Wednesday 8th December 2010, Roquetas and where's the sun cream.

Heavens it's hot.

Heather baby (our daughter) is 30 today so gave her a call and looking forward to her party when we get back on 11^th.

The taxi to the airport is about €30'ish so that will be about €70 return when you tip and add the extra charges that they usually make up on the spot. Sitting outside the other day and Henk, our Dutch guy next door was asking us how long we were staying and when we told him we were flying back for Christmas he said he would drop us AND pick us up in January! Friendly or what!

Yesterday went for a walk up to El Parador, the local small town and had coffee at our “usual” café. It was May this year we were last there, seems longer because we keep thinking of it as “last year”, makes sense as our “year” is from September to the next June.

 I have to lift the waste-hog a fair way off the ground when emptying the black stuff, which can be very difficult, problem now solved with a piece or strong cord and a short length of rubber pipe! Other problem was the nearest water tap is 2 meters further away than my flat, roll up, 25 m water pipe, problem solved again, genius!

Washing day and as I was emptying the hog of grey water, down the small yellow man hole covered orifice, next to the toilet block, one of my hog caps fell into it, hell's teeth! Had to remove the very large and very heavy, non yellow, man hole cover near it and buried in the sludge a meter down, there it was. Ran back and got SWMBO's sweeping brush hoping while I was gone, that a small child, or car, or old German woman, or bicycle, or the Spanish orange delivery man, had not fallen down the gaping hole and I was going to be sued to hell and back. All was OK and retrieved the cap, irreplaceable over here, that thing is. Put it down as far away from the hole as possible and struggled manfully to get the man hole cover back in place, and a car ran over it! BTW should that not be a person hole cover?

Whilst taking in the sun outside the MS, Henk, our new airport chauffeur, took time out to introduce his wife Fenni, to us and mentioned to her about the lift to Almeria airport on Saturday. They then went into a rapid and complicated discussion which slid easily from hyperbole to litotes with a bit of sarcasm and irony thrown in, obviously concerning something about what they (she) had already planned for Saturday, but being completely in Dutch, went right over our heads. So we still get the lift? Also by some devious means or other SWMBO has managed to wangle a lift from Claudio at the other end. Sweet or what?

Thursday 9^th December 2010, Roquetas and a last quick wash before we go.

Another warm, sunny, windless day, oh the boredom of it all.

Last night it was baked potato covered in home made (MS made?) chilli con carne and some weird Spanish green beans which, coupled with the extant kidney beans and chic peas, may cause a minor revolution “down there” come tomorrow morning. (and it did!)

SWMBO has relented and we are only washing the white things but not, thank God, not all the sheets.

I mean every two weeks! I only get into bed, sleep, get out of bed, that's it! Don't read, complete jigsaws, render walls and alcoves, I don't knit or crochet, listen to music, re-wire 3 pin plugs or deduce the amplitude of SWMBO's snoring. Get in, sleep, get out. What the hell do I do in there (don't even think about that) that makes her want to change and clean ALL the sheets every two weeks? Men are from Mars and SWMBO is from Sunderland, answers everything.

Boring?

When that's finished will do a practice pack and have a final, final look for my UK Vodafone sim.

I had put it in a safe place, told her where I had put it so she could remind me later and we've both forgotten where it is, was or may be.

Then probably a quick cycle ride through to Aquadulce, nice place for coffee and cake.

Sunday 5th December 2010, Roquetas de Mar, it's warmer than back there.

Had dinner with T&D at the site's restaurant, nice, me steak, T hamburger, T&D, that thing with rice and fish stuff for two, and a couple of drinks. Next morning 8am, SWMBO thought it was still night, everything done and left at 9am, said “sod off and good riddance”, to T&D and on our way. Uneventful really, no wheels fell off and we arrived at Roquetas at about 3:30pm. Managed to drive, forwards, straight on to a pitch and that was it! Well not quite. We are in the German zone and because as I had parked about 3° out of true the guy opposite kept on telling me, in fluent German, that I needed to do it correctly. I got the feeling if I didn't it would be lampshade time, so complied.

On the way there

Nearly there

Our new pitch

Comfy?

Introduced ourself's to the next door neighbours and after explaining that we will be around for 4 months, they said that they would be leaving tomorrow!

