12) and is soon to increase to £16 (€19) and is only valid for 2 year’s 😲 The anti-European media conveniently omit to mention this in their coverage on the subject 🤷‍♂️

Being a citizen of the UK, whilst now being an official resident within an EU Country, we were of course interested to discover what, if any, impact this may have on our ability to cross borders. Fortunately it doesn’t, we are British Citizens and UK Passport holders, so we do not have to apply for a UK ETA when we return to visit, and being official residents in Spain, with our Biometric TIE Cards, neither do we need to apply for an E-Visa on the upcoming ETIAS system when we return 👍

There has of course been a lot more going’s on in the wider world since my last ramble, the continuing natural disasters and what appears to be indiscriminate attacks in towns and cities within Europe, by individual’s, on members of the unsuspecting public who are just going about their normal lives and business, with no apparent motive by these nutters 🤷‍♂️ Then there are the continuing conflicts in several war torn areas of the globe, and of course all of the usual political stuff. I don’t know about you, but I get sick of seeing, although not necessarily reading, all the media articles by so called ‘Experts’ or ‘Influencer’s’ telling us what we should, or should not, be eating to stay healthy, how much and what type of exercises we need to be doing, they all generally contradict each other, by way of example I told you in one of my recent rambles how I read about a University Medical Research Team had declared that drinking ‘red wine’ was healthy for you, in moderation of course, but recently, one of those so called ‘TV Doctors’ has stated that it is a fallacy and it is not healthy 🤷‍♂️ So these are both supposed to be ‘Medical Experts’ yet they issue conflicting statements, no wonder people just ignore medical advice these days or just go with the one that suits there own persuasion, so of course, it goes without saying that I stand with the University Medical Opinion on their stance on the ‘red wine’ subject 🤭 But with all of this ‘doom and gloom’ reporting, conflicts with medical opinions, the diets that are bad, the exercises you should be doing, the diseases that are circulating, the places it is not safe to go on holiday to, my goodness it is no wonder that there are so many ‘alleged’ mental health issues in our world today, it is even driving me to requiring another dose, or two, of Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷🍷 but then again, I never really needed any sort of an excuse to self-medicate 🤭

Locally, in our neighbouring town of Estepona, this last weekend we have just had a combined weekend event, a ‘Cheese Fair’ that was actually 30 stalls selling much more than just Cheese and, the ‘Saborea Estepona’ event which is a Tapas Route in the town with more than 30 bars and restaurants offering Tapa and beer, or a soft drink or water, for only €3 (£2.50) or with wine €4 (£3.30). Well of course it would have been rude not to, needless to say, I drove to the event, whilst Shazza ‘volunteered’ to be the duty driver on the return journey 🤗 I doubt any of the medical experts would have considered it to have been a healthy event though 🥴😂

The following day Shazza asked whether I would be interested in going to a ‘Farmer’s Market’ but, as you very well know by now, Shazza ‘asking’ does not necessarily mean that it is a ‘question’ or one which she requires me to give any sort of a response to, in either the positive or negative form. Now we have never been to this particular ‘monthly market’ before, she informed me that all she knew was that it was held on an actual farm, located in our neighbouring Province of ‘Cadiz’, just around a half hour’s drive away. Now I am no expert in the agricultural produce field, or in any other field when it comes down to it, so my curiosity was raised, I mean how different can a vegetable that is grown in one Province of Spain, be any different to that grown in another Province of Spain, and especially as on this occasion we were only talking about a distance of 30Km 🤷‍♂️

It was another lovely, bright, warm and sunny morning when we left home and we found the location of the ‘Farmers Market’ without any problem, the field we were directed to park the car in was a short distance from where the actual stalls were set up and, although parts were still pretty soggy from recent weather events, it was already pretty much full, but we managed to find a patch of grass that didn’t look as if it would present us with any problems in getting back out again, and if we did, I consoled myself with the thought that it was a farm after all, and farms have tractors 🚜

It was a short walk to the area where the stalls were set up, but there were not that many stalls, no more than a dozen at most, and the stallholders were not selling produce from just the farm itself, if at all, but appeared to be local producers, selling everything from the expected fruit and vegetables to a small business that produced what are called ‘Super Foods’ grown using ‘Hydroponics’, other’s selling everything from natural honey, home-baked Sour Dough breads and vegan cakes, wax candles and naturally scented soaps, hand-made cork fruit bowls, it became immediately obvious that this was not, by definition at least, purely farm produce, however, what did become obvious, and probably the reason for Shazza actually want to come to this particular market, was that the majority of the produce for sale was ‘Plant Based’ and many advertised as being ‘Vegan’, which also immediately blew any chance of me getting a proper ‘Burger’ from the mobile van that was also in attendance, yup, that too was ‘Vegan’ or ‘Plant Based’ ☹️ Come on now, what self-respecting farm would not at least be able to offer a Beef product, or a hot Pork Roll and, I have to be totally honest here, other than the Avocado’s that were at least three times larger in size than I had ever seen in a Supermarket or Fruiterias, everything else looked pretty much the same as I had seen it on a shelf anywhere else 🤷‍♂️ Perhaps they should have been totally up front and advertised it as a ‘Vegan Produce Market’. However, and I am sure you would not expect otherwise, Shazza did buy some giant Avocados and a container of ‘Hydroponic’ something or other, she obviously thought that it would have been rude not to. I don’t think we spent any longer than half an hour at the market and Shazza had already decided that we probably would not be attending again, you can imagine my disappointment upon hearing this news 🤭 We had no problems getting out of the car park, no tractor’s required and we made our way back home to deposit Shazza’s selected treasures.

Not wanting to waste the rest of the lovely day, we decided a walk would be in order and, as it was a Sunday, and the first ‘Official’ day of Summer, and as all the local’s and tourist’s would be out enjoying the weather, and the Spanish do like to enjoy a long Sunday lunch, we thought it would be nice to also enjoy the ambience amongst them. It would also be our 18th Wedding Anniversary, the following day, but Monday’s are usually very quiet with very little, if any, ambience, so although we do not usually celebrate such events, we decided that that afternoon we would partake of a nice celebratory and more formal lunch than we normally would, we selected an Italian Restaurant in the Marina. It was nice, busy but not crowded, nice table linen and, proper linen napkins, which always adds a few Euro’s on to the bill 🤭 We have been here on numerous occasions but we had not used this particular establishment since last August, so it did feel like more of a special occasion. We enjoyed our celebratory lunch overlooking the marina moorings, I observed how full the boat moorings are now looking, many having being placed back in the water after their winter in the nearby hardstanding storage area, their are a still a few empty moorings but not many, all of the restaurants were busy, the formal and less formal one’s, the Cafe/Bars were full and there were a fair amount of people just sauntering around, looking at the boats, the fish and of course the bling and fake designer products on display from the ‘Looky Looky’ men, ‘everything cheap, Asda price’ they would call out with big grins on their faces. We took a slow leisurely walk back to the car, the majority of the Chiringuito’s are now open, each establishment having their sunbeds and parasols laid out in neat rows, the wooden boardwalks are now on the sand and the only thing left, visually, to declare the Tourist Season well and truly open, are the placing of the yellow marker buoys just off the beach to delineate the swimming areas and beach toy launching areas. Their are elements of the busy tourist season that we both dislike, but initially, after the much quieter Winter period, their are elements of it that we actually like too and, although our local area is an ‘Open All Year’ location, at this time of the year it does feel as though it is beginning to come alive again and will offer us so many ‘People Watching’ opportunities to while away the hour’s on the beach, or whilst sat enjoying an Anti-Covid Vaccine, or perhaps a few more 😉

But right now, we have just nine days before we depart on our own trip, with a few days to do some sightseeing on our way up through Spain before we catch our ferry to the UK, by the time we return, which will be nearly a month that we would have been away, this place will probably be buzzing with activity, the beaches will be full, there will be no just walking into a Cafe/Bar/Restaurant without having first made a reservation, something we tend not to do, so we will just take ‘pot luck’ at where we can eat. The temperatures should be well into the higher end of the twenty somethings and so we will be adopting our Summer schedule, mornings around our own communal pool, afternoons in the shade, perhaps a few days down on our favourite stretch of beach and Dinners in the slightly cooler evenings. All doors and windows open throughout the day and night, yes, we haven’t even started our trip back to the UK yet, but we are already looking forward to coming back home 🤭

Until perhaps the next time, if or whenever that may be 🤔

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Since my last ramble we have found ourselves confined to barracks on more occasions than we have actually had opportunities to get out which, apart from being very unusual for us, is also not something you would generally experience in this part of Spain, even at this time of the year. However, as always you will not hear me complaining as the excessive amount of rainfall has at last been re-filling ‘all’ of the Embalces (Reservoirs) within both our Region and Province, with our own local Embalce, La Concepcion, now at 87% of its capacity, effectively ending the ‘Severe’ drought conditions in the majority of areas, although I do have to say, not all, well not as yet at least, but there is apparently another storm on its way 😲 So, due to the weather conditions, which have extended now into our third week, there has been very little for me to actually ramble on about which, as you may well imagine, for me personally, has been extremely frustrating, as it has felt as though I have had a compulsory ‘Gagging Order’ forcibly placed upon me, although as you will soon discover, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’, as the saying goes 🤭

Now it hasn’t been completely all ‘Solitary Confinement’, there have been the odd couple of hour’s during some of those particularly wet days when we had put our trust in the ‘Forrest Gump Principle’ of weather forecasting, rather than the more usual ‘Works of Fiction’ methodology which, as you well know by now, is rarely to be believed. So although those escape to freedom occasions have been somewhat severely limited, there have been occasions when we made a brief dash for some fresh air and to exercise the leg muscles. Some of which proved to be a good decision although, perhaps upon a little bit of hindsight, many of them had proved not to be such wise choices and where it would have made a lot more sense, during such escapes, to have transported ourselves in ‘Kevin the Kayak’, as opposed to using the car, I can tell you now with complete confidence that the manufactures that advertise ‘All Weather Tyres’ should be investigated for misrepresentation as they offer no traction whatsoever on fast flowing river roads 😂

