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It was 08:am, I was sat in my usual chair on the balcony with my morning coffee, the French style doors and all the other windows in the apartment were of course already fully open, to allow the gentle much cooler breeze of the morning to flow through. The external temperature was already 26 degrees(c), it doesn’t drop much below 22 degree(c) throughout the night and early hours but, until the sun pops its head around the corner and starts to raise the mercury once again to beyond the 30+ degree(c) mark, it would remain very pleasant. Although I will not say too much about ‘our’ particular weather, as it is far hotter in many other parts of Spain, and Europe, including some parts of the UK, than it is down in our little corner of the Costa del Sol. Whilst it is also still relatively early in the Season for us, in respect of ‘Wild Fires’, they have already started in other more Northerly areas of Spain and, in many other Countries they have already been devastating with numerous fatalities, so for once, for us, the weather is not the ‘Hot Topic’ it would usually be in these rambles, and yes, the pun was intended 🤭

After a four week delay, on this particular morning we were awaiting the call from Joe, to alert us to the fact that he had arrived at the outer security gate and needed us to let him in. The phone rang almost smack on the dot at 08:30am and I met Joe, and Robert, the first of his team of Spanish Contractor’s, down in the car park. Joe always comes on the first day of the project and he was extremely apologetic for the delay with the original agreed start date of the project, but hey, he was here at last and that was all that mattered. Over the period of the next couple of weeks we would see a whole raft of different faces as the Spanish Contractor’s came and went, starting with Spanish ‘Robert’ as we have come to call him, as it is Robert and not ‘Roberto’, who was ‘The Dismantler’, after him there would be a Plumber, then the Electrician ‘José’, whom we had come to know when he did our kitchen project last year, then as the work progressed there would be a Carpenter (To make and install our new ‘Pocket Door’ and Bathroom Cabinetry), then the Bathroom Fitter and Tiler and maybe perhaps some other faces, but as each Contractor arrived and departed, our en-suite bathroom would start to change from looking like a demolition site, to metamorphosing into the new, beautiful and modern en-suite bathroom of our dreams, okay not quite our dreams, as the space we actually have is not that large, we would need a large Private Villa to realistically fulfil that dream, so perhaps we will leave that rebuild project until next year 😂 Few of the contractor’s can speak any English, but our level of basic Spanish conversation has slightly improved since last year, Shazza’s more so than my own, I wonder why that is 🤔 So, if they did need to ask us anything, or us them, we should have less difficulties. Joe, the owner of the firm, is English, but he does not remain on site, he just visits at various stages throughout the two weeks just to check on his team, he always has multiple projects going on, his firm is very popular in the whole of the Malaga Province and he has an excellent reputation for conducting quality first class projects, to which we can personally testify after completion of our kitchen project last year. Joe had given us an initial ten working day timescale, although he expected to have it completed within seven or eight working days, but we knew from the last project how there has to be a degree of flexibility with these things, in case they meet unanticipated problems, or an employee suddenly takes ill, or just wants an impromptu duvet day 🤭

We knew of course that we would be confined to barracks for the next couple of weeks, not that we had any reason not to trust leaving them alone, but at the end of the day they would be staranger’s to us, in our home and at least by being here, if they had questions or needed something, like an ice-cold drink, we would be on hand to assist. But that would be no hardship as with the timing of this project, with us now being on our ‘Summer schedule’, we don’t generally go out during the heat of the day anyway. We had already done a weekly shop and, if we did happen to need anything else, then one or other of us could just pop out to the shops (Or Fruiteria 🤭). Additionally, if we wanted to keep up with our daily swimming sessions we could just take it in turns to go down to the pool, so at the end of the day it is not going to be any hardship for us.

Once we heard Robert commence his destruction, Shazza disappeared into the sanctuary of her kitchen to commence her culinary alchemy, the differing aroma’s constantly wafting through and awakening my gastric juices, the smell of another freshly baked sour dough bread loaf being taken out of the oven to cool, onions, garlic and chilli being slowly cooked and softened, the base for yet more of her ‘Plant Based’ concoctions or sauces, and god knows what else she was preparing, but I knew with some confidence that, whatever the final culinary delicacies she produced, they would all be absolutely delicious. Shazza has spent a lot of time since we both started this ‘Plant Based’ food journey together, adapting basic ‘Plant Based’ book recipes with an assortment of herbs and spices, to meet our own individual flavoured preferences. As you know by now, I am not completely one-hundred per cent ‘Plant Based’ and Shazza will, with some particular dishes, go the extra mile and add Fish or Chicken to mine, whatever would I do without her, she is a ‘keeper’ for sure 😂

We had spent the previous evening re-locating ourselves into the guest room and bathroom, dismantling items from our existing en-suite, things that we wanted to keep and of course, moving some clothing from wardrobes and drawers, before covering what needed to remain in our main bedroom with dust sheets. This re-location, beforehand and in our minds at least, felt as if it was going to be a major upheaval when in reality, it wasn’t. We were both excited at seeing whether our new bathroom, which in conjunction with Joe, several months earlier, we had designed, would turn out as we had visualised. Although it was only a relatively small space, the whole room was being totally demolished and then being reconstructed from floor to ceiling, taking out a wall to accommodate a new style sliding ‘Pocket Door’ then rebuilding the wall, replacing all the existing wall and floor tiles, removing all the old porcelain bathroom items, Bath, Sink, WC and Bidet, refitting much more modern bathroom fixtures and fittings, including our new ‘Walk-In Shower’ (No bath), the installation of new bathroom cabinetry and the re-location of newer, more modern electrical sockets and light switches, and of course a totally new modern colour scheme, yes this was our second major project since relocating to Spain on a permanent basis just a little over two years ago, both being projects that would turn what was somebody else’s former home into our own. It isn’t until you see programmes on the TV, like ‘A New Life In The Sun’, where you see that no matter what the location, that all the kitchens and bathrooms in the apartments are pretty much basically constructed and furnished in exactly the same way, same colour schemes, same cabinetry, same kitchen and bathroom fixtures and fittings, same decoration etc. etc. Not that there is anything wrong with that, especially if like us, for the initial period of ownership, it is just used as a ‘second home’ for short periods. But our particular ‘Residential Urbanisation’ was built a little over twenty-years ago now and our apartment was well overdue a general internal refresh and update, so even after the bathroom project is complete, there will still be some re-decorating of other rooms, although we already made a start on this when the weather was much cooler, so we have already completed the Kitchen, Guest Bedroom and Bathroom and the Balcony.

As I sat, just generally pondering, as I regularly do, I was looking out, just at the views in general and at the people walking on the pavement below, when I realised that the majority of the people I was seeing had become pretty familiar to me, some walking their dogs, or taking children to school or walking down the hill towards the beach, marina or just the local supermarket, but they were much the same people that I see on a regular daily or weekly basis, people that, although I didn’t know them personally, they didn’t feel like stranger’s either. It got me thinking about how we have just settled into our community here and got to know and recognise our immediate neighbour’s, Stephanie and her 3-4 year old daughter, and ‘newish’ male partner, who live on the ground floor to the right of us, they are Spanish and are relatively new occupant’s on a long term rental basis, only having moved in just after we came to live here permanently. They do not speak any English whatsoever, and yes you are right, why should they 🤷‍♂️ but still they are so friendly, if they are out in their small patio garden area, a benefit they have of living on the ground floor, and if we are stood looking out over our balcony, as I often do, they always speak and, once again, now that our conversational Spanish has improved, we can engage in brief neighbourly chit chats about the weather and the heat, the usual sort of stuff. Directly below us, but not permanent residents, live John and Tracy, an English couple in their 60’s, we see them probably three or four times a year when they come out for a couple of weeks at a time. On the left of us, again on the ground floor, is an Irish couple, perhaps in their late fifties, again they are not permanent residents, but they are more frequent visitor’s than John or Tracey, the advantage of them holding Irish Passports and still being part of the EU. Immediately above us are Miguel (Spanish), and his wife Katya (Italian) who has recently obtained Spanish Citizenship, I know I have probably mentioned them before, they are both probably in their mid-forties, childless and both work full-time and they both speak excellent English. Because they both work, Miguel in the medical profession and a shift worker at the hospital in Gibraltar, Katya in the ‘High End’ Property Sales industry, so we do not see them on a regular daily basis but when we do, they are extremely friendly and always stop and chat, they have a VW Camper-van which they regularly use, so we have something in common to talk about on the occasions when we do see each other, and I have to confess that their are the odd occasions when we have the pangs of wanting to go back to travelling and enjoying, if not permanently living, on the road in a van. Fortunately, they are currently away in their van touring Northern Spain, so they will not be disturbed by the noise from our renovation project, although we had already pre-warned them that it was going to happen. There are of course other neighbour’s too that we have come to know, of all Nationalities, who live elsewhere on our small complex and who we see either when we are down at the pool, or when we are going to, or coming back from, the car in the car park, and even when we are walking along the promenade or sat having a Coffee, they smile and wave at us in acknowledgment. Our cleaner is Spanish and she regularly stops and chats with us as we come and go, and the same goes for our Spanish Gardner, who is also our Pool Maintenance and General Handyman. So it really does just feel so very nice, and I guess comforting in a way, to have that feeling that this really does feel like home where we are experiencing and enjoying a normal every day life, just like living in any house, on any street within a community I suppose, things are not so very much different wherever you just happen to live.

It was easy, before we took the decision to actually come and live here in Spain on a permanent basis, to perhaps just look at all the positive aspects, the good all year climate probably being the biggest positive although, in truth, we had been coming to this same location for the previous eight years, so we were pretty much already quite familiar with the location, the seasonal changes, the people and the every day services and facilities available. But like everything, sometimes you only see things through ‘Rose Tinted Glasses’ and it isn’t until you spend much longer periods of time in a place, or doing something, like full-time living in a plastic box on wheels for example, when you actually experience the reality of it all, and sometimes, along with all the good and exciting stuff, there are occasionally the disadvantages and hardships, for in reality, life is never actually all that perfect.

I have mentioned many times within these rambles, some of the personal frustrations that I have with living here in Spain as a foreign resident, probably more so with the Official Bureaucracy and very occasionally the ‘Manana Manana’ approach, although we have not really encountered too much of the latter and, initially at least, the language barrier which are, in my personal opinion, the main things that do take some getting used to here. Overhearing a conversation very recently, an American man who it seems had literally just purchased a property in a communal environment, as opposed to a detached residence in its own grounds, he was complaining about the bureaucracy, and not just with the ‘official’ kind, although yes, of course he was having a good moan about that too, everybody does, even the Spanish, it’s a national pastime 🤭 and yes, to be honest I could empathise with him and ‘I genuinely felt his pain’ However, what really appears to have irked him, was that he could not understand why he was restricted to making some of the external changes that he wanted to make to his recent purchase, not being able to have a different style, or frame colour, on his windows, or being able to install a sun canopy of a certain size and overhang, or the restriction to the one choice of colour it could be, not being able to attach a Satelite receiver to an outer wall, the list he reeled off began to grow quite extensively as I sat listening to him, I even nearly had to order a second Anti-Covid Vaccine 😂 At one point, I felt like interjecting and telling him to purchase a ‘detached’ residence in the ‘Campo’, where he was more likely not to encounter ‘as many’ such restrictions, but I restrained myself. It wasn’t as if I was overtly being nosey, or rude, by listening in on his conversation, because the whole Cafe could hear it, let’s just say he ‘bellowed’ rather than ‘talked’, but the knowing smiles coming from the surrounding tables told their own, ‘Been There, Experienced That’ stories 🤭 Having watched a lot of ‘Relocation’ programmes and ‘You Tube’ videos over the past few year’s I have come to realise that none of these things apply just to Spain, most countries in Western Europe are exactly the same, building permission certificates for everything and anything, rules on what you can and cannot do, and things that you would think should take only day’s, or week’s, can actually take months and when you moan to the Estate Agent, or Lawyers, or building project manager’s, they all have the same one ‘unspoken’ International Gesture, the raising of their hands to shoulder height 🤷‍♂️

So, now having just entered our third year of Spanish Residency, I am still learning, as I do still have some way to go with my Spanish education, that you should never put a timescale on things, if things happen on time, or faster than anticipated, think yourself privileged, and certainly do not assume that there will be any logic to anything, for their generally isn’t, so the rule of thumb is to just sit back and take full advantage of those Rose Tinted Glasses, although to be honest, mine are more ‘Tinto’ coloured 😂

By way of an example, some of my more regular readers may recall me mentioning in a previous ramble, the frustrations that I am having with the Spanish Tax Agency, although I didn’t go into any detail at that time. Well those frustrations persist and I have recently learnt, through my Spanish Tax Consultant, that whilst they (the Spanish Tax Authority) have been quick to debit my bank account with my 2024 annual tax liability, it will still be a ‘Few’ more weeks before they get around to issuing me with the one-sheet ‘Resident Tax Certificate’ that I require from them, and with no clarity on what the term ‘Few Weeks’ actually equates to in real world time 🤷‍♂️ But there you go, at least there is some consolation in the knowledge that when I do finally receive it, and forward it to the UK Tax Authority, they have already told me that it is probably going to take ‘at least’ six months before they get around to processing it, and more importantly, refunding the two year’s worth of tax payments that they owe to me. So, it isn’t just the wheels of Spanish Bureaucracy that grind slowly and if I really want to put my ‘Positive’ head on, the longer they both take, the more money I will eventually get refunded, provided that I am still alive to spend it of course 🙄 However, on a bright note, at least Joe’s team have now turned up to commence the bathroom project, the sun is still shining, the sea is still a lovely green and blue colour, the swimming pool water temperature is nice and warm, there are no wild fires in our area, the reservoir still has plenty of water in it, the Anti-COVID Vaccine supplies are still in plentiful supply, the beer is still cold, and, after weeks of seeing the bathroom scales move very little, if at all, they have now seen a weight decrease of 0.6Kg in the last week, although that may not be same story next week as this coming weekend see’s yet another large Fiesta in our local town, will we go though 🤔 Well it would be rude not to now wouldn’t it 😂

Until the next ramble…………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

For my regular reader’s I will first address the elephant in the room, the question of our bathroom renovation which, in my last ramble you may remember that I told you, the commencement of the two week project had been delayed by three weeks, with a new commencement date of 30th June, well that has been pushed back further, by another week, to a new start date of 7th July 🤷‍♂️ Although the owner of the firm did actually phone us this time to inform us, rather than just sending us an Email, and other than his profuse apologies, which did seem sincere enough, he has ‘verbally’ guaranteed that the work will not be delayed again beyond that new start date, although I won’t be convinced until the contractor’s actually arrive at my front door 🙄

Now apart from that, and to be completely open and honest with you, on a purely personal note, there has been very little of any real significance to write about, simply because, apart from the essential normal domestic type chores, we have not been doing very much at all. There has of course been other ‘stuff’ going on, both here in our own immediate local area of Spain, and also much wider afield in this world of our’s, although with the latter you will probably be more aware of all of that for yourselves, from the International media channels, as I only tend to focus these days on the media articles that have any direct impact on, or interest to, ourselves 🤷‍♂️ However, on saying that, yes Shazza does have a tendency to maintain her interest on what is going on in the much wider world and, rather irritatingly, insists on keep telling me about them, wether I want to hear about them or not 🙄 I have of course had year’s of practice of learning when to nod, or make some sort of verbal noise, at the right time, just so that she thinks I am listening to her 🤭

Before I get into my more usual ramblings though, let me just tell you that Shazza and I have managed to find the odd couple of minutes, in our less than hectic current lethargic lifestyle, to make a decision, well okay, Shazza made the decision and I just went along with it which, as you already know, is quite the normal way of doing things in our household. Yes, she has decided that ‘she’ needs a holiday, a proper holiday, one which involves driving to Malaga Airport, boarding a flight to somewhere that we cannot travel to in our car, and of course, once there, staying in one of our favourite ‘All Inclusive’ Hotel Chains. Fortunately, the relatively shortish flight will not involve flying through, or over, any ‘High Risk’ zones, where I am now led to believe that, in addition to all the usual on-board pre-flight safety briefings and information, like locations of escape exits, how to use the ‘Life Jackets’ and ‘Oxygen Masks’, just in case of any in-flight Emergency situations, but now, if you are on a route flying over some certain ‘High Risk’ areas, you are given extra instructions and demonstrations on the use and fitting of some additional ‘mandatory safety equipment’, notably a ‘Hard Steel Helmet’ and ‘Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Protection Suits’ and, if you land somewhere, other than the scheduled destination, and are taken to less savoury holiday accommodations, you are instructed to only provide your ‘Surname and Passport Number’ to your new hosts, no matter how many ‘incentives’ they may try to bestow upon you to reveal more 😲 But the good news is that this additional information, and demonstration of how to use such equipment, will not delay the flight’s take off times, although, weaving through incoming weaponised drones or nuclear missiles may of course potentially delay your arrival time a little 😂

As you also well know by now, ‘we’ never appear to be able to do anything that is straightforward or simple, no, not us 🙄 I of course blame Shazza, for it was her that stipulated that she did not want to go on a holiday whilst the ‘Little Darlings’ were still off school and, whilst most UK ‘Little Darlings’ return to school at the start of September, the Spanish do not return until the second week. So when my OCD Buddy and I consulted the Calendar, to see if there was anything already scheduled on or around my ‘beloved’s’ preferred dates, I encountered a small, although not insurmountable, issue. Before we can actually go ahead and pre-book our 10 day vacation, it just happens to coincide with the same period that we have to have our mandatory vehicle test inspection. It is a little different over here in Spain, to what it is in the UK, because the mandatory testing over here, for cars less than 10 years old, has to be done every two years and not annually as in the UK, our’s is now due this September, with the test itself having to be conducted at an Official Spanish Government Testing Station (ITV Station) and this test can only be pre-booked up to one month before the official due date, although the test itself can be conducted at anytime within that one month period. Now that in itself should not be a problem but, if there is an issue and the vehicle doesn’t pass, for whatever reason, then you have a certain time period to get the issue(s) resolved and the vehicle booked in for a re-test, subject of course to appointment availability. So, as we cannot pre-book our vehicle test before the end of August, we do not want to risk pre-booking flights or accommodations before we have a confirmed vehicle test date and, ideally, if we are able to get an appointment date closer to our actual ‘due date’ then we can go on holiday before having the car tested, if the holiday accommodation dates are still available that is 🤷‍♂️ So there will be more news to come on those particular aspects in a future ramble, for now though, all I can tell you is that our ‘proposed’ holiday location will be to somewhere that neither of us have ever visited before 🤗 I know, the suspense of waiting to discover where we have selected to go will be killing you, but just remember, ‘Patience is a virtue’. I will leave you with a hint, the location comprises Sun, Sand, Sea and Swimming Pools, a lot like a ‘Busman’s Holiday’ for us then 🤭 but no making of beds, supermarket shopping, frequent trips to fruiterias, preparing or cooking of meals, washing and drying of pots, so yes, I guess it will be more of a holiday for Shazza, as she tells me that I am on a 365 day a year holiday already 😂

Now for those eagle-eyed readers amongst you, you may well have recognised that the photograph, at the top of this ramble, is of course of the place just down the road from us that we call ‘The Rock’ (Gibraltar), which itself has been the focus of numerous local and International media publications very recently. Now for those that do not know, Gibraltar has been part of the British Empire since the early 1700’s, but ever since then, the Spanish have demanded that we return this very strategic outcrop of rock, located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, back to them. So, why is a former Spanish land mass a British Territory ? I guess that at this point it would be beneficial if I gave just a very brief history of how that came about, but believe me when I say that the historical aspect, as provided by ‘Mr Google’, will be very brief 😁

Now, let’s jump forward another 23 year’s to the current day, 2025, and after a ‘Secret’ meeting between the British, Gibraltarian and Spanish Government’s and of course other EU Officials, who have their own personal interests in the matter, the following headlines were released to the local and International media’s.

