...later the same day

...6pm to be precise;the inside plastered, and the outside having had a second coat of waterproof plaster. Now you all need to keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't rain until Monday...

Mañana mañana...

...is what they usually say in Spain; but not always. On Wednesday evening, Ignacio called round because he had promised to rehang the the gates the next time he was in the area. Bossman asked him what he could do about stopping the rain driving into and under the front door when it rained. The budget won't stretch to anything major, and we have been known to struggle to raise a sun umbrella mid-storm in an effort to stop rainwater swelling the old wooden door. Out came his tape measure, and after a little calculation on the back of his hand, he said he could build us a wall in place of the old steel railing that would be narrow enough to still allow us to open the reja door. A window would put up the expense, but was still an option. Bossman showed Ignacio his stash of windows and frames salvaged from next door's reformation, and they were deemed suitable. A rough price having been agreed, Ignacio went to his van, came back with an angle grinder, removed a section of railing, fixed up some props, wired the balcony section back in position as a safety measure, then went to move the gate hinge brackets as promised.By lunchtime on Thursday, the wall was halfway finished.
By Thursday evening, wall and window were in place.
By lunchtime today, inside and out had been rendered, and as I type, Ignacio and son are applying the second coat of rough cast to the outside and a coat of white plaster to the inside, all the while keeping an eye on the big black clouds that are creeping ever nearer. The plan was that if it stayed dry, we could give it a couple of coats of paint on Sunday, before they came to take down the scaffolding on Monday, but if it rains before Sunday, the render won't be dry enough. Plan B is a roller on a broom handle...

We are painting...

...the rejas, as even the ones on the South side, protected from the rain by the overhang, are beginning to rust. This year it is Bossman's turn to do the fiddly curly bits with a brush, while I flash up and down the straight bits with a 3" x 1" roller.Four down, and a lot more to go...

Totty likes to....

NWM has been tagged. She claims not to have enough bloggerbuddies to pass on the tag, but has coined the term "open tag" and thrown it open to everyone.

It goes like this: you Google “[your name] likes to” and then cut and paste the results.

So, in the order they came up, Totty Teabag (only I used my realworld name) .....

.... likes to wear masks.

.... likes to be needed, as well as to cherish and protect her loved ones, of whom she is somewhat possessive.

When she is not working Totty likes to sing.

.... likes to pal around with Drew's younger siblings

....likes to pair hers with a striped, darted, button-up blouse that shows off the best part of yoga pants - no love handles.

.... likes to shove needles through her nose.

On her spare time, Totty likes to travel and experience different foods.

.... likes to use as her medium thread and textile.

.... likes to paint.

.... likes to work at night, which is great for my schedule.

....likes to be tied up and teased.

.... likes to look nice and often combs her hair-cap moss.

This last one made me curious. I followed the link: It led to a story about Totty Moss, friend of Linda Lichen, and is a mnemonic to learning the names of common mosses and lichens. The pdf. in question is about teaching pre-schoolers about squirrels and their natural habitat. I quote;

Prepare a stuffed animal squirrel so that it weighs 4 hg. Let the children hold and pat the
squirrel. If you don’t have a stuffed animal squirrel, use a bottle with 4 dl of water instead....

.....very thorough, the Swedes...

Too big for its boots

Since this orchid was moved out to the snug, it has gone from strength to strength. Its aerial roots have infiltrated the space between the inner and outer pots, they have grown down the outside of the outer pot and circled around the drip tray, and a few stray roots are making their way up under the window ledge. As you can see, this year there are three flower spikes. I haven't bothered to count the individual flowers, and a dozen or so have already dropped off, but last year there were 29 flowers on the single spike, and they lasted from June through to August.

Edit: Yesterday I uploaded a crop of this picture using Picasa. For some reason, it has flown off into cyberspace, so here is the original un-cropped picture uploaded the conventional way. Thanks for letting me know, Eve. I have now counted the flowers. There are 49, not counting uncoloured buds, or the dozen or so that have already fallen off.

More blue and a little lemon

My tulips have failed this year. A few impoverished leaves, and no sign of a flower stem. I'm blaming Ivan the Bulgarian and his need to tidy away straggling leaves before they have finished their work of replenishing the bulbs. He won't be satisfied until the garden is a bare earth and gravel waste that he can control with herbicide and a pair of secateurs. The yellow Jasmine has no flowers, and the Bottle Brush has no brushes, thanks to his trimming at the wrong time. Enough of the griping; What do we have? We have this:


I can't remember what it's called, it lost its label years ago. The flowers open a saturated purple, then fade through blue to purest white. it sits in a pot on the other side of the blue door from the Clematis.