On one such jail break we managed to escape as far as our local town but, literally just as we arrived, well let’s just say that things turned a little soggy again and we had to make a rather hasty dash for cover to a Cafe/Bar in a Plaza, not one of our more usual haunts, this one was located in a Plaza that separates the lower level seafront promenade from the main upper area shopping streets, it was the shops that we were more interested in getting to on this particular day. It ended up being a rather cozy affair as the rather disheveled canopy outside the very small Cafe/Bar provided very little in the way of protection from the elements. We had been fortunate enough to get a table in the centre although, as the deluge intensified, encroaching under the now almost useless overhead canvas and from all sides, our fellow customers, all six of them, kept inching closer to us in the centre so that eventually it was more akin to a meeting of the local Alcoholic Anonymous group, which, looking at the majority of the selected choices of beverage, was probably not far from the truth but of course I was assured the large brandy’s, that accompanied the small coffee’s, were purely for medicinal purposes only 🤭 Before it got to the stage where we would have had them sat on our knees, the people, not the Coffee and Brandy, Shazza decided to leave me with our new found Spanish friends whilst she swam to the ‘Fruiterias’, answers on the back of a postage stamp if you can guess what ‘food group’ products she again needed to purchase, and if any of you offer the suggestion of a pack of bacon, Iberico ham or sausages, then you can all go and sit on the naughty step right now 😂 There was of course no guarantee that I would have been in the same place that she had left me, when, or if, she ever managed to safely return herself, as the only thing stopping the plastic seat from floating away was my weight on it, although on a positive note, had it have floated away with me on it, then it may then at least have resembled more of a riverboat cruise, me clinging on to my glass of Anti-Covid Vaccine in one hand whilst hanging on for dear life to the arm of the plastic seat with the other, with of course my new found Spanish friends in hot pursuit behind me heading down to the seafront, with the strong possibility being that the next Port of call could probably have been Italy, or then again, for any onlookers, it could have been a re-make of some of the final scenes from the blockbuster film, ‘Titanic’ 😂

One chap, in our small but intimate group, although conversing in Spanish, I could tell, from his accent, that he was from the Netherlands. So I got into a conversation with him, as living in the Netherlands myself, many year’s ago now, I was interested in knowing which part he originally hailed from. Anyway, after that initial and brief introductory conversation we continued our chat, as you do, it would have been rude not to, although at that point we reverted to the use of the more widely used International language, much to my relief 🤭 Our conversation varied from topic to topic, covering the whole spectrum from putting the world to rights, and the usual popular starting gambit, which you can perhaps guess what that was, given the ‘current’ meteorological situation here 😉 Then we moved on to all of the other usual stuff, the state of the world in general, politics, immigration, global conflicts etc. etc. and then the one we both unanimously agreed upon, the good and extremely economic lifestyle that we enjoy here in Spain, albeit the climate subject took less of a front seat position in that conversation on this occasion. However, it appeared that in comparison to both of our previous home countries, the majority of ‘Expats’ that you speak to over here, irrespective of Nationality, does not have a good word to say about their ‘home’ country and the reasons are all pretty similar, Politics, Economic, Crime, Personal Safety, Living Standards, Illegal Immigration……….🤷‍♂️ So I am coming to realise that actually, it isn’t just the UK where people are getting disillusioned, which when you come to think about it, is seriously quite worrying really as the feeling of discontent is pretty widespread it would appear. The other main topic we discussed was, the so called ‘Anti-Tourist’ rhetoric, that as you know by now, as I keep telling you, is constantly in the ‘British’ media, but I was surprised to discover that it is much the same in the Netherlands media too, in those that are pretty much the equivalent to our British ‘red top’ media publications. However, Spain is not exempt either as our discussions eventually brought the subject around to the ‘mixed messaging’ that is being sent out by the Spanish themselves, no wonder it can be very confusing for those who wish to visit here, and why many ‘may’ elect to holiday elsewhere or are even reluctant to now consider buying a holiday home here in Spain 🤷‍♂️

Now to put this into some sort of context for you, without making it too complicated, it is perhaps best if I just remind you of the way the Government system works here in Spain.

Government in Spain is divided into three levels, the State itself, then the Regions or ‘Autonomous Communities’, then the local Municipalities. These three levels of Spanish Governmental Bureaucracy are not hierarchical, meaning there is no supremacy or primacy of one over the other, but rather they are separately defined by their jurisdictional powers.

The ‘State’ Government comprises of a number of parties, a ‘Coalition’ which, generally speaking, all tend to disagree on most things, making it difficult to actually get anything done here, or at least, not very quickly. The country does have a Prime Minister, but Spain also has 17 ‘Autonomous’ Regions and 2 ‘Autonomous’ Cities, Ceuta and Melilla (Northern tip of Africa). So these Autonomous Regions do have their own political leader’s (Junta’s) who have Judicial powers to basically do their own thing in their own Region, which is sometimes (read that as ‘often’) contrary, or in direct conflict, with that of the ‘State’ 🫣 Then, within each Region there are Municipalities, or depending on their size, groups of small Municipalities, which have Mayor’s, who also have their own Judicial powers to do their own thing 🫣🤷‍♂️ Anyway, don’t worry too much about absorbing all of that, as I will provide some assistance with the exam questions at the end of the ramble 😂 But now, if you have a basic understanding of how it works, then can you explain it to me please 🤷‍♂️ But basically you will perhaps understand why a lot of things over here can be different in one area of Spain to what they are in another, and which brings me, finally, to the main point for all of that explanation which, believe it or not, goes back to the subject of ‘Anti-Tourism’ rhetoric.

Recently, the Prime Minister of Spain (Central Government) announced certain restrictions on people coming to Spain from outside of the EU, new laws on such things as Administrative requirements, tourist tax, to new restrictions on those wishing to purchase a property here. Basically sending out a message that says, ‘Spain is going to make it more complicated for you to come here’, but that is not a message that many Regional or Municipal leaders agree with, so some of them are sending out their own message. Enter stage left our own local Mayor………………..

Now let me say firstly that he does genuinely appear to be a really nice guy and someone who can be seen out and about quite regularly in both ‘Manilva’, where our actual town hall is located, and down here in ‘Sabinillas’, and without any pomp and glory or media reporters hanging on to his coat tails. Although he has much less ‘funds’ than his counterparts in places like Estepona, Marbella etc. there is some evidence of the improvements that he is attempting to make in the area, on a public level and he is a keen supporter of the large multi-cultural population that lives in his catchment area. Anyway, in a recent local media interview he made a number of statements about the area and I specifically selected this one……..

Hang on a minute 🤔 Holiday destination (Tourists ?), Second Homes (Temporary Visitor’s purchasing properties ?) is that not in contradiction of the message that Central Government has been issuing to ‘pacify’ the complaints of all the local Spanish ‘Protestors’ 🤔 Of course, our Mayor, made no reference in that statement for it being only specifically directed to those ‘visitors’ coming from within EU countries and to not those from outside of the EU so, was that a deliberate omission to give him some ‘wiggle room’ if questioned about it, from either Central Government, or from the local business that rely so much on the income from ‘Tourism’ 🤷‍♂️ But, as always in ‘Politics’, it is often what they ‘Don’t Say’ as opposed to what they actually ‘Do Say’, that can be equally as important, or is that just me, with my typically cynical head on again, although I am certain that ‘The Truth Is Out There, Somewhere’, just don’t expect it to come from a Politician because we already know the answer to the question of, “How do you know when a Politician is lying ?” 🤔 And the answer of course is, “Their Lips Move” 😂

Shazza did finally return from her ‘Farmers Weekly Meeting’, in which it seems she was presented with a wide selection of nature’s fresh ‘Plant Based’ produce 🤭 She had timed it perfectly, just as the wet stuff took a pause in proceedings, allowing us sufficient time to get to our favourite Spanish Cafe/Bar where we enjoyed a very pleasant Tapas lunch, after which, we just about made it back to our submarine, moored in what had once been a car park, before the heavens opened once again. We got home, put on the kettle and made nice hot steaming mugs of brick-builder’s tea and sat and recounted what a decent few hours we had had, some much needed fresh air, a bit of exercise, re-stocked with a few provisions, made some new friends, had a very nice lunch and as a bonus, I also managed to get two doses of Anti-Covid Vaccines 🍷🍷, what more could you want out of life 🤷‍♂️

As for the next few days it was just a matter of ‘Rinse and Repeat’, we spent more time indoors than out, but did manage the odd hour or two getting a walk in. On one Sunday we only managed to drive to our usual car park before the noise on the roof told us that common sense dictated that it would be pointless getting out of the car, but as we rarely adopt the use of ‘Common-Sense’ we got out and ran to a Restaurant just around the corner, we knew it also had a small Cafe/Bar at the front of house so we enjoyed a coffee, hoping that the rain would stop and we may manage to get a walk. The rain didn’t let up, so we did what we had to do, we both ordered a glass of ‘Vermut’, the proper Spanish variety not the tourist one. Now we have often passed this Restaurant and always said we would try it out, but never have, we noted whilst we were glancing around that all the tables inside the actual Restaurant part had reserved signs on them, a sure sign that it was a very popular place to come and eat. The lady owner was very friendly and made us feel very welcome so we made the decision there and then to book a table for lunch on the following Sunday, well it would have been rude not to.

Somewhat surprisingly, although we did not get one full day without a period of the wet stuff, in one form or another, we managed to use the next three days to good effect, continuing to use the ‘Forrest Gump Principle’, and so our periods of confinement were not elongated. Although that changed after that third day but not for the better, but by then we were ready for a break from our daily exercise, lunches and Anti-Covid Vaccine routines, and so we were quite happy to just sit and watch the storm clouds as they passed overhead, depositing their watery cargo as they did so. Shazza pottered, as is her way when confined to barracks, unfortunately it also provides her with time to plan newer ‘Plant Based’ meals to keep us both healthy 🙄whilst I sit trying to recall what a hog roast and crispy pork crackling used to taste like, or a good old-fashioned Full English Fry Up, or mixed-grill platter 😋😋😋

Within the last few days, some of the local Embalces had actually reached their maximum capacity and had overflowed, causing the rivers they flowed into to burst their banks, flooding land and roads in the local communities that surrounded them, the relentless deluges of rainfall have seen some serious landslides, one which has blocked the main route from Ronda in the mountains, down to Marbella on the coast, and which will not be repaired or re-opened before August 😲 Our Embalse keeps getting water released, in a controlled manner, for safety reasons, so that the same thing does not happen, so I doubt that we will actually see it reach its full capacity any time soon and perhaps we should be grateful for that.

