Swins 2010 2011 tour, where are we now?: Friday 27th May 2011, BP and the weather is changing.

Yep, expected rain today and at 10 pm as I type it's persistently pissing down, but what of the day?
Well, me up early and about 10'ish SWMBO decided that the bed had run out of sleep and greeted the world, and me, to “Hell's teeth! I could have slept for a week, what's for breakfast?”

Bit of washing and I did a few of the jobs I was always getting round to, having a go at fixing the slow puncture on the front left side of Truckasarus, rawl plug for one of the window fixings, reducing the waste pipe length because it's like a multiple fountain when I empty the tanks now, OK when emptying grey, but black, you don't want to know. Anyway it's 1m long now and not leaking, I don't know why I didn't do this sooner as I only empty into the wastehog anyway.

Skype from Adam who is in France somewhere near Mortagne-sur-Gironde with some friends for a 25th party, Heather is at Wentworth with the BMW sponsored PGA Masters tournament golfers and a dinner at The Grosvenor for the professional rugby players awards ceremony, we live in hope!
So in the late afternoon SWMBO decided we should find Leroy Merlin again and this time we did, followed by a Nike outlet shop. A few items bought, not too much spending and then back and her chicken,, me pizza. As it's Friday I had stopped on the way back at Lidl (may God bless and keep it) and picked up some of that Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon to have with my pizza. Unfortunately it turned out that I literally had it with my pizza as I spilt a glass of it onto the pizza, slightly soggy but tasty with a bit of a kick to it!

SWMBO bed early, no DVD, at about 10 pm, doms, me 3 - 2, I read until midnight and fell asleep in the chair, woke at 6 am, went to bed and got up one hour later at 7 am and am now typing this.

Saturday 28th May 2011, BP and the day Man U. beat Barca at Wembley for the Champion's League Cup?

Still raining out there although it's supposed to brighten up later in the afternoon. Hoping that they will have the football on the TV tonight in the restaurant, starts at 8:45 pm, our time, SWMBO may come.
So until then, with this rain, will be doing whatever “indoor” jobs there are waiting to be done. Mind it's 9:30 am already and there is no sign of a “certain party” who is still tucked up in bed. That makes it almost a solid twelve hours, although I will get “I'm so tired, didn't get a wink of sleep”. Hah! As I was actually not there in bed to blame for snoring and turning over, the usual “culprits”, how come no z's then? “I could hear you breathing”. “Er........So I have to stop breathing for you to sleep, bit of a tall order that Pet”.

Playing boules the other day and I get this itch in my groin area, top of my thighs adjoining my cojones, you know the place. Anyway just managed to finish the match bow legged, 2 – 0 to me BTW, and when I got back into the MS my inner thighs were like balisha beacons, well balishas are actually amber and flash, these were bright red and pulsating painfully. So off to the shower and back and “Can you put some of that Sudafed cream on this Pet?” “You're going to die screaming in pain before I rub cream in down there mate!” I thought a wife was supposed to be a friend as well?

A French guy and his son have just walked past with a boules pack under each arm on their way to a game on the pitches near to us. I'm sure I heard “Merde!” in a small voice, see why in the pictures, and they returned quickly afterwards looking dejected. Actually quite a few Spanish families have turned up which is unusual as if they are coming they arrive on Friday night not Saturday morning, don't think this week end is a Spanish bank holiday aswell?

Began to edit the odd videos we have been making with the new small Panasonic I have got, er...sorry, bought for her and one of them left me in tears. So she's using it in the middle of Benicassim with a running commentary on the café’s and shops there and all the time she's holding it back to front. So all we get is a shot of her shoulder while she's discussing the particular merits of one clothes shop over another for nearly two minutes.

Although it's been raining the temperature has not dropped below 20°C but the mossie population is still at the same bloody high level. Got bit to buggery the other day while I was filling the fresh water tank and I must kill at least 6 a day in the showers. This morning however they have started to fly in the heavy mob, normal size BP mossie, about 4 mm, these things were a least a cm across and made a crunching noise when you splatted them, they would drain your arm if they got you asleep.
Site is beginning to dry up but after only a fleeting glimpse the sun is still hiding behind the overcast clouds, mind the misty mountains look pretty.

