Christmas 2010 and now 6th January 2011

Thursday 16^th December 2010, Forest Row and the Monkeys are searching for lost bits of their anatomy.

Bloody cold it is.

The following is more a diary notation than my normal blog as I cannot seem to get in the spirit and the general piss taking is not the same when I'm up to my arse in snow instead of lounging in the warm Spanish sun.

Well after getting our €20 “free” lift from Henk, left 20 minutes late from sunny warm Almeria to arrive two and a half hours later, at 1pm in freezing cold Gatwick. Claudio, picked up in his Porsche and this time it was a free ride.

As we entered the house Adam was “starting” to vacuum, I ended up doing it, what changes?

Got my hair cut, every three months, about time I guess.

Going for a walk?

Our house



Still walking

 Glad to be home except for the cold and it took a little while to remember where everything was again, kept on going to the wrong drawer, in the kitchen, for knives and forks etc. Started on the list of “it's not working Dad”, which included the washing machine and dryer, fixed, clean the filters? Switched the mains driven front door chime back on, working again? Etc., Etc. Dryer was fixed by putting the filters back in the right way round. Telephone on the blink, switch off and reset, job done. TV had lost all it's channels, re-tune. Adam's car, which is now back on the road after his crash in the snow last week, is back on the road and needs an oil change, next week I think.

Heathers 30^th birthday celebration that evening at the local Java & Jazz restaurant and everybody had a great time, had a quick pint afterwards at Claudio's hotel, The Chequers, and then off to bed knackered.

Heather is now 30!

With slightly older brother Adam aka Edddie Izard

Sunday 12^th December and I get get to read The Sunday Times and drink coffee for 3 hours in the morning, I do miss that little ritual I must admit. Then go on-line and make sure Amazon does not go out of business by buying all my Christmas presents from them.

Tricia off to Tunbridge Wells with an extra thick credit card which will be worn thin by the time she's finished, I spent the day doing other things. Started Fazer motorbike and took it for a spin, OK, tidied garage and went to find mouse traps as judging by the holes in the cream crackers in the kitchen cupboards, we have visitors.

Carols at the RAH

Monday 13^th and the plan is to meet the Leadbetters in London, picnic (?) in Green Park, visit Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, Harrods etc. and then on to meet brother Alan and co. for a good time at the Albert Hall to listen to The London Choral Societies Christmas carols. (Al's wife Ruth, sings with them) Did all that, most enjoyable and got the penultimate train home, picked up by Adam and in bed by 12:15 am.

Tuesday blurs into today, and now it's Thursday as it's just Christmas shopping or wrapping them up. Meeting the Swans tonight in the village, for a quick drink and chat, as we are carless and they aren’t.

Friday and the weather is turning for the worst and it's looks odds on for a white Christmas?

Just heard bad news from Pinar San Jose, Lucky Luciano Tony B. is in hospital with severe pains in stomach and the site has been robbed, 8 push bikes stolen, just left in time?

Adam and Antonia went to Brighton to celebrate their 4^th anniversary, snow came and they had to leave the car at Broadstone Warren, a scout camp site in Royal Ashdown forest. The A22 was at a stand still due to black ice and many cars were abandoned, the gritter truck was in the line of stopped traffic and we went for a walk? A&A finally walked into Forest Row and had their dinner in the village.

Saturday and the forecast is for lots of snow so we went to get the car at 8am, and just in time because it's 11:15 am now and we have all ready had about 5” and it's still going. BA have cancelled all flights out of Heathrow and Sunday looks not much better. Why are we here?

I trudged the two miles up the A22 to retrieve Adam's car before it was engulfed in snow, picked up Adam on the way back and left it in The Swan pub car park as it won't get back down our road, (the secret is in the address “Freshfield BANK”) the next time we need it.

Probably worked out OK because we would normally be flying back from Spain (not) this week end and came early for Heather's birthday, so we may have been stuck in Spain and missed all this weather (?)

Probably just walk down to the village for a beer later on and due to people having timing issues tomorrow, will be having Sunday roast at 5 pm tonight.

Sunday, The Sunday Times and coffee as usual, boring day, stayed in.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, ditto, except for the odd walk into East Grinstead and the bus back, just waiting for Christmas, New Year and then back to the warm.

Heard back from PSJ that after Tony B. was rushed into hospital with a diagnosed heart attack, he has had another stent (has two already) fitted and is now safely back at the camp site. How much luck can one man have?

Thursday 23^rd December, still snow around but the drive has remained clear and cars are no longer getting stuck and having to be dug out. Richard (lodger) on his way back to his parents (Leadbetters) house in Cambridgeshire for Christmas, Antonia with her Dad for same, so it's only me, her indoors and son Adam, strangely quiet?