I do have to say that the local council work tirelessly to clean up the beaches, although right now it must feel like a fools-errand as after each storm, combined with the strong winds and high tidal events, they look just as bad again 🤷‍♂️ However, the tourists that will flock here in their masses, starting in only a few weeks time, will of course expect the usual pristine sandy beaches when they arrive for their holiday breaks, so the repetitive clean ups go on, on a daily basis, those workers must wake up each day feeling like it’s another ‘Groundhog Day’ 🙄

On our walks along the sea front we see uprooted tree trunks that have been washed down the storm drains and rivers into the sea, then carried back up onto the beaches on the incoming tides. In the past we have witnessed the locals come out with their wheel-barrows and chainsaws, cutting these trees into more manageable loads to cart off and dry, ready for next Winter’s fuel supply for their wood burning stoves. It reminded me of similar events along the Canals and Rivers in the UK, where the Canal & Rivers Trust, who are the Agency responsible for maintaining the majority of the UK waterways, would chop down overhanging, or storm damaged, trees and then leave the wood piles on the sides of the towpaths, and near locks, for the boaters, who would refer to these free supplies of fuel as ‘Boater’s Gold’.

I realise of course that such events, even wildfires during the Summer months and even prolonged droughts, are not confined to just here in Spain as they, and lots of other ‘natural disasters’ happen, and continue to happen, all over the world and each are equally as devastating for the victims and their families. However, until we started to come to Spain on a more regular basis, and now actually living here, these global incidents were only ever something that we read about in the newspapers, or watched on the news on our tv screens, in the safety and comfort of our home and they were always happening to someone else and not us. But now, whilst fortunately we have not, as yet, become a direct victim to any of these disasters, they are happening on a much more ‘frequent basis’ and quite literally right on our doorstep, so they somehow feel much more real than they once did. Even planning a day trip, or longer, requires checking the weather status, wildfire risk areas, flood warnings and road and bridge closures first, before even venturing out, not something we ever really did in any great detail before, not even during our nomadic motor-homing travels. The world appears to be changing at such a fast pace, the climatic changes seem so vastly variable and appear much more destructive than they ever were, or is that just me and yet another sign of my ageing status, was I more care-free and not so risk averse when I was younger 🤷‍♂️ I guess in one respect I am hoping that it is just me getting older and more cautious, for if it isn’t, then what the future wrath of nature’s vengeance has in store for us all, is probably a much more frightening prospect 😲🫣

The gale force wind rattled the outer window shutters in the bedroom, the force of the rain hitting them was almost deafening and the deep prolonged rumbles of thunder made me feel glad to be secure and tucked up warm under the duvet. Any dreams, or desires, to be on my ‘Bering 65’ Luxury Motor Yacht had certainly diminished very quickly, it was bad enough on terra firma in a Motorhome in these conditions, so who in their right mind would want be rolling around on waves as big as a two-storey building, or bigger, which then suddenly changed my thoughts to our impending ferry journey across the notoriously rough ‘Bay of Biscay’ in around three weeks time 😲 Hopefully, all the storms would have blown themselves out by then 🙏 Shazza hadn’t stirred when I crept into the bedroom at around 1am, she had retired to bed well before the worst of the storm had hit, whilst I sat and watched the bright forked flashes of lightning light up the skyline and watched the palm trees thrashing wildly to and fro, but I was up again at 3am, which is unlike me, once asleep I don’t usually awake again until around 7am. Perhaps it was something in my sub-conscious mind for I felt the need to go and check whether the combined forces of the wind and rain had encroached into our balcony once again. It had only ever done it the once, just a few weeks ago, and to be honest, it wasn’t as if I could have done anything about it anyway if it had, it would have run down the floor to a drain so there was no fear of the water level rising and seeping into the living room, but something had woken me up and made me go and check it anyway 🤷‍♂️ As it was, no water had leaked in through the French Window style doors on this occasion, although the wind whistled through the deteriorating rubber seals, a replacement job which was way down on my list of DIY tasks, a list which only ever gets longer, never shorter, but perhaps I will get around to doing some of them maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or more likely when I get around to phoning the man that will do them right and at the first time of asking 🤭

Anyway, I guess I should stop my rambling now for the content of these recent one’s must be beginning to feel, for you my readers, a bit like having your own ‘Groundhog Day’ 😂 But hey, don’t blame me, I can only work with the material I am provided with, perhaps the weather, like my list of DIY tasks, will improve tomorrow, or maybe the next day. There is a weather man that I could phone, but considering that he has had a faulty crystal ball for some time now, and which still remains faulty, I think his DIY skills are probably about as proficient as my own, so phoning him for any assistance is perhaps a non-starter too 🤔

So, until the next time my friends, wherever you may be in the world, here’s hoping that you are experiencing better weather conditions than we are here in our little corner of Southern Spain at this moment in time 👍

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

I finished mopping up the water from the balcony floor from where the heavy downpours, aided by the extremely strong winds, had forced their way in through the bottom of the French windows, this had been the very first occasion that we had experienced this watery invasion on the inside of our home 😲 At one point the streams of water on the balcony floor had flowed like small streams, fortunately, the floor slopes a little, down to a drainage grate on the floor, so there was no actual risk of the water accumulating to any serious level, so there would be no need for me to sit with my snorkelling gear on, flippers, wet suit, mask and snorkel although, that humorous thought had actually crossed my mind, but only so that I could watch the reaction on people’s faces as they looked up from their car windows as they passed by below 😂 ‘Little things please little minds’ I could hear my mother saying 🤭 In truth however, there were not really too many cars or pedestrians passing by, no sensible person would be out in this weather unless they really had to, how glad we are, not to have a dog to walk 😲

It seems a little strange when we think that it had only been ten days or so since we returned from our sunny and very warm day trip to ‘Vejer’, it really does feel very much longer. We have not been confined to barracks for that full period of time though, unlike some other’s who live not that far from our location, for there has been the odd break in the weather, just enough to allow us to get out for a walk and, on another half a day, to get out for a very welcome lunch, there are only so many healthy ‘Plant Based’ meals that one man can tolerate 🤭 However, for the majority of the time there has been a mixture of both light and heavy rain, dispersed with some shorter brighter periods, but in the main it has been ‘extremely wet’, with no sunshine able to penetrate the thick black storm rainfilled clouds. Shazza and I agreed that we certainly would not have enjoyed being stuck in our Motorhome in these current elongated period of sogginess, with no sunshine for our solar panels to provide us with energy for our leisure batteries, unless of course we had done the sensible thing and retreated to a campsite but, even then we would not have been protected from the deafening sound of the rain as it hammered onto the thin plastic roof and sides of the van, the van rocking violently in the gale force winds, and we certainly would not have enjoyed having to go outside every few days to empty the toilet cassette or re-fill the fresh water tank, no, it is periods like this when we are grateful for being in more solidly structured accommodation, with a lot more of life’s convenient luxuries on tap as it were, although, strangely enough, occasionally we can still put on our rose tinted glasses when we miss those days 🙄 then the heavens open up again and knock them off !!

So, as you may well imagine, although we have not been doing very much, and I should not really have very much to ramble on about, fortunately, for you my reader’s that is 🤭 it has given me lots of time to sit and catch up on what is happening in the wider world, outside of our own little bubble, and of course put my own perspective on a ‘few’ of those things so, if you are sitting comfortably, I will begin 😂

I am sure the term ‘Mediterranean Diet’ will be a familiar one to most of you, the link between a temperate all year round climate, vast expanse diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, olive oil combined with a stress free and slow pace of life etc. of course these being just some of the main reasons for why many of those who reside permanently in such regions live longer and much healthier lives. Well okay, that is the picture that is usually painted, but is it actually the reality 🤔 Now some of you may already be thinking ‘Here he goes again’, banging the drum yet again about a ‘Plant Based’ dietary regime 🥱🥱🥱 Well actually, in this ramble at least, you can be reassured that this is not going to be the case, no, what follows are my ‘opinions’ and ‘observations’ created by a publication in a recent news article that I read in a local Spanish Media publication.

You will perhaps recall, if you were paying attention that is, that in my last ramble I mentioned, although more intended as a bit of a ‘tongue in cheek’ comment really, of how Shazza and I spend some of our time, when we are sat enjoying our morning coffee’s, being the ‘Body Beautiful Police’ 🤭 So I can say that I have no arguments with the precept of this article, for our own observations do actually reflect that the article heading is quite an accurate statement of fact, although I am pretty certain from evidence accrued on past road trips within Spain, that this extends to beyond our own Malaga Province. However what I took issue with is this, the article referred to ‘Obesity’ now being considered medically as a ‘disease’ which creates both a medical and mental health condition. This article, prompted by a report actually stated that ‘Obesity’ increased dramatically primarily due to the Covid Pandemic 🤷‍♂️ Which may well be true, but were the publishers of said report not taking any notice of the Obesity issues ‘prior’ to the Pandemic I wonder 🤔 Anyway, as a consequence of what they are now labelling a ‘disease’, it would appear that they are now treating this ‘obesity disease’ with ‘surgery’ and ‘medications’ before any other options. Personally speaking, I cannot understand how individuals ‘voluntarily’ eating or drinking too much of the ‘bad stuff’, can actually be considered as a medical disease when Obesity is something that is within our own personal control. I am sure we all know by now what is good for us, and by default, what is not, dietary wise, don’t we 🤷‍♂️ So, if we know what sort of stuff we are consuming (Food and Drink) is responsible for piling on the fat and, as an obvious consequence, excess weight, then surely do we really require a medical professional, dietician or nutritionist to provide us with the solution to reduce or stop it. now I am not speaking as a ‘Fatist’, or even as someone with a super models figure, or even as someone who has any real dietary discipline myself. I am already aware that even I could certainly afford to shed another Kilo or two. However, I also know what my dietary and drink related weak temptation areas are, and yes, I even have to confess that perhaps I have too many of them 🤭 But I also know that it is up to me, if I choose to, to find the personal ‘discipline’ to do something about it, I certainly don’t need to waste a doctor’s time, especially as I already have an early warning mechanism in place, no not the bathroom scales, they lie anyway 😂 no, my clothes are all I need to tell me that I am perhaps putting on a few too many pounds and that perhaps I need to consider doing something about it, or not as the case may be 🤷‍♂️ But seriously, have we actually got to the point where Doctor’s are not permitted as medical professionals to tell a person that they are overweight or indeed fat or obese. There are differences between being overweight, fat, obese and even morbidly obese, these conditions do not actually mean that you have a ‘medical disease’, unless of course in some rare circumstances, outwith your control, medically you do. So should the first course of medical intervention not be ‘Surgery’ or ‘Medications’ but straightforward dietary advice 🤷‍♂️ Can you imagine just at how many medical appointment slots could become available to those who are actually in more real urgent need of them 🙄 How many hospital beds could suddenly become available if people were told no, we will not perform ‘Gastric Band’ surgeries or ‘Liposuction’ procedures on you, just stop eating crap and abusing your vital body organs !! Anyway enough of that, I have had my rant 🤭 Although, ‘Those in glass houses should not throw stones’, now where have I read that before 🤔 Anyway, if you keep reading, you will see a perfect example of what I have just been spouting on about when you see what I had served on my ‘Menu del Dia’ lunch a few days later in relation to my own obvious lack of any personal discipline 🙄

