Whilst Shazza had been enjoying herself in the sea, and apart from me being entertained watching her, and the other’s, battle with the waves, as well as obviously being engaged in a fair bit of both ‘people’ and ‘boat’ watching, I also spent some time researching routes, and accommodations, for the next part of our adventure. On my original route I had planned to head a little further North, but go a little more inland, I had been using a guide book that gave ‘Spanish Driving Routes’, and had found one route in the area that would cover two small historic towns/villages in the one day, the first being a relatively short ninety-minute drive away from ‘Peñíscola’ and, the second just a further one hour drive away from their. But by the time it would have taken us to drive to and between both locations, and spent time visiting them both on foot, making the stops worthwhile and doing these places some justice, it would be time for an overnight stop. The frustration came when I tried to find suitable available accommodations at such short notice, in or near these locations, and which also had on-site, or nearby, parking. But unless we wanted to book a whole ‘Casa Rural’ property, for a minimum of at least five nights, then it was not going to be and the one’s that did let out individual rooms were all fully booked 🤷‍♂️ As for Hotels, well we could forget that, they too were very much a case of ‘No Room At Any Of The Inn’s’, perhaps if we had been travelling astride a Donkey, with Shazza in the family way, we may have been offered a stable, although they would have probably have then told us to come back at Christmas 😂 We did consider whether it would be best to just bite the bullet and rent one of the ‘available’ Casa Rural accommodations for the week, using it as a base camp, but most of these places were out in the wild and the places of interest to us, or worthy of visiting, would have involved driving miles each and every day, returning to the accommodation at night, we didn’t fancy that idea. I didn’t give up though and, after running out of all of the usual options, I just started to scroll through ‘Google’ using the search term ‘Places To See” and came across this……………

Further research revealed that in this small hillside town they also ran a tourist train that, on certain days of the week, took you around the local area, to other small villages and stopping at scenic locations along the route, each trip lasting three and a half hours and running during the late afternoon from 16:00-19:30. So, with the River and Thermal Spring, ‘Fuente de Los Banjos’ and the tourist train trip, this sounded ideal, but to be able to enjoy these we needed to find suitable nearby accommodation 🤷‍♂️

Within this relatively small town of ‘Montanejos’ we saw a 3* Hotel advertised, it looked perfect, sat overlooking the small ‘Rio Mijares’, and directly below the hotel, less than 25 metres away, was a ‘River Club Restaurant’ which also had its own swimming pool, which, for Hotel guests was ‘Free’ to use, the bonus being that the hotel was also just 100 metres walk from where the ‘Tourist Train’ departed and only a fifteen minute walk from the ‘Fuente de Los Banjos’. What’s that saying, ‘When something sounds too good to be true’ ? So what were the chances of them having a room available for the three night’s that we would require ? I got myself ready for another huge disappointment 🤷‍♂️

Shazza looked on our usual on-line hotel booking site and to our absolute amazement discovered that their was availability for the three nights that we required, so she hastily made the booking and had the reservation confirmed 🙏

I planned the route, however, instead of our intended direction being North, this particular location whilst still heading inland, it would be two hour’s South but, ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’ as the saying goes. However, the journey would take us up into and through National Park Areas, up into the mountains. I started to get excited, not just about the destination, but the road journey to it, for whilst Shazza had just had her preferred beach resort break, now it was my turn to enjoy the more rural and natural landscapes that I particularly enjoy, although, even Shazza commented that she too was looking forward to a slightly quieter environment now, although I reminded her that if these accommodations were all generally still fully booked, how quiet they may be could be quite a different matter 🤔

We didn’t bother with breakfast at the hotel on our morning of departure from Peniscola, first stop was a quick re-fuel just ten minutes down the road, we didn’t really need to, it was only an 80 mile journey and we had half a tank of fuel, but we know how scarce fuel stations can be in these inland areas, well, scarce of the more branded one’s like Repsol, Cepsa, Galp etc. and we had learnt a rather expensive lesson, twice in fact, in the past about using fuel from the more locally branded one’s 😲 At least we would have enough fuel to get us, not just to our next destination, the small town of ‘Montanejos’, but also to the next location beyond that, wherever that maybe as that was still in the research and planning stage 😳 Shazza is finally beginning to come around to my way thinking, with the ‘Planning Ahead’ business, as there were several places within this large Valencia area, towns and villages, that she would have liked to have stopped at, for a day or two, but where ‘suitable’ accommodation was not available. But life is a learning curve as they say, although I did take the opportunity to remind her that our ‘former’ travels where a little more flexible, when of course we were travelling in our own ‘home on wheels’ 😉 You may well ask how that comment went down with her, let me just say that my black eye now matches her purple nose 😂

When I looked at my ‘paper’ road map, before planning the route using ‘Google Maps’, I had expected the first part of our journey to have been on the A7 motorway for the first part, up until ‘Castellon’, before then heading inland, but ‘Google’ took us straight onto the CV13, so we decided to go with it. It was actually a very good road and relatively traffic free, compared to the Motorway. However, for anyone from the Valencia area, who may be reading these rambles, I wholeheartedly apologise for probably sounding a little disparaging about the landscapes of this region in my previous ramble, for just minutes away from the coast we entered terrific lush green vistas that were a feast for the eyes and, as we ventured further inland and uphill, the scenery just got better and better.

We have often heard other’s use the expression, ‘When you go away, once you return you really appreciate what you have on your own doorstep’. Well my comment, and title of my last ramble, is certainly beginning to ring true and now Shazza is beginning to realise that fact too, for yes we do actually already live in a lovely beach resort holiday location ourselves, so why on earth do we need to go to another holiday beach location just to appreciate what we already have 🤷‍♂️ But, as she too pointed out to me, we also live within a thirty-minute drive of some beautiful lush green forested mountains, with rivers, lakes, thermal springs and even Castles. So I guess that whilst we are enjoying our individual aspects of this particular road trip, you could say that it is also actually turning out to be a ‘reflective trip’, personally for the both of us, and so, whilst we do not want to give up on exploring other ‘Regions’ in Spain, or even other Countries in Europe, we are now in total agreement that, as our home Region of Andalusia is actually the second largest region in Spain, perhaps we should spend a little more time exploring much more of our own inland areas too, and I guess the occasional beach location wouldn’t harm either considering that in Andalusia we have both the Mediterranean and Atlantic Coastlines to choose from 🤔

It wasn’t long before we found ourselves heading up into the thicker forested mountain roads, the CV10, CV13 and then CV20, which I have to say, were all extremely good, albeit a lot more twisting and winding, which is why 80 miles on these roads takes longer than 80 miles on faster motorway routes, but the drive is certainly far more exhilarating, in a good, not a scary way, and as for the scenery, well all we could say, around almost every corner, was how ‘Absolutely Stunningly Beautiful’ the scenery was, and picture perfect, with a cloud free gloriously blue sky as a background. Shazza may not be into photography herself, she enjoys seeing the landscapes through her own eyes, but I think that she may now also be beginning to appreciate why I feel the need to capture these views, to perhaps look back upon in year’s to come, and of course, to share with you my reader’s, and who knows, maybe provide some inspiration for you to take your own road trips, but please remember that having an OCD Buddy is not always a bad thing and could save some disappointment 😉

Of course, I took dozens more scenic landscapes throughout the journey, but to be honest, I am sure you can visualise it for yourself with the few that I have included above, but it really is a case of having to see it with your own eyes, to fully appreciate the expanse and beauty of the surrounding landscapes. Perhaps the one downside to these roads is the fact that there is a severe lack of ‘safe’ stopping places to take the photographs, so the majority of the time, provided that, as on this occasion, I am the one in the passenger seat with the camera, they have to be taken from a moving vehicle which, sometimes works, and sometimes it doesn’t 🤷‍♂️

We were in no hurry as ‘officially’ we could not check in to our hotel until 3pm, Sat Nav had us getting there at 1pm 😲 But we decided on a ‘Brunch’ stop, if we could find one in one of the small villages or towns along our route, we could see several picturesque places as we drove along, but many of them were up in the hills and too far off our particular route, however eventually, and we nearly missed the turning, we saw a sign that said ‘Cafe’, right on the turn where it was located but which you couldn’t see until you were virtually on top of it, so we followed the narrow gravel road until it came to the outskirts of what looked like a very small hamlet, one of those one horse sort of places, but it had the most amazing views. This was not a typical Cafe/Bar, but a small cafeteria that occupied a small corner of the local community hall. Outside, a handful of white plastic tables and chairs, at one, their were four elderly ladies sat chatting, they stopped their conversation as we approached, smiled and said ‘Buenas Dias’, as if we were regular faces in the village, we returned the pleasantry. A very pleasant young girl who was inside, took our order, our usual, ‘Cafe con Leche y Tostado’s’, she told us to take a seat outside and she would bring them to us.

The four ladies departed before we had finished our very late breakfast, but they stopped at our table, wished us “Ustedes una bien Dia”, or words to that effect, (Have a nice day) and then “Adios” as they walked off down another dirt track in the direction of the small unassuming village. We resumed our journey for a few more miles and then, as we crossed a bridge that spanned a small babbling river we saw a parking area just up from the river bank below, so of course, we stopped to have a look. Once we had walked down the small hill, we saw a traditional old style drinking fountain in front of a brick building, which we discovered were Public Toilets, although the doors were locked, a good job neither of us needed to use the facilities, albeit there were obviously plenty of trees and bushes if we had been that desperate 🤭 A gravel path ran down towards the river, well more a stream really, and then we saw a smaller bridge that ran across it, to one side there was a grassed area, with a small wooden fence around it, which had the words ‘Bar Area’ painted on it, so we guessed that this was a picnic spot primarily for the local residents, as it was not indicated on the map as a ‘tourist attraction’

We continued our drive through even more lush green mountain vista’s and headed towards the town of ‘Onda’ where, quite conveniently, and somewhat surprisingly, there was a large ‘Mercadona’ supermarket, we needed to stock up on Coffee, Sugar, bottled water and some fresh fruit. None of the hotels we had stayed at so far had tea or coffee making facilities, although they all had a small fridge, but not a mini-bar as such, as their was not even a bottle of water or soft drinks inside, fortunately though, we are quite accustomed to this here in Spain, so we always take our own travel kettle, cups and any other provisions we may need.

Although we had attempted to delay our arrival at the hotel, until nearer the official check-in time, we failed miserably, but hoped that they would permit us to at least park the car in their car park where we could leave our luggage until the time came to check-in, then we would go for a wander through the small town. We pressed the buzzer at the parking barrier, the lady who answered asked for our names and then raised the barrier. We left our bags in the car and reported to the reception where the very pleasant receptionist proceeded to check us in to our room, informing us that it had already been cleaned and so was ready for us to occupy. There were actually two receptionists on duty, both spoke limited but reasonable English, but they also acknowledged the fact, in a positive way, that we were also communicating with them in Spanish, “Ustedes Espanyol es Muy Bien” they said, (Your Spanish is very good), we were well chuffed, even if they were just being polite as we know our limitations and that our sentence construction was probably not perfect, but understandable, which is what counts in my book 😉However, our check-in process was interrupted, on several occasions, by them having to also answer incoming phone calls, we could hear them saying to each and every caller without exception, “Lo Siento, No es possible, Hotel Completo” (Sorry, it isn’t possible the hotel is fully booked), I couldn’t understand why they bothered answering if that was the case, it wasn’t as if they were losing any immediate business, but there again they may have been advance bookings, not everyone books within 24 hour’s of requiring a room 😂 Shazza and I looked at each other, we were thinking, but not speaking, exactly the same thought, ‘How lucky were we to have booked when we had’ 😲 We went straight back down to the car and got our belongings and then made our way to our room.

We had stayed at two 4* hotels so far on this trip, and we had no complaints with either the facilities or the rooms in either, but this was a 3*, so we were not expecting quite the same amount of grandeur, or size of room. However, sometimes you get the best surprises when you least expect them, we were not expecting the very spacious room, which matched each of the previous one’s, or a large quite modern en-suite bathroom, with one of the best showers that we had yet experienced, by way of water pressure and very hot water. We were not expecting two full size ‘double’ beds, a modern automated and amazingly efficient Air Con system, or a 60” flatscreen TV that was more like having a Home cinema screen, and we certainly were not expecting a balcony, upon which their was a domestic sized clothes drying rack and also two chairs and a patio table, but best of all, we were not expecting the most amazing view from the balcony, or through the full floor to ceiling glazed patio doors. “Are you certain that this is only a 3* Hotel ?” I asked Shazza. This was, by quite some margin, the best of the three hotels that we had stayed in so far, perhaps ‘fate’ had worked in our favour once again, directing us towards this small town in the Valencia mountains and to this particular hotel, for it just seemed absolutely perfect, in every way 🙏

Getting into our room so early, we then decided to go straight to the ‘Tourist Train’ office in the town, a five minute walk, to see if we could get tickets for that evenings trip. Unfortunately, it was already fully booked, so we booked for the following evening. We decided that we may as well go on a bit of a walk around the town as we now had some time on our hands, and to get our bearings for a deeper exploration at some point over the next two days 😂😂 I laugh because, the town was that small that our very short reconnaissance ended up being the full tour, a handful of small Cafe/Bars, a Church, a Police station, a Chemist, a small Supermarket, a ‘Panaderia’ (bread shop) and a handful of other small local traders and, ‘three’, yes three other, but smaller, hotels 😲 If all of these hotels were full that would probably be more than treble the size of the population of this town 🤭 Oh well, we could now return to the room, have a nice coffee sat admiring the views from the balcony and then, perhaps some time for a period of personal contemplation before dinner 😴

However, although this mountain town may have been small, it had everything that I was particularly looking for on this visit. A beautiful riverside restaurant with tremendous food, that catered for both of our dietary requirements, not one mention of ‘Goats Cheese Salad’ which impressed Shazza as she had numerous other tasty alternatives that made a nice change for her, both on the Starters and Main Courses, as for desserts, well let’s just say that she was on holiday and so probably not quite so disciplined with that particular aspect 😂 As far as activities were concerned, the beach club also had the lovely swimming pool, which had a small poolside bar that served ice-cold ‘Alhambra’ beer, I am not much of a beer drinker but I have taken a liking for this particular brand, although one bottle is plenty otherwise it tends to bloat me, unlike my more usual Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷 We would spend ‘at least’ one morning, or afternoon here at the pool, but their was also the ‘Fuente de Los Banos’, only a short fifteen minute riverside walk away, which we would visit and have a swim in, and then there was the three and a half hour tourist train in the evening, so anything over and above those things, in our short visit here, would just be a complete bonus. And no, I have not mentioned the weather, well when you are dining out in the evening at 9pm, dressed in smart Shorts and casual collared short-sleeved shirts, it say’s it all really 🥵

We had paid for ‘Room Only’ on this occasion, €18 for breakfast, that was the total not per person, seemed just a bit steep for the little we ate, and we knew we could get our more usual breakfast’s for a total of €6 at a local Cafe/Bar. We tended not to eat lunches if we had a latish breakfast and so we had a nice three-course dinner in the evening’s.

So, on Day 2 we started with a rather leisurely morning before having a late breakfast (Brunch) at a small Cafe that we had discovered on our first, and only, town wander. We returned to the hotel and got changed into our swimwear and spent a good couple of hours at the pool before then getting changed and getting ready to board our tourist train. We were two of twenty other passengers, but we were the only ‘foreigners’, the remainder were all Spanish tourist’s on their own vacation. Tony the driver, and tour guide, spoke a little bit of English, and after doing his commentaries in the local lingo he would then come and check with us what we had, or hadn’t, understood, then he would fill in the important essentials we had perhaps not grasped. At first we felt a little like outsider’s as the rest of our travel companions spoke very little English, the odd word here and there, but we soon bonded, talking to them in Spanish, albeit not perfect, they seemed to warm to us and as we got off the train at certain points to walk about they would engage in conversation with us, the usual stuff, ‘Where are we from ?’, then on discovering we lived in Spain, ‘Which part of Spain ?’, ‘How longs have we lived here ?’ all the usual sort of stuff, by the end of the tour, which ended up being a little over 4 hours 😲 we felt a part of the group and we were quite flattered at how many of them made a point of coming to say goodbye to us, as we disembarked to each go our separate ways. Just by coincidence the following morning, we were returning to the hotel after our Cafe breakfast and two ladies, who had been on the train tour, recognised us, before we had even seen or recognised them, and they shouted across the street to us, “Buenas Dias Eric y Sharon, Como Estas ?” 🥰

So as you can imagine, during the tour, my clicker finger never stopped, but I will not bore you with too many photo’s, just enough to give you a flavour 😉

Our first stop was at the top of the quite large and impressive Reservoir, the ‘Embassement d’Aronos’. The tourist train stopped and we all disembarked, Tony, the driver and tour guide, did a rather long talk about the history of the reservoir, the small hamlets that had to be evacuated and the families that had to be re-housed to make way for it. He gave lots of technical information, capacity of water, the area that it provides water to, and the future plan to make it a Hydro-Electric facility. We picked up most of the general stuff and so he just imparted some of the more technical stuff to us in English, we both tried very hard not to yawn though, but we appreciated his effort to make us feel part of the tour group. We then walked down to the base of the reservoir where we were lucky enough to see a mother deer with her fawn cross our path, then a large Eagle flew right across the top of our heads, too quick to get a photo of it though and the deer were gone too 😢 I said to Tony that it was good bit of marketing on his part, to bring an Eagle shaped drone and fly it just at the right time, he laughed and put his fingers to his lips, “Don’t tell the other’s” he said.

Near the base, a long bridge ran towards an entrance into the mountain. Tony explained that inside, it dropped 500 metres to where the machinery was located to control the flow of water and release the pressure when needed. He said that there was a continuous flow of water from the reservoir at the base, this was because one of the Reservoir’s sources was from the upper level of the ‘Rio Majares’ and that the construction of the reservoir could not restrict it’s flow, he took us down to show us it.

Now some of you know, from my previous rambles, that whenever I am amongst large clumps of rocks that I can often see faces of strange creatures looking down on me, I know, I should really seek out some medical help for my condition, or get some better glasses 🤭 or perhaps I have just watched too many horror type movies 🤷‍♂️

We were already into the second hour of the trip when we re-boarded the tourist train, but we continued onwards and upwards further into the mountains, the views were absolutely amazing and we were quite surprised at how many farmhouses and larger more luxurious houses there were, mostly hidden away from view in the dense forest, but we occasionally caught a glimpse of them, but never quite quick enough to point and shoot the camera ☹️

We found it quite amazing to think how they must have got the materials up here, to build Castles, Convents and Monasteries, let alone whole villages and towns and, as in the below photograph, on remote forested outcrops of rocks 🤷‍♂️

We had made our next stop in a small hilltop village, at a local Bar for a drink and comfort break, as I entered the small dark bar interior to order a couple of cold refreshing beers, there were four elderly men sat around a table playing dominoes, ‘Buenos Tardes’ they said in Unison, without lifting their eyes from the table, I made the instant assumption that this was quite obviously a regular stop for this tourist train as they did not appear at all surprised by this sudden intrusion. There were tables and chairs outside, under a canopy of hanging grape vines, full of their ripe green and red fruits, we all sat around chatting, well Shazza and I listened mainly and only interjected appropriately, when we understood what they were saying. One lady in our group came out with a jar of fresh natural honey she had purchased from the lady bar owner, Shazza suddenly disappeared, and then re-appeared moments later, clutching her own purchase of sweet nectar.

We had one final visit to a small town on the descent, it was already 7:30pm, the time we should have arrived back at our starting point 😲 Nobody was particularly bothered though, it had been a good trip with a great bunch of fellow tourists and we finally returned at 8pm, we were glad we had reserved dinner at the restaurant for 9pm, time enough to get showered and changed and although it was now dark, it was still very very warm and humid 🥵

Our final day arrived and it would be a more leisurely day, a late breakfast at our now usual Cafe in the town, then we returned to the hotel, got changed into our swimming gear, grabbed a towel and off we went on the fifteen minute walk to the ‘Fuente de Los Banos’. It was a pleasant enough walk along the wide riverside path, the sun was high in the sky but there was lots of shade along the route.

Once there, we discovered that there was a Kiosk that sold ice-creams and snacks, although we had been unaware of this so had taken our own, obviously not ice-creams though 🤭 there were also some very clean toilet and changing facilities, which we also had not known about. In this area of the river, no chairs, sunbeds etc. were permitted and the beach area was all stones and gravel, so we sat on our towels. The recommendation was to wear water shoes, due to the large underwater rocks and shingle river bed, we again were not aware of this beforehand or we would have brought the ones that had been laying dormant in our wardrobes at home for some time, but we managed to get by with our flip-flops, and we had seen other’s go in barefoot. Now this was not the ‘Thermal Spring’ that we had read about prior to coming here, the one were the water was a constant 25 degrees(c), no, that was, as we later discovered, in a purpose built building in the town 😲 and which we soon came to realise when we initially entered the water in the river 🥶 Actually, I am exaggerating for the water wasn’t actually that cold, although it did come as a bit of a shock when we were expecting to enter a warm bath 🤭

We ended our final evening, once again, at the very nice River Beach Club restaurant. We had only spent two and a half days here, 3 nights in the wonderful hotel, but we had done everything that we had come to do and we both agreed that this had in fact been the highlight of the trip so far. We had decided that we may as well keep heading Southwards, towards home, and so had picked our next destination, but more about that in my next ramble 😉

So, until then……………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

The ‘Forrest Gump’ method of weather prediction once again proved to be much more accurate than the official ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast, why should that no longer come as any surprise to us 🤷‍♂️ We departed ‘Lorca’ on a bright and sunny morning, with not one grey, or black, rain cloud in sight. Our next destination would entail another longish drive, around 270 miles and it should again take us a little over 4 hours, we shared the driving and anticipated making a couple of stops along the route so, all things being equal it would once again end up being around another 5 hour journey.

The first part of our journey would see us remain inland but, after skirting around the city of Murcia we would gradually start to weave our way across to the East Coast towards Valencia, when we would then follow the A7/AP7 Coastal route to our intended destination, normally the AP roads are generally toll routes, but the particular stretch that we would be using would not incur any such costs 👍

Initially, the scenery and landscapes were very much similar to what they had been driving through the Andalucia landscapes, mainly green and lush, however, we noticed the visual change around the outskirts of Valencia, where in parts it became much more arid and certainly very much more Industrial, large quarries that had, and still were, scarring the landscapes, rocky grey granite mountains and miles upon miles of Poly Tunnels, essential for protecting the delicate fruits and vegetables from the harsh heat of the unforgiving sunshine, and the large row on row of factory outlets, the fruit co-operatives that we had often seen as a common place agricultural necessity, and convenience, for the surrounding farms, replaced here by car and truck manufactures, large scale furniture manufacturers and large freight distribution centres, another necessity in today’s modern world. Yes, we had entered twenty first century Spain, but don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all bleak, there were some nice areas, it was just a very noticeable landscape from those that we had witnessed only a day or so earlier. I guess we should consider ourselves still lucky to have the lush greenery that surround the areas where we live, although we are not certain how much longer even that may continue to be the case ? Even the demands of today’s more modern world are racing rapidly South towards us, from the city of Malaga 😲

Another significant observation that we both made was the increased intensity of the traffic, which kept our minds and eye’s very firmly focused, as they were coming at us from all sides, and it appears that modern cars and trucks these days are sold without operational indicator lights, although the brake light’s and accelerator pedals seem to be in good working order 😲 Perhaps we should have chosen to use the less crowded roads, rather than the much faster Motorway routes, but this would have increased our journey time even more and, as we were already discovering, finding short notice accommodation availability, even the ‘Casa Rurals’, was not going to be easy, those that we had looked at beforehand were either fully booked, or only offered rentals of the complete houses, not just a room.

Although the Tourist Season down our neck of the woods appeared to be beginning to slow down, here, further North, it still appears to be in full swing but more so with the Spanish domestic tourism, so finding an ad-hoc room for a night or two was not going to be quite as simple as we had imagined that it was going to be, what was I saying in my last ramble about missing the freedom of our former Motorhome 🙄 However, we did have the forethought to pre-book our next accommodation and after a brief, but very welcome, lunch stop we knocked the remaining miles off in the knowledge that there would actually be a very nice reward at the end of it 🤗 Fortunately, I had smuggled my OCD Buddy into my suitcase, we would certainly need to work together as a team once again to try and plan our following weeks road trip accommodations, although, as yet, we still hadn’t selected a direction of travel 🤔

Our destination today though was the seaside resort of ‘Peniscola’, located on the ‘Costa del Azahar’ (Orange Blossom Coast) in the Province of Castellón, positioned some 90 miles North of Valencia, and 180 miles South of Barcelona. At the end of this particular leg of the journey we would park the car and we certainly had no intention of using it again for the next five days.

One of Shazza’s earlier options, when considering our holiday choice, was an ‘All Inclusive’ 5* Beach Hotel holiday, however, she had been thinking more on the lines of a Caribbean Resort Beach but, as she didn’t want the hassle of Airports and 8-10 hour flights, this was the best we could get here in Spain at such short notice 🤷‍♂️ It was however a 4* Hotel, and we had booked on a ‘Full Board’ Basis, (Breakfast, with both Lunch and Dinner including wine so, Anti-Covid Vaccines provided too, now there’s a bonus 😁) We had a Double Room with two separate large double beds and our allocated room on the 4th floor had a Large Balcony with a lovely uninterrupted Seaview. Their was a Large Hotel Pool and literally just across the Promenade, at the front of the hotel, a golden sand beach with the most amazing coloured green turquoise looking sea, so it still looked very tropical, even if we weren’t in the Caribbean. The hotel itself though, was located on the North side of the resort town, which was quite a decent walk away, ‘Google Maps’ indicated some 45 minutes, with the ‘Old Town’, located on a bit of a peninsular, with quite an impressive Castle sat atop it, perhaps a further fifteen minutes walk beyond that, and of course, it was on a hill, where else would you put a Castle, unless it was like the one where we lived which was virtually on the beach 🤷‍♂️ At some point during our stay we would do the walk into the main resort, and also visit the castle, well we must keep the exercise regime up if we are to attain that ‘Blue Zone’ age group 😉

Now to me, in all honesty, this resort did sound rather like us going on ‘A Bit Of A Busman’s Holiday’ 🤔 I mean come on, we already owned our own very nice accommodation, in a holiday location, indeed it was more on par with a luxury suite in comparison with even this very nice en-suite hotel room, and our home had a large balcony, bigger than this one, and we had a sea-view too, a swimming pool and okay, I will admit that our golden sandy beach is a five minute drive away but, even we had a castle in our small seafront village so, what was the difference between home, and here ? Other than here, we were actually paying for the privilege of having these amenities and views 🤷‍♂️ Although okay, yes, stop shouting at me, as I do concede that this was probably more the part of the road trip holiday for Shazza, she could take a break from grocery shopping, no preparing of meals, or cooking them and no clearing up afterwards, no domestic cleaning or making the bed, so yes I could fully appreciate why it would feel more of a holiday from her perspective than mine, although to be honest, I also do my fair share at home, apart perhaps from the majority of the cooking of evening meals, the ‘placing’ of the laundry into the washing machine and of course the ironing 🤔

As for the weather, we’ll all I can say is that it is as hot here, both day and night, as it was back at home, not one day so far has been less than 32 degrees(c), or the night’s less than 25 degrees(c) and it is already nearly the middle of September, should it really still be this hot at this time of year 🥵🥵

Our first day at our seaside resort was a very relaxed one, although the journey, and the heat, had begun to take it’s toll on us, so we were grateful to just be able to sit on the balcony of our room with a nice hot cuppa (Yes, a hot cup of tea in the afternoon, come rain or shine, it’s a British thing 😂). We were happy to relax and just sit watching the people in and around the pool, sunbathing on the sun beds and also at those across the promenade on the beach and swimming in the sea, this was going to be a great ‘People Watching’ and ‘Boat Watching’ observation point 😉 We went down to the ‘Buffet Dinner’ in the evening, our first meal in the hotel, we expected to be served only a glass of wine, then perhaps topped up if required, but no, we sat down and a waiter immediately brought us an ice-cold bottle of water before asking whether we preferred ‘Blanco’, ‘Rose’ or ‘Tinto’ vino, we selected ‘Tinto’ and were delivered, not a glass, but a full bottle of our selected flavoured ‘Anti-Covid Vaccine’ 😁 This was to be the pattern at all of the ‘Lunches’ and ‘Dinners’, however, we declined the lunch time bottle of vino, otherwise we would have just slept the ‘whole’ of every afternoon away 😵‍💫😵‍💫 Just worth clarifying though, in case you were wondering, we could not take any unfinished bottles, water or vino, away from the restaurant and back to our room to perhaps enjoy on our balcony later 🤷‍♂️

The following morning we went to the restaurant for the buffet breakfast, although it was wasted on us really as I don’t generally eat breakfast and Shazza only toast or croissant, but there was plenty available, even the ‘Spanish version’ of a ‘Full English’ if that was your thing 🤷‍♂️ However, we learnt very quickly that if you want a poolside Sun Lounger you needed to get there by 10:00am, at the latest 😲 and there was no trying to reserve one in advance by placing towels, magazines or other objects on them before disappearing off to breakfast, the pool attendant would remove them, but to be honest we did not witness any of that kind of behaviour anyway 👍 However, when the ‘boom, boom, boom’ of what they described as music started at 10:00am on the dot, which lasted until 1:00pm, only stopping for the Siesta period before re-commencing and going on until midnight, when thankfully it came to an abrupt end, leaving us thinking that we had suddenly gone stone deaf 😲 On top of that, the pool was taken over at 11:30am, every single day, for the ‘thirty minute’ Aqua Aerobics’ sessions 😳 This may have been a 4* Hotel, but Shazza and I both agreed that this was no ‘RIU’ Hotel, the standard of which we had become accustomed to, “Do you think we are turning into right snobs ?” Shazza commented, “What do you mean ‘turning into’ snobs ?” I replied, followed by a loud laugh, then I qualified the statement with, “There is nothing wrong with enjoying a little more luxury and refinement in our more senior year’s , we have both earned it” I said. This time she laughed, “What do you mean in our more senior years, you have always been a snob from the first day I met you” 😲

We agreed that the pool, as nice as it looked, was not for us, so we elected to walk the 20-30 metres to the much more tranquil beach, the loudest noise there, coming from the waves as they broke on to the shoreline, perfect. The cost of a day’s hire for two Sun loungers, underneath a wooden poled sun shade, which of course came with the tropical looking woven straw umbrella hat, was a mere €13, although in a more tropical resort location the hotel would have probably provided them free of charge, however, we had saved on the cost of the flights so it was worth every penny (or cent 🤔) Just to top that off for near perfection, the sea was warm, not cold or even slightly chilly, neither was it boiling hot or uncomfortable, let’s just say that you didn’t have to wait for the more usual initial Arctic shock, to numb your ‘nether regions’, when that first wave hit you 😂 Another thing that we both observed about this long stretch of golden beach was the absence of any beach traders, the ‘Looky, Looky’ variety and additionally, on our stretch of beach, there was not one Chiringuito, although the numerous Cafe/Bars were not that far away, spread out along the very long Promenade. I for one certainly needed the protection of the sun brolly, otherwise I would have fried to a crisp in a matter of minutes, so needless to say we both spent a lot of time dashing to and from the shade into the warm, but very refreshing, salty water, now this was more like it, it looked like we could have been in the Caribbean, but without all the physical inconvenience of actually getting there, or back again 😁

That evening, after having dinner in the hotel buffet restaurant, where we still couldn’t manage to polish off the whole bottle of ‘Anti-Covid Vaccine’ between us, although we did somehow still manage to drink a cheeky couple of iced cocktails on the outside terrace of the hotel bar, whilst listening to the racket they advertised as music by the ‘Entertainment Team’, it was enough to turn us to drink I can tell you ! We didn’t wait until the end of the ‘show’, which is what ‘they’ called it and not us, as we had a bit of an early start the next morning, well that was our excuse anyway 😂

It was far too early for me to even think about eating anything, but I went to the restaurant in the morning with Shazza, where with my glass of orange juice, I sat and watched her eat her ‘Tostado con Mermelede’ (Toast with Jam). We had decided that we would attempt the walk into the town and then on to the Castle, there was never going to be a good day to do this, every day was a scorcher, but we hoped that by leaving early we would miss the worst of the heat. Yes, of course we could have caught a bus, but neither of us wanted to succumb to that, stupid perhaps, and if we had ended up in the local hospital with heatstroke we probably would have called ourselves that, but for some inexplicable reason, we still ‘enjoy’ (I use that terminology very loosely), these walking challenges and it is amazing at just how good, personally speaking, we both feel after the event once we have made it back in one piece. We both agreed that the heat had made it tough going, although it wasn’t so much the heat that got to us, more the high humidity, we also had no idea what gauge ‘Google’ was using to measure the time it would take, they had estimated that it would take 45 minutes, we did it in 30, and to be honest, we were not actually walking that fast, well not by our own usual standard anyway, perhaps we are just fitter than we give ourselves credit for. Once we had reached the far end of the town, at the base of the hill that led up into the ‘Old Town’, we stopped at a small Cafe/Bar for a much needed refreshment break, in the shade, and to try and let our clothing dry out a little before the hill climbs to the ‘Old Town’, and then up to the ‘Castle’ we knew that that was going to be a whole different challenge 😲

To say that we were disappointed with the ‘Old Town’ would be a grave understatement, they had simply used this area as a complete tourist trap, over inflated prices everywhere, even in the small Cafe/Bars and Eateries, yes there were very nice sea views, but you were expected to pay for them. We were not optimistic about what we would get to see on finally reaching the Castle, with signage pointing to the ‘Ticket Office’. However, we were to be completely taken by surprise, the normal entry fee was quite cheap, but even better when we discovered that even Shazza met the reduced ‘Seniors’ admission price of only €3.50, which included the entry to the Lower Gardens (Former Battlements Area). It was quite apparent that a lot of renovation work had been completed, but this meant that several rooms, nooks, crannies and stone stairways had been made accessible, and there were lots of different rooms to explore, along with several turrets to climb, well worth it for the 360 degree views. So just for those of you that may be interested in some of the history of this castle, here is a taster and it actually turns out to be something of an unexpected coincidence for myself 🤔

‘Peniscola’ had been under the control of the Arab Nation since the year 718, but under the period of the Christian uprising it was eventually handed over to King James I. Between 1294-1307, the ‘Templar’s’ (You may remember my mention of them during our road trip last year) it appears built this castle and what was also a monastery, their last great fortress before ‘disappearing’ from the historical map and becoming nothing more than just a legend 🤔 In 1411, Pope Benedict XIII (Papa Luna) made the castle his political seat until his death in 1423.

I am still quite interested in the ‘Knights Templar’ but there is little ‘authenticated’ evidence of whether, and what form, they may now exist in the shadows of today’s modern world 🤔 There are modern day groups who claim to be descendants from the ‘Knight’s Templar’ but their origins often conflict with known historical facts and, the fact that these numerous global groups advertise themselves publicly, on Social Media, contradicts the original ethos of the origin and purpose of this secretive order. I personally find it interesting that there are certain ‘historical symbols’ that are still present today on ancient buildings, primarily throughout all corners of Europe, Western and Eastern, not all buildings necessarily being of any religious significance, as these ‘Knights’ derived from all backgrounds, from Religious Orders, Military Soldiers, Carpenters, Blacksmiths etc. but these symbols, which you may see, but not know what they are, only bear any actual relevance to those privileged enough to be ‘In the know’ 😉 There is some ‘unfounded’ speculation that today’s group known as the ‘Masons’ may have some association with the historical ‘Knight’s Templar’, but with no actual evidence to support this assumption, but then, you wouldn’t expect there to be would you 🤔 Anyway, back to our visit of the ‘Peniscola’ Castle and grounds…………….

Needless to say, I was in my element exploring every room, stairway and turret in this very impressive Castle, certainly worth a visit in my humble opinion, and to my surprise, Shazza explored everywhere with me, which was superb considering she is not really into these sort of historical structures. Now the little matter of getting down again, which can sometimes be as hard on the knee’s as going up 😲

Once back down at sea level, and in the more modern area of the resort, we sought shade in the back streets and discovered a maze of Cafe/Bars, Restaurant’s and vast array of shops. Yup, this was the more modern tourist side of Peniscola, and it was very busy with ‘Menu Del Dia’ signage everywhere, and not unreasonably priced either, between €14-€18 for three-courses including a drink, however, we were only interested in finding some much needed shade in a hostelry that could provide us with an ice cold Cervesa, we had plenty of choices 😁 By the time we were ready to head back to the hotel, the temperature had already risen enormously, to around 28 degrees(c) and still not at its peak, it was certainly much hotter now, although less humid, since we had set out earlier that morning and we already knew that it was going to be a primarily unshaded walk back 😲🥵 Did we consider getting a taxi, or a bus, back to the hotel, of course we didn’t, did it take us longer to get back, of course it did, we were already both knackered before we even started the walk back !! When we did get back, just before collapsing on the bed, Shazza informed me that we had walked a distance of some 6.2 miles and very nearly 20,000 steps, which to be completely honest, was not really that much further than our normal daily walks when we were back at home, however, it did feel longer, probably because at home, we wouldn’t even have considered venturing out further than our swimming pool in such temperatures, strange the things you are willing to put yourself through when you are on holiday 🙄 She also informed me that on our day out in Lorca, a few days earlier, we had walked a little over 5 miles, I just haven’t quite decided whether she is trying to get hold of her inheritance early, or trying to ensure that we both stay healthy and fit enough to reach those all important ‘Blue Zone’ age groups 🤔

After dinner that evening, where once again we didn’t manage to finish the whole bottle of Anti-Covid Vaccine (Lightweights, I know 🤷‍♂️) we decided to just go back to the room, however, an early night would not be an option, as they had a show on around the pool which would go on until midnight, and it just happened to be right below our balcony. However, we both watched it and actually, quite surprisingly, we found it quite entertaining, although we blamed that enjoyment on us both suffering from diminished mental capacity due to heatstroke from our day’s walk 🤭 The hotel ‘Entertainment Team’ performed dances associated to different countries from around the globe, traditional and modern and, somewhat reluctantly, I have to admit that they did quite a good job, we felt a bit like those two old geezers on the ‘Muppet Show’, ‘Terrible ! Get Off ! Hoorah ! Brilliant ! Enchore !’ 😂

Our last couple of days, between Lunch and Dinner, were spent on the beach. The sea was still the gorgeous turquoise-green colour, however, the swells were very much larger than they had been on our second day here, whilst this made them great to play in, it made it much more difficult trying to get in and out as the strength and height of these swells, as they crashed on to the shoreline could easily knock you off your feet. On one such attempt to get in, Shazza got knocked down by a large breaking wave and, as she attempted to get up she was knocked down again by a second, and then a third, leaving her with a cut to her knee and a bruised nose, but she didn’t give up and kept going back in and out for even more punishment, but she wore her battle scars with pride 😁 I do have to confess that after the first day, when I had enjoyed the much more gentler swells, and apart from the odd paddle thereafter, I remained fixed firmly on my sun-bed under my sun umbrella, you may call me a ‘Wuss’ but I’m not the one with a sore knee and sporting a purple nose 😉 She wasn’t the only daredevil though, their were plenty of other women, and men, taking on the challenge with the sea, and certainly none of them were spring-chickens, but I take my hat off to them all, for they all provided me, and other’s who were watching from the comfort of their sun loungers, with hour’s of entertainment and laughter, watching them all get bowled over in the surf and scrambling to get back to their feet before the next wave came, some more successfully than other’s, not many came out of the water unscathed, they all bore their ‘Gravel Rash’ scars on various parts of their bodies but like Shazza, they did not let it deter them 😂😂 I do have to compliment Shazza though, she learnt the knack very quickly, of timing both her entry and exit, even being complimented by many of her fellow daredevils when she exited gracefully from the surf, well as gracefully as you can looking like a drowned rat 😂

Before going for our last Dinner we visited the small bar outside, but next to, the hotel complex, we had discovered the evening before that they served proper Spanish ‘Vermut’, not the Tourist stuff from Italy (Martini Rossi) that costs twice the price for half the measure 😉 then, after our pre-dinner aperitif, at Dinner, we finally succeeded in consuming our whole bottle of Anti-COVID Vaccine, the previous four night’s where we hadn’t were obviously just training sessions for this final event 😂 Then, as it was our last night, we went to the terrace bar and had another couple of cheeky cocktails, well we were on holiday after all. It had been a good decision to pack our suitcases prior to going for Dinner, as we were in no fit state to do it once we had got from having our cocktails, oh yes, and the wine and the Vermut’s 😲 Needless to say that we both slept well and somewhat surprisingly I still awoke at 7:00am feeling totally refreshed, perhaps all this sea air is good for me 😉 I let Shazza have another hour before shoving a hot coffee under her nose, and yes, it was still purple 🤭

So, a new day and time to hit the road once again, but to where ?

Until the next ramble……………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

So, in my last ramblings we were waiting to take the car for its bi-annual ITV Test, the result of which would dictate when, or even if, we could get away on our holiday. The whole inspection process, although very thorough, like a well oiled factory production line process, had only actually taken a little over fifteen minutes and I cannot describe the sense of relief that I felt when the technician handed me back my vehicle registration document, accompanied with the all important vehicle windscreen sticker that reflected that my car was ‘officially’ roadworthy until September 2027, when the next inspection would be due. Of course, I waited until I had cleared the test centre before punching the air in celebration and shouting ‘Yes, get in there !!’ 😂 So, once again we had managed to evade the mischief of those ‘Dark Forces’ by being prepared for their potential ambush so, by way of a quick word of warning to you my reader’s, beware, for they may now be on the lookout for revenge and look elsewhere for ‘other’ less suspecting victims 😲

So that was one very urgent matter sorted, now it was time to address yet another important one, yes I of course mean the holiday, but to where, if indeed anywhere 🤷‍♂️ So, Shazza my beloved, the spotlight is now firmly shining on you, it is decision time ‘Where, if indeed anywhere, do you want to go ?’ She looked at me, knowing how much time and effort that we, that being me and my OCD Buddy, had put into sorting the three potential options, “I don’t really fancy all the hassle with airports and flights” she said, a bit cautiously, followed swiftly by a question of her own, “Do you ?”. I looked at her and just smiled, “So our original Plan A it is then, a road trip” I said, and to be totally honest, I was pleased with that decision. I like road trips and so had been looking forward to conducting yet another one of our exploration’s around some other part’s of Spain, areas that we had not visited before, and for me, using our own car was so much more preferable and convenient although, as I was very quickly to discover, it was not going to be quite as simple as sticking to my original ‘Plan A’ route 🙄 Shazza informed me that she did not now want to go all the way, which, considering our ages and lack of motivation towards such things, I told her that that did not come as a big surprise to me, she let out a cheeky little giggle 🤭 “I meant, all the way to the North Coast of Spain” she said, “I know exactly what you meant” I replied, then gave her a cheeky little wink. But even that piece of news didn’t really matter that much to me, Spain is a big country, with simply loads of places that we have still yet to discover, and let’s face it, their is no hurry to do any of them, so that area of the Northern Spanish Coast can go on the back burner for another future trip 😉 We sat down together with the road atlas of Spain, and yes, I do still use the paper versions, as well as ‘Google Maps’, and in conjunction with some useful travel guide books that we have and which we will take with us, we planned an initial route. We agreed to plan only the first two stages of the trip, to cover our first seven day period, but how long we actually spent on the road after that initial period would then be completely up to ourselves, just as long as we were back home no later than the 30th September, as Shazza’s mum was arriving on the 3rd October, and before her arrival we would have some domestic stuff to do. We didn’t want to hang about and agreed to depart on the Monday morning (8th September), allowing us a period of twenty-two days, if in fact we chose to utilise all of them. Although I will admit that at times like this we do begin to miss our ‘Little Fokker’, the freedom that it gave us to stop virtually anywhere we wanted, without having to rely on making accommodation bookings for the night’s we required, or finding somewhere convenient to stop and eat lunch, or dinner But, at the end of the day you cannot always have ‘everything’ that you would like, and so compromises sometimes have to be made, their are advantages and disadvantages to lots of things in this life 🤷‍♂️

Sunday, the day after our vehicle inspection, was a bit hectic, cleaning the apartment before we departed, it is a habit we have gotten into and it would save us a job when we eventually returned home. We also had to get our individual cases and rucksacks packed, once we decided what clothes we needed to take, we would travel ‘relatively light’, using our aircraft cabin sized suitcases, rather than the much larger hold-all that we would normally take. We agreed that if we needed to use a launderette whilst on our travels, they were readily available in many of the local towns that we would stop at, or pass through, so we could always stop and have a cheeky Anti-Covid Vaccine 🍷 and perhaps even a Tapas lunch, whilst we waited for the laundry to be done 😉

We departed, on our ‘Adventure Into The Unknown’, on an unusually cloudy overcast Monday morning, although it was warm and already extremely humid, the clouds were actually a light brown in colour from the ‘Sahara Sand’ (Calima) suspended within them, the visibility over the mountains and sea were hazy and it must have rained during the early hours, as the car had the tell tale signs of the brown sand ridden rain spotted marks, so much for washing and waxing the car a day or so earlier 🙄 We had agreed that on this particular road trip we would explore the more North Eastern side of the Mediterranean Coast, between Valencia and Barcelona, and perhaps even venture to some of the more inland areas too, but we didn’t have any specific locations in mind to visit, other than our first two locations, we would just decide once we got nearer the end of that first week on which direction we would head towards next 🤷‍♂️ We had previously visited the cities of Valencia and Barcelona, although those were many year’s ago, back in our Motor homing days, but we had never actually done any of the coastline between those two locations, so that would be the area we would initially concentrate on.

We set ourselves an initial target of just getting out of our own Region of Andalusia and, being located almost at the South East corner of the Costa del Sol, that journey itself would take ‘at least’ four hours, dependent on how many stops we made en-route. So we planned for our first stop to be in the town of ‘Lorca’, located just a few kilometres over the Andalusia Northern boundary in the Region of ‘Murcia’. Although we had passed Lorca numerous times on previous journeys, it was a place that we had never actually stopped at and explored so, we decided on a two night stopover, it would be late afternoon by the time we arrived at our pre-booked hotel on our first travel day, so this would allow us the evening to just rest up and relax and then allow us the following full day to just do some sightseeing.

I elected to do the first part of the driving, it was a very familiar route to us so the landmarks we passed just served to make the journey appear a little longer, although I still found the landscapes to be pretty awesome. After getting away from the busy coastal traffic, after the first hour or so, once we had cleared the northern outskirts of Malaga, the land seemed to just expand its lungs, taking in the much cleaner and clearer mountain air and, it seemed to sigh with relief at the freedom to be able to stretch itself out and it opened up with grand views for miles around, mountains of green forested pines, hectares upon hectares of Olive groves, whitewashed mountain villages that made the perfect picture postcard views and near empty roads that stretched out in front of us like a gigantic elongated snake, the only thing missing from this near perfect view was the usual Spanish sunshine, although the outside temperature still registered 30 degrees(c) so we were certainly thankful for the efficiency of the car air-con system 🥵

The journey to Lorca actually ended up taking us five hour’s, although that was because we had four stops, only two were actually scheduled, the initial re-fuel of the car, as we departed home, then a lunch stop, after which Shazza took control of the steering wheel, however we also ended up having an unscheduled coffee break stop, just because we could, but then an additional comfort break stop, probably due to the extra unscheduled coffee stop 😂 But hey, we were on holiday now, so we were in no particular hurry, we had already pre-booked our hotel accommodation so we could just take our time 🤷‍♂️

Our hotel was located on a hilltop, within the grounds of ‘Lorca Castle’ and overlooking the large town below. The views from our room window, and elsewhere around the hotel, were absolutely stunning and we ate dinner that evening on the outer terrace of the Restaurant, it was so warm with just a slight breeze blowing and it was so quiet, no road noise, no dogs barking, no excitable or tired children, just the moonlight and the lights of the town below, it was as near perfect as it could get and the ideal way to commence our road trip.

The only minor issue was that unless you were a keen hill walker, or mountain goat, access to the town below was either by taxi (€10) or using our own car, I was happy to get reception to call for a taxi but Shazza said that she was happy to drive down the following morning. So that had been the plan, except that once we got back to our room and checked the weather forecast for that following day it appeared that the ‘Works of Fiction’ had other ideas 🙄 Heavy rain and thunder was forecast to commence from 07:00am, right through until the early evening so we agreed on a wet weather plan ! We decided that we would have a lazy start to the morning, then breakfast around 9:30am, followed by a session in the internally heated Spa swimming pool, which was ‘free’ to use, only the Spa treatments, if we chose to have any, would come at an additional charge, however, we both agreed that we had far too many wrinkles for one Spa treatment to resolve or have any noticeable impact, so we would perhaps give them a miss 🤭🤭 Then we would go and have a light lunch, followed by the mandatory Siesta, it would of course be rude not to, then in the evening, a nice Dinner and, just to round off our re-arranged day, we would watch the Serbia v England World Cup Qualifier match on our iPad, it was pointless getting frustrated at the weather, just another one of those many things in life that we had absolutely no control over 🤷‍♂️

Perhaps it was the ‘Dark Forces’ seeking their revenge on us, but because we had made yet another plan in readiness, it seemed that we were to thwart them once again. I awoke early and looked out of the large window, expecting to see dark storm clouds and even rain on the windows, so I got a pleasant surprise when my view was one of white clouds, with some patches of early morning blue sky. The hastily arranged wet weather programme was shelved and the original sightseeing plan re-instated.

We found a parking area right opposite the towns magnificent looking ‘Visitor Centre’, although it would only accept a single €1 coin which only gave us 90 minutes. Rather than do battle with the traffic in the very busy town to try and locate another car park that would offer longer stay parking, as it was only a ten minute walk into the centre we decided to do a preliminary reconnaissance and then, if it was worth staying longer we would return and feed the parking meter with another €1, which is exactly what we did, however, on our return visit to the pay machine, I observed that we could actually put €1.45 into the machine, the maximum permitted, and when the new ticket came out it gave us 4 hours 🤷‍♂️ strange, very strange, as it hadn’t shown the different rate earlier that day. However, we were not complaining as we had used up the first thirty-minutes of our original ticket having ‘Coffee and Tostado’s’ in the Plaza de Espana, so now we could just wander at our leisure.

Our usual habit is to obtain a street plan from the Tourist Information centre and use that as sort of guide to find our way around large towns, but more often than not we just do not refer to it and wander aimlessly discovering places for ourselves, and that is exactly what we did this time. As you my reader’s already know by now, neither of us are ‘History Buffs’ or ‘Shoppers’ we much prefer to wander down narrow streets, getting lost as we do so, but always managing to find our way back to where we had parked the car. Sometimes that may mean missing some significant or even unique tourist attractions in that particular town or city, but we can live with that, although often we find some interesting places too, and get to see the mix between the historical areas and the more modern parts, which in truth are often intermingled with each other anyway, and that was the case here in Lorca.

It was inevitable that eventually at some point in our wanderings, through the back streets and alleyways, that we would find ourselves in the more modern town centre, with all of the more usual high street stores, the crowds of people and the busy and very noisy traffic, our worst nightmare 😲 There were lots of historical buildings, churches and museums, most of which we didn’t bother entering but, if you were that way inclined, I would guess that you could spend two ‘full’ days here visiting them all, or if you were a ‘Shopper’, at least several hours wandering in and out of all the shops and of course, the usual array of ‘Tourist Tat’ retailers, but what surprised us here in Lorca were the high volume of street beggars, going around the Public Parks and Cafe’s with their palms open wide, not just the odd one or two but absolutely dozens of them, you could spend a fortune just giving everyone of them even just a handful of change, but which one’s do you give handout’s to and which do you choose not to 🤷‍♂️ We took the option to decline, politely of course, to not give anything to any of them, it seemed the only fair way. We found a nice side street cafe to have a snack lunch, of course with the obligatory beggar, who cannot have been that hungry as we did offer to buy him a coffee and sandwich, but he wanted ‘Dinero’ (Money), which we declined to provide him with. After resting our rapidly weary legs we commenced heading back towards where we had parked the car. Just as an aside, it seems worthy of a mention, the sky remained a bright blue, hardly a cloud in the sky all the time we were out and, the temperature at one point registered 32 degrees(c) 🥵 So much for the accuracy, once again, by the ‘Works of Fiction’, which still proves that the ‘Forrest Gump’ method is by far the best option. Our day finished on a high, another dinner taken on the lovely open terrace of the hotel and to wrap up our brief stay in Lorca, we sat and watched England, somewhat surprisingly, beat Serbia 5-0, the perfect end to a perfect day.

I do not know why we bother, but ahead of another long drive the following day, we still checked the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast for our drive North, up along the coastline, and yet again it didn’t bode well 😳

I guess we will just have to wait and see what our ‘Forrest Gump’ forecast reflects in the morning 🤷‍♂️

Our journey continues ‘Onwards and Upwards’ so, until the next time……………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Personally speaking, it has been a funny old couple of weeks really, although not funny in a ‘ha ha’ sort of way, it is difficult to put the feeling in to words as it isn’t a tangible thing, I suppose the English expression would be to say that ‘Things have just seemed to be a little bit out of kilter’ recently, not majorly so, just a case of us not quite being in our more usual chilled zone, or our more usual relaxed daily, or even weekly, routine 🤷‍♂️

It started when we were taken completely by surprise, when I received a telephone call from the UK Tax Office (HMRC), advising me that they had commenced processing my Tax Refund Application, which was just 10 days after they had received it, this of course was great news, or at least that had been my first thought, but that early elation was swiftly halted by the more worrying thought of “Why were they then contacting me this early into the process ?” 🙄 So, that initial perceived piece of good news about them already starting to process my refund application was cut extremely short when, after providing some clarification of the information that I had provided, the Tax Officer, a very pleasant man as it happened, declared that I had placed a tick, in answer to a question, in the wrong box, I had ticked the ‘Yes’ box instead of the ‘No’ box, although he confirmed at that time that there was nothing else on the form that had been completed incorrectly or lacked the information that they required. I had, it appeared, simply misinterpreted, or misunderstood, the question and No, of course he couldn’t just amend it, and Yes I would have to re-submit the whole form again, apart from the Spanish Tax Certificate which he said they would keep on record. So, I have now completed the form again and, as you read this, it is already winging its way back to them, but of course my refund application will not go back directly to him, the system doesn’t work that way, it goes back into the queue then waits to be processed again 🤷‍♂️ On a positive note, it is a good job they had already started processing the form and discovered my error, rather than in the projected six months that they had initially stated it would take to process it, which would have then created an even longer delay. I do try to turn a negative into a positive when I can 😉

We have also been spending a lot of time, and I do mean a lot of time, the ‘We’ I refer to being myself and my OCD Buddy, perusing ‘Google Maps’ and ‘Booking.Com’ and other such travel websites, looking at lots of ‘potential’ routes, and accommodations, for our ‘potential’ road trip, I say ‘potential’ because my beloved hasn’t made up her mind whether she wants to drive around exploring more of mainland Spain for a couple of weeks or so, which had been ‘our’ original intention, or whether now she would prefer to fly to the Balearic or Canary Islands for a couple of weeks, spent lazing around a pool at an ‘All Inclusive’ hotel or, she has now even suggested that maybe we could perhaps do a city hopping trip through Italy, flying direct to Bologna, before taking a train to Florence, and then on to Rome, using the local public transport rather than hiring a car 🤷‍♂️ So ‘we’, myself and my OCD Buddy, have been exploring ‘all’ options and locations, looking at different routes and destinations, Hotel and ‘Casa Rural’ accommodations, Flight availabilities, train timetables, sightseeing attractions, the whole nine yards 🤯😵‍💫

However, the biggest one single problem that we actually currently have, this time the ‘we’ being Shazza and myself, is that we just cannot book ‘anything’ in advance, as that could present a whole set of other issues if we had to change bookings or cancel them, whether that be with either travel, flight or accommodations, simply because we cannot do anything until we have had the bi-annual mandatory vehicle inspection done on our car, and got the official mandatory new window sticker, to confirm that our vehicle is road legal. But if, for whatever reason, it fails the test, we will then have to get, whatever the issue is, rectified before then taking it back to be re-tested, subject of course to their appointment availability 🤷‍♂️

So of course, we are ourselves pretty confident that there is nothing wrong with the car, it was fully mechanically serviced at the end of May, and they found nothing wrong, they just conducted the usual oil, filter changes etc. and they did a pre-ITV inspection check and didn’t discover anything that may effect a positive outcome. I had replaced all four tyres in May, whilst we were back in the UK, and we replaced the wiper blades just this week, although I am not personally convinced that they needed replacing as they still clear the windscreen, but we were advised that this is a common reason for a vehicle failing its test here in Spain, something to do with the UV rays and the dust and sand wearing out the rubbers much quicker than usual, so we thought that it was better to be safe than sorry. So, I should be feeling pretty confident right ? Well, anywhere else in the world and my answer would be an emphatic ‘Yes’, but not here in Spain 🤷‍♂️ You learn pretty quickly not to take any Spanish Bureaucratic Systems for granted, so subsequently, no holiday bookings of any description can be confirmed until after the test, because you just know who will be looking over my shoulder if I dared to even think about taking the risk of doing so, yup those bloody ‘Dark Forces’ 😡 We only have a relatively short window of opportunity to take this holiday, as Shazza’s mum arrives right at the beginning of October and we will need a few days to get sorted, after our holiday and before her arrival, but even so, that should still give us a possible twenty-one day window of opportunity, provided of course that we (Shazza) can decide exactly what type of holiday it is that she prefers 🙄 and then of course being able to find the availability of the accommodations, or flight’s that we want 🤷‍♂️ So, as it stands, me and my OCD Buddy do have a sort of Plan ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ although, I am already anticipating Shazza coming up with one of her own, a Plan ‘D’, the one where she say’s that it is all too much hassle and let’s just stay at home in our own holiday location and accommodation 🫣

Another reason for it being a funny old couple of weeks was due to our Annual IBI Payment (Council Tax) not being debited from our account on the due date. Now the Town Hall are pretty keen when it comes to taking money off you, they are usually as regular as clock work, especially when it comes to local tax payments, but it was overdue by several weeks. Now if it wasn’t for my OCD Buddy continually prodding me in the ribs about this, I would probably do what anybody else would do, even Shazza was saying, “If they haven’t taken it, that is their problem and not our’s” and yes I guess she was right, but, it was in my advance financial accounts as a payment that was due, and on a certain date, the same date as it had been for the past 11 year’s and now, this irregularity was wreaking havoc in my head, and my OCD Buddy was continually in my face about it and refused to just pi** off and leave me alone 🤷‍♂️ “Do you think that I should contact them ?” I said to my beloved, “No, I am certain they will take the money at some point, when they get around to it, you never know, perhaps they have given everyone a tax break this year”, then she laughed, very, very sarcastically. But she was right, as always, for a few day’s later, our bank account was finally debited 🤷‍♂️ In the end it was actually a nice surprise, as it was ‘exactly’ the same amount as it had been in 2024, and even that previous years bill (2023) it had only gone up by €2 from the previous year, no that wasn’t a typo, an increase of just €2 in the last three year’s 🤗

Shazza commented that it was a good job we had opted to come and live here in Spain, rather than remaining in the UK where, without any exception, everything just keeps going up year on year, Council Tax, Insurances, Electricity, Gas, Water, Groceries, Fuel and, almost all subscription services whether that be Telephone or TV Services, so the question we now ask ourselves is whether we could even afford to return to live in the UK, even if we wanted to 🤷‍♂️ To be honest, yes we probably could, but there would almost definitely be a drastic downturn in our lifestyle to the one that we currently enjoy here. Shazza, who as you probably know by now, keeps a constant eye, and ear, on all things happening back in UK, both Politically and Financially, which naturally includes the ‘Cost of Living’, told me that this year in the UK, Council Tax Bills had been hiked by 10%, some areas a little lower but some even higher, however, generally speaking, that can involve an increase of between £100-£200 which, on its own, doesn’t sound like very much over a year, but that is just an increase in ‘one’ bill, add the rest of the household bills and cost of living increases together and you do not have to be a financial expert to realise that increasing outgoing expenditures, over the small annual increases in income, which in our case would just be from our Pension incomes, makes people very much worse off year on year 😲 Yes I know, welcome to the real world Eric.

Why ? I continually ask myself, does it not appear to be the same here in Spain, yes the cost of some Household and Vehicle Insurances go up each year, but not astronomically so, Electricity bills only really vary on how much we use the Air-Con system in the Summer, or heating in the Winter, but again, they don’t appear to be anywhere near as expensive as in the UK, additionally, you would expect Water Bills here to be much higher, considering that it is generally a very scarce resource with the number, and frequency, of the drought’s, but they are not, I don’t know why, are we missing something obvious 🤷‍♂️ Dare I even suggest that a factor could possibly be due to the UK now actually feeling the long term economical impact of ‘Brexshit’, however, and in all honesty, I really do not know the answer to that, but we are certainly glad that we live here, although not just for financial reasons 😉

Anyway, I will continue to leave Shazza to worry, and she does, about the state of the UK and all the things that she has absolutely no control, or influence, over. Whereas, I am selfish, yes I admit it, I am only interested in the here and now, and with what I can actually control and influence, and that I have to say does appear to be working out just fine for us, at least at this moment in time.

As for the here and now, we’ll another funny old thing has happened over the last few weeks, it has started to get very much quieter, devoid of the crowds and the noise, not just around the communal pools, our own and the one opposite us, which I view on a daily basis from my balcony vantage point, but their are not so many on the beaches, on the seafront promenade, in the Marina, their are even empty parking spaces in the town’s car parks, and the Supermarkets are not as choc-a-blok as they have been, their are now more empty tables in the restaurants and Cafe/Bars especially at the peak times. It just seems a little too early for the tourists to be leaving just yet, we know that some of the schools go back during the first week of September, but the European and International tourists are usually still here until the last week of August and, in previous year’s, even right up to the middle of September, the end of the Tourist Season isn’t officially until the 30th September when the majority of the beach Chiringuitos shut down 🤷‍♂️ Could it be that with tougher financial constraints, people just cannot afford to come on holiday for as long as they usually would, a week instead of two, or a month instead of six weeks ? Has it perhaps been due to all the Wildfires ? Or perhaps the ‘unusually’ hot Summer that we have experienced this year, not helped by the increase in the number of ‘Terrell’ wind events that we have also experienced, and which have caused and increase in the number of heatstroke related deaths amongst the Spanish and Tourists alike.

Or, perhaps it is because of the arrival of the ‘Blue Dragon’ in Spanish Waters, and no, before you think that I am suffering from heatstroke myself, or that perhaps I have consumed far too many Anti-Covid Vaccines causing me to hallucinate 🤭 These ‘Blue Dragons’ are not figments of my imagination or mythical creatures, they are very real and, extremely dangerous to humans, even causing fatalities as they are highly venomous 😲

So, whatever the reason, whilst the end may be in sight to this year’s Summer Season of tourist’s, and I am attempting to not sound too joyous about that fact, the summer temperatures and extreme heat, well at least down in this part of Spain, does not look anywhere near beginning to relent 🥵

That said, they then went on to state, “The mercury could reach 35C in parts of Andalucia, Murcia, Castile-La Mancha, Valencia and the Ebro Valley”, well all that I can say to the ‘Works of Fiction’ is that there use of the words ‘Could Reach’ should be changed immediately to, ‘Continually Reaches’ temperatures in excess of 35 degrees(c) during the afternoons and into the early evenings. Although to be fair, it is now beginning to get slightly cooler in the early hours of the mornings, and I know that without even having to look at the temperature gauge, because I have to get ‘into bed’ and under the duvet at around 3-4am, rather than sleeping on top of the bed all night as it get’s a wee bit chilly and, during the later morning’s, on our walks, which are still not quite back to being on a daily basis, the temperature, at around 10:00am is only between 21-23 degrees(c), nearly time to start digging out the winter woollies 😂

There is some very good news, I do much prefer good news stories, it assists with maintaining my more usual positivity and Karma 👍 It has been announced that the majority of the Wildfire’s, throughout Spain, are now either completely extinguished, or at least are now under control. Even so, I would hazard a guess that those that suffered the most, those in the North of Spain, will probably appreciate the heavy rain that is now forecast for their area’s, it should extinguish any areas that may still be smouldering and also encourage Nature to commence restoring the thousands of acres of destroyed habitat. As for us, well even in the heat we have experienced, and continue to do so, there is also some good news down in our neck of the woods ………

You may recall in my last ramble that I mentioned that Shazza expressed a desire to go and visit the ‘Van Gogh Exhibition’ which is still currently on display in Estepona. Although right on our doorstep, being just a 15-20 minute drive away, we do not go to Estepona that frequently, only when I need to re-supply my E-Cigarette supplies or we want a change of scenery from our own seafront promenade. Anyway, we decided to get up and moving slightly earlier than normal, so that we could get a parking space in the area we wanted to be, as it happened, we found a new parking area, ‘Free’ of charge (my favourite word 🤭) and midway between the town centre, where my E-Cigarette shop is located, the seafront promenade and the Exhibition Centre. We started by stopping at one of our favourite seafront Cafe/Bars, a bit touristy, but with good views of the sea, Gibraltar and the north coast of Africa and so we had breakfast, Cafe con Leche and Tostado’s. From there, a leisurely walk through the town centre where I purchased my necessary supplies and then, after a brief stop in the large ‘Carrefour’ supermarket, where we were looking for a couple of ‘Microfibre’ towels which are lightweight and so dry quickly, useful for our ‘potential’ road trip where I had planned some stops at Reservoir Beaches and small Waterfalls, unfortunately we were unsuccessful in our acquisition, so normal cotton towels it would have to be then ☹️ From there, it was just a short walk to the exhibition hall which is right behind the Estepona main bus station.

As I mentioned in my last ramble, I am not really one for visiting Art Galleries or Museums, so this was something that Shazza had wanted to do, it obviously wasn’t a Gallery of his ‘actual’ physical art works, there would have been an army of Police and Security Guards around the place if that had been the case, no, the artworks were all holographic images but the exhibition itself was amazing. There were several rooms to walk through but it started with information boards and a timeline of Vincent Van Gogh, from birth to death (In both Spanish and English). He lived a short life, dying from an ‘alleged’ self inflicted gun shot injury at the age of just 37 year’s, although there was an alternative theory suggested as to how he suffered his gunshot injury 😳 He didn’t start painting until he was 27 year’s old and had no formal training and, in his lifetime, he only actually sold just one painting, for a small handful of French Francs but now they sell for Millions. If the information provided was factual, it would seem that he led a quite interesting but disjointed and sometimes ‘colourful’ life (although not colourful in an artistic context) with a few romantic interludes along the way, none of which lasted very long, it was only in his latter year’s when he became insular and depressive and an explanation was provided as to why he cut off part of his ear, but I will leave you to discover that for yourselves 😉 To be honest, and somewhat quite surprisingly to myself, I actually enjoyed this ‘different’ kind of art exhibition and would not rule out going to similar one’s in the future, Shazza is already making murmurings about a ‘Picasso’ exhibition in Malaga 🤔

After wandering through different rooms, where his artwork was displayed in different holographic formats, we came into a large room with seats spread around in small groupings. Huge 3D images were reflected on all the walls and, at times, also on the floor, in the centre a large display on which a verbal and written dialogue of his life was provided, the verbal dialogue in Spanish but the written bit was provided in English.

I have to confess, it was a unique and fabulous experience, and coming from me that is praise indeed !! The entrance fee was a mere €24, Shazza still classed as a youngster had to pay full price(€13) whilst Senior’s, like myself, got a €2 discount, sometimes this ‘age’ business has its advantages 🤭 There was no time limit, no audio visual machines or ear pods to pay extra for, you just wandered around at your leisure and it did not finish after you left the large hall.

One of the things that remained in my thoughts, long after we had departed this exhibition, were some of the words that Van Gogh had put into a final letter sent to his brother about his paintings, his brother, who he was very close to, had supported him, both emotionally and financially, throughout his short life “You Only See What You Want To See”, which was referring to his art work and how ‘other’s’ viewed them, for he was the first to acknowledge that he was frustrated that the pictures he had in his mind he could not transfer perfectly on to canvas. But I believe that his words can also be transferred to today’s world in general, along with the addition of, “You Only Hear What You Want To Hear” 🤔

So all in all it had been a relaxing , productive and interesting day out and, for the most part, we had managed to stay out of the intense heat. Throughout the last couple of weeks we have of course been doing the same routine stuff, which you are more than familiar with by now, so I won’t bore you with any of that and hopefully, in a few more days, after the publication of this current ramble we may, or may not, be elsewhere 🤷‍♂️ One thing is for certain, I will tell you all about it in my next ramble so, until then……………

In Other News…………….

It may not be considered as newsworthy material anywhere else, but here in Spain the humble ‘Tortilla’ is taken very seriously.

Something that caught my attention in the local news media and, after watching a TV programme, ‘Kerridge Cooks Spain’, which, as the title suggest, was a six episode series where Chef, Tom Kerridge, visited several ‘Regions’ in Spain, promoting the produce from those areas, and using them to create his own twist not seen or tasted before by the Spanish. Now these sort of programmes do not generally interest me, but Shazza told me that he was travelling around in an old Mercedes Campervan and that the programme wasn’t just about cooking, so I sat with her and binge watched all six episodes. Anyway that isn’t the main focal point of the subject I want to mention, but it is about the products that Spain produces, loads of it, Meat, Fruit, Vegetables, Various Beans and even Rice (Well they are famous for Paella). One of the products grown here and allegedly eaten in great quantities by the Spanish, are the ‘donut’ shaped Peaches. Now I like Peaches, but generally eat the more usual roundish shaped ones, so when we went to do the shopping, shortly after watching the programmes, I went to pick up a pack of these Spanish delicacies, only to discover that they originated from ‘Paraguay’ 😲 A day or so later, again, in the local news media, I came across this article…….

Our small local Municipality of ‘Manilva’ within the larger ‘Malaga Province’ rarely gets a mention in the Local or National media, and to be honest we tend to like it that way, heavens forbid the greater outside world should ever get to hear about this haven of peaceful tranquility, apart from those who already do know about our location of course 😂 But anonymity also has its disadvantages, places like Estepona, Mijas, Fuengirola, Marbella, Benalmadena and Malaga are constantly in the news and, as major tourist resorts, they get lots of money from both Local and Central Government to keep them maintained. So it was rather nice to read that at last, some funding is coming our way to improve a small Plaza in our local town of Sabinillas.

Well here endeth another ramble where I didn’t have much to talk about 🤭 God help you when I do 😂😂

The car has been washed and waxed, sparkling clean ready for its Inspection. Shazza has done all the washing and ironing so we are ready to go, well apart from the bits that we don’t know, like when we will be leaving, whereabouts we are heading to, or how long we will be away and the small matter of having made absolutely no bookings whatsoever 😂 Living life by the seats of our pants, not sure my OCD Buddy is a big fan of that and I worry that he may have a meltdown before too long 🫣😳

Until the next time…………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena 😉

For those of you who are not really too interested in reading about the recent visit of our family, which I of course can, and will, completely understand 😉 please just scroll down to the section, ‘And In Other News’ 👍

I remember it as though it were only yesterday, it was October 2020 when Shazza and I finally decided to turn what had been our seven year semi-retirement lifestyle into the proper Full Monty. At that time we both genuinely believed that the days, weeks and year’s would begin to slow down quite a lot with us no longer having the daily routine of getting up to go to work. Our children had already all grown up and flown the nest, so we had already become ‘Free Agents’, to do with our lives whatever we chose to do. However, as Shazza and I discussed very recently, we are just coming up to five years now, since we actually retired properly, and neither of us can understand where those five year’s have actually gone to 🤔 My pessimistic side, which very rarely rears its ugly head to be honest as I am generally a very optimistic sort of ‘glass half full rather than half empty’ sort of character, tends to want to persuade me to believe that it is a ‘bad’ thing, because, looking back over those five year’s, well in my initial opinion at least, personally I do not think that we have taken many of the opportunities that we have had, to do some of the things that we had said that we were going to do over these last five years, mainly on the travelling adventures side of things that is. Although, Shazza, and very unusually for her it has to be said, as she has generally more of a pessimist outlook on life, but she thinks, looking back on it, that we have actually done quite a lot, all things considered, and given everything that we have had to do, organising starting a new life in a new non-English speaking country (at least non-English speaking on the Bureaucratic side of things) and then once here, getting ourselves sorted ‘officially’ and, due to our particular ‘Non-Lucrative Visa’ conditions, which have placed certain wider global travel restrictions upon us, we have been a little cautious, but she was also quick to remind me that we have also had several family commitments in that time, some of them good events, and other’s not so. So okay, I had to concede, as she listed many of the travels that we had actually achieved, that perhaps it was just me being a little impatient in not having conducted any of the wider global ‘bucket list’ activities on our individual lists. “It isn’t as if we have a time limit to do any of these things do we ?” She said to me, although I reminded her that she is almost 9 year’s younger than myself so, in the grand scheme of things I will, in all likelihood in the natural course of events, probably have less time on the Lifeline Clock than she has, which wasn’t me being morbid, just realistic 🤔 She confessed that she hadn’t really considered my age into the equation as I was just as physically fit as she is and, she considers that in some aspects, walking up steep inclines for example, probably even more so, so she never really ever considers the age difference. Anyway, after our discussion we agreed that we should both really dust off our individual ‘Bucket Lists’ and make more of a concerted effort to tick a few of those travel adventures off the list over the next couple of year’s 👍

The catalyst for this discussion had been pushed to the forefront of my mind on the same day that our family visitor’s had departed after their week’s holiday with us, they had departed at 06:30am to return their hire car and then catch their mid-morning flight from Malaga back to the UK, but it had gone so quickly, in what had appeared to be ‘In The Blink Of An Eye’. The Grandchildren were growing up so quickly, it had seemed like only yesterday when we had first had them come to visit us here in Spain, although Orla, the youngest wasn’t even a twinkle in Mum and Dad’s eye at that time, but she turns seven year’s old in a couple of weeks time, the Twins were a little under one year old when we collected them all from Gibraltar Airport but now they were ten year’s old 😳 Here they were, sitting with us on the balcony having full on proper conversations with them and answering their numerous questions about our life here in Spain and why we chose to come and live here, rather than remaining in England, it was genuinely lovely to see them absorbing the replies, before squinting their eyes whilst formulating their next question but, my goodness it didn’t half serve to make the both of us feel our ages 😲

Our day’s with them did get into some sort of a routine, starting with Shazza at breakfast, feeding five extra mouths, boy can the three of them girls eat 😲 breakfast was followed, every single morning, with three hour’s down at the pool, before returning to the apartment for lunch, with Shazza again catering to their different ‘individual’ dietary likes and dislikes 🙄 In my childhood year’s it was a case of, either eating what was put in front of you at meal times, or you went hungry, and when I mentioned that to them they just said that they thought that that was so cruel 😂 After a post-lunchtime rest, the afternoon’s were spent back down at the pool for a second Session, another three hour session, although I have to confess, I didn’t make it to the majority of those second sessions, instead I took the opportunity to partake of that other ‘mandatory’ Spanish custom, well for those of a certain age at least, yes the ‘Siesta’ period 😴

As if the two swimming sessions a day were not exercise enough, after Dinner we would then all go for a walk, when the temperatures had cooled a little, although I use the word ‘Walk’ extremely loosely, as it was more a case of just parking the car and then sauntering to the large kids playground for an hour, once we had managed to find two car parking spaces that is, we rarely found two in the same location as the town and beaches were literally packed to the gunnels. After the kids had had enough of the play park we then headed to the ice cream parlour and then, mainly for the adults, we would find a Cafe/Bar to partake of a cooling beverage (or two) before finally returning home. Everyday of those seven days were long one’s and extremely active, so it had come as a bit of a shock to our more normal lethargic, more sedentary, retirement lifestyle sort of days 😂

What has now become a customary arrangement on their visits to us is that we ‘volunteer’ to let Chris and Sarah have some time to themselves, so they pre-book a local hotel, generally just outside Estepona and have themselves a thirty-six hour mini-break, to be honest, and as with all parents with young families, they get very little time to themselves throughout the rest of the year and it also provides us with some quality time with the three grandchildren, and of course the opportunity for us to spoil them rotten, as is the privilege of grandparents, and without the need for them to first seek the approval from mum and dad 🤭

The week had flown by and it had finished on a high with the icing on the cake coming on their very last day on their last swimming session when, with a bit of encouragement from mum and dad, ‘Orla’ finally parted ways with her armbands and started to swim, non-stop widths, from one side of the pool to the other, now all three of the girls can swim, and they had all learnt to do it over the last two year’s, here in our communal pool in Spain, now there will be no stopping them wanting to visit 😂

Okay, I know, why on earth would you be interested in reading a ramble all about our time with our family 🤔 although in my defence, these rambles are about our lifestyle here in Spain and that will ‘occasionally’ include visits from both family and friends. But, yes I feel your pain so, for those who have persevered and managed to get to this point, I applaud and thank you, those that didn’t, well you will have had the advantage of reaching this point in the ramble far quicker, so I will now swiftly move on to other, more general things so…………………

In other news………………….

Let me start with an update on my Spanish/UK tax affairs 🫣 As you may recall, from my last ramble, I had posted the package on 12th August and, according to the package ‘Tracker App’ that they had provided me with, and of course respective reference number, I could see that the package had reached the UK, and that it had gone out for delivery on 17th August, which I thought was pretty quick. I kept checking the tracker app everyday, just waiting to see the box ticked that showed that it had been ‘Delivered’. However, on the morning of Friday 22nd August, I received a text message on my mobile from ‘Correos’ (Spanish Post Office) stating that they had attempted ‘Unsuccesfully’ to deliver the item on two occasions, and they now required me to confirm the address they wanted me to return the package to 😲 I couldn’t understand it, surely the UK HMRC couldn’t have moved to new premises, could they, will they do anything not to refund me my two years worth of taxes 🤔 I of course rang HMRC, after making myself a flask of coffee and a picnic, as this could be a long wait, perhaps hour’s, even day’s waiting for them to answer 😲 but, to my surprise, I only had to wait 15 minutes before a human voice, not an AI one, answered. I explained the situation, after they confirmed some personal security details with me, then they actually informed me that there records confirmed that ‘they had’ indeed actually received my refund application form, and that was on the 18th August, and it was now in the queue to be processed, which they did just take the opportunity to re-confirm that that could take up to 6 months. To be honest I was just happy to hear them confirm that they had received my refund application form at that point, and only 6 days after I had posted it. Needless to say I sent a message back to ‘Correos’ with this information but have had no response from them, as yet. The problem is obviously an administrative one between ‘Correos’ here in Spain and whoever they contract in the UK to make the delivery, Royal Mail, Parcel Force, DHL 🤷‍♂️ So it would appear that whilst the postal system from Spain to the UK is very efficient, the electronic tracker service isn’t 🤔 It could mean of course that the package was delivered without the person delivering it obtaining a signature, just shoving it through a letter box, but then why the text message stating that they had attempted to deliver it twice, but unsuccessfully 🤷‍♂️ A mystery that may well remain unanswered, but ask me if I care 🤭

As you may imagine, that text message did not start my day off too well, not initially at least but, after confirming that my package had actually been received, at least my anxiety levels subsided, although as it was to turn out, my day was just about to get a whole lot better.

I hadn’t mentioned in a previous ramble that, on 12th August, the day before our family visitor’s had arrived, we had gone to our local supermarket in town to do a ‘big’ shop. When we went in I hung my sunglasses on my shirt, as you do and as I have done several hundred times previously, okay, probably a slight over exaggeration, but you get my drift. Now these are not ten-a-penny normal sunglasses, but quite expensive normal ‘Bi-Focal’ reading glasses, but with a permanent dark tint (not reactolites). However, once we got out of the car at home I realised that they were no longer hung on my shirt. Obviously we searched the car, the car boot and all the shopping bags, just in case they had dropped inside whilst loading/unloading. We telephoned the supermarket immediately, they took our contact number and stated that they would phone us if they were handed in, no phone call was forthcoming and one pair of quite expensive glasses gone 😡 After sorting out the Tax Form business on the Friday morning (22nd August), we then went to do another shop in our usual supermarket and, on the off chance, I asked whether anyone had handed in my glasses, I was taken to a Private Staff Office by a supermarket supervisor, she opened a drawer that was full of a variety of glasses and she invited me to look through them all, and lo and behold, me and my expensive glasses were re-united 🥳🥳 So, whilst that morning may not have started all that well, by lunchtime, it had turned into an unexpected ‘Very Good Karma Day’ 😁 I celebrated when we got home with a glass of Orange juice and two chocolate chip cookies, only because I had already partaken of a ‘Cafe con Leche’ and ‘Bacon Roll’ in one of our favourite Cafe/Bars before we went to do the shopping 🤭

Now how about a coincidence for my next piece of this current ramble. So, in one of my recent ramble publications I had mentioned about the average life expectancy here in Spain (85 year’s), and made mention of ‘Blue Zones’, which are places throughout the world where people often attain the age of 100 years or older and for which I ‘hope’ to attain 🙏 So it felt a little bit spooky, and it got me to wondering wether the content of my rambles are being monitored (play spooky X-Files music 👽) for, since publishing that particular ramble content, this much more recent article has been published 😳

Now you may think that I am becoming Paranoid, probably having been out in the sun a little too much 🥵 But within many of my previous rambles I have also made mention of the disparity between the UK, and some other European Media Publications, and their perspective on the lack of tourists that are now coming to Spain, and the devastation it is creating to the Spanish Economy, since the ‘Anti-Tourism’ protests, and what it is actually like here in Spain. Now of course, I cannot speak with any factual knowledge or accuracy, about any other area’s in Spain, other than our own Region of Andalusia, but we have seen little evidence that the number of ‘Tourists’, either local Spanish domestic tourists or wider International Tourists are any less than in previous year’s but, to add to my paranoia about someone monitoring the content of my rambles, the following media articles have also just recently appeared in the media…….

So I have to ask at this point of the ramble, “Have I cured Your Insomnia Yet, Or are your Eyes still open ?” If your answer is ‘No’ to the first bit and ‘Yes’ to the second, I will continue 😂

Spain still continues to party, throughout the whole country but probably the largest party of the ‘Fiesta’ season in our area is the ‘2025 Malaga Ferreira’, an event that encompasses the whole city, from the actual large Fairground where numerous events take place and not just the traditional fairground attractions, many of the city’s Plaza’s and streets are just one massive party stage, from dawn to dusk, for a whole seven days, the local Spanish dress up in traditional costumes whilst the tourists just turn up in their Summer attire, but all are welcome to join in the revelry

Well of course, the Summer heat always makes the headlines, I don’t know why, for it is always hot here in the Summer, wether it be 30 or 40 degrees (c), that is normal so why is that news 🤷‍♂️ Probably because those normal temperatures have risen to 45 degrees, and even this far South, those temperatures are certainly not normal and so, with the added issue of the ‘Terral’ winds paying us yet another visit of the Summer, not just with the additional heat that they always bring, but also with the strength of the gale force like winds, which are continuous, day and night, the prolonged heatwave continues 🥵🥵

So, naturally of course the major topic that is on the front pages in the local news headlines, as well as appearing in National and International news media channels, every single day for more than a week now, are all the Wildfires burning throughout many parts of Europe, Although for many Countries, including Spain, these wildfire events are a normal and frequent annual occurrence but, it would appear, from the statistics that are being published, that this particular year has probably been the worst for Wildfires since records began.

However, and somewhat quite surprisingly, at least here in Spain, the majority of the worst fires have actually been in the Northern areas, not in the more usual ‘hotspots’ down in the Central and Southern parts of the Country, albeit they are of course still occurring in those Southern areas, but certainly not on the scale as elsewhere 🤷‍♂️

Now ‘some’ of these wildfires are obviously occurring as a consequence of the extreme heat, and ‘some’ as a result of Lightning strikes on the tinder dry trees and scrubland, but what is shocking to read is that a great deal of these fires have, from investigation, been attributed to people actually starting them deliberately 😲

I really cannot comprehend what is going through the minds of some of these people, to do it deliberately entailing the loss of lives, thousands of hectares of land, people’s livelihoods, homes and livestock and not to mention the thousands of gallons of essential water in the attempt to put these fires out. I mean throughout the majority of Spain, we have just come through two year’s of devastating drought conditions, the ‘Embalces’ (Reservoirs) have only just recovered. Not all wildfire locations are near the sea, so that means that water has to be obtained from these Embalces, essential drinking water for thousands upon thousands who rely on these resources 🤷‍♂️ As for the hectares of land that are consumed in the flames, yes it is sad to see the catastrophic toll, but as Covid proved, if you leave Nature alone, it will eventually start to heal itself, ‘Devastated Today, But Back Tomorrow’, but that cannot be said for humans or animals, when they have been maliciously incinerated, all that is left is the grief of those who managed to survive…………..

As I sit on my balcony drafting this latest literary masterpiece and looking down upon all the people lazing around, and swimming in, the communal pool opposite and, after having been out this morning ourselves, sat on the seafront in the sunshine looking out upon a white sandy beach, adorned with multi-coloured sun umbrellas, sat amongst the crowds of locals and tourists alike, enjoying just another routine day getting on with normal life, watching the jet-ski’s and sailing yachts on the sparkling blue sea, and perhaps doing some people watching, it would be rude not to, I now find myself sat pondering on just how ironic life sometimes is, for whilst some, all over the world in many differing situations, live in daily fear of potentially losing their lives, or lives of loved-ones, homes and businesses, other’s, like ourselves are, generally speaking, oblivious to all of that until we see the news reports on the TV, or read about them in the various media channel publications. Not that we can do anything about these things of course, but still, it does sometimes feel to me that this world that we live in, can be a sad old place at times.

Anyway, let’s not end this ramble on a sombre note 😉 Let me mention something that I have only recently become aware of myself, and that is in relation to the ‘Camino de Santiago’, and I will make an educated guess that those interested in these sort of Pilgramage Walks will be aware of what I am talking about. The most popular route, and one which you will find many people making ‘You Tube’ video blogs about, starts from San Sebastián on the French/Spanish Border, to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, located on the North Western side of Spain, there are of course several alternative routes, one of which follows the coastline of Portugal. However did you know that there is also a route from Malaga ? Well actually no, neither did I 🤔 Shazza and I, in our more nomadic days, once had an ambition to do the Northern route of this particular pilgrimage walk, but like a lot of things Shazza and I ‘intend’ to do, we never actually got around to doing it 🙄 So now may not perhaps be the best time to consider doing this route, what with the very extreme heat and the Wildfires in those Northern areas and, just before you even consider asking such a stupid question, one that I know you are already formulating in your minds, let me just say this, we both have a struggle with getting the motivation to do our 4-6 Kilometre walks along the seafront promenade, so how on earth do you think we will find the motivation to do a walk in excess of 1,400 Kilometres, that I think will answer your question before you even ask it 😂

As for Shazza and myself, well we have finally got our apartment all ship shape again, after the departure of our family visitors, we have re-provisioned the fridge and cupboards, Shazza has washed and ironed all the ‘guest room’ bed linen and towels, and we have thoroughly cleaned the bedroom and bathroom, in advance of our next visitor arriving, Shazza’s mum, but she does not arrive until the beginning of October. Before then, we have the car to take in for its bi-annual mandatory safety inspection, but that isn’t for a couple of weeks. There is a ‘Van Gogh’ Exhibition in Estepona that Shazza would like to go and see, why I do not know 🤷‍♂️ she has never shown any interest whatsoever in any Artists, past or present but, in accordance with our life together agreement, ‘If there is no good reason for either of us, not to do something that the other wants to do’, so we will choose a day to get out and do that I guess 😳 But for now, we will just slot back in to our normal daily routines and look at some potential ‘travel locations, both here in Spain, for some shortish trips (3-4 days) once the tourist season is over, around mid-September, for there are still so many places in this our new home Country that we have yet to see. You may also be pleased to know that I have already started to research some wider global locations to visit, for at least one of our ‘Bucket List’ trips for next year, okay so it may be one that is on ‘my’ own personal bucket list, but hey, I had to start somewhere 😂

Until my next ramble, enjoy the rest of your Summer, or Winter, dependent on which part of the world you are reading this 😉

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

We hadn’t left it very long, after the Contractors had departed, to get back into our normal routine, although before that could commence we started with a major clean of the apartment, and I mean a ‘major clean’, every nook and cranny in every room and then Shazza got the guest bedroom, and bathroom, that we had been using, prepared for the impending arrival of our family visitor’s, which to be honest we were both getting quite excited about, considering that we hadn’t expected to see them again this year. The twins celebrated their 10th, but going on 16, birthday’s the day before they come to stay with us, Orla, the youngest would not turn 6 years old until September, although she is 6 going on 16 as well 🤭 ‘But Oh my goodness’ how quick the year’s just seem to have flown by and we are betting that it will not be too long when they reach 18 year’s old (if not before) and will be wanting to come out to stay with us, but without mum and dad, although we probably would not see much of them if that were to happen, what with the nightlife, followed by the days in bed recovering from hangovers as a consequence of late alcohol infused night’s (Been there, done it, got the tee-shirt) 🤭 Although I thought we had got over those days of being parents, sat worrying, watching the clock, listening for the key in the door and then listening for how many footsteps and hushed voices we could hear coming up the stairs, it may be that it all starts again for us, but as Grandparents 😲 Although, it may have one advantage I suppose as the car would probably get a lot more use than it does at present, what with it becoming their personal ‘Uber’ service, ‘Grandad can you give us a lift to……. ‘, or ‘Grandad can you come and pick us up from………..’ and Grandad would say, “Yes, of course’ to his ‘Little Darlings’ 😂

We have also been taking full advantage of our communal swimming pool, getting down their most mornings once the electronic access gate permits, usually around 10:00am, although it can, and does, vary by fifteen minutes on occasions, for no obvious reason 🙄 We generally have the place to ourselves and so can get plenty of exercise swimming sessions done, before the throngs of ‘Little Darlings’ start to arrive usually starting at 12:30pm. However, we will soon be one of those throngs, accompanied by our own ‘Little Darlings’ 😂 Then of course there are our usual shopping trips always with the pre-empted mandatory morning coffee stops and although not very often just recently, the occasional trip out of an evening for a walk and to partake of an evening dose of ‘Anti-Covid Vaccine’ 🍷 sometimes even ‘Dinner’, but that is very much dependent on the temperatures as they rarely drop below 35 degrees(c) much before 9pm 🥵

The ‘Works of Fiction’ have been up to their usual standard of weather predicting, not that they could go too far wrong by forecasting that we would have hot temperatures and full sunshine each and every day, although, the actual accuracy of the temperatures was still more guess work by them than actual certainty, but hey, their 28-32 forecasted degrees was close enough to the actual 32-39 degrees(c) that we have generally had each day, ‘close enough for government work’ I suppose, as the saying goes 🤭 However, what they had also failed to predict, or forecast, was a tremendous Electrical storm. We had been at our English neighbours in the apartment below, they had come out for their usual two week Summer Holiday and had invited us for drinks one evening, which extended into the early hours of the morning 😳 It was 01:00am and we were just making polite noises about leaving when suddenly the whole sky just lit up. To be honest, there was no noise, just frequent bursts of bright light in the sky that lasted for several seconds at a time and continued for a good half an hour, it looked more like the whole of the Northern Coastline of Africa that we can see, was being subject to an Ariel bombing attack. After saying our goodbyes and returning to our own apartment, we both stood on the balcony and looked out at the beautiful light show, but then suddenly, without any warning, the wind increased and the heavy palm leaves on the trees outside our windows commenced their noisy ritualistic thrashing dance, which turned out to be the prelude to the long rumbles of thunder that followed, the heavens opened and the torrential rain fell. We observed that we were not the only one’s stood on our balconies, or looking out of open windows, enjoying this totally unexpected and un-forecasted spectacle. From start to finish it only probably lasted about one hour but it hadn’t provided any relief for us from the hot, sticky and humid night temperatures. However, it is good to see that we are not the only one’s fortunate enough to be enjoying a hot summer as we seem to be sharing it around with the majority of Northern Europe too, although I suspect that there will not be too many homes up there that will be equipped with Air-Con Systems, other than the basic one that is, the opening of all doors and windows, but we hope that you all do enjoy it 🌞😎

Of course, these hot and very dry Summer’s with their tinder dry conditions also introduce the more devastating impacts with them, and so, the wildfires are very much in abundance again and not just here in Spain, as large areas of Europe are also on fire, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Albania and even in some parts of the UK. From our balcony we have once again started to see the firefighting seaplanes as they circle around and then descend to fill up with gallons of more seawater, indicating that there is a wildfire somewhere in our vicinity too, but probably further inland, in the higher pine forest clad mountains as we have not received any ‘Local Alerts’ on our mobile phones . However, we are not complacent about it, as it was only 4-5 year’s ago when our whole local neighbourhood were evacuated down to the beach due to a wildfire that encroached to within only a few hundred metres, although we were not in residence at that particular time and then, only within the last couple of year’s, we were stood on our guest room balcony watching the wildfire racing down the mountain towards Estepona, both incidents being just a little too close for comfort 😳

Now not wishing to make light of what is a very serious situation for lots of people right now, I think that that is enough ‘doom and gloom’ in this my own social media publication 😉

In other News………

You may recall that very many rambles ago I mentioned the frustration that I was once again having with Spanish Bureaucracy, this time with the Tax Authority, but at that time I did not go into very much detail, so now I will bring you up to speed with that as their has finally been some progression. I appreciate that this next part of this ramble may not be of any interest to those reader’s who have no interest in moving, on a permanent basis, to Spain, but for those that do, and need to have some advance information on financial matters that could impact on you, in relation to payment of taxes on Pension incomes, then you may find my current personal experience useful. So just who taxes you on those incomes 🤔

First let me re-cap on the UK-Spanish Tax Agreement (although similar arrangements are in force for other Countries). The UK has a ‘No Double Taxation Agreement’ with Spain, (Available to download and read in full on the Internet) this agreement being that the Spanish will not Tax Income that derives from UK Government issued Pensions that are ‘Taxed at Source’ (Quite an important bit of wording as I was to discover), although, you do still have to declare all such incomes on your annual Spanish Tax Returns, as they use the total amount of income you receive to decide which ‘tax bracket’ to put you into, for taxes that may be due on any other incomes that are not covered by the ‘No Double Taxation Agreement’ and, it is worth noting that the Spanish have ‘six tax brackets’, as opposed to only three in the UK, the lowest level here in Spain starting at 24%. Anyway, just for clarity, Shazza and I only have UK Government Pensions, so, after reading the ‘Agreement’ I believed that I would not be liable to pay any ‘Income’ related tax in Spain on any of our Pensions.

So you can imagine my surprise when, after submitting my first annual Spanish Tax return in 2024 (Which was for the 2023 Financial Tax Year) and just to clarify with you that every Individual living ‘permanently’ in the country has to submit an annual tax declaration, even the unemployed. So I was surprised when I got a tax bill. I had to pay the bill before I could challenge it but then obviously spoke to my Tax Lawyer to establish why this was. Without getting too complicated, the thing is that the UK State Pension is not Taxed ‘Directly’ at source, although as all British State Pensioner’s know, the UK Tax Authority (HMRC) do tax you ‘Indirectly’ on your State Pension, as they take the total annual State Pension amount that you receive and include it as part of your total annual income when calculating your annual tax liability 🤷‍♂️

However, and in full knowledge and agreement with the UK Government, the Spanish interpret your State Pension as one that is not being taxed ‘directly at source’ and so render it liable to Spanish Income Tax, so effectively you are paying Tax in both the UK and Spain on the same Pension, so how on earth can that be, if there is supposed to be this ‘No Double Taxation Agreement’ in force between the two Countries 🤷‍♂️

Well, as I was to discover, the Agreement is that the UK HMRC have to refund the UK Tax that they have deducted from you in relation to the State Pension and, having actually spoken to someone employed within the UK HMRC, I have established that they do already know this but, if they know and have agreed this process, then my logical question’s are: “Why are the UK HMRC taxing me on my State Pension in the first place ?” and “Why would they make more work for themselves if they already know that they are going to have to refund it anyway ?”🤷‍♂️ Those of you that, like myself, have a cynical nature, will already have the answer’s to those questions and surprise surprise, it isn’t for your benefit 😉

Now just digressing a little, perhaps one of the most frustrating things about all of this is that we have already established that the UK Tax Authority have already agreed that the ‘Spanish’ will take the tax on our UK issued State Pension, and the UK Tax Authorities know that we are permanent residents here in Spain. As part of the processing of leaving the UK to reside in a new Country, you have to ‘officially’ notify the UK Tax Authority of where you now hold permanent residency, also you have to notify the UK International Pensions Department of the same, additionally, you have to notify your Pension Provider(s). Quite interestingly, it is HMRC that advise your Pension Providers on how much tax to take off your Pensions Gross Amounts, which then begs the question, why do I get letters from the HMRC, every year, advising me that I have ‘Underpaid’ my tax, and by how much but without any explanation as to how I have underpaid, surely that just does not make any sense if they are the one’s who are actually informing my Pension Provider’s on how much to take off me in tax in the first place 🤷‍♂️ The phrase, ‘I smell a rat’ springs to mind.

Anyway, I digressed a little again didn’t I, so sorry if I have created any confusion, which in my case is not intentional, although I suspect that I may not be the only one creating confusion when it comes to the payment of taxes here, but perhaps in my defence, I am probably the only one that is not creating that confusion deliberately 🤔 As for these official notification procedures when you leave one country to reside in another, well yes, they all do make pretty good sense, in order for the parties involved to be able to communicate with you and also for them to know where they need to send your annual P60’s. So, of course, being the Law Abiding Citizens that we are, we did all of the above once we had our Spanish Residency Permit confirmed and, we double-checked ourselves, on the ‘Official UK Government Gateway’ website, that our tax records reflected our Spanish Residency, we had also received letters of confirmation from our Pension Providers (Including issuers of the State Pension) that they had our new address and contact details.

So, naturally, we had initially assumed, although wrongly as it happened, that ‘all’ of our tax would be deducted and taken by the UK Tax Authorities. So you would have thought, quite reasonably, that the UK HMRC, knowing the agreement between them and the Spanish Tax Authority in respect of tax on the State Pension, would have amended our tax records (A simple case of adjusting your personal tax code) and then that would have involved them not including our State Pension Incomes when assessing our annual UK Tax Liability, it isn’t rocket science. Just to note, after speaking directly myself with HMRC, this change of tax coding is exactly what they will do, but only once they have received, and processed, my Tax Refund application 🤷‍♂️

So finally, let me get back to the main point, and to just perhaps answer a question that may be on the tip of your tongue, ‘Why did I not address this tax situation in our first year here in Spain ?’, you make a very good point. Well actually I did, and it was a telephone call with the UK HMRC where I discovered that as part of the ‘six page’ application to apply for my tax refund, I needed to obtain, from the Spanish Tax Authority, a ‘Residencia Fiscal En Espana Convenio’, which is quite simply, a single sided A4 sized piece of paper, a Certificate, that simply confirms that I am a ‘Tax Resident in Spain’. However, this is where the rather illogical Spanish Bureaucracy once again comes to the fore.

Now bear in mind that to become a ‘legal’ resident in Spain in the first place you first have to jump through a whole host of official administrative hoops, and part with even more money along the way, before you can be issued with your Spanish residency card. Additionally, as a UK State Pensioner, in order to get reciprocal ‘Free State Healthcare’ in Spain, you have to obtain a Spanish Health Card, which can only be issued to ‘Permanent Residents’, so yes, we also have the officially issued Spanish Health Cards. Also, in order to obtain a ‘Spanish Driving Licence’ you have to be a Spanish Resident and relinquish your UK Driving Licence, take medical and other associated driving tests (Albeit, not actual driving lessons or driving test ‘per se’), and you have to be registered on the Padron (With the Local Town Hall) as a Permanent Resident. Now also bear in mind that I had already submitted, and paid, my first annual Spanish Income Tax bill, which I think is reasonable to suggest is something that you would not ‘choose’ to do voluntarily if you were not a Permanent Resident 🤷‍♂️ So I was completely gobsmacked when I asked my Tax Consultant to apply on my behalf to the Spanish Tax Authority to obtain this ‘Tax Certificate’, only to be told that I actually had to prove that I officially lived in Spain 😤😤😤 The process for me, having to prove that I did indeed live here permanently was to be yet another long administrative process. Now coincidentally, it was just after having paid my first Spanish tax bill and I started to chase this ‘Tax Certificate’, only to be told that actually ‘paying my taxes’ here in Spain was not proof that I actually lived here 🤷‍♂️ Somebody was having a laugh at my expense, why the bloody hell would I choose to pay ‘Income’ tax in Spain if I did not actually live here 😤😤 Also, at the same time it coincided with the long administrative process we needed to go through to renew our ‘Residency Permits’, so to be honest, I had quite enough administrative processes going on already so decided to put that ‘Tax Certificate’ application on the back burner. Now I had also been in communication with the UK Tax Authority, who advised me that even once I had submitted my refund application it would take ‘at least’ six months to process it, probably longer as they were short-staffed and had a back log 😲 So this then became not so much of a time critical procedure, well not as far as either of the Tax Authorities in Spain or the UK were concerned, I mean it wasn’t actually impacting on them that I was continuing to have to pay tax twice, each and every month, on the same Pension income. That is when they told me that once the refund application was processed, not only would I get a refund for the tax already paid since 2023, but they, the Tax Authority in the UK, would finally change my tax code to prevent me from paying double taxation on my State Pension in future years. Just to add to the illogical and completely frustrating situation, I started the process on this the Spanish side, to apply for the ‘Tax Certificate’, at the end of May, only to be advised that it would be better to wait until I had paid my 2024 tax bill, the payment being taken directly from my Bank Account by the Spanish Tax Authority, but not until the 30th June 😳 Hang on just a darned gone minute, I thought that they had informed me that payment of my 2023 Tax Bill was not proof that I lived in Spain, so if that was the case, why on earth did I need to have to wait until I had paid my 2024 tax bill ? The only answer that I received, ‘That’s just the way they do things here in Spain’ 🤷‍♂️ There are times when it is seriously hard to just bite your lip and say nothing and I, on occasions like this, find myself thinking, ‘If It Wasn’t For The Bureaucracy’ this could be almost the perfect country to live 🤷‍♂️ Well, if you rule out the Wildfires in the Summer and the Floods in the Winter 😂

However, the good news is that finally, on Friday 8th August, after ten long weeks from first starting this request to obtain the Tax Certificate from the Spanish Authorities, I received the illusive document required to progress with the UK side of things 🥳🥳🥳 Funny old thing though, on a local Expat Social Media site I was casually reading, this very subject came up as a question from somebody new to the area, they were informed that normally it would only take two weeks to get the said Certificate 🤷‍♂️ Perhaps I need to start looking for a new Tax Representative for next year 🤔 Anyway, I posted my six page refund application form, and accompanying Tax Certificate, sent by Recorded Delivery (Carta Certificada) of course, on the 12th August, well I wasn’t about to take any chances of HMRC saying that they hadn’t received it, I will receive an Email from ‘Correos’ (Spanish Post Office) confirming the date and time that it was delivered and I know from experience, that even ordinary first class mail usually gets to, and from, the UK within seven days so, all things being equal, which they very rarely are not, I may just get this sorted before the start of the new UK Tax Year, in ‘April 2026’ , but no, I will not hold my breath in anticipation 🙄

Anyway, yet another Bureaucratic hurdle overcome and with the knowledge that, other than willing to take the tax from my pension income each year, the Spanish Tax Authority have also, finally, acknowledged that ‘Yes’, I do actually live here 😂 So, I will now end this ramble here because, in just about four hour’s time, our family visitors will arrive on our doorstep and our week of fun, and chaos, will commence 🤗🤗

Until my next ramble,

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Yes I know, it has been quite a while since I last published one of my rambles, well at least it seems that way for me, although, in reality, it has only actually been a month, or thereabouts, however, personally for me, a month really does seem a very very long time 🤔 Now my more regular reader’s will surely be aware, that for anything to have prevented me from writing my verbal diarrhoea and publishing it, on my usual much more frequent basis, there must surely have been a very good reason, or reasons, and of course, knowing me very well, as you do by now, you would be correct.

So let’s get this much over due ramble started and first things first, so let’s get the ‘Works of Fiction’ stuff out of the way shall we, it would seem rude and remiss of me not to do so. Yes, and somewhat not unsurprisingly, the month of July down in this little corner of the Costa del Sol brought the usual anticipated increase in the heat, with daytime averages now varying between 35-42 degrees(c), fluctuating to the higher end of that scale with the addition of the strong ‘Terrell Wind’, which isn’t an unusual occurrence in these parts and so, the introductory photo image at the start of this ramble sums up its effect very well, for yes, even in the shade everybody is still ‘melting’, metaphorically speaking that is 🥵🥵 Even the holiday makers in the communal pools in the areas around us, who would normally be quite happy to just sit around those pools for most of the day, we noticed were also retreating indoors from around midday, only venturing out again for an evening dip between 6pm-9pm, so there is the visual proof, if any were needed, that if those holiday sun worshippers were seeking protection from it, well it must really be hot 😂 Although, the exception to that rule appeared to be those that were down on the beaches, albeit we only saw them when we were forced, somewhat reluctantly, to venture out ourselves during the heat of the day, generally only to do essential shopping, which of course is when we also took the opportunity to stop at one or other of our regular seafront Cafe/Bars, it would have been rude not to and it also enabled us to get a break from what had started to feel like enforced confinement starting to reveal evidence in the both of us of it turning into cabin fever 🤪😜 We risked going out one evening for a walk, but also to have a dinner out, which has been somewhat of a rarity these days, we had anticipated that it would have at least been a little cooler down on the seafront and so much more bearable, but we had somehow misjudged that terribly, for even at 9pm, with the ‘Terrell’ wind still blowing, the temperature was 38 degrees(c), it was both hot and extremely humid and neither of us found it a very pleasant experience 🙄

Now, as you already know by now, because I have told you this very many times, we generally keep all of our doors and windows open, twenty-four hours a day during these hot Summer periods, although normally by this stage of the Summer we would have started to keep closed ‘some’ of the South facing external ‘slatted shutters’ throughout the day, although all the other doors and windows we would still keep open, in order to try and keep some sort of a cross breeze flowing through. However, ‘under normal circumstance’, when the inferno that is the ‘Terrell’ wind is blowing, we have no option but to close ‘all’ the doors and windows and turn on the air-conditioning, which would then make it very very comfortable inside. But, you will note the use of the words, ‘Under normal circumstances’, which brings me nicely on to the second part of this ramble update.

So again, as my regular reader’s will be aware, we have been in the process of having our master bedroom en-suite bathroom completely renovated, although the start date should have been on the 7th June, with an original schedule of ten working days for it to be completed, well, as you know, from a previous ramble, that original start date didn’t materialise 🙄 The contractors did eventually arrive to commence the work, on Tuesday 8th July, but I am now happy to report that, on the 28th day after commencement of the work, at 15:30 precisely, which I know because my OCD Buddy had told me and he keeps a detailed audit on such finite details 🤭 the last contractor (Sam) departed for the final time, bathroom project finally complete. Now if I were truly Spanish, it would be an excuse to hold yet another grand party celebration 🥳🥳 Now, and in an effort to be completely transparent with you, yes the start and finish dates are accurate, as I have quoted them, but, the Contractors were not here throughout that whole 28 day period, in fact, at one point they were not here for a consecutive five day period, and there were a few other odd days here and there when there were delays in obtaining stuff from their own ‘third party’ suppliers, all the usual sort of stuff associated to most projects, large and small, which delay progress so, calculating only the working days when the Contractors were physically ‘on site’, it only actually equated to them working 17 days but, in the days they were not here, we were of course still unable to use the new facilities for one reason or another, but I will not bore you with all the why’s and wherefores or our personal frustrations with being confined to barracks for what were extended periods in that time, which also included the first thirteen days when they worked two consecutive Saturday’s 🙄 But hey, suffice to say that it has now all been finished and, to the standard and quality that we had come to expect from them, as it was the same firm that did our kitchen project the previous year, so we would certainly recommend them to other’s in our area. We are both exceptionally pleased with it, as sometimes, what you visualise in your mind, or see on computer drawings, well let’s just say the finished product and your perceptions can sometimes be two quite different things, but no, all credit to them, the finished project is exactly as we visualised it. Although even that isn’t strictly true is it Eric ? There have been some ‘minor’ additions, one’s that we were neither expecting, or had even discussed at the initial planning stage, but these additions did not add to the initial cost quote and so, the estimate we were given right at the start remained the same and everything came in smack on budget.

However, removing all the old bathroom furniture, including the bath, a glass brick dividing wall, knocking another wall down, to accommodate the fitting of a new ‘Pocket’ style door, stripping all the old floor and walls of tiles, relocating plumbing pipe work, installing and repositioning of new electrical cabling and sockets, cutting new tiles to size (the new one’s are much larger than the normal sized bathroom tiles), rebuilding the wall to conceal the new door and then plastering it, well suffice to say, all of this created a lot of noise, and I mean a lot of noise and all the associated rubble and dust, which, no matter how hard we attempted to contain it, found itself encroaching into every other room, shelf, corner and crevice within the whole apartment and so not just confined to the one area in which the Contractors were working 🙄

So, in order to alleviate some of this dust, all the external shutters, doors and windows needed to be kept open, believe me when I tell you that it was very much cooler outside, in the shade, than it was in our apartment so perhaps, upon hindsight, we should have postponed this project until the cooler Winter months, however, had they have commenced the project on time, at the beginning of June, and finished on schedule, two weeks later, when the average daily temperature was much less at between 25-28 degrees(c), it would have been far better 😳 I should just say that our team, of mainly Spanish workmen, Robert, Jose, Brian, Marco and then Sam (our English Carpenter who came in at the end to fit our new cabinetry), all of whom we were familiar with, from our new kitchen project completed the previous year, were all superb, very careful and respectful of all our furniture, as they conveyed tools, equipment, and everything else, backwards and forwards through our living/dining room, from the front door into the inner hallway between the two bedrooms and bathrooms, but also, they were very friendly, sometimes, when there are language difficulties it can feel a little awkward. We actually found ourselves having much better conversations with them this time around, but this time it was primarily in our own much improved ‘Spanglish’, although a couple of them did occasionally attempt to use their rather limited ‘Pigeon English’, but they all seemed pleased and very appreciative of us speaking to them in their language, apart from Sam that is, who although he speaks fluent Spanish, he chose to automatically I guess, speak to us in English, but to be honest it did give our brains a bit of respite, as it is still difficult for us to first think about what we want to say, in English, and then in our heads, convert it into Spanish 🤷‍♂️ However, we were actually pleased to get the opportunity to practice some speaking in proper full Spanish sentences, rather than just using the odd Spanish words here and there, filling in, as we did in our earlier days, with arm movements and gestures 😂 although we do acknowledge that we do still have a very long way to go so it is ‘Still Very Much A Work In Progress’.

We had anticipated that they would re-decorate the new outer wall of the bathroom, the one that they had re-built after fitting the new concealed ‘Pocket’ door, but to be honest we hadn’t actually confirmed that, however, they did but, unexpectedly, they even redecorated one of the other bedroom walls for us, as they had marked it when they stood bricks, and bags of cement and plaster, against it. Now, had they have been able to get to the other two walls, I would have willingly given them a few Euros, to put in their back pockets, to complete the re-decoration of the whole room, however, we had our bed and other bedroom furniture stacked up against those two other walls so, unfortunately, we haven’t escaped the task of doing those ourselves at some point in the future ☹️

The additions to the new en-suite bathroom that I mentioned, were as I say only minor, but they were actually quite useful one’s. In our new walk-in shower, they had built a recessed alcove (as planned) where we can stand our shower gels and shampoo’s, instead of having to perch them on the edge of the bath as we used to have to do, well this has actually been fitted with a rather smart looking LED light border within it, of course sealed from any water ingress and thereby preventing any nasty shocks, and yes, I am way ahead of you here as I am sure you are already thinking of witty comments about other shocks you may see in the shower 🫣 Another addition, even improvement, albeit not requested, is the installation of a new ‘electric’ extractor fan, which they have put into the ceiling, there are no windows in either bathrooms in the apartment, and both just had a ventilation cover on one of the side walls, which to be completely honest are ineffective and worse than useless, so now, the ceiling lights, shower alcove lights and the extractor fan all operate in unison when you turn on the ‘main’ bathroom light switch. The other addition is above the new mirrored cabinetry, basically a ‘night light’, but this is operated on an independent switch, which is actually very useful especially when one, or other, of us needs to use the bathroom at night, rather than putting on the much brighter ceiling lights and having the noise of the extractor fan whirring away. Originally, we just had the one ‘standard’ two pin electrical socket in the bathroom, with no separate razor socket, and to be honest that socket was not ideally located as it was directly above the old style toilet cistern, with no convenient shelf above to put things on, so we had wires to charging units (Toothbrushes and Electric Razor) stretching across to the hand wash basin, and we also had to take it in turns when charging our devices 🤷‍♂️ So although this next addition was actually requested, all I had had asked for was a ‘double’ electrical socket, a standard one, and the other a USB port, however, what we have been provided with and, hidden discreetly now inside one of the new cabinets, is a double standard electrical socket but one of the them also has two USB connectors on it (a normal USB port and one to accommodate a USB ‘C’), with a shelf to stand our tooth brush (Standard two pin) and razor (USB) chargers on 👍 Possibly, in a future ramble, if anyone is actually really that interested in looking at photographs of a bathroom, and why would you 🤷‍♂️ I will include some photographs, which will just really highlight how different, and modern that it now looks to the original bathroom (and indeed the current guest bathroom). However, we have both now agreed that, other than perhaps some future changes to the wardrobe doors, in both bedrooms and, new internal doors throughout the apartment, this bathroom project ‘should’ be the last ‘major project’ that we will undertake on this our current home.

So, “What else has been going on ?” I hear you ask, a very good question because yes, unlike us, our part of the world has not just stood still, whilst Eric and Shazza have had their bathroom project completed 🤭 But before I do highlight some of those events, let me just say that because a lot has been happening here during the last few weeks, and with myself, quite unusually, not even starting to draft parts of this ramble in advance of publishing it, I may not necessarily get all of the events in the correct ‘chronological’ order that they occurred 🤷‍♂️ However, I am sure you won’t really care about that but, if you do, and you want particular dates of events, well that is just ‘one of the reasons’ for having a ‘Comments’ section 😉 Also, whilst I may give you a flavour of all the stuff that has been going on recently, do not take that as a given that we actually physically attended every single one of those events, because we didn’t.

Most villages and towns in Spain, although perhaps not every single one, have a ‘Saint’ associated to it, for example, in our own town we have ‘San Luis’, hence the official name of the town ‘San Luis de Sabinillas’, although it is always referred to as just ‘Sabinillas’, Saint’s Day for our particular town being celebrated each year on the 25th August, so we still have that to look forward to. However, just up the road, a little further inland, approximately only a five or ten minute car journey away, is our ‘official’ main town of our particular ‘Municipality’, and so, a bit like in the UK where Lincoln City, is the main town in the county of Lincolnshire, or Oxford Town in the county of Oxfordshire etc. so it is with our town of Manilva, (Although by English standards it is more the size of a village), and it is very much smaller than our town of Sabinillas, but ‘Manilva’ is the Administrative hub for the ‘Manilva Municipality’, and so it is where the official Town Hall and Mayor’s office is located. So, the town of Manilva of course have their own ‘Saint Ana’, although the town isn’t known, officially or otherwise, as ‘San Ana de Manilva’, and no, I don’t know why, it’s obviously a Spanish thing 🤷‍♂️ but she, the Saint, does of course have to be celebrated once a year, it would be very rude not to, and of course, if they didn’t, it would then mean missing out on another excuse to have a party 🤭 Now these events all start off as ‘Religious’ festivities with a Church Mass (Everybody is welcome irrespective of religious denomination), which is then followed by a marching band and parade through the streets, with the carriage of the particular large Saintly statue leading the way on the shoulders of twenty-three men, generally all of a similar height to each other, for obvious reasons, I mean it can be hard enough walking along some of these cobbled streets without having a heavy statue on your shoulder. The parade meanders through several streets before returning to the starting point, where the statue is then locked away until it is required again for other annual Religious celebrations, which Spain has many of throughout the year. Many onlookers line the streets, locals and tourists alike who cheer or clap as the parade passes by. Once the religious event has concluded the rest of the day, and night, is spent doing what the Spanish always do very well, and that is ‘Party Time’ 🥳🥳

So, whilst I am on the theme of ‘Saintly’ and ‘Religious’ events, in numerous Spanish coastal communities, the most prominent festivity of the year is the maritime procession, where the statue of the ‘Virgen del Carmen’ is paraded through the streets before being placed, somewhat precariously I have to say, on an appropriately decorated boat, which is then followed by a flotilla of other vessels out to sea where blessings are made, for those fishermen (and women) who have lost their lives at sea over the preceding year, and to bestow a blessing for the safety of those venturing out into the wild blue yonder during the coming year. But things are done a little bit differently in our local area, because we do not have one, but two, ‘Virgin del Carmen’s’, one in the town of Sabinillas, and one in the former fishing village of Castello de Duquesa, only a short walking distance away between the both of them. However, both locations hold their own individual Masses, in their own respective churches, followed by the usual street procession and the accompanying marching bands. The Sabinillas ‘Virgen del Carmen’ is then walked down to the beach and loaded on to a small local fishing boat, the boat then proceeds, followed by a vast flotilla of ‘other’ craft, towards the Duquesa Marina. Whilst this is all going on, the ‘other’ Virgin del Carmen’ is paraded from the village church, along the seafront promenade, yes still with marching band and all the other usual hangers on, and into the Marina, where it meets up with the Sabinillas ‘Virgin del Carmen’, now hopefully you are all still with me at this point. The second statue of the ‘Virgin del Carmen’ meets up, with the one already on the boat from Sabinillas, and it too is loaded on to another small local fishing boat, then they both depart out of the Marina, along with the flotilla of other vessels (Small motor powered boats, inflatable dinghies, jet-ski’s, Paddleboards, basically anything that floats) and they travel a short distance further along the coastline where the blessings are then conducted. The boats then return to each of their respective starting locations and the ‘Virgen del Carmens’ are once again returned to their storage facilities. Now this event starts during the early evening, around 6pm, and once the ceremonial stuff is finished, yes you have guessed it, once again it’s ’Party Time’ 🥳🥳

Now I will forgive you for looking at the above photo’s and thinking that perhaps a ‘blessing’ should have been conducted ‘before’ either of these small ‘overloaded’ boats departed their respective locations. However, you have to put this event into some sort of perspective, because in some ‘other’ coastal areas 🤔 there are very much smaller overloaded inflatable craft that travel much greater distances, across much more dangerous seas and commercial shipping lanes, often at night, so I guess there is no real need for anybody to get overly concerned over these particular local participants safety during this annual event. For me, the immediate thought that entered my head are the lyrics from the 1973 pop song, sung by the ‘Hues Corporation’, “Don’t Rock The Boat Baby, Don’t Tip The Boat Over” 😂😂

Also, again in a ramble published earlier this year, I mentioned the annual festival of ‘San Juan’ where they spent a week building a huge structure on the beach and then, at midnight, they set it alight, although for a very good reason I hasten to add and not just for some sort or ‘Arsonistic’ or ‘Pyromania’ gratification. Well following that event, it was of course another reason for holding another ‘Party Time’ 🥳🥳. So, a few weeks later, on the 11th July they held the annual ‘Fiesta de la Luna Llena’ (Moon Festival) otherwise known as ‘La Noche Blanca’. Now let’s be totally honest here, this was not even close to being any kind of a ‘Religious’ event, albeit, if you are a ‘Druid’, I guess there is some correlation with the actual date of this annual event and a particular phase of the moon 🤷‍♂️ However, the reality is, that it is just yet another excuse to hold another massive street ‘Party Time’ 🥳🥳 which lasts from early evening to very nearly sunrise 😲 I guess you are beginning to see some sort of pattern arising by now, not that the Spanish need any real excuse to party and one does have to admit, they do tend to do them exceptionally well 😁

These events are not just ‘Adult Only’ parties, they are all, without exception, family orientated, with plenty of activities for all age groups including bouncy castles (strictly for the use of only the ‘little’ kids) fairground rides and side stalls, rental of kids electric powered cars etc. and, even now, although witnessing it every year, we still comment to each other on how great it is to see whole families out enjoying themselves, from toddlers in pushchairs to grandparents, all out well beyond 11pm. As I may have mentioned in numerous previous rambles, the Spanish (and many other Mediterranean Countries) tend to eat much later at night than most other Northern European countries although, these days, late night dining is more at Weekends than during the week, but all the Cafe/Bars and Restaurants welcome children and large family groups and it just adds to the generally very relaxed and friendly ambience.

Now just in case you think that it has already been busy enough here over just this last month, well the truth is that it didn’t just stop with the events that I have already mentioned above. There was also the Annual week long fair just up the road in Estepona.

I have already mentioned, in a previous ramble, on how our local community celebrated the number of International residents and cultures living in the area, by holding a large International weekend event around the ‘Castello’ but, in addition to this ‘All Inclusive’ event also, throughout the year, there are several other events that celebrate individual Countries represented in the local area and in July it was the ‘Belgian’ weekend festival, all residents being welcome, Belgian or otherwise, it isn’t just the Spanish who like to party 😉. Having also mentioned in this ramble, the annual Estepona fair, it would be remiss of me not to mention that our Municipality of Manilva also holds its own annual fair and this is about to commence within the coming week.

I do have to smile to myself a little bit because the popular Summer Medieval Market, which as I draft this current ramble has just finished. But we tend to take two bites of the apple, for it either has a week in Sabinillas first, before then moving just a little further up the seafront promenade, where it then spends just short of another full week outside the Castello (or vice versa). So, if you miss it first time around then you get a second chance, or perhaps you bought ‘ye olde tourist trinket’ upon impulse, well yes it happens 🤷‍♂️ but now, once you have awoken from possibly an alcohol related stupor, and realise it was just more ‘Tourist Tat’, which, at the time, well it seemed to be a good purchase, but now would like to possibly try to take it back and redeem your unwisely spent holiday cash, good luck with that then 😂

Now I could go on and on and list quite a few more events that have, and still are, going on in our local area over the coming weeks, and I know what you are thinking, why change the habit of a lifetime Eric, but I guess you all get the picture now, it’s Summer Season ‘Party Time’ 🥳🥳 which, like a lot of other places throughout Spain, means that even our little corner of the Costa del Sol really does come alive and so of course it brings with it the usual hoards, of both Domestic and International tourists (Irrespective of what some of the mainstream Media Publications will have you believe 🙄), I know this may come as a shock to some, but there is actually more to Spain than just Ibiza, Mallorca, Tenerife, Marbella and Benidorm, although the ‘less desirable’ temporary residents who often seem to frequent those places, well let’s just say that I will be quite happy for them to continue to visit those places, or, are those stories just negative Media Publications again 🤔

Now to be honest, I can imagine that perhaps some of you my reader’s, after reading how lively the Summer months are down here in our neck of the woods, may well be thinking by now that this all sounds just a little too hectic for your liking and yes, even for us, at times, especially not being big fans of being in crowded environments ourselves, so yes it does sometimes seem to be that there is always something going on, crowds, noise, traffic, no parking spaces etc. But to be honest, one of the best parts of living here, and by that I mean in the particular neighbourhood location where we actually have our home, for by pure good fortune, rather than any advanced pre-planning or research, our home just happens to be situated conveniently far enough away from the central hub of the activity, so we are not directly in amongst it, yet we are close enough, within a reasonable driving distance (5 minutes), or even walking distance (20 minutes) to join in, if and when we do want to. So yes, we do still have the option of having the best of both worlds.

I remember, when writing my rambles during our more nomadic travelling periods, that I used to tell you that I always enjoyed keeping several ‘Options’ open and available to us, in my ‘back pocket’ so to speak, well although those number of available options may now have reduced somewhat, due to our own recent lifestyle choices and yes okay, perhaps even due to our advancement in year’s, but even so, we do still keep a few ‘Options’ in our back pockets, well you just never know when you may need one 😉 Sometimes, adapting to the lifestyles and Seasonal changes here can just be a simple state of mind, so when the temperatures do seem to be getting far too hot for us, or the crowds and traffic get a little overwhelming, that is the time when we just put our more positive heads on (Yes, even the slightly ‘Pessemistic’ Shazza) and we remember that, as from the middle of September, when the bulk of the holiday makers depart, and the Spanish kids return to school and the temperatures do fall to a much more bearable level, when it is still swimming pool or laying on the beach weather, the seafront promenade and the beaches empty of the Summer crowds, car parks suddenly have plenty of spaces available and we realise that we will then have the best part of the next nine months of the year to enjoy the relative peace and tranquility, whilst maintaining the warm climate, and of course, still the odd Spanish Party thrown in here and there, albeit under the guise of other ‘Religious Celebrations’, but always followed with ‘Party Time’ 🥳🥳 which I am sure is just to prevent the Spanish, and okay, perhaps a few other Expat Nationalities, from suffering with too many Summer withdrawal symptoms 😂

So although we have been forced into a lot more restrictive confinement, rather than our own voluntary confinements, over the last month and, even with the Contractor’s presence and those ‘Terrell winds, we have still managed to take opportunities to get out, and get some mobility exercise, albeit mainly in the evenings at the moment, although Shazza uses the word ‘Exercise’, in my Spanish dictionary, evening exercise sessions translates to having an opportunity for the ‘mandatory’ Cafe/Bar stop, when the more usual morning ‘Cafe con Leche’ is replaced, with perhaps a small ice-cold cervesa, or a glass of Anti-Covid Vaccine, or perhaps even both, but I guess that we do walk there and back again, so yes, ‘Exercise is a useful word to describe our activity 🤭 We have also, on the days the contractors were not present, spent 2-3 hours of the morning down at our pool and then of course, there have been the essential shopping trips, with of course the pre-shopping Cafe/Bar stops, it would have been rude not to, so perhaps, everything considered, perhaps the last month hasn’t been quite as bad as it had sometimes felt 🤔

And in other news………………….

Well I cannot not mention the Lionesses, with their recent victory against the Spanish in the Women’s 2025 Final of the Football European Cup Tournament, although you will perhaps understand why I didn’t shout about it too loudly from our balcony, surrounded as we are with a fairly large contingent of local Spanish residents 😂 It couldn’t really have been much better for us, a Final that involved both England, our ‘home’ country, and Spain, our current adopted home country, so whatever the result, we at least had a 50/50 chance of celebrating a winning team 😂 But yes of course, when all is said and done, we are English, and so we were obviously rooting for the English victory. In all honesty though, I do have to say, having watched every single game of the tournament (Sad I know), Spain were the best team throughout the whole competition, however, I think that the manner in which the Lionesses won could, and perhaps should, be taken as an inspirational and motivational life lesson. No matter what the odds there may seem to be against you, no matter what your level of ability is, compared to perhaps some other’s, you need determination, a whole lot of self-belief and a desire to achieve what it is that you want, and so, armed with those personal skills and qualities, you stand a much better chance of attaining your own life goals.

Although I tend to continue to live my life by the philosophy of not worrying about things that are not within my own control, so as you know, I have virtually stopped reading most of the mainstream media headlines, apart from the UK Sport pages and, I generally very rarely interact on most other Social Media Platforms other than ‘You Tube’, where again I am selective on what I watch, mainly just Travel Related topics. I do use some other ‘Apps’ but just to communicate with immediate family and friends located in different parts of the world. However, I do occasionally venture into some of the articles that appear in some of the other European Media publications. Sometimes, but only sometimes these days, I come across the odd articles that cheer me up no end. You may remember from one of my rambles back in November 2024, I wrote about ‘The Fear Of Getting Old’, particularly in relation to living as a foreigner here in Spain and, within that ramble, I questioned just who it is who defines the age in which you are considered to be old, the general consensus of opinion, in many Countries, was that you were considered ‘Old’ on the date that you commenced receiving your ‘State Pension’ so that, in most Countries cases, was for people in the 60-65 years age group 😲 So, seeing the below headline, just around a week ago now, in a non-Spanish media publication, well let’s just say that it sparked my curiosity.

I won’t go into the details of the article, but the result of a ‘Poll’, which, yes I know, it is not exactly the most accurate or scientific approach, but like all facts and figures presented to you, if it coincides in any way with your own belief, then it is more likely to be accepted by you as being true. So I was very pleased to read that the anticipated Life Expectancy, with obvious exemptions for genetic issues or other major health considerations, for those living in Spain, was 85 years, although to be honest, it didn’t say how long you had to have lived in Spain 🤷‍♂️ So, obviously, I cast that fact aside, as it suited ‘my’ purpose to do so 😂 Personally speaking, I am certainly hoping that I will manage to get well beyond that age, considering the ‘healthy living’ regime my beloved has us both on and, provided at least that I am not run over when jogging along the seafront (as if 🤭), by someone on an E-Scooter 🤭 However, the interesting bit, which I am obviously in full and total agreement with, is that people living in Spain are not considered to be in the ‘Old Category’ until they reach the age of 73 years, another reason perhaps for the Spanish to celebrate, ‘Party Time’ 🥳🥳 So it would appear that I can now put an official ‘middle finger’ sign up to the UK Government and celebrate the fact that I do have a few extra year’s to go, before the Spanish consider me to be ‘Old’, which, for some reason, suddenly put an extra spring in my step, although, and rather stupidly I must admit, I suggested to Shazza that perhaps we should spend a little more time on trips to the Fruiterias, purchasing and devouring perhaps even more ‘Plant Based’ goodies, but only because it may then enable me to attain the ‘Possibility Of Reaching A ‘Blue Zone’ Category’’, which, in case you don’t already know,is a category of people, in only a few small areas around the Globe, who have achieved the age of 100 years, and often, well beyond 🤔 Although, for some reason, when I announced my personal goal to attempt to attain that Blue Zone Category to Shazza, she suddenly appeared to lose the spring in her step 😂

That piece of excellent news made me read a little further and I came across another article, which made me think about people’s perceptions of things, and yet another subject that I have often mentioned in my previous rambles, the difference between wether you are an ‘Optimist’ or a ‘Pessemist’ 🤔

We have been quite lucky really, with living over here in Spain but still being able to see our family quite regularly, in the last year we had actually managed to have seen our Son, Daughter-in-Law and three Grandaughter’s on three separate occasions, and the same number of occasions with our daughter and Son-in-Law who live in Germany and of course visits to us by other family members and friends, even Shazza’s mum in her 80’s still comes out for her annual two-week holiday. However, our son had said that they probably wouldn’t be coming over to visit us this Summer, as has been the usual routine over the last couple of year’s ☹️ But just last week, Shazza received a phone call from Chris, starting with the sentence “Mum, can I ask you something ?”, the next words came from Shazza and they were not asking what the question was, instead she just said, “Yes, no problems, how long for and when ?”, from the one sided conversation that I could hear, I guess his question was “How did you know what I was going to ask before I asked it 🤷‍♂️”, she just replied, “You started your sentence with the word ‘Mum’ and not ‘Hiya’ 😂 So, although it was very little notice, we had nothing else planned in our otherwise hectic schedule 🤭 and at least the Guest bedroom and bathroom will now be available once again and so, our unexpected five Summer visitor’s will arrive on Wednesday 13th August for seven days and so, for some reason, Shazza immediately regained that spring in her step 😉

So, for us at least, it does seem to have been a very topsy turvey sort of a month, and what has appeared to have been an inordinately long month, primarily due to the ‘friendly’ invaders into our personal space knocking us out of our more usual daily and weekly routines. However, on the other side of that same coin, we have also been left wondering whatever happened to the month of July which, as we now rapidly approach the end of the first week in August, July just appears to have disappeared into the ether 🤷‍♂️

So, with our world now having righted itself again, we can start to get back into our more regular routines, but funny old thing, actually things haven’t changed that much 🤷‍♂️ Okay, we don’t have strange people in our home at the crack of sparrows each day, or the associated noise or the dust, but we do still have the high temperatures. Going for morning walks is still pretty much off the agenda, unless we are lucky enough to get a cloudier start to the day, I won’t hold my breath on that one, but we are able to use the pool as and when we want to and, if the evening temperatures permit we will go out for some, we’ll let’s call it ‘Exercise’ shall we 😂 Our own Summer fair starts this weekend and then, next week, as just mentioned, we have a few visitor’s arriving for a week 🤗 Later, towards the end of the month, we can perhaps join in the town’s ’Saints Day’ celebrations and of course ‘Party Time’ 🥳 Then, very shortly afterwards, yet another very happy event, we reach the month of September and we can wave a fond goodbye, okay perhaps just ‘Goodbye’ 🤭 to the majority of the holiday makers and their ‘Little Darlings’.

What I am really enjoying though, is being able to sit on an evening in my usual chair, on the balcony, enjoying the relative peace and quite of my surroundings, with, at that time of the evening, a cooler breeze blowing. Often I sit just staring out on the changing landscape as the sun drops slowly in the sky, leaving behind the most beautiful sunset’s. Sometimes I sit and ponder on our life in general and what we have done with it, all I can say is that I always end up feeling grateful for being able to have enjoyed the lifestyle I have had so far with Shazza, and right now, in the here and now, I have no desires, or itchy-feet, to be anywhere else.

I can only apologise, to you my reader’s, if you had the fortitude to get this far in the ramble, for it being quite a long one. However, in my defence, I have had pent up verbal diarrhoea for some time now, it had to be released at some point 😂😂

Until my next ramble……..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

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