7th February 2010, Roquetas and all is quiet

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!