However, enough whinging Eric, to something more positive and perhaps sometimes, just sometimes mind you, the Spanish Authorities can also do some brave stuff that deserves a pat on the back, things that, once again personally speaking, I believe is a simple and effective solution to the problems they appear to be having in a lot of schools, in a lot of countries these days. Although I am rather hoping that this new rule extended to beyond just the pupils and included the teaching staff too, although their was no clarification on that in this particular media article 🤔

And, whilst I am still finding myself on a more positive note, during this rather extended and less than cheery wet weather period, something else for the Spanish Education Authorities to be proud of themselves for……………….

Another difference that we do witness over here, compared to the UK, is that parents do actually discipline their children, even in public, when they misbehave, have tantrums and even if they are disrespectful to other’s, although I have to qualify that statement with the fact that it is actually a very rare occurrence to see in public, but only because, unlike what we have often not witnessed in the UK, there is still respect towards adults by the younger generation, especially towards the more elderly generation which, for reasons that I won’t expand on, I am particularly pleased to see 😂 In the UK, even shouting loudly at a child in public is a reportable offence, slapping a child on the hand, or back of the legs, is considered to be child abuse, which can and has resulted in hefty fines to parents, imprisonment and can even result in having children removed from the family home and put into protective custody 😲 Don’t get me wrong, like everything, I believe that there should be limits, especially in respect to the severity of ‘discipline’ that a Parent or even person’s in authority (Teacher’s, Police, Social Worker’s etc.) can initiate on a child, a level that can be considered reasonable in the circumstances, whilst there also being levels that are considered both disproportionate and unacceptable, we should all know the difference shouldn’t we 🤔 So, back to the news article, taking a day of the academic year to teach children about peace, tolerance and respect I think is very commendable. If only there was a way to get Adults to attend such a day’s lesson each year, more so, Politicians and Religious Leader’s 🤔

Now I will take a break here for a Public Information announcement, well for driver’s at least, but note that this does not just apply to drivers of Spanish registered vehicles but to all driver’s who bring their vehicles onto Spanish roads. This new law comes into effect on 1st January 2026. Please note that there are several designs, not just the example shown in the photograph below, the majority have a flat magnetic base that attaches to the roof of the vehicle and are small enough to keep in a glove box.

Okay, so back to the here and now in our lives and what have we actually been up to since my last ramble 🤔 As you may imagine, from the introductory paragraphs of this ramble, not a lot to be truthful, as you may recall I left you, in the previous ramble, with the news that the ‘Works of Fiction’, bless there little cotton socks, had forecast that we were going to get ten consecutive days of rain, which has now been extended to over fourteen days 😲 to a mixture of heavy and light rain, with periods of thunder and lightning and so we had ‘Kevin’ the Kayak on stand-by. We prepared ourselves, well physcologically at least, for a long period of confinement and potential cabin fever, Shazza got an Amber flood alert notification on her mobile phone, although for some reason I didn’t receive one on mine 🤷‍♂️ So I could only conclude that whilst ‘she’ was at risk of drowning in a flood, the powers that be, whoever they may be, thought me worthy of saving, perhaps because they believed that she was single-handedly guilty of over plundering natures vegetable, fruit and spice resources, whereas, I deserved a reprieve, to enable me to sample more of the world’s other gastronomic temptations for a little longer, until I perhaps finally contracted ‘Obesity Disease’ 😂

Now there has been a lot of rain, and yes there have been lots of floods again, in some areas, although nowhere near as devastating as last year’s Valencian disaster but, at this particular moment in time, as I continue with this ramble, we are into day 10 of that fourteen day period so who knows how much worse it could get 🤷‍♂️ But within our local area, well the Province of Malaga as a whole, which includes not just the long stretch of Costa del Sol coastline, but also the inland mountainous areas too, there must have been a lot of rain as the last time I mentioned the levels in our particular Embalce (Reservoir), the level of the water capacity in it was around 70%, which even then was certainly a lot more than there had been at the same time the previous year, but now the water capacity is at a little over 82%, the highest it has been since 2023 and, in comparison to this same time last year when it only contained 17.41(hm3) of water, it now currently stands at 47.33(hm3) 🤗

Whilst this is obviously good news, there were periods when, personally speaking, we could have done without some of it. After the first three days of rain and no sunshine, on the fourth, but still with thick grey leaden sky, that threatened to burst open at any minute, strong winds that had battalions of white mained stallions racing landwards from the sea, we decided, after having had an early lunch, to risk going out for a walk. We got wrapped up, more against the strong wind than the cold, although it was still only 14 degrees(c) outside which, for us, is still chilly after our previous week of it being in the low twenty somethings, but wearing three layers is still a bit unusual here, but to us, it looked a lot worse than it actually was, in the end though we ended up walking with our rain jackets unzipped.

We had planned on walking to the opposite end of the town to the river boundary, to stand on the bridge, just to see if the river had carved a passage down the beach to meet the incoming tide, if it had then this is where the risk of flooding becomes more likely for our town. However, as we got closer we felt the first few drops of rain, as we looked out to sea we could see that the sky over the horizon had turned from dark grey to black, the storm was definitely on its way and we needed to find shelter, sooner rather than later 😲 Although most of the Cafe/Bars along the seafront had closed, which told their own story on what was to come, fortunately, our other favourite Cafe/Bar in the Plaza was open, although for obvious reasons there were no outside tables or chairs. It was quite full and lively inside, it was still the Spanish lunchtime period and the smell of the food was delicious, we have eaten here on a number of occasions, generally Tapa’s, but most of the customers, who covered all the age generations, appeared to be having the three-course ‘Menu del Dia’, which at €13 (£11), including a drink, is excellent value. As we had already eaten we just settled for a drink, Shazza ordered a small beer and I of course selected my usual Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷 purely for medicinal reasons you understand, especially on day’s like these.

We agreed that when we came here next we would try the ‘Menu del Dia’ ourselves instead of our more usual Tapa’s selections. I had been keeping an eye on the weather outside, even if we walked at a fast pace it would take us a good thirty minutes to get back to the car, but the rain appeared to have stopped, although it was still very dark and threatening outside, but we decided to make a dash for it.

It was as if the storm had been waiting to ambush us, for as soon as we got back on to the seafront promenade the heavens opened up on us, with the strength of the wind making sure that each raindrop smashed into our faces, my cap offered little protection although it did remain firmly on my head. Had we have waited in the Cafe/Bar just a little longer we would have still been dry, and I could have enjoyed another glass, or perhaps even a couple of bottles, because had we have done so, and with the storm not letting up, we could have been there all night, a missed opportunity in my books but Shazza had a different opinion 🤭

By the time we reached the car we were sodden through, our denim jeans feeling twice there normal weight, water running down Shazza’s face as she had not worn a hat and had no hood on her rain jacket, we just looked at each other, like drowned rats, “At least we got out for a walk” Shazza said, with a small almost apologetic smile on her face, for it had been her idea to come out in the first place. “Actually, I quite enjoyed it” I replied, ‘Did you, really, or are you just saying that to make me feel less guilty ?” She asked inquisitively, “No, I really enjoyed the fresh air and the walk” I insisted, “And your glass of wine”, she said with a wry smile on her face, “Oh, and that too” I said, with a chuckle. It only took a couple of minutes to get back up the hill to the protection of our sanctuary, and whilst Shazza got out the drying rack and hung our wet clothes on it, I turned on the warm air heater on full blast, it would warm the place up in no time, then I got a lovely hot shower. Whilst Shazza got her shower I made us both a hot strong mug of tea, she curled up on the sofa with her ‘Kindle’ and I sat in my chair on the balcony and watched the heavy rain, like anywhere in this sort of weather, it looked bleak and unwelcoming outside, but inside, we were safe, warm and dry.

That evening, after dinner and whilst we were sat watching something or other on the TV, Shazza says, “What does the forecast say for tomorrow ?”, “I haven’t looked, it’s a waste of time they rarely get it right so I will just apply the Forrest Gump Principle”, I replied. ‘The what ?” she asked inquisitively, “You don’t know what your going to get until you open the shutters and look out of the window”, I replied, “Probably the best idea” she said, then we continued watching the TV, it was a ‘You Tube’ sailing vlog, they were in a 51ft motor yacht skirting the Northern coastline of Spain but had to take shelter from a storm for a few days, we felt like kindred spirits, although, unlike them, at least one of us would not have to be on anchor watch throughout the night.

