Chris On The Costa

Gota Fria?

2011-11-02T19:55:00.001+01:00

Summer is over and after a lovely two months in Calpe with temperatures at times in the 40´s, we are back at home in Pilar. The weather is still pretty fantastic, considering it´s now 2 November. I still haven´t gone into tights or proper shoes or a jacket except occasionally when I´ve been out in the evening. I must say, though, that since we put the clocks back it does seem rather autumnal with dark evenings coming earlier than before.

The rest of Spain has quite miserable weather with masses of rain but our Costa strip has escaped so far, only getting a few odd showers. However, the dreaded "Gota Fria" (literal translation-cold drop ) hangs like a barely veiled threat over us. It´s a period of intense rain which might only last for 20 mins but is so heavy that the results can be quite devastating. The pictures here are from where I live and you can see the green-grassed Ramblas in its normal state and after a downpour of unbelievable intensity. This was in 2009 and so far we´ve not had anything as bad since. Fingers crossed!!

Pilar has just finished its month-long local fiesta. This year , due to the financial crisis, the Town Hall has tightened its belt somewhat and spent less on parades, fireworks and the like. But enough was kept by to make the fiestas a success. If the noise was anything to go by, it was a huge success! Some days the music
(at top volume) went on till 4 in the morning!

Ah, well, we do live in Spain so it just has to be accepted. It seems the Spaniards can tolerate noise much better than North Europeans can. I sometimes think they have a special gene which makes them impervious to external noise. I can´t understand how they can have mobile phone conversations in noisy bars otherwise. I simply can´t. I have to have peace and quiet about me. But then, it´s probably something to do with being in the grumpy old fart category now.....

Holiday Time!

2011-07-30T16:58:00.001+02:00

It´s that time of year again when it´s too hot to do anything rational or energy craving. So the best thing to do is find a pool, take a dip, get a cold drink and sit/ lie down and read something. Which is what I´ve been doing. The three books here are a few of those I´ve already read and I´m slowly going through a stack of others I´ve downloaded on my Kindle.

I can recommend "The Room" and "Three Cups of Tea", having read both and am just starting on" Fary Tales...", which is a book written by someone in my writing circle. Can´t say much as yet but he normally produces hilarious stuff so I don´t think I ´ll be disappointed.

It´s really too hot to think much so on that note I´ll close as I can´t sit here and drown in my own sweat any longer. To the shower!!!

Add caption

Whoah!! Stopping in time.

2011-06-26T14:49:00.005+02:00

Somebody sent me this as an illustration of when you should hang up your car keys. Man´s best friend gulps, horrified at what is about to, or has nearly happened. The driver, concentrated, determined, carries on regardless.

Do we ever know when enough is enough? Does it need a bite in the backside to focus our attention? Anyway, it made me think a bit about not only driving but other stuff that one does and perhaps shouldn´t. Like going to a jazz concert which ends in the early hours and thinking you can get up for a session at the gym at 9a.m. like you might easily have done in your salad days.

But on the subject of driving,I´ve done quite a bit of it in the last few months since hubby broke his hip. He seems quite happy to sit back and let me do all the chauffering nowadays even though he is perfectly capable of driving himself now. I must concede, however, that he gets tireder quicker, so since I am a notch or two younger than him, I suppose it´s fair enough for me to do the navvy´s work.

I just wish I were better at parking in a small space. It takes a great deal of time and concentration for me to do it well and it´s almost a certainty that once I start the procedure, several impatient drivers appear out of the woodwork and sit watching, occasionally giving their engines an impatient rev. Men, of course. I´d like them to start a multi task procedure, which is what women do with flair, watched by a line of ladies tapping their feet in irritation, and see how well they do.

So ends my passing thought for the day.

Reading on an eBook.

2011-02-18T16:12:00.005+01:00

Since buying my Kindle, I´ve intensified what was already a passion for reading and now almost always have my lovely eBook in my handbag so that I can use all those odd, normally wasted moments at bus stops, in long queues, or when waiting for some office to open. (here in Spain you can never rely on opening hours as stated on the door!).

Recently, when trawling through the Amazon bookstore, I saw that C J Sansom had brought out his fifth Matthew Shardlake book. Since I absolutely love them, no sooner had I seen the blurb than it was in my Kindle and I was away for the next couple of days. Shardlake is a sympathetic character - a hunchbacked lawyer in the Tudor era. The first book starts in the period when the monasteries were being dissolved. This book is set in the final years of Henry VIII when he was married to Catherine Parr. As all the others in the series, it is beautifully researched and you get a real feel of what life was like then on the fringes and even far away from the glitter of Court life. Brilliant!

The other book I´ve enjoyed immensely recently is Emma Donoghue´s "The Room". It relates the grim but fascinating tale of a young college student who is abducted and kept in a shed in the garden of her sexual abuser. The son she has from this relationship tells the story, beginning on his fifth birthday, and you are kept on the edge of your seats right up to the final page. Great book!

Long Live eBooks!

Amazon Books and Kindle.

2011-02-18T15:43:00.002+01:00

I have a special way of saving towards stuff I want but can´t afford to buy outright. Since I live in Spain and have euros as currency, and since Spain is quite a popular tourist area for other EU nations, we often get euros which are not Spanish. Every few days I go through my purse and remove the "foreign" euros(most often German, Irish, French, Italian, Potuguese) and pop them in my money savings box.

A couple of months ago I finally had enough to buy a much longed-for eBook. I chose, after carefully scrutinising lots of different sales PR, Amazon´s Kindle. I must say, I´m very pleased with it and it´s cetainly one purchase I don´t regret a bit.At the same time, I do love real books and hope they never go out of commission. I remember from my childhood the special smell of the book stacks in my local Birmingham Public Library and I revel in browsing in book shops. But an eBook is brilliant in many ways.

Mine has a really long battery life before you need to recharge. I bought the 3G model (more expensive but in my view worth every penny), which works on the same sort of technology as mobile phones and when the wireless connection is activated I can access Amazon´s bookstore and order books which are in the Kindle almost immediately. With an ordinary non-3G model you would need to be near a WiFi hotspot to do this.

A member of the Writers´Circle I belong to has a Kindle. He went on the Trans Siberian railway last summer. Somewhere in the Steppes, he fancied reading a particular book, looked it up on Amazon and was able to read it within a few minutes. I find this quite gobsmacking. Not that I plan a trip so far away but my Kindle has come in very useful in the last few months of Hubby´s Broken Hip. I´ve had to sit in doctor´s waiting rooms, hospital clinics and now at the physiotherapist´s for ages. Of course you can take a real book with you but I would point out that Ken Follet´s "Pillars of the Earth" is a whopper to cram into a handbag, whereas the Kindle can hold hundreds of books and is both slim and light.

So long live my lovely Kindle with its pink cover (optional extra!). My next target for saved foreign euros will probably be a small laptop - I think they´re called netbooks.

2011-01-05T21:34:00.001+01:00

Surfing about the other day I came across a site called Sodahead.com
It was here I found this piccy of a really pissed-off cat and it just about sums up the way I feel just now.

We have just had what was probably our most miserably boring and depressing Christmas and New Year ever.

Just about everyone we know was either in the UK or off rollicking somewhere and we were stuck at home with limited possibilities of doing anything very much. We managed to get round the corner to our favorite bar on Christmas eve and had a meal but although the food was good and plentiful, neither of us was in the mood for festive jollity or culinary enjoyment.

New Year´s Eve was even worse. Other half, whose back has gone adding to the misery of the broken hip, went to bed early and I was so peed off that I cleaned the toilet to within an inch of its life then did all the ironing.

Can things get worse? Well, I expect they can and I certainly hope that the malicious gods aren´t planning a stinker for 2011 but I wouldn´t put it past the rotten so and so´s.

With that vicious thought, I´m off to stuff my face comfort eating. I´ll regret it tomorrow but that´s 12 hours away . It´s now that counts.

2010-11-04T22:16:00.007+01:00

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!

2010-10-24T18:44:00.003+02:00

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.

2010-06-16T18:21:00.002+02:00

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.

2010-05-05T20:43:00.003+02:00

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.

2010-05-01T20:17:00.005+02:00

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.

2010-04-26T21:53:00.005+02:00

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.

2010-04-15T16:10:00.006+02:00

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!

2010-03-22T12:23:00.003+01:00

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

2010-03-10T22:56:00.002+01:00

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

2010-02-25T22:41:00.003+01:00

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.

2010-02-21T00:38:00.003+01:00

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.

2010-01-23T16:21:00.005+01:00

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.

2010-01-02T16:33:00.010+01:00

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.

Benidorm, Here I Come!

2009-12-23T23:44:00.003+01:00

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!

2009-11-27T15:02:00.007+01:00

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!!!!

2009-10-17T20:51:00.005+02:00

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.

2009-10-07T19:27:00.002+02:00

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.

2009-09-11T00:57:00.004+02:00

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.

2009-09-07T09:45:00.003+02:00

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.

2009-09-01T20:35:00.004+02:00

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.

2009-08-25T20:36:00.005+02:00

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.

2009-08-21T11:03:00.002+02:00

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!

2009-08-05T18:24:00.002+02:00

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.

2009-07-29T11:30:00.005+02:00

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!!

2009-06-19T14:57:00.004+02:00

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!

2009-06-15T07:37:00.002+02:00

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.

2009-05-26T19:50:00.003+02:00

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.

2009-05-07T20:52:00.003+02:00

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.

2009-04-26T20:37:00.005+02:00

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.

2009-04-14T16:19:00.004+02:00

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

2009-04-08T22:41:00.006+02:00

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.

2009-04-04T02:00:00.002+02:00

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).

2009-04-04T01:51:00.002+02:00

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.

2009-04-04T00:16:00.003+02:00

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

Bugger, Bugger, Bugger!!!

Winston

2009-03-28T20:08:00.008+01:00

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!!!

2009-03-26T21:54:00.002+01:00

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!

2009-03-24T18:07:00.005+01:00

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!!

2009-03-05T22:20:00.004+01:00

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.

2009-02-14T21:33:00.006+01:00

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!!!!

2009-02-11T19:26:00.005+01:00

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?

2009-02-10T12:09:00.000+01:00

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.

2009-02-06T00:46:00.000+01:00

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

2009-02-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

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.