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.

Monday 15th November 2010, PSJ and all is well.

That's right, the sun and moon can return to their rightful orbits, plants can again breathe in CO2 and exhale oxygen, all is back to normal. I beat her 3-1 last night and Sunderland beat Chelsea AT Chelsea 3-0. What a day! I'm as happy as a happy person drinking happy beer in happy hour.

Back to tedium, washing followed by emptying and filling tanks. Shopping, Eroski is for some reason shut and therefore Mercadona is jam packed, so Dias it is.



Not much else, not even a walk and before you know it, it's dinner time and a few episodes of “House”, is he never wrong?

Won again, 3-0, giving dominoes up now I'm on a winning streak.

Tuesday 16^th November.

Cold'ish this morning and SWMBO had no intention of getting out of a warm bed and entering the “fridge”, the MS, as she puts it. I made the fateful mistake of re-filling her penguin hot water bottle. She is now, to all sense and purpose, “welded” to the bed and mumbling about tog numbers.



I'm having tinned, in their own juices, mixed fruit and banana for breakfast this morning and she's not happy because I should be eating fresh stuff. As all we have is apples, oranges, pears, grapes and bananas, so there's no contest. I mean, a few years back and the closest I got to eating fruit was fortified wine, so there's some improvement!

I guess I'm finally in “Spain mode”, there are signs you know.

Doing, or even thinking, about jobs such as cleaning etc., take on the speed of coastal erosion, driving on the right seems natural, feeling cheated when you can't sunbathe until 10 o'clock in the morning, more cheated when you have to come in at 5pm, UHT milk is preferred to fresh, food tastes great, always, stress (what's that?), no timescales for anything, tired of the surroundings or people? Move on, being part of and trying to get to grips with, another culture, get up early (7:30 am) for a shower or lay in till 10am (SWMBO) and have one then, ho hum.



More shells?



Oh no! Not another day in paradise!

Today we are trying to decide whether to drive 8 miles to Mercadona in Conil or 9 miles to Lidl in Barbate or perhaps use the cycles? That's how motorhomers like us blow our minds, with monumental decisions like that. As SWMBO has just started to put the sun cream on, I think she is leaning towards doing bugger all. Decisions, decisions! Eventually did neither and went for a walk along Zahora's 6 mile beach, in shorts and T shirts, collecting seashells against a blue, blue sky and a warm sun.

As we were walking along six women appeared, walking along the sand from the general direction of Zahora. Then one comes over to us and I quickly get hold of Tricia's hand in case thy drag her off and have they wicked way with her, I don't, so they may aswell have a go. Anyway, so this woman asks, in a Irish accent, can they get to El Palmar beach from here. Turns out they are a bunch of waitresses from a hotel in London on a weeks holiday and staying in Vejer, still you never know.

In about 16 days we up sticks and move on to our over winter site in Roquetas, near Almeria. Where it's a tad warmer (on the Mediterranean sea, not Atlantic) and then a few days after setting up fly back to the UK for Heather's 30^th, Joyce's 80^th, Christmas and New Year.

Now tomorrow, Wednesday, 17^th November.

Internet off again so I don't know when I'll get this posted, T&D are off to Gibraltar, staying over in a hotel, for a couple of days so it'll be quiet round here. Also, the forecast is rain today but improving again tomorrow.

All the pitches here are grass, no hard-standing, which is OK when dry, which is most of the time, but when it rains some of the bigger motorhomes can sink in and have to be towed out. So the Spanish have decided to put dual rows of slabs onto each pitch. Thing is, all they do is cut the turf away and lay the slabs, no hardcore or anything.

What you do when it's raining

Get some slabs down the Juan?

So this big tag axle motorhome comes in, drives onto the newly laid slabs and just presses them into the earth so they end up pointing vertically upwards and the wheels slide into the ground between them. In fact one of the things the Spanish are definitely not good at is roads, lots of the newly laid country roads are falling to bits already. Driving to Gibraltar the other day was a nightmare, thank God they do a proper job on their motorways and bridges.

Then again the local road into Conil collapsed down a hill two years ago, now that bit is a very tight chicane.

At the moment it's 12:10 pm, raining outside, I'm listening to Jose Feliciano's “Come First of May”, SWMBO is trying to actually name some of the 3,000 odd photographs she's taken so far and telling me to keep quiet as she is concentrating and “Turn that bloody racket off!” She's not a great music lover unless it's her favourite Andrea bloody Botticelli, and she can't get enough him!

The “slab” workers have ceased working and, because of the rain, are now parked in the toilet block smoking and drinking coffee whilst the rain gathers momentum.

I have a feeling we will be having a field trip to San (biddy biddy bon bon) Fernando and Carrefour.

Internet came on just then, for about 10 seconds, and decided not to bother, apparently it always goes wonky when it rains, how's that work then? Or rather, doesn't in this case.

Went to Carrefour for milk, cheese and some beer, somehow managed to spend €65?

Thursday 18^th November and although the rain has gone and the sun is shining, it feels cold. Average noon temperature is about 16°C but it still feels chilly so may give the planned cycle ride to Conil a miss and a walk on the beach may be a warmer choice. Problem recently is that we are getting a lot of condensation because SWMBO demands that any orifice connected to the outside world be tightly shut, i.e. doors, windows and vents. This also means that we sometimes get mould, which is not a good thing. On the advice of Zaskar, a fellow Calder 5'er owner, who is at present ensconced in a very large hanger, not designing aeroplanes, whilst waiting for his P45 to come gliding through the window. He said that we should keep open a vent “no matter how cold it gets”.

Well we tried it last night, with the outside temperature dropping to a scrotum weathering, 14°C.

No matter the temperature I sleep naked, always have done, never get cold. As soon as the hot water bottle is cold and thrown all the way to the kitchen, SWMBO latches on to me like a clam. No, no, more like a bloody octopus, wrapping her appendages around me, never of course touching any part of my body that might cause a tad of excitement or for me to raise an eyebrow in anticipation. All this through a penguin embroidered winceyette nightdress, flannel pyjamas and face cream, don't know how Adam and Heather were ever born.

About 3 pm we started to go for our shell collecting walk along Zahora beech when we noticed Tony and Debbie arriving back, a little earlier than expected from their overnight stop in Gibraltar.

They had been down to our pitch the other day and we were telling them all about all the best bits to see, or avoid, in Gibraltar. BTW it's not spelt with a “r” at the end, over here. They were planning on staying a night in a hotel so that they could park OK as they were taking their two quads with them. Tony had managed to buy and get delivered to the site, a pair of ramps to enable him to do this, then they would have the quads to drive around the “Rock”.

He asked me if I wanted any “sausages”, which I correctly interpreted as “do I want any cheap cigarettes?” Obvious to any person of the male persuasion and, in this instance, used to confuse the enemy, er..sorry, the womenfolk. “Two”, I said, obviously referring to 2 x 200. Now SWMBO is not swift at the best of times but she must have put extra thickness in her hair dye that day as she asked if I preferred Cumberland or some other sort. I said, “filtered”. As they were leaving she said to Tony that she didn't think Morrisons would sell just two sausages and he should get six, in a pack. She never did actually get it till he got back.

Now we had already nicknamed Tony “The Doctor”, see previous posts. Now he has a new name, Tony “Lucky Luciano” Burton. He cannot be, by any stretch of the imagination, be called, in any possible manner, fortunate in life.

I have mentioned them before but just a small recap since he started fulltiming, with Debs, in May this year.

Expansion tank on his pickup exploded, lost a wheel on his fifth wheel, bought a pair of 7 foot Kayaks that turned out to be as useful as chocolate teapots, his “brand new”, well unused for a year, £900 generator blew up, after been used twice, to mention only a few.

All of the aforementioned, lapsed into nothing with the advent of the next 48 hours.

Taking ages to get the quads on, as you can see, dosen't look that easy and then sets off, it's pissing down. Get to Gibraltar and as they go through customs “What's that on the back of your car, Sir?” “Toothbrushes? What do they bloody well look like mate?” Was probably not the best answer.

“Banned here Sir, they are, only used by drug smugglers and low life”. And there's Debbie with her best frock on and all. They had a choice, turn round and go back forfeiting the Hotel deposit or unload them and park them somewhere. “They'll be gone when you get back though, tell you what, you've got an honest face (is he blind), I'll let you leave them at customs, safe there.” So Tony (LL) unloads them and is escorted by police to the pound then they drive to the hotel. Get in, unpacks and drive through the downpour to Morrisons and get; English muffins, chocolate, sweets, rice crispies (for me) and other foodstuffs, about £200 worth.

Go back, unload groceries into hotel room and walk through the pissing rain and gloom to get some fish and chips, sit down to one small and one medium cod and chips, and then there's a power cut. Not the whole island mind, just them, just their side of the street. Debbie still dosen't know if she ate all of her chips or some packets of salt. Can anything else go wrong? In a word yes.

Quads after a nice run out to Gib and back, unused.

Get back to hotel room and upon opening the door, Tony (LL) thinks that they have been robbed because everything they have just bought is half eaten and strewn all over the place, I know you've guessed it, yep some, may have been only one, Apes had casually opened the door on the balcony, stepped in and rifled the place. As he looked up, there was one of the culprits sitting on his balcony. Apparently a woman in the next room, wondering about all the noise (steady Debs) had looked round to see an Ape sitting on the balcony eating a large bar of recently purchased, Cadbury's chocolate! Back to Morrisons then.



Two things Tony (LL) never wants to see together again



Got up the next day, sunny this time, bit of shopping then back to re-load the quads and back to PSJ via a cheap petrol station in Gibraltar. Looking back Tony said, “At least I had a bath, haven't had one for six months!”

You can't make this up.

Friday 19^th November and another day unfurls.

Thursday 11th November 2010, PSJ and I'm losing the will to live.

Yes she's beaten me at dominoes three nights bloody running, also haven’t won at Ludo or draughts for weeks, now even eyeing “Picka-sticks” but I'm also useless at that so no go. She won't play chess or backgammon so I'm going to take up solitaire on the PC.

BTW, temperature plummeted to 15°C last night and the wind howling by at 5 mph, how's it back there. Heard it was a bit “windy”?

Washing followed by a cycle through to El Palmar to find a path that we can cycle to Conil, yep it does exist so maybe do that on Saturday. Tomorrow it's a trip down to Gibraltar, might get a steak and kidney pie at Morrisons, best in the world.

Tonight it's Perch (fish again) along with that tin of weird Spanish green beans that we have had for about a year and cost €5 a tin!

Friday 12^th November 2010.

Couldn't get up this morning. I'm mentally shattered, in a stupor, have no feeling in my arms at all.

Beaten 3 – 1 last night and she finished off the last game with the double six, leaving me with the three two and double blank. Just can't go on.

Phoned the local “Phone in Doctor chat line” and was told I was suffering from scotomaphobia and was offered online therapy or online counselling if I can't seem to make it through the day. It's defined as the fear of spots before the eyes and usually given to those poor sods who roll out of the Working Man's clubs, up north, after playing dominoes all night.

She, the doctor, therefore warned me to keep away from all things with spots on them, so if I come across a Leopard, eating chocolate chip cookies and playing dominoes I was to close my eyes and count to ten or all my teeth would fall out. I was also warned that it could lead on to Eurotophobia- fear of playing cards, so I better give Cribbage a miss for a week or so. I looked it up and I think she's got hold of the wrong end of the stick, it means fear of females, but she could be right, SWMBO was, at the last count, female.

Mind you, I've only got myself to blame. I remember years ago, talking to my Mum as she lay on her deathbed at The Sunderland Royal Infirmary for the Criminal Insane and River Wideners, “Son”, she said finishing off her Guinness and stubbing out a Golden Virginia roll up on the whippet's head. “Never go out with any woman who has any understanding of the finer points of the laws of Dominoes”. “And if she knows how to play fives and threes, run for your life!” Wise words, unwisely ignored.

Friday 12^th November 2010, actually Saturday 1am, as the hundreds of Spanish that arrived today are having a festival, 50 yards from where we are, drums, whistles, guitars, casternettes and all, due to last the week-end. Tricia went to bed with pink cotton wool stuffed in her ears, I'm using a bottle of white wine and a couple of beers, no not in my ears, I'm going to drink them.

So Gibraltar!

Managed to leave about 11'ish and drove the pretty way down to Gibraltar, i.e. to Vejer and then A2226 to the A381 and the A7 into the city, parked in La Linea at 2€/hour, it turned out. Reason was there was a huge tail back into Gibraltar, we found out later it was due to aircraft landings. The airfield is across the road into the place. Next time check airport timetables. Before we left we had been given strict instructions from Debbie to get some “Ginster” pasties and scotch eggs for Tony, sadly this did not happen, more later.

Bought day rover bus ticket at the border for £1.50 and was transported the half mile into town, considering the traffic it would have been better to walk. First port of call was Casement Square, full of closed in markets, restaurants and shops, SWMBO made for the glass blowing exhibition!

We then walked along Main Street and other than the blue sky and hot sun, we could have been back in England. Everywhere was English voices and when you come across M&S, that's practically home. Except they drive on the right! Wandered along, noticing all the “usual” shops, got some £'s at an ATM and no charge! Eventually arrived at Red Sands Road and the start of the cable car. £2.50 each way to the top or pay £17.50 for all the attractions and “one way”.

It turns out that when you finally arrive at “The Great Siege” tunnels, no one in their right mind would want to walk back up to the top and the cable car, because “The Rock”, as it's 426 m high (1,400 feet in old money) and you are already half way down by now. Each “attraction” was about £10 and overpriced if you paid that, so the “all in” £17.50 each was basically OK. Well it turns out that it's not quite “all in”, as when you climb the almost vertical road to see the “Top of the Rock” gun battery, it's an additional £7.50 each.

When we first arrived at the top of the cable car Tricia really wanted to see the Gibraltar's apes or Barbary Macaques asap. We were told on the way up and via notices at the top, not to feed them and do not carry food in bags, unfortunately a French family, with a 5 year old, obviously did not understand and as soon as we arrived the baby food bag, the woman was carrying, was snatched by a Macaque. It immediately jumped up, with it's prize, onto the wall next to SWMBO, she was just a tad surprised to say the least. Photographs were then taken by the bucketload. If fact she outdid herself this time and the total was 240 for the day, a small fraction here.



From the top





St Michael's cave



The German & SWMBO



Because she was off with the camera and I was using the video, we were mostly apart from each other and this German hooked up with her thinking she was on her on. Me? I don't care, maybe he'll buy a coffee and cake and save me the money, I mean he won't get anywhere, I'm married to her and I don't, so good luck to him. Anyway after a futile 30 minutes on his part she finally caught up with me and the penny dropped for him. He then pointed to the poppies we were wearing and asked what they were for. When SWMBO, who is probably more patriotic than the Queen and does enjoy the odd war film when tons of Germans are killed, told him what they were for, we didn't see him again.

Bit of shopping at the top, real English tea and apple pie with ice cream.

So we went to all the bits you should go to and were either climbing up steep bits or going down them, in fact the “down” parts were the worst causing cramps in my calf’s.

The views from the top were truly magnificent!



Scary Xmas or what!



So we walked about half way down, SWMBO backwards most of the way, and finally spotted a bus which got us back to the town centre.

She had been planning to finish off the day with fish and chips and mushy peas. So we went into “The Rock” chippy in the square and ordered large Haddock, chips and peas for her and Cod and chips for me, tea of course. Hint, large isn't large, it's a whale and was absolutely bloody gorgeous!