The following morning when I got up, the pavement and roads were wet, although it was not currently raining, the sky was still a very dark grey. When I took Shazza her coffee through to the bedroom I gave her the latest Forrest Gump report, “Shall we just go and do some shopping” she said, “Well it will get us out I suppose” I replied, less than enthusiastically. So that was what we did, nothing else, just the shopping, then home again, a spot of lunch and then we both just passed another day, Shazza pottering as she does, unlike me, who can find plenty to do on my iPad, watching ‘You Tube’ Vlogs and chatting with different people via different Social Media channels, or just sat, deep in thought about various different, mainly irrelevant and unimportant things. Shazza on the other hand cannot sit still for long periods so quite often, out of the corner of my eye, I see her disappear into the kitchen, or the bedroom, then back into the room, I have no idea what she is doing, I don’t ask, I know she is happy in her own space with her own thoughts and I am happy in mine. We have spent the last twelve years living in very close proximity with each other, you cannot get much more togetherness than in a 6 metre long Motorhome 😲 So we have spent twenty-four hours of each and every day over those last twelve years, more or less joined at the hip, prior to that, we both had separate very busy careers where, some weeks we may not have seen each other for several days, as my job then often involved travelling around the country, so now, these rare, brief moments of silence and solitude just doing our own thing, we can and do appreciate a little more, rather than consider them, as some may, as a negative or declining aspect of our twenty year’s of being together.

By the following morning it was getting to feel a lot like ‘Groundhog Day’, whilst I am happy to spend a couple of days confined to barracks, by the third day I can feel Cabin Fever starting to creep in, and I didn’t count the short drive to do the shopping the previous day as actually getting out. Shazza usually doesn’t even manage that long, but I think that with the initial expectation of being confined, for what could have been ten or more consecutive days, but then getting the opportunity to get out, she was actually not doing too bad.

The Forrest Gump report was much the same as it had been, although if I am honest, it did look a little brighter outside, or that could have just been me trying to convince myself that it was 🤷‍♂️ Anyway, on reading the local media that morning, it was not looking good again, weather wise, the initial ten day forecast of rain had been extended. We have never, during the last ten years of coming here, experienced such a long period of ‘forecasted’ wet weather, at most it has never extended beyond four consecutive days and that included the Winter when our town suffered serious flooding. Even though this current period, in our own particular local area at least, it had not rained every single day, it had always looked as if it could and so on some of those days we hadn’t taken the risk and ventured out.

It didn’t make good reading, however, as this media article had been reported from information provided by the Spanish State Weather Agency, AEMET who, in my personal opinion, are the worst of the ‘Works of Fiction’ brigade, whether this latest storm and heavy rainfall would materialise was anyone’s guess 🤷‍♂️ So we would stick to the ‘Forrest Gump Principle’, which to be honest, was proving just as unpredictable.

What did make me laugh, sarcastically as opposed to ‘funny ha ha’ was the next article. Now bear in mind, and from our own perspective and experience, we have just spent the last two year’s in drought conditions, restrictions on our personal domestic water usage, unable to use our swimming pool or beach showers, drinking fountains shut off, washing of streets and pavements halted by the council and, the real threat of domestic supplies being cut off and having to collect water from stand-pipes in the street, although that never materialised. The Government have spent Billions of Euro’s on installing de-salination facilities for emergency use, some of which are still not up and running yet. So imagine my surprise when, after waiting for two years for our local Embalce to finally get a decent amount of water in it, I read this…………….

Now okay I am no engineer, but in the last two years of suffering severe drought conditions, never mind all the previous year’s, would you not have expected someone to come up with a plan to store this surplus very precious commodity, the water that they are now going to have to drain from the Embalce for safety reasons, into some sort of underground storage facility so that it could be used as an emergency supply in the future. Or, as some areas are still under severe drought conditions, could it not be put into tankers and taken to those other areas that need it 🤷‍♂️ Now of course, someone may tell me of a logical or technical issue that would prevent this from happening, as I say I am not knowledgable on the subject, but to a layman, it just seems astonishing that vital water supplies will be wasted, as it will be fed into storm drains or rivers and run off into the sea. I had the same thoughts every year, when the UK in the Autumn/Winter months always tended to flood, generally in the same areas, but then would suffer droughts in the Summer months and then they would implement water restrictions, so just what am I missing here 🤔

As you can see from the above images, I have an ‘App’ on my iPad that enables me to see what all the Embalce levels are in Andalusia, of course, these were extremely useful to consult over the previous two years, when we were in the worst of the drought, looking in great anticipation for any small increase in the water levels. However, since then it has continued to become a bit of a habit now, as I check the water levels on a daily basis when I do my ‘Works of Fiction’ weather watch. Sad really, I know, and it just goes to prove I suppose that I must have too much time on my hands these days 🤷‍♂️

We agreed, that as it was currently dry we may as well risk it and, if we did get ambushed again and get a good soaking, this time the blame would fall squarely at my feet. When we got outside it was actually quite warm, no need for three layers this time, I had elected to wear a long sleeve shirt with a sleeveless light body warmer over the top, but I decided on not wearing my cap. Shazza wore a long sleeve shirt but elected to wear her rain jacket over the top, so my fingers were firmly crossed that I had judged it correctly, if I am proven correct I may just think about applying for a job with one of the ‘Works of Fiction’ agencies, although on second thoughts, not sure that I would want to withstand that much abuse by those bunch of blogger’s who have nothing better to do with their time 🤭

As we got out of the car at our usual beachfront car park, it was 17 degrees(c), the sun kept making brief appearances in between the clouds, the sea was much calmer but still grey, and there was just a slight wind blowing, all in all it was actually a very nice day for a walk and lots of other people were obviously in agreement with me, as the promenade was quite busy and some were even eating ice-creams 😲

We of course headed into town, to our usual seafront Cafe/Bar and enjoyed a nice hot ‘Cafe con Leche’, we had just about timed it right to have them, here in Spain, Cafe con Leche’s are only drunk up to lunchtime, after that it is more usually Espresso or Cortado, which is something that we ourselves have only recently discovered about this Spanish tradition, so now that is another useful tool for our people watching, ‘spot the tourist’, they are obviously the one’s who do not know the Spanish coffee etiquette, or of course they could be just the rebels within Spanish society, there are a few of them here too 🤭 Fortunately for me, when the clock hits lunchtime it is always Anti-Covid Vaccine time, of one description or another 😉

We got into a conversation with the two lady owner’s, the names of which I irritatingly keep forgetting, it must be an age thing 🤔 Anyway, funny old thing, the conversation was about another incoming storm, why is it conversations always seem to include something about the weather, much like my rambles really 😂 My point, if I ever get around to it, is that Shazza, who is really coming on with her Spanish, must faster than me, is now getting confident in actually engaging in a conversation, and in perfect Spanish she says to the lady owners, “When the storm comes I am going to sit under my Blanket on the sofa, with a big bar of chocolate and watch films all day”, they laughed and put their thumbs up, but what I noticed was that just behind where Shazza was sat, was a table of four elderly Spanish Ladies, when they listened to what Shazza had said they all looked across, laughed in unison and said to Shazza, in Spanish, “Aqui Agual” (Same Here). When we got up to leave, the elderly ladies said to Shazza, “Disfruta de tu chocolate y de tu película” (Enjoy your chocolate and your film) 😁 I have to say, Shazza was well chuffed with herself and her much improved linguistic abilities, and rightly so.

We did a little bit of shopping, just at the ‘fruiterias’ and I am sure you need no telling what Shazza needed from there, it certainly wasn’t to get me a nice juicy steak 🤭 Then a stop at the bank ATM before heading for what we call the ‘Plaza Cafe/Bar’, although it’s real title is ‘La Cafe/Bar Viña’, yes today we were going to have lunch and sample their ‘Menu del Dia’. We are now treated as regular customer’s, not sure what that say’s about us and whether that is a good or bad thing 🤔 But we have now discovered that the couple who run it are Mother (Annie) and her son (Juanma), I cannot forget her name as it is the same as my own mother’s. They really make us feel welcome, always greeted by both with a big smile, sometimes a hug and a shake of the hand, yes even the men do that here, which takes some getting used to I have to admit. However, sometimes I think they forget that we are still in the early stages of learning Spanish, myself in particular, as they now just rattle off in a conversation so fast, most of it goes over my head but fortunately I have my secret weapon with me, my own personal interpreter, for whilst Shazza will admit to not understanding every single word, she can pick up most of them and so has a good understanding of what has been said, and now she is more than capable of providing quite a fluent response. Perhaps I need to spend less time thinking about and writing my blog and spend more time on doing much more of my own Spanish lessons 🙄

Normally we would sit outside, but it wasn’t warm enough so we found a table inside, we had timed it just about right as we wanted to be there during the Spanish lunchtime, for the ambience, and within ten minutes of our arrival the place was full. Typically, the ‘Menu del Dia’ provides half a dozen choices for the first and second courses, and three or four dessert options. Everything was in Spanish and I could work out some of the choices, but even Shazza had some difficulty, primarily because it was handwritten on a small board and not a typed one. I just decided to go with the flow not really knowing what I was going to get, I thought I was ordering a starter of Rice with some sort of meat, egg and tomatoes all mixed in, a bit like a fried rice dish, so I was surprised at what actually turned up, three sausages, a fried egg and white rice covered in a home-made tomato sauce, it was delicious. Shazza had some sort of broth, which tasted to me a little like chicken, but as you stirred it up there was rice, small pieces of boiled egg and finely cubed ham, very hearty and very tasty, she didn’t fuss over the meat content, I may even opt for that myself next time, and their will most certainly be a next time.

Shazza had ordered a straight forward grilled piece of sea bream with chips for her second course, I knew that I had ordered grilled pork cutlets and chips, simple and basic but again very tasty and plentiful.