Tricia went to London with some girl friends to see “The Nutcracker” at the Colosseum theatre, first time she's been to a ballet and thoroughly enjoyed it, muttered something about “packed lunches” and “tight buns” when see got back, and now has a permanent smile on her face.

I managed to get to Salisbury's again for a final Christmas shop, again! And still managed either to forget something or they were sold out. SWMBO is doing her famous Beef Wellington instead of the normal turkey, then again, we had it last year as well so the turkey is not so normal after all?

Tonight, Christmas eve (see pic below), it's off to Ian's for his regular party where we will finally catch up with all the friends we have not seen so far on account of the snow and lack of a car.

Me (in Christmas jumper) and Mrs Swan

Caught our second mouse this morning, little (or rather quite big) bastids had worked out how to get from the loft, all the way to our kitchen and had been steadily munching on Jacobs Cream Crackers in one of the cupboards.

Today is clean and empty Adam's car for it's picking up and dropping people duties tonight, clearing stuff out of the garage so I can see the floor again and waiting in, in the forlorn hope that Royal Mail, in the shape of my mate there, Tim, will deliver our final few Christmas presents.

Other brilliant news is that I have finally got my computer to accept that my copy of Windows 7 is genuine, took a long call to Microsoft in Ireland and India but it's now done and working OK. Had to re-install all my programs though but, which did take a while, but we all do like watching that blue/green bar extend itself for hours on end, and then rename about 10,000 pictures because Picasa has forgotten them all.

Christmas day!

Tricia's got me various garments, all stated on the label “XL”, but none of them fit me! I think the XL refers to the little Chinese people who made them. Appears I will have to lose a little weight?

Tricia made a superb Beef Wellington and the whole meal was great, I even opened my favourite bottle of Barolo, saved from my birthday, lovely. Various presents were given and received and it was only the four of us, real family time. We now have enough DVDs to see us through to the next century.

Telly was crap but watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which I hadn't seen for ages.

Sunday, stayed in.

Monday, stayed in

Tuesday, stayed in(beginning to read like Anne Frank's diary)..

Wednesday evening went out to party at the Swan's house, most had had flu.

Thursday, stayed in bed, flu.

Friday, new years eve, in bed with flu, won't be going to the party tonight, great!

So we stayed in and watched Von Ryan's Express and Frank Sinatra who still missed the train, when will he ever learn? Was watching “The Ten Commandments” with Charlie Heston, no he was in it silly, and when it got to Moses bringing all the plagues down on Rameses and the rest of Egypt, when he gets to the part when he says “And it will begin with a storm and hail as big as........”, he definitely falters, as golf hasn't been invented yet.

Saturday 1^st January 2011, where does it go?

Now just a countdown to the 4^th, and then here it is! Tuesday 4^th and we are getting up at 4am to catch the, on time, no snow, 5163 Easyjet back to Almeria and home. Arrived after a quiet 2 ½ hour flight, sun is shinning in a blue sky and promising 20°C later in the day. Henk, our Dutch neighbour who dropped us off on our departure, is waiting at arrivals and takes us straight back to Camping Roquetas. So it's half past 10 and here we are back in Germany, sorry, Spain.

The car is covered in red berries, but other than a gas water heater that did not work for 24 hours and then mysteriously did, everything is AOK. Although we had cleaned out the fridge/freezer and left it open, it was full of mould. SWMBO is rapidly back in “retired” mode, which is basically her default setting anyway, and committed an act of sheer lunacy.

I, knowing how hungry she gets when travelling, had bought two nice large Cornish pasties, wrapped them in tin foil and packed them in my bag, unpacked them when we arrived and left them on the kitchen work space looking forward to sharing them when we were all sorted. Went to Mercadona in “Truckasarus”, aka the Navara, and got the weeks shopping in and on the way back mentioned that I was looking forward to having said pasties with Yorkshire relish sauce.

“Er, pasties, what pasties? You mean you’ve got some hidden pasties that I don't know about! Hidden from ME!” “Listen Pet, I got them for you, honest, we'll have them when we get back to the MS, they’re wrapped in tin foil in the kitchen.” “Tin foil? You mean those were not things that we'd left in that mouldy fridge three weeks ago?” “Er, no, why?” “I......I......I've thrown them in the bin with the rest of the rubbish and shoved the lot in the big bin near the toilet block”.

I was upset but she just cried herself to sleep that night.

Wednesday 5^th January 2011 and the site is quite full.

You would never believe it, but there are more Germans! We are not actually in Roquetas, I think the plane got it wrong and we arrived at Baden Baden.

Ich denke, dass wir es hier mögen, vorausgesetzt wir an den Richtlinien festhalten, unseren Taktabstand sauber und sauber halten und erlerne Deutschen und spreche so wenig, das englisch ist, wie möglich.
 

Oh my God!  I've slipped into German.

So it's back to dinner, dominoes and House, could it be any better?