Now whilst the current UK Government are at pains to reassure the British and Gibraltarian public that the Island has ‘Not Lost’ any of it’s British sovereignty, which of course is a ‘Lie’ as the Spanish it appears will now have the power to vito Applications and Visas for all persons wanting to take residency on the British Territory and there will no longer be any formal ‘Land Border’ at the ‘Frontier’, once the agreement is ratified later this Autumn, when only a joint Gibraltarian and Spanish Border Control will exist at both the Airport and Sea Port. Gibraltar will then ‘Officially’ become yet another piece of land in the ever increasing list of ‘Schengen Zone’ Countries. Just in case some people reading this news in the media themselves may have missed it, it will also no longer be the ‘Tax Free’ haven that it currently is, as it has also been agreed that, once the agreement is ratified, there will be an immediate increase of 15% Tax on ‘some’ goods and services.

So this is how I interpret this news and see it for what it really is, and not what the current UK Government are trying to sell it as, for like all our UK Politicians, they have a really bad habit of not being ‘Transparant’ in either what they are doing, or what they are telling the British Public that they are actually doing. So the reality is that after 300 years of owning this highly strategic little Country, they have now, contrary to what they have been saying, actually ‘gifted’ Gibraltar back, not only to Spain but the EU as a whole. What was once a British ‘Schengen Free’ Travel area will, once the agreement has been ratified, become yet another part of the continually expanding “Schengen Zone’ of Countries.

Now I do have to say that this ‘change of status’ with Gibraltar, does not actually have any real impact on Shazza or myself, not whilst we are residents here in Spain, although it may in fact have a minor advantage. We do not tend to travel the relatively short distance (30 minute drive) to visit Gibraltar, it is one of those places that in our opinion, once you have seen the touristy stuff and strolled through the shopping areas once, then there is no reason to go back there, unless of course we were to ever decide to use the small Airport to return to the UK, which is unlikely due to the limited number of UK airports that it services. Although, I am not intending to disrespect the Island, for on the occasions when we have visited Gibraltar, yes we enjoyed the opportunity of seeing the tourist sights, going in to shop at the large ‘Morrisons’ supermarket and fill up the car, or Motorhome, with much cheaper fuel. However, although Gibraltar is right on our door step, we have not actually set foot on this British Territory in at least the last four or five year’s. Prior to that we only visited in our capacity of personal tour guides, when we had visitor’s staying with us who wanted to go there, albeit primarily for their ‘Tax Free’ tobacco, alcohol and other products.

With its current status, as a British Territory within a non-Schengen Zone, this does actually create a bit of a disadvantage for us, should we ever feel the need to want to go there as, under our ‘current’ Residency Permit Conditions, we are only permitted to leave Spain for a specific number of months, within the first five year’s of our current residency period. So that means that every time that we do cross the Frontier into Gibraltar we are classed as leaving Spain and, as such, we would have to have our Passports stamped, as ‘exiting’ Spain and then we would need to get them stamped again, when we ‘re-entered’, even if that were only to be for a couple of hours on each trip, and of course, on every occasion we were to do that, well that knocks off days from our overall limited personal travel time periods elsewhere, days that we may prefer to use to go elsewhere outside of the Spanish borders. Additionally, under the current EU regulations, we are not permitted to bring back across the border any Meat or Dairy products, or produce containing any traces of such products 🤷‍♂️ Not that any of that is actually a big problem for us, just really another administrative and beaurocratic irritation and, with our ‘Plant Based’ dietary regime, restrictions on food products are not an issue for us either. But, here is the ‘positive’ side of what will become ‘Gibraltar’s new status’, when the agreement has been ratified of course, when Gibraltar will then have no land border with Spain and will become part of the ‘Schengen Zone’, so, no need to carry our passports, just our Spanish Identity Cards, which legally we have to carry on us at all times anyway, no border controls, none of our limited travel days used up and, if we wanted, no limitations or restrictions on Meat or Dairy items. So as you may imagine, we are not getting overly excited at this news, as realistically it has no, or very little, real impact on ourselves, although, it may have a much larger and important impact for other’s, on both sides of the Schengen divide 🙄

For most British people and other’s from non-EU Countries (Third Countries as they are referred to), who only use Gibraltar as a Port of arrival and departure and who continue on into Spain for short holiday’s or business trips, less than 90 days, then again it isn’t really going to change anything as Travel Documents will be stamped at either the Sea, or Air Ports upon arrival and departure, not at what used to be the former land border. For those arriving by road (Motorhomes, Campervans etc.) who usually come to Gibraltar as an opportunity to perhaps stop the ‘Schengen Clock’ from ticking for a short period, thereby giving them a little extra time within Spain, or Europe’s other Schengen Zones, this will no longer be the case as even time spent on Gibraltar will now be part of the 90 days travel allowance 🤷‍♂️ But I guess that the biggest impact will be on those who perhaps own ‘second homes’ on Gibraltar where, currently, they can spend extended, and unrestricted, periods of time within Gibraltar and from there use their Schengen days to venture into Spain, before returning to Gibraltar and thereby stopping the ticking ‘Schengen Clock’. However, once this agreement has been ratified and provided they are not either Gibraltarian or Spanish Citizens, these kinds of opportunities will very soon no longer be available to them 🤷‍♂️

Now I only mention this new Agreement because it is something that is happening very close to where we currently live, albeit with very little impact on us, either way. Some may say that this has absolutely nothing to do with ‘Brexshit’, but, being the cynic that I am, I asked myself the question, ‘Why would this UK Government basically ‘gift’ Gibraltar back to the Spanish, when it has defended against doing so for circa 300 year’s 🤔’ And ‘Why would it, in doing so, allow the EU to enlarge their land grab and make Gibraltar yet another Schengen Zone Country, in detriment to the British people ?’ It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a certain Keir Starmer trying to gain favour with the EU, in order for him to be granted concessions from them, in his attempt to align the UK ‘more closely’ with the EU when, in 2016, 52% of the British Public voted that they didn’t want to be aligned, in any way, shape or form, to the EU 🤔 Surely, instead of treating the British Public as if they all lacked any intelligence and realise that they can actually see through this deceit, he should just come out and admit, ‘Brexshit was a catastrophic mistake, economically and otherwise, and that he intends to apply to re-join the EU’, it is after all what he is trying to do via the ‘back door’ 🤷‍♂️ But, you know, sticking with my personal philosophy of, ‘If I do not not have the power to control or influence such things’, I will now rapidly move on to much more less contentious issues.

Our walks are no longer taken on a daily basis, more an ‘as and when’ type of scenario, due to both the heat, and the humidity, I mean I could just say that we are becoming more and more lethargic, but let me honest, we cannot get any more lethargic than what we already have been over the last few weeks. So yes, as you may already have assumed from that, our exercise sessions now come primarily in two forms, either the short two-minute walk to the swimming pool with two or three pool sessions, if we can be bothered 🙄 or the much better, and less strenuous, exercise activity which consists of walking to the fridge to get a cold beer 🤭 It must be hot here, as we were speaking to one of our Spanish neighbours the other day and they said that they were looking forward to their upcoming campervan holiday, up into Northern Spain, where it was much cooler, so if it is too hot down here for the Spanish, what does that actually tell you 🥵 But to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t actually think that it is all that bad 🤷‍♂️ I mean I am the one that doesn’t generally like it any hotter than 25 degrees(c) during the day, but that is the temperature in the middle of the night here at the moment and, it is only going to get hotter, however, by adopting our Summer schedule of movements I actually find it quite bearable, although the generally sun-loving, solar basting Shazza now tends to make me share the shade of ‘my’ sun umbrella with her down at the pool ☹️

It isn’t that we have let ourselves become totally housebound, there are still the necessary weekly, or thereabouts, shopping trips when we do also take the opportunity to visit one or other of our favourite Cafes, well it would be rude not to. We do go out for Dinner, although that is still only once a week at the moment, whilst we are still on our attempted weight loss regime, which I have to confess is not going as well as we both would like it too. It’s not that we are straying off our dietary regime or are eating any unhealthier, or even drinking more alcohol, nope, we have stuck to those regimes for the last five weeks quite rigidly, and even with the additional exercise, combining walks with swimming sessions, but we both just do not seem to be shifting anymore of what we consider excess weight, one week we will have lost maybe 0.2kg, but then the following week we put it back on once again so there appears to be no rhyme or reason for it 🤷‍♂️ I of course blame it on the bathroom scales, but Shazza blames me, for obviously being too heavy and breaking the bathroom scales in the first place, the cheeky bugger 😲

As you will know, from some previous recent rambles, the Summer Fiesta season has started, throughout the whole of Spain not just here, although different Regions, Provinces and even localised Municipalities have their own individual one’s along with the more traditional National events. One event that has taken off Internationally is ‘Gay Pride’, and even our own Municipality of Manilva now holds an annual event.

We did not attend this event, but not for any Anti-Gay reasons, probably just because we couldn’t be bothered but, by all local and social media accounts, it was another very successful and fun weekend with lots of people attending, of all persuasions, and families too. There were marching bands, music, dancing, entertainment, food and drink. So just like with many other different cultures, religions, ethnicity, sexual persuasion etc. the key considerations here are the words ‘Tolerance’ and ‘Acceptance’, as I have probably said many times before in these rambles, if only the world could try to adopt more of these two behaviours then wouldn’t our planet be a much happier place to live 🤷‍♂️ Then of course, that was followed by the first really big Summer event……….

We tend to go out for Dinner mainly on a Saturday evening, because the holiday ambience is much better, although in reality that really interprets as the ‘People Watching’ opportunities are far better 🤭 The only variation to our current routine is when a particular event that we want to attend dictates. Probably one of the main Summer events, ‘Noche de San Juan’ is always held on the 23rd June, irrespective of what day that particular date falls on. This year it fell on a Monday and is marked by, in the days building up to it, the erection of a large structure on the beach which, at midnight, on the 23rd, is set alight and fireworks are sent up into the night sky. This event starts in the early part of the evening, with loads of ‘Pop up Bars’ supplementing the vast number of existing Chiringuitos and Cafe/Bars, there are street performers, fairground attractions, various musical performers etc. etc. and, unless you pre-booked months in advance, forget about getting a table in any eatery along or near the seafront promenade in the town, most attendees take their own beach chairs, cool boxes and drinks and stake a place on the beach to watch the massive party unfold, and there they remain until the small hours of the morning. Suffice to say, the following day is always a ‘Public Holiday’. Over the last two year’s the theme of the giant display, the one that gets set alight at midnight, was all connected to ‘Fairy Tails’, but this year it was to do with ‘Arts and Culture’, and as I had trouble identifying many of the whimsical figures, I guess they all had a ‘Spanish’ association, although in truth, we didn’t really have a clue 🤷‍♂️ Our only observation was that this year’s structure didn’t appear to be as elaborate or as colourful as the previous two year’s.

Prior to coming to live here permanently, during our more nomadic lifestyle in the van, and on our ninety-day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ visits, our timing for these events didn’t quite align, either us having to leave just before the San Juan Fiesta, or arriving just after it 🤷‍♂️ However, we had arrived to commence our first year of residency on 13th June 2023, just 10 days before the Fiesta, so we had pre-booked a seafront restaurant and had stayed until after the beach structure had been set alight, before walking back home in the early hours, in the heat and humidity. For the 2024 event we just took pot luck at where we would eat, but again we remained until after the bonfire was lit and the fireworks lit up the night sky, mingling in the somewhat heaving masses of bodies, placing us way out of our comfort zones, but we were still new residents here and we wanted to once again feel a part of this lively festive communal event. However, now in our third year of being residents here, we didn’t feel the need, or have any desire, to stay out that late or witness the traditional bonfire celebrations, but we still wanted to enjoy the build up and the carnival atmosphere. We went out at 7:30pm and stopped at the Marina first, to have Dinner, before then walking into Sabinillas to enjoy the atmosphere, although it was busier than normal along the whole length of the seafront promenade, but not the crowds that there would be much later that night, it was still early in the proceedings and we felt quite comfortable. We watched as people started to claim their areas of beachfront, the closer to the beach structure you got, the less available space there would be, so many families and even couples opted to settle a little further away. There were early diners in some of the restaurants but many tables in the majority of them were still empty, although with the ‘Reserved’ signs upon them. Normal dining hours for the Spanish do not commence until 10pm and once the table has been booked it is theirs for the duration of the evening. Youngsters were playing on the playground equipments and some had paid for the privilege of using the inflatable bouncy equipment located at both ends of the promenade, amongst which their were popcorn stands, burger stalls, ice cream vendors, well the full Monty really, and when the party finally got started, at around 11pm then, on the large stage there was the disco music and live bands interchanging with their performances throughout the night, and on well into the wee small hours. On this occasion we didn’t stay for the bonfire, or the fireworks, although we could hear them as we stood on our balcony once at home, or at least I could, Shazza having retired to her ‘boudoir’ almost as soon as we had returned home but, with all the windows open, I am certain she must have heard them too.

After the Public Holiday, the day after the San Juan fiesta, the remainder of that week returned to normal, the beaches were busier now as the Spanish schools had broken up for their long twelve week Summer holiday period, and they just added to the large number of other domestic Spanish and foreign tourists, but generally, for us at least, it was now a week of just normality, at least until the weekend when the next local event was scheduled to take place down on another stretch of the beach, this time a bit closer to the Marina, the ‘Manilva SUP Race’. It is more of a fun event with participants from all age groups and genders, young children, teenager’s and adult sized kids, some a little more competitive than other’s 😂 I had enquired about registering to enter with ‘Kevin the Kayak’, well it was inflatable and turned upside down it looked like a SUP Board, but I was told that that would have resulted in immediate disqualification 🤷‍♂️ Although I was actually quite relieved, for if they had said that it had been okay I may have had to really register and taken part, so as to save face, when in reality my question had been more a ‘tongue in cheek’ comment, like a joke but very nearly not that funny, for me at least 😲

I have to say that most events held here are all inclusive, from the youngest age groups right up to the much more senior, and yes even more senior in age than us 🤭 The Spanish enjoy any excuse to have a party, and with wine, beer and spirits always in constant supply, and demand, there are never any problems here with loutish behaviour, or crime, or Anti this or that demonstrations, (Unless of course you happen to be in Mallorca, Ibiza, Tenerife, Madrid, Malaga or Barcelona 🤭).

I know I must sound like a broken record at times but surely, what we continue to experience here, in our little corner of Spain, well, ‘This Is How Life Should Be’ everywhere, shouldn’t it ? Everyone, just enjoying life together, getting on with each other, irrespective of the colour of your skin, the language you speak or even your sexual orientation, just accepting each other for who you are, smiling, laughing having fun together as one big community of people. Of course I know that it isn’t just here in this part of Spain where this is experienced, and yes I guess it could be a case of us having a selective memory, but we both find it hard to remember anywhere in the UK where we have lived, and we have lived in a lot of places, from The North of Scotland to the South of England, where we have not witnessed a similar sort of easy going lifestyle to the one we have here. We also remember from our days of being Campsite Wardens the number of complaints that we had to deal with from those on holiday, and on an almost daily basis in the height of the Summer season, someone had encroached on to their pitch, other people’s kids were running around their vans, smoke from neighbour’s barbecues was coming into their awnings, the grass was too long, but if you cut it during the day around their pitch it disturbed them, the water in the showers was too hot, or not warm enough, dogs were barking all the time, I can tell you without any exaggeration, the list of complaints were absolutely endless 🤷‍♂️ They certainly wouldn’t enjoy life over here then where dogs bark day and night, or living in community accommodations where, with the heat of the night people enjoy sitting out in social groups until late, or windows are open and you can hear the sounds of neighbours across the street, saucepans being used in the kitchens after 10pm at night, or where you can hear one sided telephone conversations and where, on the beach, you can be so close to your neighbour’s that they share the shade of your sun umbrella, and your sun tan lotion 😂

So, on that note, best Shazza and I get ourselves down to our communal swimming pool, before the ‘Little Darlings’ arrive with their oversized inflatables, and excited screams, and ruin our swimming sessions and period of tranquility, what was I just saying about ‘Tolerance’ and ‘Acceptance’, it reminds me of my parents when they used to say “Do as I say and not as I do” 😂😂

Until the next time……………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

I cannot use the excuse that it had crept up on us and had taken us by surprise, I mean the one thing about the Summer weather here in Southern Spain is that it is as regular as clockwork. There is no doubting whatsoever that on most days of the Summer, the sun will shine from dawn to dusk, although sometimes the much warmer season can start as early as April and go on right through until early October, with little, or no respite in between, so it isn’t as if any of this is a new experience for us. However, no matter how much we long for its arrival, after the slightly cooler Winter months, why are we never quite ready for it, I honestly cannot offer any logical explanation 🤷‍♂️ Now I don’t specifically mean my comment to refer specifically to the ‘Summer’, but more to the excessive heat that it brings with it, and if we think that it is hot right now, in the middle of June, god help us when we come to July and August 😲 We have of course already implemented our ‘Summer Strategy’ and that works fine, or should I perhaps say that it does up to a point, but there are still times when no matter how much we may want to stay in the shade, we just can’t, as we do have to venture out into the burning furnace of the day, either to do the shopping or perhaps other domestic necessities, but the excessive heat rapidly diminishes our energy levels and so with that comes the distinct lack of any real motivation to actually want to venture outside or do anything 🤷‍♂️ I can certainly understand people who come here for the almost annual sunshine, but then they quickly realise that there is sun and then there is the associated Spanish heat which go hand in hand with each other, and so they soon long to be somewhere a lot cooler. However, for now, Shazza and I are managing to cope with it and so we will continue maintaining the British tradition of moaning, well at least Shazza will, about it either being too cold in the Winter months, when actually, come on my love, it really isn’t, or too hot during the Summer months, when actually, yes I do tend to agree with her, because it really is 🥵