When it came to choosing dessert for the final course, Shazza decided to just go for an Espresso. I wanted to just do the full three-course option, there was no written list of desserts, Annie just verbally reeled off the choices, but too fast for me to understand any of them so I just told her to select one for me. She came back with a silver foil pot which looked and tasted like a chocolate mousse, but as I put my spoon into it I discovered that it was half chocolate and half a sort of vanilla cream, a bit like a broule, very nice, very nice indeed and I don’t usually do desserts. The three course ‘Menu del Dia’, for the both of us, with a drink and bread, came to a grand total of €26 (£22), although we did order a couple of extra drinks, Shazza a beer and my more usual tipple 🍷, so in the end the final bill came to €30 (£25). Would we go for the ‘Menu del Dia’ again, but choose something different, most certainly we would and, with a wide variety of food choices on the additional ‘normal’ menu, well this place had already become one of our favourite Cafe/Bars, whether for just a drink or for lunch and this latest visit has just confirmed why it will remain probably No.1 on our current list of favourites.

It had turned out to be an excellent day, a nice walk, pre-lunch coffee, bit of shopping and a wonderful leisurely lunch. We returned home mid-afternoon, the weather had remained dry, contrary to the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast, no surprise there then, but an otherwise perfect day. The rain arrived again at around 9pm, gently at first then a little harder and it is ‘forecast’ for much heavier rain, with thunder and lightening, throughout the night and all through the following day. If it does, are we bothered ? No of course not, for we had already decided on having a day in, come rain or shine, to have a domestic cleaning day, well not a whole day, it never takes more than a couple of hours doing it all between us, after that, well we will just have to see what ‘Forrest Gump’ has to say about it…………….. 😉

Until my next ramble……………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

On the evening we returned from our day trip to ‘Vejer’ the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast that our area and the whole Costa del Sol coastline, were in for some rather nasty ‘wet stuff’, commencing in the early hours of the morning right through until the following afternoon, so we made the decision that we would make it a ‘rest day’ and just stay in. That worked fine for me because it was a Saturday, which meant that from 1:30pm, right through to around 7:30pm, I could sit and watch ‘Live’ English League football on the TV for the majority of the afternoon and early evening so, the ‘Works of Fiction’ had better get this one right, I thought to myself, although to be honest, Shazza wasn’t that bothered about going out for another walk as we had done plenty the previous day so she too was happy to have a more relaxing day. However, I should confess to being a little sceptical, because the ‘Works of Fiction’ rarely get their forecasts accurate but, it had been correct, thankfully, about the nice sunny weather for our day trip, but what were the chances that it would actually get two, back to back, weather forecasts correct 🤔 However, it did and so that left me to conclude that the belated Christmas gifts, of their new ‘Crystal Balls’, must have finally arrived, there can be no other explanation other than just pure good luck on their part I suppose 🤔

Before my afternoon and evening in front of the TV though, we did do something productive, albeit that too also required very little physical effort on both our parts 🤭 We both sat down, me with Google Maps open on my iPad, Shazza with her ‘Booking.com’ App on her’s. We planned our route to Santander for our upcoming trip to the UK, which is in only around five weeks time and, after studying our proposed route we both agreed on where we would stop to both break the journey and do a spot of sightseeing and indulge ourselves in a couple of further mini-adventures, well it would be rude not to. We do tend to stick to one of two main routes up to the North coast of Spain to catch our ferry, either the Seville or Madrid routes, but it is getting more difficult these days to find new places to stop along those routes as we have already stopped in most of them over the last ten years, we prefer not to visit the same places twice, although that is not strictly true as their are a couple of exceptions to that self-imposed rule. So, and with some required minor deviations from those normal main routes, we both agreed on the destinations that we would stop at, we selected the hotels within those locations that had on-site secure parking, as we would have luggage and perhaps other stuff in the car boot, and we wanted accommodations within walking distance of the main centres so that we would have a break from driving. Once we had agreed on the suitable hotels, Shazza went ahead and booked them and we had the confirmations within a few minutes, although we don’t have to pay in advance, only when we actually arrive at the hotels themselves. However, whilst I am sure you would like to know the locations that we have selected for those mini-adventures, I am not going to disclose them to you in this particular ramble for two very good reasons, firstly, that would spoil the rambles that I will be publishing later about those destinations and, secondly, you know what we are like, we could have changed our minds between now and when we go 😂 That is another good thing about the accommodation booking ‘App’, we can cancel the bookings up to a few days before we are due to arrive, and their are no cancellation charges, but it is not something we generally tend to do anyway, I don’t think that my OCD Buddy could cope with such short notice changes so it would only be if it were an emergency.

As I have probably already mentioned in a previous ramble, we had already pre-booked our return ferry crossings a good couple of months previously, so now, with the outbound leg of the trip all sorted, as well as the return ferry crossing pre-booked and pre-paid, all we have to do now is wait until it is time to hit the road and head Northbound. We have not yet decided on any stops that we may make on our ‘return’ trip through Spain, we will decide on that later, we may just want to get back home after being away for what will have been close on a month living out of our suitcases 🤷‍♂️ So, the only other important thing we have to do now, before we depart on our UK trip, is to submit our annual Spanish Tax Return, but that is already in hand as I have already spoken with our tax consultant, who submit this on our behalf as the Spanish Tax Forms are quite complicated, now I bet that comes as no surprise to you 🤭 But, as you may already have guessed, myself, and my OCD Buddy, have already got all of the relevant financial information ready so all I have to do is to send it to them when ‘they’ request it, which they have told me will not be until the beginning of April, so that is another administrative task nearly sorted, although the actual tax bill, once calculated, does not need to be paid until June, we will be back well before then 👍

Each year around this time our Residents Community holds its annual AGM, which is conducted in both Spanish and English, so the meetings can become quite elongated at times, dependent on the number of items on the Agenda to be discussed and voted upon. Shazza and I don’t always attend every annual meeting, but we did this time around as we had a few points to raise on some ‘minor’ aspects of the Communal Areas that we think needed addressing, fortunately the committee, and other residents present at the meeting, agreed with our comments and suggestions and so we felt happy to have had a positive contribution. We tend not to usually get too involved, the residents committee President is Spanish and he manages the place extremely well and to be honest, all of the residents here tend to ‘generally’ get on quite well with each other, the majority, like ourselves, just want a harmonious very simple community lifestyle without too many rules, just the common sense and necessary one’s, with ‘tolerance’ and ‘mutual respect’ being the two highest important values 👍 The most important aspect of the meeting, for the majority, was the state of the finances and whether we would need to increase the individual annual community charge, however, once again, for probably what is now the third successive year, it was agreed that the annual charge will remain the same, which of course was music to all our ears. So, although it has actually felt as though it has been a somewhat uneventful period since my last ramble, it has actually been quite a productive one for us, in one form or another.

We are beginning to see the changes, from the transition from the Winter to Spring, with the sunrises each passing day getting earlier and earlier, it will not be long now and the sun will be up well before me, but also, the sunsets too are getting that bit later each evening, which is nice because that means that the daylight hours are a little longer, it does not get dark here now until around 7:30pm and so, in a little less than a month, when the clocks go forward again to officially mark the start of Summertime, we should have daylight until somewhere near 9:00pm 😁 But there are other visible signs that the season is changing, the lifeguard platforms on the beaches are now once again being erected for the upcoming season, flowers and plants are being re-planted in the public areas, buildings and road markings are being given a fresh coat of paint and the Chiringuito’s are showing the first signs of coming out of from their Winter slumbers. The first of the Carnivals are, or by the time I publish this ramble, may already have taken place which is a religious one, but this one marks the official start of the annual ‘Fiesta’ period, some of which we may, or may not, grace with our presence again this year 🤭 Motor and sailing yachts are coming out from their winter storage facility and are now filling up the Marina moorings once again. All of these things reflect that we are nearing the commencement of the annual population explosion, which means the roads will be full of traffic so the toll road fees will double, the promenades, beaches, Cafe/Bars and Restaurants will all be crowded and of course they will start to adopt the customary ‘tourist price’ increases, which apply equally to everyone, tourists and locals alike, unless of course you know the one’s the tourists don’t know about and where the prices remain the same 😉 Some of these things, although of course not all, have a certain advantage for us too, as they will soon provide us with more opportunities to do ‘People Watching’ and take up our unofficial roles as the ‘Fashion Police’ but probably more importantly, it provides the local economy with much needed income, of course though, that is only if the tourists actually arrive this year 😲

Yes, the British Media still continue to pedal their propaganda about Spain being Anti-Tourist against ‘Brit’s’, no other Nationality mind you, just the ‘Brit’s’ and, even though the position on Tourism has been clarified, the British Media will still have you believe that, from this year, their is a ‘Tourist Ban’ in force 😂 Now I am sure that if they keep publishing the same old story, that there will be some people out there who will actually start to believe it, now I am sure that you my reader’s already know not to believe everything that you read in the newspapers or on Social Media these days, but you may know some who do and who may well be thinking about cancelling their holiday arrangements, so please feel free to share the below articles with them 😉

Now I know that it is rare occurrence, but in the Winter months, even in this part of Spain, we do have quite a lot of grey overcast days, although they are not always accompanied by the wet stuff, and to be honest, for every grey day in those Winter months (Jan & Feb), we generally get four or five consecutive sunny one’s, which are the sort of odds that I am all in favour of 😉 So, it came as no surprise, after the one day of rain, to once again awake to a bright blue, almost cloudless sky, the sun was already up and there was only the merest hint of a breeze so I didn’t need Shazza to inform me that yes we ‘would’ be going out for a walk 🤭 We do however have a bit of a dilemma, is it warm enough yet to get the shorts, tee-shirts and flip-flops back out 🤔 We agreed that it was still probably a little too early for that, for whilst it is fine when you are moving, it can still be a little chilly if you are static for too long, especially in the shade and when the wind is blowing in off the sea, so, whilst short-sleeved shirts, even tee-shirts are fine and carrying a light hoodie top as a precautionary measure in case the wind gets up, which is common during the afternoons here, but shorts would still be just a step too far right at this moment but, we are optimistic that we are only a couple of weeks away from that major landmark in our calendar year 🤗 Of course, we already know that just when we can get back into our favourite more leisurely attire, we will again have to revert to much more warmer protective clothing for our return to the UK, but it will be our first return visit since we departed in June 2023 so I will try not to grumble about it too much 🙄

We were already hot by the time we had walked the short distance from the car to the Marina, but we would not be stopping there on this particular day, not even for a refreshing cool drink, for we knew that if we did, that would be it, one drink would become two, then possibly three, then more than likely lunch and that would be as far as we would get that day, which, between you and me, I certainly would not have had a problem with 🤭 So we by-passed all the temptations and headed along the promenade towards the town and, I just know that you will be sick of me for continuously saying this, but the views are still amazing, no matter how many times we walk this self same route, they are just so good for the soul. The sounds of the sea just gently lapping onto the shoreline, the people on the beach sunbathing, yes they are obviously the tourists from some more northerly climates 😂, the blueness of the sea is stunning and the contrast with the blue of the sky and then, the view of the mountains in the background, well it just never gets boring. I remember writing in one of my earlier rambles, nearly two years ago now, when we had just obtained our first year’s residency permit and had commenced living here on a full-time basis, I asked myself the question, how long would it take for that ‘Wow’ factor to disappear, well it still hasn’t and now I don’t believe that it ever will.

