It's a small world

While we were watching the football, I was aware that a group of people were hovering behind Neil, waiting for the table next to us to become free. We were still waiting for our meals. Elizabeth, our new friend was over half an hour late and so we assumed she had changed her mind, I knew it was her husbands birthday and they had been having a nice lunch as he was going to be away working for a couple of days, he's a long distance lorry driver.

Anyway, the couple next to us paid their bill and as they began to move this other group moved in. There were 4 of them but only 2 chairs and so they asked us if the chair we had was free and that started the conversation, Neil recognised their accents as being Yorkshire accents, similar to his. One was from Dewsbury, not far from Neil's home town of Featherstone - and so conversations continued.

It turns out the others were from Sheffield, 'so am I' I said, 'where abouts?' I continued - 'Nether Edge' came the reply - 'oh, the oppostite side of town to me then' I replied, 'I'm from Aston'. 'So am I' said one of the lads - small world?!!

It gets smaller.

After a chat about our local schools, and identifying that I left secondary school the same year he started so there was no way we could have known each other, one of the girls asked where I used to work. I told them Blundells, knowing that if they were from Sheffield they would know the company, but I never expected the next comment.....

'You know Anna who works at Blundells, don't you? She's just had a baby. She told us about you moving here, I used to share a flat with her!'

Definintely a small world!

A noisy night out!

Barcelona v Man Utd seemed a good match to watch in one of the Spanish bars so Wednesday night saw us down in Pepa's where we had arranged to meet Elizabeth, a new friend (who is Brazilian but has lived here for 7 years and speaks about 2 words of English). We were sensible and reserved a table infront of the TV, so we had a good view of the match. Neither of us have any loyalty to either team and so we were looking forward to watching a good match.

Pepa's was filled to capacity with 15 minutes still to go before kick-off and I felt sorry for the couple who were trying to have a quiet meal next to us, they obviously hadn't reckoned on the football crowd descending.

There was a big mix of Spanish and English so who ever won, there was always going to be a lot of banter throughout but when Barcelona scored, the place erupted. The Spanish love their football.

When the final whistle blew the noise was deafening, so much more fun than watching the match at home. It hadn't been a great football match to watch, but had been a great evenings fun.

Tough luck on Man U supporters in the room but the Spaniards were celebrating well into the night. We left them after midnight still in fine voice.

A good reason the have more BBQ's!

Just outside our back door is our gas BBQ, which has a lid. This morning Neil noticed a wasp hovering around it so went out and then he noticed there were a few more so he opened the lid of the BBQ to find that the little blighters had taken squatters rights and were setting up home. The nest was being formed but was smaller than the size of a golf ball so it was easily dealt with and the wasps killed but it was a narrow escape.

Back in Sheffield we had a wasps nest in the shed and by the time we discovered it, the wasp man reckoned there were about 2,500 wasps and they took the nest away in 2 black bin liners.

Can you imagine the problems we could have had if they had been allowed a little while longer to build their nest? We haven't had a BBQ this year but I think we need to use it once a week - just to make sure they are well and truly discouraged from returning.

Well spotted Neil!

The postman knocks twice!

Or in our case the post lady rang once!

The guy in the post office had obviously passed on the message correctly and this morning, Victoria, our 'cartera' called at the villa with not only the post addressed here but also a pack of re-directed post. Unfortunately I was out at my Thursday morning Ladies Club and Neil doesn't speak Spanish (other than to order coffee or beer and to get the bill) so he didn't get the full message but he did get that she had realised we had moved out of the last villa and he thought the mail was in a bag somewhere.

So, we loaded the dogs into the car and headed back to Pulpí. It's only a 15 minute drive so we decided we would go back to the office for when Victoria got back from her rounds in Terreros. I spoke to the same guy I spoke with on our last trip and he looked through some containers in the back but there wasn't anything of ours. So, we said we would walk the dogs, have a coffee and come back after 2.00pm so I could talk with Victoria.

We found a little café bar in a square quite close where we could sit in the shade and wait over a coffee, fanta and water for the pups.

Just after 2pm we went back to the post office and Victoria was back, so I had a conversation with her and finally gleemed that she had realised after a few weeks that we were no longer living at the old villa, so, not realising we had only moved to the next street and still had a key for the post box - and to be fair to her, why would she? - she had been sending our re-directed post back marked 'returned'!

Now she knew where we were she could start to deliver our redirected post again! Now, how was I to know we have postmen in Spain that think for themselves!!!!

So now we know what's happened, the bits we know have been returned we can chase up from the sender - and maybe - just maybe, any junk mail will now cease.

The post lady says what we should have done is to stick a note on the post box at the villa to say where we had moved to and she would have brought the post around! Now, I'm sure our postmen in the UK aren't allowed to do this sort of thing - I had difficulty getting them to give the post to me if I was outside my own gate without proving in triplicate that I really did, definitely live there!