Some of the largest plants in the garden are the sage bushes. On average they are two metres in diameter, and at the moment are densely covered in the pinky-purple spikes that the bees love. I like to deadhead these bushes with the secateurs, cutting each stem back to a leaf joint, and taking out old wood. The lavender on the other hand, responds well to a haircut with electric hedge clippers, just after the flowers have gone over, and soon sends up a new flush of flower spikes from its neatly trimmed dome.


Here's the lemon from the title; the first of the lilies has opened. I have tried growing these in the open garden, but they don't like it. They are happy in their spot at the back of the house, where they catch the early morning sun, but spend most of the day in the shade. They grow in an odd assortment of pots. Most of them are ugly black plastic garden centre tubs rescued from skips, but there is the odd terracotta or ceramic container, and their drip trays are mostly round aluminium pie dishes from the Euro shop.
Just in case you were expecting to see lemons, I shan't disappoint you. Here on the right are a couple of this year's fruit, and on the bottom left, one of the larger maturing ones from last year's flowers. Did you know that a lemon takes two years to reach maturity, and is quite happy to be left on the tree for longer?

Border Incident

The house next door has been having major renovations after being sold a while ago. The English agent who sold it has been acting as project manager for the absentee landlady, and has employed a gang of Moroccan builders to turn the ground floor into a self contained apartment. This has now been rented out to a Dutch couple and their family, and work has started upstairs with the replacement of the windows and doors. There is a large rubber tree obscuring our view of the entrance, but Bossman remarked that he was sure that the body he had glimpsed through the foliage, carrying windows down to the skip, was female. With the remark that he was just going to feed Chancy, he went off to investigate, and came back an hour later to report that she was indeed a female, and of the pretty Rumanian variety that are quite at home wielding hammerdrills...

This morning we heard loud male voices having an altercation in Spanish in next door's driveway. Mehdi the Moroccan was throwing ineffectual punches at the über-übergroß English agent and telling him just what his opinion was of said agent's perfidy in employing someone else to do a job that he, Mehdi, had quoted for. We are not too sure if he objected to having lost the job because his quote was considered too high, or if his pride was hurt because he wasn't considered pretty enough.

Introducing Malcolm

He's a gentle soul. I found him in the Dog shop and bailed him out for 50¢.

More purple than blue

The clematis has changed from dead twigs to glory in the last few days. As you can see, it grows in a pot, and is on the north side of the house in the shelter of an overhanging balcony, otherwise it would not survive a Spanish Summer. For years, the surface of the pot used to be covered in blue pansies, and the door paint was a perfect colour match, but for some reason, the blackbirds have decided that the pot is a good source of food, and dig around ferociously, flinging lumps of compost in all directions, so the pansies are no more. I hope they are eating the slugs that have been nibbling away at the clematis flowers...

Glorious blue...

The wisteria is in full bloom. This time last week, only the top most branches that caught the sun were flowering, but now, the whole plant is covered.

This is the view from the balcony.

March...in like a lamb...

I'm referring to the weather of course, not issuing orders to a class of method actors...


Just to clear up a few loose ends of February's de-cluttering exercise, I show you one last photo. I had a radical clear out of the small oak chest of drawers you see here. The top two drawers were full of cassette tapes dating back as far as the '70s. The third drawer is home to telephone directories, gloves and the two Valentine creations that have been brought out each year at the appropriate moment for a great part of our married life. The bottom drawer serves as one of the many glory holes in this house. In particular this one is devoted to crippled and redundant spectacles. I amassed a goodly pile of things to relocate on a nearby table, then continued to make vague flourishes with a duster on the rest of the room and other points East. Later in the day I returned, camera in hand, to record the results of my turf-out. This was all that remained. A few tapes, a broken cassette case, a small cardboard box that had once contained chocolates and a birth announcement, half a dozen assorted feathers, one curtain hook, and a music bleater removed from a birthday card. Bossman had claimed the greater part of the tapes and relocated them to his den downstairs. The collection of spectacles and broken bits and pieces had been deemed necessary to effect repairs and taken to the garage. Shortly after I took this photograph, the Berlitz Spanish Course went ta-tas....I give up...

Combined clear-out

I need to clear 30 items today to get me up to date, and the plan was to take 10 per area. I was pretty sure that the trolley in the hallway would provide rich pickings, and I was correct. Add to that just one box from the storage 'closet' and I had more than enough.
Top row: A carrier bag full of Swiss holiday bumf, a couple of letters from 2002, an empty sweet tin, and 15 dressmaking pattern books.
Middle row: 2 cat blankets, a mouse mat and wrist rest, the packaging from a CD player kept in case it didn't survive its 3 year guarantee period, a 1995 road map book of Spain, and a Bodum caffetierre box containing odd candle holders and candle ends.
Bottom row: A stray piece of slightly crumbly foam, 2 sets of wooden splints, a package containing 8 webbing splint straps, 2 rubber turniquets and 4 glassless picture frames.
Quite a good haul, you must agree.

I had intended to clear out Bracket's collection of pointy acorns, conkers and wing nuts if I couldn't meet my target, but as you can see, he is still a happy hoarder.

Nondeclutter Days

Monday and Tuesdays are always reserved for living rather than housework, so I hope to play catch-up tomorrow. In the spirit of the game however, while sipping my afternoon tea, I have re-sorted-out a box of stamps that were zip-locked into countries of origin into zip-locks according to subject matter.

Declutter Day 3

Yes, I know it is the same date, but I haven't got time to declutter and blog, life's too short! This morning it was the turn of the second bathroom. It doesn't get used much for ablutions as such, but the lavatory gets used because it is the closest to the living room, and I use it as a wet room and water source for craft related activities. There is always a reasonable stack of varied reading matter in there, and it is also a convenient place to put the odd bottles of toiletries that come under the heading of not very much wanted gifts.

So what has gone? A smallish stack of El Pais Sunday supplements and a timetable for the steamships on a small Swiss lake, to be recycled. Works for Win 95 Made Simple, a hard back book, a plastic snowman full of bubble bath and a bottle of bath salts to go to the Dog Shop, and a water spray that no longer sprays to go to the rubbish bin. I will admit that I removed the clear plastic tube from the spray before I put it in the bin.

So what have I learnt about myself so far? That things that other people discard on a daily basis are things that I have to make a special effort to get rid of. Maybe it will become easier with practice.

Declutter Day 2

I thought the bedroom would be fairly straightforward; raid the knicker drawer and the job would be done, but I didn't take into account that I had a clear out in the underwear department just before Christmas. I did relinquish my hold on two M&S bras that have never fitted properly; They can go in the clothing bin at the recycle point. Bossman encouraged me to throw away all my laddered tights with the promise of a batch of new ones. The odd ladder doesn't bother me as I am usually in trousers, but I now have a small free corner in the top drawer. I added a pair of his socks that had small holes in the heels to the pile, but shall leave a thorough investigation of his sock drawer for the second round. I couldn't really see anything to part with on my bedside table, but in the spirit of the game, I have reduced the bedside pile of Guardian crossword books by one. Have I done the right thing? Will this be a coveted first edition one day? I opened the wardrobe, couldn't face the thought of sorting through clothes, but I did remove three belts at random from the inside of the door, and added a pair of shoes that I wore last year for painting. A quick tot-up came to more than ten items, but nevertheless, I added a bald nail file and a balding baize pouch that at one time must have held an item of jewellery. I could get used to this....

Declutter Day 1

Our bathroom seemed an easy place to start, seeing that if I had problems finding ten articles to dispose of, I could always resort to checking cosmetic bags. So what have I weeded from the cupboards? For the bin; an almost empty conditioner bottle, an empty travel hair spray, a stray bottle top, and two non-elastic hair elastics. For the recycle bin; an electric curling tong with half of its teeth missing, and a geriatric electric toothbrush. The floral extravaganza at the rear is a hot water bottle cover from a bottle that gave up the ghost in the middle of the night not so long ago. I shall wash it and put it in the box to go to the dog shop at the end of this exercise, together with the nail varnish, unopened but not quite the right colour. The two white soap roses at the front are destined for my friend Marlene. She was flicking through the Avon catalogue the other night and got quite excited when she thought she had found just this very item. After borrowing my specs to read the small print, she was disappointed to find that they were plug-in night lights. As her memory is just as good as mine, but she is far more tactful, I'm sure that the fact that she gave them to me five or six years ago won't be mentioned.

I can hear you now saying, what about that blue toothbrush in the photograph? It was taken off my hands by Bossman, who needed just that very thing to get the rust out of the bottom balcony rail before he welded in a new section. So you see; you never know when something might come in handy.

Note: Calpe has two charity shops. The Red Cross Shop that only takes clothing, books and knick-knacks, and The Dog Shop, as it is known, that takes anything apart from large electrical appliances and furniture.

Decluttering

A friend is trying to declutter her house, and found inspiration on Swapbot to "Get rid of 100 items in 10 days". It sounds like a good idea, and this house certainly needs a little gentle tidying, so I thought I would give it a try. Throughout the month of February, I shall try to remove 10 items a day, for at least ten days of the month. To make the challenge a little more difficult, I shall only remove each group of ten from one particular room at a time. I have ten rooms on this floor, so if I make it through each of them, I can always start downstairs as well.

The rules of the game say that things removed can be taken to a charity shop, jumble sale, sold in a car boot sale, taken to a recycling point, composted or just plain binned.

My friend Chris posted pictures of her discards on Flickr. I think I'll post here, then I will be more inclined to really throw things away, knowing that eagle-eyed visitors will be checking up on me the next time they visit.