We made our first stop at our usual seafront little Spanish Cafe/Bar and were fortunate to get a table right at the front, in the shade, but with unobstructed views across the beach to the sea, just casually watching the passing boats and other leisure craft, our view only interrupted by the usual passers by, which was actually a bonus as they served to provide us with plenty of people watching opportunities, and of course our judgemental ‘Fashion Police’ duties but, now that we have become proficient in both of those roles, we needed to add a little extra to our talents and so we have added a new dimension to the role, that being one where we, being body beautiful individuals ourselves of course 🤭 we now also conduct observations whereby we critique, quite discreetly of course, those who pass by and, well let’s just say, are quite obviously a little less ‘dietary disciplined’ 😂😂😂 This is of course, as you may well imagine yourselves, extremely thirsty work, so although we started with the mandatory ‘Cafe con Leche’, and thankfully they have got used to us now and always bring us strong one’s, for some reason they serve tourists really milky ones 🤮 But after that Shazza reverted, temporarily, to her more usual ‘Agua con Gas’, with ice and lemon of course, she still has standards I’ll have you know 😂 whilst I enjoyed a nice cold ‘Alhambra Especial’, although a little disappointed that they brought me a ‘Victoria Malaga’ branded glass to drink it out of, whatever next, a butter knife to eat my steak 😲

Now it would have been very easy to have just remained where we were, but Shazza had begun to make the right noises about beginning to get hungry, I just hoped the people on the tables around us couldn’t hear her gastronomic rumblings 🤭 We could have eaten where we were, they do serve a small variety of options, but we knew of an even better place, one that has become our favourite informal eatery over the past few weeks, yes I know, our list of ‘favourite’ places just keeps growing 🤭 this one has an extensive menu, anything from sandwiches, full individual meals, including if you want it, a ‘Menu del Dia’, or our particular go to favourites, Tapa’s 😋😋 Sometimes we do just come here for our morning coffee’s, when it is particularly windy and blowing in off the sea, for this is well sheltered from the wind and a right sun trap, but we also sometimes come here for a coffee or a beer, if we have done an afternoon walk instead of our more usual morning one’s, but we come here now mainly to enjoy their wide selection of Tapa’s. The couple that run it are Spanish but they do speak good English, they know we like to try and speak Spanish so that is how they greet us, and communicate with us whilst we are there, they are extremely friendly and very sociable, but when we do get stuck, or do not understand something, they help us with the Spanish words or revert to English. The food is always excellent and very tasty and the portions are more than plentiful. It makes a nice change from the other regular establishments we frequent in both the Marina and here in town, and of course, on this occasion, seeing as we were here and it was lunchtime, it would have been rude not to 🤭

Now usually we would just walk back to the car and go home, and yes, perhaps, on getting there we may both occasionally engage in that afternoon tradition known as ‘Siesta’, well, ‘When in Spain’ as they say 🤷‍♂️ However, on this occasion we didn’t even make it all the way back to the Marina, for the ice cream hut on the promenade was open, it was quite hot by this time of the afternoon and the tubs of deliciousness on display proved to be just too much of a temptation. Now you may wonder what on earth has happened to our healthy daily ‘Plant Based’ diets, well we do, although not often, perhaps once or twice a week when we come out, sometimes take a day off from them too 😉 So, after viewing the vast array of flavoured ice-cream choices, there must have been at least thirty, we each made our personal choices, took a seat next to the beach, and then just sat and savoured each mouthful, even our people watching went out of the window at this stage, we needed to concentrate on eating the ice-cream before it melted 😲

As we approached the Marina, we elected to take the less public route around it, which meant walking down the street behind the row on row of Cafe/Bars instead of in front of them, well after such a nice lunch and yummy dessert, we just didn’t know how many ‘Body Beautiful’ Police there would be, sat sipping their afternoon cocktails, and on the lookout for passing bulging waistlines 😂

So we had enjoyed a whole week of beautiful warm and sunny weather but the ‘Works of Fiction’ just have to have the last hoorah don’t they 🙄 They are now forecasting, and when I say ‘they’, I do mean all of the different ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts that we consult on a daily basis, but ten, yes ten consecutive days of rain 😲 some light and some much heavier periods with thunder and lightning ⛈️⛈️ So, as I write this, we shall just have to wait and see what actually arrives because as you already know by now, forecasting it, and actually getting it, can be two completely different things here 🤷‍♂️ But seeing that much rain in the forecast did make me feel a little patriotic, all I could think of was that one line in our English National Anthem, the one that says, ‘Long To Rain Over Us’ 😂😂

So we have resigned ourselves to the possibility that we could be confined to barracks for a rather long period of time but we are prepared, we have got ‘Kevin’ our inflatable Kayak on stand-by, for when we may have to paddle out to recover the Emergency food drop parcels from the helicopter, Shazza has pre-ordered and scheduled deliveries every three days of vital vegetable and fruit supplies, floods or no floods the healthy ‘Plant Based’ dietary regime must prevail 😂 I can just picture it now, the packaging on the food drop parcel breaking open as it hits the water, me paddling frantically with one hand, whilst holding on to Shazza’s feet with the other, whilst she leans over the edge of the kayak trying to recover the potatoes, onions, avodaos etc, before they float away in the torrent of water, down the hill and out to sea 😲

Looking on the positive side, at least it will serve as a reminder of what we are likely to get on our upcoming trip to the UK, so we can start to psychologically prepare for it 🤭 and of course, if that much wet stuff does actually materialise, the capacity in our Embalce should continue to increase dramatically, so not only do ‘we’ benefit but, the tourists that are actually planning on coming here for their summer holidays will not have to worry about whether the swimming pools or beach showers will be open, so ‘A Win-Win Situation For Everybody’ isn’t it nice to read something positive these days 😂

Until the next ramble…………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

We awoke on this particular morning, but looking out from the balcony windows the picture was not the best, thick grey leaden sky, which looked as if it could bring rain with it, and there was a very strong and blustery Easterly wind. We had selected this particular day to get up earlier than usual as we had found the motivation to finally go out on a day trip, although to be honest, after looking out of those windows we very nearly changed our minds. We had decided to drive across to the West into the Cadiz Province, to visit the hilltop town of ‘Vejer de La Frontera’, which is around 65 miles away and, although we had three route options, no matter which one we selected, it would take us around ninety-minutes to get there, dependent on whether we decided to stop somewhere en route for breakfast, which was always a possibility, and of course, very much dependent on the level of decibels emanating from Shazza’s stomach 😂

Whilst Shazza was getting herself ready, I looked at the ‘Works of Fiction’, whatever they showed in their forecast would determine whether we even made it outside of our own front door. Fortunately, whilst our side of the coast showed a gloomy outlook for the whole day, our particular destination showed a day of full sunshine with temperatures between 17-19 degrees(c) so, when Shazza asked me, “So are we going on our road trip today ?”, I felt confident enough to say “Yes” and then prayed that the ‘Works of Fiction’ for once would be true to their word 🫣 We agreed to take the Southern coastal road on the way there, then have a late breakfast when we reached our destination. We would decide later whether we returned through the ‘Parque Natural Los Alcornes’, either via the ‘Benalup’ or the ‘Medina-Sidonia’ routes, either of which are very scenic.

We left home at 09:15am, it looked dark and gloomy and still a bit chilly at only 14 degrees(c) and, as we followed the coast road South, down past La Linea, Algeciras and Gibraltar, the overcast sky made the sea look a dismal grey. Normally, when the sky is clear and blue, and the sea is its usual beautiful sparkling blue, we can look across the narrow Straight of Gibraltar to the coast of Morocco and see it very clearly, it is just a distance of 8.9 miles between mainland Europe and the African continent, however, on this particular day, whilst we got some glimpses of the different sized freighter’s and yacht’s passing to and fro between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the coastline of Morocco was shrouded in low cloud. Fortunately, as we began driving past the Southern range of the Andalusian mountains towards Tarifa, the grey clouds suddenly disappeared, as if by magic, the blue sky arrived and with it the warming morning sunshine, we watched as the temperature gauge showed a gradual increase of 4 degrees(c), the views opened up, we could now see the African coast much more clearly and a lot more traffic in the shipping lanes, it is actually amazing at how narrow this busy channel actually is, the colour of the sea also changed to the more familiar sparkling blue, we had now left the gloom behind, it was as if someone had opened the curtains into another brighter world. I still find it quite strange to think that, from our part of the Mediterranean coastline, across to the Atlantic coastline, which is only a distance of 50 miles, ‘as the crow flies’, that the weather and temperature conditions can vary so much 🤷‍♂️

As we rounded the corner by Tarifa and headed Northbound, still on the main coast road, we could see the miles and miles of beautiful white sand beaches stretching out before our eyes, sandwiched between the backdrop of lush green mainly pine forest, on one side, and the beautiful blue Atlantic Ocean on the other, it looked absolutely amazing. We commented to each other on how we are often reluctant to get into the car and drive this relatively short distance across to the opposite side of this Spanish coastline, but when we do, once we are here, we absolutely love it, in truth I think that this Western more rugged coastline is far more spectacular than our own and it is less densely populated 🤷‍♂️

We had driven past the whitewashed hilltop town of ‘Vejer de la Frontera’ on several previous road trips, the last being when we visited the ‘Faro de Trafalgar’ (Lighthouse), then the coastal town of ‘Barbate’ and finally finishing up at the white sandy beach and sand dune at ‘Bolonia’ where we had a very pleasant very late lunch at a sun-drenched beachfront ‘Chiringuita’. On that occasion we had said that we would return and stop to explore the town, but it had taken us many months to finally get around to now actually doing it, well it wasn’t as if it was going to go anywhere was it 🤷‍♂️

So before I get into our own account of our day visit, I guess for those of you that are history buffs you may be interested in a little bit of background information, and as you know already, Shazza and I are history heathens, so it will only be a ‘little bit’ of historical reference so, take it away Mr Wikipedia whilst I go and paint my toenails, or perhaps do something else a lot more interesting 🤭

When I had put the route options into ‘Google Maps’ the previous evening, I had selected the perfect ‘free’ public car park at the foot of the town, with easy access from the main road. However, the following morning upon setting off I hadn’t checked that Google had saved ‘my’ specific route, an error on my part and one that I would come to regret 🫣 Instead of taking the straightforward and simple access route, the ‘Twat Nav’ opted to direct us up, through the very narrow cobblestoned streets of this hilltop town, and I am not exaggeration when I say ‘narrow’, I am surprised that our car wing mirrors did not have white go faster stripes along both of them from the buildings that tried to squeeze the life from us 😲 Fortunately, Shazza had elected to do the driving 🤭 Although I have to confess that we ‘both’ suffered several ‘Brown Trouser Moments’, and there we were, thinking that we had left those days behind us !!

Eventually we found our way to the car park and very fortunately, found the last remaining parking bay available, if we hadn’t I think we would have decided to drive elsewhere rather than go through those narrow cobbled streets again looking for an alternative parking location 🙄 It was a steep walk up the hill from the car park, but it was sunny and warm, with a pleasant but strong breeze blowing, although we had to stop and ‘Admire the views’ a couple of times 😮‍💨😮‍💨 In these sort of old hilltop towns there is no real town centre, it is spread out along many narrow cobbled streets, which is actually what usually makes them so interesting and so, once we had found our way to the Tourist Information Office, where they would give us a street map and highlight the ‘Tourist Attractions’ and their locations, we could then navigate ourselves around with ease but, before that, breakfast was calling and a bit of a treat for us, as it has been very many months now since either of us have partaken of ‘Cafe con Tostado’s’ 😋😋

It was whilst we were enjoying our late breakfast that I came across my second error 🫣 Now normally, you would find the tourist office located within the town itself but, as I checked my phone map whilst munching on my toast and jam, I discovered that this was not the case in this particular town, no, the Tourist Office was actually located near the ‘free’ public car park back down at the bottom of the hill 😲 We were certainly not going to walk back down the hill, and then walk all the way back up again, ‘sod that for a game of soldiers !’ We would do without the tourist map and make do with Google Maps on our phone, although, as we were to discover, Google Maps and very narrow cobbled streets with buildings towering above us, made it difficult to obtain a signal, well actually nigh on possible if the truth were to be known so, this was rapidly becoming one of those not so good adventure days 🙄

As we departed the Cafe/Bar, on this occasion having not been subject to a daylight mugging when paying the bill, we saw a sign for the ‘Castillo’ (Castle), perfect as this was probably the main attraction and the one I was most looking forward to seeing and wandering around. There were several access points to the castle walls, but they were gated and all padlocked shut 🤷‍♂️ We kept following signs up and down cobbled streets, and I do mean ‘up’ and ‘down’ but after ten minutes or so we came to the Castle tourist entry gate, where another couple were already stood outside the closed and heavy looking wooden door, as we approached they outstretched their arms and then said, “The sign says that it is closed on Friday’s”, I couldn’t believe it, “What !! surely a major town tourist attraction would not be closed on a Friday of all days” I said out aloud, in total disbelief and a whole load of disappointment, The other couple agreed, they too shrugged their shoulders in disappointment before walking off.

We didn’t really have much of a clue what we were going to do from there, so we agreed to just do our normal mini-adventure explorer thing, which was to wander aimlessly up and down the maze of narrow cobbled streets in the hope that eventually we may find something else to stop and look at. We eventually ended up outside the main ‘Divino Salvador’ church, Shazza likes churches, but we arrived just as they were unloading a coffin from a hearse and the associated family group were filing inside for the funeral service, I looked at Shazza, she looked back at me, “Probably not the best time to go in and have a wander around taking photo’s” she suggested, “Let’s go and find the “Plaza España and grab an Anti-COVID Vaccine instead”, I said. “Great idea, do you know how to get there ?” She replied, with a bemused smile on her face. I shrugged my shoulders and we both burst out laughing, no words needed speaking, we were both thinking the same thing by this point, ‘We should probably have just stayed at home’.

We continued to just wander the streets like a pair of ‘waifs and strays’, trying to look interested at the ‘Moorish’ architecture, the stone arches and the old town walls, including the ‘Jewish Quarter’, the truth was that we were both rapidly becoming quite bored and just trying hard to find an excuse not to rush back to the car. We did come across an old stone building with an open door, the sign outside indicated that it was a museum, “Shall we take a look” Shazza said, “Got nowhere else to be right now” I said, probably a little sarcastically. The woman at the entrance desk was very pleasant and welcoming, €2.50 each she said and then told us that it was ‘free’ if we were pensioners, Shazza quickly pointed out that I was 🤭 but that she would have to pay, the lady never asked for proof of my decrepit status and I whispered to Shazza that she could have got in for ‘free’ herself had she not been so bloody honest. It took us all of ten-minutes to walk around, and that was walking slowly, it was just a lot of old manual agricultural equipment, some clothing from yester-year and some vintage storage containers, there are museums similar to this in almost every old town, displaying much the same items, although some museums are larger and more interesting, but this was certainly not one of them. As we exited I turned to Shazza and suggested, “For an additional €2.50 we could have both been sipping on a nice ‘Copa de Vino Tinto’ 🍷 which would certainly have been a much better investment of our money, much more interesting and better use of our time, so overall a much more pleasurable experience”, strangely enough she didn’t disagree or tell me to stop moaning and said, “Come on then, I’m about done here too”.

Now I may be sounding a bit disparaging of the place, but other’s will come here and will time it right, on day’s when the majority of the attractions are actually open, or in the height of the Summer where there would certainly be a different ambience about the place, but on this particular day at this particular time of the season, it just lacks any sort of wow factor, even though it was sunny and warm. Not all whitewashed hilltop villages are going to be the same, some are extremely beautiful and have a nice natural ambience about them, and some are just normal everyday towns where people go about their usual day to day business, where tourism is a side attraction rather than the main event. Shazza and I have now visited so many so, perhaps our expectations are becoming a little more demanding now 🤷‍♂️ To be fair, it wasn’t as if this town wasn’t scenic and, perhaps had we have visited on another day, when the things we like to see and do, were open, then we may have come away with a completely different opinion so, to give you a flavour of the place, below are a selection of photographs so that you can decide for yourselves whether to put it on your visit ‘To Do’ list because, as I have said in these rambles, many times, ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison’.

We eventually stumbled upon the ‘Plaza Espana’, in most places this would be the central hub, where all the Cafe/Bars and Restaurants would have their pavement tables and seating areas spread out. Some Plaza’s are large and they can be square or circular, this one was pretty small, and circular, in fact it was a roundabout and, although their were a fair few Cafe/Bars and eateries, today many of them were not open, so Friday does not seem to be a good day to visit, well not during the Winter period at least 🤷‍♂️ If you enjoy browsing through lots of ‘Tourist Tat’ shops and paying ‘Tourist Tat’ prices, then you will not be disappointed as there were quite a lot open to keep you occupied, yes even on a Friday 😉

We had intended to stay here and have a nice lunch, the Spanish tend to eat between 2-4pm, and as we had partaken of a late breakfast that would have fitted in quite well with our stomach clocks, perhaps we would also have seen a lot more life and had some people watching opportunities if we had waited a little longer, but to be honest, we had done as much as we could, or wanted, to do here, we were bored and we were ready to leave. We decided to head back towards home and, if we saw a nice village, or even a roadside establishment, that looked a decent place to eat, and by decent I mean a place that had a bit of ambience about it, but if not, we would eat somewhere nearer to home 🤷‍♂️

Probably the most enjoyable part of the day trip was the drive back through the Natural Park, the roads were pretty decent, twisting and turning, ascents and descents, but very little traffic, unlike the coastal route. There was lush greenery everywhere, fields, forests, mountain vistas, blue sky and sunshine, horses, sheep, cows and goats, several pairs of Storks stood high up on their nests, we even saw a Griffin Vulture at very close quarters, flying low across a field, on the hunt for an unaware rabbit or other small animal basking in the sun, or a chicken that had strayed too far from the farm buildings, they have even been known to take small new born lambs. We both agreed that we would have been better off packing a picnic and then pulling over and stopping to eat in this beautiful countryside, in the fresh warm air, if only we still had the ‘Little Fokker’ eh 😉

In the end we didn’t stop for lunch, we continued to drive and decided that we would have lunch at our local Indian Restaurant just a couple of minutes drive from home. As we got back across to our side of the coast and from what the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast, we expected to arrive back into gloomy grey leaden overcast and clouded sky, but to our surprise we were met with blue sky and sunshine and very warm 18 degree(c) temperatures, so we enjoyed our lunch and eventually got back to our sanctuary by late afternoon.

As I reflected on our latest day trip outside of the confines of our more usual local area, although for us it probably was not the most enjoyable day out that we have ever had but, looking on the more positive aspects, we had done a lot of varied walking, not on mainly flat terrain like our usual daily walks, so a good muscular and cardiovascular workout, which I am sure we will appreciate, once our calf muscles relax again 🤭 It had also been one of those towns to visit on our ‘To Do’ list, so at least we can now cross another one off the list, the car had been given a good run out, rather than just its usual short hops and finally, once again it makes us appreciate everything that we already have in our own immediate local area, although, that does also make us question, and not for the first time, why should we ever feel the need to go anywhere else 🤷‍♂️ Although I am certain that we still will, for sometimes ‘A change is as good as a rest’ 😉

Until my next ramble………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena