Swinhoe's EuroTour 2009/10

Sunday 14th February 2010, Roquetas and a busy day.

2010-02-15T10:11:00.026+01:00

STOP PRESS THIS BLOG IS NOT TAKING ANYMORE POSTS! NEW BLOG 3 AT
http://swinsblog2010.blogspot.com/
SWMBO didn't get her chucky eggs this morning as she had scrambled eggs yesterday, but being Valentines day I promised to take her out for a proper Sunday roast. What I probably didn't tell her was that at the time of the dinner England would be playing in the six nations against Italy and the pub had a telly. Anyway that was for later.

The plan was to go to the Sunday market at Vicar, a village about 8 miles away. As the sky was black and threatening rain we decided to drive. Good choice because Vicar, the village, was half way up a mountain and it was the wrong Vicar. We needed the commercial part of it, 5 miles further south.

Mainly clothes and pretty bad ones at that were on sale, but on a whim I decided to get a man handbag. Now I have always sworn I would never get one, I'm a northerner for God's sake, but the Spanish guys have them and I'm sick of carrying, keys, camera, wallet, cigs, glasses etc. in my pockets. It looks like I'm pleased to see anybody!

“Well while you're about it why not get one in pink, you puffta.” was not the kind of encouragement I usually get from SWMBO but I pressed on and got a nice black leather one for €9.5, sorted.

We also bought some vegetables but when we figured out what we had paid for them we soon realised we had been bloody robbed, they hear you foreign accent and you are done. Tricia had another spiral yorkshire pudding and that was all we spent!

Back to MS and still no rain, read books for a while and decided to cycle to the “Spinnaker” pub where the match, sorry, dinner was booked. Well! Lovely tender beef, five vegetables, real English Yorkshire pudding and gravy you could stand your knife up in, including a complimentary class of wine €6.5, can't be bad and it wasn't. Watched end of a FA cup draw between Bolton and Spurs and the rugby which England won by 17 – 12, but at the end it was a close run thing. Noway half exciting as the Wales v Scotland match on Saturday, that was a cracker.

Now the extra pint of John Smiths washed down with a pint of San Miguel and two large red wines on top of the cherry pie and ice cream was fine at the time. Remembering that I had to cycle 5 miles, into the wind, along the coast with a black sky, rain coming and feeling about six months pregnant was not.

We had planned liver and mashed potatoes tonight, one of our favourites but somehow I don't think so.

Tricia's been reading an Andy McNab book and kept on mumbling about it being crap and far fetched, so I told her to stop reading it then. “I can't, it's so bad it can only get better”. It didn't, and late last night I heard it slapping against the bedroom wall with the accompanied words of “Stupid bugger!”

She's now on a book about the Amazon which seems an improvement. “What's it about?” “The Amazon!” “I can see that, the bloody title's the bloody Amazon, but what's it about, a thriller, historical, spy stuff?”
“The Amazon!”
I just hope Andy McNab's in it.

Showing my age I know but I was musing the other day about adverts, I mean billboard adverts.

For some unknown reason the Smirnoff ads during 1971 – 76, sprung into my mind, they went something like:-

“Accountancy was my life until I discovered Smirnoff, the effect was shattering!”

Also

“I never saw further than the boy next door until I discovered Smirnoff, the effect was shattering!”

But the one I remember most vividly was scrawled on a bog wall in Newcastle University.

“I thought Wan King was in China until I discovered Smirnoff, the effect was shattering!” Still makes me smile, as does the pretentious one next to it, “Heisenberg rules, he thinks, OK?”. Funny how these things come back to you?

I'm in a dilemma, a quandary, I'm also in the Prudential but it does not help me decide to get another lock for the MS door. It has two as standard but as I keep hearing from my fellow campers “They're no bloody good, just need a big screwdriver, mate and the scrotes are in!” So I fitted an internal bolt. “That won't stop them trying to get in and knackering your locks!” So it looks like I am going to get poorer and Fiamma richer when I buy one of their external Magnum locks, trouble is it cost too much to ship it to Spain and we don't get back until June. I think I'll just wedge a chair behind the door.

Monday 15th February and it's raining again!
Dull, cloudy, windy and the the electric went off.

Looked round and noticed I had the electric fire on 1.5 KW, water heater 800 W, mains light and PC 200 W, Fridge / freezer 600 W (at times), Kettle 1.8 KW and then I switched on the microwave 800 W, to warm my milk for the early morning coffee, bang and off. As that's over 5 KW in total, 20A! On a 10A supply.
So not such a surprise then.

Got a feeling we are going shopping, again!

Some sayings
(may be repeats, I'm starting to forget)

So Batman came up to me & he hit me over the head with a vase & he went

T'PAU! I said "Don't you mean KAPOW?? He said "No, I've got china in my hand."

You invented Tipp Ex, correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm so lazy I've got a smoke alarm with a snooze button.

I bought some Armageddon cheese today, and it said on the packet 'Best Before End'

So I went to buy a watch, and the man in the shop said "Analogue." I said "No, just a watch."

I went into a shop and I said, "Can someone sell me a kettle." The bloke said "Kenwood" I said, "Fine. Where is he?"

So I went in to a pet shop. I said, "Can I buy a goldfish?" The guy said, "Do you want an aquarium?" I said, "I don't care what star sign it is."

I went to the doctor. I said to him "I'm frightened of lapels." He said,

"You've got cholera."

So I met the bloke who invented crosswords today. I can't remember his name, it's P something T something R.

I was reading this book today, The History Of Glue, and I couldn't put it down.

I phoned the local ramblers club today, and this bloke just went on and on.

My mate asked me "What do you think of voluntary work?? I said "I wouldn't do it if you paid me."

So I was in the jungle and there was this monkey with a tin opener. I said, "You don't need a tin opener to peel a banana." He said, "No, this is for the custard."

This policeman came up to me with a pencil and a piece of very thin paper. He said, "I want you to trace someone for me."

So this lorry full of tortoises collided with a van full of terrapins.

It was a turtle disaster.

So I told my girlfriend I had a job in a bowling alley. She said "Tenpin?" I said, "No, it's a permanent job."

So I told my mum that I'd opened a theatre. She said, "Are you having me on?" I said, "Well I'll give you an audition, but I'm not promising you anything."

I phoned the local builders today, I said to them "Can I have a skipoutside my house?" He said, "I'm not stopping you!"

So this cowboy walks in to a German car showroom and he says "Audi!"

So I fancied a game of darts with my mate. He said, "Nearest the bull goes first" He went "Baah" and I went "Moo" He said "You're closest"

So I met this bloke with a didgeridoo and he was playing Dancing Queen on it. I thought that's Aboriginal.

I was driving up the motorway and my boss phoned me and he told me I'd been promoted. I was so shocked I swerved the car. He phoned me again to say I'd been promoted even higher and I swerved again. He then made me managing director & I went right off into a tree. The police came and asked me what had happened. I said "I careered off the road"

I visited the offices of the RSPCA today. It's so tiny you couldn't swing a cat in there.

I was stealing things in the supermarket today while balanced on the shoulders of vampires. I was charged with shoplifting on three counts.

I phoned the local gym and I asked if they could teach me how to do the splits. He said, "How flexible are you?" I said, "I can't make Tuesdays or Thursdays." (my absolute favourite)

So I went to the local video shop and I said, "Can I take out The Elephant Man?" He said, "He's not your type." I said "How about Batman Forever?" He said, "No, you'll have to bring it back tomorrow"

12th February 2010, Roquetas and she is on the spend.

2010-02-13T12:10:00.001+01:00

(A new record! The last post was one more, 28, than the number published under the first blog. Working it out I've written over 40 K words, and you poor bastids have had to read them!)

Weather OK except it rains at night, which is fine by me.

My body is finally coming to terms with the soup and is keeping me nice and regular, which is a good thing.

Tricia's bike managed a puncture in the back wheel, it is a presta and not a schrader valve fitting and my pump's adapter is useless, well very useless after I broke it in frustration. Managed OK and fixed said puncture. “Let's go for a ride!” (I wish)

These are the magic words that native American Indians use as part of a rain dance. "Heyaya, heyaya, heyaya, lets go for a ride, heyaya, heyaya". I know because I saw it in one of John Wayne's films, you know the one where they use all the standard phases. “We'll cut them off at the pass”, and “Get down off your horse and stick your hands up, yah bum”, “The bullet is still in her yet”, (where the hell is a women's yet?) and “The only good Indian is a Chicken Madras”, That movie, yes.

So as you guessed, no sooner than the words were out of her mouth, it pissed down. “Well, we might as well go shopping”.

Now a few days back, in a shop advertising that everything was at least 30% off, I noticed a cafeteria, with two matching glass mugs. “That looks nice”, I said to myself and only €17 for the set, pity there are only two mugs. Now I know I may have sub vocalised it, and I know for a fact that she was at the other side of the store; but the phase, “That looks nice”, uttered by me, tends to teleport SWMBO from what ever point in space she is at the time, to my side with one hand already in my money pocket.

“Oooh! I like it too, let's buy it”. “But Pet, I only said.....” “YOU SAID YOU LIKED IT! I HEARD YOU!”

No way out so we went to the lady and asked for a set with four mugs. “Only two per set”. SWMBO gently took her by the throat and proceeded to persuade her to give us four mugs but she was having none of it as the set actually came in a box and she would not split them. There was supposed to be a sale on! So I'm thinking I've got out of that one then, when Tricia solves the problem by buying two sets and saying that the extra jug with be a perfect present for someone. Now I've got to admit the logic was pretty damn good and just gave in.

She is gradually adding things to make the MS more like home, it is home! This is where we live for ten months of the year. So far it's two cushions, a clock, four candles, the cafeteria set and various “must haves” for the kitchen area. At the moment she is on the look out for a potato masher but I do believe that any such thing actually exists in Spain. We do like our liver and mashed potato.

Spent the rest of the day buying, a new bicycle pump, extra slide locks for the MS and special present for someone out there who's birthday it will soon be. Unfortunately it's too big to post and as we will not be there for the event, I will send a picture in it's place nearer the time.

Market day yesterday and it was threatening rain we decided to drive, only 3 miles but WTH.

Got a bag of “Churros”, which is a continuous spiral of batter, cooked in hot oil. Basically a long Yorkshire Pudding, she loved it, me so so. She bought a shirt for €3, which is very nice but will probably fall to pieces in a week.

We are planning a run out to Granada, about 200 miles there and back, which may seem like a long way for a “run out” but that's why we are here, to see things I guess.

Having a problem with one of the air suspension units on the Navara, which seems to be off centre and I'm sure will need re-fitting, which I can do but I will talk to Calder Leisure (the MS dealer) to check first.

Saturday 13th February 2010

What can I say, we've had non stop rain and it's going to be like this for the next 10 days, temperature about 12°C, can only thank God we are in a 5er with plenty of room and not cramped in a motorhome. So what to do? Well I've obviously got plenty of time to subject you lot out there with a few more anecdotes and blatant lies.

SWMBO heard the rain this morning and after being served scrambled eggs on toast, decided to stay in bed and read, it's 11:15 am and that's her. She's not stupid that one. Time check, it's now 12:14 PM!

We are planning a trip to Granada but as it is 100 miles away we might as well stay a night and see all the stuff, in the rain of course. Can get a double en suite in the Granada Central Hotel for €50 if you book the day before. If not, it will be the local Ibis at €44/night. Something to look forward to I guess and never been there and apparently plenty to see.

The following is with respect to “The boy from nowhere” sung by Tom Jones and just about sums up my feelings at the moment, if you know the tune, it helps.

The nights grow cold, my search for Gold (sunshine)

Is leading nowhere

Whichever lonely road I take

It seems to go where it's a fight to survive just until tomorrow

How can I display what I know I'm worthy of when they turn me away

For being twin axle and 13 meters long

The doors are closed to such as I and SWMBO

A couple from East Grinstead (Actually Forest Row which is a lot more up market)

But not to those who merely buy the right

To go where they'll be met with respect, not humiliation

A man's place on earth

I have come to realize is decided by birth and the size of his pitch

So what's the future

No matter where I go I will still belong/ stuck in...

In Andalusia, (actually Roquetas del Mar to be precise)

Where we don't know where the next sunshine coming from

Something's wrong

I vow to Spain, I won't remain

In Roquetas for much longer

There has to be a place for me and SWMBO

And I must go there

I don't fantasize unlike a million others

There are those who hope we fail

But it will be not for the lack of trying

Not a man alive

Had to beg or steal or fight or empty the tanks more than me to survive

So what's the future

No matter where I go I will still belong.../ stuck in...

In Andalusia

Where good honest men grow weak and the rich camp owners grow strong

Something's wrong

Another dawn, another rainy day

A couple from East Grinstead

My destiny will guarantee

I'll only go where it's a fight to survive just until tomorrow

One more breakfast to feed (SWMBO)

And the way things are round here,

That's the last thing I need

Some jokettes.

The Board of Health has proposed that warning signs be placed on booze bottles to tip off drinkers about the possible perils of pounding a pint or two.

Here are some possibilities:

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like an asshole.

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol may cause you to wake up with breath that could knock a buzzard off a shit truck at 100 yards.

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the same boring story over and over again until your friends want to SMASH YOUR HEAD IN.

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol may cause you to thay shings like thish.

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the boss what you REALLY think while photocopying your butt at the office Christmas party.

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-lovers are really dying for you to telephone them at 4 in the morning.

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell ever happened to your pants anyway.

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol may cause you to roll over in the morning and see something really scary (what species and or name you can't remember).

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burn on the forehead.

WARNING:

consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher,

handsomer and smarter than some really, really big guy named Psycho

BEER TROUBLESHOOTING CHART
SYMPTOM:Beer unusually pale and tasteless.

REASON: Glass empty.

SOLUTION:Get someone to buy you another beer.

SYMPTOM:Beer tasteless, front of your shirt is wet.

REASON: Mouth not open, or glass applied to wrong part of face.

SOLUTION:Retire to gent's room, practice in mirror.

SYMPTOM:Feet cold and wet.

REASON: Glass being held at incorrect angle.

SOLUTION:Rotate glass so that open end points toward ceiling.

SYMPTOM:Floor blurred.

REASON: You are looking through bottom of empty glass.

SOLUTION:Get someone to buy you another beer.

SYMPTOM:Floor moving.

REASON:You are being carried out.

SOLUTION:Find out if you are being taken to another bar.

SYMPTOM:Opposite wall covered with fluorescent lights.

REASON:You have fallen over backward.

SOLUTION:Have yourself lashed to bar.

SYMPTOM:Mouth contains cigarette butts.

REASON:You have fallen forward.

SOLUTION:See above.

SYMPTOM:Room seems unusually dark.

REASON:Bar has closed.

SOLUTION:Confirm home address with bartender.

SYMPTOM:Taxi suddenly takes on colourful aspect and textures.

REASON:Beer consumption has exceeded personal limitations.

SOLUTION:Cover mouth.

9th February 2010, Roquetas and no real change.

2010-02-09T18:56:00.001+01:00

Not raining mind you but there are a lot of dark clouds on the horizon so who knows.
Thinking of a trip up the mountains via car then a walk at the top.

Yesterday I made another batch of my famous vegetable soup, basically includes every vegetable known to man plus various spices and herbs, plus of course a generous cup of red wine. Usually make about a gallon at a time and can last a week.

I don't know what else I may have accidentally put in this time, perhaps too big a shake of the Worcestershire sauce or too heavy handed on the cayenne pepper but this one is a doosy. Had a rather large bowl of it last night and the rumbling started about 10pm.

Anyone of a delicate nature should miss the next few paragraphs.

Well I'm not talking here about the odd “air biscuit” or a bottom burp, I'm talking sheets being ripped.

SWMBO was none to pleased and decided to have an early night informing me to come to bed when I had “settled down”, so it was le Carre`, “The Night Manager” for a couple of hours. Crawled into bed and hoped for the best. Well I can't go into details but when I finally woke up the duvet was on the ceiling and she was mumbling about being cold and could I check if I'd left the gas on.

Lately I've been attending the “early session” at the shower block, that is between 7 and 8 am. You generally find that men of a certain age tend to only need about 5-6 hours sleep and that's it. It's pointless staying in bed, you're awake, your back is aching and there is little else to do, “Sod off! I'm still asleep!” So get cup of tea and down to the block.

Well this morning there was a particular urgency and I didn't bother with the tea. Now the toilet/shower block is quite clean although a little tired but the water is hot and constant, showers are large and then are plenty of them. But my main mission this morning was to get to trap #5 as quickly as possible. It's funny you know, if you stay for any period at a Hotel or B&B, after the first morning you “prefer” a particular table etc. Same with the toilet stall, I like #5, don't know why perhaps it's like you favourite chair at home, you develop your own “bum groove?”

Anyway, gets in and let proceedings take they own course, no effort needed from me. Another thing about the block, when the showers are not running, it's bloody quiet in there. You can actually hear the perforations being torn on the bog roll and how many they are.

How can I describe the following moments? Like “a flock of Starlings taking off?”, “mixing a deck of cards using the Russian shuffle?” “a very mature Mellon falling downstairs?”

I leave you to choose but I could certainly hear gasps of envy from the poor constipated souls in there, gainfully holding the strain bars hoping for any release.

But I was to be undone, discredited as a mere charlatan, an amateur, a boy among men. Someone who obviously must have spent the last evening eating a mixture of gallons of larger, chicken Madras, whole chillies and a very liberal dose of senna pods made his presence known in trap #2. He was awesome! A short run to the trap, the door closing with a bang, the soft sound of trousers hitting the deck then Wooooooooooomph! The last time a sound like that was ever detected on this Earth was probably heard by the Mayor of Hiroshima in 1946, when he said, “WTF was that!” Unfortunately it was also his last words.

I don't know if the whole of the inside of the loo was completely pebble dashed but I bet his arse looked like a plasterers bucket, and the sigh heard from trap #2 was more in remorse than sorrow.
I just shuffled away in disgrace, the walk of shame.

Later in the day we decided to drive up the nearest bit of the Sierra Nevada mountains, all the way up. The last bit was a single tracked road with a sheer drop at one side. At the top it turned out to be a dead end, ending at what looked like a meteorological establishment, so we just had to turn back.

After lunch, the heinous soup, was followed by a non stop cycle along the beach and back, a total of 14 miles, then just lying in the sun to recover.

Also managed to repair the spare tyre be removing the inside of the Schroeder valve and re-setting it, job done and saved a few €'s.

Last of the history of Britain tonight and then maybe a re-start for the “Sopranos”.

7th February 2010, Roquetas and all is quiet

2010-02-08T19:26:00.000+01:00

Not a lot happening, cycled to The Spinnaker, a café/pub along the front, owned by English and very nice. Have SKY and an English book exchange so might pop along there sometime later. We had coffee and Tricia had an enormous apple pie with ice cream, so much for that strict diet then. Shopping and bought a couple of €5 phone cards. Saturday was very sunny and warm and had a BBQ with some of the on site English, drank and ate a lot and later tried to started watching “The Sapranos” but fell asleep.

Sunday was Boules, watching only to understand the rules and visited the book club, thank God something to read at last! Rest of the day was cycling to Aguadulce a few miles north up the coast.

Then it was re-setting the green to SWMBO's liking, cleaning the BBQ and trying, in vain, to fix the puncture in one of the MS's tyres which is now the spare, it appears that the valve is US.

8th February and it's raining.

Now I know I'll not be getting any sympathy from anyone back in the UK but it's not fair, here I am in Spain and it's bloody raining! OK it's still quite warm 17° or so but hawayman it's just not cricket is it?

So I guess it's a bit of food shopping, fix the spare tyre and then maybe empty the tanks but then all that's left to do is read a good book, watch a DVD movie, eat nice Spanish food and if I'm very lucky, nah don't even think about it mate. I mean look at you guys, you all have some nice work to do sitting in a nice warm office looking at a PC screen all day, or maybe working outside, on a roof perhaps? You lucky, lucky people having real things to do while all I have to look forward to is lying around all day. Still must press on.

SWMBO is banging on about her hairy legs; now don't get the wrong idea here, SHE reckons she's got hairy legs, me, I can't see any. She said she is sick and tired of using Immac 'cos it does not last. She tried the hot wax on her bikini line a few years ago, which apparently caused her so much turmoil she has been in counselling and can't look a coconut in the eye ever since.

Out shopping, not buying mind, just “looking”, and she sees this device. “Oh look!, Heather's got one of these, she says it works great”. Imagine an old Remington shaver but twice as big and instead of the nice smooth foil cover, a set of nasty looking blades/tweezer like things of varying sizes. Apparently these rotate at vast speeds and rip the hairs out one by one but with such vigour that the hair is too frightened to grow again. It would not have looked out of place in Tomás de Torquemada's bedroom.

“How much!” “Look Pet, what happens if I do manage to raise the mortgage for that and you don't like it, or it rips your legs and bits to pieces, or if you dropped it and it chewed up the bloody carpet, I think you should try Heather's first OK?” “But that's ages away when we get back home!” “I know Pet, but it's for the best, honestly.” “Oh all right then.”

Now that is what I call a close shave. She should have really known better, when ever I use the word “honestly” and my lips move, I am usually lying. She'll probably now forget all about it and go back to my spare Gillette No 5, nicks and all.
Well it's now 9:30 am and SWMBO is finally up and when she realises that this can only be a “shopping” day, immediately starts generating lists of what we really need whilst mentally making up other lists of what she actually wants. I am, of course completely blind to this process and will be led to it like a lamb to the slaughter.

Brilliant! There's a massive DIY store called “Bolocks”, or something like that. So if I can get in there, it might not turn out to be a bad day after all. I will report later.

Later, much, much later, pennyless and broken.

Actually it was called “Brickomat” and sold absolutely everything and cheap, sorry, inexpensive, like a DIY Lidl. Next door was ”Decathlon”, yep you guessed a large sports shop where SWMBO went looking (again) for some track suit bottoms to keep the chill off in the evening. She couldn't find any that suited and none were quite shiny enough. I managed to get a some trainers to replace my much repaired and glued present ones. €75 reduced to €25, I should have bought both at that price. Still havn't the heart to throw the old ones out yet, but managed to take out the laces mind.

