Got up early, well before 9am that is, and needed one of the S's from the usual SSS fairly urgently, so armed with towel and wash bag I was off to block #2. Now because it was precisely 8:30 am when I got there the Ericks were already “checking in”. All the shower and wash basins were “booked” or in use but as I needed neither, no problems. After finished the paperwork came out and there was one shower available! Just then another “big” Erick came in and headed for it to plant his marker but I wanted my shower now! So I threw my towel towards the shower stall. Now there is a big plastic hook just inside the door to hang your clothes on, well it missed that and ended up on the wet floor, but it was now MINE, MINE I TELL YOU, MINE! Finishing my shower later and basically moving the wetness around my body with the soaking towel, did not diminish, in any way the feeling of justification and well being I felt for the rest of the day.
It's warmish and sunny and there are no oranges, the orange man didn't turn up!
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| Almeria prom |
Had a drive to the promenade at Almeria, it was very crowded, my broken foot however, did not allow us to walk more than a mile or so.
Got back watched a TLOTR matinee and then had a game of draw dominoes which she won three games in a row, without even drawing a domino! Of course she likes this game now but I convinced her to play a “proper” doms game and beat her 3-2. Couple of Houses and then bed.
Monday 31st January 2011, 7:40'ish, am.
What a weird dream last night, as part of my job I had won two weeks holiday for me and the missus on the Mediterranean, then I woke up. Confused as to what job I actually do now, er.....nowt, and how long have we got living next to the Mediterranean (about 300m away) er........will the rest of our lives do?
What really woke me up was an incessant beeping, which I thought was the LPG running out (a bit early?) and the fridge/freezer beeping with the epithet “no flo” (typical American spelling) flashing on it's panel. No it was some bloody big “cleaning?” machine, on the aforementioned beach, doing God knows what and flashing a yellow light and beeping, what's that all about then, 7:45am?
Went through to Alcampo in Almeria and bought a “Wheelie” carry on bag for out trips back home, it's a bloody long walk at the Gatwick end, I'm sure you walk from north to the south terminal. Also some photo frames and as they had a 1€ aisle, a few other bits and bobs as well.
Back for reading, lying in the sun (a bit), chilli con carne, doms (me) and House.
The shower scene in toilet block #2 is getting ridiculous, you know the old saying “If you can't beat 'em, join 'em”. Well I've got a new one, “Just beat 'em”.
A preamble, as almost 70% of the week is a non BAWID, I tend not to go to bed until about 1'ish, write this thing or read a book (Kindle) or surf the web, no, no, none of them “German and Swedish” channels, that's right out, and if she caught me anyway she's chop my hands off and then what's the point. On a standard BAWID I would normally pass out around 12'ish depending how much cheese, pickles, chillies, beetroot, crackers I could find. So I'm thinking, what useful thing could I do at this time of night that would make my life happier in the morning.
So it's 12:48 am and armed with an old towel and wash bag I surreptitiously creep off to toilet block #2 and “plant” my marker in shower stall #3. Next morning about 9'ish I wonder down there and it's full of Ericks and steam and an empty stall #3! You see they couldn't just remove it, it goes against all their beliefs and moral code, so I just swan in, pausing momentarily in one of the smaller cubicles and then take my leisurely shower. Let's see how long this tactic will last.
Tuesday 1st February 2011, a new month starts!
Now I've finally figured out why our cooking etc. has “slowed down”, when we first started I had spent a small fortune changing the extant Calor bottles to GasLow (refillable) but kept the same on board regulator. Now propane needs a 37 millibar regulator and that's what it was. OK so we bought a 14.1 Kg Repsol propane gas bottle for €6 in a flea market about a year ago, of course it needs it's own regulator.
Trouble was the regulator sold to me by Phil the Greek was a butane regulator, 28 mb, I didn't notice at the time and we have been using it ever since. SWMBO noticed however that her stir fry didn't quite heat up as quickly as it used to and when ever the Repsol ran out and I temporarily switched back to GasLow, it did (being 37 mb propane).