The chicks have flown the nest.

On Sunday we noticed a distinct lack of tweeting coming through the wall into the kitchen but we could still see the parents were around. So, yesterday Neil took a look into the nest and the chicks had flown. He took the nest out of the pipe and said how well made it was. It was fairly solid and lined with the stuffing from some of our dogs toys, which they are adept at ripping out and leaving around the garden, it must have seemed like a trip to IKEA for the birds when they were building their nest.

I am pleased they have managed to raise their chicks safely, but we have covered the end of the pipe so we do not get any more unwanted visitors this summer - they are very noisy and very messy.

Good luck to them, we have so many cats around us they will need to be smart littel birds to survive.

Where's our post going?

We have our post on re-direct from the UK so that anything that we have forgotten to change still gets to us. Also, we cannot have Sky in Spain (technically we can and do, along with many others), we have to play the game and have a UK address for Sky to send things to.

Well, the re-direct has worked absolutely fine since last May upto about March, then suddenly - nothing. We get the post that is sent direct to us here - but the stuff on re-direct.

After a few weeks I began to think that something wasn't right and of course Sky are advertising that they are sending out new viewing cards and we need to make sure ours gets to us so I rang the postal re-direct service in the UK who confirmed everything was still in place and there had been no changes to it.

So, I rang the sorting office where we used to live and they also confirmed that the re-direct was still in place and while I was on the phone the postman came back from his rounds and he confirmed that he knows to re-direct our post, there is a sheet of labels ready etc etc.

MOST STRANGE.

This was about 2 weeks ago and I have been waiting for something to arrive through the re-direct - but nothing. So, this morning I decided to go up to Pulpi to the Post Office (Oficina de Correos) and ask them if they were aware of any problems. I had a very nice chat with a very nice man who was very patient with me and my Spanish but who totally got what I was saying. (He was so nice, he actually said how good my Spanish was - I felt so proud of myself, I didn't use my dictionary once!) He wasn't aware of a problem but he suggested I would be better speaking with the postwoman, Victoria. He will tell her the gist of my problem and I'm going back to Pulpi on Thursday morning to see whether she has any clues where our post is going.

It's all very puzzling!

One Year On!

Well, we have reached the 1st anniversary of our move to Spain. Although some of the plans we had originally made have changed significantly, overall we have had a good first year.

When we first arrived we had expectations of being in our own house by now. In reality, we are still renting having cancelled our contract on the house we were buying due to delays in the build and we are both of the opinion it was the right thing to do. Our solicitor has spent 6 months dealing with the bank in order to get the monies paid by us refunded under our bank guarantees and has now got everything agreed with the bank that the monies will be returned to us by bankers draft and has an appointment to go and collect them.

For anyone buying a new build it is vitally important to ensure you have the original of the bank guarantee and, even if it has an expiry date on it that has past, you need to hang on to it in case you need to claim your money back. We learned this week that if the developer holds the bank guarantees and they have an expiry date on them, once the date has expired the developer can re-submit them to the bank and get the monies back themselves, which leaves you fighting the developer for a refund.

So, having lived here for a year - is it as good as we hoped? A very definite yes. The weather is a real boost to how you feel in the moring when you first get up. Even though the winters are colder than I expected, they are not as cold as the UK and are much drier. Yes, we get rain which is torrential at the time, but it doesn't drag on for weeks and months. It is a lot windier here than I ever expected but once you know how it can be, you just make sure everything is fastened down well.

We have made some good friends and have played so much more golf than we ever would have been able to in Sheffield. The complete change of lifestyle, surroundings and pace of life has seen both of us a lot less stressed and my arthritis, while still a bother, is much less painful than it was.

So, what are the negatives (I won't call them bad points). Well, the £:€ exchange rate means it's not as cheap to live here as we were expecting but hopefully that will improve and in the meantime we are managing fine. We miss the regular contact with family and friends but we make sure we are in touch by phone and e-mail regularly and we have found that when people come to visit we have much more quality time with them than we did when we were in Sheffield.

We are very fortunate that we do not need to work (early retirement may mean a massive adjustment to lifestyle but it's definitely been right for us) and that has meant we could settle here much easier. For anyone moving out here that does need to work, I think it would be very tough.

It took us about 6 months before we stopped feeling as if we were on holiday and felt as though we lived here. I now drive on the right without thinking about it and when I see programs on the TV where they are driving on the left - it looks odd (watch out if I ever have to come back for a visit!) I can speak some Spanish so I can converse with the locals, which is good fun.

There is a lot still to do but I feel the first year has been everything that we expected, and more. Maybe we were very realistic in our expectations, maybe all the planning and research about the area we wanted to live and the lifestyle we wanted worked. Maybe our attitude of 'getting involved' helped us settle in quickly, I don't think we ever felt like the 'new kids on the block'.

Whatever the reasons, our first year has been good. Here's hoping our second year sees us in our own home, our golf handicaps lower and ourselves and our pups healthy.

I hope you will continue to follow our story as we start on Year 2!

Gazpacho!

We have one of Neil's sons staying with us for a few days and so we have been out and about. Yesterday we had a late lunch and a siesta, in keeping with Spanish tradition and then ate out at Meson Pepa's, a typical Spanish restaurant in the village.

A traditional meal starts with a salad, then you have your starters, then your main course, followed by dessert and finally coffee and liquers....... and it's eaten over a couple of hours.....or more and is accompanied by a variety of drinks, beers while you are waiting, wine with the meal, brandy with the coffees - for us, anyway.

So, in keeping with tradition we had a mixed salad to start - and Pepa's do a good salad - bed of lettuce, loaded with tomato, cucumber, onion, grated carrot, sweetcorn, tuna, boiled egg,olives and little peppery pippy things.

Then we had Gambas ajillo - garlic prawns. The prawns here are really good and there were plenty to share.

We each had a different main course, veal, rabbit & pork and shared some patatas a lo pobre, these are sliced potatoes done in oil with peppers and garlic, and a platter of verduras a la plancha - grilled vegetables. Here in Spain, anything 'a la plancha' means it's grilled and anything 'al horno' means it's been oven baked.

Anyway, to the Gazpacho. While we were eating our main course the chap sat at the table next to us got this large glass of what looked like Mango smoothie brought to him, with a little dish of chopped cucumber and green peppers, which he tipped into it along with some squares of bread - and this just didn't look right.

So, in my best Spanish, I asked the waited what it was? Gazpacho, he answered. Now, I had seen lots of packs of Gazpacho on the supermarket shelves and even seen it in restaurants, but I always thought it was pinky red, not Mango yellow! And, as far as I am aware I have never tried it.

A few minutes later, one of the waiters brought over a bowl of Gazpacho for us to try with the little dish of chopped peppers, etc and cubes of crouton style bread. For those of you that don't know, it is a soup served cold and is an Andalucian dish, and we are in Andalucia so it should be good - and it was. It is a tomatoe based soup and I can only assume the yellow colour was because they had used yellow tomatoes rather than fully ripened red ones. The recipe originated in Andalucia, a big tomato growing area and is now widely consumed throughout Spain and Portugal, especially in the summer as it's really very refreshing.

The whole meal was fabulous, and the Gazpacho - a real treat.

So, for those of you who may want to try it, here's a recipe we shall be putting to the test:

yield: Makes 6 servings
active time: 30 min
total time: 1 1/2 hr

Yellow tomatoes bring a touch of sunshine to this delicious chilled soup, which can be made as spicy or as mellow as you like.


1 navel orange
4 medium yellow beefsteak tomatoes (1 3/4 pounds), coarsely chopped
2 large yellow bell peppers, coarsely chopped
1 (3/4-pound) cucumber, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup Sherry vinegar
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce such as Tabasco, or to taste Garnish:
diced cucumber; diced yellow bell pepper; chopped fresh chives

Cut off and discard peel, including white pith, from orange with a sharp knife, then cut orange into 1-inch pieces. Stir together with remaining ingredients and 1 teaspoon salt.
Working in batches, purée in a blender until smooth, about 30 seconds per batch, then force each batch through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Whisk, then season with salt and chill, covered, 1 hour. Whisk before serving.

Cooks' note: Gazpacho can be chilled up to 1 day.

Copied from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Yellow-Gazpacho-243271

Doting Parents, of the Tweeting kind!

Yesterday we were laying in the Hot Tub, enjoying the sun and listening to the chicks twittering for their parents to feed them when we spotted mum with some sort of insect in her mouth. She was obviously nervous of us and flew about from the roof, to the wall, onto the slats across the drive and back to the roof.

The dad arrived, and he was a bit braver. He hopped about a few times and then went into the end of the pipe, the chicks went quite, and a few moments later he re-appeared at the edge of the pipe, took a quick look around and he was off again.

Mom stayed nervous all the time we were in the Hot Tun and although she never flew away, she didn't go into the pipe while we were there. She stayed close, with the food in her mouth and waited for us to go. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera handy as I would have loved to get some photos of them, but we've all seen the nature programs so you know what we were watching.

It was a lovely glimpse into the world of nature and I hope the chicks get a good chance of surviving by having a safe nest site for their first few weeks.

We have uninvited guests! And we don't know how long they're staying!

Daily noises on a development such as where we live are increasing as the weather improves, We have the usual traffic, music and dogs barking. We are now hearing childrens shouts and the splashes of swimming pools. Most of these go by unnoticed as we are used to them and if they get a bit much, we can close the doors.

