Sweden 2-1, both good results.
Went up to see Mike and Irene to as where they got their oranges as the orange man is, for no
reason we know of, not allowed to sell them any more? So Mike invited themselves for coffee with us at 3pm. Rushed round to the site supermarket and bought some red and white wine and some beer on
the off chance that is was not coffee they wanted.
3pm and true to their word they turned up and the bottle of red wine slowly emptied, no coffee was drunk. They stayed for a couple of hours and when they went I decided I'd already ruined my “no drinking during the week” and so the beer went as well. Doms, me again then the penultimate
“House”, then Penguin and bed.
The switch over to butane is a definite improvement because everything is running hotter and we have already gone over our normal two weeks/bottle.
Thursday 10th February 2011
Another warm, blue sky day and Tricia has decided to get the mould off the “day” blinds, caused by us not leaving the vents open during the night and allowing a build up in condensation leading to mould. Dilute bleach using a tooth brush worked but it will take a few days to get them all done.
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| The blonde leading the blind? |
Today was black tank emptying day and because even with my patented waste hog lifter, I cannot fill the hog completely because it's too heavy to lift the 3 feet to the lip of the dump. The thought of struggling to get a full one up and it spilling all over the place, especially in front of the Ericks, does not bear thinking about.
Mercadona to top up the fridge and today it's a non BAWID so I need some soft drinks in, along with some pickles and cheese.
Richard who is renting a room from us is leaving end of this month so if we cannot get a replacement pretty soon we will have to return to the UK because our savings will start to get hit big time.
Bill, the French motorhomer, French domiciled Brit is leaving tomorrow, hopefully taking both his dogs with him as they do howl a bit when left alone but that's all part of this life. Live and let live.
Although some people have double standards, Henk, our Dutch neighbour but one, complained to Alan, a Brit across the road, about playing some Spanish music on his motorhome CD system, not loud, I couldn't actually hear it. Then plays his band music from his car with the doors open or every now and then gets his trumpet out and blasts for over an hour!
Last of House tonight and series 7 is a way away yet, so it's Battlestar Galatica tonight, if we don't like it SWMBO wants to go home!
Doms, 3-1 to me again, I think it may be battling Ludo from now on.
Friday 11th February 2011, sunny and set to be around 18°C for the day with no wind, excellent! Up early, quick shower and get ready for BAWID!
One last set of window blinds to de-mould and probably revel in getting a couple of more hours of evening sun because Bill's motorhome will be gone and no longer blocking it out.
My jobs today are, visit Mercadona for material for BAWID, clean and wax alloy wheels on
Navara and make a new batch of Chilli con Carne.
Now I like my chilli hot, I mean really hot. The best way of telling if you've put in enough chillies is that if, after a few stirs with the wooden mixing spoon, you are only left with the handle, cease with the chillies. As you can see I've only made a small portion, about a gallon, enough to last a couple of days.
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| Enough for me! |
The best chilli I ever had was in a small roadside diner just outside Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
I was over there for a month long training course and then had to wait a further two weeks for the chaps from RAE Bedford to turn up. We were running some tests on a couple of mini supercomputers they planned to use on their military flight simulator system.
Anyway, during these two weeks I was at a loose end, OK spring break in Fort Lauderdale can be awesome with all the female college kids turning up and participating in non stop wet T shirt competitions but I was (and still am) a married man. So one evening I walks into a diner on the
outskirts of Fort Lauderdale near Boca Raton and orders their home made cook house chilli.
The guy who served it said “Hey, this is really hot man, I bet a puny limey like you can't handle it!” Or words to that effect, the gauntlet was down!
They give you some crackers and a large steaming bowl of nuclear chilli. After about two spoonfuls I new I was in trouble, after five my eyes were streaming like hydrants and my throat was bleeding, half way through I had tunnel vision and was seeing only in black and white. The three beers I had had so far were like pouring a cup of water into the desert, I ordered another pitcher, I was not going to let England down. Visions of molten larva passed before me and at one point I think I actually passed out.
The final mouthful was like eating red hot charcoal but I forced it down, along with my last cracker and the remnants of my beer, I looked over to the guy and said, “aaaghhed bfffgggng ddfsgmmmmg”. Which roughly translated meant “Up yours mate!”
He replied, “Well not many people finish a whole family bowl of chilli, would you like some
jalapeños in a bag to go?”
“Tweck pwease”, was all I could muster, I didn't tip.
The next morning the toilet roll was not in the fridge, it was in the freezer, and thankfully a bag of ice was floating in the bidet. “Hiiisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss” is a rough approximation of the sound upon first use.
I also remember a curry I had in Reigate, not quite as exotic as Fort Lauderdale, but there you go.
I have always liked hot curries from when I was a young lad, main reason is that my Dad liked them, being ex-sailor, and every Sunday evening would curry all the left overs from the Sunday roast in the frying pan. Monday lunch was always, egg, beans and chips, one of my favourites. Problem was the
eggs were green round the edges from the curry fried in the pan previously and slowly and surely, every Monday lunchtime, me and my brother David became curry connoisseurs.
So back to Reigate, went in and asked for a king prawn madras, “And make it hot, this time mate”. You may ask why not go for a vindaloo or perhaps a fall curry but believe it or not, they taste different. Some people believe that if it's hot there's no taste, far from it, they are subtle differences and I preferred the madras taste. Well I do not know what they did to it, but I ate it, just, and spent the drive back to the hotel with my head out the window, my tongue hanging out and drooling continuously down the driver's door.
SWMBO went to the market the other day and got this Ski jumper for the cold, cost €7, bargain.