I managed to finish mine, all but two chips, Tricia's “double Haddock” proved too much for her. After eating all that we just could not be bothered to drag our weary arses the mile to Morrisons and back. Sorry Debs, no Ginster.



Now Gibraltar is basically duty/tax free and some things, tourist stuff is always an exception, are very cheap. Cigarettes are £1.50 for twenty, booze is half price and diesel is 0.83p / litre. So it's almost compulsory, to drive around a lot, drunk and dying of lung cancer. Smoking seemed almost obligatory! So you get thousands of Spanish, walking / driving over the border and buying all the tax free goods. Shouldn’t it be the other way around, that's what I used to go to Spain for?



Hello and welcome





Traffic on the way back due to the Spanish police stopping all the cars exiting and checking the occupants, illegals, who knows? So took nearly two hours to cover the 60 mile journey on unlit, badly marked, twisty roads, use the motorway next time.



Er........Runway?



Saturday 13^th November. (beaten 3-2, don't ask)

The Spanish have more or less covered the bottom half of the site and music can be heard almost constantly all day and as the live band is due this evening, can only get louder.

Went out in the Navara for a little shopping, no rice crispies so may be back to corn flakes soon.



Then a cycle ride toward Canos de Meca, about 3 miles and then back via the Natural Park. A little dog decided to tag along and it looked like he was going to follow us all the way back to the MS. Came to a stile and had to manhandle the bikes through it, whilst doing so took off my helmet and hung it on a post. Sets off and were pounced upon by a bunch of dogs from a local house, no real problem but “Pedro” the dog was terrified and just stayed where he was, so we were rid of him.

Gets back to MS and “Where's your helmet?” “Bugger, let's walk back”. Guess what? Twenty minutes and Pedro was still there and very glad to see us and dutifully followed back to the MS, bugger again. Tried to palm him off with T&D but no go. He then wandered off and we see him now and again around the campsite, trying to cadge food from the Spanish, SWMBO is worried he's lost, he's a dog, he'll sniff his way home.

A few months ago, after giving the oven a good sorting, thermocouple wise, I thought, one less thing, er.. not.



Tonight whilst cooking my oven chips to go with my superb (but not hot enough, so SWMBO could still eat it) chilli, the oven went out, don't know for how long, so I just pressed the igniter. Obviously the only bloody thermocouple I had not changed was the one on the oven and it wasn't in a go situation i.e. FUBAR (look it up) So gently press igniter....BOOM! Oven door crashes open and nearly breaks my shin and now have chips scattered all over the MS. They tasted a bit of carpet fibres but otherwise OK.

Going to try my hand once more at dominoes, have I no shame? Then “My Cousin Vinnie” with Joe Pesci, no silly he's the one in it. Then beer, wine and ear muffs for bed.

Tomorrow is eggy day, again!



Sunday 14^th November and SWMBO has been “egged” and is more happy and reading in bed, it's 9:45 am.

To use an often spoken term in southern England and a double negative to boot, “I ain't doing nofin today”. In fact it applies to both of us because climbing up and down Gibraltar's steep roads, combined with yesterday’s cycle / walk, we are both well and truly knackered. So plan is to sunbathe, yes at 20°C and sunny we can still do the mid November, and read all day.

Pedro appeared early this morning, sniffing round the MS but on my way to the showers I saw him playing with the Spanish kids on the tennis court, he was 5 games to 2 up, in the first set when I left.



Unfortunately SWMBO has been making statements to the effect “Isn't he sweet”, etc. no way. But if he is still around when the Spanish go this afternoon, we will stick him in the car and drop him where he picked us up.

The Spanish are here!

For the first time in two years I've just watch MOTD, in Spain, on Sunday morning, because the TV aerial thingy now works. 56 digital channels including 7 British ones, probably watch the F1 final later on.



When you get older, you forget what it's like having small children about when you’ve had a skinfull the night before. The Spanish, mostly the men, are sitting about holding their heads in their hands and moaning, whilst their kids, who on the whole tend not to drink, are running around (with Pedro) screaming their heads off.

Happy days.