Game of Dos, close but I won brilliantly, and SWMBO decided to have a bottle of fizz, I've never seen her so drunk, had to undress her and put her to bed, got quite exciting. She is now tucked up with her Penguin and I'll be blamed for everything as usual, not going to get lucky in the morning that's for sure.

Monday 6^th December 2010.

I had forgotten what the facilities were like here. First, it's hard standing so I need back the two bits of wood I threw away at Zahora 'cos I didn't know what they were for, they were extra slide out supports. We need to get our “green” down asap as the small granite gravel gets dragged into the MS and also goes to mush when it rains.

The showers are great, constant, no button and powerful. Getting used to a different toilet seat, orifice size and shape, and height off the ground is a bit of a challenge however. Even the toilet paper is softer, not a bad idea as it's curry night tonight!

The rates are about the same as Zahora when you average it out i.e. after 60 days it's €8/day plus electricity @ 32 cent/KW, so we use gas for everything, Wi-Fi is 75 cents/day long term, so taking everything together it's about €11/day. (German lessons are extra)

We are surrounded by Germans and it brings back the memories from 26^th February earlier this year.

http://swinsblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/02/friday-26th-february-2010-roquetas-and.html will clue you in. Looks like we will be catching up on our German then.

It's definitely drier and warmer here and as as it is apparently thundering and lightning back in Zahora, I guess we made the right choice. What we did not expect when we arrived was to be asked if we had booked! The camp is almost full or rather the pitches are booked by the long term people who arrive just before or just after Christmas. They only gave us a choice of about 10 pitches and although probably could have got onto all of them I think we picked the best one.

Hells teeth! That German opposite us has just produced an accordion, welcome to hell.

It's a balmy 21 degrees here, no wind and people are out in their cossies sunbathing. Just had a trip round the town of Roquetas and a lot of the shops have closed, permanently.

Cycling is now back on the menu!

Wednesday 1st December 2010, PSJ and we have guests.

Woke up to rain and wind, but still warm. Heard that Gatwick airport is shut due to the heavy snowfalls in southern England. Heather can't get to work and Adam crashed his car, he's OK, sliding about on the snow and ice in Forest Row.

Stayed in and did some “put off” things before driving to Mercadona for supplies. On the way back decided to turn around and visit a village we have seen many times on the northern headland but had never been to, called Cabo Roche. It was basically a suburb of Conil and was very beautiful, clean and right on the coast with it's own little harbour.

On the way back got dragged into a ceramics shops and lightened my wallet considerably, but it made SWMBO happy and we have, a new fruit bowl, letter and washing up cloth holders, all turned out in hand painted ceramics. So will other people we know, come Christmas.

Rained on and off all afternoon so no walkies today.

About 3 o'clock, whilst passing the time of day with Yorkshire Mick, we were approached by an English couple who were looking to park their RV next to us, I think they were in company with another couple who also had a RV. Both RV's are very American and very large. First one tried to park up on the ridge where everybody so far has managed to get stuck, guess what, he got stuck and had to be pulled out by the site tractor. He then found a more stable pitch up toward toilet block B.

The other couple tried to get in on the pitch two pitches from us, well the thin little tree that was on the pitch and quite a lot of branches from the tree at the end of the pitch are no more. This was the result of the PSJ site team descending as a horde and sorting the pitch out for this 38 foot monster. This is rather unusual for owners of sites, normally if you cut down or trim anything you are off the site pronto. They are safely on the pitch now so there goes our afternoon sun, what little there was.

Tonight it's “see what's in the fridge” for dinner, followed by wine, beer and House. SWMBO has been beaten a lot lately and last night said she would never lift a domino again in her lifetime, somehow I think she will come round, she's kinda addicted now. The high you get preventing your opponent playing their double six is too potent a brew, cribbage is just a shallow cousin.

Thursday 2^nd December 2010.

Got up late, had breakfast late, started washing, late.

Tony and Debs came down to the MS on the promise of coffee and cake and SWMBO told them a completely made up tale about me and a tea bag, which I will not go into here as it is slightly inflammatory to my character. The guy who Tony bought the now useless generator off has basically told him that he will not help in getting it operational again and that Tony should “go forth and multiply”, or words to that effect.

After a forecast of rain which never happened, it's been sunny all day. Everybody on the site are girding their loins ready for the invasion of the Spanish for their 4 day bank holiday (another one!) starting on Saturday 4^th December, apparently all the casa's (bungalows) are booked, don't know about how many RV's and caravans are coming but I'm sure it's going to be party time.