Watch this space....

My Fake Baby

I meant to write about this yesterday, but life got in the way. On Monday evening I picked up the TV remote and flashed through the channels. When I reached Ch4, it was in time to see a young woman with a baby carrier on her supermarket trolley asking an older woman if she would like to buy a baby...

I watched the rest of the programme; the young woman makes a living painting vinyl dolls to look like human babies. The programme focused mainly on three women. One, Mary I think she was called, came across as a doll collector, pure and simple. She had a wide range of dolls from many different re-borners, and proudly displayed the different types and sizes to Christine, who was thinking about commissioning a doll. The third woman, her name escaped me, had half a dozen or so "babies", and bought expensive prams and designer outfits for them. She and her husband seemed to treat them as accessories to their lifestyle rather than substitute children. She said that she couldn't cope with a child that made a mess or got dirty, and she could only contemplate having a real child if she could be guaranteed one that behaved. The programme followed her on a trip to Washington USA to collect her latest baby. Having flown all that way, I had expected to at least see her turn up at the home of the artist that produced the doll, but no; She and her mother sat in an hotel bedroom nervously awaiting the delivery. It came in a cardboard box on a luggage trolley pushed by a porter. It was quite a relief when she found a flaw a couple of days later, and the doll got sent back to its maker....just try doing that with a real baby.

The saddest part of the programme had to be the story of Christine. She had brought up her grandson Harry from birth while her daughter battled and won a fight with cancer. Her daughter had now taken Harry to live in New Zealand, and she was struggling to cope with his loss. Having thought about it for some time, she commissions a baby from Jaime, who uses photographs of the baby Harry to produce as near to a replica as she can. Christine takes it home to her husband, who says "I don't like it Christine....it looks like something on a mortuary slab."

I think I agree with him.

Edit: Richard and Judy talking about the programme.

Nuts!

What is it about cashew nuts that I find so irresistible? Once I open the packet, I just have to keep on eating until they are all gone, or somebody takes them away from me. EG tried, of course, but had to settle for licking out the bag. I wonder why I am so thirsty? It must be the heat...

Spring is in the air

The nights are still cold, but there is more heat in the sun during the day. Wandering around the garden when I went to pick oranges this afternoon, I was surprised just how much colour was around. I went back inside to get my camera, and these are a few of the better shots. I am finding it very difficult to hold the camera steady. I'll have to start using the tripod and the timer button I think.

We had another trip to the hospital on Monday, this time to see Dr Pacios, the Haematologist. He reviewed all Bossman's blood tests for the last three years, and he is fairly certain that the high level of platelets is entirely due to the loss of his spleen. He said that the spleen filtered out the old platelets and that kept the levels down. Unless levels start reaching the 600's, he doesn't propose any further treatment as long as his blood pressure is controlled, and there are no other indications that he is at risk of thrombosis. That is good news, and should make the Gastrologo happy as well, as he was inclined to think that the Adiro prescribed by the GP triggered, or was contributing to, Bossman's stomach problems. Dr Pacios did say that he should be vaccinated on a regular basis, and that if our GP was unable to arrange it, he would arrange it through the hospital. Until I had read the page I have linked to, I had no idea just how vulnerable the lack of a spleen could leave a body! Maybe Bossman is the exception that proves the rule?

It was the prawns...

...we think. Bossman and I spent the morning at the hospital, waiting around for an endoscopy, then waiting even longer to make a follow up appointment. The good news is that the guapo who performed the procedure said that he had found nothing untoward, just a little gastritis, so that is a big relief. By now it was 11.30 am, and Bossman took himself off to the cafe to break his fast, while I took a number and waited my turn to make an appointment. Twenty minutes later, a second window opened and things began to move a little faster. When my number finally came up, I took the opportunity to make an appointment in the eye clinic as well, even though the earliest available was for October. We shall be back at the hospital again on Monday, this time to see the Haematologist. The only outstanding appointment then is the kidney echo graph, and when that comes through, we can get on with life for another few months.

Postscript to Paperwork

I didn't find the photos I had taken for my driving licence, so I used a couple left over from my passport application two years ago. This morning I found the photos; in my purse between my Consum Supermarket Loyalty card and my DRZ Petrol Loyalty card. What does this say about me? That I am a completely dis-loyal person? That I don't use a lot of petrol and find Consum Supermarkets over-priced? Or that I need new spectacles?

Paperwork

On the 17th January, my old driving licence runs out. My renewal form arrived on Christmas Eve, so on Boxing Day, (a non-event in Spain) I took advantage of the fact that I had taken a little more care over my Christmas hair-do than is usual for me, and took myself off to the photographers. If you are wondering why I didn't use the photo machine, there is a simple explanation. The machine leaves an artistic scratch across the chin area of all four photos, and the photographer uses a digital camera and happily snaps away until he has something that both you and he are happy with, then prints up four carnets for only 4€ rather than the 3.50€ charged by the machine. The trick is to put these photos somewhere that you can find them on the day that you decide to do the paperwork...

A puppy may be for life, but a Spanish driving licence is only for five years once you pass the threshold of 50. It is not just a simple process of sending in the old one and getting a new one with an up-to-date photo on it; Medical Certificates are required. This morning was cold and wet, so instead of bowling, I headed into town with the intention of completing five tasks; calling in at the bank to collect my new card and fill my purse, having my medical, calling in at the Gestor to see if the car transfer papers had arrived, visiting the Casa de Cultura to see an exhibitions of old photographs of Calpe taken in the early part of the last century and then crossing the road to the Pensioners' Palace and checking in the office just what I needed to get my free Bus Pass.

My first port of call was the Post Office, just in case the bank card had been sent to my box there. I then walked up the Gabriel Miro. With justification, this is known locally as Cardiac Hill. For once there wasn't a queue in the bank, so with a new card and some cash, I continued the climb to the top of the hill. The Clinic is only on the second floor, so I ignored the lift and walked up. The first part of the check is to have one's blood pressure taken. I managed a reasonable 140 over 80. The second part of the test is the hardest part. An infernal machine with a screen and two handles sticking out of a box below it. On the screen are two separate "roads" that wander on differing paths up the screen. On each track is an oval blob just slightly narrower than the track. These blobs are controlled by the handles. The task is to keep the blobs on the roads, and seems to entail trying to persuade the two halves of one's body to work independently. Left hand responding to left eye as it follows left blob's progress, and vice versa. There is a loud bleep each and every time a blob leaves the track. It's just as well the blood pressure test doesn't come after this bit! The next stage is a fairly straightforward eye test; cover each eye in turn and read the letters off the light-box. If I made mistakes on guessing the bottom line, she didn't tell me, but led me off to the desk to complete the paperwork.....stamping the certificate and relieving me of 50€. When she asked for the photos to stick on the form, I had to admit that I had mislaid them for the time being. She gave me a pitying look. Maybe memory testing will become part of the check in the future...

The Gestor is on the other downward slope of Cardiac Hill. The girl on the front desk rummaged in a cupboard and produced my car papers without interrupting her telephone conversation; task number two completed.

My next stop was the Pensioners' Palace to read the paper, drink a coffee, and chat with friends. Afterwards I went down to the office to ask about the Bus Pass. It seems I need one photo, a certificate to prove I am a resident of Calpe, a photocopy of my Residents card, and a letter from the bank to say that I am in receipt of a Social Security Pension. I can't get this until the DSS actually gets round to sending some money in my direction, so that can wait for another day. The sweetheart then told me that I was also entitled to get a rebate on the rubbish collection tax that is paid in March. This was 150€ last year and will probably be more this year. She said that I had to pay this year's, then bring in the bill for a refund and in future years I shall only have to pay 3€ admin. charge. Life as a Pensioner is looking up!

I made it across the road to the photo exhibition. These were blown up plates from the archives of a local photographer. The earliest was dated 1910 and the later ones were from the 50's. Long vistas of deserted beaches with the occasional fishing boat. Behind the beaches were sand dunes and vineyards, then fields with olive and almond trees, and the odd carob. There was not a single building on the hillside where we now live, just cultivated terraces all the way to Pedramala. School photos; girls separate from boys, the first car in Calpe, the construction of the harbour, the grand opening of the first hotel, a donkey walking round in circles to power the pump that lifted evaporating sea water from one level of the salt pans to the next. The rail system that carried the salt from the pans to the roadside was the same as those used to move coal from the mines in England. The buckets tipped up sideways to deposit their load. I remember how pink the salt appeared in its glistening piles. Production stopped a few years after we came here. The huge mechanised plant in Santa Pola took over producing the road salt used by the rest of Europe. The buildings and machinery slowly disintegrated, and eventually the Salinas were taken over by the Valencian Government and became part of a National Park; a stop-over point for migrating Flamingoes and assorted water birds. I walked around a second time, then made my way home, with the feeling that I had actually accomplished something for a change.

Climate change and the Death's Head Hawk Moth

Bossman brought me a present this morning. He was raking leaves beneath the Mastic tree and found this poor beastie. According to my book, they are usually Summer visitors from Africa that sometimes overwinter here in the pupal stage. According to this site, they are common throughout Europe, so take your pick. I am guessing that this specimen had been fooled by the temperature being in the high 20's for a couple of days, followed by a sharp drop to only 5ºC. It had struggled out of its underground cocoon, but had not been able to plump up it's wings.
This is the first time I have seen one close up. They are usually night flyers, large enough to be mistaken for a bat. They have every opportunity to breed in the garden, as we are well stocked with Bignonia and Lantana as well as numerous cultivated and wild plants of the potato family. My only worry is that Ivan the Bulgarian intends to lay black membrane under the gravel he and Bossman have planned for the area between the almond and the barbecue. The mesh fencing there is covered in Bignonia and Blue Potato Vine. If any more moths are pupating underground, they may never see the light of day. Not to mention the Spiranthes spiralis and the Anacamsis Coriophora that come up every year....Bugger these men and their need for tidy gardens!

