Misery and Consolation.

After suffering a broken hip for six weeks, hubby went to hospital expecting to be told he could throw away his frame, go over to crutches and start serious rehab exercises.

Woe!

Two more months with the frame, no physio except for a few exercises lying and sitting down , putting no weight on the bad leg!

A black cloud descended on the pair of us at the thought of all the weeks of hobbling about ahead of us. No Christmas away, no raving up on the church square on New Year´s Eve, no walking up the High Street to watch the Three Kings´Parade!!

Misery, Doom, Catastrophe! Bugger, bugger, bugger!!!!

So we have moved over into consolation comfort eating. Several times a week we go through the tedious process of getting a man with a seriously challenged hip down to the ground floor in a lift the size of a small shower cubicle.

First, I go down with a folded wheelchair, assemble it on the ground floor and return to collect the other half, who has been sitting on a stool with his zimmer frame at the ready. We squeeze into the lift, go down and he sits in the wheelchair while I return to our floor and put the stool and the frame away from the lift door.

I then go downstairs again and we finally make our way out of the block of flats and around the corner to our current favourite bar where we order a plate of magra con tomate ( see picture above) and swill it down with wine and then coffee. It´s a very common tapas in Spain but this bar does the best one I´ve tasted yet.

It doesn´t exactly speed the healing process of the bone but by heck, it tastes great and as comfort food when you´re feeling thoroughly hacked off, it works wonders.

Plus, the weather here on the Costas is still lovely and a sunny 22 degrees so it´s better than being stuck inside watching the rain belting down. Comfort in small mercies.

Take Up Your Bed and Walk - If You Can!

I haven´t written a blog for a long while . Reasons being that we first went away for most of the summer but most recently that literally as soon as we got home again, (that very night, in fact), husband fell in the night and broke his hip. Things have been rather hectic, tense and overwrought for the last few weeks as a result.

Only in the last 10 days or so have I had the time or the inclination to do more than is absolutely neccessary. Hence, checking and replying to emails and blog writing has been way down on the list. However, last week I went to my Writers´Circle for the first time in months and wrote a piece for the occasion. I thought I might as well bung it on the blog and that would save me the effort of thinking of something interesting to say. At least this keeps the blog going until such time as I can sit down and and write in a more relaxed way than is possible as yet.

So here you are - what happened in September.

” I want to write something about this” I said to my other half, ”but I thought I´d try and put a bit of a humorous spin on it.” He gave what can only be described as A LOOK and said ”I´m not really the one you should be asking about this”. He was quite right actually. If you´d fallen in the middle of the night, broken your hip and lain there for several hours until discovered, you probably wouldn´t be able to see the funny side, either.

Still, you can always look at things as I often do, in a twistedly humorous way, I suppose. Like the journey to the hospital. Despite being informed of the nature of the accident and the necessity for a stretcher, only one bloke came in the ambulance. Very pleasant chap he was. Quite jolly, in fact. ” !Holá Compañero!” he said to the white-about-the-lips patient and proceeded to haul him into a narrow wheelchair. In acute pain, hubby howled, but to no avail. The ambulance was a pure transport vehicle with no medical facilities at all. He was tossed in the back without benefit of painkiller and I sat up front with the driver, who was very fanciable and flirty, and told me I didn´t look old enough to be a granny. Behind us, heartrending wails came from other half every time we swerved around a roundabout. And there are quite a few between Pilar and Torrevieja.

After two lots of X-rays, still without pain relief, a nigh on desperate and gibbering husband was finally put on a drip, which slowly began to kick in. A room was assigned to us where we were to wait until an operating theatre became available and a male nurse came in with a contraption to elevate the leg and keep it stretched straight. It looked like a mini ski jump and a large plastic bag of water was attatched by a cord around the ankle to keep it all in position. All very medically correct. Except that the nurse hadn´t quite got everything balanced right before letting go and the whole lot slipped sideways and made for the floor. The nurse did a diving rugby tackle and managed to save the day. Hubby lay like a wrung-out dishcloth on the bed screaming blue murder. With true Mediterranean aplomb and a shrug to match, the nurse said ´ No pasa nada` and left us to it.

The operation and the brief stay in hospital went by without major trauma, apart from the day I had to go back to Pilar to set things up for the return home. I got back to hospital to discover that husband was famished, since the meals brought in were put on the bedside table, while he had been moved into a chair by the window and his call bell had not been put within reach. A rapid sortie to the cafeteria alleviated the hunger pangs but made us realise that careful planning has to be the order of the day with small packs of hard rations placed in strategic spots about the room if ever the main carer has to be away for any length of time.

Once we got home after the operation and a few days in hospital, under the tender loving care of devoted wife, hubby´s family jewels came in for some dodgy treatment. Getting used to a newly purchased bed which could elevat head and legs, I mistakenly pressed both switches on the zapper at the same time and was in the process of making a neat sandwich before hubby snatched the controls and prevented a fate worse than death.

On another occasion, unused to threading on loose boxer swimsuit shorts for him, I nearly managed a neat emasculation job, getting his tackle caught in the netting inside and pulling them up rather too rapidly for comfort. He also lost feeling in his vital parts for a while when I slapped a large bag of frozen peas ( meant to alleviate pain) between his legs rather than on the operation area.

There were several other incidents which spring to mind: hubby balancing on a bedpan, which overturned ( fortunately still unused), me threading a recalcitant willy into a pee bottle( unfortunately heavily used), which subsequently obliged by tipping over. When more mobile, under strict medical instructions to put no weight on the bad leg, hubby had to learn to hop in his zimmer frame. Unfortunately, neither of us had thought to lock it into a secure position and on hop number two it started to fold inwards and collapse. I emulated the nurse´s rugby tackle and a quick shunt into the nearby wheelchair prevented a return to the emergency room. Another interesting incident was when I was nervously practising giving bloodthinning injections on a lemon before tackling other half`s mid-section and managed to stab myself. It was, obviously, not a disastrous mishap and I have lived to tell the tale.

All in all, our first experience of an unplanned hospital stay has been, to say the least, traumatic, and one of the better ways of coping is probably to polish up the tiny gems of humour that cling precariously to the grim facade of life´s misfortunes. Betty Davis once said that old age is not a place for wimps and I´m beginning to see what she meant. When I was younger, if you got together with friends, you´d talk about blokes you´d pulled. Now it´s all symptoms and tablets and the next doctor´s appointment. If you don´t want to give in entirely to the ravages of age and tribulation, I suppose the best thing to do is to echo Monty Python´s Life of Brian and look on the bright side of life because the other side is really not one you want to have too much truck with.

We´re off to see the surgeon this coming week to see if all is well and, hopefully, to get some physiotherapy. Fingers Crossed! More news later.

The Rain in Spain.

Despite it being mid-June, the weather has been, and still is, proving to be really weird. Up in the north there have been terrible floods and yet here on the Costas we´ve had up to 30 degrees for a week or so.

Until a few days ago. Then the sky opened and it chucked it down. We had another load today and believe me, those of you who might believe that Spain is just Sun, Sand and Sangria, when it rains it´s torrential.

OK, we know and accept that. It always rains like that. In September and October.
BUT NOT IN JUNE !!!!! I didn´t sign up for this . I want the sun back!!!

Anyway, as it´s my birthday, I´m off out tonight so I haven´t got time to write any more from scratch. So what follows is a mild Rant I did for the latest Writers´Circle.
It´s called Recycling.

Recycling.

As we speak, I´m pushing the envelope but I hope that although I´m in your face 24/7, we´re both on the same page even if that´s both outside the box and off the wall.

If I´d said any of this a few years ago, nobody would have understood at all. Now not only do people understand but ordinary folk, who you would think would know better, pepper their conversation with these phrases.

They probably sounded really smooth when they were first casually tossed into the chat in Silicon Valley or New York but by the time they´ve been recycled via Internet and TV around the world and end up said by a middle-aged housewife in Bolton or an office worker in Neesdon they don´t have quite the same cool ring to them. When used in the place and situation they were tailored for, they are OK, but taken out of their context, at best they jar and at worst they sound absurd. In a TV series called Criminal Minds , the FBI team constantly refer to the murderer as the Unsub. How ridiculous would this sound said by a police constable in Birmingham?

In the same way as language is re-used inappropriately, so is fashion. Blokes of 40 plus go around pierced and tattooed with heads shaved, despite their false teeth and flabby ab. They simply don´t have the style of David Beckham when he first had that look. Women are equally out there emulating something that only Supermodels and Lady Gaga have the attributes to carry off. Saggy cleavage, wobbly thighs and batwings need to be under cover in the same dark place as the blokes` beer bellies.

Yes, but it´s fashion, people say. It´s always been like this. People follow what the trend is. What begins in Paris, Milan, LA and New York gets filtered down to the High Street and is sooner or later seen or heard in Surbiton and Handsworth. Certainly that´s true, but things aren´t quite the same as they used to be. Nowadays, everyone, from the really young to those knocking on, seem to need their space, time, moment of fame, chance to live and be like the glitterati, whether it´s suitable, appropriate or pleasant to look at or hear. On TV, Gok, Trinny and Susanna, extreme plastic surgery makeovers, Supersize versus Superskinny, all encourage us to re-define ourselves, re-style our bodies, our clothes and our homes.

Hundreds of years ago, children were regarded simply as adults who needed to grow up and so were dressed and taught to behave as adult from the word go. In more recent history they were allowed to be children and play, be childish and enjoy the years of freedom from the rat race of adulthood. Things are now going back to the way they were. Kids are sexually active much younger once more, they are dressing like adults and being helped and even actively encouraged to sound and look like their much older and more sophisticated idols. At the other end of the scale the generation which would once have been in rocking chairs on the porch are out raving it up and being told that 60 is the new 40. Fine, within certain limits but we all really know that 60 never has been nor ever will be the new 25.

So where is all this recycling of fashion and language leading us to? Will we all end up looking like slightly blurred and shopsoiled copies of whoever is the latest jetsetting fashionista in the headlines? Possibly, but whatever happens, we know that, as the Ad says, we deserve it.

A musical Interlude.

One of my rhymed offerings for the Torrevieja Writers´Circle

Last week ma made faggots for grandad
Mushy peas and thick gravy – a treat
But it just doesn´t suit grandad´s innards
During Corry he shot to his feet.

The lav´s down the yard and he doesn´t walk fast
And his zimmer frame hasn´t got wheels
So he made for the room at the end of the hall
Where he lies on the couch after meals.

He got to the hatstand and started to cramp
But he clenched and he gritted his teeth
If he could just make it the commode was in there
On loan from the council in Leith.

He lifted the lid, sat down and let fly
And breathed a great sigh of relief
Then he saw the commode by the window
And tensed up in chill disbelief.

He was next to ma´s upright piano
It really was too cruel
Sheet music lay all around him
Where he slumped on the old music stool.

I am a guest blogger on the TIM Life in Spain blog and have had the following piece published in the May issue of the magazine.



Driving Lessons Greek Style.



The only car I’ve ever owned was a red Mini, DF 214. We bonded in the
autumn of 1969 when I started working in a Greek school in Cyprus. I’d
never needed a car in London and couldn’t drive but now a car was a
must. There was only one solution. Buy one and acquire a Cypriot driving
licence. Getting the car didn’t prove to be too much of a problem - that’s
when DF214 appeared on the scene. Learning to drive took a bit more
effort.
Mr Lambrides, my landlord, introduced me to Panicos Charalambides,
proprietor and chief instructor at the town’s driving school. Panicos was
a good driving teacher but his English was a bit dodgy. I had to give
him an intensive run through of first, second and third after a crunching,
kangaroo-like lesson on gear changing.
His name, Panicos, comes from the Greek word for terror or panic and
when we came to the drama of the emergency stop, I could see why it was
so appropriate. He’d warned me the day before that we’d be doing one in
the next lesson. He prepared me with the instructions: “Imagine sheep in
road. I shout. Your foot on brake you throw hard. Miss sheep.”
I was quite worried about this. So by the following day, I’d worked myself
up into what can only be described as a bit of a state. Mind you, Panicos
didn’t seem to be much better. When I arrived for the lesson, I saw him
in the bar next door tossing back a short. He was puffing nervously on
a cigarette as he approached, which he tossed aside but immediately
put another between his lips. There was an atmosphere of dread and
impending doom in the car and after about twenty minutes I knew the
emergency stop was going to be quite soon. He had begun to look around
uneasily and was fingering both his worry beads and his crucifix. By
this time I was sweating freely and had begun to see sheep everywhere.
Suddenly, I felt him tense beside me. He spat out his cigarette, which had
been clenched, unlit, between his teeth, gripped the sides of his seat and
shrieked: ”Estoppp!!!”.
I threw, flung, and veritably hurled my foot at the brake and DF214
practically did a handstand. Panicos and I were propelled forward and
made violent contact with the windscreen. There was a dreadful noise
from the front of the car as it lurched forward then bounced back to a halt.
In the sudden silence, all that was heard was our heavy breathing and
then the concerned shouts of the customers at the bar outside of which
our drama had unfolded.
We eventually staggered out to see what had caused the noise. No
sheep had been harmed but DF 214 didn’t do so well. Apparently,
something called the engine mountings were jarred from position
and the engine was clinging on for dear life under the bonnet.
Panicos began babbling in Greek. His English went completely
to pot and I didn’t find out till later, at the garage, what was
wrong. But I could tell it wasn’t good and I was unnerved at the thought
of what the repair was going to cost.
We steered DF214 over to the side of the road and tottered into the bar,
where the owner phoned for a tow car. He even bought us stiff brandies
as we had, apparently, livened up a fairly slow morning for him. Panicos
bought the next round and I followed up with another. We had started
to mellow by this time and were seeing the whole thing in a different
light. These things happen. It could have been worse. After all, it was
an emergency stop and I had certainly stopped. So congratulations were
the order of the day. He kissed my cheek and raised his glass “Sheep
survive!” he said.
The actual test, dreaded equally by myself and Panicos, turned out to be a
doddle. I passed first time and returned to the school where Panicos was
nervously pacing the pavement. He grabbed me and smothered me in
hugs and kisses when he saw the victory paper I waved at him. We retired
to the local bar and reminisced over the ups and downs of the preceding
months. A few beers later, I slowly drove home to convey the news to Mr
Lambrides. “You’ll never believe it, Mr Lambrides! I passed!”
I was somewhat taken aback when he grinned, patted my shoulder and
said “I know, I know. The examiner, he is my cousin. I tell him you are
good girl. You not go out driving at night. You have good job and pay rent
on time. He listens to me. You pass.”

Bisons For The Sultan.

This is a piece I wrote recently for a meeting of the Torrevieja Writers´Circle. I was fascinated by the story of this small, specialised Swedish company and thought other people might like to read about it too. So here follows the piece, entitled:

Bisons For The Sultan.



The London Symphony Orchestra has them, you can find them at the Academy of Performing Arts in Hong Kong and now the Sultan of Oman has paid a whopping 1.8 million crowns for them. They are solid, secure, extendable, inclinable, easily moveable, extremely comfortable musicians´ chairs from a small company working from the middle of a forest in Sweden.

The company which produces them, Bison, operates from a typically Swedish red wooden building in the small village of Årjäng in Värmland. It sn´t as big as IKEA with its billions of euros in annual sales . Bison´s profit in 2009 was a mere 9 million Swedish Crowns, which seems like a drop in the ocean by comparison. However, if you consider the fact that Bison has only 7 employees, of whom 2 are the owners, and that the company operates in the very specialist branch of supplies for the music industry, then you have to concede that they´re doing very nicely, thank you.

Bison and Ikea are similar in that they both started in a very small way. Ingvar Kampryd cycled around selling matches at the start of his career.The owners of Bison are Ingegerd Bryntesson and her husband Lennart. She worked as a post office cashier and he was a supply teacher. Their company, which used to sell a variety of things, one of which was a folding axe from Norway, was originally just a sideline. Both Kampryd and the Bryntessons worked from home to begin with until they found their niche. With Kampryd it was furniture while the Bryntessons developed an interest in products for musicians.

It all started with a music stand they liked the look of and decided to retail. Although neither of them are musicians or even particularly musical they decided it was a good item and for ten years they kept their day jobs, sold music stands and supplemented their income by buying and selling berries and mushrooms.

Things took off when, in the mid-nineties, the Berwald Concert Hall in Stockholm contacted them looking for a comfortable, ergonomic chair for its musicians in the orchestra pit. The subsequent collaboration between the professional musicians and the Bryntessons resulted in a chair which is used all over Sweden in concert halls, churches, and colleges of music. It has also become standard in many venues in England, Germany, Norway, Russia, the Baltic States and most recently Oman, where the Sultan´s Symphony Orchestra sits very comfortably while playing for him.

Lennart Bryntesson, like Ingvar Kampryd, has clear ideas on how a good business should be. He is a very Swedish-style boss.He has a Facebook page and writes a blog on the Bison Website, where his photo is, together with those of his wife and the other employees. The building they work in is heated by log burners and all the staff cut the wood for the stoves during working hours. He regards his fellow workers highly and doesn´t believe in inflated salaries for management . Everyone at Bison has the same salary , he and his wife included. It makes things much simpler, and all their jobs are equally important, he believes. He is active in the Swedish Mission Church and 10 per cent of Bison´s profits go every year to charitable projects abroad in countries like Nepal and Ethiopia.

Even if you are not a singer or a musician, you can see from the web site photos that Bison´s products are very high quality.The choir risers look solid enough for a Welsh miners´choir of Pavarotti proportions. Security for the artists who use the company´s products is central to his business idea – hence the publicity photo of a car parked on a Bison stage, patently demonstrating the construction´s strength and sturdiness.

Despite the recession, the company is doing well and after a successful delivery to the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, a recent enquiry from Kansas City makes a breakthrough into the American market closer. Perhaps the Sultan could have a word with Barak Obama?

Great Holiday - Except For the Trent Army.

Got back from my week in Cataluña a while back but haven´t had time to blog as I had a visitor and it took a few more days to sort myself out. So finally I can get down to blogging.

Salou is a great place for families, I must say. Lovely beach, long, safe
promenade for kids and the adventure park, Port Aventura, only a short distance away. It´s also a great centre for seeing other places in Cataluña - Reus, with lovely modernist houses and the Gaudi Centre; Barcelona - masses to see there; the Ebro Delta, a fascinating rice-growing area and a wonderful wild bird area; Cambrils - a picturesque town full of seafood restaurants - just to name a few. Plana, the local bus company had lots of tours at really good prices and some were guided by very interesting, profesional people of different nationalities.

The hotel was good and there was plenty of really nice food. So it should have been perfect. Trouble was, my holiday coincided with the annual SalouFest. This has apparently been held for the last 10 years. Thousands of British University students decend on the town, ostensibly to be doing sports but from what I observed they were there first and foremost to get totally, senselessly, drunk.

We had 350 of them at our hotel. The worst ones called themselves the Trent Army and were from Nottingham. The restaurant looked as if demented monkeys had been in there when they left it for the other guests. We were actually advised by the Head Waiter not to go in until he and his staff had had time to clean up after them.

Every evening from about 11pm they were outside on the street making an unholy racket, some of the lads urinating, some- both boys and girls- stripping down to the bare essentials, until the coaches carried them off for an evening in the discos. Then it all started again from 2-3 am onwards as they came back , this time lots of them so drunk that they were vomiting on the buses and in the street outside the hotel. I saw one girl collapsed on the pavement, totally out of it, who was taken away by police and ambulance. (One newspaper report said there were 60 cases of alcohol poisoning treated at the hospital).

It was widely reported in the Spanish press and on TV and I felt ashamed on their behalf. They may think it´s great to reel about shrieking at the top of their voices but most of the Spaniards in the hotel (both guests and staff) had a pretty poor opinion of them. I don´t think my hotel was a a special case. There were thousands of them, all over Salou, creating mayhem.

I can´t help but wonder if the money made by the bars and restaurants is sufficient to outweigh the aggravation felt by the service staff in hotels, bars and hospitals, not to mention the police and, of course, the ordinary inhabitants of Salou and the other guests in hotels all over Salou who had their holiday soured by these idiots.

So - I did actually enjoy my holiday but was really disturbed at the behaviour of these students and wonder what on earth it will be like in 10 years or so from now when they are in managerial/administrative positions, since they don´t seem to have grasped the basic concepts of consideration and courtesy. Not to mention the damage that quite a few of them are doing to their own bodies by pouring so much alcohol into them.

I´m off on another trip quite soon. This time it´s with other half in tow and we´re going to Mallorca. Just hope the weather´s a bit better by then and that there aren´t too many riotous drinkers about.

Off On My Hols!

Having another go at the brilliant IMSERSO scheme of subsidised holidays for pensioners. This time I´m trying Cataluña. Staying at a place called Salou, which in itself doesn´t look as if it has anything out of the ordinary more than lovely beaches and a pleasant promenade, neither of which can be fully exploited at this time of year. However, it´s very close to Tarragona and to Barcelona, so I hope to do a bit of mooching there.

I really hope the weather is on the turn and spring comes soon as it´s been grey, rainy and miserable for ages - not at all what we´ve become used to on the Costa Blanca. I´ll be away for a week so will post something when I get back. Hasta luego!

Billy the Bookcase

Billy the Bookcase.

As you assemble your flatpack bookcase from IKEA, have you ever wondered why it´s called ”Billy”? If you scan the Ikea catalogue, you´ll see that every product has a name and it´s usually a Swedish name whether or not the rest of the catalogue is in Spanish, Arabic or Chinese. This is because IKEA´s founder was dyslexic and had problems reading long product descriptions. He found that he remembered them better by giving them a familiar one-word name.

So chairs and shelves have men´s names, which explains Billy. Sofas have place names – there´s one called Karlstad, a town in central Sweden. Other terms used are grammatical, musical, nautical or chemistry. Also women´s names, those of animals, and adjectives. There´s a set of knives called ”Sharp”, ”Doze” is a line of bedlinen, ”Forty Winks” is a bedroom blind, ”Stubborn” a spatula and a line of children´s toys goes under the name of ”Well-behaved”. Occasionally, despite great care and attention being paid to the naming of the items, a gaffe is committed. Thus, in English speaking countries,the unfortunate bench christened ”Fartfull” had to be withdrawn until the sniggers had died down and a new name could be found.

Ingvar Kampryd, the founder of IKEA, was born in 1926 on a farm called Elmtaryd near Agunnaryd village. When he started his company he used his own initials and those of his birthplace to create the now world-famous company name. The logo uses this name, IKEA, in blue lettering on a yellow oval which rests within a blue rectangle. It is a strikingly simple and easily recognisable trademark in the Swedish national colours and is now a company operating in 35 countries around the world with over 300 stores, thousands of employees and billions of euros in sales annually.

Yet Ingvar Kampryd started very small indeed in 1943 by buying up matches in bulk and re-selling at a profit. He cycled from customer to customer at first then, when his business expanded, hired the local milk van to deliver goods. He introduced furniture into his range in 1947. It caught on so well that by 1951 that was his sole product. His concept for IKEA was, and still is, to sell fuctional, well-designed furniture at prices so low that as many people as possible could afford them. In order to cut costs and facilitate transport, IKEA was also a pioneer in the concept of customers assembling the furniture themselves - hence the flatpack.

To reach potential customers, IKEA produces an annual catalogue in its home town in Sweden, where they have Northern Europe`s largest photo studio. More copies are printed each year than the Bible - 190 million of them, in more than 25 languages. The company has also produced TV ads,usually funny and very effective but also a number a bit too near the bone or in poor taste which have been banned and can now be viewed on You Tube.

Kampryd himself is probably one of the richest men in the world but has the reputation of being frugal to the point of meanness. The story goes that, if he stays at a hotel and uses a soft drink from the fridge in the room, he´ll go to a local store and buy one to replace it rather than have it put on his bill. He flies economy class , and has often popped into a local IKEA for a cheap meal of meatballs and lingonberry preserve. But his frugality is part of a carefully managed image presented to the public as part of the IKEA concept. He does in fact own an estate in Sweden, a vinyard in France and a villa in Switzerland. But his image took a severe knock when it came to light in the 1990s that he had belonged to a post war Neo-Nazi group for several years. However, he admitted this and said it was the greatest mistake of his life. It didn´t stop the customers coming through the doors and 2009 saw 660 million visits to IKEA stores worldwide.

Despite the present recession, IKEA goes from strength to strength and is constantly developing in innovative ways. One of its recent ventures is flatpack apartments and houses. IKEA is working with the construction firm Skanska and so far they have built over 4000 apartments and houses in 5 countries. Unsurprisingly, following their founder´s original idea, they´ve got names for these,too. The latest ones built in Sothern Sweden are called ”Bags I !” I´d like to bet that most of them have a Billy bookcase in one of the rooms.

Flat Pack Nightmare

My computer room was looking like a poorly-run charity shop, so stern measures were needed. A swift check on the local furniture shops led me to the sobering fact that a decent, ready-made cupboard would be painfully dear. The nearest thing to something half-approaching what I wanted cost around 80 euros. At this point I wandered into the local DIY shop, saw a cupboard which was just the job, costing 30 euros less. I´ll have one of those, I said and asked them to bring it out to the car. It was when they arrived with a large, oblong package that I realised I was about to enter flat-pack hell.

I was under no illusions - I knew what I was in for. After all, I´ve lived in the flat- pack´s alma mater for 30 years and have on many occasions been party to wild hysterical scenes where demented Swedes have threatened to hurl themselves like lemmings at the nearest Ikea, screeching curses and bloodcurdling Viking oaths at Ingvar Kampryd, its filthy-rich founder. I´ll bet he doesn´t have any flatpack furniture in his Swiss hideaway!

The package stood in the hall for 2 days and I slunk past it, dreading the moment of truth. When it finally came, the actual checking of the bits, it was exactly as it always is. Various vital chunks of wood and quite a few screws were missing. Back to the store, where it took half an hour to identify the neccessary spare parts and by the time I arrived home, I was totally fraught with the thought of what lay ahead. The job was put off for another 2 days.

Finally, Other Half and I started to peruse the instruction sheet. It reminded me of when I got my first computer. Whoever had written the instruction manual for that had left out the really basic steps assuming that nobody could be so stupid that they didn´t know how to switch on. Similarly, you needed to guess what the intervening steps were between illustration A, which was a bare, pristine cupboard side and illustration B , where screws and plugs were attatched to holes and a hand with a glue pot was about to stick a long narrow bit of wood along the edge.

Why does it have to be this way? Why is it always so obscenely difficult? Why are there always bits missing? I´m sure it´s tested in the factory to see if it can be easily assembled. But they do it all the time so of course it´s easy for them! Do they never test it out on ordinary thick-heads? It took us 4 hours, without the breaks for strong drink. When finally assembled, the cupboard isn´t too bad, although the doors aren´t flush and there´s a bit of a gap where the 2 halves of the chipboard back don´t quite meet. Still, I suppose it was worth it. I saved a bit of cash, didn´t I? It´s just that Other Half and I are not speaking to each other after a heated dispute over which way round the door hinges should go.

Actually, come to think of it, every cloud has a silver lining.

The Green-Eyed Goddess.

I was watching Skye News the other day and saw, to my amazement, a couple in the UK , who had just scooped 56 million on the lottery, celebrating with champagne and getting their faces imprinted on the bitter, envious minds of all the many who didn´t win and resent the fact. How naive can you be? Didn´t someone warn them to keep it under wraps? Or didn´t they have any choice in the matter? I would imagine their lives will change drastically and probably not all to the good after this.

At about the same time, in their newspaper commentary section, Skye showed a screaming headline denouncing all the British expats who receive winter fuel allowances abroad. I didn´t read the article but I suppose it ranted on about the luxury lifestyle in the sun blah blah and how the poor Brits freezing at home shouldn´t have to divvy up for people sipping G&Ts on the Costas. They should try a winter out here and see what they think then! I don´t get, nor ever have received, this benefit, so I´ve no axe to grind. It just seems to me to be yet another display of envy from the don´t have as much as you do lot.

I´ve lived in Sweden for 30 years so can testify that envy flourishes in the frozen wastes of Scandiavia too. People assume that you must be very well-heeled to have a place in Spain. And to be well-heeled in Nordic countries isn´t that easy with the grinding tax burden, so it´s often assumed that you have probably beaten the system somehow.

Once you have made your move and live abroad, the Swedish Inland Revenue pursues you with vigour to make sure you follow the regulations. As a Swede living abroad, all your income is taxed at source and arrives, 25% depleted, in your bank account. You then pay income tax here in Spain, send the bank receipts to Sweden and wait nervously to see if the authorities there will OK everything.

If they do, which isn´t always the case, they eventually send you back the tax you have paid in Spain. Thing is, if you end up paying, say, 18% in Spain, you don´t get all the 25% back. Oh no, you only get the 18% back. The other 7% is kept and used there for something you don´t get a whiff of. How grudging is that? It reeks to me of envy! It´s like somebody is saying: We´ll show the buggers! If they can´t stay here and pay 55% tax, we´ll damn well see to it they won´t be able to enjoy the tax benefits over there!

What´s wrong with people? Are there any truly genuine, pleasant types who are pleased when others have a bit of luck or do well, and celebrate with them , not feeling twinges of envy? I can´t understand it at all. I would never be like that…… It´s just that the couple I go to a quizz with have been on 4 cruises that I know of and I´ve only managed a week in Majorca. They must be up to some fiddle, for sure. I´m blowed if I´ll give them a lift next quizz night.

There´s no such thing as a free lunch.

As these animals found out, if you get something free, you have to pay for it in some way. In their case it´s probably having bitten off more than they can chew and having one heck of a job sorting it out.

I learned the same thing the hard way today.This week I had a letter from a company offerring me a goldplated cross from Caravaca and a Nordic duvet. I would get these stupendous gifts simply by attending a talk at a local hotel on a subject of great interest about health. I thought an extra duvet could be quite useful but to get it I had to be accompanied by my other half. So he was duly roped in.

