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!