The WWW is again not pleased, she is not the happiest of people at the best of times and this news is not helping either. She can suck the very joy out of life, merely by opening her mouth, which she does, whenever she can. The last time the Spanish were here she complained about the “enjoyment” that was going around, I explained that technically this is their country and we are visitors, she threatened to set her dogs on me.

Lucky Luciano Tony B just came down to give us the news that he will not be getting his new axle anytime soon, as Old Mo, the guy who was supposed to be arriving in two weeks time with the axle, is now not coming. Apparently he fell over the A frame attached to his RV and broke some ribs a while ago and he is not improving therefore doesn't know if he's coming at all now. So Tony needs to get his dealer, after delivering it to Old Mo, to re-deliver to the site at PSJ. As T&D were planning to follow us to Roquetas early January, and now can't, it's not all bad news then.

Plan then is; Friday, is a run down to Gibraltar to see the things we missed last time round and fill up the truck with diesel, possible visit to Morrison's is probably on the cards.

Saturday is packing and getting ready for an early (?) start for the 260 mile run up to Roquetas so we can get there while it's still light and set the pitch up.

Friday 3^rd December 2010.



Where's my coffee, then?





Africa from Gibraltar



Went to Gibraltar and because of the lack of planes the runway was open to traffic so hardly any wait to get in. Straight to Morrison's and stocked up on all the things we just can't get in Spain or are too bloody expensive here, €3.80 for a Hovis loaf in Carrefour?

 

Europa Point



Sun was shining and so we had SMALL fish and chips and tea. Loaded up with diesel and it's the first time ever that a full tank cost less than £60, at 82p a litre that's hardly surprising. So we are full up for the off on Sunday. Went to an ATM and the money it gave me was Gibraltar's £'s, which as you may guess can only be spent in Gibraltar. So as cigarettes are £1.45 for twenty, there you go, if I sell them back in the UK I'll make a profit of £220 quid!

Got some Ginster pasties and Scotch eggs for Tony and Debs and as many boxes of rice crispies as I could carry. They also sold, cooked on the premises mind, steak & kidney pies, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Only bought four and how long they will last, as SWMBO eats big time (even when on her special diet) when she travels anywhere (Sunday), is anybody’s guess, bets are between 50 and 57 minutes.

Had a drive up to Europa Point and SWMBO broke her record for the most pictures taken in 3 hours, 320, mostly of seagulls, don't ask.

Dinner, dominoes, House and Penguin then bed.

Saturday 4^th December 2010.

Looks like the Spanish are staying away in droves as hardly any are here, so it's still nice and quiet.

Pack day and using our 55 point check list for leaving a pitch and site. Paid the bill, it worked out at €10/night inc. electric, Wi-Fi etc. so not bad at all.

Lucky Luciano Tony B actually drove down especially, on his quad, to tell us that the Spanish Air Controllers are on strike and we may not get back for Christmas even if the snow goes. Friends and bastids I have sailed with, was one of my Dad's favourite sayings, how apt. The Germans have a phrase for it “Schadenfreude”, look it up.

Borrowed Tony's ladder to clean all the pine tree crap off the roof and awnings and jammed my fingers in them, again! So we are now hitched up and all packed away so it's up to the restaurant for dinner with T&D.



Mini 5er



Just read something on the Motorhomefun forum, Zaskar, who is obviously a complete sad arse, has built a 43 to 1 replica of his Navara and 5er, same as ours, from Calder. This man probably has too much time on his hands and should stick to designing aeroplanes. The annoying thing it's a superb model and if ever I get to his place I'm going to steal it, I hate him!



Well with the snow at home coupled with freezing temperatures, Gatwick closed and now the Spanish Air Controllers are on strike, we'll be lucky to make it home on the 11^th.

Next blog will be from sunny Roquetas. It is 24°C there next week, which is a change from the 16°C we have been suffering here. It turns out we will be followed in about six weeks by our present neighbours, Peter & Jackie in the big RV, as they are also planning on Roquetas.

Hope we have an uneventful trip, i.e. no wheels fall off.

Monday 29th November 2010, PSJ and a washout.



It's a wet Monday



Rained all night and most of the day, still not cold, around 15 to 17°C and only drops to 12°C overnight. So as we were stuck in the MS, might as well do those “getroundtoit” jobs that we had been putting off. Which meant me fixing one of the blinds, which had gone wonky (10 minutes), and SWMBO designing and manufacturing a new tea caddy from a used coffee jar (3 hours and 42 minutes). That was about it and therefore read and generally lay about all day. Brightened a bit in the late afternoon and so we rushed off to our walk to Zahora beach, noticed the tide was very much in, so turned around and came back. All of this was interspersed with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don't know if I can take any more of this excitement!



The TEA caddy



It's stopped raining but our tree is doing it's time machine thing and it's still chucking it down for 20 yards around the MS, will go on for the next 10 minutes or so.

I'm sleeping a lot more lately, one reason is that every day is basically, a Sunday, and there is no reason to get up. But I've always been a 6 hour type of guy, all my life, no matter what time I go to bed, 6 hours later and I'm awake, unless it's been a late night and I've had a few and it's 2:30 in the morning (1997 was the last time I think) then I'm like any other person and find it very difficult to wake up for work. Ah! That's the other thing! Work, I don't do it any more, well not the paid for variety anyway. So after nearly 2 years of this, I'm finally getting into the rhythm of things and may sleep a little longer but I'll never get to the expert state that SWMBO has reached. 6 hours! Just got comfortable, 7 hours, still cuddling the now only warm Penguin, 8 hours, finally nodding off, 9 hours, dreaming of breakfast, 10 hours and something in the back of her mind is reminding her that there is quite possibly something else to do with her life, which she instantly dismisses, rolls over and goes back to sleep.

Last night, after dinner, all we have left to watch, DVD wise, is House, which is kinda getting better and they are finally not doing all the acting in one room in a hospital. So after the game of the Gods, which I won, watched two episodes and SWMBO, armed with a freshly filled, hot Penguin was off to bed.

I did a bit of surfing and read some stuff on various forums also listened / watched “Torn” by Johann Lippowitz with Natalie Imbruglia, good grief! I nearly broke my keyboard typing those names, what happened to Smith, Jones and buggerlugs, you know old fashioned English names. Anyway it's a good watch if you haven't seen it.

Tuesday 30^th November 2010, still raining here in PSJ.

Same as yesterday I guess, with the planned highlight of going to the supermarket?

It's 8:45 and just got back from SSS and you won't believe it! Those bastid mossies are back! Just shows you how cold it's not. Got in trap 4, sitting comfortably, turning to page 187 and one of them flies past my eyes. Now the buggers don't go “zeeeeep”, like normal ones. You know, you are lying in bed trying to nod off and “zeeeeep” as they fly past your ear, they do that out of sheer bloody mindedness, just to let you know they are around. You then spend all night awake in fear, drop off for 20 seconds and viola! 3 bites on your arse and neck.

These Zahora mossies are different, either they are equipped with tiny little silencers or they have figured out how to fly without making any noise at all. Bastids! Luckily I'm was still armed with my spray and the inside of the cubicle instantly became filled with a grey mist, the mossies died but I very nearly coughed myself to death in there aswell.

Dateline 9:53 am.

She's up! I accidentally knocked over her Jordan's box of porridge oats whist reaching for the coffee (which turned out to be TEA) and, thinking breakfast may be ready, she was there like a shot. When she discovered this was not the case, I was beaten incessantly by a fully filled, but cold, Penguin. As I passed out, all I heard was, “Well, I'm going back to bed, then”.



Zahora angry sky



Heavy cloud, no rain



Did the usual quick walk to Zahora beach, checked that the tide was in, it was so walked a bit towards Trafalgar and then back to PSJ via many large puddles.

Didn't make it to the supermarket so that's a treat to savour until tomorrow.

Tonight it's stir fry with a little white wine. Four more days here then we move on to Roquetas and hopefully less rain?

Saturday 27th November 2010, PSJ and it's chucking it down!

It's raining and blowing so hard I cannot see the end of the campsite or hear SWMBO cursing, because of the rain drumming on the roof, as she changes the sheets in the bedroom.

The rain and wind were here all night, and now for the rest of the day.

SWMBO wants to go for a picnic! How's that for tangential thinking!

I'm sorry but sitting in the car staring through steamed up windows (and not for the right reasons) eating egg and tomato sandwiches and drinking warm tea, is not something I'm even remotely interested in. She has said if we don't go she will spend all day on-line shopping at John Lewis, ummm....... tricky.