So it did come as a very pleasant surprise when we awoke recently to discover that instead of the more usual bright sunshine, we were greeted with thick cloud and an overcast sky, not black rain threatening clouds, just a sheet of white, enough to prevent the sun’s searingly hot rays from piercing through them, and with it came a very welcome light Easterly breeze blowing in from across the sea, so thank you weather gods for hearing our prayers 🙏 It was 24 degrees(c) at 08:30am and, although the sunshine was absent, the humidity level was high at a little over 73% meaning that there was a sticky clamminess in the air, but it made our morning walk a little more bearable. The usual views were also missing as the ever present heat haze completely shrouded the coastal view across the bay to Estepona, the mountain peaks were concealed in low cloud and the more usual multi-coloured sea was now more of a light grey than the usual green and blue’s, instead of the mill pond like conditions out on the sea, the light wind was producing what nautical folk would call ‘light swells’, rather than actual waves, but they were providing a little more audible noise than usual as they broke onto the sandy shoreline. Apart from the odd dog walker the beachfront was virtually an empty canvas, no multi-coloured sun umbrellas or sun worshippers, no boating activities and the sea haze had totally obliterated any chance of seeing any large vessels chugging away on the horizon. The line of Cafe/Bars along the promenade were still busy enough though, the tourists still wanting their usual breakfast’s, ‘Eggo and Bacono’ or the French their ‘Croissant’s with Preserve’ or the Dutch and Germans with their ‘Bread Rolls with Cheese and Cured Meats’, some of the Spanish locals too, but that was more the traditional ‘Tostados or Churros’, but no problem, they provide it all here, unlike in Greece apparently, where a British Pensioner made the National News recently complaining about not being able to get ‘English Food’ at her Greek Package Holiday Hotel. I mean come on Greece, what are you playing at, at least our British Hotels and B&B Establishments serve ‘Tostado con Mermelede’, although in the UK we refer to it as Toast and Jam, I have also seen on some British buffet breakfast bars, Orange Juice, Bread with Philadelphia Cheese or a nice bit of Cheddar, Boiled Eggs and some lovely slices of supermarket boiled ham, so if we British can make the effort to provide International breakfast cuisine then surely the Greeks can go the extra mile 😂

We used this welcome glitch in the weather as an opportunity to extend our more usual morning walk, by sauntering along the promenade towards the Northern periphery of our municipality, where we stopped at the bridge that marked the end of our boundary, we were rewarded for our efforts by being able to stand in the centre of the bridge and look down onto the river and watching the turtles, who themselves had taken the opportunity to get out of their thick sun shaded reeds to enjoy a morning swim with their offspring, the ducks taking a detour out of their way if they saw them approaching, apparently these turtles can be aggressive little buggers if they feel threatened 😲 We stood and watched them for quite some time, it was a peaceful spot here in the centre of the long wooden bridge, on one side of us the river emptied into the sea and, on the other, up river, the direction from where the river source flowed from, were the mountains, in between was just pure nature, the ducks, turtles and even colourful damsel flies flitting from reed to reed, “If only I had brought my new pocket camera out with me”, I casually said to Shazza, “That really would have ruined the peace and quiet with your constant ‘Click, Click’” she said. Not quite a ‘David Attenborough’ is my Shazza, I thought to myself 🙄

This wasn’t a day for walking at our usual exercise pace, our tee-shirts already bearing the unsightly darker patches created by the sticky humidity, we could feel the beads of moisture trickling down our backs and so it was nice to feel the breeze as we sauntered back towards the seafront, it was one of those days when we didn’t have to visit the fruiterias up in the main part of the town, so we stopped for another drink in our usual small Plaza, before heading back towards the marina and then on to the village seafront car park, where we could put on the air-con in the car whilst we took the short five minute journey back home, simply opening the windows to cool us down would not have worked, it would have been more like the effect you get when turning on a hairdryer up to full blast 🥵

The large tiled marble floors of our apartment is one big advantage during these Summer months, with the sun, when it is shining, being much higher in the sky, so it does not shine directly into the apartment, so it remains relatively cool compared to the outside world and with all the doors and windows open, the through breeze feels so very very nice, we haven’t, as yet, had to revert to the closing of the outer blinds to keep the heat of the day out, that will come soon enough though when it will be back to living in a dark cave again. We remained inside for the rest of the day just idling away our time, Shazza pottering as is her want, preparing whatever delicacy she would be serving up for our Dinner that evening, then reading or doing something or other on her iPad. As for me, well I can spend hours just sat on the balcony with my mind wandering from one thing to another, occasionally interjected by my beloved informing me of some news article that she had been reading, I try to sound interested and would occasionally engage in a short discussion on whatever the subject matter happened to be, before returning to my own much more interesting world of day dreams. As a form of escapism, and with constantly enjoying the sea views from my balcony seat, I would watch various boating related channels on ‘You Tube’, imagining that it was us on those yachting adventures, but in the knowledge that that was one dream that would never ever become a reality, but that was the advantage of dreaming, I never had to actually face the potential danger’s of risking life and limb on stormy seas, only the enjoyment of the adventures that these people were having as they explored hidden coves and bays around the worlds oceans.

We enjoyed a second consecutive day of similar overcast sunless sky and high humidity, so it was a simple case of ‘rinse and repeat’ of our previous day’s less than energetic activities, ‘Groundhog Day’ perhaps, but another very pleasant one. On one of the days we did both speculate on the possibility that, had we not have sold our house in the UK all those years ago and not commenced our nomadic adventures, on Summer days we would more than likely have had our garden to potter about in and, had we have taken the same ‘Plant Based’ dietary route as we had done five or so years ago, we would have had plenty to keep us busy at this time of year, as instead of Patio Decking, lush green well mown lawn and a few flower beds, we would certainly have invested in at least a couple of greenhouses and several raised growing beds to fulfil our self-sufficiency lifestyle which, as somewhat of a bonus, would not have entailed the frequent trips to the fruiterias, as we do now, Hmmmm ! 🙄 However, had we have done so, we both agreed that we would have missed out on so many of the experiences and adventures that we had encountered over the last twelve-years, the ‘Grass is always greener on the other side’ as the saying goes, but it doesn’t stop you from sometimes wondering about the ‘What If’s’ occasionally does it 🤔

The following morning we discovered that normal service had been resumed, the sun was back, high in the sky, so whilst the humidity had decreased, the temperature had gone the other way and risen dramatically again 🥵 Before the afternoon temperatures reached the 35+ mark, we elected for a change to our more usual daily scenic walking routine and, as we had not visited ‘Estepona’ for quite a few weeks now, that would be our destination for this particular morning’s walk. Parking in their marina car park and then walking along their much longer promenade into the larger seaside resort town entailed a much longer walk than our usual one, and with little shade all the way from the marina and along the seafront, once we did reach the outskirts of the town, we elected to walk along the more shaded back streets where there was a mixture of two-storey typically Spanish style houses, the outsides decorated with masses of brightly coloured flowers in floor and wall plant pots, then there were the row on row of eight-storey high anonymous looking apartment blocks, with their small barely there balconies, the ground levels generally occupied by various small retail outlets making these suburban areas little local street communities within a much wider and larger town community.

When in Estepona we usually frequent a Cafe/Bar right on the seafront promenade, mainly because it has lovely expansive views out to sea and of the bay, which looks back across to our own smaller town but also, because of how Estepona is positioned, we can also see both the outcrop of rock, known as ‘Gibraltar’ and then, just beyond that, the mountains on the coastline of Morocco, so with that and the people watching opportunities it is usually our first stop. However, on this occasion, we were on the what ‘we’ still call the newer pedestrianised part of the promenade, although in truth it is no longer new, but by doing so we quite fortunately fell upon what Shazza refers to as an ‘Old Man’s’ cafe/bar, a small hostelry run by, well yes actually, two elderly gentlemen and very friendly they were too. Whilst Shazza took a seat outside under the shade of an Umbrella I went inside to order our ‘Zumo de Naranja y Agua con Gas’. An elderly gentlemen was sat at a small table just inside the doorway, his small dog asleep at his feet, “Buenos” he said as I walked past him, “Buenos Dias” I responded as I stepped over his dog. I noticed that the narrow building ran along to a door at the opposite end, which led out onto another adjacent street, there were a couple of other customer’s inside and of course, as I approached the small counter of the bar area they all said ‘Buenos’ without even looking at me, once again I acknowledged their greeting, this, as I have probably said many times before in these rambles, is pretty much common place in small hostelries such as this, although not that common in the more touristy establishments, until you perhaps become accepted as a regular customer. I ordered our drinks and was told that they would bring them out to us.

From our table we could not see the ‘older’ part of the promenade so had no sea view, but we did have a very pleasant outlook on the most wonderful array of coloured flowers that stretched both left and right of us along this newer pedestrianised area. Although the long promenade, both the ‘old’ bit and the ‘newer’ bit are actually all one, the flower borders do create a sort of segregation and although I am sure that it isn’t actually a reality, it appeared as if the ‘Tourists’ were on the seafront side and the ‘Spanish’ on this ‘newer’ side. The only reason for me saying that is that all the people passing by our table, well at least whilst we were, were all speaking in Spanish, not any other languages, English, German, Dutch etc. and all appeared to be of a more senior age group, we laughed as we both said how so ‘At Home’ we both felt here 🤭 From the angle of the photo above, it may look as though we were alone, however, this was not the case as just to the side of us were lots of other occupied tables and chairs, which we ascertained from our usual ‘People Listening’ observations, were all Spanish, although they may have been domestic tourists, as this is a popular holiday location for the Spanish too. Additionally, looking at the photograph, you will see what looks like two large inverted funnel style structures, well these are exactly what they look like, for apart from providing some shade from the sunshine, with bench seats below them, they actually gather rain water which is stored in underground storage tanks and this is used to irrigate the flower beds, ‘Simple, Practical And Extremely Efficient’, which actually are similar words that I have heard Shazza say to her mum on occasions when referring to myself 🤔

We could have remained exactly where we were for a lot longer and believe me we were sorely tempted, but even just sat there for the half an hour or so that we had, we could feel the rapidly increasing temperature and knew that it was quite a long and unshaded walk back to where we had parked the car. We decided to remain in the shade of the back streets, we had no shopping to do, no fruiterias to visit and neither of us are interested in just wandering around shops and, being pretty much as familiar with Estepona, as much as we are with our own town, there was nothing of any particular interest for us, so we headed back to wards the Marina. It was lunchtime by the time we reached the Marina and we both knew the perfect little Cafe/Bar to get a spot of lunch, away from the main enclave and with a view over the working part of the Commercial Port and the boat yard, where luxury yachts had been hoisted out of the water for whatever maintenance they required and we also had a partial view of the row on row of sailing yacht masts moored in the large Marina complex.

Shazza settled for her usual bottle of ‘Agua con Gas’ but I went for a small cervesa (Beer), it would have been rude not to 🤭 But we stuck, albeit a bit loosely, to our current healthy eating regime and we had a favourite here, their ‘Nordic Sandwich’, just smoked salmon, and plenty of it, in a nice honey and mustard dressing, with lettuce, tomato and cucumber and a few fried thinly sliced potatoes, which look a lot like ‘Quavers’ (the cheesy snacks) and the same size and shape, but not cheesy of course, these came as standard with the sandwich, so perhaps with the beer and fried potatoes, maybe not as healthy a lunch as it could have been 😂

When we arrived back at the car, not being parked in any shade, it was like a furnace inside so we opened the doors and stood outside for a few minutes, just to let some of the heat dissipate a little, it would take several minutes of the engine running before we got the lovely chill of the air-con. It was around 2:30pm when we got home, the BBC ‘Works of Fiction’ had reflected the temperature to be 30 degrees(c) at this point in the day, our own more accurate thermometer reflected that it was already 34 degrees(c) and this still wasn’t the hottest part of the day 😲 There was nothing for it, after a nice hot mug of ‘brick builders’ tea, although green herbal tea for Shazza, we got changed and spent a couple of hours of the afternoon down at the pool, with several swimming sessions and a few periods of personal contemplation 😴 well, after so much exercise in one day who could blame me but, overall, it had turned out to be quite a pleasant and fairly relaxing day.

Also quite recently there was another one of Natures spectacles to observe, something called a ‘Strawberry Moon’ which, according to Shazza, we would be able to see on the evening of 11th June at around 9:45pm, if we went down to the seafront promenade. Initially we said that we would go and take a look but when the moment came we just couldn’t be bothered, lethargy had struck again 🤭 “What is the point ?” I proffered to her, “We would be able to see the full moon from the balcony windows anyway, so why bother going out and, if we did it would only tempt me into perhaps partaking of a strawberry coloured Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷 to celebrate witnessing the event 🤷‍♂️”, I said to her, “There would be no perhaps about it and, I may be tempted to join you with a Strawberry flavoured Gin & Tonic” she replied, so we convinced ourselves that going out and looking at the moon may not have been the healthiest option, although we did both ‘howl’ with laughter. Did you see what I did there, howling and moon, okay never mind it was like a joke, just not funny 😂

Later that night I did look at the moon from my balcony window, however, it was more of the usual Cheddar Yellow colour rather than a Strawberry Red, so where, or when, the above photo was taken, well your guess is as good as mine 🙄

Just a day or so later, in the late evening after we had enjoyed a nice refreshing Tuna and Sardine Salad, with one of Shazza’s latest new mixed bean and lime salsa dressing concoctions for dinner, yes I know you don’t have to say it, she really knows how to spoil me 🙄 Anyway, we were watching something or other on the TV when we saw the flashes of light in the night sky, it went on long after Shazza had retired to her bed so I sat on the balcony and watched this impromptu display for a good couple of hours. There was no thunder, no rain, just a spectacular continuous light display but, the following morning, the local media was full of reports of where, in other areas of our Province and throughout more Northern areas of Andalucia, their had been torrential rain and even some localised flooding 🤔 Even after all of the time we have owned our property here, it still seems a little strange that being wedged in between the Straight of Gibraltar, and the more popular Northern areas of the Costa del Sol coastline, we seem to have our own separate micro climate here 🤷‍♂️

However, whilst the lightening display is always nice to observe it is not exactly a unique event, we have seen equally spectacular events in numerous places, whilst on our many previous nomadic adventures, although, sitting in a plastic box on wheels close to trees was probably a little more exciting, but for all the wrong reasons 😳 I also noted that a few days after our event there was a similar, but much larger one, that paled our mediocre lighting display into insignificance.

The following morning we both felt quite lethargic again, although I had heard Shazza mention the previous evening, somewhat reluctantly I should say, that we perhaps needed to go out and do the ‘weekly’ shop, although the word ‘weekly’ should not be taken too literaly, as it must have been at least ten days since we had done our last ‘weekly’ shop 🤔 I did suggest that if there was little left in her food larder or freezer we could perhaps cobble something together like Baked Beans on Toast with a Fried Egg on top, then we could leave the shopping for another day, Shazza had an alternative suggestion, “I was thinking we could just go out and eat” she said with a laugh. Now often, without saying a word to each other, our minds are finely tuned machines, what you may consider as us being naturally ‘Telepathic’, as we often think exactly the same thoughts, but obviously, on this occasion that fine tuning was perhaps far from being perfectly synchronised 😂 In the end we bit the bullet and went shopping, at least the supermarket had an underground car park out of the heat of the sun. After lunch it was back down to the pool, well we had missed out on our walk that morning so we did need to do a bit of exercise and, as for dinner, well let’s just say it was neither Baked Beans on toast or eating out, Shazza had got her supply of Fruit and Vegetables so ‘Stir Fry and Tofu’ it was then 🙄 But on a positive note, at least when I do eventually pop my clogs I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I will probably be the healthiest corpse in the cemetery 🤭

There appears to be quite a lot going on, outside in the wider world, or so Shazza keeps insisting on telling me as she ploughs through each and every media article each morning. I rarely read the International Media these days, although I do still speed read some of the headlines but continue to skip all of the bad stuff, and the celebrity news, and the health alerts, like the New Covid, Typhoid, Measles, Western Nile Disease, Hep A, Diabetis etc. etc. perhaps a Nuclear War may actually be the global cleansing that we require and, we may actually be closer to that than we may think, what with what’s going on between Russia and the Ukraine, and Isreal and Iran, well according to my beloved that is, who has taken to stocking up on her tinned goods and dried Legumes. I on the other hand am more concerned on who is going to have to eat all of that stuff if Nuclear Devastation doesn’t happen 😲 Anyway, by me skipping the reading all of that doom and gloom media sort of stuff, well it doesn’t leave much of anything else to read really 🤷‍♂️ just the football news perhaps. So, to be perfectly honest with you, it doesn’t take me very long these mornings as, like the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts, where I have adopted an alternative weather forecasting methodology (The ‘Forrest Gump’ approach), well I have now also adopted a similar alternative to all the doom and gloom in the world that is consistently being reported upon in the media each and every day………………

Now I know that some of you may be wondering how we are finding the time to actually go out at all, what with having our en-suite bathroom totally renovated and contractors in the apartment all day and, I am certain that you will all be interested to hear how pleased, or not, we are with our new bathroom renovation so far, as it should be nearly at the fully completed phase of the project. Unfortunately I am unable to provide you with that information just at the moment, as at the time of publication of this particular ramble they were nowhere near completing it by their scheduled date of 20th June 🤷‍♂️ But there was a good reason for that, the fact being that they hadn’t even arrived to start the renovation work on the 9th June as had been scheduled months ago 😲 The day after I published my last ramble I received a very apologetic Email from the owner of the firm, just one week before the scheduled start date, advising me that due to ‘Staffing Issues’, Illness and ‘Personal’ issues 🤷‍♂️ there would be a delay of three weeks and the project would now not commence until the 30th June 🙄 Other than us being obviously a little frustrated, I mean you tend to mentally prepare yourself for the disruption, and for having contractors in your home for days on end, but in reality it wasn’t really a major issue, for there was nothing wrong with the current en-suite bathroom, other than it being the original bathroom that had been installed over twenty-years ago, so it was more just a case of it being a little outdated, but it was actually still fully functional so we still had the use of it and, fortunately, we had no visitor’s due to arrive over the new project dates which could potentially have created a bit of an inconvenience. So we found ourselves with three weeks on our hands with no plans, we did momentarily consider taking a bit of a holiday getaway somewhere, but then we both agreed that our lives are already just one big permanent holiday, in a holiday location and, with Military Aircraft, Drones and Missiles occupying diminishing air space that is already filled with busy Commercial Air Traffic, we both agreed that it was probably safer just to stay at home for the time being. We could have gone on a road trip more locally within Spain, or even Portugal, but have I mentioned how searingly hot it is over here at the moment ?

In other news, you may remember that whilst we were back in the UK we took the opportunity on the 1st May to have four brand new tyres fitted to the car and, these particular brand were in a promotion where we would receive a discount of £100, which would be returned into our UK Bank Account within twenty-eight days. Well at the end of May, having not seen such a credit to our account I emailed the company, they responded immediately and confirmed my eligibility to receive this refund and stated that it would be credited to my bank the following week 🤷‍♂️ Now it isn’t a lot of money in the grand scheme of things but, remembering of course that we are now just poor ‘Pensioners’ 👴👵 one hundred smackeroonies is not something to be sniffed at, I mean that amount of money, in my world, is the equivalent of €120, which even more importantly is the equivalent of ‘at least’ forty bottles of my favourite Anti-Covid Vaccine 😲 which actually equates to around 160 glasses of this extremely important health medication, oh okay, perhaps 80 glasses as I always tend to over medicate, or as they say in McDonalds, ‘Go Large’ 😂 Anyway, you can wipe away those tears of concern for us, as the good news is that said Anti-Covid Medication funds did finally appear on the 6th June, although, with us both still continuing on our weight loss regimes it also meant remaining on the self-imposed limitations on the frequency of such medications, so with the current minimal weekly consumptions of just two glasses, that is not far off being a year’s supply, although, in truth I do not expect our current regimes to last anywhere near as long as that and ‘Normal Service’, to my own personalised Anti-Covid Vaccine health regime, should, hopefully, re-recommence in the not too distant future 🤭

So whilst I had not anticipated writing another ramble until after the renovation work was complete, I thought it best just to write a ‘brief’ ramble 🤭 to keep you up to date with what we have been up to over the last couple of weeks. I mean I didn’t want you to think that we had gone overboard on our weight loss regimes, to the extent where I had insufficient strength to tap the buttons on a keyboard 😂

So, until the next ramble……………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida es Buena

We were enjoying the calm of the morning, sat at one of our usual favourite seafront Cafe’s, silently looking out at the views before our eyes, there were three different colours on the almost flat calm sea with the bright sunshine emphasising the differences between them, turquoise green, light shade of blue and then the deeper darker blue, as the depth of the water increased and prevented the sun from reflecting off the seabed below. There were the usual array of freighter’s ploughing up and down along the horizon, some sailing yachts a little closer and the usual paddle-boarders, kayakers and swimmers much closer to the beach and there were the early bird sun worshippers with their variety of different coloured beach umbrellas dotted along the wide expanse of beach. The sky was more of a hazy shade of light blue, rather than a brilliant bright blue, the haze created by the heat and hugging the contours of the coast, but with fine white whispers of cloud just adding some variation to the otherwise blue canvas. Above the beach and the sea were the mountain ranges, all of which vary in their height, shape and colours, but these giants all sloped down to where they appeared to meet the sea below and so becoming the final pieces that made up this beautiful panoramic landscape jigsaw.

Around us we hear the numerous conversations that are going on amongst the other adjacent tables, in several different languages, although the overriding one is an elderly British woman on the phone to someone, it wasn’t a case of us purposely listening in to her conversation, more a case of us not having a choice in the matter 🙄 There was also a lot of activity along the promenade on this warm, but not yet searingly hot morning, but we felt comfortable, hidden under the shade of the large sun umbrella that was positioned perfectly above our table, with a very light breeze blowing in from the sea. We remained sat with our sunglasses on, as we discreetly conduct our own usual ‘People Watching’, ‘Fashion Police’ and ‘Body Beautiful’ activities and we had a wide choice of subject’s, the dog walkers, joggers, cyclists and other people, just getting on with their daily lives, totally unaware that there movements were being closely monitored by our concealed prying eyes 😎 We both feel very relaxed at long last and are in no rush on this particular morning to leave these idyllic surroundings. We do this similar routine most mornings, although the Cafe’s we frequent alternate, due to them having differing closing days, but it gives us the opportunity to vary the different angles of our seafront views, and of course different ‘People Watching’ opportunities.

On one particular morning we also had a purpose, well several actually. First we had to go to the Post Office located in the upper much busier part of the town, to post a letter back to the UK, then we needed to stop at a small local card shop, as Shazza had a couple of relatives Birthdays on the horizon and this particular shop sold ‘English’ one’s, then a walk to the opposite end of town and up a slight hill, to our Solicitor’s small local office, (Yes, the Spanish Tax Administrative Bureaucracy continues 🙄) then, finally, we only had the weekly shopping left to do, in the large air-conditioned ‘Mercadonna’ supermarket in the town, before returning home for lunch, and then another afternoon in, and by, the pool, all part of our revised exercise regime 🚶‍♂️🏊‍♂️ 🏋️ To finish off, at some point later in the day, I would have a mini-session using my resistance bands, just to stretch some more of those middle body and side muscles, to give them some added strength to support my belly fat, which itself was providing a lot of its own resistance in decreasing, or at least not at the rate I would have liked it to 😂

Speaking of exercise, it seems a little humorous to us for our particular walking method, technique, call it what you will, has not been one that we had studied, we just adopted it naturally, via the ‘common sense’ principle. We know that if you up the intensity of ‘any’ physical activity that it has many health benefits, cardiovascular, muscle strengthening, joint mobility, fat burning etc. etc and we have been doing this for many years, even during our former nomadic lives. We generally start off at a normal walking pace, chitter chattering as we do, then at a certain point we agree to up the pace, when any conversation then ceases to exist between us, then, after 10-15 minutes or so, we will slow down again for another short period before upping the pace once again. Our normal daily walking sessions are generally for a period of around two hours a day, with a stop in-between, for rehydration, and all told we usually cover between 4-6 miles dependent on our selected route, enthusiasm and personal motivation, on some days it is just at a complete strolling pace, otherwise the enjoyment of our walks start to diminish. So we both found it quite humorous to read an article recently, in the main stream media, announcing a similar technique to what we regularly adopt but they described it as being a ‘New Exercise Trend’ 🤷‍♂️ But of course, for those who hate any form of exercise, but do just want to lose weight, I suppose these days we could all just inject ourselves with this miracle product that has hit the streets, ‘Ozempic’ 🤔

After a light lunch we went to the pool, with its bright sapphire blue tiles, the sun sparkling off the top of the clear water, the white tiled surrounds, the lush green manicured lawn, nine tall palm trees divided into groups of three, all surrounded by the bright and clean white-washed small groups of four-storey apartment blocks, overlooked by the afternoon’s cloud free azure blue sky, this always makes it feel as if we are on a permanent holiday here. I have mentioned it several times previously in these rambles but, we both do quite regularly agree that we consider ourselves extremely fortunate to be now living this life, we very often discuss all the different paths that we have taken, over the last twenty-year’s or so that we have been together, for neither Shazza or myself were youngster’s when we first met, but we have no regrets over anything that we have done up to reaching this point in our lives, for each of those different paths provided us with new adventures, new experiences and, a whole host of lasting memories. Back in those earlier year’s we always seemed to be searching for the ‘next adventure’ but we now no longer look towards ‘tomorrow’, we are both happy and content here, and very much enjoying ‘today’.

We both love this place, not just for the Cafe Culture, the wide choice of Bar’s and Restaraunt’s, the beaches, the views, the people watching, the Fiesta’s and the general overall relaxed pace of life, although it is a combination of all of those things that make this location the perfect place to which we now call our home, well for us at least, it probably wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea. Although nowhere is ever really perfect, there is one slight imperfection, that one murky grey cloud that hangs over us, that is of course the infamous ‘Spanish Bureaucracy’ but, even that, when we put it into some sort of perspective, is just part of the character of living here in Spain, we know it will never change, or go away, it is something that we just have to accept, no matter how illogical and often frustrating it can be, but what is the alternative ? Moving somewhere else, even back to the UK perhaps 😲🫣 but other Countries also have their idiosyncratic natures, which you generally only discover once you are there, so for us now it is very much a case of ‘Better The Devil You Know’.

‘And So It Begins’………… As we turned the page of the Calendar and wave goodbye to the Month of May, and welcome in the month of June, although the sun has still got his hat on, now it has turned up the thermometer by several notches and, along with those rapidly increasing daily temperatures, so too comes the increasing number of holidaymakers from all over Europe, and indeed many other parts of the world. With half term school holidays varying from region to region, and country to country, there are now an ever increasing number of chocolate, or ice-creamed faced, sun-creamed bodies of ‘Little Darlings’, all noisily excited to be splashing around in the swimming pools, or on the beaches and playing in the gentle waves of the now much warmer Mediterranean Sea. The ‘Lookie, Lookie’ trader’s are out in force too, there are the regular’s who remain all year round and then there are the additional seasonal one’s, who arrive from who knows where, all of them wanting to get their lion’s share of this sudden influx of tourist cash. Fortunately, for us, the headline above does not directly apply to us, well not according to AEMET, the Spanish State ‘Works of Fiction’ Agency, who do not list our particular area as one that will reach the 40+ degree figure, although, to be honest with you, it may very well be a close run thing, for whilst they are only forecasting a maximum of 35 degrees(c) for our particular area, they are, as you already know, more often that not, wrong, by ‘at least’ two or three degrees in their forecasts, so we may still very well see the mercury rise to that 40 degree mark, last year at this time it made it all the way up to 42 degrees(c), on this occasion though I do hope they get their forecast right 🥵

For those of you that do not know, the warmest parts of the day down in this part of Spain, Summer or Winter, is usually between 3pm and 6pm, but during these Summer months that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be prepared for the effects of the heat before those times as, by midday, it can get up to 28-30 degrees(c) and that light offshore breeze can be very deceptive.

However, and irrespective of the tourist hoards, it is always a nice holiday atmosphere here, not once in ten years of either visiting, or the two year’s that we have now lived here, have we witnessed brawls of any description, alcohol influenced or otherwise, it just doesn’t seem to happen, thank goodness, for this is a seaside resort for everyone, there are a full age range of holidaymakers here, even though for the younger element there is a distinct lack of Nightclubs, Casinos or Amusement Arcades. although that cannot be said of some other popular tourist hot-spots in Spain.

Our small corner in Spain is primarily what you would consider a more old fashioned typical Seaside resort, where sun, miles of sandy beaches and the sparkling waters of the Med are the feature attractions, with other facilities like water parks, nightclubs, casinos, etc. etc. being found just a little further up along the coast road in Estepona, Marbella, Calahonda, Fuengirola, Benalmadena, Torremolinos and Malaga. For those ‘British’ holidaymakers, who still want a flavour of the UK, Gibraltar is just a thirty-minute drive in the opposite direction, and although Shazza and I very rarely go there these days, if you have never been, it is well worth a day trip to see the sight’s, and of course to do a bit of ‘Tax-Free Shopping’, but be careful of what you purchase, ‘food wise’, from the ‘Morrisons’, or other food markets, as their are still restrictions on what you can bring back across the Frontier Border and, because of the long ongoing territorial dispute between the UK, Gibraltarians and Spain, the Spanish Border Guards are very keen with their searches, so be aware or you may end up not just losing out on the goods you have purchased, the money you spent purchasing them but also, potentially, a fine. Yes ‘Brexshit’, the gift provided by the British, to themselves, continues to keep giving 🤭

However, come mid-September, once the families have departed, with their sun kissed lobster skinned ‘Little Darlings’, and with the cheaper flight’s and ferry crossings coming back into play, it is the turn of the ‘Purple Rinse Brigade’ who, although they may arrive in much lesser numbers than those in the Summer, these groups of people often remain for much longer periods than just two or three weeks, in fact they often arrive and book into long term ‘rental’ properties and stay up to, and often beyond, Christmas and New Year and why not, after all, the Winter climate here is far better for those suffering with ageing arthritic bones than in some more Northern areas of Europe.

Initially, Shazza and I disliked the summer crowds here, a remnant of the Covid periods perhaps 🤷‍♂️ but to be honest, neither of us have ever really liked bustling cities, which had nothing to do with a fear of catching a whole host of diseases, infections or from becoming victims of crime, pick pockets, muggers, scammers etc, no, we just do not feel comfortable battling our way through large numbers of people, whether that be on a pavement, driving on roads or travelling on Public transport. But we do know that we cannot wrap ourselves up in cotton wool and we do not want to stop travelling, sightseeing and doing things, and so, their are times when we do have to compromise and put ourselves into environments that are often outside of our personal comfort zones 🤷‍♂️ However, that said, we have now become ‘accustomed’ to the Summer crowds, and the risks that they ‘may’ bring, we are also becoming accustomed to the intense heat of the Spanish Summers, and implement our own strategy in which to enjoy them. We now get our slightly more sun tanned glows more gradually throughout the year, we do not race to get them, like we used to do on our short two week package holidays, and we certainly have no need to show them off to anyone in order to justify the expense undertaken in getting them. If the truth be known, even with a sun tan here in Spain, in comparison to the more native population, we probably still look pretty much pale skinned anyway, so suffering heat-stroke and painful sunburn would be pointless anyway 😂

Now I made a brief mention of that ‘Covid’ word, although, for many, the impact of that Global Pandemic, back in 2020, has probably long since been forgotten, albeit that in truth it has remained with us ever since that time, lurking in the background but not anywhere near as devastating, or fatal. However, one day very recently, in four quite separate media articles, I came across news reports that a new strain has been reported in several countries 😲

Now hold on just a minute whilst I once again put my cynical head on. If you have kept an interest on this subject, as we do, not that we are paranoid or anything 🤭 but you will also have read, over the last year or so, that, in many countries globally, including here in Spain, they are constantly reporting that the number of people taking up the Annual Covid Booster vaccinations has fallen dramatically. So yes, this could of course be one obvious reason for that rise in infections but, think about it, this lack of vaccination take up must be really bad news for the ‘Big Pharma’ companies too, who must be watching in horror as their profit margins tumble significantly. So here is my own personal conspiracy theory, ‘Big Pharma’ fund a lot of the world’s Governments, through lobbying of Politicians, funding Research projects and offering financial incentives to different health agencies to purchase and prescribe their products, so, would it be beyond the realms of reality to consider that they may perhaps be resorting to inciting scaremongering tactics within the media for, in all reality, who would be the biggest financial beneficiary if the world suddenly needed to stockpile ‘Vaccinations’ again 🤔But only time will tell I suppose, as if you recall, Government’s around the world failed to take action prior to the first pandemic, believing it to be just a bad strain of Influenza, so although the warning signs were there they ignored it and look how that turned out, so the question in our minds is, is this fake news or a reality 🤔 Funny don’t you think that you rarely, if ever, hear ‘Big Pharma’ promoting healthy eating or exercise, or just getting out in the fresh air on a regular basis, the simple things that actually naturally improve and strengthen your bodies health and immune system and not suppress them, like many medications do 🤷‍♂️ However, let’s face it, having a larger population of much ‘healthier people’ is not really in their financial interest is it 🤔 Anyway, enough of that, I need to get off my soapbox and get back to the less controversial subjects within our daily lives 🤭

We both knew that our ‘personal’ weight loss missions were going to be a bit of a slog, but we also knew that we had to pay the price for those five weeks of over-indulgences. I found myself asking, ‘how can such a relatively short period of personal pleasure finish with so much ‘purgatory’ (‘A state of purification from remaining sins and imperfections’), well okay, perhaps not ‘purgatory’, but only because I haven’t got the time for all of that purification for ‘all’ of my remaining sins 😂 It wasn’t just the getting back to eating our primarily ‘Plant Based’ diets, for the truth is that we had, whenever and wherever possible, continued with them as much as we could whilst we were away, and also whilst our guests were with us, but with all the ‘socialising’, eating and drinking out, well that is what really has taken it’s toll, or was that just my lack of self-discipline again 🙄 But now we are back on the straight and narrow as it were, and with that comes the frequent visits back and forth to the fruiterias, although I guess that those trips should really be included under the fitness regime 🤭 But it wasn’t just the dietary regime, but also a ‘temporary’ halt to my own very important personal health regime, that being the frequent self-administering of my Anti-Covid Vaccines 🍷, I use the word ‘frequent’ as opposed to ‘daily’ as I don’t want you to think that I am an alcoholic or anything, and let me set the record straight, I just attend those weekly AA meetings as a form of social interaction and integration into the Spanish community 😳 My biggest fear though is that without this ‘frequent’ medication, the ‘Dark Forces’ would I am sure be waiting to pounce if I were to let my guard down on this ever present health risk, but it was a risk that I now had to take for I had a choice to make, not taking my anti-covid medications and suffering a potential early death from contracting this new strain of Covid, or continuing to eat and drink as I had enjoyed doing and suffering a potential early demise from Obesity 🤷‍♂️ Now let me once again be totally honest with you, my personal choice would have been the more pleasurable one, death from alcohol and food induced Obesity and from imbibing too many Anti-Covid Vaccines, rather than risk contracting Covid 🤭 However, Shazza said that death from Obesity would entail her having to purchase an extra large bin bag, to put my body into when the time came, but there was no way that she was prepared to take unnecessary funds out of what would have been her inheritance pot, so there it is, the decision, once again, taken out of my own hands 😢

By the end of the first seven days with no eating Lunches, or Dinners, outwith our own humble canteen facilities, or the consumption of any form of alcohol passing our lips, we had both seen an improvement, although, as yet, not visually to the naked eye, as my shirts and shorts still bear the stretch marks when I put them on 😳, however, on the digital readout on the bathroom scales, they were a little more forgiving, well they had at least stopped screaming at me to ‘Get Off !!’ 🤭 It would of course be ungentlemanly of me to reveal any details of my beloved but, for me at least, well I had managed a loss of 1.2kg, she for some reason had managed to lose a little more 🤔 but irrespective of that, if I could withstand this torture discipline for a further seven days, with a similar weight loss, then personally I would be exceptionally happy and, be more than happy to suggest to my beloved that we reward ourselves with a table reservation for Dinner, at one of our favourite local Italian Restaurants with perhaps a glass (or perhaps two) of Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷🍷 What harm could that possibly do 🤷‍♂️

Of course, hand in hand with any weight loss regime there has to be some form of exercise, and as you already are aware, in our particular case that means walking, which as I stated earlier, in this growing ‘War and Peace’ ramble, is generally between 4-6 miles per day and, over that first week we had walked every single morning, no day off at some point in the week, as we would usually do. Sometimes we do our seafront promenade walk and, occasionally, by way of having a change of scenery, we do the ‘Environmental’ walk. But we no longer stop and drink our more usual morning ‘Cafe con Leche’s’ but instead, ‘Zumo Naranja and Agua con gas’ (Freshly squeezed Orange Juice and Carbonated Water) and definitely no Tostado’s or Churro’s 😢 Unless of course…………. 🤔 I could somehow convince Shazza to go to the fruiteria without me, whilst I waited at the Cafe for her to return 😋 Yup, you are right, that didn’t happen either ☹️

However, with the morning temperatures now up to 20-22 degrees(c), with full searingly hot sunshine, and mid-afternoon temperatures hitting 30+ degrees(c) 🥵 the alternative fitness regime is now the morning walks with the addition of post-lunchtime sessions in the swimming pool 😳 Half an hour in the pool, swimming as many lengths as we could, then half an hour rest with a spot of solar basting, it would of course be rude not to, and we repeated that 3 times in those sessions, with a final one hour session of just solar basting and reading (Shazza) and, perhaps the odd moments of personal contemplation, in the shade under the Sun Umbrella thrown in for good measure (Me), well it is damn hard work all this exercise I will have you know, but my beloved tells me that it is making a noticeable difference and that I don’t look a day under 70 years old 🤗 Hang on just a minute, I am only 68 year’s old the cheeky so and so 🤔

The Summer festivities are also beginning to take place, here in our little neck of the woods and although the much larger events, such as the ‘San Juan’ and ‘Lunar’ Fiesta’s don’t happen until around July and August, with a few impromptu one’s thrown in just for good measure in between times, we have just had the annual ‘International Day’ Festival, but a bit more about that below…………..

This annual event attracts both ‘Residents‘ (Spanish and Foreign) as well as ‘Tourists’, but not one ‘anti-tourist’ poster or demonstration did we see, everyone just enjoying themselves, young and old alike, with performers doing traditional dancing, stalls of all descriptions native to the Countries being represented, associated food and in the evening came the music from a couple of ‘live’ bands, which went on until the early hours of the morning, not that Shazza and I remained until such an ungodly hour, we had seen it all before anyway.

Coincidentally, just prior to this ‘Annual International Day’ event, just a couple of days earlier, it was interesting to read an article on just how many ‘foreigners’ live in Spain as a whole, and also within our own small Province of Malaga, this being actual ‘Legal Residents’ not ‘Refugees or Tourist numbers’.

It would be interesting if they were to do to a similar comparison for Annual ‘Foreign’ visitors (Tourists), and whether the recent media reports over ‘Anti-Tourism’ has in fact had any detrimental impact on the Spanish Economy 🤔 Although, from what we are witnessing in our area, there does not appear to be any impact on the numbers of tourists coming here, so quite obviously, there are lots of intelligent people who do not believe everything that is written in the media.

Now, although we sold our Motorhome in 2023, bringing an end to those type of adventures for us, even so, after 25+ years of owning and travelling in Motorhomes, we still take an active interest on observing them when we pass them whilst driving around, or looking at those that are parked up, looking at the registration plates to get a feel for the number of different Nationalities who are still enjoying this lifestyle. Now of course this is only a small sort of individual survey but, something that we have noticed just recently is, that by far the largest proportion of Motor-homers (Including Camper Vans of all shapes and sizes) are Spanish, whereas in earlier year’s they were in the minority There are of course the usual ‘foreign’ registered one’s, mainly French, German, Dutch and UK, but not in such huge numbers as previous year’s. When we went out for our ‘Environmental’ walk recently we observed a total of seventeen ‘Vans’ parked up together, on a makeshift beach parking area, mainly German and French and, whilst there were two quite prominent ‘official’ signs prohibiting both ‘Vans’ and ‘Caravans’ from parking there, these signs were ignored by them, so it never surprises us when see articles like the one below in the local media.

Away from the more Coastal Areas lots of Motor-Homers prefer to stay a little more discreet and Wildcamp in less popular areas, we did this ourselves many times on our travels and, personally speaking, if you obey the rules about what is considered to be ‘Camping’ then what harm are you doing 🤷‍♂️ But both the Spanish and the Portuguese are now increasing the areas where such activities are not permitted, mainly National Parks. However, when you consider that both Countries have expansive areas of National Parks, Protected Coastal Areas and Environmentally Protected Areas, the opportunities for Wild-camping are decreasing substantially year on year. So once again, and on reading the next media article, at around the same time as I read about the ‘Evictions’ in Tarifa, I believed that it sort of sent out a subliminal message to Wild-campers.

The question I ask myself, both now being a resident of Spain, and someone who still enjoys being able to visit these Natural Parks and Environments, even if now it is only for a day, but also as a former Motor-Homer, who also spent time in such Environments, wild-camping in a responsible manner, is whether these moves are primarily concerned with the protection and maintenance of these areas (Fire Risks, Litter, Water Contamination of Streams, Rivers, Lakes, Protection of Animals and Insects, flora and fauna), or is it for more Economical reasons, by driving the large number of Motor-Homes on to ‘Official’ Campsites and ‘Aires’ 🤷‍♂️ Just visit the Eastern and Western Coastlines of Southern Spain and see how many car parks, small and large, or the vast areas of wasteland, that are occupied by literally hundreds of ‘Motorhomes’ and imagine how much income the Spanish would generate if current ‘free-campers’ had to pay for the privilege of doing so 🤷‍♂️ So I can certainly see both sides of the argument and, for what it is worth, my personal opinion is, that as long as ‘All’ Motorhomes obey the ‘Camping’ and ‘Environmental’ rules, and don’t congregate in such huge numbers, then what harm are they doing. But unfortunately, as we witnessed numerous times during our own travels, and now as we pass some of these ‘Illegal’ parking areas, it only takes the minority to spoil the ‘Status Quo’ for the majority. If you were a resident having to look out from your windows over dozens of Motorhome rooftops, an ‘Unofficial’ Campsite if you will, then perhaps I can see their point too 🙄 But, when you get a gun carrying Law Enforcement Officer knocking on your van door at ‘stupid O’clock’ in the night or morning, telling you to ‘move on’, then best not to argue as what may start off as an inconvenience could, if the situation were to escalate, result in a hefty fine, or worse, the confiscation of your home and transportation 😉

Although for you, my readers, it may only have been a week or so since I last published my previous ramble, as I publish this latest one, it has actually been four weeks since we returned from our extended trip, where does the time go 🤷‍♂️ It has been two full weeks where we have not eaten out once, breakfast’s, lunches or Dinners and not one sip of alcohol has passed our lips, but by ‘mutual’ agreement we booked a table at a local Portuguese restaurant for the Saturday evening, we both felt that we deserved it 🤗 We have one more week to go before the ‘Bathroom Contractor’s’ arrive, they have given us a timeline of ten ‘working days’ to complete the work, although they hope to have it completed in around seven days but to be honest, it will take as long as it takes and, as long as they make as good a job of it as they did our new kitchen we will be happy, as it is the same firm doing the work 🤷‍♂️

Whilst we may continue to enjoy the heat of the new Summer season, for others, the continuing impact of global warming has brought about yet more devastation, I of course am talking about the village in Switzerland that has recently been evacuated, and will probably never be able to be inhabited again, due to the disintegration of part of a large Glacier that crashed on to it, just one of many continued alerts to what is happening to our delicately balanced planet. Large areas of the once beautifully coloured coral that surround our shores continues to suffer from bleaching, with it the loss of aquatic species that once thrived on it. We must enjoy our environments whilst we can, for one day soon we will wake up, and they will have disappeared forever, for whilst we fail to heed all of the warnings that Nature is alerting us to, we are also failing to take sufficient actions to slow this erosion, or prevent it, so let us just be grateful for what we do have today, things that our grandchildren may not be be so lucky to be able to enjoy tomorrow 😢

Until my next ramble………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

I have lost count of just how many times over the year’s we have said, after returning from somewhere, ‘It’s nice to go away, but it is good to get home again’ 🤔 a saying that I am sure many of you have said more than once throughout your lives, whether being out for just a longish day or perhaps, like us this time, having been away for very nearly a month but, this time in particular, it did feel really really good to be back home.

However, before we could get back into our more familiar routines, there were things that needed doing, unpacking our suitcases and rucksacks, putting things back into their usual places, something we hadn’t done when we had arrived home the previous evening. Of course Shazza’s priority was with wanting to catch up with the holiday laundry, then going out shopping to re-stock the cupboards, fridge and freezer with provisions, which would involve a little more than usual this time as we had guests arriving from the UK. Then there was the mail to sort through, although most of that was, as usual, more of the ‘junk’ variety, before then checking the bank statements, item by item, to ensure that the actual balance in the account was the same as the one I had calculated whilst being away, in order to just make sure that I hadn’t forgotten to deduct a payment or two for things that we may have spent on our return ferry and road journey, that last re-fuel stop, now did I pay cash or card 🤔 Yes, it always seems to take us a few days to get back into our normal routines, then of course, as mentioned in a previous ramble, we also had to deal with the water boiler replacement, which ended up being the waste of a full day rather than just a morning.

However, there was also an unexpected mail item which involved me having to deal with as a matter of urgency. A form from one of my UK Pension Providers requiring me to return it, signed and ‘witnessed’ as evidence that I was still Alive and Kicking and therefore still entitled to receive that particular Pension Payment 🤷‍♂️ This verification procedure only having to be undertaken by those who live ‘overseas’, so I guess they are assuming that anywhere outside of the UK is more dangerous, or unhealthy, environments to live in than the safe haven that is the UK, I wonder if any of those pale-faced administrative workers have ever left UK shores themselves and, from what I can glean from reading the UK media these days, where it appears to be far more dangerous just stepping outside of your front door, what with all the knife wielding, machete bearing, illegal immigrants flooding the streets, or the sex grooming gangs waiting to kidnap your children on their way to school 😲 Although in all seriousness, I can, and do, understand the need to check that I have not passed away and that Shazza is not surreptitiously and fraudulently continuing to receive and spend my monthly pension, of course not that this is something that has ever happened in the UK 🤷‍♂️

Unfortunately it wasn’t quite as simple as it sounded as this ‘Witness’ couldn’t be a partner (For obvious reasons), or a friend or neighbour, although why such people would have access to my bank account I do not know 🤷‍♂️ No, it had to be someone in a position of Authority or Senior Professional position, the kind of people that ‘generally’ would involve having to make an appointment to see, and then of course paying them a fee for the privilege of obtaining their signature. They of course helpfully provided a list of twelve such professionals, a Diplomat 🤔 Yup, everyone has one of those living just down the street, and even if I did, you can imagine the conversation when I knocked on their door “Good afternoon Guvn’r, stick your signature on this would you, there’s a good chap”, I would say, “Do you not know who I am ?” He would undoubtedly respond, “Don’t be silly, of course I do, you are a Public Servant and I pay your wages, so don’t dilly dally, I haven’t got all day to waste I have visitor’s to collect from the Airport don’t you know” 😂 Another option was a Surgeon or Doctor, have you ever tried getting an appointment with one of those this side of Christmas 😳 A Magistrate perhaps 🤔 and so on and so forth went this list of professions, far out of reach of most normal people so, another case of bureaucracy at it’s best yet again, why on earth they wouldn’t just accept a date and time-stamped photograph of me in my ‘budgie smugglers’ sipping on a Pina Colada, solar basting on the beach, an image I suggest you do not ponder on for too long 😂

However, you would have thought that in this day and age of modern technology, either a simple video call of me shopping with the missus in the local ‘Mercadonna’ supermarket, or phone call, asking relevant questions, that only I would actually know would surely have been much more cost effective and time efficient 🤷‍♂️ What made it worse, for me, was that they gave me 60 days to respond or they would stop my payments and, although their letter was dated 27 March, we hadn’t received it prior to going on our extended trip on the 10th April, so 14 days had already been lost, where had that letter been I had to ask myself, for we generally receive mail sent from the UK, or even from within other parts of Europe, within seven days 🤷‍♂️ Then we had of course been away for the best part of 30 days and now, we had visitor’s coming for the next 7 days so, out of the remaining 9 days within the timeline that they had given me to respond, six of them were also weekend days and their was no way I could have interrupted Sir Horace Wimpole-Bailey, my diplomat neighbour, whilst he was sitting on his John Deere ride-on mower cutting his acres of pristine green lawns, or his wife, Lady Penelope Wimpole-Bailey Belvedere, pruning her roses, even if I could have got through the outer fifteen foot high security gates and past their six Doberman’s, it is a dangerous world living overseas I will have you know 😳 I certainly didn’t need this additional pressure, talk about needing a holiday to recover from a holiday would be an understatement 😤 However, I am sure you will be relieved to know that I managed to find a suitable ‘Witness’ and meet their deadline, I think 🙄 for I have not, to date, received an acknowledgement that they received it, so only when my next pension payment is due will I know the answer to that one I suppose 🤷‍♂️……….. (since drafting the above, I am now very happy to report that said pension payment has now been received, it feels so good to know that I am now officially considered to still be Alive and Kicking, so time to go and get myself another Pina Colada and hope I still have my spot on the beach 😂)

I guess that we had been pretty lucky to have enjoyed a very unexpected three weeks of warm sunshine, whilst we were back in the UK, although it was quite chilly in the mornings and evenings, but even so, it was still nice to come back to the Spanish sunshine and heat, with the very much warmer mornings and evenings, with the morning temperatures at 18 degrees(c) and daytime high’s currently at 28 degrees(c) and rising each week 🥵 Soon it will be close to being unbearable, both day and night, and all the balcony and bedroom doors and windows will remain open twenty-four hours a day. How long I wonder before one of us starts to moan about the heat 🤔 But, the biggest luxury for us, after our extended trip, was no longer having to live out of our suitcases 🥳🥳

So, just three days after getting home ourselves, we drove to Malaga airport and collected our Family visitor’s. These particular family visitors have been coming out to stay with us quite regularly over the last ten years and so, over that period, they have more or less seen everywhere within our immediate locality. However, previously the majority of their visits have been during the Autumn and Winter months when we had restricted daylight hours and much cooler evening temperatures, which had reduced a lot of activities, so it was going to be a nice change for them to see everywhere ‘open for business’, the ‘Chiringuitos’ (Beach Bars), Restaurants, ‘Tourist Tat’ shops and of course the army of ‘Lookie, Lookie’ men with their ‘ASDA Price’ bargains. With the now much lighter nights and, the much warmer evening temperatures, we could all enjoy the holiday ambience when eating Dinner out on some evenings, either in the Marina or the local town. Although with our over indulgence on our own extended holiday, followed by a bit more during this family visit, we would, once they had departed, certainly need to get back on to our more healthier and disciplined regimes as a matter of urgency, otherwise we would be limited to what clothes we could still actually fit into, and that included all the new one’s that we had just purchased 😲 A two week ‘All Inclusive’ package holiday of over indulgence was not too bad to get rid of any surplus weight, but five weeks of it was going to be a mammoth struggle 🏊‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏋️‍♀️🥾😱

We spent most of the six full days with them in the local area, up and down the coastline, and when we were out somewhere just for the morning’s, when the temperatures were more conducive to walking, we would then return, have lunch and spend the afternoons just lazing around the pool and then going out for Dinner in the evenings. However, whilst our visitor’s had seen most places around our immediate area, there were still a few places that lay just a little further afield, but within a day’s visiting distance away, that they stated that they would like to visit, which was possible provided we departed a bit sharpish in the morning’s. One such place just happened to be one of our own favourite Cities in Spain, ‘Seville’, somewhere Shazza and I have been to ourselves on three separate occasions, although on all of those occasions we were living full time and travelling in our Motorhome, so the last time we had actually visited was probably seven or eight year’s ago.

The actual city of ‘Seville’ is just over a two hour drive away, but ‘Seville’ isn’t just a city but also a ‘Province’ here in Spain. It is probably best known by those in the outer world for the growing of ‘Seville Oranges’, which are primarily exported to the UK, for the production of ‘Marmalade’, to be enjoyed on hot buttered toast or as fillings in cakes, it is a product that, quite surprisingly, is not eaten by the native Spanish people, although it does appear occasionally on the breakfast tables for foreign guests at some hotels 🤷‍♂️ However, the Seville Orange itself cannot be eaten in its raw state, unlike most other oranges, as it is far too bitter, but it does have a high ‘Pectin’ content which makes it ideal for making the tasty orange Jam, but there is so ‘Much More Than Just Orange Jam’ to Seville 😉

We didn’t fancy doing battle with the extremely busy traffic in the city so, having done some prior research, we agreed to park just outside, in the small town of ‘Dos Hermanas’, where we could leave the car and then use the ‘Metro’ public transport system to travel into the heart of the city centre, just nine stops away. The parking was ‘Free’ 🤗 and it was located right outside the training ground facilities for the ‘Seville’ football team, which was only a short walk away from the small Metro Station on the opposite side of the road, but accessible via a footbridge. This ‘Metro’ public transport system was so efficient, running from early morning to late at night and, as we were to discover, it was also an extremely cheap form of transportation. It was a twenty minute journey, the service ran every fifteen minutes, amazingly it only cost us just €0.82cents each (£0.70p) for ‘return’ tickets 😃

Although we had visited Seville on previous occasions, we had either cycled in, from a nearby Marina where we had parked our Motorhome for a couple of night’s, or we had caught a local bus, so this was going to be a new adventure for us too as we had no idea how to use the Metro service, how to pay for our tickets, what stop to get off at etc. 🤗 Adventures come in all shapes and sizes and this one was a pretty small one, but so very easy.

The city is divided into several different districts, as with many large cities, however there are four main areas that are all close to each other, Santa Cruz, Macarena, Triana and Cartuja, two on one side of the ‘Guadalquivir River’ and two on the opposite side, but they are all within easy walking distance of each other, and several bridges span the river at various points. Although it is possible to do them all in one day, using the ‘hop on, hop off’ tour buses, in reality you would not be able to do each area any real justice in such a tight time frame, and so you should, realistically, allow ‘at least’ two or more days, within that you could also book to see a traditional flamenco show in the evening, complete with Dinner, in the Triana district. However, the very large and lush ‘Parque Maria Luisa’ which also houses the fantastic ‘Plaza de Espana’, is located in the Santa Cruz area, as is the Cathedral, Alcazar and the main Shopping areas. During our previous visits we had seen all of the sights, including the Flamenco Dinner Show, but we would have been more than happy to have done them again, if our visitors had wanted to that is, but they were not that bothered and just wanted to wander through some of the back streets and take a walk along the riverside promenades. In the much hotter Summer months, ‘Seville’ is known as the ‘Frying Pan of Spain’ with temperatures reaching up to 50 degrees(c) 🥵 Fortunately, at this time of year it was just 28 degrees(c) and, with plenty of shaded refreshment stops, very bearable.

The extensive grounds of the María Luisa Park and Plaza De Espana are ‘free’ to enter, and as impressive as the Plaza de Espana is, the surrounding grounds and walkways are equally as impressive, however our visitors, who in their defence are in their 70’s, were not too interested in spending too much time viewing them, it had been an early start and we all needed a coffee and to be honest, Shazza and myself had seen them before on at least three separate occasions, although we had thought beforehand that we may have spent a good hour, or longer, enjoying the grounds before the temperatures got too high 🤷‍♂️ When we had visited Seville previously we were able to just walk up to the ticket booths, at the entrances to both the Cathedral and Alcazar and then, having purchased our tickets, we had walked straight in. Both of these amazing places could have entailed spending a good hour or so looking around each of them in their own right, which we had also anticipated doing, however, on this particular day their were very long queues and our visitors we discovered, were even more of ‘History Heathens’ than ourselves, which neither of us ever believed was possible 🤭 but they also did not relish the thought of standing in the heat in a long queue for what could have been some considerable time, and doing so outside both locations. So we spent a bit of time just wandering through a few of the back streets, having a coffee then later a light lunch. The plan had been to spend all day sightseeing, with a few interventions for re-hydration stops 🍻🍷 and then to find somewhere to have a nice Dinner in the early evening before making our way back home. As it was, after a walk along the river, a brief stop for an Anti Covid Vaccine, we decided that we were all walked out and ready for home.

We made our way back to the Metro station, and the car, and returned home at 5pm, a lot earlier than anticipated. It was still 24 degrees(c) at 7:30pm, when we went out for dinner in our local Marina, followed by a night cap at a Cafe where we all enjoyed a spot of people watching, well it would have been so rude not to 🤭

We had walked every single day that our visitor’s had been with us and, I have to say that everyone but myself, seemed to be into this business of doing a minimum of 10,000 steps per day, which they all kept regularly checking on their wristwatch gadgets, what’s that all about 🤷‍♂️ These days these devices don’t just tell you the time, give you up to date personal health and fitness checks, but also act as mobile phones in which you can receive voice calls, text messages and Email’s, no wonder everyone these days look like CIA Agents on undercover surveillance, and, it gives a whole new meaning to ‘Talk to the hand, not the face’ 😂

Anyway, their time with us had once again come to an end, the week had just flown by, we drove them back to Malaga airport on the Sunday morning for their lunchtime flight back to the UK. They had enjoyed their holiday and, as usual, they were not looking forward to returning home, primarily because the ‘Works of Fiction’ were forecasting much cooler temperatures back in the UK and a week of rain, why they were upset about that fact is truly beyond me, I mean it is the UK after all, it is to be expected and one of the very good reasons for us no longer choosing to live there. But they shouldn’t really be complaining, they had just recently already had their designated three weeks annual supply of Summer weather, which we of course had very fortunately been there to enjoy with them and at least they were not going back having to worry about drought conditions and water restrictions, only a hosepipe ban at worst, if they were lucky enough to get another week’s worth of sunshine at some point 😂

As for Shazza and myself, well we couldn’t relax just yet, we had the usual post-visitor domestics to do, especially as we would be re-locating to the guest room facilities ourselves very soon, when the contractors came in to start the complete renovation of our en-suite bathroom. Before that though, on the Tuesday morning after our visitor’s had departed, we had another early start as we had to get our car to the dealers in Malaga for 08:30am, for its bi-annual service, it was just over an hour’s drive away, on a good day, but how long it would take to get there driving through the rush hour traffic of Estepona, Marbella and Malaga was anyone’s guess 🤷‍♂️

As it was we made good timing, opting to use the quieter toll motorways and, once booked in, we had almost four hours to kill before we could collect it again. Fortunately, having been here before, we knew of a Cafe just a ten minute walk away where we could get our morning coffee’s and Tostado’s. Then, just another twenty-minutes walk from there, we could get to the large ‘Plaza Mayor & MacArthur Glen’ Retail Park, Shazza had wanted to spend some of her Birthday money on a new handbag, why she couldn’t have purchased one off one of the ‘Lookie, Lookie’ men at our Marina heavens knows 🤷‍♂️ something about them being ‘fake’ she had said, something about them being ‘cheap’ I suggested 🤭 Anyway we spent all our time trudging in and out of every shop that sold handbags and finally she short-listed three that she liked, so back we went to those particular retailers, examining each one again, in finite detail, until eventually she selected the one she liked, ‘thank god’ I thought to myself, when she didn’t opt for the €400 one, that would have entailed her wanting a loan from me to cover the next three birthday’s 😳 We hadn’t even had time for a cool drink as we had to get back to collect the car and it was certainly going to be a harder walk back in the rising temperature 🥵 We had to wait ten-minutes whilst they finished washing and valeting the car, we didn’t mind as we hadn’t washed it since I had last done it back in the UK, so by now the exterior had started to look like a three-tone colour, Silver, Insect Black with splashes of blood red 😲 The car got through the service with no additional work needing to be done, other than the standard stuff of course, and we were surprised when they told us that they were knocking €40 Euros off the bill, and giving us a ‘free’ pair of sunglasses, which always makes my suspicious mind wonder what they had done to the car, hoping that we wouldn’t discover it later when they could deny all knowledge 🤔 As it was, I gave it a thorough check over once we got back home and all appeared to be fine, so I guess I should be less cynical and simply say thank you for the discount and gift.

So it has been quite a busy period for us, one way or another, we have almost three weeks before the turmoil with the Contractor’s begins and then, hopefully 🤞 by the end of June, once they have gone and we have re-decorated our bedroom, before re-occupying it, we can then properly relax and start to enjoy the bulk of the Summer months in this our little corner of Southern Spain. Of course, by then it should be the start of the main Fiesta season and with the knowledge that, our next pre-booked guest, Shazza’s mum, would not be arriving with us until the beginning of October, life should get back to some kind of normality.

There are only a few journeys that I personally intend taking over the next few months, one of no more than 50 metres down to our swimming pool, or a short five minute drive down to our favourite beach 😂 Let’s see if Shazza’s itchy feet, for travelling a little further afield than that, can stretch that long 😳

As I conclude this current ramble, I am just in the process of dealing with some more Bureaucratic nonsense, with both the Spanish and UK Tax Authorities, but I will save that story for another time. Until then………………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

You may wonder, as you commence reading the introduction of this current ramble, what on earth has any of this got to do with our current road trip 🤔 But for those who are familiar with my year’s of incessant verbal diarrhoea, you will know that, at some point, these introductory ramblings will bear some sort of relevance to the road trip 😉

I was born in Leeds in West Yorkshire, which is the fourth largest Urbanisation in the UK, the large city is built around the River Aire and it also has a fantastic canal, the ‘Leeds & Liverpool’, which, as the name suggests, is a waterway that Links the city of Leeds to the city of Liverpool, and numerous other towns and villages along it’s route, taking in some awesome scenery. Leeds is located in the Eastern foothills of the Pennines and is a place that I will forever call my home, albeit that I have spent very little of my life actually living there. For the last sixty year’s or so I have always, irrespective of all the places that I have lived in the world, supported the great Leeds United football team, although I do have to confess, it has been a somewhat painful experience at times, even more so in recent years 🙄 Over the last couple of years Leeds United have been playing in the league known as the ‘Championship’, which is one level below the top ‘Premiership’ where teams like, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle etc. play their football. Leeds United narrowly missed being promoted to the Premier League last season, so we (as in the royal ‘we’) were going for it again this season and it was currently a three-horse race, although that expression, for either some non-English people, or for those of a non-sporting persuasion it may, and understandably so, create a little bit of confusion 😂

So, to put non-interested parties reading this out of your misery, here follows the relevant bit. Although we now live in Spain, I have still managed to watch all of the televised ‘Live’ Leeds United matches this season and, as the crucial end of the season drew near, we were going to be in the UK right at the end, for the important final 3-4 games, but even so, on this trip I had still managed to see all but the final game. Leeds managed to secure promotion to the top league before this season’s games were fully completed and so, as a consequence we ‘will’ be playing ‘our’ football in the ‘Premier League’ next season 🥳🥳. However, they still had a chance of finishing in first place in their current league and so winning the coveted silver trophy but, it would depend very much on the outcome of this very final game of the season as it was now a very tight ‘two-horse race to the finish line’ 😲 which they needed to win, nothing less would do.

We awoke early on the Saturday morning, our last day at Shazza’s mums before heading to Swindon in Wiltshire, which would be around a four hour drive away, traffic and roadworks permitting 🙏 We were in no great rush and so had planned to leave Shazza’s mums at around 10:30am, “We should get to the hotel, checked-in, and in the room, in time for you to be able to watch Leeds last match of the season” Shazza said. On a normal Saturday, most football matches would kick-off at 3pm, but it at least showed to me that my beloved had taken this very important final match day of the season into consideration for me, “Not today I’m afraid my love, for today all of the final games in the Championship kick off early at 12:30pm” I told her. But I also told her that it didn’t matter, as I could listen to it on the radio in the car on the way down as we were, after all, already promoted, so at the end of the day it didn’t really matter, just as long as we win this last game and win the league cup. It wasn’t as if we could have got up much earlier and headed down to Swindon as we couldn’t check-in to the hotel before 2pm anyway 🤷‍♂️ But I felt that to even have suggested that, would have been rude to Shazza’s mum, and also not fair to Shazza herself, who I am sure wanted to spend a few final hour’s with her mum as they wouldn’t be seeing each other again for a while. However, she was adamant that I should watch the match so, she suggested that we stay at her mums for a little longer, watch the match, and then leave straight after the game, as you may imagine, she got no argument from either me, or her mum 😉

Sporting references now finished and all I have left to say on the matter is that it was a very joyous and jubilant drive down to Wiltshire, I will leave you my reader’s to guess why 🥳🥳🥳🥳

For a Saturday we found all the roads once again pretty much free flowing, yes there were still plenty of red and white roadside decorations with the customary speed limitations, but no delays. After checking-in to our room we were both pretty hungry, with our slightly later departure we had taken the opportunity to have a sandwich before we left Shazza’s mums. We hadn’t needed to re-fuel the car, as we had already done that a day or so before and, somewhat surprisingly, Shazza hadn’t required any ‘comfort breaks’ en-route, so we didn’t make any stops. Fortunately though, there was an ‘eatery’ right outside our hotel so we went and ate straight away and then had a nice relaxing evening watching TV and reading books on our Kindle devices in our room.

Just digressing slightly, I am not an ardent reader of books like Shazza and, unlike her, on the rare occasions when I do, they are always non-fiction and usually either travel related (Motorhome or Yacht travels) or stories about other people going to live in other countries. Even then, if the writing style of the author of such books doesn’t grab my interest within the first chapter, I will put the book down and that is the end of that 🤷‍♂️ I am guessing that is probably very much the same sort of reaction that some may have when reading my rambles, especially the ones that start off talking about football 😂 Anyway, I came across two books, the author had published the original book, then followed it up with a sequel. Why these books had gained my particular interest was because they were an English couple, around the same age group as Shazza and myself, and they had bought a place just up the coast from us on the Costa del Sol, however, they had found it too hot in the Summer and so had decided to move to the Asturias Region, which is on the North Coast of Spain. I started reading the first book on the ferry to England and am now half way through the sequel. Just in case any of you have similar literary tastes, the books are called ‘Northward Bound’ and the author is ‘Alison Stewart’, available from ‘Amazon’ and no, before you ask, I am not on any sort of commission 😁

We had informed our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren that we had arrived safely at our hotel, and told them that we would see them at around 10:00am the following morning. We had not planned to do anything special, our son was doing a BBQ for lunch, so it was just a matter of going for a walk in the park, letting the girls play on the play equipment and then, just generally spending time with them all at the house. The following day was May Day, a public holiday, we envisaged that the roads would all be busy with holiday traffic but as Portsmouth was only a couple of hour’s drive away we didn’t need to rush off, we didn’t sail until 9:30pm that night, although we would have to check-in forty-five minutes before, so I had initially planned to allow four hours for the journey to cater for any potential delays. Our son was at work though, the disadvantage of working in the retail trade when the holiday shoppers are out looking for bargains in the numerous ‘Sales’, but for retailer’s it can prove to be quite a lucrative period. We checked-out of the hotel and made our way back to the house to have our last day with our daughter-in-law and grandchildren, we took them all out and treated them to lunch before deciding to hit the road a little earlier than originally planned, just as a precaution, for although throughout this whole trip in the UK we have had no problems on the roads with delays, we were conscious that the pesky ‘Dark Forces’ would be lurking somewhere, waiting for an opportunity to ambush us and strike that third blow 😲 We said our farewells, which is always an extended and tearful affair, tears from the Granddaughter’s that is, with their pleas for us to move back to England, so that we can live closer to them and they can see more of us. Of course that would be only for the next couple of year’s before starting ‘senior school’, then friends, boyfriends and other more interesting stuff would be much more exciting than visiting Grandparents, yes they forget that we too were once their age, been there, done that, got the tee-shirt 😉 So me being me, I just told them that we miss them too, but I promised that I would send them even more photo’s of us on a more regular basis 😂

Our route was pretty straightforward, mainly on Motorways and Dual Carriageways but, when we checked our ‘Sat Nav’ as we set off, it announced that it was re-routing us, to avoid road closures on the M4 Motorway, I should have known that it would be ‘Too Good To Be True’ to have a three week trip to the UK without one single problem on the roads 🤷‍♂️ However, we discovered that the ‘Sat Nav’ wasn’t up to date with the road conditions, for it had intended diverting us off the Motorway at the junction before the one we originally intended taking, but within no more than a couple of minutes of joining the Motorway the traffic came to a grinding halt, so well before even the diversion exit we were supposed to take 🤷‍♂️ We crawled inch by inch, stop start, stop start, with the minutes ticking away, but finally got to the slip road off the motorway. The new diversionary route took us through small country villages, along narrow lanes, we were just following the snake of slow moving vehicles who were also following the diversionary route. Eventually, almost an hour later, we were directed on to a main dual Carriageway, but the A4, not the A34 which is what we needed to be on and, if the timing could not have been any more imperfect, we were in an area where we lost our mobile phone signal, so I couldn’t even keep a check on our location on ‘Google Maps’ 😡 Shortly afterwards we saw a sign to come off the A4 and where we could get on to join the A34 Southbound route, we sighed with relief. At this point we were not overly concerned and quite thankful to have had the foresight to allow much more travelling time, thanks to my OCD Buddy 😉 If we hadn’t, we would probably have become more than a little ‘twitchy’ by now, and the ‘Dark Forces’ would have been chuckling away to themselves.

Our relief was only short-lived though, we came off the slip road and up to the roundabout where we should then have joined the Southbound A34, well we would have done had their not been a big red sign announcing ‘Road Closed’ on the exit to the slip road, with yet another diversion sign, but this one took us in the wrong direction altogether, we found ourselves heading Northbound on the A34 in three lanes of stationery traffic going absolutely nowhere !! We finally got some traffic news on one of the radio stations “Multiple Accidents on the M4 East towards London are creating major issues, with tailbacks reported as far as Junction 15 at Swindon, diversionary routes off the M4 are also backlogged with the volume of traffic causing heavy congestion”, it was going to be one of those days 🤷‍♂️

Needless to say, and rather than continuing to give you a blow by blow account, we did ‘finally’ get back on to the route that we needed to be on, and thankfully encountered no further delays for the rest of our journey. We made a stop at a large TESCO Supermarket, refuelled, bought a sandwich and still arrived at the Port with plenty of time to spare 👍 Talk about luck being on our side, as we went through the vehicle security check area, prior to boarding the ferry, the female Border Force official pointed to the car in front of us to pull in to the search area and just waved us passed 👍 Although it would not have been a problem for the authorities at this side, with the goods we were carrying, it would have been a major inconvenience for us if we had been stopped and asked to ‘unload’ the car boot, and then had to re-load it all again.

We didn’t have to wait too long to board our ferry and then we made our way straight to our cabin, settled ourselves in, and put the kettle on. The ferry departed exactly on time at 9:30pm, we ate our sandwich and didn’t leave our cabin again until the following morning. This would be a slightly longer crossing for the return trip, 35 hours as opposed to the 27 hours on the outbound crossing, leaving on the Monday night but not arriving in Santander until 07:00am (08:00am Spanish Time) on the Wednesday morning, which was perfect for us as our long drive home would then all be done in daylight.

We have done this ferry route, and the Bilbao one, many times over the year’s and, depending on which side of the boat our cabin is on, we sometimes catch a glimpse of some Islands off the coast of France, although I never know exactly where we are so cannot identify them on Google Maps, perhaps one of my reader’s may be able to enlighten me from the photograph’s below 🤷‍♂️ On this particular trip we were on the ‘Starboard’ (Right) side as we headed South, so Mainland France was on our ‘Port’ (Left) side, the sea was so calm, it was sunny and the view quite clear so we could see what looked like a Church on the smaller of the two Islands, quite possibly a sanctuary for those who found themselves shipwrecked, but the other looked as though it was inhabited.

On the morning of arrival, because it is early, they wake you up by playing a soft musical tune through the speakers, this allows you to get up, get sorted, grab an early breakfast if you want one, we never do, and then wait until the announcement is made to vacate your cabin. I quite enjoy watching the ferry as it enters the outer harbour and sails serenely past the beaches, houses and shops until it gets into the Inner harbour and docks.

We had arrived in Santander on time, perhaps even a few minutes early and, although there was the usual delay before we finally disembarked the boat we were through the Immigration check-points quite swiftly, and heading towards the ‘Customs’ checks and ‘Search’ area. We approached slowly, giving the officials no excuse for thinking that we were in any hurry to avoid them, there were already several vehicles in the search area and we could see the occupants emptying their car boots, so whether it was because we were driving a Spanish Registered vehicle or not, I do not know, but they payed no heed to us whatsoever and we just drove through 😮‍💨🙏 Outside of the Port area and clear of the city, we headed on to the first of the many ‘Toll Free’ motorways we would take on this journey, it was 08:45am and we were on our way. I anticipated getting home at around 7pm, but that would be very much dependent on any traffic delays, which here in Spain is extremely unlikely and, how many stops we made along the route. With the issue with my eye now no longer an issue, we would both take a share with the driving and I have to say I was more than ready to get back behind the wheel, but Shazza had taken the first stint so I just sat back and enjoyed the views, the car virtually knew its own way home by now anyway and so it wasn’t long before Shazza had set the ‘Cruise Control’, relaxed and enjoyed the almost empty roads. We had a full tank of fuel, so we knew that we could complete over half the journey without having to stop and re-fuel again. The chill though was very noticeable, with the low clouds still lurking in the valleys and on the tops of the forested areas, it was 6 degrees(c) as we climbed up into the mountains, but we knew that it would not be long before the temperature would rise through the mid-teens to the low twenties, the Spanish ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast the evening temperature at home to still be 22 degrees(c) and sunny at 8pm with sunset not until 10pm 😎 We were prepared and, for the first time in a month, we were back into our shorts and tee-shirts, sheer bliss. Although to be fair, the weather in the UK during our trip has been magnificent but sorry folks, we are taking it back home with us 🤭

We did meet one diversion where we had to leave the motorway, due to re-surfacing work on all three lanes on our side of the motorway, but it was only for around 10km and we were diverted on to a major ‘N’ Road, so it didn’t create any real delay. We stopped briefly on four occasions, just for comfort breaks and once to re-fuel, we both took two stints behind the wheel and we finally pulled into our car park at home at 6:30pm that Wednesday evening. I can neither confirm, nor deny, whether Luis Hamilton, and co-driver, stuck religiously to the national speed limits 🙄 However, this was the quickest time, 9 hours and 45 minutes, with stops, that we have ever completed this journey, it must have had something to do with the new Michelin Sports tyres that I had just had fitted whilst in the UK 😂

Finally, just to finish off this series of rambles, and to what has been very nearly a month of being away from home, the Plumber arrived the following ‘afternoon’, not 10:00am in the morning as arranged, ‘Manana Manana’ and all that 🤷‍♂️ but we do now have a new water boiler and lashings of hot water. We arrived home to discover that our local Reservoir sits at literally just below 100% of its capacity, our Swimming Pool has now been re-opened for use and all drought restrictions in our Province have been lifted so, all’s well that ends well, as the saying goes 😉

Until the next ramble, whenever that may be 🤷‍♂️

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

After a bit of a whirlwind first couple of weeks back in the UK, which had involved driving a lot of road miles, after returning from our Lancaster and Morecombe trip we decided on having a quiet weekend, our final week would not be as frenetic but there were still things that we wanted to do ourselves. We had pre-ordered lots of ‘goodies’ from Amazon which had now all been delivered. We had known before departing Spain that we would have a car boot full on the return trip, so had limited our outward trip to just the essentials, two small aircraft cabin bag sized suitcases and our two individual rucksacks, but my concern wasn’t fitting it all in, which would be a challenge in itself, but more the fact that some items would, if checked by the Spanish Authorities, potentially attract ‘Customs Duty’ (Small hand held Electrical Appliances) or in fact be considered as ‘Prohibited Items to Import’ (Shazza’s Plant Based foodstuffs, Oils and other ingredients for cooking) but we had agreed that for once we would take the risk 😳

Shazza and I have always been law abiding citizens throughout our whole lives and never risked even the most minor of demeanours, however, it seems to us that it is always the honest individuals that seem to be the only one’s to get shafted by the Authorities, easy targets. On this one and only occasion it wasn’t actually as if we were smuggling drugs, weapons, explosives, people or, heavens forbid, cheese and ham sandwiches into the country 😲 All very serious offences without any doubt, but all of which seem to go unpunished, due mainly because it would appear that the Authorities do not have the time, inclination or perhaps the manpower resources to deal with the real and actual perpetrators of such crimes 🤷‍♂️ So, although our stomachs may be churning inside our bodies, we would attempt to put on our innocent and smiling faces, as we pass through the ‘Control Points’ and trust that they just wave us through 😳🫣 Then perhaps we may need to stop at the nearest rest stop and change clothes after what will, without any doubt, be yet another ‘brown trouser moment’ to add to our previous list of similar moments during our former Motor-homing experiences 😂 Anyway, what is the worst that could happen to us if we were to get stopped and searched 🤔

On the Monday we set off early, with Shazza’s mum, to drive the short distance to ‘Meadowhall’, a large shopping complex on the outskirts of Sheffield. Before we had departed Spain we had both conducted an inventory of our wardrobes and agreed that we were both now in need of some modern replacements, although we wouldn’t throw away those cast off’s, we were sure that the 1970’s fashion items would become fashionable again, at some point in the future 🤭 We had each made a list of our requirements, comfortable casual footwear (Sketchers), casual shirts, shorts and lightweight jackets for the cooler Spanish Autumn and Winter periods (Hoodies or Fleeces). We do not tend to treat ourselves to new clothes very often, only when really required, or when buying something for a special occasion, like we had to do for our daughter’s wedding celebrations in Austria last Summer. We do not generally buy each other gifts for Birthday’s, Anniversaries or even at Christmas as, if we need anything, like new Kindle’s, Phone’s, iPad’s, or even Colognes and Perfumes, we just buy them as we need them 🤷‍♂️ So this clothes shopping extravaganza would be a real, and very rare, treat for the both of us 🤗

The Tuesday was a day off for me, giving me an opportunity to try and continue to catch up with drafting another one of these rambles 🙄 Not being a professional literary author, I am not one to carry a pocket book in which to write notes as we go about our travel adventures, so I hoped that my memory, and photographs taken, would still be good enough to prompt me in to remembering all the things that we had done, the places we had visited and some of the things along the way that we had heard or observed. Shazza on the other hand had her own day off, well at least from driving, as her mum and her two sister’s, Shazza’s Aunt’s, live locally and all three have a weekly day out, shopping and going for lunch and coffee, so Shazza, after very recently attaining the special status of joining the elite 60’s club, joined in with this small ‘purple rinse’ group 🤭

The Wednesday was a much more productive day for me, it was time to give the car a thorough clean. In Spain, due to the nature and impracticalities of the location of our apartment, more so the distance of the car parking arrangements for the ferrying of buckets of water back and forth, it means that cleaning the car entails driving it to the local car wash, which actually does a reasonable job on the exterior, but nowhere near as good as I would do it by hand, and there are no hoovers available for doing the interior. Whilst I do always pay for the highest level of car wash, which includes a coating of wax, the wax spray nozzles are not powerful enough to apply any wax to the rear of the car, so this was an opportunity for me to do a complete clean of the interior, give the outside a good wash and then hand apply a good coating of wax. However, whilst we were personally enjoying the lovely hot and sunny weather, it was not so good for washing or waxing the car as both the water, and the car wax, dried out very quickly leaving dried water streaks, and hard wax deposits on the car, so I was restricted to doing it over the next two much cooler morning periods and, I also already knew that, after our long drive back to Southern Spain, it would probably be just as bad again and covered, from bonnet to boot, with encrusted insect remains 🤷‍♂️

Shazza on the other hand wasn’t having a completely restful day, as she was catching up with all the laundry we had amassed on our travels, and of course the ironing, but at least we were not now driving all around the country, perhaps we should suggest to all our family members that they should move and all live in the same one location 😂. In between times, we had also cut her mum’s ‘three’ lawns, twice, repaired her leaking toilet cistern, attached a new lock to her bathroom door and ordered and hung a new set of bedroom curtains, you wouldn’t think that she had three grown up son’s who all live within a thirty minute drive away 🙄 All the days we do spend staying at her mum’s, Shazza does all the cooking, don’t misunderstand me, this is not either of us complaining, after all her mum is nearly 83 year’s young and so has difficulty in doing ‘some’ of these things for herself, but it is simply the reason why we do not consider coming back to the UK to visit, as being an actual ‘Holiday’ as such for us. We also realised that in fact, three weeks in the UK is too long a period, we could have done everything in just two weeks and were now just stretching things out to kill a bit of time before reporting to our pre-booked return ferry home. It wasn’t as if we wouldn’t be seeing family again soon either, as one of her Aunts, and Uncle, who we had seen a couple of times already on this trip, would be coming out to stay with us for a week within just three days of us returning home and, we had just booked the flight tickets for her mum to come and stay with us again, for two weeks in October. But we were also reading reports that the Airport at Doncaster, just a shortish 15-20 minute drive from her mum’s house, and which had closed only a few year’s ago, which had previously had direct flights to and from Malaga, was to re-open in the Spring of next year, so perhaps on our next visit, instead of the long drives, we will just catch a flight from Malaga to Doncaster and hire a car from the airport upon our arrival 🤔 Although that would have one distinct disadvantage in that we would not be able to bring as much contraband back home with us 😂

Over the next couple of days I finished cleaning the car, had got the pre-ordered new tyres fitted and, I even had time to go and get a haircut, which would save me a job once we returned home. We had also sorted, and re-packed, our ‘additional’ luggage items ready for loading into the car. So we had a free day on the Friday, our last day at Shazza’s mums, so we decided to take a short trip to a local historical stately home and gardens, and then have a nice lunch out somewhere, before going back and secreting the contraband, packing the car ready for the start of our journey down to the South of England 🤭

In the numerous year’s that we have been travelling and staying at Shazza’s mums, including the numerous year’s when we actually lived in the UK, I had never heard my beloved ever make a mention of ‘Cusworth Hall & Park’, which is only a very short drive away from Doncaster. The other amazing revelation to me was that entry to the House and Gardens were completely ‘Free’, ‘My Most Favourite Word In Any Dictionary’ 🤗 Although, I had reservations on just how good it would be if they were not charging an entrance fee, something almost entirely unheard of in the UK 🤔

We pulled up into the large car park and Okay, they lied, for there was an actual fee to park the car, but even that charge was very reasonable and very much less than the cost of one cup of medium sized ‘Latte’ at Costa Coffee 😂 The grounds looked quite vast but our first stop was the house. Now the house itself does of course have some history attached to it, being built in the 1700’s, and it now has ‘Listed Building’ status and is a museum, but my brief on-line research, before my eyes fully glazed over, didn’t reveal any earth shattering revelations that I could astound you my reader’s with, all I will say to any history buffs reading this is, go and check out what ‘Mr Wikipedia’ and ‘Mr Google’ have to say about it but don’t even think of blaming me when your eyes start feeling heavy 😴

Although Shazza had been here on a previous occasion, very many year’s ago as a child, when I suspect the park and gardens had more adventure appeal than the actual house, she was quite excited this time around to get inside and have a good nosey around the place. Now I do not normally take too much interest in such places myself, however on this occasion I was actually quite surprised and rather enjoyed it, probably because each room showed the different periods of its, and the immediate local area’s, history.

What was unusual to see in this particular residence was that they had made replica displays in the kitchen, scullery and laundry room areas, which we were able to wander in and out of, whereas normally, in the majority of Stately homes, the below stairs areas are not accessible to the public.

From the kitchen we decided to do the ground level first before proceeding to the second floor, although if you look at the external photo of the house it shows a third upper floor level, for which public access was not permitted 🤔 Probably because that was where the ‘ghostly spirits’ took their coffee breaks 👻🤭

There was room dedicated to the history of the early justice system, from the medieval periods up to the inception of the official uniformed Police Service. I have to confess that I found the information in the displays quite interesting although, having seen some of the punishments for things like stealing a loaf of bread, it made me wonder what our punishments would have been like in respect of our own upcoming future minor misdemeanours 😳 Although there was one offence, during the medieval period, which had a punishment well deserved, and I personally believe that this particular one should be continued right up to this present day 🫣

Now sometimes, visits to such historical places can end up being very enlightening, I mean I can remember as a child, and right up to this modern day, eating ‘Nuttall’s Mintoes’ sweets, and never thinking once about where they came from, but it wasn’t until this particular day’s visit that I realised that they were invented in Doncaster 😲 A good job they were not invented in ‘Nuneaton’ then, I thought to myself, or they may never have seen the light of day and have been enjoyed by millions for over a century 😉

Now, if I thought that this revelation about ‘Nuttals Mintoes’ was informative, my curiosity was raised even further when I saw, locked behind a glass fronted exhibition case, what looked, at first glance, to be a pretty boring water jug. But what made it interesting to me was the inscription upon it…………

We spent a little more time popping our heads into various other rooms, costumes and jewellery worn by the ladies through the decades, the two great World Wars and the role of the Hall and it’s other buildings during those periods, then as we moved forward into the 60’s and 70’s era, there were household accessories, domestic equipment and products that even I began to recognise as being common place in my own parents households when I was a teenager 😳 It was time to get out of there before I came to a room showing the future 😲 We made a brief stop at the Cafe and enjoyed some ‘more up to date’ tasty delicacies to have with our coffee’s, before we took on the challenge of the Park Grounds, where Shazza’s mum wisely elected to perch on a bench and wait for us to return, I think it was one of the groundsmen we stopped to chat with who referred to one of the walks as ‘Heart Attack Hill’ which had been instrumental in her decision 😂

There were so many different walks around the vast grounds, that we could have stayed here for hour’s and, other than the Cafe, which we had sampled earlier, their was also a micro brewery on the site with a small ‘Pub’ with an additional seating area in a small walled courtyard, however, visitor’s were also encouraged to bring their own picnics and sit on the grass overlooking the scenic lakes and enjoying the long reaching views across the fields to the outskirts of the city of Doncaster. Shazza and I strolled around the perimeter path of the lakes, enjoying seeing Canada Geese, Mallards, Moorhens and a couple of Swans, before we walked back up ‘Heart Attack Hill’ to re-unite with her mum. To be honest, although she certainly would not have managed it, for us it actually wasn’t as bad as it sounded, or perhaps we really are fitter than we think 🤷‍♂️ Overall, and I can say this in all honesty, that what I thought was going to be a bit of a boring day out for myself, actually turned out to be a wonderful day out and I once again asked Shazza why she had not brought me here before ? She said that she didn’t know why, although perhaps, I thought to myself, she may have had memories from her younger days when she may have came here on previous romantic interludes. I didn’t press her on the matter, some memories are best kept to one’s self 😉

As we returned to the car, Shazza’s mum mentioned remembering that there used to be quite a large Garden Centre very near to where we were, although she had not been there for year’s she said, so didn’t know if it would still be there. I checked on ‘Google Maps’ and discovered that it was, so, as this would be our final day with her, and not seeing her again until she visited us in Spain in the Autumn, we took a detour and spent a good hour at the huge garden centre, one which sold everything, and not just for the garden, we even bought a large home-made treacle tart, which Shazza said she would heat up and we could have with a tin of thick creamy Devon Custard for supper 😋😋

We had been out since the early morning and it was now late afternoon, apart from the brief snack at the Cafe at the Hall, we hadn’t eaten anything else and we were all ready for something substantial to eat. This time it was me that remembered an establishment where we had all visited before, a couple of times in fact on some of our previous trips here, it was spacious, the staff were friendly and the food, from what I could remember, was basic, but delicious, ‘Pub Grub’ with several Vegan options for Shazza which didn’t include a Goats Cheese Salad 😉 We agreed unanimously, albeit it would normally have been a traditional Friday takeaway Fish & Chip supper evening. On the way to the eatery I sent a text message to ‘Michel’ (He was actually French and not Spanish) and was the Plumber in Spain, just to confirm that he was still coming to fit a new water boiler for us on the following Thursday, the day after we returned home. Within a couple of minutes he sent a text saying, ‘Yes 👍 Will be there at 10:00am’, so that was another thing that had been whirring around inside my mind that I could now forget about. God help me if I ever get Dementia, I thought to myself, that would certainly make my OCD Buddy redundant 😂

We were all pleased to get home, we were exhausted, it had been a long day, but Shazza and I still had a final task to complete, the loading of the car and an almost certain jigsaw puzzle that would undoubtedly involve us filling every available inch of space. However, we consoled ourselves in the knowledge that we have been here before, several times in fact, when we first purchased our apartment and were carting lots of personal household stuff across, although that was in our then much smaller car, so this should be a breeze, shouldn’t it 🤔 We actually did get it all packed away quite quickly, except for the final few bits, but they would fit into our rucksacks which would go behind the front seats. Then, we sat and enjoyed our warm treacle tart and custard, washed down with a mug full of hot strong tea, we both exhaled, the long trip was nearly over, our journey South would commence the following morning. Then once home we could sit on our sun-filled balcony, looking out over the sea views and just relaxing. Well, we would, after we had unpacked at the other end, Shazza had got the laundry sorted, we had done the shopping to re-fill the food cupboards and the refrigerator, got the water boiler fitted and working and then, got ourselves and the apartment ready for our guests impending arrival 😮‍💨 We agreed that perhaps after that, we would need a holiday ourselves to recuperate from our ‘Holiday’ 🤔 or better still, just remain here in Spain in our own permanent holiday location and accommodation, bugger the adventures, well at least until the next one 😂

Our current journey continues, but is nearing its conclusion……

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

After we had our breakfast in the hotel with our friends on the Friday morning, we wished them farewell and a safe journey back to their home in Scotland. Although we do frequently keep in touch, via text and video chats, we had not physically seen them for some time, so it had been nice to meet up with them once again and have a proper ‘Face Time’ catch up.

As I mentioned in my last ramble, we had decided for our last full day to drive the short distance, all of ten minutes from Lancaster, to the small seaside resort of Morecombe, which is famous for being the birth place of one part of the legendary comedy double act that was ‘Morecombe and Wise’.

I do not know how famous, Internationally speaking, that the comedians ‘Morecombe and Wise’ were, but in the UK, especially with people from a certain era, myself included, they were truly comedy legends. Their real names were Eric Bartholomew and Ernest Wiseman, but after a less than successful start to their comedy act using their real names, they changed the name of their act, Eric took the name of his home town of ‘Morecombe’ and Ernest, from Leeds, shortened his first and last name and for some reason it worked 🤷‍♂️ However, sadly, they have now both passed away.

The ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast another chilly but sunny start to the day, with temperatures once again warming up nicely as the day went on. I have to say once again that so far we had been really lucky with the warm weather on this trip, on some days it had been hotter here in the UK than across in Spain, but we also knew how blustery coastal locations can get, so we took our lightweight rain jackets, more for protection from the wind than from any prospect of seeing any of the wet stuff. I guess I should also just mention here that we had also been lucky for another reason, now whether it was the responsibility of our own ‘Dark Forces’ that tend to stalk us quite regularly, or some other dark and sinister force, but it seems that we had timed our trip well, as back in Spain, as well as some parts of Portugal and Southern France, their had been a major power outage bringing all of Spain to a virtual standstill, Transport, Banking Institutions, Retailers and, with no electrical power the water pumping stations could not function either, so no electricity and no domestic water for anyone 😲 The Spanish Government were conducting an investigation into the cause of this major outage to its critical infrastructures but had quickly issued a statement ruling out a ‘Cyber Attack’, so what were they not telling us 🤔 Within the next twenty-four hours the majority of the country had its power and water supplies restored. So how lucky where we to have been in the UK when this had happened and had managed to escape becoming victims of such a major inconvenience 🤔 I must admit, Shazza and I mused over the fact that we were still waiting for the third ambush from our own ‘Dark Forces’, but surely they couldn’t be responsible for this, could they ? If it was, then we would have outfoxed them yet again and they would not be happy, so we had better continue to remain extremely vigilant.