Then came Carrefore and one notebook for shopping lists etc., one skillet for the BBQ and 3m long 3.5 mm audio lead so I can play my Walkman over the MS sound system.
Then on to Mercadona and finally but not least Lidl.

Rain stopped, Sun has got his hat on, hip, hip, hip hooray!

4th February 2010, Roquetas and it's persistently raining.

2010-02-05T13:35:00.001+01:00

Can't get to the toilets or showers because “A river runs through it”, and I'm sure I saw Brad Pitt lurking in the shadows somewhere. Yep, due to the efficient (not) Spanish drains, or lack off, the road that separates us from the “amenities” is now a small tributary of the river Anderex in Almeria.

Tricia tried to make it with a rope tied around her middle but had to be pulled back to safety as bits of a life raft sailed past. She is now using our “on board” amenities, no pictures sorry, so I will probably have to fill up the water tank later today. Why I did not attach a collecting device to the water input I do not know, as it would certainly be full most of the time.

I have included a couple of pictures from the Food festival at Guardamar as I forgot to include them in the last post. One is of the belly dancers braving the cold and the other is of a Spanish guy trying to learn the bagpipes from a Scotsman. Now bagpipes played expertly are to my mind pretty dreadful but played not expertly are very dreadful, but not as bad as an accordion mind you. I've always imagined if when you leave this mortal world and you did not make it to “upstairs”, Satan would be standing at the entrance to his kingdom and saying “Welcome to Hell old Son, here's your accordion”.

The PWC (Pussy Whipped Club) is now a thing of the past as there is no hot water supply at the washing up block? As we are paying a standard charge for electricity (€3.18/day for 10A, if you plan to stay 60 days) it's easier to use our electric water heater in the kitchen. I do miss the chats with the girls though, sometimes it felt like a scene out of “What Women want”, although I am a bit taller than Mel Gibson.

Funny the spell checker didn't like Brad Pitt but was happy with Mel?

So today looks like a trip to the Grand Mall, a couple of miles down the road as it is indoors and 'er indoors wants to look round a bit. She hasn't told me what she may be looking for exactly, that's going to be my “surprise”. We were going to go to the local Thursday market to get our vegetables and such but as you probably needed a 26' Moody to get there, we ruled it out. Lidl it's going to be again and as I'm down to my last half gallon of red wine, just as well.

Issues at present:- Still in ongoing “conversation” with the Tracker people who supplied out tracker unit. Apparently you can't test it to see if it works and this is our second one. I also just found out that the model we've got, although told so at the time, does not cover Europe. As we spend 90% of our time in Europe, seams a bit pointless especially after paying out £800!

Still talking to insurers about the outside chance of getting some money back, coming up to renewal so I have some kind of bargaining chip, which is nice, bastids!

Conversations with the company who supplied the “cost effective”, read cheap, LED replacement lamps, which are all (20 of them) slowly starting to flash a bit, turn brown and then eventually go out.

Tax man owes me some back tax from last year, I'm not holding my breath.

I am also coming up to that certain age when I can claim winter fuel allowance so I've got to put in for that soon, just got to figure how to do it, £250/year not to be missed, you know.

As you can see I'm a busy little thing, how the hell I actually did any of this and worked full time I do not know, how do you guys do it? Then again our favourite saying. “Procrastination, why put off something today when you can also put it off tomorrow”.

Been to the Grand Plaza, got lots of things but not the vegetables we had originally gone for as SWMBO had not weighed them correctly and the girl at the cash desk told her in so many Spanish words what a tosser she was. So it's off to Mercadona on the bikes tomorrow.

It turns out that we get the pitch for free so it works out that if we stay for two months it will be about €12,5 per night inc. electricity, which is pretty good. Two months is about right to really explore a place before moving on and/or getting bored with the area. Looks like we will have to give Seville a miss though as no local camp sites can take the size of the rig.

5th February and wash day again!

Because we are not using the PWC the tanks are filling up more quickly and the fresh water is not keeping up. So I've had to empty the 50 litre waste hog six times already, trailing it up to the toilet and back is putting my bloody back out. Now I've filled the fresh tank twice and with her using the twin tub washing machine like a whirling dervish on drugs I can hardly keep up. She really has this thing about washing and general cleanliness, I mean I can use a towel for weeks, she needs to wash the bloody things every few days! Look, I go to the shower, get washed and then dry myself on the towel, how does it get dirty then. I've just washed! I haven't then ran naked through the camp site kicking up dust, diving on the ground and shouting “Anyone want to park their bike in the crack of my arse!” have I? (Just ruined a perfectly good joke I had planned to use later, damn!)

No I haven't so how come the towel gets dirty, beats me? She also washes tea towels as regularly, why? Same logic there isn't it? OK socks, maybe even underpants, I'll give you that, I mean wear them for a few days, stretch to a week maybe and yes, probably need a quick rub through. I just leave her to her own devices, keeps the shouting down and she is content.

Evenings are being dedicated to watching the History of Great Britain by Simon Schama and it's pretty good except he deals mainly with the succession of kings and queens, the Spanish Armada gets barely a mention in passing. Still both my and SWMBO's early schooling was not up to much and the history lessons just got in the way of football as far as I was concerned.

If any of the above helps to cheer up Z's missus, all to the good.

The dreaded toilet block, see next to that cone, that's where you empty your waste stuff, nice isn't it?

1st February, Roquetas, just.

2010-02-03T12:17:00.002+01:00

Last day at Marjal and it was bike ride, 15 miles and ended up in the evening at the local “Brit” bar having fish and chips with me having steak and chips, both with mushy (pumpy) peas.

Oh I did not mention the Saturday Food Festival at Guardamar, well it was OK really. Consisted of a large stall with food from most of the European countries although they did not seem to be any food at the English bit. The Scottish part of it provided haggis and whisky and the Haggis was really tasty and the Spanish tapas was also very nice, anyway it was better than I expected. There was also two Moroccan belly dancers and although it was nor exactly freezing, it was rather cold and they had practically nothing on, still quite a good night.

(Tricia in chucky egg mode, most Sunday Mornings.)

So this morning got up early and did the SSS thing (shit, shower and shave) before getting everything prepared for the off. Went to pay the bill and they had charged us for today as well, because they said that it was monthly and this was a new month, it came to €591 inc. electricity. We did get €20 back for our Gym and swimming pool passes which of course we never used.

So finally gets hitched up with the help of the usual crowd that gather when ever there is any movement on or off the site. Trouble is you then tend to rush things and we managed to drive off without connecting any of our electric cables or blowing up the Navara's rear tyres to the correct pressure. This was put right as soon as we left the site so all was OK for the drive. Now I haven't driven the hooked up rig for 3 months and the usual nerves were definitely there but the 200 mile trip was uneventful. Stopped once for SWMBO to have a “little” lunch, she nearly ate half the bloody place. “Er..dos them, dos them, una that, dos them etc.” The green beans, ham and onions in olive oil with bread was her favourite. It was not without a little shaderfrieder (spelling wrong I know) on my behalf when, not long along the road, “I need the loo!”

When we arrived at Roquetas my best friend Mr Garmin GPS let me down, it took us to about half a mile from the camp site then tried to send us down a narrow lane with a bend in it we could not possibly get round. Just before that we had stopped and some very foreign guys in a car asked if we were looking for the camp site and told us to follow them, we decided not to because it looked like they were driving into some kind of wilderness. On checking the co-ordinates I had put in from the ACSI book, they were actually incorrect! The ones in the book I mean because that is exactly where the GPS took us to, remenber to double check on Google Earth next time. It turned out that it would have got us there but sometimes you just trust nobody these days. However an English couple turned up in a small Citroen who were actually staying at the site so we just followed them.

The site is a bit tired and does not come up the either Marjal or Bonterra Park and does not have the same amenities of either. We checked in leaving the MS outside and as we were looking for a suitable site a guys asked us if we were looking for Geoff. Well, in some ways we were because Geoff is a guy off the MotorhomeFun site and had sent me an e-mail about the place as he was already staying there.

So we found Geoff and his wife Hilary and he showed us around, pointing out various suitable sites, including the one we are on now and it's a nice double site which gets the Sun all day, cushty.

My view out of my bedroom window>>>>>>

Getting on however, was as usual, not easy, until a Dutch guy (ex HGV driver) decided to direct the manoeuvrings, and he did a great job, with the usual throng in attendance and we were on. As we pay for electricity we are now fully electric and literally just cooking on gas, back to the electric fire and not the noisy gas furnace heater.

Went out in the car and found the local Mercadona and stocked up, so just finished dinner and we have to decide what to watch. It looks like a consensus that the third and fourth series of Prison Break will not get a viewing, it's just getting tedious. So it looks like the Sapranos will get an airing. Tomorrow it's “putting down the green” to stop bringing the gravel into the MS, fixing the noisy water pump, attaching the BBQ and then basically bugger all.

Tuesday 2nd February.

Green down and then off to a cycle ride to Roquetas, 9 mile round trip, nice promenade. On the way back came across a herd of sheep, SWMBO reckoned they were sheep, took a picture anyway.

On return spent ages looking for the local, not quite actually local, Lidl to bring our water drinking stocks up.

The Shep/Goat herd.

Joke/sayings

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just f--- off and leave me alone

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a flat tyre.
The darkest hours come just before the dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbour's milk and newspaper, that's the time to do it.
Sex is like air. It only becomes really important when you aren't getting any.
Don't aspire to become irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
Remember, no one is listening until you fart.
Never forget that you are unique, like everyone else.
Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
If you think nobody cares whether you're dead or alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments
Before you judge someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you judge them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
If at first you don't succeed, avoid skydiving.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
Have you ever lent someone £20 and never seen that person again? It was probably worth it.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Some days we are the flies; some days we are the windscreen.
Don't worry; it only seems kinky the first time.
Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment.
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
A closed mouth gathers no feet.
There are two theories about how to win an argument with a woman. Neither one works.
Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.
Never miss a good chance to shut up.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
When we are born we are naked, wet, hungry, and we get smacked on our arse. From
there on in, life gets worse

30th January, Marjal and all is well with the world.

2010-01-30T19:19:00.000+01:00

Pretty hum drum sort of couple of days, the local council has opened the pathway to we can escape to the beach for a walk to La Marina and back, makes a change. Tricia is doing a final wash as we prepare to up sticks for Roquetas. From there it's going to be Seville for a few weeks, then Faro, Lisbon, Porto and then meet up with the Leadbetters to explore northern Spain.

Booked the P&O ferry back for the 17th June, something we did not really want to put in stone but for a couple of reasons did. 1, the Leadbetters are going back then and 2, we booked now because the prices rises nearer the date, preaching to the converted here I know, BUT although the later booking price goes up by at least £80, you can change your booking for £25, where's the logic in that then?

Since we started doing this, last year, I do not like deadlines, it's like a two week holiday in our past life, you get there and are immediately counting off the days till you go back. If fact the last few days aren't a holiday any more because you are franticly running around buying last minute presents for Auntie Rosy and worrying about where to leave your bags because you are getting chucked out of the hotel at 10 am and where are you going to “hang around” until the bus arrives at midnight to take you to the airport. Yep I really miss all that.

Of course when booking I lied about, height, width, length, weight, the number of giraffes aboard, just about everything (who measures), in fact I think they're expecting a Mini Cooper with a tent.

I'll just blame feet versus decimal and the Euro in general.

We finally made into Santa Pola, the next town to the north of us, we had driven by many times, on our way into Alicante but on the day we tried there was a town fun run on and we could not get in to park. So in we went this time and parked near the marina. The town looked a bit “tired” and old. There was a “free” parking lot full of Motorhomes but it was also very run down and seedy. Talked to n English couple who had just arrived and they agreed and were moving on pretty sharpish. The opposite was true of the coast road out of the place, it was gorgeous, if a man can actually use that the word.

Last night I decided to have the last of the king prawns in garlic and butter with a fresh baguette, SWMBO was going to have her vegetable “diet” soup.

“Er...what are you having?”

I told her.

“You will stink of garlic!”

“Your point is?”

“Er..all by yourself,not asking if I wanted any?”

“You said you did not want any and you were having soup?”

“Well that was then wasn't it?”

“And?”

“Well it's now isn't it?”

I did some extra salad and we managed the whole baguette between us.

Tonight there is a Food Festival in Guardamar and SWMBO has decided we are attending, if it's anything like the Christmas Festival we went to in early December I'd better have a couple of Big Macs before I go.

She also has been pestering me to wash the car, I mean it's only been six weeks and it may rain again in the next couple so why bother? Also we cannot wash our cars on site, we have to go to a “Lavadora” which actually costs real money. I'll see if I can fit it in before the gravy boat comes in.

First born, Adam, car broke down, it was making a terrible noise when we there at Christmas so it is not a surprise. Adam's outlook is “if it isn't broke, don't fix it and then again even if it is, just wait till it actually stops, then get someone else to fix it”. The somebody is usually me but not being there, because I would have fixed it earlier, so it had finally stopped. I realised that this situation may occur so I had bought him a breakdown service plan for Christmas and told him where the keys were for our (old) Porsche if he needed it. Which of course he does and did.

I don't know how he manages to struggle through life all by himself, with no help at any turn, bless.

But that's just Adam, Heather fights and works, and usually gets what she goes for. If he fell in a bucket of shit he would come up smelling of roses. Here is one example:- on the day his Vauxhal Nova became none operational, on the day mind you, his friend Jason, phoned from Australia and told him he could have his Cleo, which of course was still taxed and tested, enough said? By the way the said Nova cost him £1 as it was a trade in at a BMW garage and it was his if he could drag himself to Tunbridge Wells to get it.

Decided to do all the checks before leaving Monday, when it would be too late if anything was seriously amiss. Check tyre pressures, grease bits that needed greasing, car, oil, water etc. Everything pretty much AOK.
Sitting outside, having lunch and notices that front offside (depending if you're in Europe or UK) looks a tad down, gives it a kick, it's bloody flat! Must have knackered the valve because when pumped up that's where all the air is coming from. Damn it! Anyway better here than on the motorway or first thing on Monday morning. Off with the spare on the back, extend font legs to maximum, after slackening wheel nuts of course, wheel comes free and is off. Change wheel, but I do not know what the torque settings are for the wheel nuts, one grunt or three, who knows, it's not in the manual?

So two grunts it is and I'll check at the first coffee stop on the motorway, if it's still on.
Again as mentioned, it was washing day, including bedding which meant the € eating washing machines and our little twin tub for all the smalls. The wind picked up and it was a good drying day as Tricia's Aunty Alice used to say.

News on the home front:- Heathers is selling more BMW's and is “busy”, Olly has just one more flight and he is a Pilot, Adam as above, Antonia is still engaged and Rickardo is having his hair cut and going to job interviews.
Tomorrow is Sunday, The Times Online and “chucky egg” day for the missus.

27th January 2010, Marjal and very, very windy.

2010-01-27T18:48:00.000+01:00

“I've never thought about my diet too much, which means my life will be short, brutal and tasty.”

The above is another signature from a forum, I love it!

Today started out very windy with the occasional bout of rain but we had a driving job to do, drive back to Carrefour to replace my new mouse. Basically the one I bought yesterday did not work, I mean that it worked but had a mind of it's own. Plug it in and the cursor would run riot all over the screen switching things on and off and trying to delete the odd file and / or programme it latched on to. It took me a while to figure this out and pull the damn thing out before it did real mischief.

So it had to go back. “Er, Tricia where is the receipt?”. “It's in the bin!. “What bin?” “The waste bin”. And of course it was, what she hadn't told me was that it was in a thousand bits”. “Why did you tear the receipt up, Pet?” “Anything that might have our details on it, I tear up”. “We paid cash, we always pay cash at the supermarkets, there are no “details””. “You never know”.

“God's teeth, what do you mean you never know!” “You never know”. And I won't and never will.

So as we don't have any sellotape I had to use black electricians tape to stitch it back together, it looked a sorry state. When presented to the “Customer Service” lady at Carrefour however, it made her day and she was still laughing as she gave me an exchanged mouse, funnily enough called “le rat” in Spanish . Which worked fine.

Just did a trip to Lidl for the sole purpose of getting some more bottled water and yoghurt, ended up €36 lighter and coming back with a variety of other things, including a 26cm roasting pot, with lid, how do they do it? If I go myself I usually come back with what I wanted plus maybe the mandatory beer and wine.

When SWMBO tags along it's looked at as another “shopping event” and as the likes of Lidl sell many other things besides food, there are no holds barred. She even tried to buy another dressing gown but I pulled the “Your arse looks big in it”, which usually works with items of female clothing. Don't try it too often though as even blonds can eventually figure the ruse out over time.

I do not like fish, well I like sea food, the ones with the bones on the outside and of course the stuff you get from the chippy. Why does fish have to have those thousands of tiny, stick in your teeth, bones at all. You can get seedless oranges, why not boneless fish? Admittedly they may flop around a bit while swimming but isn't a small price to pay so that the rest of humankind can eat them without spitting lumps out during a meal due to the excess of bones.

SWMBO bought a load of fresh Mackerel the other day and fried them in garlic and butter, they smelled delicious. This is the way they are supposed to be eaten “Spanish style”. “Gut fish and cook, leaving heads on. Hold by tail and pop into mouth and pull tail bringing all bones with it”.

Well I can advise that you will only try this once, unless of course you enjoy cleaning splattered bits of fish off your walls.
The weather is finally clearing and I have been counting the number of mats, plastic plant pots and empty water bottles that have appeared on our pitch due to the recent wind (gales). The God it's going to be OK for our departure because I wouldn't like to pull the 5er in that wind.

I learnt that you can download different voices for the Garmin GPS we have and the idea of having Doc Brown (BTTF) telling me that I haven't a “Giga watt chance in hell, of getting round that bend”, rather appealing.

Tricia is at present getting to the end of “Foxbat” a novel by James Barrington, all about Harrier jets and as she is getting to the “exciting” bit it looks like dinner will be late tonight.

Went to have a fight (again) with the guy from the Repsol garage in Alicante to fill up my re-fillable Gaslow bottles. No fight because he was, how can I put it?, either drunk or on drugs, or both. The adaptor is a brass spigot 8 cm long by 2 cm, has a bayonet end and sticks out of the bottle at right angles. The LPG filler is attached to the hose and is cylinder of about 20 cm long and 6 cm in diameter. He could not get them to mate up and was missing by a large margin. This is dangerous work so I backed off about 10m until he had finished.

All done and now have a complete back up units for the now primary unit of the 13 kg Repsol Red Propano gas cylinder I was never going to buy in the first place. Cooking on gas.

Tricia finally tracked down the kind of candles she was looking for “To finish off the MS”. It will never be finished as long as they is room to stuff another cushion or whatever. By the way, she bought four candles, which reminds me.......
(2 of 4 candles)

The two Ronnies.

In a hardware shop. Ronnie Corbett is behind the counter, wearing a warehouse jacket. He has just finished serving a customer.
CORBETT (muttering): There you are. Mind how you go.
(Ronnie Barker enters the shop, wearing a scruffy tank-top and beanie)
BARKER: Four Candles!
CORBETT: Four Candles?
BARKER: Four Candles.
(Ronnie Corbett makes for a box, and gets out four candles. He places them on the counter)
BARKER: No, four candles!
CORBETT (confused): Well there you are, four candles!
BARKER: No, fork 'andles! 'Andles for forks!
(Ronnie Corbett puts the candles away, and goes to get a fork handle. He places it onto the counter)CORBETT (muttering): Fork handles. Thought you said 'four candles!' (more clearly) Next?
BARKER: Got any plugs?
CORBETT: Plugs. What kind of plugs?
BARKER: A rubber one, bathroom.
(Ronnie Corbett gets out a box of bath plugs, and places it on the counter)
CORBETT (pulling out two different sized plugs): What size?
BARKER: Thirteen amp!
CORBETT (muttering): It's electric bathroom plugs, we call them, in the trade. Electric bathroom plugs!
(He puts the box away, gets out another box, and places on the counter an electric plug, then puts the box away)
BARKER: Saw tips!
CORBETT: Saw tips? (he doesn't know what he means) What d'you want? Ointment, or something like that?
BARKER: No, saw tips for covering saws.
CORBETT: Oh, haven't got any, haven't got any. (he mutters) Comin' in, but we haven' got any. Next?
BARKER: 'O's!
CORBETT: 'O's?
BARKER: 'O's.
(He goes to get a hoe, and places it on the counter)
BARKER: No, 'O's!
CORBETT: 'O's! I thought you said 'O! (he takes the hose back, and gets a hose, whilst muttering) When you said 'O's, I thought you said 'O! 'O's!
(He places the hose onto the counter)
BARKER: No, 'O's!
CORBETT (confused for a moment): O's? Oh, you mean panty 'o's, panty 'o's! (he picks up a pair of tights from beside him)
BARKER: No, no, 'O's! 'O's for the gate. Mon repose! 'O's! Letter O's!
CORBETT (finally realising): Letter O's! (muttering) You had me going there!
(He climbs up a stepladder, gets a box down, puts the ladder away, and takes the box to the counter, and searches through it for letter O's)
CORBETT: How many d'you want?
BARKER: Two.
(Ronnie Corbett leaves two letter O's on the counter, then takes the box back, gets the ladder out again, puts the box away, climbs down the ladder, and puts the ladder away, then returns to the counter)
CORBETT: Yes, next?
BARKER: Got any P's?
CORBETT (fed up): For Gawd' sake, why didn' you bleedin' tell me that while I was up there then? I'm up and down the shop already, it's up and down the bleedin' shop all the time. (He gets the ladder out, climbs up and gets the box of letters down, then puts the ladder away) Honestly, I've got all this shop, I ain't got any help, it's worth it we plan things. (He puts the box on the counter, and gets out some letter P's) How many d'you want?
BARKER: No! Tins of peas. Three tins of peas!
CORBETT: You're 'avin' me on, ain't ya, yer 'avin' me on?
BARKER: I'm not!
(Ronnie Corbett dumps the box under the counter, and gets three tins of peas)
CORBETT (placing the tins on the counter): Next?
BARKER: Got any pumps?
CORBETT (getting really fed up): 'And pumps, foot pumps? Come on!
BARKER (surprised he has to ask): Foot pumps!
CORBETT (muttering, as he goes down the shop): Foot pumps. See a foot pump? (He sees one, and picks it up) Tidy up in 'ere.
(He puts the pump down on the counter)
BARKER: No, pumps fer ya feet! Brown pump, size nine!
CORBETT (almost at breaking point): You are 'avin' me on, you are definitely 'avin' me on!
BARKER (not taking much notice of Corbett's mood): I'm not!
CORBETT: You are 'avin' me on! (He takes back the pump, and gets a pair of brown foot pumps out of a drawer, and places them on the counter) Next?
BARKER: Washers!
CORBETT (really close to breaking point): What, dishwashers, floor washers, car washers, windscreen washers, back scrubbers, lavatory cleaners? Floor washers?
BARKER: 'Alf inch washers!