Been trying to get a 37 mb regulator ever since and because it's warm down here, i.e. it never freezes, Butane, with it's higher calorific value (burns hotter) is the preferred version of LPG here.
So no 37 mb regulator to be found. So OK, swap for a 14.1 Kg butane bottle then and after a trip to the nearest Repsol garage a new butane bottle is now installed and working fine, now let's see if the stir fry is quicker and the bottle lasts longer.
SWMBO had been taking an interest in all this and asked why I swapping one orange gas bottle with another which to her was exactly the same. What was the point, foolishly I tried to explain it to her.
“OK, butane has a higher calorific value and therefore burns hotter, so your stir fry will cook quicker”. “Will we get fat?” “Er.......why?” “You said it had more calories, more calories means getting fat and I'm on a diet”. “Er..... no. no, what I mean is it just burns hotter but because the pressure is at 28 millibars it may be more economical for us”.
“Where is it, I didn't know we had one?”
“Have one what?”
“A mini bar silly, you just said we had one, where is it, under the fridge, could do with a G&T mind?”
“Look we haven't got a mini bar, all this is about is using Spanish gas bottle instead of the GasLow to save money, OK?” “Is it?” “Er....is it what?” “Is the gas low, because if it is I'll never get my stir fry done, can we use electric?” Where's that gun?
Anyway, we are now happily using butane, everything works OK and the flames on the oven and hobs are definitely higher.
Evening meal was perch and vegetables, followed by Doms (I won) then a row of Houses.
Wednesday 2nd February 2011, still warmish and sunny.
Really hungry when I got up this morning and as there was some smoked salmon left over from Tricia's Sunday breakfast, I thought I would have the same, smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and toast. Five minutes later, toast from a freshly baked baguette from site shop, two organic scrambled eggs, Atlantic salmon (smoked), freshly squeezed orange juice (picked and squeezed by me), more toast with marmalade made by Henk, next door and red label English tea. My God some people think this camping lark is easy but sometimes we just struggle by.
Obviously missed my early shower so I wonder if my towel is still holding them off?
Today we may give both little and large toes (sounds like a comedy act) a trial cycle run up to the Spinnaker pub, about 4 miles along the beach, as there is no wind it looks OK'ish.
Just ordered this brilliant piece of kit, £20 inc. post from Amazon. Basically it's an interface between external storage and a TV. In the not so olden days you could copy DVDs on to your computer and watch them on that thereby reducing the number of DVDs you carried around. Trouble was you were limited to watching them on laptop screen, maximum screen size 17”? or playing them on the TV through your laptop, and also you used up your usual 300GB disk capacity.
This thing talks via USB to anything, external disk drive, USB sticks and to various memory cards and plugs via HMDI direct to your TV, no computer in the loop at all, awesome. So buy a 1 TB external disk drive (£70) and you can fit over 250 DVDs on to it, no more DVD libraries to carry about and/or get scratched.
Were going for a bike ride to Roquetas town but the weather is so nice decided to lie around instead and read.
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| Roquetas 8pm |
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| Ditto |
About 8pm, it was dark and we went for a drive to the beach, don't even think about it, SWMBO still thinks a “dogging” site is somewhere you take Fido for a walk. The object was to take the “star” shots that I've been promising myself to do. Was pretty dark but the promenade lights were still on and so not very good, will have to try another part of the beach or go later still. SWMBO was really nervous because earlier this week she had seen two black guys, obviously fruit pickers, riding home from work on their cycles but, because it's relatively cold, were wearing full face balaclavas with holes cut in for mouth and eyes; not a pretty or comfortable sight. So when we got there she locked the car doors and refused to come out.
Thursday 3rd February 2011, 18°C, blue skies, no wind, bloody terrible I tell you.
Last night chicken curry followed by Skyping the kids and 3 episodes of House, end of series 5.