It's 4:30 pm, still sunny and we are both just lounging around getting a tan. Going to Vodafone shop in Roquetas to top up the phone, I haven't been using it but SWMBO is always sending text's and it all mounts up, at the moment have got 7 cents left so can still receive (Spanish SIM) but not send. Then call into Mercadona on the way back for the necessaries and then perhaps cribbage followed by the first 2 hour instalment of BG.
Got parked ( a first) and there is now €20 on the phone, let's see how long that last with her texting all the time, she thinks it's free.
Saturday 12th February 2011, it's morning and I can hardly walk.
No, not the toes, they just make me limp.
A number of things happened last night, not all good. She won at at Doms (bad), I had a pizza (good), she drank a bottle of fizz (bad), I had a few beers and wine (good), we watched Battlestar Galactica (bad, she fell asleep) and then we went to bed. (bad, very bad, not a good idea, deep pain and misery coming up, type of bad).
So half way through the night and SWMBO is nicely tucked up with the penguin and we are both
sound asleep. I turned over, which apparently I do by making lots of little jumps (the reason, when tenting, we use two single air beds because when I “jump turn” on a double airbed, she gets bounced out) So as I making my final jump she swings round, knee first and basically neither Ron “Chopper” Harris of Chelsea or Norman Hunter of Leeds (dirty bastids) could have timed a knee in the groin better.
There was big John and the twins, innocently cradled in my loins and for a split second upon first contact thought, “Oh, lucky day!” The next was an excruciatingly painful moment as the blow was delivered, followed by a howl of pain from me as I clutched my throbbing vitals.
She slept on.
It was 2:40 am, I was moaning like hell and the Ericks must have thought we had finally stumbled on page 127 of the Kama Sutra, you know the one with the two tennis racquets, a small credenza and a wooden mouse trap, yep that's the one. Unfortunately that was only in my dreams, if I managed to ever get back to sleep that is.
I'm now limping from the waist down.
Reminds me of the time I was standing in the queue for a ice cream, I was limping from a recent football game and when I got to the front and asking for a cornet, he said “Crushed nuts?” I replied, “It's just the way I'm standing, mate!”
Word association working again.
A Buddhist goes up to a hot dog seller in Times Square, New York, “Can you make me one with
everything?”
3:30pm and it's off to the Spinnaker pub, about four miles away by bike, or walking, or car,if it comes to that, and watched England thrash Italy 59 – 13 and Sunderland got beat 2-1 at home to Spurs, damn!
Sunday 13th February 2011 and she's had her usual, with freshly squeezed orange juice.
Talking of “freshly squeezed”, I have discovered that I have a “Hemi”, a chalfont, and so along with my towel and washbag, I also carry an industrial sized tube of preparation “H”. These things are a new experience to me, I thought they were just for ex-pregnant women and RAF pilots.
My mother told me if I sat on cold steps I would get them and as there are are a dearth of those in Spain, where the hell do they come from? I mentioned to SWMBO that I was popping up to the toilet to “Make an application”, and all she answered was, “What for, a job?”
Free advice on living with Chalfonts, don't develop a hacking cough so stop smoking, drink as much liquids (B&W) does the trick, so that you do not need to use the toilet strain bars less, and don't, repeat don't, carry your tube of preparation H in your washbag! Thing is it's white and about the same size as my tube of Colgate, yep you're ahead of me all ready, my gums have receded and I cannot feel any of my teeth at all.
Later in the day SWMBO gave me a quick kiss and told me that my Listerine just wasn't doing it anymore.
So bike rides may be a thing of the past for, well for whenever this thing shrinks from a beach ball to something more manageable, perhaps I'll cut a hole on the seat?
Washing day again, what is it with her anyway, why do we have to be so bloody clean?
Underpants worn for 2 weeks and reversed every other Thursday is OK with me, what's the world coming to?
Apparently it's going rain a bit in the next few days and she wants to get it done now.
2pm and we finally decided to give our brand new, unused set of Boules a try out. Practice on the pitch next to us and then up to the Boules area. Now the rules aren't rocket science and each individual boule is fairly obvious but getting this into blondie's head was almost more than I can take. On the first few goes she hurls the jack clean out of the pit, claiming that it was lighter than the boules, well as it's 15 cm across and wood whereas the boules are 55 cm and made of steel, might account for it.
She was constantly telling me not to stand on my balls, watch out you'll trip over your balls, are your balls heavy, don't bang your balls together, your balls are getting scratched (don't know if that was a threat or a promise) and stop juggling your balls around you are putting me off, etc. and falling around giggling all the time. She then went on the beat me 2 games to 1 and the last game was 10 – 3, my balls are going back in the box for the duration.
Sunday 14th February 2011, Valentine’s day!
After my shower, and an application used correctly, and get back to the MS and SWMBO's still in bed, well it's barely 10 o'clock, so I think, “Get back into bed for a cuddle”. As she had knocked back a few G&T's last night all I got was a romantic “Bugger off and let me sleep!”
She had got me card though. BTW this is now real time! She's just knocked over my bowl of Rice
Krispies and then picked them up and I'm picking bits of carpet fibre out of my teeth!
Mercadona and Lidl (may God bless and keep it) for some groceries and then lie about in the sun. May do the €15 a head Valentine’s day dinner in the restaurant tonight, but €30 is a lot of money, I'll think about it.
Fix the kids photos on the wall with screws as the Blu-Tack solution just was not working and they kept falling down. Also replaced the now rusted white headed screws that hold the MS side guards on, with new ones and put another washing line up. Busy day all round.
Good news is that first born Adam is flying into Malaga with his new girlfriend on Friday 18th for a long week end with some relatives of hers. We'll pick them up and drop them at Almuneca, where they're staying, round trip of 250 miles, I'll charge him for the diesel.
Stop press! As the Valentine’s dinner has not had much take up, people are in fact staying away in droves, they've dropped the price to €13/head inc. drinks, may go after all.
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