Freezer is nearly empty ready for it's defrosting so it's the last of the chicken curry and chips tonight. But then 'er indoors decides I should have something healthier and now it's omelette and salad. Sun comes out to play!

Boules, now one pitch is serviceable (read dryish) so it was 2 – 0 to me again! Shopping at Mercadona and then some sunbathing and reading. Bought two extra olive oil bottles and have now filled them with my chopped up chillies so chilli oil in abundance now. Note: always wash your hands straight after handling chopped up, very hot chillies before “taking the dog for a walk”, “shaking hands with the Bishop”, “Going to the John”, etc. because that tender organ reacts very painfully to capsaicinoids in the chilli and cold water just does not hack it by a long chalk.
After dinner we (or maybe just me) will wonder down to the restaurant and watch the match, hope it's a good game and that Manchester United win it.

Omelette, made by Tricia was, three eggs, butter, cheese, sliced Spanish sausage, mushrooms, onion, parsley and garlic with peas, absolutely mind bogglingly lovely, she had chicken and salad. Then game of doms, me I think, and down to the game on my own to join a full bar/restaurant to watch Man U. get absolutely trashed 3 – 1 by FC Barcelona, even Ferguson agreed they were the better team by far. The Spanish, Dutch, Germans et al were all pleased with the outcome, the Brits, I think not. Then, of course, the fireworks started, sounded like all down the coast and went on for some time, still hearing the odd ones after midnight!

Fell asleep in the chair again, but I'm starting to prefer it anyway.

Sunday 29th May 2011, BP and it's the normal CE&T followed by more toast and marmalade and FSOJ, yummy city coming up!

If my iridescent swelling has gone down sufficiently we may have a cycle run out to Castellon, maybe a picnic?
Got a missive from Zaskar (who I used to hold in great esteem but obviously has now gone off his trolley) the other day, outlining his wish to abandon his overpaid job with Airbus, designing wings and things with Google SketchUp v8, to be a CC Warden at some far flung, God forsaken, rain sodden, cold, full of cow crap, field, probably somewhere in the middle of Yorkshire, or worse still, Derbyshire! I mean why swap a perfectly good, warm hanger for the wilds of Britain, must be going off his nut!

So he had to go on a training week end to learn the ropes, hell's teeth! How long does it take to learn to be a complete overbearing, arrogant, anal retentive, asshole, as most of the CC wardens are. (and some of the members, I was one for a short time and was kicked out for being reasonable, efficient and agreeable)

Anyway he and his good lady (sadly beguiled many years ago by a BAe apprentice draughtsman with a Ford Prefect and a few G&T's) spent a whole week end scraping clingons off the backs of bogs, washing and cleaning, trimming hedges and driving one of them little tractors (hang on, the last bit seems like fun, but I digress) and generally working for a living, which must have come as a bit of a shock.

Look, it's plain sense, who would swap the mad and hectic rush of normal working lives, getting up at silly times in the morning, high blood pressure on some motorway every morning in the rush hour fighting with other road rages, spending all your days under fluorescent lights, breathing in everyone else's colds and flu, rushing to shops, only to queue, looking forward and then quickly backward at a short annual holiday in Greece.
Short hurried lunches with no time to do anything, being in meetings that go on for hours and achieve nothing, watching someone's interminable Powerpoint presentation that makes sense to no one, worrying about losing your job or being “downsized”, having to lick up to bosses who are three waves short of a shipwreck, having to wear a watch, cramming everything else into an already impossibly short week end, or:

Live outside, breathing fresh air, seeing grass and trees in the morning, not grey building and bricks, wearing clothes that are comfortable, not suits and ties, meeting different, interesting and OK, sometimes challenging people, every day.
Watching the seasons change.
Seeing the golden glow of a lush and verdant summer slowly blend with autumn's myriad colours, followed by that crisp white coating that winter brings, masking but not betraying it's elegance in a wonderful soft mantle, retaining only the beauty of the underlying countryside.
Then celebrate as spring heralds the glories of renewed birth and the promise of the, as yet untried, new year to come.

Remembering again my double English Lit. period with Mrs Whiting, I can still recall having to recite John Keats, and he certainly had a way with words.

Ode to Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Then there is my favourite that I would like to think I live up to:-

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

And lastly the last stanza from Frost's “The road not taken”

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Nah! Stick to a proper job mate.

On a serious note, F flat if I recall, I hope Paul and ffiona (his spelling not mine), live their dream, as we all should strive to do, one life mate and it's not a dress rehearsal.

Getting a bit deep here isn't it?
So back to our irrelevant and trivial lives.(Er....................Not!)
OK got that off my chest, it's still Sunday morning, although the time has moved round to nearly 10:30 am and still no sign of SWMBO. Tick tock, tick tock, did she call? Tick tock. Tick tock goes the clock on the wall (Stop this bloody rhyming already!), I wait and wait.

Problem is, boiling eggs have no smell to get her up, mind if I burn the toast, that will set off the smoke detector but the noise of that waking her up would seriously damage her day and in repercussion, mine, very badly. So I will wait, making the odd little “cough” or perhaps type more loudly, it's a very fine line waking her up gently, usually the transition from deep asleep to “WHERE'S MY BREAKFAST!” is pretty rapid but for some reason, on Sundays, it can take a wee while.

News from home:- Adam is still in France probably still recovering from last night's birthday party, he is planning to drive home in a yet to be repaired, radiator U/S, Jeep, with his mate Richard. Heather is back from Wentworth and now preparing for a trip to Munich, the Porsche is still roadworthy and the house is still standing. So it will be 23 days and we will be back, that's a total of 9 months away, including a couple of flights back, which does seem a long time, lots to do when we get there however.

Jobs for the day; bit of ironing for her, need to find out what's causing the rattling of the hot water pipes, empty the hog, back up the computer and that's about it I guess. One job I did not plan because I thought it was too big to do here and would be left until we got back home was to repair the torn and badly stained, electric roll out awning, but we did it anyway.

Last year whist trundling through a French coastal village, Mortagne-sur-Gironde, a car was in the middle of a narrow road and trying to avoid it I hit a branch of a tree which ripped a 2 m strip off the awning. Patched it up with duck tape and when we got home had the bright idea of cutting about 20 cms off along the torn edge and gluing the beading back in place, meant that the awning didn't extend to it full extent but was still OK to use and saved about £300 getting a new one fitted.

Trouble was at the end, where the electric motor on the awning arm is, came adrift by, at first a couple of cms and then by 1 m, because of the very fact it was at the power end. So it needed to be taken off again re-glued AND STICHED this time. Well with the help of two neighbours and their ladders and sewing equipment it was done. Cleaned while it was off aswell, SWMBO came into her element, sweating buckets doing it but worth it and a big job done, one less thing?

Just when we finished a group of elderly (even for us!) Spanish came along and we had to satisfy their obvious curiosity for both the Navara hitch and the inside of the MS, the electric log effect fire sent them into hysterics.

Boules me and then a game of Gin. When she first mentioned it, “What about Gin?” “OK Pet, now you're talking, I'll just pop down to Mercadona and get some tonic and lemons.” “No, I mean the game, silly!”

Beat me, I didn't even score a point. Liver and onions etc. for dinner, lovely.

Monday 30th Mat 2011, BP and a modicum of rain.

Got up to the pitter patter of rain at 7 am, it stopped some time after and then just slight clouds and the sun. In the kitchen I could hear a hissing sound coming from somewhere, the chillies were fermenting! Hell's teeth! If I let it go on will I end up with 40° proof chilli oil? Imagine putting it on a pizza, you wouldn't need a beer or wine and you would end up drunk after two slices, I like it!
SWMBO persuaded me to cook the chilli oil, strain and then bottle it, did so and chucked in a ton of garlic as well, looking forward to using it already.

