2012 quite a year...........

Well so much for trying to update this more often but so much seems to have happened that I kept thinking, I'll wait for the next thing............I'd left it so long I was seriously considering abandoning it completely, but as all my address labels have got the blog address on them, I guess I'd better make an attempt at bringing things up to date at least until I need to print some more labels!

After my misadventure in Lisbon when my handbag was stolen, and the trauma of replacing all my documents, bawling my eyes out at having to deal with all this stuff, everything arrived before my next trip to the UK, so I could put it all behind me.

I flew to Newcastle in March to spend a few days with Anne, Tim & Dan and go to see Joe Bonamassa at Metro Arena Newcastle with Anne. I had a lovely few days, the coastline up there is fabulous and the weather smiled on us. Anne and her mum, Joan, and I went out to supper one evening and we had a great evening. I'm so glad we did because within a few short months Joan was no longer with us.

While I was there Dad was taken into hospital with a series of infections, and managed to persuade them to let him go home on the grounds that I was going to be there, so I cut short my visit and flew down to Bristol to be back there on Monday evening. He recovered quite quickly, but I delayed my return to Spain by a further week to be sure, fitting in a trip to Bristol to see Katie, Salisbury and Jim & Lizzie & Jack Bruce at the City Hall then on to Bern & Al's and off to see Joe Bonamassa again, this time at the BIC.(Bournemouth International Centre) Yes that's 3 times in about 6 weeks!

Staying on an extra week gave me the opportunity to see the Blues Band at the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil and then back to Salisbury to attend Annie's funeral, the wife of my good friend Adrian. The little chapel at the crematorium was packed and it was an almost joyous occasion, if that's possible. Annie had known for sometime that life would be far too short and had given a lot of thought to how she wanted the event to go, culminating in the congregation singing Que Sera Sera. I knew a few people there, and it gave me the chance to catch up with them, then I went off to have lunch with Mel & Jackie – old friends I hadn't seen for far too many years.

That extra week in the UK meant I had a day to organise myself for Sue & Paul's visit. Which wasn't really quite enough. I think they enjoyed their visit in spite of the lack of central heating and telly! I'd left it too late to fix up tickets for the Alhambra but we went to Ronda, Seville and Cordoba as well as Antequera a couple of times.

 I took Sue & Paul back to the airport, and drove on to Estepona to stay with Bryan & Ruth on their holidays there. The following day was a bit overcast so we decided to go to Gibraltar for the day, Ruth drove, bless her, and we had a day of me showing them where I lived, where I went to Brownies and where I broke my arm trying to roller skate down steps!

I left them on Friday and went back to the airport to pick up Janet, coming out for a long weekend. This meant that poor Janet had to help make up her bed and clean the bathroom when we got home! Janet had pre requested a trip to Cordoba, so we went there.

On Monday I took Janet back to the airport via a few hours at the seaside in Torremolinos with a bite to eat one of the Chirinquitos (beach bars).

On Wednesday I was back at Malaga again to collect Paul, Ali & Sandra (Paul's sister) who were visiting specifically to go to the Asparagus Fair in Sierra de Yeguas (a small town about 10 miles away).

Sadly the week was mostly wet, although Paul did manage a swim in the lake at Guadalhorce on one of the 2 sunny days. The fair, originally scheduled for the Sunday, was cancelled because of the weather and moved to the 1^st May, the weather held, thank goodness, and everyone enjoyed it. We visited a bar in Sierra de Yeguas run by Jose and Almudena, who used to run La Maestranza in La Roda.

We had trips to Cordoba and Seville reminding Sandra how much she liked Spain although its something like 50 years since her last visit. And yes that is Cordoba 3 times in two weeks.

Back to the airport, but not before enjoying a sunny day at the seaside, back to Fuengirola to meet up with friends Anne, Tim & Dan holidaying there for a few days.

An organised coach trip to Madrid was the next treat. It was really well organised. Some free time as well as guided tours of the Prado, the Royal Palace, Segovia and one of the summer palace at La Granja, famous for the 40 fountains in the grounds powered by gravity alone. A visit to see the windmills of La Mancha at Consuegra and a bodega in Valdepenas on the way home.

By now it was May and I was very much aware that my car was now 4 years old and was due an ITV (Spanish MOT) and the road tax was due. Everybody pays their road tax in May, but the reminder and demand hadn't arrived.

I went off to the town hall to find out why.

It appears that my car has a different address to me. It lives in Antequera so I can only assume that the demands when there. The address is that of my lawyer, so I can sort of see how the mistake was made. Anyhow I managed to pay the road tax with a day to spare before penalties were incurred and I phoned the MOT station for an appointment without the letter – this turned out to be about 2 months late, as I had to fit it in around visitors and other bits of toing and froing, but there didn't appear to be any penalties for that!

In the interim Vanessa & I went to Granada to see Lenny Kravitz. Well it wasn't strictly speaking Granada, it was Atarfe, a suburb some 6 miles from the centre of Granada.

Then it was time for the annual visit from Chris, Albert & Cath and my first trip to the Alhambra this year. This time it was a bit of a working holiday in that they helped me paint my cinema screen and another wall in the garden, we had a barbeque and a film night (including Chris' adventures in Oz). Unusually there was no local festival to coincide with their visit this time, the Spring fair was on in Antequera but as this seemed to be largely about goats this year, we decided to give it a miss.

I delivered them all back to Malaga airport and then I was off to Seville to meet up with Ian, Kate & JP touring the tapas bars for an evening.

At about this time I also had 6 cubic metres of soil delivered for the garden, this has only taken me 3 years, but it made such a difference to the garden to have the beds full of soil. I was now worried that thew temperatures were far too high to attempt trying to plant anything and expect it to live. Though I did give in a little and bought a few plants.

I also received a letter from the tax office in Seville demanding I attend an interview to determine any liability following the transfer of the property to me when Mick died. This caused all sorts of panic as I've heard tales of others having to pay anything from 8 to 25000€, it could be anything. I contacted Luis my lawyer, because I thought all this was sorted out ages ago. He spoke to the office in Seville, and I didn't have to go to the interview. I had to send them loads of documents but in the end the bill was 112€, I didn't think it was worth arguing.

There was a 2 week gap before Kim & Judy arrived for a couple of days to precede their golfing (for Kim) and sunbathing (for Jude) holiday with other friends in Benalmadena. Their trip coincided with some of the European cup football matches, so much enjoyment was had following the trials & tribulations (of England) and the joys (of Spain). This was also my 18^th visit to the Alhambra (this is not as bad as it sounds as the 18 have been spread over some 45 years!).

July brings the Cordoba Guitar festival and this year the draw was Robben Ford, as part of Renegrade Creation (with Mike Landau, Jimmy Haslip & Gary Novak), so off to Cordoba for the night with my rock buddy Vanessa, and excellent it was too. The concert started at 11.30pm so that's an overnight stay in Cordoba, in July the daytime temperatures are high 30s.

Then a trip to the UK to meet my new step granddaughter, Penny. She is absolutely gorgeous, but then I would say that wouldn't I? This meant a trip to Salisbury and a chance to catch up with a few friends there.

It was also to go to Mike & Marie's wedding in the Lake District. Given the summer the UK has had they were very lucky with the weather. I, and the rest of the old school friends were invited to the evening reception at the Langdale Chase Hotel in Windermere. What a beautiful location for a wedding. The following day there was a choice of golf or a trip to Coniston. Most of us chose Coniston. A coach picked us up in Ambleside and took us to the jetty in Coniston where we took the steam gondola to Brantwood, the home of John Ruskin. What a fabulous day out. Finished off with supper in a local restaurant in Ambleside.

I returned with Bill & Meg to Essex, and took the opportunity to meet up with my cousin Nick who lives not far from them. Nick and his wife Sharon & I caught the train up to London, passing through the Olympic site on route, about a week or so before the games were due to start, to meet Ian for a few drinks and a bite to eat at Canary Wharf. A good evening.

Then all too soon, back home. I had arranged to go on a trip to Sanlucar de Barrameda for the horseracing on the beach, something Mick and I had always intended to do but didn't get around to. During August the race meetings are held over 2 weekends, the dates are dictated by the tide as this is on the Atlantic coast. We stayed at an hotel in Jerez, funnily enough this hotel used to be an old William & Humberts sherry bodega (remember an amontillado sherry called Dry Sack?). The sherry house has now been moved to a modern unit on the industrial estate on the outskirts of town, but I had visited the place when it was a bodega, with my parents, in about 1964 and again with Mick in 1997.

At the same time, Mario arrived to start work on my new roof. Blimey what an experience! I had to move out, luckily my neighbours were very accommodating and I moved in there, but I don't think they realised quite how long I would be there.

The old roof came off, the outside walls were built up to receive the new roof, the top of the house was then capped off with concrete beams in filled with hollow bricks then covered in concrete. The whole house was filled with akro props presumably to make sure it didn't cave in under the weight of the concrete! Then the new roof went on and new ceilings put in upstairs. What a mess! I thought it would never be straight again. Inevitably there were a few breakages the odd window, light bulb and the newel post on the bottom of the staircase.

In the middle of all this Ian & Do paid a visit from Nerja and took me out for the day, a welcome break. We went to Osuna wandered round looking at the lovely old ducal palaces dotted around the town and had lunch in the old casino. Like stepping back in time, sitting in the huge high ceiling lounge on old rattan furniture, under the slowly whirring fans. Then a drive across to the lakes for an early supper.

Vanessa and I arranged to join a moonlight walk around the old palaces of Antequera. It was a very informative evening, apart from the museum the palaces were not open but the guide told tales of old families and planning rules.

Time for another trip to the UK. The roof wasn't finished, I was still living with my neighbours and if circumstances were different I might have stayed, but its that time of year and I just don't want to be here. There was also another wedding, Simon and Amy's in Haslemere.

The wedding was great, the weather perfect. The ceremony was in the little village church of Lynchmere and very traditional, full morning dress for the groom and all his groomsmen, which set off their waist length hair a treat!!

When Simon's sister Hannah got married Mick drove the bride to the same church in the family Rover P5. This time Hannah's husband, Simon, drove the bride in the same car.

The next weekend was Open House London, an event that sounded as though it would be an interesting opportunity to visit a number of London properties that are not usually open to the public. I arranged to meet some of Mick's old schoolfriends and see what we could see.

I met Mike and Marie on the Saturday and we took the river cruise up to Greenwich and visited the newly refurbished Cutty Sark.

Finding myself in London on a Saturday night I trawled the Whats On guides for something to do, and joy Joe Satriani was playing at Wembley Arena as part of a tribute to Jim Marshall of Marshall amps - “50 years of Loud”. So I got myself off there, I had to leave before the end to catch the last tube but did catch Joe's set. It did whet my appetite and I hope to get to see him again sometime. The audience was largely old men with pony tails!!

On the Sunday the rest of our gang joined us, unfortunately it didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped. The opportunities to book ahead were limited because our party was too big, so we were left with only those properties where you could turn up and queue. The whole event turned out to be far more popular than even the organisers thought it would be and in spite of the rain the queues outside the gherkin, the Bank of England and 101 Upper Thames Street were far too long. So we opted for the Customs House, where there was no queue, then the pub for a long leisurely lunch before going our separate ways. As always, its good to meet up with Mick's old school friends.

I managed another visit to see Penny, my how she's grown and what a contented, happy baby.

When I got home, I found that my bank were trying to contact me because my credit card had been cloned. Fortunately they spotted it straight away and no real damage was done apart from the inconvenience of not having a card to book my flights for Christmas, or tickets for Joe Bonamassa's concert in London next year. Now only the £1500 tickets are available and I don't think I can justify that!

I had been talking to a painter about giving the house a makeover once the building work was finished, but I hadn't appreciated quite how awful it would be and mere painting wouldn't be enough. So I then talked to Vicente & Natie, on my friend Juana's recommendation. A husband and wife team who clean and paint, result! They are a lovely, thoughtful couple who added all sorts of extra little touches I wouldn't have thought of, I felt as though I'd struck gold! Unfortunately painter number one wasn't too happy that I'd changed my mind and for a few days I lived in fear of possible retribution, but, apart from some uncomfortable phone calls, nothing happened! The net result is that Natie is now my cleaner!

The clean up started, and I tried to do my bit, but mostly I just felt in the way!

Anne and Dan visited in the midst of my chaos, but I had at least managed to move back into my own house before they arrived. We just ate out a lot!

I had planned to go to Nerja for Mick's birthday but I didn't feel I could leave the house so Mike & Marie and Kim & Judy came up to Antequera to meet up for lunch. The day was cold and wet, so we found a bar close to the car park and settled in for a few beers and tapas!

The room of boxes (those of you who have visited will know what this means) is gone and is now my sitting room, complete with telly. Although I understand this might be short lived, at least for UK telly as the satellite is changing and we might need a new dish (I share next door's). Pictures are up on the wall.The garden has been painted, trees pruned and I've bought a new table and benches for the garden. I've also bought an avocado tree against all the advices of the local nurseries, but Katie's been nagging me for ages to get one. So its in the garden with a bubble wrap coat in the hope that will save it from the worst of winter here.

My study still needs a bookcase before I can get rid of all the boxes, but I'm waiting for a quote for that. So nearly there, anyone paying a repeat visit will be amazed.The place is transformed!

So what a year, I feel like I've spent far too many days waiting in for people to turn up and do something, (though looking back at everything that's happened, clearly that's not true), not being able to get out for a walk or go swimming, and its not quite over yet as I'm now waiting in for the kitchen delivery people for next door, trying to impress on them that the kitchen needs to be finished this week before I leave for the UK on Saturday.!

A sorry tale...........

Well, so much for my resolve to update the blog more frequently! I meant to update after my trip to Lisbon, but having my handbag stolen left me feeling very sorry for myself, and I needed to put a bit of distance between me and the event before I could put pen to paper so to speak.

So I'll get that story over with first.

The trip to Lisbon was to be my birthday treat for this year. I persuaded Katie to change the dates of her trip so she could come with me, and I got tickets to see Joe Bonamassa at the Centro Cultural de Belem.

In theory, Lisbon's not too far from here, but I don’t like city driving, especially in places I don’t know and I don’t know the language, so I started my research on the best way to get there. Flights from Malaga were around 170€ each way, adding 680€ to a few days in Lisbon, seemed a bit excessive, the train involved getting to Madrid and taking the sleeper, seemed a bit long winded. There's a bus from Seville to Lisbon, 61€ return, that seemed much more realistic and it would be an adventure!........Little did I know it would turn out to be an adventure worthy of any holiday with Mick!

First hurdle, buying tickets. Tried to do this online, but the website just got into a loop, first telling me that the seats on this service were not numbered, then asking me to choose a numbered seat! Gave up, considered go to Seville to buy the tickets, but then used this as an exercise in my Spanish class and Cristina, my teacher, phoned the ticket office for me and booked the seats. We just had to get to Seville before 10pm on the day of travel (the bus left at midnight) to collect the tickets from the ticket office.

Katie arrived on Saturday. We travelled on Sunday. However, we needed to get to Seville. There was a bus at 7.30pm, and it a 2 hour bus journey to Seville, but I reasoned if there was any problem on the road we might be delayed, perhaps we should give ourselves more than 30 minutes leeway. The earlier bus was at 4pm, but it was carnival weekend and there was procession scheduled, 'sometimes' the bus doesn’t come down into the village if the road is cordoned off for a procession, so perhaps we shouldn’t risk expecting to get that one. My neighbour, Peter offered to run us into Pedrera to get the train at 6.45pm, this seemed perfect.

Peter duly dropped us off, and drove away. I went to the ticket office to ask for 2 tickets to Seville, 'sorry, no seats available', the next train was at 9.20pm, the journey takes an hour and 20 minutes, so that would be much too late. I asked for the number of a taxi, the station master gave me a couple of numbers, but with the warning that it was a holiday in Pedrera and they might not be working! I was already in overdrive; running through all the alternative options we had: returning home and driving to Seville, finding somewhere to park for 5 days, getting a taxi, abandoning any attempt to travel on Sunday and going on Monday instead, getting the taxi to Estepa, the next town on the bus route, and getting on the bus there.

Fortunately the taxi driver was working and he took us to Estepa, to the bus stop, he knew where the bus stop was, which was just as well, as I didn’t! He dropped us off at the bus stop and there must have been 30 people waiting at the stop!

One of my Thursday morning breakfast friends lives in Estepa, so I phoned her for help. This was a delaying tactic as I wasn’t sure quite what she could do to help, but a problem shared..

Mari Carmen arrived at the bus stop, 'have you asked about tickets in the café?'

'You can buy bus tickets in the café?'

'Come with me'. She took us to a café across the road and asked if there were tickets for the bus to Seville. 'Yes, of course'. I bought 2 tickets and we joined the crowd of people milling around on the pavement waiting for the bus.

By now the time was around 7.30.

The bus arrived, the driver climbed down and announced, 5 places available. All the while Mari Carmen is saying keep calm, it'll be alright. Two minutes later an empty bus arrived.

So we loaded our bags and settled into our seats, only the time to be anxious about now. One of the other passengers told us that if the bus was full, there would be fewer stops so the bus would be quicker. The other issue was that this bus went into a different bus station in Seville, so we needed to get across town as well before 10pm.

The bus pulled into San Sebastian bus station at around 20 minutes to 10. There was a taxi rank outside and we were lucky enough to get straight into a taxi.

At Plaza de Armas bus station I left Katie to look after the bags and pay the taxi driver while I ran up the steps to collect our tickets. There was a queue. When I got to the front of the queue the man didn’t understand me and kept trying to send me to another counter, but all the other counters were closed. In my head I reasoned he must have my tickets I just need to make him understand I have already paid for my tickets and I just want to collect them. He nodded very slowly, reached over to the far side of his desk and picked up our tickets and passed them to me, without a word. Clearly a man happy in his work!

So now we had 2 hours to kill before the bus was due. We found a bar which turned out to be a self service cerveceria, a concept I hadn’t come across before so the bartender had to explain it all to me. You choose your beer and food options, pay for them, and collect them from the counter – but I took too long explaining this to Katie when I got back to our table with the beers, so we got table service for the food! At last, now we could relax for a bit.

We sat and watch the world go by, and gradually became aware of a young man with a puppy walking up and down. The puppy was very young and seemed not to be enjoying his walk. After some time the young man came over to our table and asked if we spoke English. Would we mind the dog while he went inside and got some food.

I must have a suspicious streak in me, as my first thought was he was going to walk off and leave us with this puppy, Katie is obvious more open than me and immediately agreed. The puppy was very young and nervous, and ended up on Katie's lap being cuddled. Anyway, the young man returned and joined us at our table and told us his story.

He came from Argentina and was studying Psychology in Barcelona. He had friend in Buenos Aires working for a company that sources and delivers rare breeds and when they got the request to deliver this particular dog from Seville to Rome, he thought, my friend is living in Barcelona, I can give him some work. Clearly not registering that Barcelona is about 1000 km away. The dog was to go to an English actress living in Rome, Katy Saunders. So the next day he would take the dog to Rome, by plane. We googled Katy Saunders and discovered she's one of the girls with George Clooney in the Nespresso advert!Sadly I don’t know the breed of dog, but it was a blue something and its going to grow up to be a very big dog!

Time came for us to head back to the bus station, the departure boards appeared to have stopped working so I went off to find out which platform our bus left from. The bus was late but eventually we found our seats and settled down for the 7 hour trip.

I only have short legs so it wasn’t so bad for me, and I managed to get some sleep. At Faro about half the passengers got off so Katie was able to change seats and take her brace off and put her leg up for the rest of the journey.

We arrived in Lisbon at 6.15am (local time) and headed for the metro, which opened at 6.30!

After coffee and toast we turned up at our hotel at about 8 am. They were really helpful, looked after our bags and said they would call us when the room was ready. I also needed another favour. I needed to collect the tickets for the concert but my instructions were in Portuguese. It turned out I had not printed out the voucher I needed to present at the theatre, but the receptionist said if I forwarded the email to the hotel email account they would print it out for me.

We'd made it. We had arrived at our hotel in Lisbon, what an experience!

The weather in Lisbon was great, blue skies and sunny days a vast improvement on the cold spell (-8 over night) in La Roda. We did the tram tour, the open top bus tours (all 3), Katie's knee means not much walking for her, so I did my walking in the mornings before she got up! We rode the lift and the funicular railway before getting the bus out to Belem to have lunch, collect the tickets and go to the concert.

Katie got chatted up by a 70 year old Portuguese guy, a little in his cups, who spoke a mixture of Spanish, French and Portuguese but no English. He kept telling Katie she was beautiful, and then as a bit of an afterthought, I was interesting!

The concert was great, Joe on form as always. This was the start of his European tour, and the first of 3 concerts I was going to see. It would be interesting to see how he changes the set along the way. I've seen him a few times now and come to realise that he always has a tale to tell about the city he's in. This time it was about the porter at his hotel. He had offered to take Joe's bags, but Joe said no that's OK, the porter mumbled something and when asked to repeat he said 'You're that John Henry guy, aren’t you?', so in Lisbon I'm the John Henry guy. Which only means something to the fans who know 'The Ballad of John Henry', but it was appreciated. Katie enjoyed it too, saying some of the guitar work gave her goosebumps!

On our last day we went to the tile museum, then went for a late lunch, early supper at a restaurant on the river. We sat on the terrace in the late sunshine, there were lots of people about because there was a big football match on (Sporting v Legia Warszawa) and a lot of Polish fans were wandering about. There had been some trouble so there was quite a high police presence.

In retrospect I was a bit blasé, I suppose. I put my handbag down between my chair and a rather large planter on the edge of the terrace. The chair had a material 'skirt', and I thought, if I'd thought about it at all, it was well hidden.

So with our meal, a bottle of wine and deep in conversation I didn’t notice it was gone until we came to leave. The police arrived immediately and went off to see if the bag had been discarded close by, but no luck. They then called their colleagues in the Tourist Police department, who turned up shortly after. Katie paid the bill.

The Tourist Police were sympathetic and took down all the stuff I'd lost to include in the report. I never used to carry anything at all, Mick looked after the money and I was like the Queen! But over time I've started taking everything with me, so my phone, palm pilot, ipod, glasses, fountain pen, purse but worst of all my passport and driving licence. Don’t ask me why I didn’t leave this stuff in the hotel, I have no idea. My Spanish friends tell me they even put their money in their bra when they are out and about in a city!

So I cancelled my cards and we went out for a drink.

A local jazz bar http://www.ondajazz.com/ had a live act, a singer, more soul than jazz, and it turned into a not bad night all things considered.

The journey back to Seville the next day was less eventful. We got back to Seville too late for the onward journey to La Roda so we stopped in Seville for a couple of nights. We had a good couple of days, visiting Mick's favourite bar where one of the barmen fell in love with Katie, which meant we got exceptional service in a very busy bar, and I was complimented on my Spanish.

Back home and I eventually got around to requesting a new passport, new driving licence and making an insurance claim. I waited about a week for the new cards to come, but once I saw the new card number was available through my online account it dawned on me I could phone the bank for the expiry date so I didn't have to wait! Not having someone to talk to means I take a long time to come to some relatively simple conclusions!

With only 3 weeks before my next trip to the UK, and the fco website advising up to 6 weeks to replace a stolen passport I was in a bit of a panic.

I was uncomfortable about driving around without any documents, so I didn’t go anywhere unless it was absolutely necessary. Although my Spanish teacher phoned the Guardia Civil for me and they said as long as I had a copy of the police report and a new licence application I would be OK. As I had applied for a new licence by phone I wasn’t quite sure how I could do that!

The passport application had to go to Madrid, before being sent on to London to be printed. After a week the Embassy emailed to say the photos weren’t good enough and they wanted more information on the counter signatory to prove she was a fine upstanding citizen! (now 2 weeks before my travel date)

I just burst into tears.

I'm afraid I don't share my unhappiness well and prefer to hide myself in a corner until I can be sociable, all this coincided with my birthday.

Anyway, I dried my eyes and drove into Antequera to have another go in the photo booth. Phoned my Spanish teacher for advice and yes she is a teacher she could counter sign the photos.

On Saturday I took myself off to Malaga on the bus. I thought a day looking at the sea might improve my spirits.

So on Monday another package went off to the Embassy in Madrid, 'certificada y urgente' registered and express delivery!

So with 11 days to go my revised application arrived in Madrid.

Now it was the driving licence, without a licence I couldn't arrange a hire car for my trip, but that that arrived on Thursday.

By Friday I was convinced the photos weren't quite right, I phoned the Consulate in Malaga to ask about Emergency Travel Documents, and called the Embassy to check on progress. The advisor told me, it was printed yesterday and you should get it on Monday. I told the advisor he was the most wonderful human being in the world.

Huge relief.

My passport arrived on Monday and I was fit to fly for Friday.

The insurance company put me through all sorts of hoops requiring extra documents from the bank, the invoice from the hotel, the bus tickets, and then because of the excesses on the policy only paid out £100. I suppose I shouldn't complain, I only took the policy out for the health cover, as I don’t have an EHIC, so deliberately weighted it in favour of health and not for loss or damage! C'est la vie!

I'll post an update on my other exciting adventures shortly.

Mini update

The last update was so long that I have resolved to publish more frequently, and as I am on the verge of returning to England for Christmas this seems like as good a time as any.

I'm flattered that so many people tell me they keep up with my antics on the blog so I'm encouraged to keep it going.

On my return from my last trip to the UK it was another quick turn around as I keep up the tradition of giving each other holidays for birthdays. I took myself off to Nerja for Mick's birthday on 28^th October. I stayed at the Parador in Nerja.

Happily one of Mick's old school friends, Ian, and his wife ,Do, who have a holiday home in Nerja were also there and I spent a couple of days with them.

On my return home I found one of my adopted cats dead in the back garden, sadly it was the cute siamese/tabby cross. No idea as to the cause I'm afraid. The other one, the tabby, still shows his face occasionally looking very fit and healthy so he must be feeding himself, or found someone with a softer heart than mine!

We've had a few wet and windy days but on the whole the weather's been pretty good and I didn’t need to turn the fire on until about the third week of November. Daytime temperatures are still about 18 degrees, although the nights can go down to about 2!

Early in November I took advantage of a coach trip organised by a bunch of expats out of Fuente de Piedra, a village about 5 miles away, and visited Alcala la Real, a town in the Province of Jaen in the north of Andalucia with an ancient fortress and church on top of a hill originally settled in 727 by the Moors, reclaimed by the Catholics in the 15^th century, and largely destroyed by the French in the 19^th! The Spanish, probably with a bit of EU money, are now in the process of restoring it. And yes the sky really was that blue.

We had lunch in the town, which was made more interesting by my friend Peter asking a local to recommend somewhere to eat. An elderly gentleman stood and thought for a moment and then indicated we should follow him. We headed off down a side street, turned left, crossed a square, turned right, across another road, dog-legged across another road carried on down to the end of that street..........at one point I thought he was taking us home as we seemed to be in a largely residential area, but finally we arrived at a Meson, where he handed us over to the owner, wouldn’t accept a drink in thanks and was on his way. It was indeed a very fine Menu del Dia ( this is a Spanish institution, introduced by Franco which decrees that restaurants must provide an affordable menu for the working man, a two or three course meal, with bread and a drink, for anything from 8 to maybe 15 euros, depending on where the restaurant is, the cities being more expensive).

Everybody back on the coach and we stopped at Priego de Cordoba. Another small town in Andalucia, this time in the Province of Cordoba. This is renowned as a pretty town with lots of fountains and we had enough time for a wander round and stop for a coffee somewhere. And a rare photo of me!

Now we're into mid November, my neighbour (English owner's holiday home) is having some work done on his house and had decided to pay a visit mid project to check on progress and pay some money. I've been very firm with Derek, I'll help out but I'm not his project manager – I don't want to be responsible if something goes wrong!

So I collected Derek and his Spanish speaking friend, Barry, from the airport on Thursday night, Derek stayed with me but Barry insisted he was happier staying in the building site next door, and as he's a heavy smoker (and drinker) I didn’t try very hard to dissuade him.

Anyway, the update meeting with Mario went well, and Barry considered his duties discharged and spent the rest of the weekend in the bar. Derek and I went to the builders merchant and choose tiles and talked to Mario about how he wanted the rooms done. On Sunday we returned to Malaga airport in a thunderstorm!

A few days to wash bedding, remake beds and clean bathrooms before Lisa and Mike arrived on the following Saturday.

Lisa and Mike took the long road from the airport on Saturday and arrived via El Chorro, and the Lakes

and then the La Roda tapas experience.

There was a bit of a scramble on Sunday morning to catch the train to Seville for a day of bit of Spanish history and tapas!

We visited the Plaza Espana, a rather magnificent building built in 1928 to celebrate the Ibero- American Expo.

Then past the old Tobacco Factory of Carmen fame, now part of the University, and on to the Cathedral. There was limited access to the cathedral because there was a mass, so we didn’t get to see the tomb that is supposed to contain Christopher Columbus, there's some doubt whether or not its actually him, but we did get some sense of the scale of what is the largest Gothic cathedral in Europe.

And guess what, its lunch time. We walked around the cathedral to Barrio Santa Cruz, the most famous of Seville's neighbourhoods for tapas. On the way we stopped and watched as Santa Marta was returned to her home after what was probably her annual outing.

And then on to what I always refer to as Mick's favourite bar, Las Columnas, for a crisp, dry manzanilla and tapas of paella, tortillita de camarones, tortilla and berenjenas. I have some more sherry converts!

One of the reasons Lisa and Mike wanted to visit was Rick Stein's Spain, a recent tv series so we headed off to El Rinconcillo, the tapas bar he visited on his trip to Seville – personally I prefer, Las Columnas, but El Rinconcillo is reputed to be the oldest tapas bar in Seville, established in 1670. More sherry, manchego cheese, croquetas and carrilladas.

So, from one of the oldest establishments, to one of the newest. The Metropol Parasol, knownly locally as 'the mushrooms'. (Las setas) and you can see why.

Its a market hall, but its possible to visit the roof and get a fabulous view across the top of Seville. This was my second visit, as those of you who read my blogs will know, but it fascinating, and I cant wait to go again.

A slow walk down to the river, another refreshment stop – a discussion about wending our way back to the station, a moment's panic when I realised I'd lost my map. Collected another from a nearby hotel along with confirmation of which direction we needed to head off in. The receptionist was sure we needed a taxi for the station, but we had plenty of time.

It started as a very slow meander through narrow streets, and then a decision to stop for 'refuelling'. We found a little bar down a side street, a couple of glasses of rioja, some delicious jamon (I hope I can find this place again) and we were on our way again.

We got to the station in good time for the train, and we were back in the bar in La Roda by 10pm, ready for more rioja and tapas.

I hope Lisa and Mike enjoyed their time with me, I certainly enjoyed having them here.

On Monday morning they set off to Granada and I decided I should be making the most of this fine spell and painting my new rejas (window grilles).

Once a week I meet up with some friends for breakfast in a local bar for a bit of intercambio, my Spanish friends want to improve their English and my English friends want to improve their Spanish. We've been doing this for for what must be nearly 3 years now – or at least I have; I think there was something similar before I arrived but fizzled out. Anyway, we're pretty good friend now. The husbands of both Juana and Mari Carmen are olive farmers, so this is a busy time of year for them but after breakfast one day Juana invited Pat & Peter and me to visit her husband and his crew at work in the olive grove. It was interesting to watch Martin, Juana's husband, driving his tractor with a special attachment that grabs the tree trunk and shakes most of the olives off the tree onto a netting mat on the ground, his crew then follow up with mechanised pitch forks that shake the remaining olives off, while the rest collect up the netting and deposit the olives into a digger bucket which in turn transfers them into a trailer. These will then be transferred to the factory before the day is out as processing has to start within 24 hours of picking. Interestingly, when olive picking was done by beating the tree with sticks (a la the margarine advert) every other year the trees were barren as the beating did so much damage the trees needed a year to recover, now alternate years are signalled by a reduced crop rather than no crop at all.

On 3^rd December La Roda had its first Tapa Trail.

The weather favoured us and I think it was a great success, I do hope they do it again next year!

Sadly we lost one of our few English residents at the end of November, Terry Corfield, died while visiting friends and family in England, so now we are seven.

There was a special mass for him here on 8^th December ( the Festival of the Immaculate Conception) so our small band of brits attended. Father Adolfo kindly performed some of the service in English, and Granville was 'volunteered' to take one of the readings. The Father knew Terry, and his wife, Sheilagh, well and was able to add a few words about what kind of man he was. It was a light and friendly service and attended by many Spanish.

On Saturday Juana invited us to her house to see her Belen, (nativity). Every year Juana creates this fabulous scene in her hall, everything is made by hand and she spends hours and hours dressing the dolls and making the market stalls with all their produce, and this year there was an extra special addition, Peter the ice cream seller!

And now its almost Christmas and I'm back to the UK again to spend Xmas with my dad and try to catch a few friends as well, weather permitting. The diary for 2012 is already filling up.......... 

A long time coming..............

Well the clocks have gone back, and its pouring with rain so it seems like a good time to update the blog.

I hope you're sitting comfortably as it's a long one!

Spring

April seems a long time ago and I've been enjoying retirement and sort of forgotten that I wanted to get some work done on the house, it seemed to get through last winter OK so the urgency has gone out of my plans. I may live to regret this over the next few months.

One of Mick's old golfing buddies, Bryan, and his wife, Ruth, came to Andalucia for a short break in April staying at the Los Amigos Beach resort in Mijas Costa, Fuengirola and they invited me to join them for a couple of days. The weather was pleasant enough but far too early in the year to try out the pool! It was an enjoyable time, recalling happy memories.

Back home with just enough time to run the washing machine, repack my bag and refuel the car and I was off to see Ian and Kate in Extremadura. This was the second time I've visited and I was looking forward to it. They live between Badajoz and Merida, off the main road through Torremayor, down a dirt track. With cats and dogs and chickens a great place for walks and outdoor space to enjoy when the sun shines. And the sun did shine.

A visit from their Spanish teacher and her husband set us up for the weekend, great company and a happy intercambio experience, a little Spanish and a little English keeping the conversation flowing.

Lunch the next day with a young English teaching assistance and her boyfriend was also fun, especially as I had been introduced as a work friend and not as someone who lives in Spain, so Helen attempted to order for me!

Sunday in Merida. Jammed, is the only way to describe this town, jammed full of Roman architecture. Its a really small town but everywhere you turn there's a amphitheatre, a hippodrome, an aqueduct, etc, etc

Then a trip into Portugal; not quite as adventurous as it sounds as the Portuguese border is less than an hour down the road. We visited Elvas, an old frontier town with fortifications, a still functioning aqueduct, a British cemetery, for those soldiers who fell during the Peninsular Wars, and cheap lunch!

 

Another quick dash home, this time to clean bathrooms and make beds as visitors were due.

Peter and Briony arrived having spent a few days in Granada, with tales of driving mayhem. They had had a minor coming together on the motorway, on their way to Granada, but it turned out a lot smoother than it might have done. The other driver was a Brit living in Spain who ran a local garage! He helped them sort out another hire car, and after another change of car, the first being too small (those of you who know Peter will understand this comment), they were on their way again. They arrived at their hotel quite late, and anyone who has driven around old Spanish towns will empathise!

I'm afraid I added to Peter's driving traumas when he offered to drive on Saturday night so we could go somewhere I would like to go but don't really get the opportunity, either because I wouldn't go on my own or because it means driving. We found a really good bar in Antequera, Dehesa Las Hazuelas although we had quite a bit of driving round to find somewhere to park and then had to wait until about 10.30 for a table, it was worth it!

On leaving Antequera the Guardia Civil stopped us to breathalyse Peter, fortunately he hadn’t had anything to drink but the experience threw us all so much he missed the exit on the roundabout and got caught by another Guardia Civil officer, who ended up shouting at us '¿a dónde vas?' ¿a dónde vas?' (Where are you going?) Thankfully the Guardia aren’t nearly as scary as they used to be!

After that bit of excitement we just had a quiet day in La Roda before they headed off the next day on a mighty long trip to Torrevieja nearly 300 miles away.

Easter was a complete washout this year, after all the anticipation because it would be the latest in the year that Easter can possibly be, we were all expecting the chance to sit out in the warm evenings to watch. Most of the parades had to be cancelled because of the rain. Seville cancelled processions for the first time in 80 years.

The rain continued on into the following week so our Royal Wedding celebrations were rained on, even if the one in London wasn't. Pat invited a few ladies, Juana, Mari Carmen, Pauline, Sylvia, Annie, from Puente Genil and her neighbour and me to dress up, share a glass or two of cava and a few canapes to watch the telly and celebrate. Our Spanish friends were very impressed by all the pomp and ceremony! We Brits know how to put on a show!

May brings another local festival, San Pancracio, the patron saint of Health & Employment

Our local version of this saint lives in a small chapel on the hillside about 5 kms (3 miles) from La Roda and on the Friday nearest 12^th May the 4 ft statue is loaded up onto an ox cart and trundled into town to much music and singing to be greeted by a party in the ice cream factory. On Saturday he's trundled round town with a band of musicians and finishes up in a street party. Free food and drinks for all.

This year Jim and Lizzie, and Lizzie's Mum and Dad, Jayne and Steve, came out for the weekend and got to witness at least some of this, although they were enjoying the tapas at La Maestranza so much that by the time we got to the street party they were all packing up – we did get a drink though! It proved to be weekend of much food and drink and not much else!

On my way to the airport to pick them up my car suffered a blow out, but I managed to limp into a petrol station and some very nice men attempted to help we get the offending tyre off. To no avail. We gave up and rang the breakdown company who would only get my car back home, so frantic text messages to Jim (who was in the air at this time) that, in the first instance, I would be late, then that I couldn't get there at all. While waiting for the breakdown vehicle my new friend was relaying the story to another chap – who turned out to be a mechanic – he offered to try getting the tyre off. By sheer brute force he managed to get the wheel nuts moving and within a few minutes replaced my blown out tyre with the space saver. With much finger wagging I was told it was perfectly safe for me to go to the airport to pick up my family but I should not go more than 80 km/hour. They wouldn’t accept anything in payment for their help, after another text to say I was on my way but would be late, I set off. Apparently I sent the text about 4 times - I was worried I hadn’t sent it successfully.

I arrived at the airport and from the railings of the car park I could see Jim & Lizzie waiting on the concourse below, I managed to get their attention and within minutes we were loading up the car for the trip back.

We arrived back in La Roda about 11.30pm, the bars were still open so after quickly dumping the bags we were out on the town, starting off the weekend the way it would continue.  

On Saturday I got a new tyre and came back to find Jim & Steve setting into their first beer of the day at La Maestranza.

With minimal sight seeing and maximum eating and drinking the weekend was over far too soon, but they all enjoyed it and promised come back!

I was coming back to England the following week for one of Mick's old school friend's 60^th birthday party. I convinced myself I needed some new shoes for this event and headed off to Puente Genil. However, I never got there, I managed to crash the car. Thankfully no one was hurt, and after his initial outburst even the chap I hit was quite nice about it, the firemen and police were all very kind and I only had to get the Guardia Civil officer to talk to my Spanish teacher on the phone for me because I had reached the point where shock kicked in and I couldn’t understand what he was saying to me. He was trying to tell me that they were not going to take the matter any further, they would leave it to the insurance companies. Phew! It was without doubt my fault, although the other driver was travelling at some speed, the damage to my car attested to that, he pretty much took the front of my car off! The breakdown truck delivered the car to my local garage in Estepa and the salesman who sold us the car came out, took one look at the car and said 'Never mind, you can come back tomorrow with your husband, and choose another car!' Poor man was quite shocked when I told him what happened.

I had to explain to the insurance company and the garage that I was going to England for 3 weeks and would be in touch when I returned, they were all very relaxed about it!

When I returned the insurance company had decided it was a write off and made me an acceptable offer for the car. The garage found me a car I 'had to' buy, and it all seemed to get resolved quite simply, sort of! The experience did wonders for my telephone Spanish!

No photos of the smashed car, but this is the new one!

My flight to Stansted was delayed and I arrived at the hotel about 2 hours late, but a glass of wine was waiting for me and they had delayed ordering the taxi for the party until I arrived. As always, it was great fun to spend time with Mick's old school friends and their wives and I met up with Bill's younger brothers (twins, who were at school with my older brother) and I reckoned I haven’t seen them for about 35 years!

Bill lives not far from my cousin Nick and as we had recently determined that we should try to keep in touch and see each other more frequently than family funerals I thought I'd take the opportunity to visit him, this meant me staying in the area for an extra day as my jet-setting cousin was away for the weekend, golfing! Bill very kindly invited me to spend the day, his actual birthday with his family, sons, daughters in law and granddaughters and there was a very special message from Steve in Afghanistan!

I spent most of Monday with Bill and Meg too, visiting the Tiptree factory for lunch before heading off to see Nick and spend the evening with him, his wife Sharon and one of his step sons – we had an hilarious evening in an Indian restaurant where the waiter spent the entire evening trying to catch them out on their knowledge of football!

Then off to Dad's in Sherborne and a few days in Salisbury. At last managed to fulfil my promise to meet up with Phil and Pam, although sadly Pam couldn’t join us as she had to visit her mum. I'd been promising to meet up for about two years, which is about my average for fulfilling promises! Friday afternoon post work drinks with Jim in the Avon and an evening with Anne Marie and Jess, I think I managed to stay awake this time!

My visit to Salisbury meant staying with the very accommodating McCall family, again. Bless them they let me treat the place like a hotel, or maybe I'm just another one of the children! My visit to Salisbury coincided with the Salisbury Festival and Annie got me a ticket to join them at the open air production of Hamlet at Trafalgar Park.

It was a fabulous production, despite the weather making a pathetic attempt to rain most of the evening, which just resulted in damp air rather than rain, and Jamie making it abundantly clear that he'd rather be somewhere else watching football, apparently Manchester United were playing Barcelona in the final of the Champions League – Niall, being a rugby man, wasn’t very sympathetic!

The rest of the bank holiday weekend was spent with Katie in Bristol with a quick meal with Jim, Lizzie, Justin, Ashley & Carl who were going to see Derren Brown at the Bristol Hippodrome. He swears his audiences to secrecy so I have no idea what it was like!

I spent a lovely day with Mick's sister, Sue, we 'did' the Miro exhibition at the Tate Modern, see they're not all about the farting stick!

We had lunch at Durius River Café, http://www.bacchanaliatws.co.uk/river_cafe_sergi_arola.aspx at Broken Wharf, just across the river from the Tate Modern, and if you enjoy tapas I can thoroughly recommend it! Then onto the Museum of London which had a special exhibition on photography, not only showing old photos of London but showing how techniques have changed over the years.

The reason for making this a 3 week trip to England was so I could see Jack Bruce & Joe Bonamassa at the Royal Festival Hall playing as part of the anniversary of the Festival of Britain. It was a fantastic evening, I thoroughly enjoyed myself with a lot of good old Cream classics!

Time to return home, Dad came with me and stayed for about 3 weeks.

Summer

There a local English group in Fuente de Piedra, just down the road, who organise coach trips once a month or so, and the June trip was one I wanted to go on. The trip was to Baeza and Ubeda, towns I had been wanting to visit for some time, but they're about 3 and a half hour's drive away, and I was baulking at the trip on my own. So we joined the trip. I don’t really know very many people in this group but I had done a favour by lending them my projector for some talks they put on for their group so when I realised I had no way of getting to Fuente de Piedra to pick up the coach I contacted one of the organisers and asked for her help. She found me someone who was going on the trip who lived in Las Minas; they would have to drive past the end of my road to get to the coach pick up point, a lovely couple, Peter and Margaret, who kindly picked us up and dropped us off.

Both towns are well worth the trip, and I would like to return someday and perhaps stop overnight.

That's Antonio Machado with my Dad, in Baeza.

and Ubeda, and its views.

With confirmation that the insurance company were going to pay up I set off to test drive my new car, my neighbour Peter came with me and the deal was done! It was all very straight forward, apart from a minor hiccough where the insurance company hadn’t updated their records to show me, rather than Mick, as the owner of the car but that was easily resolved. I just emailed them all the documents and they were happy.

I collected my new car and with some help from my Spanish teacher and the local bank sorted out the insurance and started the familiarisation process with my father in the passenger seat!

While I was in England one of the local feral cats decided to have her litter in my shed. There was a look of alarm on the mother's face when we arrived home to disturb her new family. She tried to pick them up to take them up the tree and onto the wall to get out but they were too heavy for her, she wasn’t much more than a kitten herself. She then sat at the bottom of the tree meowing trying to teach them to climb the tree themselves, but they were too tiny.

They were very cute and provided us with hours of amusement, until finally they were strong enough to get out of the garden on their own.

It was tempting to try to make pets of them but its just not practical, I spend far too much time away.

My neighbours Pat & Peter where dog sitting down in Fuengirola and they invited Dad and me to lunch one day, to give me an opportunity to get used to my new car, and I discovered it has traction control!

Dad's 3 weeks were up and I took him down to Malaga for the trip back to Gatwick. Alan collected him at the other end, and Ian took him home a couple of days later.

Just enough time to air the beds and clean the bathrooms and Katie arrived. My playmate for feria week! Katie was still having trouble with her leg and needed to wear her leg brace most of the time, but we did have a good time, we arranged to meet Juana and Mari Carmen at around 10.30 and we were enjoying chocolate and churros at 5.30 the next morning! We sat and enjoyed rebujitos (dry sherry and lemonade) and tapas with the out going mayoress and her family, and I met a Spaniard who doesn’t like garlic! Two unlikely chaps tried to teach us the Sevillana!

http://www.larodadeandalucia.es/opencms/opencms/laroda/municipio/multimedia/albumes/album_0004.html

The pool opened on 1^st July, at last

and I did my best to make the most of it all summer.

The Cordoba Guitar Festival had ZZ Top headlining this year, and Vanessa, my new rock buddy, and I set off to Cordoba for the weekend – it really is so much better when you have someone to go with! Yes they've still got those beards, and they still do the old familiar classics!

The end of the month brought the Antequera Blues Festival, down to just two nights this year, its usually a fortnight, another victim of 'el crisis'.

Lito Blues Band were by far the best band, and only the first first band (thankfully I cant remember their name) were particularly dire!

I received an email from Adrian, a guy I did my navigation classes with 18 years ago, telling me someone had dropped out of a sailing weekend in August and did I want to go – a quick check on flight costs = that's a yes then!

Shortly after Katie returned home she was rushed into hospital with a ruptured bowel, she had been extremely poorly, and she was still in hospital so my trip to England allowed me to visit her. By the time I arrived she was on yet another course of antibiotics, but was being allowed home during the afternoon, so I picked her up and spent the afternoon with her before returning her to hospital for the night, curfew was 9pm. I was quite shocked when I saw her, although I had been speaking to her on the phone everyday I don’t think I appreciated quite how ill she was until I saw her at the hospital looking so pale and wan.

Thankfully she was allowed home the following week, and is now recovering well, back at work, but with another operation on the horizon.

The sailing was great fun, with good company. Although a dodgy engine meant we couldn’t do quite what we planned. We didn’t fancy trying to get out past Hurst Castle against wind and tide with a suspect engine. The male members of the crew attempted to fix the problem but it was beyond the sealing wax and brown paper variety of solution so we went to Newtown Creek instead. Newtown Creek has many happy memories for me so I didn’t mind at all!

This isn’t the actual boat, but it was one just like it.

I finished my short trip to England with a visit to Justin, Ashley & Josie to meet the new addition to the family Harrison Michael George, born on 24^th July.

Draw breath, Anne, her little boy Dan, and her mum, Joan were coming at the end of the month so making beds and cleaning bathrooms is the order of the day again. Anne still owns a house in La Roda although they now live in England and she was coming out to sort out some business stuff and catch up with friends etc. It was a hectic schedule and I don’t think she managed to do everything she wanted to but it was lovely to see her again, and spend a day on the beach with Dan a perfect excuse to play in the sea!

Another deep breath, more bed making and bathroom cleaning, Chris, Albert and Cath arrived for a few days and their visit coincided with another local festival, Las Patronales. This festival allows villages with the virgin as their patron saint to have a holiday. Guess what, La Roda's patron saint is Virgen de los Llanos (the Virgin of the Plains).

They missed the first night where the ladies and children dress up in traditional dress and take white flowers to the church complete with a marching band and horses – the horses were a new addition this year and were lovely to see.

For lunch the next day we were treated to free sardines cooked on a charcoal fire in a miniature fishing boat set on a cradle in the street and Marie's famous paella! In the evening, the virgin (the one of the plains) came out of the church, dressed in the flowers delivered the previous evening, and marched round town with a band and a lot of followers in their Sunday best. As soon as the last bus came through town the road was closed, all the bars extended their pavement tables right across the street, a stage was set up for a band and the party started!

Sunday brought a local football match on our new astro turf pitch, so being keen football fans Chris and Albert wanted to go. That's how I discovered we have new paddle tennis courts! On our walk to the football match we passed an open shed, and I thought I recognised a triumph stag parked in the corner as I stopped to look we were beckoned into the garage and shown an immaculate Austin 10

An absolutely pristine Mercedes – not sure of the model but it had a bench seat which probably puts it late 50s or early 60s and the leather looked new! Apparently they are used for weddings.

