Benidorm, Here I Come!

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

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

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

Feliz Navidad! God Jul! Happy Christmas!

A Great November!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here´s to the next time!

Fiesta Time!!!!

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

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

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

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

Back to Normal.

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

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

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

Loving Håkan Nesser & Stieg Larsson.

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

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

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

No peace for the wicked!!!!

Back In The Land Of The Eternal Sun.

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

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

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

Weird Weather.

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

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

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

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

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

Watch this space!