So I guess it's going to be Christmas shopping using my credit card and “saving” me hundreds of £'s.

Just been to SSS and now it's cooler I've been forced into wearing track suit bottoms instead of shorts, not because of the actual temperature drop more to do with the women cleaning the shower block laughing at me, I assume it is the shorts. I mentioned before and I know they are more practical, but wearing dressing gowns as you traipse off to the bog is just not my thing, I find it a bit parochial.

Mind, getting your trousers on after a shower and not getting them wet, especially if they are lined, is an art in itself. First there's no seat to sit down in there, so you end up hoping around with one leg in, gainfully trying to find the right entrance to get the other one in, banging off the walls, shower gel and shampoo being scattered to to hell and gone. When you're finished, you've put them on backwards and are in such a sweat, you need another shower!

Of course when naked the mossies can have, and do have, a field day and while you are bending down to run them off your legs, they are biting your arse!

I take a canister of insect killer in with me now, go in the bog, quick spray and watch the mossies literally fall out of the air, sit down and you're doing your business, but not in abject fear any more, even started taking my book again. Must admit though I get some funny looks walking up to the shower/toilet block with my towel, washing bag, a bright orange 10 inch canister of “something” and Douglas Adams's tome “The long dark tea time of the soul”, under my arm.

Used a different shower today, just for a change, went in, blasted about a dozen of the blood sucking bastids, got the shower to a comfortable setting and carried out the necessary requirements. Now shower heads, after a while, get blocked with dirt or lime scale or whatever and the shower spray, instead of mainly going vertically down, mainly doesn’t and little mini sprays go all over the place.

Sometimes it's a self checking mechanism, you take your clothes off, press the button, stand back and a stream of freezing cold water, jetting out at 45° from vertical gets you in your nether regions and you are jumping about avoiding the cold sprays until the button runs out of time. So next time you know where to stand until the water warms up.

This shower was very clever however because it had a slight time delay build in. So follow procedure until water is hot, gets under, wash and then luxuriate under the hot shower with your back pressed against the button, keeping it on, for a further 5 minutes.

Dry with towel, reach for, yep, soaking wet strides that have been under an errant water spray for 10 minutes. Throw them on floor, get into them, doesn’t matter which bloody way round they are and trudge unhappily back to the MS in the pouring rain. “Bit wet are we?” from SWMBO, doesn’t help either.

Now that the free TV is working I can get to watch Match Of The Day, but as it starts 11:30pm over here I usually fall asleep after the first match, also “Turn that bloody thing off, I'm trying to get some sleep you stupid idiot!” means watching it that late is a no go. Therefore need to watch it at a more reasonable time on Sunday morning but again if that interferes with SWMBO's eggs and soldiers I'm in deep shit, between the devil and the deep blue, aren’t I.

Great Scott! I've just stitched all my blogs together, from February 2009 when we got the MS until now and the statistics, with jokes and pictures taken out, are a little daunting, to say the least.

220 pages, 130k words and more than half a million individual letters, could be a book in here somewhere?

Sunday 28^th November 2010.

Sunderland got beat 3-2 at Wolves, damn!

We both had a serious portion of my famous chicken curry last night, actually made without curry power but using basic ingredients and tasted very nice thankyou. Not looking forward to the application of preparation “H” to the Chalfonts later on. However, because already there are rumblings going on, I'm putting on my running shoes as a precaution.

SWMBO gave me orders last night that she would forgo her usual eggs and soldiers and have scrambled eggs and smoked salmon instead, it's a rough life she's got. She also told me to get her up no matter what, at 8 o'clock to get the washing started, it's now 9:15 am and all I got when I gave her a gentle shake earlier was “Sod off!” Trying to undo the vice like grip she has on the duvet is virtually impossible accompanied with the cry of “Noooooooooooooooooo, leave me alone”.

A German guy decided to move his Mercedes Hymer motorhome and car trailer to another pitch because his TV reception wasn't very good where he was. Problem was he decided to do it at 6pm, in the dark, nutty or what? So he ended up and I mean up, to his chassis in sand and mud and therefore blocking the road. This morning he got his car off the trailer and buggered off leaving his motorhome where it stood, or rather, lay, to wait for the site's tractor to turn up and pull it out.

Washing today as it's sunny and warm and because the rain starts again tomorrow for the rest of the week, so picnics, trips to Gibraltar and the like are now just wistful thoughts. We have two washing lines up now as it is bed sheet washing as well as the normal stuff. I attached one end of the new line to the awning and the other to a thin tree about 20 m away, the wind is getting up and both ends are looking decidedly dodgy and I'm beginning to wish I had used sturdier mounting points!

Tomorrow's Monday and back to the rain.

Wednesday 24th November 2010, PSJ and the rain is here.

Yep, for a week at least. Not exactly a downpour more like steady drizzle then stop for a while. Slight negative we have is that we are parked under one of the largest pine trees on the site and so we get to have our own miniature weather system. Works like this, raining stops, but our tree has amassed hundred's of litres on it's pines and branches and so when everybody else is walking around in the dry, we are getting rained on for twenty minutes more.

Our tree

Shop etc.

The PSJ site

After being beaten again recently, last night I went back to my G&T (she gets drunk quickly on G&T's) strategy and beat her 3 – 0 and ended up dodging dominoes, all round the MS, as she threw them at me.

This rain reminded me of when we lived “in”, for the first year of my sentence, with SWMBO's mother, “MEGA” SWMBO. In a large miner's house, in a small village called Whitburn, on the north east coast of England,. Nearby, close to the famous Marsden Rock, was Souter Lighthouse. It rained a lot up there and M SWMBO had a saying, “If you cannot see Souter Lighthouse, it's raining, and if you can actually see Souter Lighthouse, it's about to rain”.

One thing about a lighthouse is that it comes with a very large fog horn and you may not be able to see it but you can hear it well enough. So when it was foggy, in between the rain, living less than a mile from the bloody thing was tantamount to all night torture. The sound it made was blasted miles out to sea, which of course is what's it's designed for. Trouble was when it stopped at say, 3:30 am, you couldn't get to sleep again because by now you missed it!

It was a great help, especially financially, as we were able to save for the deposit on our very first house, which turned out to be in...................NEWCASTLE!, oh the shame! Now going from a single fire house in Sunderland to a fire in almost every room (not Tricia's for some reason, so we had to snuggle) because as a Coal Board house, you got free coal. So on a freezing cold evening in say late July, instead of tamping down the fires M SWMBO would open the windows!

They had a dog called Mac, my nemesis, more much later.

One day we sat down to Sunday dinner and when finished I noticed a single Yorkshire pudding left on the tray and as they are up there with sex and Sunderland AFC, I grabbed it and it was gone.

The look I got from M SWMBO was withering, I could actually feel gonads retreating into my body cavity. “That was Mac's Yorkshire pudding!” What! A pudding for a dog! I'm sorry, I like dogs don't get me wrong, but a dog eats dog food, not human food, and especially not Yorkshire puddings! This was the first of many such run ins and that bloody dog was at the bottom of all of them.

It was actually in Whitburn Church I was first cursed at, “Do you take this woman.......”.

Thought I had a sty in my eye the other day but it's turned out to be a bloody mossie bite, how can that be? How can it land on my eyelid, suck gallons (not litres mind) of blood out of it and I don't feel a thing? After a recent visit to Mercadona the other day we are even more armed to the teeth with some extra sprays to go with the little lighty up thingies. I bet you are not suffering many mossies back in Sussex, minus 6 last night wasn't it?

So we are planning on reading and sitting around a lot and going for the odd drive to “interesting” places. A revisit to Gibraltar's shopping and cheap petrol is not out of the question either. That's the beauty of a 5^th wheel set up over a large RV, we’ve got a vehicle to do things like that. A large RV cannot easily “pop to the shops”, or “let's have a drive round Cadiz's narrow streets”, and if it's peeing down, cycles are not really user friendly either.

So it looks like a drive to Medina-Sidonia, a small town about 25 miles due north, across to the lakes for a picnic and then back, total distance about 70 miles.

Thursday 25^th November 2010, PSJ and it's not raining yet.

It's 7:15 am, I'm up she's not and won't be for most of the morning, main reason being she decided to have one (or five) of my 5.6% strength beers. Which meant that after demanding to watch Zulu, with all those semi naked big black men (no, silly they were in it, well I hope they were) she also issued orders that bread should be unfrozen and sandwiches made. Crabsticks and egg and tomato topped the list, with lots of mayonnaise. Then it was, sweets, nuts and chocolate until I finally herded her off to bed, sans Penguin hot water bottle, 'cos she couldn't feel a thing by now.