21 mile cycle to Castellon, cup of coffee and a bit of grey skies and some rain, Tricia even put her poncho on for the first time, she looked like a blue gnome on a bike. Back for boules and I'm sick of winning, not!

As we watched the first of series three of Battlestar Galactica and did not actually throw up, we may give it a crack again tonight. Got a call from brother Alan and the news from aunty Mary's 90th birthday, made her 85th but missed this one, apparently she looks like she'll be around for the next one.

Tonight it's just bits and pieces from the fridge, bit of chicken, piece of beefburger, some Mercadona savouries and probably some crisps.
Doms, me and then as it was after 10 pm Tricia is off the bed and I read and fall asleep in the chair, listening to Adele's “21” (bought by second born daughter Heather, bless) on my headphones, it's just too comfortable!

Tuesday 31st May 2011, BP and the cleaning of the waters.

Management has decided to thoroughly re-chlorinate the camps non drinking water supply so no showers or washing between 10 am and 4 pm. So as I was up at 7 am I decided I better get down there for my SSS ASAP before the queues started, well I was the only one there! But not for long as a few more people trailed in. So I'm standing there having a shower waiting for the odd flush and stepping out of the temporally “boiling” stream of water, finish, no problem. I am suddenly aware of a certain mannerism I have taken on and although SWMBO has mentioned it, I had paid it no heed. Apparently when we are out shopping or having a coffee, whenever I hear a toilet flush or someone uses a hand basin I involuntarily take a step to one side, talk of Pavlov's dogs eh?

Bit overcast this morning but still around the 20 mark, so not cold during the night.

Tried to help SWMBO with the breakfast, “Go away!” “This is a woman's job, my job, sling yer hook and let me get on with it, I'm quite capable of doing this, you know”. Minutes past, followed by “Damn, damn, damnity, damn, damn!” “Er …...what's up Pet?” In my best understanding voice. “I've poured your rice crispies into my porridge, all your stupid fault for getting in the way!”

Wow! Did another “big” job today, the cable from the solar panels on the roof of the MS was originally taped to the sides via white and black duck tape which actually looked OK but was always a temporary job. Mainly because drilling through the roof and finding the correct path through the wardrobe and into the battery compartment wasn't something I was keen to do i.e it would have ended up SNAFU. Anyway as I had the correct Lap adhesive for the rubber roof I thought, with the aid of the free camp 4 m ladders, I would have a go. Result, perfect and even taped the black cable to the inside wall of the wardrobe with white tape, nice job.

Of course because it's a bit overcast, my solar controller isn't working properly and we are under a big tree, I'm only getting 0.5 amp from the panels, ho hum.

Christian, our ex captain, Dutch living in Tenerife, next door neighbour was telling us how the weather may look bad there was no chance of rain and if there was it would be on the other side of the mountains. Went for a walk into the town, got soaked. Luckily we were passing Lidl (MGBASI), so we took some refuge, and shopping, there.

Boules, me, doms HER! Good God she has won something at last and I could not get the smile off her face all evening.
Chicken curry for the last time and the rest of “West Side Story”, bed.

Wednesday 1st June 2011, BP and June already, we've been away for eight months!

Good news is I've been allocated two tickets for the Olympics, don't no when, or for what but it's great to be able to say we really are going to be there, er........sometime.
Today will be a drive via Castellon railway station to check on the train to Valencia, if we ever go that is, and then on to Alcampo to get some emergency type duck tape, a Schroeder valve and some day glow tubing, all will be revealed soon.

My job is washing up, Tricia will chuck all the washing into our “rectangular washing up thing” and the stuff that she cannot get in I have to carry in addition. But after completing the washing up the try and usually succeed in getting everything in the thing. If you have ever seen the film “As Good as it Gets”, there's a bit where Jack Nicholson, a guy suffering from very bad OCD looks a the “Fag Artist” whilst he is getting ready preparing for a trip and seeing his neat suitcase says “nice packing”. See mine.

She beat me at boules and doms! Oh woe is me. Dinner, no movie and it's 11 pm and I'm typing this ready to post, here it goes.

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