The History Boys

If you didn't watch this last night, you missed a treat!

And a good time was had by all....

I had an email from Eve in England. She had read about our newcomer and thought she should let me know that the Monkees have opened up a new front in their plan to take over the world . This youngster has been abandoned on her doorstep in Haslemere, Surrey. She thinks their evil plan is that he should be a mole, ingratiating himself with his baby face and innocent eyes, but in reality taking advantage of the fact that she travels to the northern reaches of the Continong to infiltrate himself amongst the Danes and learn their language. Of course, now he has been exposed for what he really is, Eve wasted no time in trying to get him to talk, but he bit down hard on his dummy, thinking he would commit harikiri.... but the Dirty Monkee Tricks Dept. got the strychnine confused with the sacherine and instead of the bum rush, he got a sugar rush...

The Secret is Out:

There is a stranger within our midst. Monchichiland has its first estrangero. Munkima found him rummaging in the bin behind the Red Cross shop, and felt sorry for him. Recognising that he bore a passing resemblance to Monkee Maker's creations, she brought him home, but wasn't sure what Bossman's reaction might be (dyed in the wool racist that he is) so she installed him in the potting shed and put Ruby Lou and the Ninfant in charge of his comfort and education. He was very quick to learn, and soon let them know that he required chocolate in any form, and plenty of beer; preferably not the weak stuff from Lidl he said...Once I had twigged what was going on, I had him brought up to the house and told him he could stay for a while, on probation, but he had better get used to Lidl beer, because the rest of the family get legless on gnat's pee.

As you can see, he has fitted in quite well. He is beginning to open up a little about his reasons for leaving his homeland. It seems his main reason is that he just didn't fit in. He is sure he was adopted as a baby. His mother called him PG, but in his heart he knows he is really Earl Grey. "So what should we call you then?" I asked. He considered for 10 seconds; "My Lord....?"



I'm not sure if "Get stuffed" is an insult where he comes from, but he got the message, and we came to a compromise. We shall refer to him as "EG". It seems he likes to have his photograph taken with celebrities. We don't have many of those on this particular Costa, so he settled for a snap taken with the Blues Brothers before they left for their new home down on the beach.

I have a feeling...

...that something is going on right under my nose, but I can't quite pin it down. I have found a couple of empty beer cans in the garden, and part of a Jaffa cake box pushed into a stack of empty flowerpots by the woodpile. Now Ruby-Lou has found herself a new pet; a beautiful bronze pine beetle, and the only way she could have caught one is by waiting for it to chew its way out of a log....and that means she must have been hanging around the woodpile. She isn't responsible for the beer cans, because she is a Port 'n Lemon girl, but something is going on....

Flotsam

I am sure you have all read about the boatloads of Africans arriving in the Canary Islands each day, often in a pitiful condition after being abandoned by the boat masters who took their money with the promise of an easy trip to the promised land. Aid from the EU has slowed down the Atlantic traffic with more sea patrols, but Mediterranean Spain is now becoming just as popular a landfall. The increased patrols by Guardia Civil boats along the coast of Almeria are forcing the traffic further north. Last week a boat was found abandoned on a small beach near Benidorm, and a couple of its passengers were later found, soaking wet, close by. How many more made it into the hinterland is as yet unknown.

This happened last Wednesday, and it was no coincidence it seems, that on our way back home about 9.30pm, we were stopped by the Guardia, just as we entered Carrio, and the interior of the car was checked. We were given the all clear and sent on our way. At the same time, Peter, who was leaving Carrio on the other side of the hill was stopped and asked where he had come from and where he was going. Had a boat been seen locally we wonder? Are there strangers in our midst?

Autumn colour

There are photos of autumn colours on so many of the Blogs I visit, that I thought I might follow suit. Then I looked around and realised that there really wasn't much evidence of the season's colour in my garden or the surrounding area. Palm trees, pine trees and rubber trees don't change colour in the Autumn, they seem to drop leaves on an ad hoc basis randomly throughout the year. My one splash of red comes from the virginia creeper, grown from a cutting smuggled in after a holiday in England, and even that didn't last long. The day after I took the photo, Bossman got out his stepladders and stripped the leaves off because he was sick of brushing them up every day! Bloody tidy Swiss!

My hydrangea, also grown from an imported cutting, is showing a tinge of yellow, and the pale pink blossoms have dried to a much deeper shade.