So I'm sitting here typing this and all I can hear from the bedroom is whistles, burps and snoring interspersed with the odd grunt and sigh thrown in. Better get the kettle on about noon.

Around noon we decided to go for a cycle ride as the threatened midday rain didn't look like it was going to happen. So set off in the general direction of Vejer and the “yellow brick road”. Turned onto a narrow track just after a very steep hill, which Tricia had to walk the last bit (wimp!), and after about 100 m it turned to the most glutinous mud you have ever seen. It got so bad we turned round but by this time my wheels would not go round as the mud had jammed under the mud guards. (not, apparently, so aptly named, I would ask?)

Took us a while to get going and by now we were both, and the bikes, covered in mud. The picture was taken “after” I had cleaned off enough to move the thing. Still managed nearly 9 miles, so something. It took nearly 4 hours to complete the job as for some reason we became as popular as ice cream on a hot day, no we were not selling ice cream and it was not exactly hot, merely warm. We are at the very bottom of the camp site, otherwise know as, anti social bastids corner. We don't care, we like the quiet and therefore people need to go out of their way to talk to us. Well, for some reason, today they decided to come down for a chat. It was like Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday! They were almost queuing up!

Eventually SWMBO's low sugar levels kicked in and she was gone. Inside the MS to cook up some lunch and I joined her, back out to finish the job and there's someone else!

Eventually got finished, showered, dinner, a large G&T for SWMBO and then it was one episode of “Edge of Darkness”, you can't sit through two as you would tend to slit your throat, it's pretty dire and depressing in places. Then finish off with two episodes of “House”, which involved a young child dying of cancer and a black guy suffering from a flesh eating disease, to cheer us up.

Friday 26^th November, 2010, PSJ waiting for the deluge.

Apparently the week end is going to be a wash out, literally that is. Saturday, they are predicting 55 mm (almost 2.5 “ in old money) so cycling and walking are right out and lying down and reading is going to be the thing.

Got up 7'ish and went for SSS and as I was shaving remembered my daughter, Heather or Mini SWMBO as she is sometimes known, telling me that if I did not do a good job of shaving the hairs in my nose I'll look like an old crusty git. Now I'm now using my new “6” bladed wet shaver, obviously the old “3” bladed shaver was useless. How did my Dad manage with just a single one, perhaps he started the original trend of having a permanent stubble, who knows? (pun?) Anyway, so I stuck the 6 bladed thing up my right nostril and “Hey Presto!” and my nose is in bits, blood everywhere and the mossies are scrambling around for a piece of the action. So the middle S is off the SSS menu for a while until it heals up.

The new regime of using the Nationwide credit card for everything seems to be working. As they (NW) now charge for using their debit card for any transactions in Europe, but don't for credit card transactions, we use the latter. Seems utterly stupid I know.

In the past I have always paid cash and only use credit cards as a last act, because as my Mum used to say “You know where you are then”. Now admittedly she was Irish and used to come out with some strange sayings, as I've mention in previous blogs, “If I'm in, I'm in and if I'm out, I'm out”, was one of her more clearer ones but “You know where you are then”, has always stumped me.

Still it's working and has an added benefit; I now keep a spreadsheet (I know, how sad is that) and keep a record to the precise cent on how much we spend, keeping an eye on the cash coming in from pensions and rent. So by careful manipulation and the fact that I've got bugger all else to do, I can maximise the amount we keep in savings. Obviously the 5 day wait at either end of paying in and out and the “massive” interest rates we get now are not really conjusive to this practice and hardly worthwhile. But if I can save even 50 cents a month, I don't care, just so those bastids can't have it. Mind you the, savings account I ship it to is owned by Santander, so it's just another set of “banking” bastids who have got it, shit!

Tricia was washing up after breakfast and suddenly let out a yelp. The path was awash with cattle, with those BIG horns, and is the one we regularly use when going for a walk in the “natural park”. They were running along it and up the verges, so if we were on it at the time I don't know what we would have done except that if we had survived SWMBO would have been in therapy for months!

Saturday 20th November 2010, Pinar San Jose and it's peaceful.

Saturday to me always means sport, mainly football. I played it until I couldn't any more, I was 45 and after a hard game would take the whole of the next week to recover and then get bashed to bits again. Playing as a slightly undersized centre half means you've got to use more devious ways to get the better of the centre forward whose legs and nose you're trying to reconfigure. Of course you end up with being just as knackered as him. I was once asked, “How are you going to manage that centre forward, he's a bit quick, you know?” “Yes, but how fast can he limp?”

So playing had to go and be replaced by just watching instead. Today, being Saturday I'm going to watch, for the first time in Spain, Football Focus, and I'm hoping they show the 3 goals Sunderland put past Chelsea as I still haven't seen them yet.

Today is overcast so I don't know what's planned exercise wise and as I see Scotland are playing South Africa, followed by Ireland v New Zealand, I might just stop in and watch. Only time I put the TV on is for the sport. So that is what we did, both exciting matches especially with Scotland beating RSA, even SWMBO liked it. Unfortunately “Strictly” followed and I was made to endure an hour of that. Then “Pearl Harbour” with Ben Aflick, no silly he was in it.

Sunday 21^st November 2010 and she is tucked up having her eggs and soldiers as usual. Beautiful day outside, site has a lot more people, mostly Brits and a lot more dogs.

She's allowing me to prepare this evening's dinner, beef casserole, using the slow cooker for the first time, so that could be interesting. In Spain all the supermarkets sell “soup/casserole packs”, basically all the vegetables you need in almost the right quantities, which is great because you do not then need to buy large packs of celery or leeks as they are not sold loose. I don't believe I'm typing this, you know.

Earlier this morning and as I was making my way for the SSS, the cleaning girls arrived. Now I mentioned this before on a previous epistle, but I don't like washing my vitals when two Spanish women are just outside with their mops and speaking a lot of Spanish, says so in the scriptures, doesn't it? So I made my weary way on to the next block. Hells teeth! No the wonder the lot up the top are complaining about being bitten, it was full of bloody mossies.

I then made a BIG mistake and forgot rule number one when it comes to using public toilets. I had just gotten comfortable, newspaper opened to the sports section on my knees, correct grip on the straining bars and as I prepared for the first big push of the day, looked down to my right at the dispenser and noticed, or in this case didn't notice, any toilet paper.

Obviously, certain actions, and this was certainly one of them, once started are difficult to stop and have a causality with many of the big mistakes I have made in my life. ALWAYS CHECK THE TOILET PAPER is rule number one, always has been and I cannot believe I missed it, unfamiliar surroundings? Different trap orientation? The happy memory of Newcastle being beaten by Bolton 5 – 1? Who knows? But I was now in a situation and there was no one about to help. So what was it to be? Continue on, hoping for final tapered turd and no paperwork needed, or, stop asap and go for the 111's decorated on the walls and door solution?

You will never know.

Plan now is to drive to El Palmar, park up, and then find the path to walk to Conil from there, get back and there's (hopefully) a nice beef casserole waiting in the slow cooker, may do some Yorkshire puddings. Worked out about 6 miles round trip.



El Palmar beach



So that's what we did. Path is there and, at a push can be cycled on, although there are bits that are too sandy and you will have to shove the thing. Ran into a marked off “private” bit of land and as it was full of cows with very large horns, neither of which Tricia is fond of, we made a detour along the beach. Obviously turns out the Spanish just ignore these signs and on the way back, so did we. Tricia actually walked within a few feet of cattle for the first time in her life! So it was into Conil, coffee at a beach side café, watched the guys doing their thing windsurfing and then back.

Looks easy?

It's a hard life but someone has to do it.

Monday 22^nd November.

The slow cooked beef casserole was excellent, we had it with boiled cauliflower. Watched “About Schmidt” with Jack Nicholson, no he was in it, OK'ish. Then a episode of House, second series, then Tricia went to bed and I listened to my walkman until 1:30 am and managed to haul my sorry arse out of bed at a rather late 8 am.

Washing is planned today as rain is forecast for the next few days.

We have kinda decided, because the weather is cooler now, to give the trip to Tangier a knock on the head, maybe go next time we're here, next October? We will have another trip down to Gibraltar, if only to fill up with Diesel and have a visit to Morrison’s, which we missed last time, and get the English things we really like and can't get anywhere in Spain.



Tricia the geologist?




Flora





Trafalgar towards Canos



Walked “the other way” to Trafalgar and back along the beach, warm'ish but 3 miles along loose sand and we are both knackered. Fish and asparagus tonight followed by “Edge of Darkness”.



Trafalgar beach



Tomorrow's shopping at Mercadona.