CORBETT: Oh, tap washers, tap washers? (He finally breaks, and makes to confiscate his list) Look, I've had just about enough of this, give us that list. (He mutters) I'll get it all myself! (Reading through the list) What's this? What's that? Oh that does it! That just about does it! I have just about had it! (calling through to the back) Mr. Jones! You come out and serve this customer please, I have just about had enough of 'im. (Mr. Jones comes out, and Ronnie Corbett shows him the list) Look what 'e's got on there! Look what 'e's got on there!

JONES (who goes to a drawer with a towel hanging out of it, and opens it): Right! How many would ya like? One or two?

(He removes the towel to reveal the label on the drawer - 'Bill hooks'!)

25th January 2010, Marjal and it's raining.

2010-01-25T12:49:00.000+01:00

And more forecast for the next 3 days, still it's relatively warm, about 16°C.
The other inhabitants of Marjal are obviously more acclimatised to a warmer and drier environment. Some are dressed for a stint at the Kola Peninsula in Russia, which reminds me (later). I am at present looking at a lady, dressed in full Arctic gear pushing a large overweight brown Labrador in a twin pushchair, I find this somehow unnerving.
Well this rain means two things, no cycling and SWMBO will want to go shopping. It starts with “Oh I forgot to mention it but we need new candle holders (new what!), let's get dressed, drive 20 miles to Carrefore and get some?” Also for some reason, when it rains for a while, she usually wants to make a fruit salad, why?, don't ask me, but it happened in similar circumstances about 11 years ago and we were eating fruit salad for a week! Must be something top do with “the change”. Mind you I was quite regular for a long while after.
I must admit that I probably will lean towards going to the shops because I really do need a mouse for this computer, I cannot be doing with this pad thing especially on map based software where you really need that centre wheel. I have no idea how much they cost but at Carrefore it will be at least double.

Quite a number of people, mainly men, take their dog for a walk by attaching its lead to the handlebars of their bike and going for a ride. I cannot help it but I get this overwhelming urge to chuck a cat in their path, it will be all scraped elbows and broken teeth.

Back to the reference about the Russian thing. Because of the inclement weather we have been having “afternoon matinees” i.e. watching some of the movie DVDs we have and the other day it was K19 Widowmaker, with Harrison Ford and Liam Neison. Well it's based on a true story from the cold war and as a movie it's hardly a page turner, especially when a sad bastard like me actually remembered reading about it. Still SWMBO enjoyed it.

We have Harrison Ford's, more or less, full set, so far it's been K19, Clear & Present Danger, Regarding Henry and are left with Witness and Sabrina, the latter I have never heard of?

Prison Break still gets its slot after dinner but I'm beginning to wish I had never started it, it gets so bloody frustrating and improbable but it's like one of those books you read, don't really enjoy but have to see it through. It reminds me of “Lost”, after the first series lost on an island, the fat guy gets no thinner, none of the guys grow a beard and absolutely no one eats or goes to the bog. Roll on the Soprano's.

Got from another session at the PWC and there was music coming from the MS? Now SWMBO is not a “in the morning” music person. I found that out when we were newly married, I was, she wasn't, so it had to getter sorted out. Well it was not exactly a fight, more an ultimatum, either I get a bit (lot) frustrated or no music, never did like Jonny Mathis anyway. So what is this music? Gets in MS and she is doing her aerobics thing and gyrating all over the place, honestly with some of her positions, especially the one designed to “improve her pelvic floor”, I'm sure only her gynaecologist should have been present. I had to quickly leave and have a beer to calm my nerves down a bit.

Stop press! The sun is out!
I am an avid fan of the various Motorhome / 5th Wheel forums that are around and I read someone's signature sign off phase which I thought was brilliant:- “I may not be a Proctologist but I know an ass-hole when I see one”.
I also need to apologise to another member of said forum, Zaskar aka Paul, for outrageously stealing the following joke, well it's not his, it's been around a while, but he recently posted it and it's one of my favourites.

Banned from the co-op
Yesterday I was at my local CO-OP buying a large bag of Purina dog food for my loyal pet and was in the checkout queue when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

What did she think I had an elephant? So, since I'm retired and have little to do, on impulse I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, I was starting the Purina Diet again. I added that I probably shouldn’t, because I ended up in hospital last time, but that I'd lost 2 stones before I woke up in intensive care with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so it works well and I was going to try it again.

(I have to mention here that practically everyone in queue was now enthralled with my story.)

Horrified, she asked me if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no, I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter's arse and a car hit us both.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard.
I'm now banned from the Co-op.
Better watch what you ask retired people.
They have all the time in the world to think of daft things to say.

Also
Banned from B&Q

Into B&Q, salesman asked if I wanted decking, so I hit him first.

23rd January 2010, Marjal and counting the days.

2010-01-24T12:50:00.000+01:00

In eight days time we up sticks and journey down to our next stop at Roquetas near Almeria, about 200 miles south west and still on the coast.

Weather here is pretty dull and not being able to walk anywhere due to the paths being blocked kind of cramps our style.

We actually found the pretty bit of Alicante, it does exist! We had never actually driven through to the northern part, the marina bit and it is a bit like the sea front at Nice. Were going to park at the port and go for a walk along it today but being a bit dull are going to give it a miss for a couple of days.

Used our first Spanish gas bottle and it lasted 10 days, so 1€/day is not bad for heating, cooking and fridge. Connected to the main system via T piece that allows any combination of Spanish or our re-fillable Gas-low bottles as the main supply.

BTW this is about as interesting as it gets around here so if you are bored move on to the jokes at the end.

It was Gary's birthday the other, 66 I think, day and he decided to have a “do” around 2pm outside his 5er. Tricia had not been drinking for about a week and after a couple of sherbets she was well on the way. Believe it or not I decided to stay sober and just as well because although we are only 500 yards away I don't she would have got back, 5 hours later, as she was having trouble seeing and walking in a straight line.

Yesterday we had a visit from a fellow member of the motorhomefun web site. Maggie is staying with her Mother, Margaret, in Torrevieja just a few miles away. She has been motor-homing for a lot longer than we have, she even drives the 5er rather than her husband, we learned quite a lot from her during our chat.

We did find another cycle route our of Guardamar which lead us through a park and eventually to the port.
Well after acting up for the past week or so my optical mouse has gone blind and stopped working altogether so I'm now using the touch pad, how does that work then? If I press somehow differently it changes the pointy thing into a double pointy thing with a small dot between them and the page zooms all over the place. Move across and everything goes into italics,what's going on?
This language thing is causing some small problems as well. Went in Vodafone shop and asked for a €30 “top up” and the two girls behind the counter went into hysterics, either it was the phrase for, or my pronunciation made sound like, blow job, thank God SWMBO was with me or they would have thought I was some kind of pervert.

Went for, what turned out to be, a glorious meal (cheap) at the “social club” café in Rojales, SWMBO was especially impressed and looked up the phrase for “That was a wonderful meal”.

“Hemos comido muy bien”, or “ehmohs komeedoh mwee byehn” phonetically. Back at the MS and as a point of interest I decided to look it up in Portuguese thinking (wrongly) that it may be similar, “comemos muit bem”, or phonetically, get this “come here mush mweento baim”.

Was thinking back to Christmas and dug out some of the photos we took then. That's my brother Alan and that's his real hair. The other is Ashdown Forest on New years Day.

Jokes as promised.

Might have posted this before?

For those of us that have ever used a Haynes Manual in attempting home car maintenance......

Haynes: Rotate anticlockwise.
Translation: Clamp with molegrips (adjustable wrench) then beat repeatedly with hammer anticlockwise. You do know which way is anticlockwise, don't you?

Haynes: Should remove easily.
Translation: Will be corroded into place ... clamp with adjustable wrench then beat repeatedly with a hammer.

Haynes: This is a snug fit.
Translation: You will skin your knuckles! ... Clamp with adjustable wrench then beat repeatedly with hammer.

Haynes: This is a tight fit.
Translation: Not a hope in hell matey! ... Clamp with adjustable wrench then beat repeatedly with hammer.

Haynes: As described in Chapter 7...
Translation: That'll teach you not to read through before you start, now you are looking at scary photos of the inside of a gearbox.

Haynes: Pry...
Translation: Hammer a screwdriver into...

Haynes: Undo...
Translation: Go buy a tin of WD40 (industrial size).

Haynes: Ease ...
Translation: Apply superhuman strength to ...

Haynes: Retain tiny spring...
Translation: "Jeez what was that, it nearly had my eye out"!

Haynes: Press and rotate to remove bulb...
Translation: OK - that's the glass bit off, now fetch some good pliers to dig out the bayonet part and remaining glass shards.

Haynes: Lightly...
Translation: Start off lightly and build up till the veins on your forehead are throbbing then re-check the manual because what you are doing now cannot be considered "lightly".

Haynes: Weekly checks...
Translation: If it isn't broken don't fix it!

Haynes: Routine maintenance...
Translation: If it isn't broken... it's about to be!

Haynes: One spanner rating (simple).
Translation: Your Mum could do this... so how did you manage to botch it up?

Haynes: Two spanner rating.
Translation: Now you may think that you can do this because two is a low, tiny, ikkle number... but you also thought that the wiring diagram was a map of the Tokyo underground (in fact that would have been more use to you).

Haynes: Three spanner rating (intermediate).
Translation: Make sure you won't need your car for a couple of days and that your AA cover includes Home Start.

Haynes: Four spanner rating.
Translation: You are seriously considering this aren't you, you pleb!

Haynes: Five spanner rating (expert).
Translation: OK - but don't expect us to ride it afterwards!!!
Translation #2: Don't ever carry your loved ones in it again and don't mention it to your insurance company.

Haynes: If not, you can fabricate your own special tool like this...
Translation: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Haynes: Compress...
Translation: Squeeze with all your might, jump up and down on, swear at, throw at the garage wall, then search for it in the dark corner of the garage whilst muttering "******" repeatedly under your breath.

Haynes: Inspect...
Translation: Squint at really hard and pretend you know what you are looking at, then declare in a loud knowing voice to your wife "Yep, as I thought, it's going to need a new one"!

Haynes: Carefully...
Translation: You are about to cut yourself!

Haynes: Retaining nut...
Translation: Yes, that's it, that big spherical blob of rust.

Haynes: Get an assistant...
Translation: Prepare to humiliate yourself in front of someone you know.

Haynes: Refitting is the reverse sequence to removal.
Translation: But you swear in different places.

Haynes: Prise away plastic locating pegs...
Translation: Snap off...

Haynes: Using a suitable drift or pin-punch...
Translation: The biggest nail in your tool box isn't a suitable drift!

Haynes: Everyday toolkit
Translation: Ensure you have an RAC Card & Mobile Phone

Haynes: Apply moderate heat...
Translation: Placing your mouth near it and huffing isn't moderate heat.
Translation #2: Heat up until glowing red, if it still doesn't come undone use a hacksaw.

Haynes: Apply moderate heat...
Translation: Unless you have a blast furnace, don't bother. Clamp with adjustable wrench then beat repeatedly with hammer.

Haynes: Index
Translation: List of all the things in the book bar the thing you want to do!

Haynes: Remove oil filter using an oil filter chain wrench or length of bicycle chain.
Translation: Stick a screwdriver through it and beat handle repeatedly with a hammer.

Haynes: Replace old gasket with a new one.
Translation: I know I've got a tube of Krazy Glue around here somewhere.

Haynes: Grease well before refitting.
Translation: Spend an hour searching for your tub of grease before chancing upon a bottle of washing-up liquid. Wipe some congealed washing up liquid from the dispenser nozzle and use that since it's got a similar texture and will probably get you to Halfords to buy some Castrol grease.

Haynes: See illustration for details
Translation: None of the illustrations notes will match the pictured exploded, numbered parts. The unit illustrated is from a previous or variant model.

HAYNES GUIDE TO TOOLS OF THE TRADE

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer is nowadays used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling mounting holes just above the brake line that goes to the rear wheel.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

MOLE-GRIPS/ADJUSTABLE WRENCH: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETELENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your garage on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside a brake-drum you're trying to get the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for for the last 15 minutes.

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted part you were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls in about the time it takes you to say, "F...."

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering car to the ground after you have installed your new front disk brake setup, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front wing.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbour to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup.

TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and brake lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

INSPECTION LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate as 105-mm howitzer shells during the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper- and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a fossil-fuel burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 30 years ago by someone in Dagenham, and rounds them off.

PRY (CROW) BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 pence part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.

A man is out in the Chinese wilderness and he's hopelessly lost. It's been nearly three weeks since he's eaten anything besides what he could forage and he's

been reduced to sleeping in caves and under trees.

One afternoon he comes upon an old mansion in the woods. It has vines covering most of it and the man can't see any other buildings in the area. However,

he sees smoke coming out of the chimney implying someone is home.

He knocks on the door and an old man answers, with a beard almost down to the ground. The old man squints his eyes and says "What do you want?"

The man says "I've been lost for the past three weeks and haven't had a decent meal or sleep since that time. I would be most gracious if I could have a meal

and sleep in your house for tonight"

The old Chinese man says "I'll let you come in on one condition: You cannot mess around with my grandaughter"

The man, exhausted and hungry readily agrees, saying "I promise I won't cause you any trouble. I'll be on my way tommorrow morning."

The old Chinese man counters "Ok, but if I do catch you then I'll give you the three worst chinese torture tests ever known to man."

"Ok, Ok" the man said as he entered the old house. Besides, he thought to himself, what kind of woman would live out in the wilderness all her life?

Well, that night, when the man came down to eat (after showering), he saw how beautiful the grandaughter was. She was an absolute pearl, and while he had only been lost three weeks, it had been many,many months without companionship.

And the girl had only seen the occasional monk besides her grandfather and well, they both couldn't keep their eyes off each other throughout the meal.

That night, the man snuck into the girls' bedroom and they had quite a time, but had kept the noise down to a minimum. The man crept back to his room later that

night thinking to himself, "Any three torture tests would be worth it after that experience."

Well, the next morning the man awoke to a heavy weight on his chest. He opened his eyes and there was this huge rock on his chest. On the rock was a sign

saying "1st Chinese torture test: 100 lb rock on your chest".

"What a lame torture test" the man thought to himself as he got up and walked over to the window. He opened the shutter and threw the rock out. On the backside

of the rock is another sign saying "2nd worst Chinese torture test: Rock tied to right testicle".

The man, seeing the rock was too far out the window to be grabbed, jumps out the window after the rock. Outside the window is a third sign saying "3rd worst Chinese torture test: Left testicle tied to bedpost".

A businessman boards a flight and is lucky enough to be seated next to an absolutely gorgeous woman. They exchange brief hellos and he notices she is reading a manual about sexual statistics. He asks her about it and she replies, "This is a very interesting book about sexual statistics. It identifies that

American Indians have the longest average penis and Polish men have the biggest average diameter. By the way, my name is Jill. What's yours?" He coolly replies, "Tonto Kawalski, nice to meet you."

18th January 2010, Marjal, dull grey and lifeless.

2010-01-19T12:54:00.000+01:00

18th January 2010, Marjal, dull grey and lifeless.

And it is, couldn't even rouse ourselves into a cycle ride. Still it is relatively warm.
Oh and Sunderland lost 2 - 7 to Chelsea, bloody hell!
Had some good news, the rejected insurance claim has been “reconsidered” and we may get something back. In total is cost us over £1,000 and depending on how they accept un-receipted items we may be looking at about £600. (do not cover lost paper, passports etc.)

Went through to Rojales yesterday and due to the winter rains the “mosaic” tiles SWMBO spotted last time have miraculously been washed away. Now wait a minute, I've just typed a few words that I am not always sure I can spell correctly and the “spell correcter” (or corrector?) usually sorts or points out the right spelling. For instance “miraculously” is not a word I use often, as is “often”, but is it spelled (spelt) right or is the software not doing it's job.

Ode to a Spell Checker

Eye halve a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four review
miss takes eye can knot sea,
I strike a quay and type a word
And weight for it to say
Weather eye am wrong or rite
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is made;
It nose bee four two long
And eye can put the error rite;
Its rare le ever wrong.
Eye has run this poem threw and I’m shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect all the weigh
My chequer told me so.

An now a slight rant (again).

London Times Obituary of the late Mr. Common Sense

'Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Elastoplast to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.'

MORE IMPORTANTLY . . . .

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following statistics?

29 have been accused of spouse abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
4 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

and 100's have claimed “not to have done anything unlawful” with regards to expenses.

Which organisation is this? . . .

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

Back to here, have been having trouble with the electrics on the MS. I had installed an extra two (making four) which gives approximately 450 ampere hours, i.e. could run a 1KW heater for about 110 hours, but then it would be completely flat and could never be used again. So more realistically 50 hours or so. We leave a 30 watt light on (without mains connected) for a couple of hours and the battery meter reads almost zero. So I spent hours taking the batteries out and checking them only to find that due to the myriad of wires only one was actually connected to the MS, call myself an electrician!

We have more or less decided that we will move on at the end of the month, I mean that's what it's all about really, move on and do some touring, see different places, meet new people. Some of the site's inhabitants, single and couples, have been coming here and spending, 6-10 months here for the past 10 years, why?

So it's off to Roquetas Del Mar, about 200 miles south west, near Almeria. It will also cost us about £200/month less than here so there's a bonus.

19th Tuesday and washing day again, except the bloody sun has gone walkies, damn.

Spent hours trying to find out why the mains was not working. Got up this morning switched on our one and only mains light, nada. Checked fuses, mains cable, mains reset, tried plugging into next door's outlet, zip. “Have you tried changing the bulb?”. “Don't be bloody stupid, it's not the bulb, we have not got any mains on!” “How come my laptop is re-charging then?”

“shit, shit, shit”

“No that's a different kind of electricity you've got there Pet, uses an invertathingyjig, you would not understand, why not go and do the washing up while I fix this lot”.

Soon as she was out of the way I quickly changed the bulb and “fixed” the problem. When she got back she was very pleased and said, “It's great to have a man about the place pity I'm stuck with a banker”, at least that's what I thought she said.

12th January 2010, Marjal and it's a bit windy

2010-01-15T17:42:00.000+01:00

Well I guess we have settled back into it and although it's pretty windy many people are out there sun bathing, no snow here mate.

(no pics as we have not been out much and there's nothing to take.)

After turning the MS inside out I cannot find the wallet I left our two Spanish SIMs in, can only imagine I took it home and left it there. So off to Carrefore and the Vodafone shop to buy another, €24 for some reason as it should have been €30, I did not argue so long as we have the 18 cents /minute feature for calling the UK (after 8 pm local time mind you). But at least when someone calls us we are not charged at all.

SWMBO used all the time that was in it to call anybody she knew because we have been cut off for 3 days, so back to shop to put more €'s in, for some reason you cannot do it using an ATM?

A few sayings to keep you interested.

A Few Zen Thoughts For Those Who Take Life Too Seriously:

Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
A day without sunshine is like, night.
On the other hand, you have different fingers.
I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
Honk if you love peace and quiet.
Remember, half the people you know are below average.
He who laughs last thinks slowest.
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.
Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
Get a new car for your spouse. It'll be a great trade!
Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
Always try to be modest, and be proud of it!
If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hand...
OK, so what's the speed of dark?
How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
something.
When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now. (My son Adam's favourite)
Everyone has a photographic memory; Some just don't have film.
If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering, "what happened?"

Thinking about some of the above I put the kettle on last night and just watched it, it boiled, so there goes another myth, I'll try running with scissors next, which reminds me.

Tricia decided to go on an, anything I touch I will break but it's not my fault, regime.

She started by pulling the blinds off one of the windows, “didn't touch, it just fell off when I cleaned the window!” Took me an hour to fix.

Then the cover plate of the “rock & roll” bed fell off, “I was only getting the brush out from under it!” 15 minutes. I actually broke our scissors and left them out to mend, only needed a new rivet, she threw them out with the rubbish, “I didn't know, nobody told me!”

Then our new phone. “Er...it's asking for a PUK?” Now for that message to appear the user must have typed in the pin code, wrongly, 3 times. “What code did you type in Pet?” “The right one silly, the one we always use”. It turns out she did use the correct numbers but not quite in the correct order. Which results in a PUK and you have to call your provider, prove who you are and then they will send (e-mail) you it. BTW if you put in the wrong PUK more than a few times the SIM gets fried, new SIM needed.

We had only had the bloody thing 5 hours! The other way is to have all the purchasing documentation at hand and as she hadn't thrown away that yet, or had she?, we were saved.

I tried SWMBO's Nintendo DS “Brain Trainer”, apparently I'm 71 years old, I didn't know it was a speed thing, just get them right. I'm now down to 48 and getting stronger all the time.

Washing day again, but with this wind, by the time you (she) hung them up they are dry and you take them down or go fetch them from the end of the camp site, where your underpants have lovingly wrapped themselves round someone's wind protector guy rope.

The West Wing is finished and we have moved on to “Prison Break”, as recommended by my ex-racketball partner Ron C. Well it's about a guy on death row for a crime he did not commit and his brother gets himself put inside (same prison by coincidence) to “break him out”. Tricia loves it, me ho hum, but it beats conversation.

Sometimes I wonder how SWMBO manages to function at all considering some of the “thought” processes she has. For instance she keeps her clothes pegs together by attaching them a piece of card about 2cm x 10cm, they came like that, she did not invent it. “I've lost my peg card!”, and then spent about an hour looking for it. “Make a new one Pet”. “How?” “By cutting a piece of card to the correct size”. About 30 minutes later she proudly produces her “new” peg card by cutting up the back of a notebook we cannot now use any more, still she's happy.
When we were leaving for our Christmas “break” the local council were clearing the river (Segura) and canals, of overgrowth and rubbish, problem is they “emptied” everything on to the cycle and foot paths, so we are effectively locked in. The only cycling is by using the busy N 332 which takes no prisoners, same goes for walking on it. Going to get fatter.
I was thinking about the MP expenses thing and it reminded me:-

FIVE SURGEONS

Five Canadian Surgeons are discussing who makes the best patients to operate on.

The first an Ontario surgeon says, "I like to see accountants on my operating table, because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered."

The second a Quebec surgeon responds, "Yeah, but you should try Electricians! Everything inside them is colour coded."

The third a B.C. surgeon says, "No, I really think librarians are the best; everything inside them is in alphabetical order."

The fourth an Alberta surgeon chimes in: "You know, I like construction workers...those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over.

But the fifth, a Newfoundland surgeon, shut them all up when he observed: "You're all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on. There's no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains and no spine, no morals about expenses and the head and the ass are interchangeable.

Last update, Tricia has finally found and used the gym, considering that back home people pay £30/month for a gym/swimming pool/tennis courts etc., £30/month for BB and £60/month for electricity and we have been getting them all for free as part of our rent, it's not too bad.

Now our monthly rent has gone up to €560 and not including electricity, it's now kind of expensive so I finally fitted the Spanish gas bottle into the main system and we are now “cooking on gas”, as well as heating, water heating and freezing (fridge freezer) on gas.
Dateline 15/01/2010

Found a new route to Guardamar not using the dreaded N 332 and SWMBO found that some of the shops were having their “January Sales” . So she finally bought some cushions (2) and a large metal wall clock. Weather is now 20°C and sunny so lying around sunbathing and reading. How's the snow?

We also heard that we now have a new lodger, Richard, Derek L's son. Nice to have someone you actually know and I hope they all get along OK. At the last count it's Adam, Heather, Antonia, Olly and now Richard. I hope one of them knows how to wash up.

Just had king prawns in garlic butter and fresh bread, yunny, now off to the PWC.

12th January 2010 Back at Marjal

2010-01-12T18:50:00.000+01:00

12th January 2010 Back at Marjal

(BTW for those who find these too long and boring to read, and this herein is three weeks work, a synopsis.

Went back to UK, Christmas, Docs, New Year, saw friends and relatives, late coming back, now here, there you are, done.)

What really happened:-

We had booked Easyjet to fly back on 19th of December and were lucky in that all flights for 3 days either side were cancelled due to bad weather (snow) at Gatwick.

Old Mo, aka Maurice, volunteered to give us a lift to the airport just south of Alicante and he deposited us at terminal T1. Got in and flight was still on the board but a slight delay and it was going from T2, at the other end of the terminal. Hand baggage only so off we trot to gate 21 at far end of T2. T2 stairs and elevators in a no go situation “sorry for inconvenience etc. please use stairs at T1”. All the back to T1 and get through to air side and back all the way to the the last gate, yep, gate 21.

G&T and ate the previously prepared pizza and waited. I got bored, well I saw a sign for “English beer” and who could resist?

Just raising pint, at €6/pint!, to lips when see SWMBO dashing past, with all our baggage and with 200 or so other Gatwick bound passengers in her wake. Grabs pint and follows. “We've been told to go to gate 1 immediately”, she gasps as I explain I cannot possibly carry a bag and my pint at the same time.

We arrive at Gate 1 and I reluctantly finish my beer.

Then “All passengers going to Gatwick on EZY 8669 please go (meaning run) to gate 7. 200 people who had fought to get to their rightful place at the front of the queue at gate 21 and gate 1, are now at the back when the mob arrives at gate 7. What the other passengers waiting for their flights thought of this to'ing and fro'ing, God only knows.

Now this flight was full and some people had paid the extra €10 for “speedy boarding”, which means they get to go to the front of the queue and therefore get to pick whatever seats they want. Kind of puts a smile on my face when all they get is to board a bus first and scramble like the rest of us when deposited at the plane. Got on plane and the first 10 rows, 2 x 3 seats were filled by couples, mainly oldish or Caravan Club members, and are sitting in first 2 aisle seats leaving the window one empty, obliviously hoping to get a spare between them. We had been told the plane was full FFS, what kind of anal retentives are these people, the flights only 2 hours long! The only one that got away with it was this women and her baby, who was busily throwing up as we got on.

We get to sit together and are joined by a spotty, morose, hoody, teenager who collapses into the aisle seat and never moves again. We read our books, I had a glass of very expensive red wine (please remember what I've been used to) which made me kind of heady, and then we arrived.

The plane parked so far away from the terminal I thought we were at Heathrow, even the pilot apologised! At last a couple of buses arrived and dumped us at a part of the terminal that was as far as possible from passport control as you can get and still remain in Sussex. Got through and phoned Adam for a pick up. Arrived outside of the north (see later) terminal still dressed, mind you, as recent sun seekers and nearly froze to death in 6 inches of snow. Waited and finally phoned Adam, “Where are you?”. “Hi Dad, been circling the terminal for ages 'cos they won't let me park”. “Which terminal?” “er...South?” Wrong answer, so 10 more minutes of shivering and he arrives and gets us back to Forest Row”.

Funny thing is we both feel as though we are visiting someone not returning home. There has been a shift along the way and “home” is in the Mothership and anywhere else but here.

The next few weeks:-

Er indoors had been going on at me to get “seen to” at the docs. What she meant was the so called hernia I had been suffering from and had now gone away (although my left nut was still aching slightly) should be checked out. “If something terminal was going to happen to you, how am I going to get back to Marjal?” was the romantic way she put it.

So next day goes to said docs not expecting an appointment for weeks as usual. “Er...can I see a doctor?” “2:30 pm today be all-right?” We were visiting someone that afternoon. “Sorry no can do”. “Oh I've just realised we've had a cancellation because no one can get here through the heavy snow, 8:40 am with Dr Winn?” I.e. NOW! “Er...OK”.
So sits down and a few minutes later “Mr Swinhoe?”
Dr Winn turns out to be 30'ish, tall, brunette and of the female persuasion.

Gets in and asks for my 3 months of blood pressure pills for the next trip so I can drink and smoke at my normal rate without exploding and mentions as afterthought my troubles “down there”.

Well I just thought she would explain that everything sounded hunky dory and out I go.

No. “Will it be all right if I examine your groin?” “Er...OK”. “Will it be all right if I examine your testicles?” Oh Lordy!, what could I say? “Er.....I guess so”.
“OK go next door and strip to the waist”.

This immediately reminded me of an episode of “Fools and Horses” when Dell Boy went to a female doctor about a chest pain and was asked to strip to the waist. In and out walks the Doctor saying “I meant up from the waist Mr Trotter!”
Well in my case it was the former. So I whips off the trousers etc. in the examination room and hear

“Just lie on the couch and I'll be their as soon as I get these rubber gloves on”. RUBBER GLOVES!

So I do so and in she walks. Now it turns out that she had made it in from Lewes, about 20 miles away, but no one had expected her in therefore the early appointment, but the last thing she probably wanted to see, first thing in the morning was what looked like the last turkey in the shop!

So I close my eyes and think of anything but now. So as she is examining first my groin area then big John and the twins, I am stripping the clutch of my Yamaha Fazer motorcycle, trying to remember the torque settings for all the nuts, NO! I mean bolts. Then she starts to gyrate my legs because it could be caused by trapped nerves in my back. “Oh Lordy, Lordy, take me back to old Virginia!”

At last it's over and I have not embarrassed myself by getting a woody and she explains that the ache in my left nut can be reflected pain from a bad groin strain, never heard of that but there you go. She then decided to take my blood pressure, well the mercury more or less exploded out of the tube as she remarked that it was “a bit high”, I wonder why.

She also explained that everything “down there” I should not worry about a thing, but I should regularly “check myself out” in case something “came up”, if Sid James had walked in then I would not have been surprised.
I mentioned this to SWMBO adding that it would be better if this was carried out every morning, preferably by a third party for thoroughness, she replied “Then you're going to die early mate”.
Christmas and there abouts

Got the usual stuff socks, underpants and aftershave etc. except first born Adam, got me something absolutely cracking, an electrically adjustable wrench, how cool is that! I also got a bottle of pure malt which I drank almost immediately as I have it on good authority that if left in the bottle it will evaporate.

The rest of Christmas was pretty much a blur, what changes?, Christmas dinner was great, mainly because SWMBO was not drunk this time, as she was last year from too many early “sherberts”. Staying at the house was Olly, Heather's soon to become a commercial Pilot, boyfriend and Antonia, Adam's soon to become fiancé, girlfriend, it was so busy.

New Year's eve party was OK but the music was not, thank heavens Nas and Maggie, lived local and allowed the 20 of us to descend on them to see in the New Year.

Visited friends and relatives for the few days the weather allowed waiting for 6th January to come round and back to the Mothership and warmth.
When we visited Aunty Joyce and Tricia's brother Gerald in Dudley early January, she found out that there was a closing down sale at House of Fraser in town. Off she pops and comes back with the announcement, “I've just saved £700!” When I eventually came round it was still true! She uses Lancome, which is probably the most expensive face cream etc. that you can actually buy. A bottle of “Blue stuff” that gets the previous days other Lancome products off is about 33 mls and costs £35! It's just blue coloured white spirit for heavens sake. Anyway it turns out that some of the stuff she would have paid £51 for has been reduced to £12, so she basically bought the lot. I'm thinking ebay at the moment.

Then when she wanted to actually bring the stuff back, hand baggage would not do because they were over the 100 mls limit so we should get a “big” bag as hold luggage. Easyjet, “That will be another £80 please”. 2 x ticket changes and £20 for extra bag. Er ...no thank you and we posted them in a Jiffy box for £7.

Unfortunately the snow arrived first and Easyjet cancelled just about every flight they could lay hands on, including ours. On the internet and Easyjet site everything OK, arrive at airport, cancelled! Eventually got away on Sunday 10th ,along with another full plane load, arriving late enough to worry about not getting on to the site because it was after mid night, just made it though.

Woke up Alan, who had our alarm keys, got in and no beer, no nothing! Even SWMBO was distressed and fancied a little drinkie.

Date line, Marjal 12th January 6pm.

It's pissing down outside.

Saturday 19th , Marjal adios?

2009-12-19T17:59:00.002+01:00

Well as all the Easy Jet flights, except ours, have been cancelled, it's still a bit dicey as they may cancel ours an hour before we leave. The flight departures at Alicante airport is still showing EZY 6886 as departing on time at 9:20 pm. Gatwick is showing as cold but sunny at the moment so if all goes well we get in at 11:20 pm. As the temperature over here has dropped to 6°C, and raining, perhaps the cold shock when we get there will not be too severe.

Funny weather lately, 2 days of 20°C, followed by 3 days of dull cold and raining.

So, yesterday I was again tricked in Christmas shopping on the pretence of going into Torrevieja for a bolt for the front door. All the shops that were shut the last time were now fully 360°, open. We managed to find the same underground parking as previous but also found on leaving that the charges had gone up about a 1,000%. Anyway, got the bolt for €1 at a Asian bazaar and then the sucker punch. “Why don't we just have a look in that very large store over there?”
Thank God I had only €200 on me and no credit cards. Mind you I did not have anything 3 hours later and you could not have peeled that contented look off her face with anything short of rubbing alcohol and bleach. Thank heavens that I had enough change in the car for the parking.

We watched the final episode of the West Wing, the other night and all in all have enjoyed much of it, we did watch 1 disk twice, out of sequence, but did not notice it at the time. Next year we start on “The Saprano's” of which neither of us ever watched at the time of broadcasting. Then the whole series of “Yes, Minister/Prime Minister”, followed by “Prison Break”, so no lack of viewing there. We are presently eating everything that is left.

Wednesday 16th December, Marjal and cool is the word.

2009-12-17T09:31:00.000+01:00

“I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Well I guess that sums it up for all the “half empty glass” people. Then again, I'm not one of the “half full” people either, I'll probably just drink it.

Last night or should I say this morning because it's now 7:23 am and I'm up. Well anyway, you know how it is, half way through the night you wake up and usually need a pee, or more usually in my case, a pickled onion. Now don't even think about it, they are thousands of early morning, middle of the night, pickled onion munchers out there, so don't deny it, I know I am so I will not. So this morning or as I thought, middle of the night, I get up and stumble to the kitchen and reach for the pickle onion jar and look at the time on the microwave, it's 7:19 am in the morning! Drawn though I was to that jar, even I resisted the idea of a pickled onion at that time of the morning with the chance, though misty at best, of getting back into the bed with my gorgeous wife. All I actually got was “Don't wake me up!” and “What's that vinegar smell?”

So here I am, two cups of tea to the better, typing this and it's still dark outside.

Yesterday it was decided to walk along the beach for something to do. I did not fancy the walk at first but it was great. Miles of beach front and the sun shining, brilliant! See pics.

I think I mentioned before that it was a Naturalist beech, here's the proof.
Walk actually lasted seven miles and my legs felt like lead. Tricia decided to collect shells, as she always does, “she collects sea shells by the sea shore”, is about as interesting as it gets. I was looking for large diameter bottle tops for obvious reasons. Oh, not so obvious I guess? Well how do I explain this?

When I decided to replace the 30 watt MS lights with half watt LEDs I did not realise that they would protrude into the cavity above them, i.e. into the shelves where we keep the food or clothes or whatever. So, as the wiring/contacts of the LED sticks out about, 10 cm (gone metric there) a suitable bottle top prevents other objects from disconnecting it. By the way, if you can visualise it from that description you should get a job working as an extra on the next Star Trek film.

Last night, while filling up the penguin with boiling water for SWMBO, I decided to spill most of it on my hand, I don't know why, perhaps it was the gallon of Lidl's best inside me or I'm getting the shakes. Anyway, I ended up watching the West Wing, episode seven, disk four, with my hand in a bucket of ice; this morning my fingers are still blistered and I can still not remember if the President went to war with China or not.

Maurice, the guy who went back to the UK recently, read previous post, came back yesterday and brought two large, asked for, but forgotten until now, by me via e-mail, jars of Branston Pickle, SWMBO is in jacket potato heaven and said he's on her Christmas card list.
Today is supposed to be sunny and twenty'ish. Looking out of the window, I think not, so no cycle ride to Rojales any time soon, more like a drive into Alicante and, arghhhhhh!, Christmas shopping. Please come out Mr Sun, pretty please?

What we did however was to go for a drive up to the mountains to see the snow and have a picnic, guess whose idea that was. We did, see the pics. Managed to call into a shopping mall, sorry three shopping malls, on the way back. One of which was an “Outlet” mall. Drove past the outlets, most of which were closed and the others did not seem to advertise what they sold.

“Pull into that one!”

“Why?”

“'Cos it's open!”

“What's on sale, what are they actually selling?”

“I don't know, until I get there, do I?”

“Then why are we stopping at all?”

At this point I remember the definition of thinking like a woman. Take a man, throw away all logic and reasoning, remove responsibility. Replace with deviousness and cunning and an absolute right not to take no for an answer, you now have a women.

Also on the way back we passed the worlds 3rd largest salt mining operation. It is not snow and it's big, that is not a model articulated lorry in the picture and there's lots of them piles. It not exactly mining though. Tide, what little there is, comes into to large flat areas of land. Sea water evaporates leaving the salt, high tech isn't it.

Just put this on a Motorhome forum I'm on. Old Mo is Maurice, a guy who has been around the block a few times.

“Now I've not been doing this travelling about in Spain much and I will also bow to those with much more experienced than me, so....
Going into Marjal, back from a drive out to the mountains with SWMBO and I see Old Mo messing about with his LPG tank on his Motorhome.
"Hi Mo what's up"?
"After being charged so much for my electric I'm fitting this here gas bottle into my gas system. But the bloody spigot is USA and small so the pipe is a bit loose. So I put some PTFE tape round it and it's pretty OK now. Of course I'm fitting it in front of my van gas regulator".
"er..why"
"To reduce the pressure, that's what it's for!" and a withered look.
"But you've already got a regulator stuck on the end of the pipe that fits on the bottle".
"That's not a regulator, it's a switch"
"See that box you've just taken it out of, what does it say?"

"Er......30 mbar, Regu...............don't you dare put that on the forum!"
That was an hour ago”

The 110v cut out a little while ago, it does that when you switch everything on at the same time. So I thought I'd let SWMBO share my vast knowledge on how the various electrical system works on the MS.

OK. “All the lights, except this one, are 12 volt, off the batteries, this one is mains.“(pointing to single overhead mains (240v) ceiling lamp)

“What about the outside lights?”

“What point of “all” did you not understand?”

“OK, OK testy.” “What about the little lights under the bed”

“12 volt”.

“In the kitchen?”

“12 volt”.

“In the bathroom?”

“12 volt”. We could go on but I had now lost the will to live. “The wall lights?” I give up.

I was going to tell her how to re-set the 110 volt cut out and how the transformer was switched for the 240 volt supply, but somehow I thought it wiser to let sleeping dogs lie.

“Under the cooker?”

Roll on Saturday and I can share her with the rest of you back in the UK, there's no where to hide in the Mothership.
p.s. the formatting of the pictures seem to have a will of their own and turn out nowhere near what they look like when I post them?

Sunday 13th December, Marjal and the storm is coming.

2009-12-14T12:47:00.000+01:00

Well not much doing and at the moment, the wind is howling and rain is expected. Last few days, warm and sunny but we are going to have poor weather for the next couple of days then back to 20° or so. Six more days then back to the UK via taxi and Easyjet on Saturday evening. So a lot of just lying around the pool and reading. Tough eh?

Cycled in to Guardamar for the Christmas market, 10 stalls and a waste of time.

Finally got the spare gas bottle at the market. Last week we got there about 11:30 am and no bottles, today 9:30 am and there were hundreds of them. Stall holder offered two bottles for €7 or one for €6 and I nearly went for both but couldn't carry them. Tricia came along and managed to get a jumper and some silk scarves for practically nothing and they are honestly good quality.

We have been steering clear of “English” food at the cafés in town but today decided to go for a Sunday roast for the hell of it. Turned up to find the place did not open on Sunday until 6pm, go figure. We are trying to eat (drink) everything in the fridge anyway because I do not want to leave the electricity switched on when we leave for the UK, as we get charged for it in the new year and the MS's transformer uses juice just sitting there, connected to the mains, but doing nothing.

Been watching X factor lately, Tricia is hooked, thank God it finishes tonight.

Joe the Geordie won, thank God, but I still think he's a bit of a uphill gardener.

Monday and it's persistently raining, grey but not cold. So we stayed in bed for as long we could, 10 o'clock, and then Tricia was by then so driven by hunger, she got up. Pity was she had missed her usual “chucky” egg and soldiers on Sunday morning because of the gas bottle expedition and today we did not have any bread for the toast. I did offer some Jacobs cream crackers but to no avail. Looks like she is going for the “dogs throw up” breakfast so I'll go for a shower while she does that.

Now a lot of the “long stayers” here, that is people who stay up to ten months, some do not even take their units back to the UK, just put them into a storage facility locally. Most of them have caravans with huge awnings, much bigger than the actual caravan, but in weather like this they are draughty, noisy and cold. So the occupants have to resort to living in their caravan, problem is, they usually only sleep in them so the rest of the living space is full of junk, washing machines, gas bottles, extra chairs and what not. So at times like this, and throughout most of January and February, living comfortably is more of a aspiration than a reality.

The MS however is great, lots of room, warm and comfortable and I'm sitting here typing away listening to the gentle patter of rain, not getting in here.

We also have both ITV and BBC now so if it gets really boring I can watch daytime TV, er no, it's never going to get that boring.

About two nights ago it was very cold, i.e. single digits, so SWMBO ordered the penguin hot water bottle to be prepared, which I duly did. About two hours later, after I had read and listened to my walkman, I went to bed also. When I got in I noticed that the hot water bottle had slipped from her grasp and was lying in the middle of the bed and more importantly was still hot. As I reached for it, and I'm still trying to figure out what extra sense she actually has, two vice like hands clamped on it and dragged it to her bosom, it was very much like her food reaction when you try to take it away before she is finished.

So all that is left for today is the mandatory visit to Lidl and then lots of reading.

BTW if you are reading this Adam please give our best to Stuart for his Fortieth recently, we just plain forgot to send him a card.

Because it's so uneventful I've copied a couple of my favourites.

FOR LEXOPHILES (for some reason number 12 creases me up)

1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

2. A will is a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism,
it's your Count that votes.

6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

7. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show
you A-flat miner.

10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine
was fully recovered.

12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulting in Linoleum Blownapart.

13. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

14. Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.

15. He would often have to break into song because he couldn't find the key.

16. A calendar's days are numbered.

17. A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

19. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.

21. A short fortune-teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large

22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

23. When you've seen one shopping centre you've seen a mall.

24. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

25. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye !!!

26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

27. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

28. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

NOTE: No trees were killed in the sending of this message,
but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Abbott and Costello on baseball and trying not to be condescending it's about the names of the ball players. The first baseman's name is “Who” and then you can figure from there. It's also on U-tube, it's brilliant.

Costello: Now look, I'm the head of the sports department. I gotta know the baseball players' names. Do you know the guys' names?

Abbott: Oh sure.

Costello: So you go ahead and tell me some of their names.

Abbott: Well, I'll introduce you to the boys. You know sometimes nowadays they give ballplayers peculiar names.

Costello: You mean funny names.

Abbott: Nicknames, pet names, like Dizzy Dean -

Costello: His brother Daffy -

Abbott: Daffy Dean -

Costello: And their cousin!

Abbott: Who's that?

Costello: Goofy!

Abbott: Goofy, huh? Now let's see. We have on the bags - we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third.

Costello: That's what I wanna find out.

Abbott: I say Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third -

Costello: You know the fellows' names?

Abbott: Certainly!

Costello: Well then who's on first?

Abbott: Yes!

Costello: I mean the fellow's name!

Abbott: Who!

Costello: The guy on first!

Abbott: Who!

Costello: The first baseman!

Abbott: Who!

Costello: The guy playing first!

Abbott: Who is on first!

Costello: Now whaddya askin' me for?

Abbott: I'm telling you Who is on first.

Costello: Well, I'm asking YOU who's on first!

Abbott: That's the man's name.

Costello: That's who's name?

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: Well go ahead and tell me.

Abbott: Who.

Costello: The guy on first.

Abbott: Who!

Costello: The first baseman.

Abbott: Who is on first!

Costello: Have you got a contract with the first baseman?

Abbott: Absolutely.

Costello: Who signs the contract?

Abbott: Well, naturally!

Costello: When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money?

Abbott: Every dollar. Why not? The man's entitled to it.

Costello: Who is?

Abbott: Yes. Sometimes his wife comes down and collects it.

Costello: Who's wife?

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: All I'm tryin' to find out is what's the guy's name on first base.

Abbott: Oh, no - wait a minute, don't switch 'em around. What is on second base.

Costello: I'm not askin' you who's on second.

Abbott: Who is on first.

Costello: I don't know.

Abbott: He's on third - now we're not talkin' 'bout him.

Costello: Now, how did I get on third base?

Abbott: You mentioned his name!

Costello: If I mentioned the third baseman's name, who did I say is playing third?

Abbott: No - Who's playing first.

Costello: Never mind first - I wanna know what's the guy's name on third.

Abbott: No - What's on second.

Costello: I'm not askin' you who's on second.

Abbott: Who's on first.

Costello: I don't know.

Abbott: He's on third.

Costello: Aaah! Would you please stay on third base and don't go off it?

Abbott: What was it you wanted?

Costello: Now who's playin' third base?

Abbott: Now why do you insist on putting Who on third base?

Costello: Why? Who am I putting over there?

Abbott: Yes. But we don't want him there.

Costello: What's the guy's name on third base?

Abbott: What belongs on second.

Costello: I'm not askin' you who's on second.

Abbott: Who's on first.

Costello: I don't know.

Abbott & Costello: THIRD BASE!

Costello: You got an outfield?

Abbott: Oh yes!

Costello: The left fielder's name?

Abbott: Why.

Costello: I don't know, I just thought I'd ask you.

Abbott: Well, I just thought I'd tell you.

Costello: Alright, then tell me who's playin' left field.

Abbott: Who is playing fir-

Costello: STAY OUTTA THE INFIELD! I wanna know what's the left fielder's name.

Abbott: What's on second.

Costello: I'm not askin' you who's on second.

Abbott: Who's on first.

Costello: I don't know.

Abbott & Costello: THIRD BASE!

Costello: The left fielder's name?

Abbott: Why.

Costello: Because!

Abbott: Oh, he's center field.

Costello: Look, you gotta pitcher on this team?

Abbott: Now wouldn't this be a fine team without a pitcher.

Costello: The pitcher's name.

Abbott: Tomorrow.

Costello: You don't wanna tell me today?

Abbott: I'm tellin' you now.

Costello: Then go ahead.

Abbott: Tomorrow.

Costello: What time?

Abbott: What time what?

Costello: What time tomorrow are you going to tell me who's pitching?

Abbott: Now listen. Who is not pitching. Who is on fir-

Costello: I'll break your arm if you say Who's on first. I wanna know what's the pitcher's name.

Abbott: What's on second.

Costello: I don't know.

Abbott & Costello: THIRD BASE!

Costello: You got a catcher?

Abbott: Oh, absolutely.

Costello: The catcher's name.

Abbott: Today.

Costello: Today. And Tomorrow's pitching.

Abbott: Now you've got it.

Costello: All we've got is a couple of days on the team.

Abbott: Well, I can't help that.

Costello: Well, I'm a catcher too.

Abbott: I know that.

Costello: Now suppose that I'm catching, Tomorrow's pitching on my team and their heavy hitter gets up.

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: Tomorrow throws the ball. The batter bunts the ball. When he bunts the ball, me being a good catcher, I wanna throw the guy out at first base. So I pick up the ball and throw it to who?

Abbott: Now that's the first thing you've said right.

Costello: I don't even know what I'm talkin' about!

Abbott: Well, that's all you have to do.

Costello: Is to throw the ball to first base.

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: Now who's got it?

Abbott: Naturally!

Costello: If I throw the ball to first base, somebody's gotta catch it. Now who caught it?

Abbott: Naturally!

Costello: Who caught it?

Abbott: Naturally.

Costello: Who?

Abbott: Naturally!

Costello: Naturally.

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: So I pick up the ball and I throw it to Naturally.

Abbott: NO, NO, NO! You throw the ball to first base and Who gets it?

Costello: Naturally.

Abbott: That's right. There we go.

Costello: So I pick up the ball and I throw it to Naturally.

Abbott: You don't!

Costello: I throw it to who?

Abbott: Naturally.

Costello: THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING!

Abbott: You're not saying it that way.

Costello: I said I throw the ball to Naturally.

Abbott: You don't - you throw the ball to Who?

Costello: Naturally!

Abbott: Well, say that!

Costello: THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING! I throw the ball to who?

Abbott: Naturally.

Costello: Ask me.

Abbott: You throw the ball to Who?

Costello: Naturally.

Abbott: That's it.

Costello: SAME AS YOU!! I throw the ball to first base and who gets it?

Abbott: Naturally!

Costello: Who has it?

Abbott: Naturally!

Costello: HE BETTER HAVE IT! I throw the ball to first base. Whoever it is grabs the ball, so the guy runs to second. Who picks up the ball and throws it to What, What throws it to I Don't Know, I Don't Know throws it back to Tomorrow - triple play.

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: Another guy gets up - it's a long fly ball to Because. Why? I don't know. He's on third and I don't give a darn!

Abbott: What was that?

Costello: I said I don't give a darn!

Abbott: Oh, that's our shortstop.

Wednesday 9th December, Marjal and how time flies.

2009-12-10T17:48:00.000+01:00

I Have been doing most of the washing up lately, don't know why but SWMBO seems to find something really important to do after we have finished eating. Her nails, check what she is planning to wear the next day, putting chicken bones in my sandwiches, you know that sort of thing.

I also noticed that it is mainly us men who troop down to and do the washing up. Apparently we have been now officially named as the “pussy whipped” club. PWC equipment on right.--->

Did our standard 15 mile trip and stopped at our “local” coffee stop, the Rojales social centre, where coffee is €1 and is very nice. This was Tuesday, a national holiday for the “Immaculate Conception”. I spelt “immaculate” with only one m and the spell checker came up with alternatives, one of which was “ejaculate”, a bit of irony there I think.

Anyway because ALL the shops are shut in the whole of Spain for that day I thought I was going to be “shop free” for the day. Not so, I fear.

As we cycle into the town of Rojales on a slightly different route, I heard behind me, “There's a shop open somewhere near here”. “How's that, Pet?” “I can smell it!”

Would you believe it! One of them Chinese Bazaar type shops was open. Well she was in there like a shot and returned with a Santa Clause candle, only cost 75 cents but to SWMBO it was like a “fix” of the good stuff. Got off lightly because I, knowing (wrongly it turns out) that it was going to be a shop free day, had not brought the money wallet, just the coffee wallet. So it was it was either no coffee or shop, I didn't want any coffee anyway.

Trouble with cycling around here is the dust flying about on the “cycle” tracks. Most of the time it's bearable then some Spanish fisherman belts by in his car and you nearly choke to death. We (I) have cleaned and oiled the bikes but after a mile they are covered with dust and start squeaking.

Weather is still in low 20's so most afternoon's we sunbathe, read and doze. I was dreaming about posting letters on cold, freezing mornings along Coombe Hill Road, my hands cold and bleeding from being caught in fast attack letterboxes, wild rabid dogs biting my arse even if I did give them a biscuit. That was not a dream it was a bloody nightmare. Trouble is someone is actually doing it in my place, hope you get some decent Christmas tips mate!

This not drinking (much) on the evenings is tiresome. I mean not only do I wake up sober I actually can remember what we watched on TV the night before! Also as Billy Connelly once said; “Trouble with non drinkers is that when you wake up in the morning, that's as good as you're going to feel all day”.

BTW managed to get a pic of “the dogs breakfast” as previously mentioned and of Tricia actually eating it.

When we arrived we were told to get some “green”, this being a green plastic floor cover for the pitch. So we did because we were also told that if it rained the compacted ground marble, which the pitch is made of, would turn to mush and would get transferred to the MS and be difficult to get rid of. So we did and the guy at the shop asked how many nails, with washers, we needed, I thought probably 20, which was obviously not enough as I mentioned in an earlier post.

The “green” went down OK but when I was manoeuvring the Navara into a better place on the pitch yesterday, I managed to pull most of them out with the power steering and will have to do it all again.

I last had my hair cut about 7 weeks ago and with 2 weeks before we return I'm beginning to look a bit shaggy. There is a hairdresser on the site called Angie, in fact she is on the pitch opposite us. She does a pretty good trade and is very busy especially with the women just before a site “do”, Flamenco, line dancing etc. nights.

She also cuts men's hair for €9, which is not bad I suppose. So I have been curtain twitching at the men who have had their hair cut there. Well I'm not bragging, but on this site, where the average age, of men, is about 65, most are balding or have a “Bobby Charlton” at best. What Angie seems to specialise in is a number one, just straight over with the shears. I have often thought about having this done, where you end up with a half inch stubble all over. Tricia thinks I would look like a criminal and would frighten the animals around here, so I will hang on and perhaps effect a small ponytail?

Just typing this and Tricia stops ironing and goes over to the sink to get a drink of water and then screamed. I thought she had drank some acid or even perhaps some of my beer the way she went on. She just stood there pointing at the kitchen wall and going more and more white by the second. What she was pointing at was a 5” grasshopper (cricket, locust, who knows?) that somehow got in the MS. Tricia freaks out if she sees a money spider so this puppy caused a slightly larger reaction. “GETITOUT!” “GETITOUT!” “GETITOUT!” Just about sums it up and then explained how “I” was to get it out. Well I got it into a large glass and boy the thing could kick and out it went.

Then the inevitable, “How the hell did something that size get in here?” All the windows and doors are meshed and are not generally left open so it must have just muscled it's way in some how. When I said that she should check the bedding she nearly went into orbit.

It may seem strange I know but sometimes we have to get a rush on now and then. Today the planning was to do a bit of Lidl shopping, followed by our 2 hours in the sun, 1pm – 3pm, then either a brisk walk to the port and back, 8 miles, then dinner, WW and bed.

Then someone suggested that we have a look at the Christian versus the Moors re-enactment in nearby Montforte del Cid, a small town about 12 miles away. It goes back to the time when the Christian kicked the Moors/Arabs butts out of Spain in the 13th century or so. Now these festivals go on all over Spain at various times of the year and basically they dress up as, you guessed it, Moors or Christians. Then have marches through the town and finish with mock battles.

Also, as we would pass the LPG Repsol gas station on the way and I could fill up our now empty bottle.

So now it was all about planning, I got out the PowerPoint and put together a initial plan for the day using colour coding to represent order, timing and desired results, and Tricia rushed up a best case scenario using the KISS technique (keep it simple, stupid) using Microsoft Project planner, which as you know is a killer on resource management. Do we cut down on the sun time, would Lidl still be there in the morning and did we have enough gas anyway? Oh the stress of it all!

We decided to forgo the walk and see the festival, starting about 4pm'ish.

Did the Lidl thing and was just settling down for a good old sit and read in the sun when along came, well someone on the camp site who shall remain nameless but can, and does, talk until you have to drop excuses into the conversation so he might take the hint and leave you alone. i.e. “er I have to get the goats in now”, or “is that the time? I need to put more bleach down the toilet”. Stuff like that. Result; listened for about an hour, you must only listen, ask a question and you provoke another ear bashing.

So our sun hour went out the window and we ended up dashing (yes dashing) in order to get out in time to enjoy ourselves.
The festival was worth the trip, we got our gas and arrived back shortly after dark.
Have now eaten dinner and Tricia is now looking at some ironing and I'm off to the PW club.

Sunday 6th December, Marjal and the Spanish Invasion

2009-12-06T18:58:00.000+01:00

Well, no internet for the last three days or so, I feel cut off from the rest of the world, then again that's one reason we are doing this. The Spanish have filled up every empty space and as it is a four day holiday for them they bring their kids and dogs. I feel I am back home again on a council estate.

Last night was the “Country and Western” evening and we were going to have a look in but Tricia discovered it was the semi final of X factor and demanded to stay in and watch it. It's something I do not like particularly mainly because of that condescending tosser Simon Cowell, but I must admit that last night it was quite entertaining.

It was also the Dutch St Nicholas day so a lot of people managed to get into fancy dress twice in one day.

Looks like the hernia or groin strain or whatever it was, has waved goodbye at last and I can cycle pretty much OK now. So we are slowly building our mileage back, averaging about 14 miles/day so far.

When we were in Benicassim our usual cycle route was Castillion, about twenty miles or so round trip. Our new run appears to be Rojales about 15 miles there and back, via coffee stop. This is a picture of Tricia drinking coffee at 4:30 pm, today, in a café, in Rojales. I would imagine you would have to be more studier dressed if you tried that back home at the present. I understand some people are using ice scrapers in the morning?

Finally got to the “Thieves Market” this morning and it was really weird. Every stall was selling either jelly, custard, sherry, cream or fruit. I pointed this out to Tricia. “Yes”, she said, “I think it's a trifle bazaar”. Sorry, couldn't help that, outrageously stole it from a guy over here.

Anyway, it was a real market and you could get anything from fruit and vegetables, fridges, chain saws, clothes, steering wheels and toilet seats. It was pretty safe and we did not seam threatened at all. It seemed that just about everybody was there and what ever you wanted you could get.

Some stalls even spun up generators to prove that the T.V.'s or washing machines were working OK, but probably not on a full three hour cycle.

Tricia had that determined look on her face of “I'm not leaving this place until I've bought something”, and was even at the point of getting a Japanese sword for Adam but I pointed out that at the last count he had three and one of them masqueraded as a umbrella. Then she saw a “Notting Hill” movie but unfortunately it was VHS, “It would still fit though, wouldn't it John?” “Er...No Pet, leave it be”.

We were actually there to get an empty 13kg LPG tank, we could then swap at a garage for a new full one without all the paperwork/licensing required over here. We found one, and when went back to fight and haggle with the dealer, it had gone. I guess we will be back next week but a lot earlier.

Been having mostly salads for lunch and some nice dinners in the evening, tonight it's on of my favourites, liver and onion and mashed potato, lovely.

Thursday 3rd December, Marjal, they call the wind Maria.

2009-12-04T10:22:00.000+01:00

Yes, weathers been very iffy with some strong winds but it must be warmer 'cos 'er indoors is not taking the penguin hot water bottle to bed any more. Mind you we have been sleeping later and later and I don't know why. I've also noticed that I have probably put a few pounds on because of the lack of exercise, due to hernia related problems and the steady intake of God's own liquid. “Hey, Homer, you with the big yellow butt!”, from SWMBO does not help but I'm sure deep down she loves me.

Marjal skyline (only picture because wi-fi on the fritz again)

So I've decided to give up drinking. I know that will mean a rapid collapse in Lidl share price but drastic measures are needed. At first I was going to cut it down to just two litres of wine and six cans a day, but no! Zero tolerance is needed here, so zip, neante, nada, cero, etc. I've got the shakes just thinking about it. Well just through the week then and come the week end back to “normal”.

This week end we get invaded by the Spanish, as Monday 7th follows the Day of Spanish Constitution and the 8th is Immaculate Conception day and so both are holidays, which makes it a very long week end. Hey ho, maybe start next week.

Went out on our cycle ride yesterday, Tricia noticed that the edge of the track we use to get into Guardamar had indentations all along one side. “Oh look, that must have taken them ages, they have finished the edge off just like a pie crust!” Standing about a 100 meters away was a caterpillar tracked digger which had just driven up along the edge of the track. I left her to her own, very lonely in there, thoughts.

Here's a thing, I have never in my life used a potato peeler to peel potatoes, probably a skill that everyone else possesses but not me. It is a likely assumption that is because of my upbringing, or lack of it some would say. My Irish mother never used a potato peeler, it was a “new fangled gadget that you don't need son, just use a knife”. So I've always used a knife ever since. On a whim I tried a potato peeler on a potato that was sitting in my hand awaiting its destiny in my latest concoction, meat ball stew. It actually works! How much potato had I wasted all these years by cutting off too much? And worse, did I unwittingly pass this appalling habit on to my kids, what have I done!

I've also found it works on carrots!

Tricia LOVES her laptop, one because she can send e-mails, two, she can “shop” at will and three because it's red, sent the silver one back she didn't like the colour. She told me the five main loves in her life were the Mothership, her bike, the kids, Hull City and her laptop. “Why am I not in there?” “You're special, you're in a special place by yourself, you've got all the money”.

Joke time:-

Brian was bragging to his boss one day, "You know, I know everyone there is to know. Just name someone, anyone, and I know them."
Tired of his boasting, his boss called his bluff, "OK, Brian, how about Tom Cruise?"
"No drama boss, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it."
So Brian and his boss fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise's door, and Tom Cruise shouts, "Brian ! What's happening? Great to see you! Come on in for a beer!"
Although impressed, Brian 's boss is still sceptical. After they leave Cruise's house, he tells Brian that he thinks him knowing Cruise was just lucky.
"No, no, just name anyone else," Brian says.
"President Obama," his boss quickly retorts. "Yup," Brian says, "Old buddies, let's fly out to Washington and off they go. At the White House, Obama spots Brian on the tour and motions him and his boss over, saying, "Brian , what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let's have a cup of coffee and catch up."
Well, the boss is very shaken by now but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds he expresses his doubts to Brian, who again implores him to name anyone else.
"The Pope," his boss replies.
"Sure!" says Brian. "I've known the Pope for years." So off they fly to Rome.
Brian and his boss are assembled with the masses at the Vatican's St. Peter's Square when Brian says, "This will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope."
He disappears into the crowd headed towards the Vatican.
Sure enough, half an hour later Brian emerges with the Pope on the balcony, but by the time Brian returns, he finds that his boss has had a heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics.
Making his way to his boss' side, Brian asks him, "What happened?"

His boss looks up and says, "It was the final straw ... you and the Pope came out on to the balcony and the man next to me said, 'Who the f*k is that on the balcony with Brian?"

Back to the plot; tried the zero alcohol last night and here I am writing this at 4:32 AM, could not sleep at all! Brain buzzing around, not stress, just thinking about everything, I went to bed at 12'ish and after about 40 minutes trying to sleep, realised I could not, got up and read a complete book! Wrote a to do list for when we get back at Christmas, checked out a Newtonian reflector telescope online, read the Times online and started shouting at the screen, bloody banks and MPs, checked my lack of finance, sent a few angry letters to Barclays and Nationwide, played minesweeper for 20 minutes, sent a letter of complaint to the company I got my LEDs from as they are malfunctioning, checked out about 10 possible future camp sites, wrote to a few forums and tired myself out, but not enough for peeps.

If anyone checks out the time these things were sent, they will think I'm a raving nutter.

Now typing this.

Well if it's warm and sunny tomorrow (today) as predicted I will catch some z's on the sun lounger, so no worries.

Dateline 6:03 am, Tricia just got up for the erm...you know. “What you doing?” “Been up all night, couldn't sleep”. “Well stop muttering then”. So loads of sympathy there.

News round.

Looks like Heather is going back to BMW Park Lane, so we will not be seeing much of her because of all the hours she will be working. I guess another flat in London will be less than 6 months down the road. Apparently Adam is working less hours so less money, or it could be the other way round. Antonia, Adam;s girlfriend of long standing, has moved into the house, Tricia's brother Gerald has finally got a job after about forever but there has never been a time of good employment in the Dudley area, so he's more than pleased, as is Tricia. Just a note; When Gerald was in the army he got the nickname of “Grievous”. Now he is 6' 3” and was once or twice a bouncer but why Grievous? His full name is Gerald Browell Hall, go figure.

Main plan today is a little shopping and probably a cycle ride, or combine the two?

Well it's 7:23 am and I am signing off and going for a shower, it's going to be a long day, mind you I didn't sleep in!

Tuesday 1st December, Marjal and ear muffs.

2009-12-01T13:23:00.000+01:00

Yep, it's getting quite cold out here and although it's actually still in double figures, there is a wind that made it feel about 10º C. I think we are getting soft. Getting out of bed is a struggle nowadays, it's cold out there, no automatic heating. So I have to get up, switch it on and then go back for another quick snooze. As I got out Tricia grabbed the back of my shorts “Oh come back to bed it's so cold!” “That's more than my shorts you've got there” I squeaked.

Tricia spent all day yesterday looking for woolly pyjamas for God's sake but that is another story.

Sunday started bleak enough.

Maurice is a guy I've communicated with, via Motorhome forums and the like, for a while now. He, his wife Judy and son Paul arrived at Marjal two weeks ago. His son Paul was involved in a head on crash when he was young which left him physically and mentally damaged.

You would think that God had done enough work with his family but alas no. On Sunday Maurice (Old Mo) knocked on the MS and when I came out he told me that he had just learnt that his 34 year old son, Mark, had been found dead, apparently suicide. He had, four kids but was having matrimonial problems. So Maurice was driving back, he could not get a flight soon enough, to the UK.

He asked me to post the news on the forums as some of the members were due to meet up with him later in the year, I posted it and was flooded with responses of condolences. Best of luck Mo, happy Christmas?

Back to the pyjamas. We decided to drive to Torrevieja, the town where Phil TG has his place as mentioned earlier. It's only 9 miles and one day we plan to cycle to it. This day however, the plan was that I would attempt something I had never done before; Christmas shopping with the wife.

Bye the way, since I've started using OpenOffice, I have had to re put in all the words that Word understood, into this OO dictionary again and it's bloody frustrating having to stop every now and again to tell it how to spell Torrevieja or whatever. No I don't actually mean “to spell whatever”, it can do that, it was just a figure of speech, well a figure of writing I mean.

It also tries to finish words for you, a bit like predictive text on the phone (which I've never understood how to work anyway), but I managed to turn that office I think, oops, missed that one.

Where were we? Yes the shopping. So we get to the Mall, park and begin our quest.

Now I firmly believe that you go to the shops to get something, you have something in mind and when you find it, you buy it, job done! That's what us men do. Not so.

I was looking for a spice rack and a pipe for connecting an extra gas bottle up to the MS. SWMBO actually found the spice rack, which I had wanted for, forever, in the house and/or the MS, I use spices all the time! But for some reason, and they have holes in them for such a purpose, I'm not allowed to fix them to the wall, just stand them where the spices were in the first place.

All right a spice rack and a bit of pipe is not quite “Christmas shopping” but I was also on the look out for a “toy” for Adam. Yes, yes, he is past 30 now but inside that head of his is a six year old wondering what the hell is going on around him and what's all this “responsibility” stuff anyway. Bye the way, of course a “toy” is not a water pistol, here we are looking at a radio controlled helicopter or something of the like. In your dreams Ads.

To a women, shopping takes on a completely new meaning! After H&M, Carrefore, Zara at Home and countless more I was waving a white flag; she was muttering something about why she didn't marry that young Doctor all those years ago.

I mean for instance, we were in somewhere, I don't know, and SWMBO was looking for those pyjamas when she came across a rack with belts on it and spent ten minutes looking at them. “That's a rack full of belts, Petal”. “Yes, but you never know”.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

So we have decided that it just will not work, her basic premise is “That's nice I get it”, mine is “How much does it cost?” I actually know she is probably right and that's how you should shop for things, but after a life time of my one dimensional thinking, I can not change. So the deal is I drop her off, come back hours later and then we can have one big argument instead of lots of small ones.

I'm reading a thick Tom Clancy book at the moment, “Without Remorse”, it's the one about the early exploits of John Kelly the ex-SEAL. Well I know I've read it before, it's one of his early books, but I can't remember it. The early onset of Alzheimer's has benefits you know.

Well sometimes it works against you.

Went to the showers this morning and as I normally wear flip flop type of things, just wear them in the shower as well. This morning, because of the cold I was wearing slippers and, you guessed it, wore them in the shower. Here's the thing though, my feet hate slippers and I think it' a reciprocal thing. There must be some ingredient in all slippers that work with another ingredient in my feet to cause an affront to anyone unless they are acutely olfactory challenged. So problem solved by a lost of awareness.

Tricia has just joined me for breakfast, I'm having the usual, banana and yoghurt, she's having, well let me describe it. Boiled plumbs, reconstituted sultanas and porridge, all smothered in hot water. Sounds divine I know but what does it look like? We had a dog, Max, and when he threw up after eating too many pigs ears and tripe, well you get the picture. Mind you, I had been wondering why Tricia had been lately catching frizbies and chasing sticks, well now I know.

Which reminds me. Why do dogs lick their balls a lot, because they can.

Washing day has snuck round again, with the wind the way it is and the sun is shining, may as well make the most of it. I think I'll read now but I cannot remember where I put the book.

Stop press! Tricia is out sun bathing (AKA cleaning the bike), in her cossy and with pink slippers on, I tried to take a picture but she threatened to brain me. A Spannish guy just came past wearing the works, gloves, scarf, big overcoat and furry hat, took one look at Tricia in a bathing costume and nearly walked into a tree, soft shit.

Just read an email from Derek L and he is going to become a plumber, the course last for two days, which kind of sums it up I guess. If he then attempts to do what he is planning, I just hope he is not on a water meter or can prevent it registering the equivalent of Lake Windermere emptying, when his gives that pipe “just one more turn”.

November 28th Marjal & Rojales

2009-11-29T13:23:00.000+01:00

Thursday, sat in the sun and read all day, did sod all.

Friday.

Finally did the cycle run into Rojales, a trip of about 12 miles or so. This time we found the proper cycle track which did not feature climbing steep hills and just followed the dried out river (Segura) bed into the town. It involved a ride through miles of orange groves on a mostly tarmac track. I finally got up the courage to nick an orange and as Tricia came by, popped it into her pannier. Unfortunately she spotted this action and asked what I was doing. “I didn’t know they were going to be Flatheads”, was my reply. We both laughed.

Only someone who has a working knowledge of the film “Jeremiah Johnson”, will get this and probably realise what a sad pair of old gits we are turning into.

Trica had notice and took a picture of the river. It said that it floods once every 6-9 years and it shows. She pointed down "Oh, look at all those tiles down there it must have taken ages to match them". I did not reply, Alzheimer's comes early these days, I'm told

Bigger place than we first thought but again we timed it wrong and most of the shops were shut. There was a furniture shop open so SWMBO immediately made a bee line for it. “What the hell are we going to buy in there; it’s all bloody big cabinets and stuff? Why are you going in at all?” “It’s open!”

Now I know I’ve banged on about this in the past but if men are from Mars and women are from Venus SWMBO is from Pluto. Also, women have mysterious powers of recall that I have never understood. For instance I showed a 20 year old picture to Derek's present wife, Jean. She looked at it and said “1984, Tenerife”. How did she do that? I only knew because I had written the date on at the time. “It was what I was wearing, I knew from that”. Hells teeth, how can anyone's brain operate that way, how many clothes has she got that she only wears a combination of, once? I know why Derek, although retired, still has to work as a barman in a pub, 3 nights a week and the week end, he's broke. Anyway Tricia still managed to spend 15 minutes in the furniture store. “I thought we might have needed a magazine rack”.

We did find another shop open and managed to get a pair of matching one litre carafes so that I can decant my gallon wine containers into something more manageable. Tricia asked why I did not get the half litre ones, all she got in return was a blank look. It’s the same look I give to people who have “wine keepers”, what is the point? We also picked up a couple of old, but thick, Tom Clancy books to wile away the warm afternoons.

Which reminds me. Just finished “Pandemic”, by James Barrington, it’s a cracker, but don’t rush out and read it just yet because some of you are going to get it for Christmas. Not you Derek, the postage will be too expensive. I mean 1p per copy from e-bay, how do they do it?

Tomorrow is Sunday and we are going to “The thieves market” to pick up an old Repsol gas bottle. To get a new one is just like getting Calor gas back in the UK. You have got to buy a licence for about £25 and effectively rent the bottle forever after. Here it is the same except you also need a NEI, which is a foreign national identity card. To get one of them takes a lot of time, needs signed copies of your passport, a lot of queuing and €25.

To get one quick takes €130 and a “signing” fee of anything from €40 to €200. Guess which figure it’s going to be? For “signing” I guess you can use another phrase.

So, to the thieves market where a second hand bottle changes hand for about €10.

I also need a new “Euronozzle”, that our friends in Euroland have decided to replace the ones used on all LPG pumps throughout Europe (probably except Calor only UK).

Unfortunately as these things are relatively new, I don’t think I will be getting one at the market and will have to order one from Germany where they are about six times more expensive than any other adapter.

I’ve been getting good reports from various people who have upgraded to the new version of Windows, Windows 7. Now I hate helping to give Bill Gates and MS millions of $’s (“We need some more money Bill”. “Well change a few lines of code on that DOS based operating system and bring out a new version”) but it will solve my “this version of MS Office is not genuine” messages, because it comes with Word, Excel etc. Except Outlook for some reason and as all my contacts for the last, well for forever, are on it I am loath to change from it. I do have a copy, yes it’s legal, of “Open Office” which is free’ish from the Net and has the same look and feel of MS Office so I might change over.

It is three weeks today that we fly back to the fridge otherwise called the UK. Have downloaded our boarding passes from easy jet and are due to catch EZY8668 at 9:20 pm, on Saturday 19th December, to arrive at Gatwick at 11pm. I am sharing this with you with the faint hope that one of our siblings may take a passing interest in what we are actually doing over here and (gulp!) volunteer to pick us up from the airport.

Sunday 29th November, The “Market”

Downloaded OpenOffice and using it now, brilliant! Above this text, you have been reading in Microsoft Word and below it's OpenOffice Writer and I bet you can't tell the difference!

Er' indoors has just been fed her “Chuckie” egg and soldiers. She managed to spill it off her plate as I handed it to her but she caught before it hit the floor, it is food we are talking about here, as close to her heart as beer is to mine, she declared it wonderful and promptly went back to sleep.

With regard to food, we decided to go to the Marjal BBQ, frankly it was pretty grim. They sit you down in the restaurant and start you with a salad and some baked peppers and potatoes, they were very good but it went downhill from there.

Next came the meat section, piece of chicken, slice of ham and three types of sausage.

One was sausage coloured but the other two were red and black, though not necessarily in that order. I've seen them in the supermarkets but never really fancied them. Well I've always been one to have a go with new flavours and it was real food after all, they did not put it on your plate as a decoration, or did they?

The red one tasted of sweet pork with a lot of stringy fibrous things in it, the other one just tasted of stringy fibrous thing, I ate the red but not the black. Tricia ate both and thought they were scrummy. A small cake and that was it, Now it was only €7 a head so I guess it was value for money. We had asked for a bottle of wine and the waitress, who spoke perfect English up to this point, decided she did not understand and insisted that we had the local Spanish wine from a carafe. As we had tried this before and were not keen on it, we kept asking for a bottle of Rioja or Chianti, we ended up with a litre carafe of local stuff. I understand why, it's €5 for a carafe for worse wine than I pay €4 a gallon! Still you live and live.

Sunderland lost 1 – 0 to Wigan, mind you, Wigan did get beat 9 – 0 by Spurs last week so we should have expected that they would have pulled their socks up a bit.

It's actually getting a bit cool in the afternoon and evenings. We went for a quick cycle ride to Rojales and back just to warm up a bit. It was 10 miles and the old hernia did not play up a all, can they heal themselves? Today it's supposed to get out sunny but at the present it's a bit overcast, probably the worst start of the day so far.

Made some soup yesterday from the supermarket pre-prepared choice of vegetables. You get a bit of a leek, celery, weird looking swedes and carrots. No onions, why?

I also picked up a shrink wrapped piece of shin bone from an animal of unknown origin to help with the stock. Got back and added, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and beans. Then loads of garlic, worcester sauce, soya source, garlic salt, cayenne pepper and lots of chillies. It's perfect and too hot for SWMBO so that's all right then.

She still in bed, 11'ish, with a stiff neck? So I decided to take her picture, “If you put that in the blog I'll divorce you!” Would I notice the difference?

Just been out to find the “market” and by George it's raining! Could not find any market so just poodled around, drove through the La Marina urbanisation and it's huge. Then through San Fulgencio and it's all pretty quiet, Sunday I guess. So the rest of the day is planned as follows:- cups of tea, coffee and cake followed by reading, dinner, then a movie and finally bed.

November 26th Still here, Marjal.

2009-11-26T12:28:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was washing day again and a walk to a caravan shop in the nearby, deserted, Mall. Bought some “blue” for the loo and sod all else.

Got an e-mail from DHL stating that our passports will be arriving before noon today so we will soon not be illegal immigrants anymore?
Was watching West Wing last night and it got to a part where the president had to temporally step down; and which actor did they put in his place, yep the guy who player Freddy Flintstone in the movie “The Flintstones”, I could not take it seriously anymore.

Lately Tricia is breaking down and crying a lot because she has not won at dominoes or cribbage for weeks, I tried to think of a game that took no skill whatsoever and was based on pure luck. This is so if I lost I could just blame it on blind luck and she would stop weeping, into my soup yesterday!

Found it; Knock out 7, a card game even an imbecile could play. (Thanks for the nod, Alan)

Guess what? She beat me 5 -3 and has been happy as a bunny all day, well not THAT happy, it’s only a game of cards you know.

In an earlier post I mentioned the guy who lead the organised cycle rides, you know, the guy with the sweeping brush and washing line attached to the back of his bike. Well taking to one of the participants the other day; he told me they covered over 40 miles on an outing! Thank God we didn’t go, my hernia could not take that abuse and SWMBO hasn’t even been in a bus for that long.

Went to the local nurse on the site and asked her if there was anything I should look out for if my hernia got worse, "Do you get any pain when you pass water?" "Well I felt a little twinge going over the bridge the other day".

It is finally official, something that the wines and spirits buyer at Lidl, and me, have known as a Gods honest truth for years,

BBC on line news has it, so it has to be true and aren’t the Spanish a very clever people to have figured it out.

From a research academy at Madrid University:-

“Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major study suggests.

The Spanish research involving more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women (Get this bit then) found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men.

The researchers, led by the Basque Public Health Department, placed the participants into six categories - from never having drunk to drinking more than 90g of alcohol each day. This would be the equivalent of consuming about eight bottles of wine a week, or 28 pints of lager.

So there you go then (hic), just reaching for that last can so I stave off this impending heart attack.

Now I have just read this (old’ish) joke on a Motorhome forum on the net, but it is so good I have to share it:-

A burglar broke into a house and shone his torch around looking for
valuables.
He picked up a CD player when a strange, disembodied voice echoed from the
dark saying: 'Jesus is watching you'. He nearly jumped out of his skin,
clicked off his torch and froze.
When he heard nothing more he continued. Just as he pulled the stereo out
he heard: 'Jesus is watching, and he's coming for you.'
Freaked out, he shone his light around frantically. Finally, in the corner
of the room his light beam came to rest on a parrot.

Did you say that?' he hissed at the parrot. 'Yep,' the parrot confessed,

then squawked, 'I'm just trying to warn you that he's watching you, and he's here now.'

The burglar relaxed. 'Warn me, huh? Who do you think you are?'

Moses,' replied the bird.

Moses?' the burglar laughed. 'Who would name a bird Moses?'
"The same man that named his Rottweiler Jesus”!

You know, Tricia is “cleaning her bike” andI’m sitting here, in shorts, in the sunshine, listening to Lisa Gerrard singing Heitor Pererira’s Elysium, drinking a large pure Columbian cappuccino and thinking; “Do I miss East Grinstead?” Not really, no.

Then again I/we did enjoy cycling the four miles, via the old railway line, to Café Nero and having a coffee while the rest of East Grinstead went about their daily grind. I do not include Alan Swan in that of course, as far as I can tell, most days he is usually ensconced at a local airport, or port, or small village drinking coffee. Please don’t tell the rest of the skivvies at Air Engineering that of course, they think he actually works.

Me and the daily blog.

If I tried that cycle ride now I would probably get very wet and freeze to death. So on the whole I kind of prefer it here; I’ll have to stop this wasting time now and go and read a book.

Tuesday 24th November, Marjal et al

2009-11-24T19:24:00.000+01:00

Monday we went to Murcia, the capital town of the Murcia district funnily enough. Went the pretty way i.e. past building site and men mending the roads. Arrived and spent forever trying to find a parking space or pay car park. At last! The municipal hospital cark park hove into view. Drove down this narrow spiralling slip road into the underground car park, followed by a few other cars. “Err…John, how high is your truck ?” “Well pet, it’s slightly higher than that sign that says 1.8 m”. Back up! I have noticed on many occasions that when we are in any sort of trouble, driving wise, it’s “Your truck”. Any other time it’s “My (her) car”.

Took a little while to convince all the other cars to back up as well, though but. My Spanish is improving because I think I understood everything the other drivers were shouting at us. Using our trusty GPS finally found one that we could fit in (just) and proceeded to “Shop”. Where are all the shops? “Don’t worry (me worry?) I have a nose for shops”. “So have I Pet, if it’s a Kebab shop”. So off she walks in what turns out to be totally the wrong direction.

There were no shops; we were in the centre but apart from the odd hat shop and coffee place, zero. So she bought a hat and had some coffee.

Luckily, (luckily?) SWMBO had spotted an Al Campo at a place called Thader Mall on the way into Murcia, so I was instructed to get there asap so she could have a good look round.

Now all you guys know the routine, basically she wanders around picking up cushions or whatever and you just might get lucky and stumble across a vast hardware store or the Spanish version of Hanford’s. You know and I know, it never happens.

Then I was tricked into entering hell. IKEA!

I have been in one before, the one just outside Croydon and I swore I would never enter one again. Once you get in you can’t get out and you have to follow their pre-ordained route through the store; and there are cushions everywhere! Apparently we only went in because she said I wanted a spice rack, true, but she would see me in hell before she allowed me to have one. So what was the bloody point in the first place then? I’m going to make one on the sly and WELD it to the wall. We managed to buy nothing.

On way back we stopped at a Mercador to get some groceries and as we were loading the car a guy with about a hundred goats was herding them just off the road, as you do. “Get the camera, get the camera!” and she proceeded to take lots of shots of goats which to me, as goats are not the prettiest of animals, was a waste of my time upon this earth.

When we got back we decided to give the cribbage night a miss and had another salad with little thin eels in it. I said I would have a walk up to the bar and check out the cribbage action (action?) so we could make up our minds for next week.
Went up and ordered a whiskey. Now I didn’t order a double, or treble or fifthtuple or whatever. What I got however was basically half a pint with an ice cube. Now don’t get me wrong I like whiskey, if fact I like whiskey so much I have stopped buying it. Especially a single malt of any kind, the smooth liquid golden flavour, the taste of honeydew mixed with a hint of peat, the……………………I better stop there.

Anyway, I drank it and managed not to order another. When I got back, “Fancy a game of Cribbage?” Not likely mate you would easily beat me tonight!

Decided to “map the streets” of Guardamar to find out all the important shops like, hardware, caravan accessories and where to get gas fittings etc. On bicycle, so we could get lots of exercise cycling up and down the streets. Then I found a map of Guardamar that we have picked up from the Tourist information the first day. Opened it up and of course it is detailed with hardware, caravan accessories and where to get gas fittings type shops. We went anyway, but the tight fitting jockey shorts I had bought earlier didn’t really do their thing and my hernia is as bad as ever.

Got back, had lunch and sat round reading in the Sun (22ºC’ish today) listening to about 30 Germans having lunch and getting more drunk by the minute. They are now shouting “Yabadabado!” at the top of their voices, oh what fun.

Passport news; e-mailed Fernando what’s his face and he replied that everything was OK now and we may be home for Christmas after all.

Steak and all the trimmings tonight, Lidl red wine and the West Wing, can life get any better?

Sunday 22nd Marjal, no Sun as yet, bitterly cold at 15ºC.

2009-11-22T17:15:00.000+01:00

After the jaunt to the castle we both had showers in preparation for the “big night”, Flamenco dancing and singing after dinner in the restaurant. Well the meal was very good; tapas followed by either, fish or chicken, pud and coffee, all for €12 a head. Chuck in some beers and a carafe or two of wine and good night all-round. Or was it?

Should have noticed something was not quite right when this rather beautiful, tall, slim young lady appeared on the scene. When after fancying her for a minute or two, realised that she was in fact, a he. Not only was he an uphill gardener but the obvious cavorting became a little wearisome after a while.

Then the Flamenco troop arrived. I had seen and heard them earlier in the afternoon, banging on in one of the cabins on site and supposed then to by another bunch of Spaniards having a good, but noisy, week end.

Now I don’t know what you expect from a Flamenco act but it’s probably not far from mine. Tall, slim, tight trousered Spaniard accompanied by a buxom lady of indeterminate age , both in black, both with jet black hair, with castanets and various red frilly bits attached to parts of their bodies. Then there would be a bunch of guys in big hats with guitars of varying sizes with someone else on bongos.

Or if you are a Monty Python fan; “every Thursday night the hotel has a bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring a tiny emaciated dago with nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a big arse presenting Flamenco for Foreigners.”

What did we get? A tall anorexic blond in a long dress and normal shoes, a guy sitting on and playing an empty canned peaches box from the local Mercadona supermarket. A very fat guy playing a guitar of which he could barely reach all the strings, and a dwarf as the main guy. Not that they were not good at what they did, it’s just not what I had expected.

We sat through it and eventually paid and left, it was still going strong. It turned out that it “went strong until dawn”.

When we got back, Tricia needed the loo and after a while I heard her laughing uncontrollably and for a moment thought she was again thinking of me posing earlier in the evening with my underpants pulled up to my armpits to provide some kind of truss. It was not, she had remembered a punch line to an old joke.

Young Jonny is in the class room when the teacher decides to have a word test. “OK class; let’s have a word beginning with the letter A, Peter?” Jonny is whispering to Peter, “Say arse hole, say arse hole!” “Apple” said Peter. “Now Jenny give me word beginning with B”. “Say bastard, say bastard”, whispers Jonny. “Book” says Jenny.

“Now, Angie, give me a word beginning with C”. “Say C$%^, say C$%^, calls Jonny”. “Cloud” say Angie.

“OK Jonny, you seem to have a lot to say, give me a word beginning with D”.

Jonny thinks, and thinks and thinks. D er? D er?

“DWARF!…………with a ten foot cock!”

Now dear listener you, like me, must wonder at the type of mind, while sitting on the toilet, would come up with that? We finished off the night with just the one single episode of WW.

Been on eBay and lost a bid for, as recommended by Ron C, series 1-3 of Prison Break, waiting on series 1-6 of the Sopranos. Full series of “Yes, Minister/Prime Minister” and “World at War” from Amazon which will be there, at home, to pick up at Christmas.

As its Sunday morning it’s “Chuckie” egg and toast soldiers for SWMBO and The Sunday Times Online, with coffee, for me. I’ve just read that Sunderland beat Arsenal 1-0, cheered me up no end after playing well and getting nothing from the last few games.

Tricia is doing better and working harder at her Spanish than me. She is on days of the week, asking the time, date, day etc. I’m still learning my numbers.

What to you think this is? (phonetic) Thyehntoh nohvehntaheenewbeh, if that is, you can get your tongue round all those t’s and h’s. In Spanish it’s “ciento noventa y nueve”. Back to my books. Bye the way, its 199.

Looks like we will be staying here a bit longer than planned. We got the “special” once only deal of €299/month inc. electric etc. which lasts until end of December. Then it’s €38/day plus electric, or somewhat less monthly. If you contract to stay for 6 months it’s about €10/day plus electric but they load the front end of the deal so the average is 10/day. i.e. 1st month is €20/day, 6th month is €7/day. So we are trying to convince them that January is our 3rd month and get it for about €15/day.

Thing is when we fly back home for about 3 weeks, we will be paying the bills at home (as normal) but also paying whatever for the campsite here in Marjal, does anyone want a short Christmas break in warm weather? Sign up here; we are only 20 minutes from Alicante airport.

So if we stay until end January our next port of call will be Camping Cabo de Gato, not far from Almeria in Andalusia, which is about 200 miles away and further south.

The Swans were planning a visit to us about that time frame so don’t let them know and they will probably turn up at the wrong place.

It is noon’ish now, the Sun is out and all is well and warm. We plan a cycle ride to the port, which you can actually see from the campsite over the river but is 8 miles away because the only bridge across the Segura river is in Guardamar. The port seems to attract all kinds of people bringing their hopes from afar, like pilgrims to a shrine. Alan Swan would understand.
We also have talked often of “doing an English”, that is, having a proper Sunday roast at one of the many, Brit run restaurants around. If we did I think I would think of it as failing in some way.

Just been up to do the washing up and on the notice board is a notice, well that is where you put notices, advertising a Cribbage club, meeting on Mondays at 7:30 pm. What’s more attractive is that it meets in the bar, job done. Don’t know how we will get on as the Swinhoe Cribbage rules have kind of evolved over the years so I had better take a big knife with me.

Anyone who has actually lived through one of Tricia’s losing fits needs all the protection he can muster.

Been and done the port, back to MS and dinner.

Friday 20th November, Marjal

2009-11-21T09:37:00.000+01:00

Friday 20th November, Marjal, dead fish in the water society.

Weather, ‘cos I know you are really interested, 22ºC’ish, clear blue skies.

Well the Swinhoe’s are at panic stage zero plus one. We have worked out that at our present watching level, we will run out of the “West Wing” six days before we fly home for Christmas. (If our passports arrive that is).

Rationing is taking place; I have to beat SWMBO more slowly at Dominoes and Cribbage so we have less time to watch the DVD’s and watch only two episodes a night instead of three, sometimes, four.

So we are looking for some other series to take us through January to April when I’m planning to have my hernia operation. Speaking of which, I have been checking it out on the Internet and it can go untreated for months. It’s basically a dull ache in the lower groin which is also felt as a pain in the left (or right) nut. You have just got to watch out for any swelling because that’s not a good sign. So I asked SWMBO if she could check me out each morning. “Screw you”, I don’t know if she was being ironic or it was a pun. I’ll ask an American, they’ll know the difference.

So the plan of 40 miles a day on the bike is a dim memory now, as is getting down to a svelte 12 stone or so, big fat slob more like it.

So any suggestions for a new DVD series, please don’t hesitate, we will watch anything that prevents actual conversation taking place. Or, of course, we take up line dancing and bingo to pass the evenings but SWMBO did mention that she would rather put red hot needles through her eyes. Tomorrow night we are booked in for the Flamenco dancing and all you can eat for €9 at 7:30, I can hardly wait. Pass me my colostomy bag, please.

Decided to go “up” to the castle in Guardamar, which for a change, for us, was not shut; basically a steep climb to a barren rock so we could have a picnic. We were supposed to have attended the water aerobics class at 10:30 but just could not be arsed. Also you can not wear shorts in the various pools here as they are “unhygienic” and have to wear those tight, meat and two vegetables type, I don’t think so. The view from the top of the castle was quite impressive as the area is basically flat for miles around, took some pictures, coffee in town and then home.

On the way back you see lots of, on the river bank, fishermen. The water is rather slow moving and has dead fish in it, what are they fishing for exactly?

Saturday 21st and because I couldn’t sleep anymore, meaning I’m wide awake and have done with sleeping. (Most women don’t understand this concept) So its 6:32 and I’m typing this. Well actually its 7:37 now but I did start back then; Dawn is just coming up, get down girl, and it’s looking like another “Scorchio”.

Finally realised why the pictures have been slow/impossible to upload. All the other ones in Blog 1 were taken by our Fuji, a three mega pixel camera. Note; just typed that last sentence and “Word” did not object to anything, how the world is changing.

The Olympus “whirly noisy thing” as ‘er indoors calls it, is however, a little more up market and its resolution is about four times the other one. Put this together, with me not doing a bit of “Photoshopping” and reducing the images density and they are just too big. Changes are afoot photograph wise.
Been told by an “informed source”, basically the guy who knows “everything about the site”, reference Wendy “The Oracle” from Bonterra Park. He reckons that when we fly back for Christmas/New year, getting back 6th January, we will be charged at the full rate of €38/night. So that will be over £200 and we will not even be there! We have an ACSI card which is supposed to guarantee a maximum of €15/night inc. all services, but apparently, although Majal is a member of the scheme, they do not uphold it.

So must resolve this ASAP or find a very secure storage facility.

Marjal pictures (I hope)

2009-11-20T09:25:00.000+01:00

the first pie

Mr & Mrs PTG

Got there

Phil's place

Evening walk

The lorry park, on the way down

After this I hope to include in posts

Marjal, Wednesday 18th

2009-11-19T19:29:00.000+01:00

Marjal, Wednesday 18th

The number on the piece of plastic that Adam had copied to me via e-mail and was supposed to be the key number for the Navara WAS the correct number.

It was VK 00310 %$ and when I presented this to Mr Happy, the service manager in Nissan reception, he just shrugged and said “No”.

OK so we drove to Nissan Alicante again, showed the number to Ana Garcia, a very nice and unquestionably tall women of about 30, again a “No good, leave the car here and come back in an hour”.

Carrefour was walking distance. “I need some spoons”, “spoons?” So off we went and spent the allotted hour checking out and buying 4 teaspoons. I think I got off lightly and I’ll put that down as a win, wouldn’t you?

So back to dealer and €23.49 lighter in the pocket, I picked up our newly programmed keys. I asked Ana if the key the bastids still had would work anymore. “It may open door but no vroom vroom”.

Looked at the label on the new key with the key number written on it. 00310. Now I may not be as swift as I used to be but it looks like I’ve just spent over £20 quid on something they should have recognised as a Nissan key number.

On the way back for the car we had stopped in a café, me, cheese and ham toastie, er indoors, Spanish omelette. “I don’t think that’s salt you are just going to put on your food, taste it first”. As usual all I got was a withering look. She then sprinkled the entire sachet on it. “So how’s your omelette?” “Very sweet”. Rather than just look like an idiot she decided to act like one and ate it all. The two Spanish waitresses obviously think that’s how we Brits eat omelettes. From now on, of course, whenever she orders anything I’m going to ask if she wants sugar on it.

I finally figured out that the problem with the Wi-Fi is not a problem with the Wi-Fi but with my computer. I’m sitting here waiting for the net to respond and SWMBO is banging out e-mails and “shopping” at John Lewis, like there is no tomorrow, so it’s got to be my computer. I8 just hangs now and again and I don’t want to try and “fix it” here because I’ll only end up screwing it up altogether. Decided to load FireFox, same result, so no pictures any time soon.

I tried to load 20 pictures on to Photobucket and it took 6 hours!

I decided to make my special chilli source, loosely based around tomato, onion, ginger and as much garlic that you can peel at one go. I could not tell, or the cheap red wine was preventing me measuring properly, exactly how much chillies, crushed chillies, cayenne pepper etc. I was putting in. Tricia tried some and immediately ran off to the toilet. I chucked some pasta and chopped sausage at it and with the help of Lidl’s best, ate a bowl of it.

Watched “West Wing” the fourth series, we’ve only got another 60 hours of viewing left, and then to bed.

Thursday 19th

Well any problems with constipation are now just a vague memory. That chilli really opened the sluices at both ends. Which, of course, reminds me of a very old story:-

East Grinstead actually has a Curry Cook-off about June/July.

It takes up a major portion of a parking lot at the Waitrose’s car park.

Judge number three was an inexperienced food critic named Frank, who was visiting

From America.

Frank: "Recently, I was honoured to be selected as a judge at East Grinstead Curry Cook-off. The original person called in sick at the last moment and I happened to be standing there at the judge's table asking for directions to the Beer Garden when the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (Natal Indians) that the curry wouldn't be all that spicy and, besides, they told me I could have free beer during the

tasting, so I accepted".

Here are the scorecard notes from the event:

CURRY 1 - SEELAN'S MANIAC MONSTER TOMATO CURRY...

Judge 1 -- A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.

Judge 2 -- Nice smooth tomato flavour. Very mild.

Judge 3 (Frank) -- Holy shit, what the hell is this stuff? You could remove dried paint from your driveway. Took me two beers to put the flames out. I hope that's the worst one. These people are crazy.

CHILI 2 - PHOENIX BBQ CHICKEN CURRY...

Judge 1 -- Smoky, with a hint of chicken. Slight chilli tang.

Judge 2 -- Exciting BBQ flavour, needs more peppers to be taken seriously.

Judge 3 -- Keep this out of the reach of children. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich manoeuvre! They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.

CURRY 3 - SHAMILA'S FAMOUS "BURN DOWN THE GARAGE" CURRY...

Judge 1 -- Excellent firehouse curry. Great kick.

Judge 2 -- A bit salty, good use of chilli peppers.

Judge 3 -- Call 999. I've located a uranium pill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drain Cleaner. Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite. Barmaid pounded me on the back, now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I'm getting pissed from all the beer.

CHILI 4 - BABOO'S BLACK MAGIC BEAN CURRY...

Judge 1 -- Black bean curry with almost no spice. Disappointing.

Judge 2 -- Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish or other mild foods, not much of a curry.

Judge 3 -- I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Sharleen, the beer maid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. That 200kg woman is starting to look HOT...just like this nuclear waste I'm eating! Is chilli an aphrodisiac?

CHILI 5 LALL'S LEGAL LIP REMOVER...

Judge 1 -- Meaty, strong curry. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.

Judge 2 -- Average beef curry, could use more tomato. Must admit the chilli peppers make a strong statement.

Judge 3 -- My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chilli had given me brain damage. Sharleen saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if I'm burning my lips off. It really pisses me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw them.

CHILI 6 - VERISHNEE'S VEGETARIAN VARIETY...

Judge 1 -- Thin yet bold vegetarian variety curry. Good balance of spices and peppers.

Judge 2 -- The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and garlic. Superb.

Judge 3 -- My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous, sulphuric flames. I am definitely going to shit myself if I fart and I'm worried it will eat through the chair. No one seems inclined to stand behind me except that Sharleen. Can't feel my lips anymore. I need to wipe my ass with a ice-cream.

CHILI 7 - SELINA'S "MOTHER-IN-LAW'S-TONGUE" CURRY...

Judge 1 -- A mediocre curry with too much reliance on canned peppers.

Judge 2 -- Ho hum, tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chilli peppers at the last moment. (I should take note at this stage that I am worried about Judge 3. He appears to be in a bit of distress as he is cursing uncontrollably).

Judge 3 -- You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn't feel a thing. I've lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with curry which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of lava to match my shirt. At least, during the autopsy, they'll know what killed me. I've decided to stop breathing- it's too painful. Screw it; I'm not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air I'll just suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.

CHILI 8 - NAIDOO'S TOENAIL CURLING CURRY...

Judge 1 -- The perfect ending. This is a nice blend curry. Not too bold but spicy enough to declare its existence.

Judge 2 -- This final entry is a good, balanced curry. Neither mild nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge 3 farted, passed out, fell over and pulled the curry pot down on top of himself. Not sure if he's going to make it. Poor man, wonder how he'd have reacted to really hot curry?

Judge 3 - No Report

Back to Thursday, cycled to “Pick and Pay” an English shop selling all those things you really miss and can’t get out here. Colman’s mustard, HP sauce, you get the picture. We have also found an “Iceland” supermarket and it was very expensive. They price most things in £’s and convert to €’s at the till at about 1 to 1. Then on to Lidl and Macedona to top up the necessary liquids. Then it actually rained! Well I counted about a hundred drops and then stopped as it was not proper rain really.

So now sitting in the MS reading and writing and looking at my watch as I try to stay off the juice until 7’ish. My God! It’s 6:47 pm, I’m going to be late opening the fridge door.

Marjal 2nd week

2009-11-17T17:25:00.000+01:00

Still Sunday 14th

Went for the 10 mile bike ride to Rojales came back, eat, knackered, Tricia went to bed at 8 pm! I was left to type this and watch “3rd Rock from the Sun” on my laptop with ear phones in, some of it was in 3D!

Monday 15th

Received an e-mail from Fernando Saez from the British Consulate in Madrid; “you are too far away and wearing glasses, so will not process application”. Measured and compared with SWMBO’s picture and we (our heads) are the exact same size. I WEAR glasses!

Went back to the same PASSPORT photo shop another €4 and sent that one off with me wearing a different pair of clear reading glasses, the original are slightly tinted so that might be it.

Forgot, last night I was in the local bar on the site and a Brit camper came, sat down at the bar, and ordered a double scotch on the rocks. After he finished the drink, he peeked inside his shirt pocket and then he ordered another double scotch. After he finished that one, he again peeked inside his shirt pocket and ordered another double scotch. Finally, I said, "Look, I’ve been watching you drinking all night long. But you have to tell me why you look inside your shirt pocket before you order." The guy replied, "I'm looking at a photo of my wife. When she starts to look good, then I know it's time to go home."
Tuesday 16th

Hells teeth! It’s bloody freezing this morning. Looked at the thermometer and it says 13ºC, we are probably getting soft.

Was out riding through Guardamar the other day when this young Spanish kid cycled past us and decided to give his handlebars a tug and then unicycled up the hill. “Stupid twat”. Now that’s not a word I’ve heard from the missus, ever. I wonder who she picked it up from?
It reminded me however of the time she uttered a more basic expletive.

We, the family, Adam and Heather were in their teens, were watching “The Matrix” DVD and it was getting quite tense. When it got to the bit when they were hiding in the wall and a cop thought he could hear something, then the one who turned out to be the traitor coughed. “Oh fuck!” Well the kids had never even heard the wife say “bloody”, so it came as a bit of a shock, I looked at them, they looked at me, we all looked at Tricia, she just stared at the TV and then, nobody said a word.

When we arrived at the site we noticed that there was a notice board and on it was “Cycle with us! Saturday and Tuesdays 10 am”. Well this morning I thought I would check it out. The leader had an upside down sweeping brush, with a tied up washing line attached to the top of it and attached it to the back of his bike. I decided not go.

Guess what? It’s washing day again. SWMBO is obsessive about cleaning things, she even wanted to wash my underpants again and I had only had them on for 4 days and not even reversed them yet!

This also means that I have to fill the fresh water tank and empty the grey waste tank as she washes on board now because we have free electric so she does not have to lug it across to the shower block. I’ve never got time to read my book, busy, busy, busy.

And now by popular request

The Viennese Boys Choir.
This story is true so I will use real names, well up to a point.
During the late 80’s when I was Sales Manager of Gould Computers, we used to run customer events for GUS. (Gould User Group) These things could take many forms but usually revolved about meeting in nice places and having various presentations with the users. I liked these things because, although if we as a company got pilloried on occasions, it usually led to us supplying a better product and in the evening, over a few drinks, we got to know our customers better. Of course sometimes it was just an excuse for a good piss up.
Well as you can guess from the title, we arranged a meeting in Vienna and star attraction was to be the Viennese Boys Choir, not all of them, just those whose balls had not dropped yet.
It was an obligatory black tie affair in a huge chandelier lit hall seating over 100. At the last minute an Australian arrived in jeans and T shirt and was put on our table, at the back of the room and told to wear a paper tie they had given him. He didn’t.

I was at a table of 10 including Derek Leadbetter, my boss, and amongst other people Ray, let’s call him Ray Crawford.

Ray was 6’ 4” and built like a brick shit house. He had a brain the size of a planet and the social graces of a 12 year old. He was also the senior scientist at RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) at Farnborough. His main job was testing RB211 Rolls Royce engines in a building that could simulate the high altitudes jet engines fly at.

One day while I was there trying to sell him an even bigger (therefore more expensive / cost effective) computer I noticed a pile of frozen chickens. “Er. Ray what are those for”? “We chuck them in the engines to simulate bird strike”.

Ray also liked his beer and food and at lunch he would have drunk his first pint before you had finished ordering and would be rattling the empty glass on the counter. I liked Ray a lot; he was blunt, to the point and in the time I knew him never told an untruth, I always knew where I stood with him. He was also chairman of GUS so some of our meetings became quite heated, as I said, he told it as it was.

Back to Vienna; after the meal and coffee everybody was told to stop drinking, stop eating, stop smoking and keep quiet as the Choir came in. Very impressive.

So they started up and it was very pleasant. I was sitting next to Ray and he was nodding and swinging his arms about as if he knew the tune/hymns they were singing, I don’t think he did actually because on a number of occasions when there was a pause he would clap and of course it had not ended yet.

It was coming to the finale and Ray stood up, the Choir were really belting it out, Ray was swinging wildly, humming away with gusto. The Choir came to a tremendous crescendo and held an impossibly long high note. There was a pause.

Then Ray farted.

My left ear was 10” from his rather large arse, it burst my eardrum, suffered an instant nose bleed and I lost sight in my eye for a week.

It was not your everyday fart, this was one you saved up for week, had been bubbling away all through the meal ready to meet the world. This fart was up there with the greatest cataclysmic events of all time, Krakatoa, a bee fart, Nagasaki, a mere whisper.

This was the big one, it was a room shaker.

Then the applause came!

I did not know if it was for the Choir or Rays fart, who could tell? Derek pointed to the Aussie, who he thought had blown a raspberry, I pointed to Rays arse, Derek fell helpless into his plate.

Our Marketing Director, Phil Martin, came from the front of the hall, “Who moved that bloody chair?”!!!

Derek and I collapsed in a heap in the corner of the room. You know when you laugh so much it starts to hurt, we were miles past that point, we were actually crying. Two grown men standing in the corner crying.

Bob Torgler, an American Vice President of Europe and our boss, saw us.
“The Choir were very moving, weren’t they”?
I wet myself.

Epilogue
I took Ray out to lunch a few weeks later and just had to ask him about “the event”.
“Well, I was trying to get it out while they were singing, just miss-timed it that’s all, where’s my other pint?”

2009-11-15T12:51:00.000+01:00

Friday the 13th!!!!

Washing done and out drying yesterday. Then went into Guardamar to re-register mobiles and dongle, all with Vodafone. Seems that until we did this we were being charged at maximum rate and not the 18 cents/minute after 8pm as we thought we were. So we have spent nearly £55 on phone calls in 1 week!

Today we went back to Alicante Nissan, to get the new Navara key, €125 and probably not as much as I was expecting. As I did not have the actual key number they wanted to take the ignition system apart to get it. I’m sure it is at home or the dealer I bought it from has it. If not it’s booked in for 10am on Wednesday.

It seems that as I did not fill out the insurance papers for the Porsche (it is an old one!) they may cancel, so I asked them to fax to the site and they did! The idea is the Porsche sits in a garage at home for when we fly back at Christmas and other times planned in the next 8 months away. Also as a back up vehicle for Adam and Heather.
Nice touch.

Last night I told the missus to get her glad rags on and I would take her out. So she got all excited had a quick wipe round with a flannel and put her best dress on. “Where are we driving to?” “We are not driving, we are walking”. What I had not told her is that I had heard that the “restaurant” on the camp was doing a “special” three course meal for €7 a head. Actually it was quite good although she is still not talking to me.

Saturday 14th

It’s 12ºC this morning and feels a bit chilly. Mind you I understand that in the U.K. at the moment you can only wish for such a high temperature anytime in the day. Prediction here is a steady rise to about 22ºC by afternoon, I understand it’s a bit wet there as well?

Well, survived “the 13th” without any more bad luck although she did fall asleep mumbling something about cushions.

I hate cushions, what are they for? If I sit in a chair and there’s a cushion on it, I throw it off. Let’s be logical about this, let’s say I’m a chair, three piece suite or whatever designer. I make a chair that is comfortable and you can sit on without putting your back out, then do I scoop out a space so a bloody cushion can fit in, I don’t think so. It’s only women who like them, unless you are a bit of a pillow biter yourself and if so I rather you were reading someone else’s blog thank you.

It’s just something else to spend money on that is just not needed. Anyway it looks like we are going to the market today to get some.

Last night Tricia said, “What are we going to do at the week end?” I nearly spilt my beer. Life now IS a continuous week end, no holidays to look forward to, we are in them already. BTW if you are not retired and this is pissing you off, just skip this bit.

In fact I get fed up when I read in my diary “Bank Holiday”. WE don’t get them anymore, you guys do and it’s just not fair. When I was (gulp) working I used to look forward to that long week end, being able to BBQ and have a few beers on a Sunday night. Now all that’s gone because I can do that every night, it’s really just not fair.

Adam photographed the Navara key and e-mailed it to me, put it on to a USB stick, up to reception and it’s now printed, isn’t technology wonderful? It will certainly save the Spanish mechanics from ripping open my steering lock.