Went for the delayed bike ride, up to the Spinnaker pub via La Salinas beach, for a quick coffee, pictures were taken. SWMBO always likes to have command of the compact camera, she keeps it in her cycle pannier.
So we are peddling along and it's “Stop must take a picture of that!” either a bird, a dog a cat or some bloke fishing, but it will be something we already have a 100 or so of already. She also stopped for a bit exercise, bloody idiot!
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| Exercise! |
So we stop, bike on stand, undo pannier clips, take out camera, remove camera case, stand forever to take a scenic scene shot (it doesn’t move, Pet!), then repeat procedure in reverse. Try this every 200 m and it gets on your tits. Inspiration! The €1 camera case I bought at Lidl (may God keep and save it) has a Velcro fastening, so I tied the case to the handlebars and all she has to do is stop, pull the camera out and take the shot, simples. No, she still stops, bike on stand, take ages framing the picture and same as, same as etc. But the front of her cycle now festoons, bell, light and holder, camera and cycle computer. She now wants me to call her Batwoman as instead of a utility belt she has a utility handlebar.
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| Roquetas castle |
Back for a read in the sun and some coffee and cake.
Tonight it's lamb chop casserole and vegs, followed by no beer, no wine, no G&T, no whiskey and ginger, perhaps a fizzy Fanta lemon, looking forward to that. Tomorrow it's BAWID!
Series 6! House is out of the psychiatric hospital, oops, spoiled it.
Doms, me 3-0 and she's depressed.
Bed 1:35 am, after 3 small cans of non alcoholic beer (what's the point?), 2 cans of Nestles lemon tea and a diet coke.
Friday 4th February 2011, BAWID in 10 hours. Dateline 6am.
Woke up to an incessant bleeping, no it wasn't SWMBO sleep swearing again, it was the carbon monoxide detector, either detecting or the batteries had run out, as we were still alive I figured it was the latter. SWMBO did actually start bleeping at this point along the lines of “Shut that bloody thing up now or I “bleeping” well give you a smack round the head!” As it was 6am I could understand her slightly irate manner, she's not what you would call a morning person. Then again I'm not really sure about, afternoon, evening or night.
Changed batteries and I as was up, I stayed up, why not, get some typing done, one less thing?
Now I didn't realise this at the time but I was sure I could hear some kind of chanting coming from SWMBO's side of the bed, thought nothing of it. Turns out she has been watching “the extras” disk from TLOTR and has managed to learn a few spells from the Mordor Acme book of spells and incantations, 101.
10 minutes later I came to, and apparently I had put both the electric and gas furnace heating systems on and slipped a refilled hot water bottle into her bed, and began toast and scrambled eggs! Those disks are going in the bin, mate. The last time I slipped her one in the morning (please! a refilled hot water bottle!), I did not see her again until 10 minutes past noon. It's now 10:40 am and counting.
It reminds me of the trance that comes over you when you are using a PC, I call it SST, or screen saver trance. What happens is that the PC goes into screen saver mode and if, like me, you've got it on Picasa or Google pictures, say goodbye to the next 45 minutes. Mines set on My Pictures, pan and zoom with a 7.2 second delay, which has been scientifically proven to be the exact time to keep your attention span until you say “Where TF was that!” and then it changes.
Rumour has it that first born Adam is going out with one of the Psychics from the TV show he producers, used to be on the tits and bums “Playboy like” channel but he found the going too hard so moved on.
Now where's the fun in going out with someone who knows what you are going to do, where you've been and where you will be tomorrow, and if she says “lets flip a coin for who's doing the washing up”, buy yourself a new pinny mate. I mean come on Son, as he once said to me, “Why do blind people wear dark glasses? You'd think they would at least give themselves half a chance.” Ditto, mate, ditto.
Today, bike ride to Aguadulce and back, some shopping, forecast is for the next 10 days, sunny, blue skies, no wind, heaven.
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