But we now have an additional noise that can be heard constantly from within the villa. The constant call of chicks to their mum and dad for food. Yes, we have become home to a nest of newly hatched chicks. And where are they? Well, not in any of the bushes we have but they have found a spot safe from cats and our dogs.

In our kitchen we have a cooker hood & extractor fan - which has never been connected up to the extractor outlet which is about 3 feet to the left of the hood. Here you can see it taped over as in winter there is a howling gale comes through it.

So, of course this means there is a nice, dry, quiet pipe through the wall out over the drive some 10 feet from the floor, away from the upper terrace and completely safe from anything that doesn't fly - and one bright nesting pair of birds have made very good use of it.

Here is the pipe - and we can only see into it with a step ladder.

And here is the nest, you can just about make out a chick top right of the nest,if you use your imagination.

Neil did ask me early on if I wanted him to move the nest, but I said not. We had a nest in the extractor pipe from the bathroom at our old house in Dinnington and my Dad always said we should wait for the chicks to leave the nest before clearing it out and making it safe from future nesting birds, and I felt we should do the same here. Let the parents rear their chicks in safety and once they have fled the nest we will block it up.

In the meantime, the tweeting is quite nice, like being in the countryside, the dogs completely ignore it and it will be gone in a few weeks when the chicks fly the nest - and we'll probably never even realise they have gone until we notice the cheeping has stopped - probably several days later.

Bits & Bobs!

OK, so our Bank Holiday came and went and seems ages ago now, as it probably does in the UK. However, unlike the UK, the end of the Bank Holiday saw the end of the rain - and now, wow, summer is here big time.

Every morning we get up and the sky is clear and blue. By 10am it is warm enough to have the big doors open. Washing dries within hours. We don't have to think about whether we need a coat, a cardigan or an umbrella. Long trousers are purely for evenings out again, full shoes are relegated to the back of the wardrobe and dress code is strictly shorts, T-shirts and sandals.

We need to start watering the plants, the bougainvillea is at it's most splendid and the occassional splash of holiday makers in the pools can be heard. (It's still a little cool for the locals to be using their pools, the water hasn't warmed up enough yet!)

According to locals this has been a long cold winter, but we have not forgotten what a long, cold, wet winter is really like.

Now for us the opposite problems, Factor 50 sunscreen, dog walking to avoid the mid-day heat, leisurely afternoons while the sun is at its hottest and the prospect of day after day of this - until October!

Gosh, how will we cope.

Festival of San Juan - 23rd/24th June 2009

A reminder for anyone visiting San Juan in June, the main midnight Festival takes place on the shortest night, with picnics and bonfires on the beach here in Terreros. Last year there was music and dancing on the beach and the village was partying until the early hours. If you can have your visit coincide with this Festival, it is well worth preparing for a late night.

The main night time festival will fall on the night of 23/24 June, in general in Spain they have the Festivals on the relevant days rather than move them to a weekend.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

23rd / 24th June - Night of San Juan. Certain festivals seem to summarize life in Spain, with its love of having a good time in the company of friends and loved ones. The Night of San Juan is one such of these events. It is a celebration that is usually held on the beach with roaring bonfires, drink, food, and friends. It can be a memorable, almost surrealistic scene and one that needs to be experienced.

June 24th. The date remains a magical night in much of the northern hemisphere. Mythology states that strange occurrences can occur on this shortest night of the year. Certain pagan gods, for instance, make themselves visible during this night and we mere humans also give thanks and realise that the seasons of harder times are about to come.

So welcome to the magical night of San Juan. San Juan is about changes. It is about night to day; it is about fire to water. Fire purifies and water recuperates, refreshes, and rejuvenates
In Andalucia, San Juan is celebrated on the night of June 23rd with some towns, allowing the beaches to be used as campsites for a single night. On the beaches it’s common to see people jumping over fires which, according to legend, cleanse the body and the soul. Jumping in the sea at midnight is supposed to be a way to wash away evil spirits.

It's a Bank Holiday - Of Course it's raining!

From the heading you would be forgiven for thinking I was back in the UK, but no, I am still in the south of Spain and we only just managed to complete our game of golf this morning before the heavens opened.

As we were finishing the 16th the umbrellas were needed but it was still quite playable, then the rain seemed to ease off for a while until we got halfway down the 18th fairway and it started to rain for real. We were the lucky ones that managed to finish and get into the club house without getting too wet. Those after us were all coming in drenched.

So, a bank holiday and the beaches are empty, the bars are full and the skies are cloudy although the rain has stopped.

Sound familiar?


Looking at the forecast it is set to be windy tomorrow and then the sun is back from Sunday. I hope the forecast is right!