I can just imagine, here’s your key number, unfortunately your car won’t start anymore and they will hand me couple of bolts and a piece of string. Which is what always happens when I undertake any mechanical jobs.

Took the “Dysan” to bits for a clean, 2 screws, re-built my Yamaha Fazer motorcycle engine, 4 screws , 3 bolts and piece of bent metal that did not seem to fit any thing. (I felt it prudent not to tell the wife at the time as we were just off for a 2,000 tour of Europe) Serviced the car, 3 nuts and a hand brush, I’ve no idea where that came from.

It’s probably a good job I’m not a surgeon!

Cycled into La Marina, a local village, couple of coffees met some fellow Geordies and had a chat and then back via Macedona to top up the wine by a gallon or so.

It’s now clouded over but still quite warm. Now watching England get beaten by Brazil on the only English channel we receive here. Choice after is we eat in or go and watch an Elvis impersonator. Tried him, just a guy from Halifax, walks in the door picks up the mike and starts to sing erm…no thanks.

Figured out why uploading pics is a no go, depending on the time of day the “broadband” drops to 2kb/s, so I’ll get them together and upload all at once using the 3G dongle.

Sunday 15th (Is it ever going to end? Am I going to wake up and be back in East Grinstead?)

Managed to pull an “all-nighter” last night and before you ask it’s not what you think. When a gentleman gets to a certain age managing to last all night without getting up for a pee is something of an achievement.

It’s “chuckie egg” day, every Sunday Tricia must have two boiled eggs and toast. We only have two egg cups so what does that mean, yep none for me and I end up eating mine out of a paper bag or whatever. So last night I thought if I did scrambled or poached eggs it would not matter and I get to use a plate. So I said to her “How would you like your eggs in the morning?” “Unfertilised” was the answer. Going to be a dull day.
But actually it’s not; yesterday ended cloudy and today it’s 24ºC and a bright blue sky. What’s it like in the UK at the moment? Just seen the news and you guys have got it pretty bad back there.

Going to cycle to Rojales today, about 10 miles round trip so should help burn off all those calories we ate and drank last night. Also found out that we CAN use our BBQ, apparently it’s one of those rules that are just ignored.

Still have not received the replacement Visa card as promised last week, has it been stolen? Will call them using our new land line phone card that costs €6 and gives you 1 hour of calls to the UK, or anywhere else for that matter, at any time of day.

For the first time since we arrived there was more than just me in the showers, no I don’t mean in my cubicle. I found out that unlike Benicassim where when you hear a flush or another shower is turned on, you have about 2 seconds to get out of the shower before you are either boiled or frozen. Not here, it’s bloody instant. There I was bent over cleaning my feet, checking for calluses as you do, when it went very, very cold. Well I don’t’ think I’ll ever see my testicles ever again.

Luckily (luckily?), I had just finished and the water shut off! The guy in the adjoining cubicle was German and had obviously just “soaped up”, I’ve never heard so many German obscenities in my life. The water did not come on again for 3 hours.

That will teach them not to annex the Sudetenland.

Sorry I guess this is just word association but I remembered a while back when I was in London on business and I witnessed an accident. A car had knocked down a Rabbi near Newgate street; I bent down to ask him if he was comfortable, “I manage, but my pension could be better”.
I keep getting “This copy of office is not genuine” when I start Word, Outlook etc. How do the bastids know? This is a genuine rip off copy I got from a mate of mine years ago. The reason is that MS still manages to talk to your PC, when connected to the internet, even when you have ticked all the boxes to say it can’t. What’s that about eh, it’s an invasion of privacy, that’s what it is.

Marjal and the trimmings

2009-11-12T13:42:00.000+01:00

Well blog 1 is at an end and now we start on our next adventure.
(now before we start I had a lot of trouble towards the end of the last blog uploading pictures, well either the wi-fi here is crap, it is free, or the problems are still with this software. So pics to follow.
The plan was to tour Spain and Portugal for about 8 months starting in September.
Thing was that Adam, our first and only son (I think) was 30 on October 18th and our daughter Eve (only kidding) AKA Heather was due for a “ladies” operation on 12th October. So it was decided that we would wait until 28th to actually “go”.

I was in Sainsburys, getting the last bits in for the journey, steak & kidney pies etc. for Tricia’s “Christ! I need something to eat NOW!" moments, when I saw a mother & daughter with an empty trolley in the middle of the store, in the chocolate/biscuit isle. Not to say overweight but they both could not actually walk round their thighs. It was on the tip of my tongue to say “shouldn’t you be somewhere else?” But I did not.

Anyway, got the Mothership (MS) back to the house to give it a good seeing to, cleaning re-tooling and generally getting ready for the off. I had replaced the old lights with new LED’s and I must say it made quite a difference, as well as cutting down on the electric consumption.

The day arrived and after getting some cars to move from “our bank” away we went.
Plan was Newhaven to Dieppe, only 22 miles so OK.
Saw the sign LD ferries next left but did nor realise it meant 20 metres next left, so we/I missed it and had an interesting time driving through tiny Newhaven in our 43 foot rig.

Got ferry, 4 hours later, off and driving on the RHS. Our plan was to overnight at a Aire on the motorway, which is normally frowned upon because of security problems, i.e. someone could break in and quickly nick off straight on to the motorway. But after listening to our friends from Benicassim, Martin & Kathy, who had been using them for 20 years with no problems, we decided to give it a go. (little did I know?) Also this time, instead of paying a fortune in tolls, we would use non motorway routes. So we headed for Orleans and managed to stay off tolls paying only €2.90 so far.

Now writing this in such a place, 115 parking place’s 10 miles north Orleans, which by 10’clock is double parked and stinks of urine.

Tricia has gone to bed with a hot water bottle shaped like a penguin? And I’m writing this. Tomorrow we head for Limonges.

29/10/2009; travelled about 180 miles to an Aire at Magnac Brouges, 20 miles south of Limonges and just off the A20. Basically an open space next to a pond in the centre of the village. Both fancied a steak but at €20/head for steak and chips, no bloody way, so it was off to Intermarch, steak, salad, wine and the trimmings, all for less than €10. Great steak and now Tricia is in shower hoping the hair drier works with the inverter/battery hook up. We were a little worried about parking where we are but within 2 hours 2 more motorhomes parked along side, both Brits!

Went to check on the gas reservoir and low and behold the gas bottle filled by Ollie “it only cost £4.57” was empty, because it was not filled up!

Changed over the “changeover” nozzle only for it to fracture, I only used the bloody thing twice. Need a replacement or workaround or we will have to buy a Spanish bottle. One full one left, which I FILLED for £7.50, so may last for a while yet.

Hope to leave early, 9am if SWMBO drags herself out of bed in time. Then a run of about 280 miles to next Aire on the Mediterranean coast just inside France.

Cards in a minute followed and with wine and beer and then early to bed?
I keep on dreaming you know. It turned out that we played dominoes and I got beat 5-3, damn!

Friday 30th. Next morning the French motorhome had gone and discharged their black water on the top of the drain leaving turds everywhere but I bet we brits will get the blame.
Onto A20 to Tolouse and because it was a reasonably long run, 280 miles, decided to stay with motorways and tolls, cost about €50 but a lot easier on the nerves. By the time we had reached our destination Tricia had eaten BOTH my steak & kidney pies.

MPG not good at about 17-18 which was down on our last average of 19 mpg, are you still awake?

Arrived at Aire at Locate which is a area next to the beach on the Mediterranean with about 40 MHs already there, €6.50 inc. all services, which means a dump station and potable water, no electric. Moon nearly full, clear night and just got beat AGAIN 5-4 at does, dam, dam, dam.

Tomorrow its off to good old Benicassim for a one nighter, that is if we make it. I thought it was about 200 miles in fact it’s over 300. So early start again.

Well we were duped, pulled in to dump station at a Repsol gas station going south on AP 7 between junctions 4&5. SWMBO dumped her hand bag on the front seat to help me to manoeuvre over the grate. Then I jumped out to let it gush because she wouldn’t. As I was doing so some Spanish bastard distracted her by asking for the nearest laundry? I guess while doing so his "mate" nipped in & grabbed it.

Now before everyone starts saying "should never leave anything on front seat etc. " I completely agree, we were chumps but at a dumping station!
Anyroadup, passports, her credit cards, driving licence, phone, spare precrition glasses, ACSI card, spare keys for everything, €20, and her Gucci handbag.
So lesson learned. (BIG TIME!)

What had really happened was when we left the gas station; we travelled about 65 miles until we arrived at the toll both, “get the ticket and money Pet”. “Where’s my handbag, WHERE’S MY HANDBAG!” “I think I left it in the toilet back at the last Gas stop”. The next hour back was without any recriminations because I knew that somehow, by whatever bizarre reason, it would be my fault. It was only after we had arrived at the gas station and checked the toilet and reception and were on our way back the SWMBO mentioned the Arab looking guy who was distracting her while we “dumped”. The rest we figured out.

Mind you it could have been worst. When we went back, had the scrotes (who now had a full set of keys) still been hanging around, unlightly I agree, they could have nicked the whole thing or at least the Navara when we were in the tourist information office finding out what to do next.

That day, including the double back, I drove a record of 480 miles and we pulled into Benicassim as it was getting dark.

For the first time I met another 5er at a camp site and guess what? It was identical to mind, same specification and Navara. Turns out if belongs to Larry, an anglicised, American living in Somerset and his partner Bernie (female). He had a lot of equipment including a 2m satellite dish and as he 1) had no up rated sticker for the Navara from SV teck in the UK. And 2) no up rate sicker for the KL26RK (5er). Also no “long vehicle” plates at the rear. If he was ever stopped by any Police force the fine would be enough to cover all the drinks at the Police officers Christmas ball.

Met Wendy “The Oracle” who we knew from our last visit, her husband Graham thought we had been ignoring them as Larry had been parked at the other side of the camp for the last two weeks.

First thing she said after hearing our woes? “Do you need any money?” Cheers you up things like that.
Time for a shower, couple of beers and fell into a deep sleep dreaming of planted and rigged exploding handbags and testicle clamps attached to East European testicles attached to 10,000 volts. I’m not a vengeful man, honest.

Still being stuck here in 26 degrees for the next few months has lessened the pain.
Happy (ish) in Marjal, nr Alicante.

Good news is there is a Lidl nearby!

2nd November 2009, 30°C hummmmmmm.

Have been told many stories of robberies in and around Alicante, including breaking into you car while in Lidl! Now that’s just disgraceful, takes away one’s dignity when you are inside deciding between a gallon of wine at €3.99 or better stuff at €4.39 ant outside some scrotes are trying to get into your car.

Have got all the documents printed for new passports and after speaking to the British Consulate, worrying about what happens next, it’s ho hum and send lots of money to Madrid and hope you get new passports in time.

This place, Marjal, is absolutely 5* but compared to Benicassim it is a cyclist nightmare. No cycle routes, so you have to share the N332 with the Lorries and cars, not for the fainthearted.
Tricia is at present cooking a lamb stew, on top of the oven instead of in it which will probably work out alright unlike the last time when she set the oven a gas mark 2 for 3 hours, yep uncooked stew.

Tomorrow it is into Alicante (if I survive the stew, sorry Pet, casserole) to get passport photos and visit a Police station that speaks some English for a incident number to go on our applications. Also will try and fill up our empty LPG bottle.

Other good news is it looks like I have developed a hernia, let the good times roll. Tricia said she knew a Chinese guy who had a hernia and now calls me “One Hung Lo”.

Spent Monday getting used to the place and filling up the fridge with beer and some food.

Tuesday was spent in Alicante being directed and re-directed to various Police establishments until we finally got a “incident number” so we could fill in the forms for replacement passports. Also got passport photos but no duplicate keys.
Wednesday, more shopping and a walk along the beach, place is a little seedy but not too bad.
Got in touch with Phil the Greek and as he is only 16 miles away and will visit him on Friday and get him to countersign our passport photos. Things are moving on at last.

Thursday 5th November

Still warm but blowing a bit. Now we are starting to feel “settled in” and getting to know the site pretty well. Missed the start of the free Spanish lessons by a few weeks so I guess its back to the books and CDs. We are sleeping very well, I mean even I was still in bed at 9:45 this morning. Mind I’m sure we had 4 bottles of red wine the night before and not 2.

Off for a walk into the in Guardamar, the local town/village, so far we have cycled to it but only on the main (N-332) roads and it’s a bit of a nightmare. May also pick up some TV cable (left the 80 m I bought last time) as you get most of the UK channels here for free so I can look forward to watching MOTD on Saturday night.

Went for a short (5 miles) walk into town and managed to buy all the things I had been “getting round to”, inc. some TV lead.

Aerial in and no BBC, apparently needs to be fixed but no time soon.

Finally found a LPG gas outlet at a Repsol garage but the pump does not fit any of the adapters I have. Actually the guy “helping” at the pump was rude and an idiot and just kept waving me away from the pump, he validated my inherent mistrust of strangers. Then agai I probably should have put out my cigarette first. E-mailed Gaslow and they reckoned that the UK bayonet was the one but it is not. So £300, for a refillable gas system that you cannot refill.

Friday/Saturday 7th November 2009

27° C both days. Decided to take a trip down to Torrevieja where Phil the Greek lives.
Only 16 miles but went via coast road and all the small villages and towns, got lost a million times. A lot of roads have been moved, removed or changed to go the other way and GPS was confused. So we had to go back to basics and follow the bloody signs, which worked out OK.

Phil & Sue place is very nice and in a large enclave of similar apartments/ villas etc., most owned by Brits. I was very quiet also, nobody seemed to be around.

He took us on a flying visit to various establishments that had key cutting equipment, no go, even from “Mr Minit”, dam, dam, dam!
Then out for dinner, OK, and on to some pubs. Everything was English, everybody spoke English, English food, English, beer, English papaers. In fact it was England with the Sun and not bad weather.

8th November

Update on theft, the bastards managed to withdraw £2,000, 4 x £500, in cash from our Nationwide Visa CC account, in about an hour before it was stopped. Of course the account is being charged daily the interest rate on cash withdrawals. Thank God tha was the only credit card she carried. The scrotes have not even bothered or haven’t tried yet to get into our current account.

Today is Sunday and after SWMBO has finished her soft boiled eggs and toast in bed we might get some cleaning done.
Sun rise at 7’ish this morning. Quite cold at 15ºC. Climbed to 29ºC yesterday so just wait awhile. Then its drain tanks and put our newly acquired green ground sheet down to stop treading the ground marble chippings into the MS.

Tricia is still in bed (10:35 am) reading Apache by Ed Macy and does not look like actually getting up at all today. I’ve read the book and it’s about Afghanistan and helicopters. He is an ex flier but writes like a thriller novelist, for a true story it is very good. Note 11:55, she is up and running.
Tried to get the ground sheet down but it’s bloody windy now and has been most afternoons, warm but windy.

When we go out I have to move the car from the empty plot next door and park it in front of the MS because when we are out someone may turn up and choose that plot.
So, gets car nearly in place just enough to miss the hitch ball on the front of the MS but unfortunately didn’t, small “crunch” noise and have scratched/dented the bonnet/wing. When is the 3rd thing going to happen?

Went for short walk to the beach so Tricia could practice with the “big” camera. That is the Olympus E-420 4/3rds DSLR. “Oh, I like the noise it makes”. Got some pictures of some ducks and pampas grass, don’t wait for the pictures. I tried to read the manual as mentioned in last blog and its still set on auto and point and click.

On Monday Phil and Sue called in and were suitably impressed by Marjal. Phil used to fish around here and all he could remember was some kind of run down camp site fronted by two night clubs called “Nancy’s” one of them being a brothel. They are still there and thriving. It actually does not come as any kind of surprise because when we were driving to Phil’s “the long way”, i.e. getting lost. We noticed some young, not completely fully dressed, women at the side of the road. I saw one pair and said to Tricia “you can guess what they are up to”. “Well they are probably waiting for a friend”. Yeah, right, a “man friend” with lots of €’s. This is in the middle of the day mind. I mean so Spaniard says to his wife “just popping out, Pet”, and goes for a quick shag at lunch time.
Sometimes they park themselves at roundabouts and as you go pass open their legs. “Oh my God she does not have knickers on; I should throw her a pair of mine”. “Nah, just chuck her a small comb and tell her to tidy up a bit”.

It’s enough to put you off your beer.

I also noticed one of the girls was knitting, yes you read right knitting. Can you imagine the conversation when she gets home? “Slow day Pet?” “Yes, but I managed two scarves and a beret”.

It’s Tuesday 10th and finally the permanent wind (almost gale) has stopped and we can finally get our green ground sheets down. But first it’s off to Alicante again to have a fight with the Repsol garage man about re-filling my gas tanks; apparently the guy on the morning shift is a little more helpful. Then on to Nissan Alicante to try and get a spare key.

Have talked to Alex at Calder Leisure and we agreed that rather then get duplicate keys made I should fit a new lock. Pretty easy to fit by the looks of it, bear that thought in mind dear reader.

Well a good day all round 1) Filled tanks, no bother, €4 each and apparently this time they had the right adaptor. 2) Nissan Alicante is ordering new keys and will collect on Friday. 3) Bought a steering wheel security bar with a key THEY have not got.

Here’s the thing; if they were part of a professional gang (getting the chip from a card needs equipment costing over £100,000 apparently) and knowing there are only 30 or so sites that can take this size rig in Spain. It would not take a lot to track us down; they have all our details so find where we are by phoning each site and asking for us. Then come down wait their moment, when we go walking/cycling for a couple of hours, open door of 5er, remove anything of worth, pile it into the back of the Navara and drive off.

We come back to basically nothing and the insurance does not pay up because we should replace all locks straight away, yep that’s an easy thing to do in Spain. Kinda sobering thought isn’t it?

Do you know the insurance does not cover the cost of loss of any documentation or money? OK, money I understand “Yes, there was 2 million quid in the wallet”. But the documents are the most important. BTW it costs £300 for our two passports.

Back to Tuesday, birth certificates arrived OK from Heather so we can now send the stuff to Madrid, they say it takes 6 weeks, we fly home in 5 weeks and 6 days, exciting isn’t it?

E-mail from Alex, the new lock is on its UPS way. Lock £50, UPS £100, go figure.

Wednesday 11th Marjal

Passport applications are in the post after spending most of the day looking for the Correous (Post Office) in Guardamar. It seems that in southern Spain you do or do not pronounce the “s”, I guess depending if they is an “r” in the month, I don’t know.
So we were sent from pillar to post until we found the bloody thing. Now we wait.

Just something I read recently
“Passport Application”
Subject: Passport Application

Dear Minister,
I'm in the process of renewing my passport but I am a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.
Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30-odd years. It's on my health insurance card, my driver's licence, on the last four passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother's name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I'm obviously not myself this morning. But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to activate the Fifth Reich for God's sake! I just want to go and park my weary backside on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week's well-earned rest away from all this crap.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? But nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some tosser to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture - you know... the one where we're not allowed to smile in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!
Hey, you know why we can't smile? 'Cause we're totally jacked off!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London. I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am -- you know, someone like my doctor...
who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN...

Yours sincerely,
An Irate British Citizen.”

Kind of makes sense to me.

Finally got our green ground sheet down which made SWMBO very happy as she is a tidy kind of person. Funny thing is we had to pay 50 cents for each nail from the local on site supermarket but got 30 for €3 from the town’s hardware store.
We had cycled in and the path is not cycle friendly, so bumpy that the old “Chalfont’s” made a painful come back.

I guess we are starting to feel that it’s time to settle down an enjoy ourselves, that’s what early retirement is all about. But also sometimes I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

My Mother, God rest her soul, was Irish, well not just Irish but Catholic Irish. Although my Dad insisted the first born would be protestant, me, all the rest, 3 other brothers, were Catholic. She had some real Irish sayings. “Look Son, I would give you a key but if I’m in, I’m in and if I’m out, I’m out” Made obvious sense to me at the time. She went to the bank one day to sign a cheque for £40. She tried to write “fourhorty” but could not, so she made out two for twenty each.

When we moved south she sent me a letter:
Dear Son,

Just a few lines to let you know I'm still alive. I'm writing this letter slowly because I know you can't read fast. We are all doing very well.

You won't recognise the house when you get home - we have moved. Your dad read in the newspaper that most accidents happen within 20 miles from your home, so we moved. I won't be able to send you the address because the last Irish family that lived here took the house numbers when they moved so that they wouldn't have to change their address.
This place is really nice. It even has a washing machine. I'm not sure it works so well though: last week I put a load in and pulled the chain and haven't seen them since.
Your father's got a really good job now. He's got 500 men under him. He's cutting the grass at the cemetery.
Your sister Mary had a baby this morning but I haven't found out if it's a boy or a girl, so I don't know whether you are an auntie or an uncle.
Your brother Tom is still in the army. He's only been there a short while and they've already made him a court martial!
Your Uncle Patrick drowned last week in a vat of whiskey in the Dublin Brewery. Some of his workmates tried to save him but he fought them off bravely. They cremated him and it took three days to put out the fire.
I'm sorry to say that your cousin Seamus was arrested while riding his bicycle last week. They are charging him with dope peddling.
I went to the doctor on Thursday and your father went with me. The doctor put a small tube in my mouth and told me not to talk for ten minutes. Your father offered to buy it from him.
The weather isn't bad here. It only rained twice this week, first for three days and then for four days. Monday was so windy one of the chickens laid the same egg four times.
We had a letter from the under-taker. He said if the last payment on your Grandmother's plot wasn't paid in seven days, up she comes.
About that coat you wanted me to send you, your Uncle Stanley said it would be too heavy to send in the mail with the buttons on, so we cut them off and put them in the pockets.
John locked his keys in the car yesterday. We were really worried because it took him two hours to get me and your father out.
There isn't much more news at this time. Nothing much has happened.

You’re loving Mum
P.S. I was going to send you some money but I had already sealed the envelope.

Well just had our intravenous episode of “West Wing” and it’s off to bed, night, night.
1:34 in morning and 3 G&T’s plus the wine.

Tommorow is washing day.