The bamboo stems have changed from bright green to straw, and soon I shall be able to harvest last years growth. The only other Autumnal feature I found was a group of Chrysanths. They had been a potted gift last year, and I split them up and planted them out on the off chance they would survive. The unusually wet Summer has been kind to them, and they are in full bloom.

For the Foodies

Did you know you should be frying your eggs on a block of Himalayan pink salt and not in a frying pan?
http://www.saltnews.com/

Did the earth move?

Well, yes, it seems it did. Last Sunday morning at 6.40am, we were woken by a long low rumble and rattling windows. My first thought was that either it was an earthquake, or the other end of the house had fallen down. My second that there had been a major landslide brought on by the constant heavy rain. We got up and looked out into the surrounding darkness but saw or heard nothing to indicate calamity. As we had just come through two days of continuous thunderstorms, we put it down to an isolated overhead lightening/thunderflash, brewed up, and then made our way back to bed to read.

Later that day, I watched the TV news and scanned the teletext of the half dozen or so channels that carry it. There was no mention of an earthquake, just reports on the clear up operation. People we met commented on the early wake up call, but no one had any definite information, just that it had been noticed over a wide area, as far inland as the Jalon valley. I can now report that it was an earth tremor; 2.2 on the Richter scale, and although nothing like the 7.9 that hit Spain in 1954, it did its little bit towards shaking sodden soil into landslides and tumbling down (not so) drystone walls.

So...next time the windows rattle and the floor vibrates, as it has done many times over the last twenty odd years, I now know to visit the Goverment's Seismic information page and confirm there has been a terremoto.

Small pleasures

I have always preferred the book to the film and radio to TV. Is it because as a child I had regular access to books but not to films, and that radio was available from a battery driven Bush, but a TV hadn't been developed that ran on bottled gas? Is it that we always remember our first loves, even when we appreciate the new? Dan Dare, the Ovaltinies, David Davies reading the Would-be -Goods are all long gone, but the Archers carries on. As a young mother, my morning coffee was timed to coincide with Mrs Dale's Diary, and later, Waggoners Walk. The Archers kept me company as I prepared an evening meal. I have continued to listen whenever I can. Sometimes on shortwave, sometimes by satellite. For the past few years, I have received a daily email with a short synopsis of the previous night's episode, and over the past year have had broadband access to Listen Again on the BBC website when I remembered. Today's small pleasure was in the form of an email from the BBC, inviting me to sign up for a daily podcast of my favourite soap, delivered straight to my blogreader. What more could an exiled Archerphile ask?

Flood levels are falling...

...but it is raining again.

On Saturday the sun shone, and in the morning we were able to shop for food, but only at the supermarket at the bottom of our hill. It was just above the flood water, but we had to park on the road because the underground car park was flooded, and the entrance to the upper car park was inaccessible because of the amount of water coming down the Merced road. The dual carriageway from this point was under water, and we were told that the back road into town was also under water.

After lunch I got itchy feet and set off from home on foot, heading for the cliff top at Calalga. The road was blocked off to cars as the cliff had come down, but I risked ducking under the tapes and walking on the side away from the edge. I reckoned if the houses there hadn't fallen into the sea, the cliff would take my weight. There had been another cliff fall in front of the Esmeralda, but the Levante beach looked unchanged. The paseo on this stretch is between one and two metres higher than the beach and surrounding roads, so the worst of the flood water had all been kept away. It was still lying in all the beach access roads and in the ground floor flats of the low lying blocks.

Our Craft Club room was up to the chair seats in dirty brown water, but I am hopeful that our boxes are still dry, as they are up on the stage behind the music decks. I can't get in to check until the room is pumped out, and that could take a while as residential property is the first priority.


It was only when I walked past the port towards Casita Belga that I saw the full impact of what had happened. I am used to seeing the dual carriageway flood when it rains, but to see it covered in a thick layer of canes from a river bed over a kilometre away was a new experience. I tried the Avenida Europa, parallel to the dual carriageway, but only got as far as the back of the Residential home. The three ambulances that had driven past me on the Levante beach were evacuating the residents. Some were being taken to the local hotels, and some to residences in the neighbouring towns. The police had been called in during the storm to help carry those in groundfloor rooms upstairs away from the rising water. The road down the side of the Home was the main route for the water to flow to the sea from the flooded Salinas area. A bulldozer had driven a path through the paseo to help it on its way, and was in the process of turning the street into a canal by digging out a channel in the tarmac. The Roman villa, the fish sauce factory and the newly discovered cathedral are all under water, and no doubt a thick layer of mud. All the hours the international archeology students put in cleaning the mosaic floors gone to waste! The iron plates laid down over the channel were the only means of access between port and town unless you were prepared to do a long detour inland up to Benissa and then down again, or paddle your canoe.
Blogger is misbehaving tonight; it keeps rejecting photos, so I'm going to put some links in instead. I've put a few photos in a Flickr album, http://www.flickr.com/photos/40774560@N00/sets/72157602414014258/
but they pale into insignificance compared to those uploaded by conmipero. Here's the link; more graphic content, many taken on Friday when the "dry" river bed was overflowing its banks and piling up cars and canes.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cash01/

I waited my turn to pass over the makeshift bridge and walked on to Playa del Bol. Water had flowed down the street at the side of the Neptune apartments and carved out a deep channel through the sand and deposited a deep tangle of canes. The Arenal beach was a sorry site. Small islands of sand between deeply carved channels. The bars and restaurants along the front were all inundated, but already everyone was hard at work, piling chairs and tables outside, shoveling mud and hosing walls and floors. Our friends at Las Olas had a harder job than most, as they are a foot or so below the level of the paseo, as are the other older buildings that were built before the paseo was built back in the eighties. One of the benefits of having a large extended family is that bucket lines are well manned! Abuela was sat up on bar stool directing operations.
As I got closer to town, I had to choose between wading through dirty smelly water on the paseo, walking on the top of the beach wall, or braving the canyons of the beach. I decided to walk along the beach, and in fact, walked in the surf most of the way, as the surface was fairly smooth there. The tricky part came when I neared the river. I had to climb over tumbled rocks and the remains of the beach wall to get back on to dry land, and then had to walk through a thick layer of mud until I finally reached the fountain. I wasn't sure how high the water had been at its height. La Nina was the worst hit, obviously, but I found La Pinta was in a worst state really, because it was full of mud, whereas La Nina was swept fairly clean by the force of the water. What of Santa Maria? If that had been hit as well, then the Post Office would have been under water, and as our box is now at the bottom of a stack, I might have soggy bills.....but no, the water had stopped short just yards from the Post Office. By now I had been walking for nearly two hours, so I walked back to the Kiwi and sat for half an hour with a bottle of water and the crossword. I made the decision not to walk back along the beach, but to try the back road. The problem was going to be how to get across to it. When in doubt, ask a policeman! He told me that if I made my way down the Avenida Europa as far as the Police station, that the dual carriageway there had now drained, and I could get across and keep walking inland until I hit the old Comix road, so that's what I did. That old road is quite a lot higher, well above the flood plain, so I didn't see water underfoot again until I had to cross the Merced road, still running with the surface water from Pedramala.

Sunday was again sunny. The clear up continued. Ministers, Regional Statesmen, and local politicians made flying visits. Helicopters hovered, heavy equipment from surrounding areas arrived, more army units brought more pumps. We stayed at home and watched it all on TV. More storms were forecast for Monday. The Valencian Goverment promised money, and the mayor announced that an office would be open first thing on Monday morning where residents could register their losses and put in a claim for compensation.

Monday dawned bright and sunny. Anne rang to ask if we were bowling, then Peter rang. If four of us turned up, at least we would have a game, and I had to go up anyway to put up the list for next week's competition, so the decision was made to bowl. I also had to arrange the lunch with Debbie, as Beryl seems to have resigned her position as Social Sec, but hadn't bothered to let anyone know! I only found out when I rang her to ask if she was playing in the Triples. I'm already doing two jobs on that committee and have no intention of taking on a third, so unless someone puts their hand up and volunteers, there ain't gonna be no Christmas Do!

Rain

The lightening started at about 8pm last night. By 9pm the thunder was very close. At 10pm the heavens opened, and it bang crashed and walloped down continuously until teatime today. If you look closely at the wrought iron gate in the picture, you will see 18" of water flowing through it. At one point the water had backed up enough to be flowing through the open bricks at the top of the wall. Luckily for us, the road slopes away from our gate and takes the water through next door but one's garden. He has had this happen before and has built a concrete channel to divert it around his pool so that it doesn't fill up with mud as it did the last time.
We have been fortunate. Calpe town has not. I have just watched a TV report showing the normally dry river bed completely overflowing its banks and flooding the lower part of town. Cars are under water and some are swept on top of others. The force of the water has swept away part of the sea wall. I have no pictures for you, as I can't get out to take them. The dual carriageway that leads to town is under water. Last time this happened we had to head up the mountain and take the high road to the other side of Calpe and then drop down into town. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. It is still thundering, but the rain is not heavy now. Good weather is forecast for tomorrow and Sunday, but more storms are heading our way on Monday. The TV said Calpe had received 400 litres of water per square metre in 24 hours. 1 litre of water per square metre is equal to a millimetre in depth.  That is one hell of a lot of water by the time it has run down the surrounding hills and gathered in the river valley.
I have to go and light some candles; the weather is closing in again and the power may go off again.