We set off at 9.45 this morning ( a Saturday) and when we arrived found a throng of other pensioners, the majority Spanish, waiting in the lobby. After 20 minutes, a rep from the company came, checked we had our letter of invitation and sent us up to the fifth floor, where about 80 of ended up. The rep introduced us to the lady who was to give the talk, a smart woman who I estimated to be in her mid 40s. She wore a white coat, like doctors have, and seemed very professional and confident.

The talk introduced a product based on using magnetic fields to get rid of the body´s accumulation of oxidisation and allowing it to regenerate new cells. Several people in the audience testified to the efficacy of the product, having bought at earlier meetings, and she herself revealed that she was in her early 50s, claiming to looking much fresher and feeling much healthier since she started using the machine in question.

Now, I don´t know one way or the other whether the product really does what was claimed
( though Rafe Nadal had testified in a sports paper she showed us to magnetic treatment having cured his shoulder problem). But when it came to the nitty gritty, I just don´t have 1500 spare euros to risk on trying it out to see. And I don´t think most of the people there did, either.

Anyway, the point I am making is, that although we were to be given our free gifts for merely attending the meeting, we really worked for them. The lady talked non-stop, sketched on a whiteboard and fielded questions from 10.30 until 12.50! By which time I, my husband and I think most of the audience, were totally exhausted, were desperate for a loo, had aching backs and rear ends, and just wanted to get out and make for a comfortable chair and a decent cup of coffee.

We had to hang on for another 25 minutes before we were let out and handed our "free" gifts.
OK, we didn´t pay for them, but my goodness! It was hard work getting them! The talk was, of course, in Spanish so I suppose it was good practice but more than 2 hours rapid-fire in Spanish is a touch wearing, to say the least.

I´ve been on free blanket trips here on the Costa Blanca where you sit through a talk on sheep´s wool products . But at least the talks are a reasonable length, you´re given coffee and a bun and then taken somewhere interesting to spend a few hours. I think the company today could learn a bit from the blanket people.

After being let out, we legged it to the nearest bar for wine and tapas ( coffee by that time just wouldn´t have done it!) and felt a great deal better afterwards.

As I am now well and truly aware, there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

Enjoying Yourself in Benidorm in Spite of a Stinking Cold.

The worst cold I´ve had for a couple of years neatly covered the exact period of my stay in Benidorm. It was the full Monty - sore throat, nose running like a tap, hacking cough, generally feeling like death barely warmed up. However, determined to do or die, off I went to the Benikaktus Hotel for a 4-day stay in the capital of glitz.

The view from the balcony on the 11th floor was stunning and I decided that I was going to enjoy myself, come what may. This was successfully achieved by freely imbibing a combination of paracetemal and hot lemon and brandy toddies. The happy, noddy-land result can be seen from my dozy expression at dinner on Christmas Eve. The following day´s Gala Lunch and Boxing Day´s visit to the Benidorm Palace were also experienced through a pleasant haze. Not that I would recommend a combination of booze and pills but when needs must......

The roast suckling pig was part of one of the buffets. I don´t remember which one, funnily enough. We had a weird mixture of weather in Benidorm. Violent winds on Christmas Eve, Well over 20 degrees on Christmas day morning and pouring rain in the afternoon. Boxing Day was grey and then sun again on the 27th. The show and dinner at the Benidorm palace were excellent, top class, and we were sent away with a complimentary bottle of wine . So a brilliant time was had, in spite of the odds against it. Still, New Year was OK , for me anyway. Unfortunately, my better half by that time had taken over my cold and you realise, of course, that it wasn´t just a cold. It was a MAN COLD, which is much worse, as every woman knows.

There follows a poem inspired by the visit to the Palace.
Happy New Year!!!

We met at the Benidorm Palace
He said he was from Stoke-on-Trent
At first I wondered without any malice
If he might be a teeny bit bent.

He´d togged himself up for the evening
DJ, red waistcoat, bowtie
And topped it with diamond man bling
An earring and pierced near one eye.

He said that he worked for the council
Something to do with the drains
And was in Spain for three weeks to study
How the sewers coped with heavy rains.

We talked over a bottle of cava
About families, jobs, credit crunch
Of holidays on Costa Brava
Then he asked me out next day for lunch.

He´s lovely, is Gary, the drainman
With his glitz and his bling and his hype
It´s just that, at times, in his white van
There´s a whiff that´s quite fishy and ripe.