We took the train to Cordoba and did the sightseeing thing

Next up a trip to Seville to see Cirque du Solieil. Katie was supposed to be coming with me but she was still too poorly to travel so Vanessa, my rock buddy, stepped into the breech. Ian and Kate had got tickets months and months ago and it was my job to select the hotel and book it. So I had booked a room for Kate and Ian for one night, and another for me and Kate for 2 nights – Vanessa only stopped one night and I supposed I could have changed my booking but I didn’t.

The Cirque du Soleil was absolutely fabulously, so much better than I thought it would be, heart stopping and breathtaking all at once. If you ever get the chance to see one of their shows I cant recommend it highly enough!

We all met up at the station, found the hotel and went for lunch- we then wandered over to the Plaza Espana, our first opportunity to see it post refurbishment and the first time I'd see it with water in the canal since I was a small child!

My second day in Seville was a real tourist fest! Ian and Kate headed off after breakfast for Ikea, Vanessa and I visited the Metropol Parasol, an amazing structure recently finished that houses a market and bars and restaurants and a viewing platform to look out over the rooftops of Seville.

Difficult to believe one city contains such diverse buildings.

Vanessa caught her train and I went off to the Torre del Oro on the banks of the Guadalquivir. It houses a small maritime museum. A river boat trip with a bunch of Russian tourists, then the guided tour of the La Maestranza bullring. I've never really fancied going to a bull fight, and I still don’t want to, but the visit did explode a lot of myths for me. Like did you know the bull can win? If he does he goes for breeding, never to fight again.

Autumn

Back home for a few days then off to England again, this time for 5 weeks.

I always try to be in England for the anniversary, I just don't want to be here, and Alison had got me tickets to see Joe Bonamassa at the Hammersmith Apollo on 21^st October, so it just sort of happened that way.

In the odd moments over the summer I had busied myself in trying to fill in the gaps between my arrival on 20^th September and my departure on 25^th October. The 21^st was my Dad's 85^th birthday and my younger brother came down so we had the day with him, doing a few jobs in the garden and around the house. The 22^nd was spent with Katie in Bristol, it started off badly when a decision to visit a textile exhibition involved a bus ride with a very unhelpful bus driver, and a walk that was probably too far only to find the exhibition was of a slightly lower standard than you would expect to find in your local primary school and the coffee shop was shut at 3.30! So we decided to ditch the return bus ticket and get the ferry back – the young girl on the boat was so cheerful and friendly she immediately made up for the miserable experience we'd just had! We finished the day off with a visit to Katie's new local pub which turned out to be a really friendly local - I'm sure she'll be happy there.

The annual get together of Mick's old school mates was in Bath this year, and now that most of them are retired we met for lunch in Wells on the Friday – a lot quieter than Hot Fuzz would lead you to believe! It always a good weekend with lots of good food and drink and laughs! It was Danny's job to organise the weekend and he did a fine job, hotel had a good location, in spite of its name (Pratts) and the dining choices were excellent. The obligatory open top bus tour, the Baths tour and a river boat trip. A kingfisher made an appearance in Danny's honour!

I'll probably be told this is the wrong sort of kingfisher, it was the electric blue as he flew off that was most startling. Bill, you've got a lot to live up to next year!

Back to Dad's until Friday, and a visit from my older brother, a trip to the local swimming pool then off to Exeter for lunch with some old friends, Heather, Ian, Tony & Becky – I was spending a few days with Annie but it was such a gloriously sunny day I thought I'd kill some time in Torquay before she was due home from work – so I sat on the sea wall and watched the boats come and go, the sun glistening on the water, nothing like it you know, a sunny day in England!

Had a great few days with Annie, John and Becks. I also visited David and Jean Ottewell, old neighbours of Mick's parents when they all lived in Epsom and Janet their daughter. Lovely to see them and hear their reminisces of times with Jimmy & Milly (Mick's mum and dad). They've even named their new cat after Milly. Annie and I had a lovely day while Becks and John were at a tennis tournament (Becks won, and went through to the next round). We played tourists and did Greenway House and the ferry to Dartmouth, and wandered round Dartmouth.

Next stop Mornick, 11 houses on a bend in the road just outside Callington. My first night was a visit to the Landulph Festival of Music and the Arts and An Evening with Mike D'Abo.

Mike D'Abo replaced Paul Jones as the lead singer with Manfred Mann in 1966.

It was quite entertaining, lots of songs we all knew and could sing along to and his anecdotes were funny and interesting, although telling us he was 67 and following a vasectomy reversal he was the proud father of 4 year old twins was probably more information than I really wanted!

Polly and her daughter Helen set about making sure I enjoyed my visit and took me to Padstow and Falmouth, http://www.gyllybeach.com/ for lunch and then on to watch their choir practice, I was very impressed. Their choirmaster, a very energetic woman called Jane, had them all singing a passable rendition of Moondance inside an hour.

As part of Movember Helen has posted this on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7IvXpQycik
take a look, its really good!

Quick turn round at Dad's to do a bit of washing, its not easy packing for 5 weeks! The onto Salisbury to stay with the lovely McCall family. Their two eldest daughters are away, Clare at Drama school and Lucy teaching English in Thailand, so I was making the house seem less empty! Lisa & Mike invited me to supper to discuss their plans for their trip to Spain for Lisa's birthday, then an evening with the Bevans, testing out their new sofa bed. A night out with Jim & Lizzie at the Jade which sadly fell short of their usual high standards, food was good but the service was a bit rubbish!

Wandering around Salisbury I bumped into Bryan and Ruth and they told me I had to visit the exhibition in the cathedral, I'm so glad I did

and on the way I bumped into Gerry, really good to see him again.

Then a much planned for weekend with Mick's sister's family and Katie, Jim and Lizzie, a chance for the cousins to catch up with each other. I think everyone enjoyed it, well there was lot of drinking and laughter!

My route back to Dad's gave me a chance to call in on Trevor and Jane in Chobham, and I haven’t seen them for over 4 years!

Time was running out I was now 4 weeks into my trip and still loads to do! Another overnight stop in Salisbury to catch up with Chris & Alb who were both away on holiday the previous week and Durin. That accomplished I was off to Longcot for a few days peace and quiet before the gig on Friday. Bern's brother in law offered to take us up to Hammersmith to save the hassle of finding somewhere to park, the Friday night traffic was horrendous (but probably normal) and we got there in time to join the queue to get in. I don’t know about the organisation at the Apollo, the support act had been on stage for 20 minutes by the time we got in! Joe was brilliant as usual but the venues are getting bigger now and its not so easy to take photos!

Sunday off to Bristol to see Katie and catch another gig, this time The Union. We had a fabulous day, lunch on a boat on the river,Under the Stars then a boat trip before getting to the Fleece for the gig. Two support bands, Mad Dog were really good I'll certainly look out for them again, but Fighting Wolves not really my thing, a bit too thrash metal! The Union were fab, their stuff has lots of anthem type songs great for getting everyone to sing along!

And then its time to come home, a great 5 weeks, went by far too fast, still didn’t manage to see everyone I wanted to see, but I'll try again next time!