Anyway, we parked up in an inexpensive ‘Pay and Display’ car park, right opposite the seafront promenade but some way outside the main part of the town, around about a forty-five minute walk which would provide us with ample opportunity to get some more much needed exercise, Shazza informed me that we had done over 17,000 steps the previous day, which to be honest didn’t mean much to me, my legs had told me all I needed to know 😮‍💨 We had timed our arrival just right as the tide was in, if we hadn’t we would have required to look through binoculars to see it, as the British tides mean that when the sea recedes it goes out for miles. The beach areas outside of the town were mainly pebbles with rocky outcrops, which were always good fun for children going rock-pooling and, there was also a natural sea water swimming pool, but a bit too cold for a dip just at the moment 🥶 Not that we had brought our ‘swimmers’ with us and I certainly wasn’t going to go ‘Skinny Dipping’, we leave that sort of thing to the French 🤭 We were both quite pleasantly surprised as we got closer to the main town seafront, as we discovered a long stretch of golden sandy beach which we imagined would be full during the much warmer Summer holiday periods.

Shazza and I hadn’t known what to expect from this small seaside town on the Lancashire coast. It certainly didn’t have much of the glitz that its much more famous neighbour commanded, but actually we found ourselves rather liking it. We found the seafront very clean and tidy, their were a handful of hotels and traditional ‘Bed & Breakfast’ establishments, Ice cream parlours, fish ‘n’ chip shops, Cafe’s, Tourist Tat shops, but they were not ‘in your face’, as in many of the larger more popular seaside resorts, no, Morecombe had a sort of rustic olde worldly sort of charm to it. The public garden areas that lined parts of the promenade were kept immaculate, very neat and tidy with flower beds strewn with colourful shrubs and flowers, which enhanced the sort of yester-year feel about it. After our longish walk into the main area of the town’s seafront we found a small ‘Costa Coffee’ and went in and grabbed a couple of medium sized Latte’s, although we soon discovered that there was nothing yester-year about the prices here 😲

Behind the charming seafront though it was a very different story, apart from a very large and modern ‘Morrisons Supermarket’, there was a lot of empty shops, with graffiti now scrawled all over them, the town had certainly seen better days but now looked impoverished and a bit sad, but that said, the people that we spoke to were friendly enough and engaged in the usual pleasantries, when prompted of course. We had been a bit mischievous, greeting people we met with a smile and, “Buenas Dias”, but they all responded with a smile in return and said “Hello” back to us, we were the one’s who were quite amazed, we hadn’t anticipated people in this Northern English town understanding Spanish, although it may have been because it had a Yorkshire accentuation to it 😂

Shazza and I quite liked the feel of the place, of course there was the sea, that always got a deserved a tick in the box from us, although it was more of a muddy brown colour rather than our more normal Mediterranean Blue, but it sounded just the same as it washed over the beach and pebbles and so, if we shut our eyes, with the warm sunshine on our faces, well we could have been on any beach in any part of the world really 🤷‍♂️ Across the estuary were the lush green mountains of the nearby Lake District, and it had a long promenade so a good source of daily exercise potential if you wanted it. Morecombe may not have had much in the way of retail therapy opportunities, but certainly more than enough to suffice for one’s daily needs and, with Lancaster being a short car journey, bus ride or even train journey away, and yes it did have it’s own rail station, so it was not difficult to get to a full range of retail therapy outlets. We both concluded that Morecombe could actually be an ideal location for those of a fit, mobile and otherwise healthy disposition, people of say a certain age, to while away one’s senior year’s 🤭 But, for now at least, we were not looking for an alternative retirement location to the one we were currently enjoying, no, we were just exploring yet another one of the many places that we had never visited before and subsequently ticking it off our ‘To Do List’, albeit, until now, Morecombe had never appeared on any such list 😂

Now of course, as mentioned earlier in this ramble, the town had a famous son, and so it was only right and proper that it would have erected an appropriate statue in his honour,and so, no visit to Morecombe would be complete without seeking it out.

As I am sure you can imagine, there must be hundreds of locals, and visitor’s alike, who have stood next to this brass iconic statue and had their photographs taken, many simulating the now famous pose. To be honest, personally speaking, I think it would have been a little ‘cheesy’ and lacking of any personal finesse to have had a photograph taken in such a manner myself, ………………….but hey, you have read my rambles for long enough by now, to know that I don’t possess any personal finesse and actually, I do ‘cheesy’ poses next to bronze statues very well I will have you know 😂

As we wandered back along the promenade we both found ourselves singing the famous song, sung at the end of each one of the duo’s weekly comedy TV programmes and strangely enough, it was one of the songs that I used to sing regularly, come rain or shine, when I was sat on the tractor doing my daily morning ‘bin emptying runs’ when we both used to work as Campsite Wardens, fortunately I was wearing ear defenders so most of the time I pretended that I couldn’t hear the abuse from the camper’s as I drove past their caravan pitches. “What did you do with the money ?” One camper had shouted out to me, “What money ?” I responded, “The money your mother gave you for singing lessons”, ‘cheeky blighter I thought to myself, so I drove on, singing even louder over the noise of the tractor engine 😂😂

🎶 Bring me sunshine in your smile, Bring me laughter all the while,

In this world where we live there should be more happiness,

So much joy you can give to each brand new bright tomorrow.

Make me happy, through the year’s, Never bring me any tears,

Let your arms be as warm as the sun from up above,

Bring me fun,

Bring me sunshine,

Bring me Love 🎶

The tide had already started to recede, so our view from the promenade back to the car was of just mud and marshland, “We have just completed 10,000 steps”, Shazza announced as we arrived back at the car, “Just another 7,001 then, to beat yesterdays tally” I said with a smile and a wink, her response was not suitable to put in print in this ramble 😂

We went for breakfast on our final morning before checking out of the hotel and then we commenced our journey back to Shazza’s mums in South Yorkshire, it was another sunny morning and, although another chilly start, at least we had the warmth from the car heater until the sun shining through the windows warmed it up enough to turn it off. Shazza had elected to drive yet again, although I had assured her that my eye issue appeared to be a lot better now and I was happy to take a stint behind the wheel. Whatever had caused the inflammation seemed to have been cleared up with the eye-drops that I had been religiously administering since leaving home, however, she said that she was happy to drive. I was more than happy as it meant that I could once again enjoy looking out of the windows at the wonderfully scenic views and, although it was the same route back, the views from the other side of the road were different.

So, in our first two weeks of being back here in the UK, all of our family and friend’s visitations had been completed, except of course the return visit to our Grandaughter’s on our way back to the ferry in a little over a week’s time. However, before then we still had a few things left to do, but I will leave them for a future ramble 😉

Our journey continues………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Other than our long time friends, Paul and Debs, whom I mentioned in my last ramble, who we briefly met up with in Portsmouth when we arrived, we also have some other long time friends, Dougie and Avril, who live up in Scotland and who we also regularly keep in touch and meet up with, in both the UK and Spain, whenever the opportunities arise. Before we left Spain we agreed to meet up with them again whilst we were back here in the UK, and after consulting the map, trying to identify a mutually convenient location, we agreed on the small city of ‘Lancaster’ in Lancashire, a place that neither of us had visited before so, on the day after visiting my mother down in Lincolnshire we once again got back on the road, this time a journey North West across the Pennines, a range of hills that divide the County of Yorkshire (White Rose Country) from the County of Lancashire (Red Rose Country). Those who have an interest and knowledge of ‘English History’, particularly over the ‘Tudor Period’, will be aware of the ‘War of the Roses’ which started on the 22nd May 1455 and lasted until the 16 June 1487, even today, some 570 years later, there continues to remain an intense rivalry between the two Counties. Although it has to be said that these days that rivalry is reflected more when it comes to competitive Sporting events. However, and just to be on the safe side, what with Shazza and I both having Yorkshire accents, we thought it probably wise if, when out in public in this foreign territory, it would probably be best if we spoke in Spanish and let our Scottish friends take the brunt of any English/Scottish border rivalries 😂😂

Before we commenced our journey North we made a brief stop at a local, and highly recommended, tyre depot. I had decided that before returning to Spain that I would change all the tyres on the car, which is now four year’s old, for although we may not actually need to do so for several more months, it would probably be easier to get it done here as I wanted to get a professional opinion on which alternative brand may be better than the ‘Continental Sports’ that I already had fitted on the car. Attempting to have that sort of conversation at a tyre depot in Spain, with my poor level of conversational Spanish, could very possibly end up causing confusion and ultimately something getting lost in translation 🤷‍♂️ Now you would imagine that the UK tyre dealer would obviously want to lead me towards the more expensive brand, which in this case was my preferred choice of ‘Michelin Sports’. However, he said that both brands were actually good quality tyres and it was down to my own personal preference, although in his opinion the Michelin brand was the harder wearing, with less road noise and they had additional load bearing capacity over the Continentals, but they were £25 per tyre more expensive. I selected the Michelin brand, at which point he smiled then informed me that Michelin were actually commencing a new promotion on their tyres, but it did not start until the 1st day of May, which was the following week, but it would save me £25 on each tyre, making them exactly the same price as the continentals 🤷‍♂️ so ‘A Perfect Win Win Outcome’. I ordered the tyres for fitting on the first day of the promotion, which would be four days before we would commence our return home journey to Spain 👍

There were two things that we have found that haven’t changed here in the UK, one is the sheer amount of traffic on the roads, whether it be on Major motorways, Dual carriageways or even normal ‘A Class’ roads and the other, the very familiar road decorations, namely the miles and miles of red traffic cones and roadworks, but I guess when you think about it, the two things do logically go hand in hand, with lots of traffic consistently using the roads then the road surfaces are constantly needing to be repaired, ‘A Never Decreasing Circle’ 🤷‍♂️

I know that I often tend to compare our old lives in the UK with our new lives in Spain, and although their are positives and negatives for both, the climate, and current beneficial economic advantages, tip the scales in the favour of the latter but, on saying that, and as we continue to drive through this extremely diverse and beautiful landscape of England on this trip, we found ourselves agreeing that if, for whatever reason, we felt the desire to return to what is our natural homeland, at some point in the future, then we would happily do so but, hopefully, by that time, perhaps the Political and Economic landscapes would have changed, for the better, for it appears to us that the promises made by the Politicians during the ‘Brexshit’ referendum in 2016 and the UK officially leaving the European Union in 2020, many of the promises made have, so far at least, failed to materialise and the country, purely from our own personal perspective, appears to have gone into a further steep decline 🤷‍♂️

Shazza elected to be duty driver, yet again, but I wasn’t complaining as it gave me the opportunity to look out at the varying landscapes as the busy M62 motorway sliced through the glorious and extensive Yorkshire Moors, the acres of dry stone walled fields that criss-crossed Saddleworth Moor, a place with a sinister past. The Moors murders were a series of child killings committed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965. The victims were aged between 10 and 17, the bodies of two of the victims were discovered in 1965, in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor, a third grave was discovered there in 1987, more than twenty years after Brady and Hindley’s trial. Another body is also thought to be buried there, but despite repeated searches it remains undiscovered. Saddleworth Moor spans an area of some 29.4 square miles and reaches over 400 metres above sea level.

The dark stone buildings of the farm small-holdings dotted throughout this vast landscape punctuate the scenery, with thousand of ragged fleece lined sheep wandering up the steep moorlands. I catch a glimpse of a Motorhome away in the distance, the only indication and evidence of one of the numerous country roads that wind there way through this spectacular scenery and although it is a wild and desolate place in the Winter months, now, in late Spring, with the sunshine, it is just a mass of colour, differing shades of greens, browns, yellows, with white and purple heather stretching as far as the eye can see, the grey granite rocky outcrops against the blue of the sky above and, hidden from view, the numerous valleys, walking paths with fresh water springs, rivers and lakes along the routes. As we follow the Motorway route past the famous old towns of Rochdale and Oldham, with their Canals and old factory buildings reflecting a more affluent history we pass the Northern side of the city of Manchester and wend our way up towards Preston, with the undulating views and more dominant green colours of the ‘Forest of Bowland’ and then, as we approach our destination, we can see in the distance ahead of us, the peaks of Cumbria and the popular area that is ‘The Lake District’. Even just looking out of a car window at all of this amazing scenery that surrounds us is just so utterly relaxing, and it makes me think again of the lyrics of that song by Louis Armstrong, 🎶 I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world 🎶

Even with the minor deviation at the start of our journey, all the Motorways, although very busy, were free flowing and we were making very good timing. Dougie and Arrival were also having an uneventful journey and making good time so, as we could not check-in to our pre-booked hotel in Lancaster, we agreed to meet for lunch at a Garden Centre in the grounds of ‘Ashton Hall’, just South and a few minutes outside of the city.

Ashton Hall was originally built and completed in 1381, although it was re-built in 1856, the only remaining feature of the original building being the tower that now forms the Southern Wing. The Hall and Land was purchased by Lancaster Golf Club in 1993 and other than the Golfing aspects, the Hall can be booked for Events.

After an enjoyable light lunch the four of us made our way to our pre-booked hotel accommodation. Whilst we prefer to use ‘Premier Inn’ accommodations whenever possible, unfortunately the one in Lancaster was fully booked so we had to use the ‘Holiday Inn’ which was virtually next door. Both occupied a nice riverside location with a convenient riverside walk which would take us into the heart of the city, approximately forty-five minutes away, the exercise would do us good and we hoped that Avril would be able to manage it, having very recently recovered from Cancer and the lengthy treatment that goes with it, fortunately she is in remission and is actually looking quite well. However, we were in no rush and could always stop if and whenever she needed to and we could always get a taxi back, if it proved a little too much for her. We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing in our rooms and had selected a local Indian Restaurant for Dinner that evening, which Shazza said she would drive us to.

Having done a little bit of research on the area beforehand, I knew that there was the Lancaster Canal with a towpath walk, the Castle and Prison and a Museum that we could visit, as well as a wander around the city streets, although in reality Lancaster wasn’t the proportions of a major city, more the size of a traditional town. However, nearby, within only a short ten minute drive, there was also the old seaside town of ‘Morecombe’, just North of the much more popular and touristy resort of ‘Blackpool’, famous for its annual Christmas Illuminations, the Pier, and Blackpool Tower and a place that we have visited ourselves on numerous occasions over the year’s, well it would have been rude not to 🤭 However, having never visited Morecombe and, what with Shazza and I already beginning to have withdrawal symptoms, having been away from the coast, beach and sea for nearly three week’s now 😂 We planned to take a drive to Morecombe on our last day, after saying goodbye to our friends after breakfast, they were only staying for the two night’s and so allowing us a final day of sightseeing to ourselves.

It was a little chilly the following morning so, after a good breakfast in the hotel, we commenced our walk into the city wearing warm outer jackets, but the forecast was for a nice sunny and much warmer day. Dougie and I walked in front of Avril and Shazza, each of us catching up on our respective conversations, although our pace being slightly faster so occasionally we would stop and let the girls catch up, not because of Avril, who was managing the walk very well, more that the girls, whilst engrossed in conversation, found that their tongues were moving far faster than their legs 😂 Eventually we headed away from the riverside and headed towards the centre of town where we found a suitable place to stop and have a coffee, which we all needed. We had no real plan and just sauntered through the pedestrianised shopping streets until we came across the Museum, unfortunately, and pretty typical for us now, it just happened to be closed on the day of our visit 🤷‍♂️

On checking ‘Google Maps’ on our phone we discovered that the Castle and former Prison was open, and it was only a few minutes walk away so that was our next port of call. Looking across the street towards the entrance it looked quite impressive, and equally as impressive as we entered through the large arched entrance into the courtyard.

Of course, to visit the prison entailed an entry fee, why didn’t that surprise us 🙄 but it wasn’t the cost that prevented us from going inside, more the fact that the only tours available were ‘Escorted’ one’s, none of us ‘History Heathens’ liked those, we would have preferred to have just wandered at our own leisure, rather than having to keep stopping and listening to someone give us all the historical mumbo jumbo, each of us being selective on just how much information we wanted our ear’s to be bombarded with 🙄 anyway, needless to say we didn’t bother, we just wandered around the inner courtyard area, poked our noses into some open doors just out of curiosity and then sat in the now very pleasant and warm sunshine just chatting amongst ourselves and of course, taking the obligatory photo’s of each other, it would have been rude not to 🤭

After a spot of lunch we considered what else we could do, Lancaster also has a Canal and towpath walk, however, after checking ‘Mr Google’ it was located on the opposite side of the town from the riverside walk and another four miles walk back to the hotel. Avril certainly wouldn’t have managed that and was beginning to feel tired so they elected to go in search of a taxi. We arranged a time to meet up later and had selected a village pub, about a ten minute drive away where we would have Dinner.

Shazza and I decided to make our way back to the river and return to the hotel via the way we had walked in earlier that day, to be honest, we had not done very much walking over the last several days so we both wanted to get some exercise in. The river was tidal and so earlier that morning the tide had been in and the river flowing, we had seen rower’s from the local boat club going up and down, but on our return the tide was out.

It felt a lot longer walk back in the heat of the afternoon sunshine and we were looking for the pathway that led back to the hotel, however, before getting there we came across an Aqueduct that carried the Canal across the river, I hadn’t actually noticed it on the walk into town, probably too busy talking 🙄 There were steps leading up to it, we both looked at each other, deciding whether our legs would have the energy left in them to carry us up to the top, “It would be a shame not to” Shazza said, and so we took a deep breath and took on the challenge.

By the time we got back to our room in the hotel we were both heavy legged and knackered 😮‍💨 We had a nice hot cuppa and then engaged in that much needed Spanish tradition of taking a ‘Siesta’, albeit a little later than is usual. That evening we drove to the village pub and enjoyed a wonderful meal in tremendous surroundings, the menu may have reflected typical ‘Pub Grub’ but what was served was of a much higher standard, the perfect ending to our second day spent with some really dear friends. As they would be departing for their long journey back up to Scotland the following morning, we agreed to meet, a little earlier, to enjoy our last breakfast of the trip together.

Our journey continues………………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena