Benidorm, Here I Come!

This Christmas, guess who isn´t cooking Turkey?
We´re off to Benidorm for four days in a hotel. Yipppeeeeeee!!!!!!!
No cooking at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It should be fun, and perhaps it´ll turn out to be like the telly series! We´re going to the Benidorm Palace as well!

My Nemesis comes at New Year when we´re having people round to a Swedish Christmas Smörgåsbord ( see piccies above). Still, won´t think about that now. That´s not for another week.

So. Have a great Christmas out there and I´ll be back after the festivities are done and dusted.

Feliz Navidad! God Jul! Happy Christmas!

A Great November!

It´s been the warmest November for 40 years, they say. And whereas the rest of Spain has had quite a bit of rain and chilly temperatures, the Costa Blanca has been basking in wall-to-wall sunshine for weeks. I actually went into the sea in mid-November, which is a first for me. It´s still pleasantly warm during the day although a cardigan is needed now in the evening.

The picture on the left was taken at a great lunch given by Glyn, one of the members of the Torrevieja Writers´Group, and his wife Judy. It was warm and sunny, as you can see from the picture and there was lots of lovely grub and plenty to drink( as you can also see from the picture!) The other picture wasn´t actually taken this month , as I haven´t got round to downloading the latest pics from my camera but it looks just as sunny at the moment.

I´ve been busy going to Spanish classes ( we´re on the dreaded subjunctive at the moment. It really is a pain - thank goodness we don´t use it much in English. You´re trotting along, doing quite well, you think, then you suddenly realise you´ve used a word or phrase which has to be followed by the subjunctve!!! DOOM!!! You feel like the proverbial rabbit hypnotised by a snake.
The snake gets ready to strike, you take a desperate stab at what you hope is the right verb form. All Hell breaks loose!! It was wrong!! The snake strikes!! Back to the drawing board.

Calligraphy classes are less stressful but even there you´re under pressure. The Monks must have had a terrible time of it. Their eyes must have been in a right state. I can manage an hour, then I start seeing double. Not to mention trying to do it in real ink rather than felt-tipped pen. No wonder we have to protect the tables and wear pinnies.

The run-up th Christmas has begun here - mostly in the expat community. Christmas fairs and markets abound. Cards galore on sale. Iceland here is crammed with mince pies and puddings. The Spaniards are beginning to get ready too, and in the supermarkets there are mountains of Turrón, the lovely Spanish nougat, which comes in hundreds of different forms.

This Christmas we´re doing something completely different. We´re off for a four-day hotel stay in Benidorm. Gala dinner, evening at the Benidorm Palace for dinner and a show, indoor heated pool and balcony at the hotel.... Bliss!!! No cooking. That will come at New Year when we´re having friends round to eat the traditional Swedish Christmas food. But that´s not so bad to do. You can prepare most of it in advance whereas the British Traditional meal requires good timing and lots of last minute fiddling about at the cooker.

We watched some of ITV´s series "Benidorm" and Lennart was a bit worried that we might get run down by the lady on her mobile scooter! We aren´t staying at that hotel - shame really. If I´d known when I was going to book, I might have gone for that just to see what it´s like in real life!

I´m struggling to transfer my photos from the hard disk onto CD´s and USB sticks so that I can download and edit the 500 or so photos I took in Sweden in the summer. It´s a hard job for me as I´m learning as I go along and I make quite a few mistakes on the way.

Well, I´m off to see how my latest cullinary, cross culture, Morroccan Osso Buco venture is getting on in the slow cooker.

Here´s to the next time!

Fiesta Time!!!!

At the beginning of October, Pilar´s month-long fiesta to celebrate the Virgin of Pilar starts.
Last weekend, beginning with the Friday Bank Holiday for the Valencian Region and ending with Monday´s Columbus Day, was a high point.

It was marvellous weather and all the towns on the Mar Menor were packed out with people from Madrid, Murcia and other inland towns enjoying the hot sunshine and the warm Mediterranean.

For Pilar itself, the Saturday evening´s top attraction was the dressing of the front of the church with flowers brought along by the town´s inhabitants. There were exhibitions of handcrafts done by the Spanish equivalent of the Women´s Institute and then in the evening a fantastic fireworks display. Things go on almost every day but perhaps the next high spot will be the carnival parade of floats next weekend.

The noise level in town is staggering at times and it can be hard to get to sleep when the music sounds as if it´s next door!! Still, it´s great fun and the Spanish really throw themselves into it all. They really do know how to enjoy life. Myself - I´m exhausted and after I´ve finished this, I´m going to bed with a good book. With luck, I´ll fall asleep before it gets noisier at about midnight!!

Back to Normal.

End of September saw the worst rains for years on the Orihuela Costa. I´ve seen heavy rain here before but in fairly short, sharp bursts. This time it went on in waves for about 40 hours and we had a lot of heavy thunder and, at times, quite unnerving lightening.
Fortunately, in our town we didn´t have any of the really dangerous and destructive hailstones but in places where they had that, enormous damage was done to cars, houses and of course crops. You Tube has some videos of this, both from this recent Gota Fria ( this is what the heavy rains and hail is called in Spanish - the Cold Drop) and from the one in 2007 which devastated parts of Calpe.

I had been shopping about 30 minutes away from our town and when I came out of the supermarket, I was stranded on one side of the road and the car was on the other. The road was abour 6 inches deep in swirling water. After waiting for a while, I rolled up my trousers, took off my shoes and paddled across with my trolley to the car. In a lull in the storm I was able to get back home before the next lot came over. Since then, almost a week ago, the weather has been incredibly warm, topping 30 degrees some days!

Now we´re into October things are beginning to revert to normal. Spanish classes have started, with a teacher I´ve had before who is really good, I´ve started back to the Writers´Group, which never stopped over the summer, Rummikub has begun once more and my book group is on Friday. I´ve only just got hold of the book (Cry, The Beloved Country) so I´ve got my work cut out to read it in two evenings! I´d better get on with it!

Loving Håkan Nesser & Stieg Larsson.

Back in Spain about a week now. Feels very warm and sticky after Scandinavia. Sweden was 13 degrees when I left and Alicante was 27 degrees on arrival!

Gradually getting back into the swing. Went to theTorrevieja Writers´Circle where I read out a review I´d written of one of Håkan Nesser´s books and tomorrow I´ll be at the U3A book group, where we´ll be discussing Stieg Larsson´s first Millenium book,"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo".
I´m into Swedish at the moment and have decided to keep it going as much as possible by reading. Fortunately, there´s a good Swedish library in Torrevieja at The Mas Amigos Association, of which I am a member. So far, the people in the book group, who had never read any Swedish authors before, have been very pleased with the ones they´ve tried. Just wish I could see the second and third films they´ve made of the Stieg Larsson trilogy (I saw the first in Sweden in the summer) but they aren´t coming out till late September and November.

Anyway, Spanish courses start again in October so I´ll have my work cut out with that, let alone Swedish!

No peace for the wicked!!!!

Back In The Land Of The Eternal Sun.

Our last day in Sweden was grey, windy, raining and 13 degrees.
Very strange, as only a few days before it had been 25 degrees and the country was at its absolute best. It´s a bit like the nursery rhyme - the one about the little girl who "when she was nice, she was very, very nice but when she was bad, she was horrid."

Well, two months in the frozen north has made me realise that I really like a lot about Sweden. I just wish I had enough cash to own a little place there as well as in Spain so I could pop back more frequently. Things work there. The buses are frequent and come when they´re supposed to. The shops have become really interesting and it is much more multicultural than when I lived there. They also have wonderful cream cakes and open sandwiches. And of course, I am at home with the language in a way I, unfortunately, never will be in Spanish.

So, it´s back to everyday life here in Spain and to the grindstone of losing the extra kilos that two months of meatballs have deposited on my midriff and rear end.
Heigh Ho!

Weird Weather.

Yesterday was really chilly. It poured with rain and the sky was iron-grey.

Today it was over 20 degrees by 9am and during the day the temperature was at least 25 degrees. The sky was blue, the sun was brilliant, everything was so green and lovely. Horses and cows in the fields, people back in their shorts, the sea sparkling and everybody outside and enjoying it while it lasts.

We started packing last night and had a major setback when we discovered that the large suitcase, bought especially for this trip, couldn´t be locked or even closed properly as a vital bit had dropped off! (!##***!!)

So tomorrow it´s back into town to buy another one. Then more packing. I hate this stage of a holiday. Why can´t there just be a button to press so you can be at home - just like that!!

We fly back on Saturday. Will the car start after its two months standing in the long term parking in Alicante?

Watch this space!

Nordic Gloom.

Sweden is fast galloping towards autumn and winter.

As I write ( 20.00) it is pitch black outside.
The shops are full of dark coloured autumn clothes.
The schools have been back for a week.
People have returned to work from their holidays.
Tourist attactions are closing down.
Sweden has its collective nose back to the grindstone.

Meanwhile, most other countries are still in the throes of sun sand and sangria.
I´m sure it must have something to do with Martin Luther or Calvin or some other sort of Nordic guilt trip.

People are girding their loins and preparing for the swift glide into the chill and misery of a Scandinavian winter. Memories of light and sun are cherished and will be brought out to make the months to come endurable.

We are on the last lap now of our stay here and are beginning to think about last-minute shopping and whether or not we´ll be overweight on our baggage allowance.

I´ve enjoyed our stay but am looking forward to being back in my own place again.
Not to mention a visit or two to the beach.

Let´s hope there´s some sun left for us when we get back!

Absolut Vodka, Apples and Fish Soup.

Last week we went over to the other side of Skåne (Scania) to visit friends. The area is called Österlen and is incredibly pretty, full of picturesque red-painted wooden houses or half-timbered, sometimes thatched cottages. It was a wonderful summersday when we drove from Helsingborg and this was Sweden at its summertime best.

We were making for a small village called Kivik which lies in the centre of the apple growing district. Needless to say, one of its most famous products is cider. Not far from Kivik is Åhus, the birthplace of Absolut Vodka. And in Kivik itself is a very well-known restaurant called Buhres, which does a fish soup to die for.

All three things we managed to consume in our overnight stay when we weren´t yapping our heads off to catch up on the 4 year´s absence since our last visit. A final walk round the centre of the village took us past the house where the author Fritiof Nilsson Piraten lived. His books cover a period from the 1930s till the 1970s and have become Swedish classics.

It reminded me that I haven´t written anything at all since we came on holiday. I must shape up for September when I go back to the Torrevieja Writers´Group!

Swedish Climate Reverts to Type!

We´d had some quite good weather and I was looking forward to meeting four friends from Spain who were on a Baltic Cruise and whose boat was calling in to Helsingborg as a final destination before returning to Copenhagen to disembark.

Monday dawned. The skies were iron grey and it was pouring like it would never end.
Down to the yacht harbour I traipsed, mac on , brolly up.

The tender came in and everyone came on land. It was ridiculous how heavy the rain was. They´d had wonderful weather in St Petersberg and all round the Baltic but our day was doomed.

I´d planned a leisurely stroll round the town and coffee and waffles outdoors in a lovely cafe with a thatched roof,a windmill and a fantastic view over the
Straights to Denmark and Hamlet´s Castle. But you couldn´t even see your hand in front of your face for the rain!
Talk about the best laid plans of mice and men.....

The following day was brilliant sunshine.
Bugger,Bugger, Bugger!!!

And this is summertime.
But already things are going swiftly the other way.
The shops have all the autumn clothes, the teachers start to work next week and the kids go back soon after. Mid-August in Sweden is back to work and nose to the grindstone and soon it´ll be dark evenings and low temperatures.

Could this be why I moved to Spain?

Summer in Sweden.

I flew from the heat, noise and bustle of Alicante airport at the beginning of July and landed at Copenhagen airport 4 hours later.( Although it´s in Denmark, it´s the nearest airport for us in Southern Sweden). Amazingly, it was very hot, almost as hot as it had been in Spain but what really sruck me was the quiet.

Copenhagen is a huge airport but compared with Alicante, it was unnervingly quiet, almost as if people were observing a period of mourning and silence had been requested! I´d forgotten that it can be like that in Scandinavia. Loud conversations aren´t appreciated - people are much more reserved and controlled here. It´s taken me nearly a month to get used to it again!

The good weather didn´t last long. For the past fortnight it has resumed par-for-the-course Swedish summer weather. Grey skies, cloud, lots of rain. However, it hasn´t stopped us from going out a lot and after the debilitating heat of the Costa in summer, it´s really quite refreshing!

I´ve been visiting friends, eating all the food we don´t get in Spain and really appreciating the lush greenness and abundance of flowers here. It´s also very organised and well-ordered, so life is smooth and relatively trouble-free when it comes to the everyday stuff ( the buses come according to the timetable, things actually start when they´re supposed to....)

I´ve been reading quite a few Swedish books and am really pleasded that my Swedish has come up to scratch pretty quickly. The other day I went to see the Swedish version of the first Stieg Larsson book of the Millenium series. It was really good and I enjoyed it tremendously. The cinema was very comfortable so it was quite an experience after the little local cinema where I live in Spain.

The picture is of a typical Swedish summer place by a lake.

O Gawd!! Summer in the Frozen North!!

Its only a short while and I´m off to Sweden for a summer holiday. As the temperature there just now is round 12 degrees and in Spain, where I am, it´s well over 30 degrees I think I´m in for a bit of a shock. No idea really what to take in the clothes line. It can change and get really warm but I´m not exactly holding my breath.

It´s Midsummer there today - just about the biggest festival of the year. The Swedish dream is of a lovely sunny day, sitting outside in a beautiful garden eating the traditional herring with new potatoes and strawberries and whipped cream for afters.

Unfortunately, often the only thing whipped is the trees , which are bending over in the wind, lashed with rain. I lived there for 30 years and in all that time, I maybe experienced the dream a handful of times. Normally, even if there isn´t a gale, it´s too nippy to be outside.

Still, I suppose I get enough sun down here in Spain so I have to be positive and think of all the other things that I´ll do there. Seeing friends, mooching about the town where I used to live and appreciating the lovely, totally different scenery.

Yes, actually, it might be quite a nice holiday. But I still think I´d better pack my thermals!

Que Aproveche!

My Weightwatchers´Discover Plan took a bit of a knocking this weekend. I was doing quite well, going down slowly but surely. Then Pilar Council´s Tourist Department goes and organises a Ruta de la Tapa!

Twenty Seven bars and restaurants in Pilar and the surrounding area are taking part in the initiative and very successful it is proving to be.

For 2 euros you get a tapas and a drink (wine, beer, soft drink). Each establishment offers a traditional tapas and a newly created one. Customers are given a card, which is stamped at each bar and when the card is full, you write which traditional and which new tapas gets your vote as the best one.

The Tapas Route is on next weekend too (19,20,21 June) and when all the stamped cards have been gathered in, a draw takes place and the winning voter gets a prize - a meal, I think, maybe at the winning establishment?

So far I´ve managed 12 out of the 27 bars so next weekend it´s off again. Weightwatchers is on hold for a bit - this opportunity is too good to miss!

A Short Break.

Calpe is a place I´ve been visiting for quite a few years now. a friend has a flat there and when she comes out from England I usually visit her.

The huge rock in the photo is called the Peñon de Ifach and it dominates Calpe. The first time I went there I knew nothing about Calpe at all and, as I arrived in the middle of the night, I didn´t see the rock until I went onto the balcony the next morning. I was totally gobsmacked and I´ve never got over that feeling, although I´ve seen it many times by now.

The town is full of expats, mostly British but a fair number of Belgians, Germans and Dutch. However, there are also many Spaniards living and working there and in the summer months there is a veritable invasion from Madrid and other large towns.

I always go to the Wednesday Rastro, and the Saturday market, which is on a hill and requires a certain level of fitness! There are stacks of places to eat and masses of bars doing tapas and then of course there´s the obvious attraction - the beach. The old town up on the hill and the port with its fish market and fish restaurants are two more of my favourite places.

All in all, another lovely visit chalked up.
Here´s to the next time, Calpe!

Caravaca The Wine Horses.

May 2, a lovely pre-summer day. Caravaca was packed to capacity for the annual Wine Horses race. For those who don´t know:

During the period when the Christians and the Moors were battling for control of southern Spain, Caravaca was under siege. The beleagured Christians had no more water left and men and horses were sent out to find supplies. No water could be found but plenty of wine was available and they raced back through enemy lines to reach the safety of Caravaca.The re-enactment of this event takes place annually when beautifully decorated horses, each accompanied by four men running alongside them, are raced up the final slope leading to the church at the top of the battlements in Caravaca. Sixty horses race up the slope one after another and are timed and prizes are given for the fastest and the most beautifully decorated.
Before the race,the Moorish and the Christian Kings and Queens parade through the towns with their followers and make their way up to the church, where a ceremony takes place.

The town was bursting at its seams with thousands of Spaniards as well as tourists and ex-pats and everyone was in a very happy mood. No bad temper, violence or drunkenness to be seen anywhere. A terrific day out and a spectacular event. Highly recommended!!

Tapas in Torrevieja.

Today I went to Torrevieja with some friends to follow the so-called Tapas Route.

This was an initiative organised by the Torrevieja Council and Tourist Office to showcase the 22 bars taking part and introduce customers to the wonderful world of tapas.

Each of the bars taking part offerred two tapas, one typical, one innovative and for 2 euros you could try one of these and something to drink.

We managed 6 bars in the afternoon but did meet a group of English people who had done 14! I don´t know how they did it - we were struggling towards the end. What was particularly nice was that there was a real variety of people in the bars - ex-pats, Spaniards young and old and tourists.

The tapas were tasty, interesting and nicely presented. Some were familiar but some were a new take on traditional tapas and the idea was to pick out the two you liked best and vote for those.

The counting of the votes takes place on 7 May and prizes are to be awarded ( meals in the winning establishments) from a draw on the public votes. I loved some of the newer tapas but I must say my vote would go to the traditional pulpo at La Huertica on C/ Patricio Perez - to die for!!!

We started off with good judging intentions but after about four bars, things got a bit hazy and we ended up on the sea front at a restaurant dancing with a group of Spaniards on holiday from Palencia.

A great afternoon was had by all! If you missed this event, keep your eyes peeled for next time.

Que aproveche!

The Berbers and a Mediaeval Market.

At the Easter weekend, I went to Los Alcázares where a 3-day fiesta was being held.It included a spectacular parade and a wonderful Mediaeval market.

There was a thrilling sword fight between mounted Knights, a live bear playing a trumpet, and lots of colourfully costumed Berbers.

Not a drunk in sight, not an unpleasant fight or incident anywhere to be seen. Just a lot of families and young people out on a Saturday night enjoying themselves.

It was a joy to experience and I can strongly recommend it for next year.

Semana Santa

It´s Easter again and the parades have started.The drum bands began practising soon after the New Year and as they got more sure of themselves, they paraded around the streets to get the right pace. When they were really confident, they paraded and drummed at the same time.This all took place after 10 at night so it was quite noisy!

The Palm Sunday parade was really wonderful. Lots of children dressed as Nazarenes, beautiful palm decorations and the throne itself. It was Christ on a donkey, entering Jerusalem. Beautifully decorated with flowers and shining brightly with silver metal, it was carried by smartly dressed men, followed in the procession by the Parish Priest, the Mayor , children going to their first communion and families of churchgoers carrying palm fronds.

An open-air church service took place when the throne had been safely carried to the church square and the atmosphere was very relaxed and happy.Parades later in the week are more serious, especially the one on Maundy Thursday evening. It takes place with no street lighting on and in silence. Very moving. The biggest parade is on Good Friday evening when all the brotherhoods take part. It is spectacular.The final parade on Easter Suday in the morning is, once again, a joyful occasion.

The Parades in Seville are said to be the most spectacular of all but I really think Pilar does itself proud for such a small community.

An Easter Sentiment, 2009.

I haven´t got much money
I´m pretty skint, in fact.
So I´ve asked the Easter Bunny
If we can make a pact.

That all the bloody bankers
And Fat Cats in New York
Should be stuck down with cankers
So we can cheer and gawk.

They´d have to say they´re sorry
And pay their fortunes back
`Cos they´re all stupid wankers
And well deserve the sack.

I think they all should suffer
And grasp what they have done
They´ve made our lives lots tougher
And we can´t afford much fun.

So down with City Experts
And Heads of Funds and Stocks!
We´ll squeeze them all so that it hurts
Till they pull up their socks!

Actually, I probably AM quite brilliant (ish).

I finally found out how to put my profile back on. Yippeee!!!
So there´s life in the brain cells yet.
Go Girl !!!!

Actually, I´m not so brilliant.

I went and pressed something else and my profile has gone again.

Bugger, Bugger, Bugger!!!

Winston

I was looking through stuff I´d written for the Writers´Group and came across something I´d written about Winston ages ago. Winston was our English Springer Spaniel.We bought him in Sweden when he was 12 weeks old,and he came down to Spain when we moved here in 2002.He never really took well to the environment here and developed a dust allergy, which was miserable for him at times and very expensive and time-consuming for us to treat.

However, he remained throughout a loving, even-tempered and happy dog who gave us great pleasure and companionship. He died just before Christmas at nearly 12 years old. It took us ages to stop feeling intensely miserable and we miss him acutely still.

Reading some of the things I´d written about him led to looking at photos of him and the grief welled up again. I really miss him, much more than I ever thought possible.

I don´t know if we´ll ever get another dog. Maybe, one day. Till then, I treasure my writing and photos which bring back memories of lots of fun and happy times.

Yipppeee!!! I´m Brilliant!!!

I decided to have one more go at getting back my profile before killing myself.

So I went into Edit profile and pressed items randomly.

One of them worked! ( Now which one could that have been?)

Anyway, I don´t give a damn, ´cos I´ve got it back - including the photo!

I´ll lick this technology stuff one of these fine days!

As I said before,Yipppeee!!! I´m brilliant!!!

Doom! Help Needed!

I´ve made,for me,quite a lot of progress,technologically speaking.I used a digital camera in Granada for the first time and I impressed myself with the quality of the piccies I took.(Do I hear someone muttering that the quality of the camera might have had something to do with it? Shame on you,whoever you are!)

On returning home, I crouched feverishly at the computer and started to learn how to alter and improve the photos. Yippeee! I thought. I am becoming technologically literate!

Pride comes before a fall.

I should have left well-enough alone but my new-sprung confidence led me to the absurd belief that I could do anything.So I then tried to improve the blog,tinkered with it and have succeeded in removing my profile and picture, both of which took a great deal of effort to insert. Do another one,I hear someone cry. Well, I would except I seem to have deleted the profile bit from the layout template so however I try, I cannot put a profile on the blog.

DO NOT ASK ME HOW I DID IT!If I knew that, perhaps I´d be clever enough to sort this mess out.

Anyone out there who has half a heart and knows how I can put the profile back ( it IS there still, under View Profile), please contact me.

SOS! SOS! SOS!

Granada - Olé!!

Have just come back from a trip to Granada - wonderful city! Full of life and bustle, lots going on, wonderful cafés and bars and of course all the monuments, not least the Alhambra.It looked magical illuminated by night and the day we visited it, the weather was warm and itwas very beautiful.

The downside was,of course,that the lions weren´t in the Lion Courtyard. This was a bit of a bummer, as it was one of the main things I was looking forward to. They were off being cleaned up, so I had to buy a postcard. It´s a bit like going to Paris and the Eiffel Tower is draped in tarpaulin whilst being painted!

Ho Hum! I suppose it gives me a good excuse for going back there again.A lone lion had been tarted up and sat in isolated splendour in a viewing room waiting for his mates and a return to his normal habitat. He was lovely but it wasn´t the same as having them sat around the fountain.

I consoled myself with tapas and wine at the flamenco show that evening. Olé!

Fings Ain´t Wot They Used To Be.

Friday the 13th has come and gone and I´m still standing!! Hooray!
Not, of course, that I´m the least bit superstitious.
But I will say that I have this odd tendency to look behind me when I say that.
I reach for the salt and hurl some over my left shoulder and cross my fingers and the like.
After all, you never know, do you?
And it´s always best to cover all eventualities, isn´t it?
That´s what I say.

And now the best part of Saint Valentine´s Day has gone, too.
I got a huge card,a dozen long-stemmed red roses and a bottle of perfume.

And if you believed that, you´ll believe anything!
Well, I got a card, at least.

Oh, how things were once in days of yore!
Then there was passion!
No wearing of winter vests or hugging of hot water bottles in bed!

Besotted Lover.

You´re the one I want to marry
Come on, darling! Please don´t tarry.
For you a torch I´ll always carry!

You´re my sweetheart, you´re my petal
One look from you heats up my kettle
In your arms for life I´ll settle.

You´ll always be my hometown hero
I´d burn down Rome if you were Nero
You´re 12 on a scale of 10 to zero.

For me, you are the missing link!
I know you´ll dress me all in mink.
So let´s make love then champagne drink!

Those were the days.

Yippeee!!!!

After being told by an English friend who´d looked at the blog that they couldn´t comment because they didn´t understand the Swedish, I determined to hunt down a way of changing the language. And guess what? I have!! Aren´t I the clever one? I´ll become IT-literate soon if I´m not careful.

I wrote this a while back before I`d ever heared of Blog, URL or WYSIWYG.

It was the norm in days of yore
To speak of ghosts and blood and gore.
To stay bad luck, your fingers crossed
You said a prayer or salt you tossed.

But times they change and habits, too
The cyberworld craves more from you.
It´s not enough to step aside
To sign a cross, from danger hide.

The Email God demands a tithe
In language crisp yet tone so blithe.
For every mail that you receive
To cyberspace more you must heave.

The same it is with Internet
You learn, but greater grows your debt.
Each time you surf a hyperlink
You bow to Google or you sink.

Technology now takes its toll
Mozilla Firefox owns your soul.
Before you phone or go online
You kiss your hardware, make it shine.

You customize PC and cell
For if you don´t - your life is Hell!
Obey your Server! Pay his Fee!
To Microsoft now bend your knee!

Don´t do this and you´re in peril
" THEY´LL" exact a vengeance feral!!

With that pleasant thought, I bid you all good evening.

Chris

Fancy A Read?

Apart from trying to sort this blog( a time consuming task for the non-IT initiated), I´ve been doing quite a bit of reading. It struck me that maybe I´m reading stuff that you don´t know about and that you might find interesting.

Hence the following list:

RJ Ellory Ghost Heart

Jason Webster Guerra

Jude Morgan Passion

Kate Hickson Courtesans


I´m still in the process of reading the Jude Morgan book. All the above are (I think) Brilliant.

Two Swedish authors who are great:

Henning Mankell whose most famous creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander, appeared in a recent BBC (?) TV 3-week series. The last book I read of his was The Man Who Smiled.

Vilhelm Moberg is an older writer and wrote his series of 4 books beginning with
The Emigrants in the 1950s. It´s about a poor family emigrating to America in the 1850s. It was made into a film for Swedish TV in the 70s with Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow. I cut my Swedish Language teeth on these books and although it was very hard work for me, I simply had to plough on as the story was so compelling.

Other books, which I read last autumn, but thought I´d bung in here as great reads are:

Kazuo Ishiguru Never Let Me Go

Arturo Perez-Reverte The Flanders Panel
Queen of the South
( This writer lives in Catagena)

Ann Widdecomb An Act of Treachery

( She´s written a sequel to this but I can´t remember the title).

I actually wrote this blog very carefully, giving a potted story outline of the books then forgot to save it before viewing the blog!! (The air was alive with the sounds of cursing rather than music).

Anyway, there you are. Happy reading.

If any of you have good- read titles, puttem on the TWC blog.

See you

Chris

Blog - itis.

In the Writers´group yesterday, I was advised to set up a blog of my own. I have spent several frustrating but entertaining hours doing just that. It´s really been hit and miss - some things have worked, others just haven´t. A Garfield gadget I wanted to add had ERROR written all over it, a Shakespeare quotation gadget was BROKEN (!!), and however I tried to customise my local live weather, it just wouldn´t change from New York.

So I went out for a bit to clear away my irritation. The summer market at Campoamor has moved to the paseo behind the Playa Flamenca Strip and has only been going for a couple of weeks.The traders were still setting up when I arrived at 10 o´clock. They would have been trading for much longer if it had been summertime but it is, after all, early February, and the weather today, although sunny, is much chillier than it was yesterday .

There were lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, including huge strawberries and cherries but at a price so I stuck to the usual mandarins and pears and will wait till later in the season. To my delight, I found a stall with an English lady selling sweet and savoury pies and bought steak and kidney, steak and ale, chicken and mushroom, and even apple crumble and rhubarb. Eating one of her delicious sausage rolls, I ambled off to the car and back once more to the blog.

I realised, reading my post from yesterday, that I had spelt blog the Swedish way with a double g and also that the date of the blog is in Swedish.
All this is down to:

a) My years in Sweden and the language leaking through into English

and

b) The fact that my computer software is Swedish and I can´t always change the language settings.

I´ve had enough for today wrestling with Google so I´m going of to have a soothing coffee. I´ll have to get a bit of help from the cavalry to sort out my bloggy gliches so I´ll close now with the following:

Eulogy to the Costa Blanca.

Costa Blanca sun so bright,
How I love you, day and night!
Sitting at a seaside bar
With some friends I have a jar.

In the daytime toast both sides
Watch the flags for dangerous tides.
Eat paella, sip some wine,
Snooze until it´s time to dine.
How glad I am that I live here!
Churros, olives, ice cold beer!

My life down here is one big high
I don´t feel blue, I rarely sigh.
The only thing I wish I´d done
Is retired sooner to the sun.

Another Lovely Costa Day

Woke up to my favourite weekday - Wednesday. It´s the day I go to the Torrevieja Writers´Group, of which I´ve been a member for several years.
There were quite a few of us today and it can be a problem to get round all the members and hear what they´ve written. We spent the first hour doing that - today there were more poems than usual. Most people write short stories or are in the throes of a novel and some write articles of different kinds.
I started writing first when I moved to Spain in 2002 and mostly wrote short stories to start off. I then was hit by the poetry bug and write short, sometimes comic, poems. My poems rhyme and I say that with no shame at all.I sometimes have the impression that rhyming poetry is regarded as not quite the thing - as if you´ve really shown an appalling lack of good taste. Ho Hum!
Anyway I read out a couple of short prose pieces and then one of my poems, which I´ll post in a tick. We also had a speaker today, Penny Legg, who has written all kinds of articles in magazines all over the world. I felt quite exhausted listening to her achievments and wished I had a bit of her energy.
It´s actually due to her that I´ve started a blogg. She advised me to start one of my own after reading some stuff I´d posted on the Torrevieja Writers´circle´s own blogg.
Well, this is the poem I wrote for today:

Housewife´s Revolt.

I really don´t feel
Like a 3-course meal
Meat to roast and veggies to peel.

To be quite honest, I´d like a snack
Simple and easy -- no steak to whack.
A soft-boiled egg and a piece of toast
Is what I really fancy most.

So I´ll send the kids to the Pizza Hut
Where they can have an unsupervised gut.
I´ll stay at home and won´t have to cook
Enjoying my egg and reading a book.

After the group finished I came home and joined my husband for a drive out to a bar overlooking the sea where we had a glass of wine and some tapas.
Another Costa day draws to a close.