476: three out of four ain't bad - mustn't grumble

I flew back to UK unexpectedly, and at very short notice, for a hospital appointment. Buying the flight ticket 2 days ahead of the flight, instead of weeks in advance, made my eyes water! 

So, with a 'spare' week in UK, I decided to visit London and spend the night in my club. I was early for lunch with my sister so enjoyed a walk along the South Bank.

Old Father Thames, looking rather dirty	Sculptures, with shiny breasts, in front of the National Theatre. The breasts have obviously been touched up a lot. For good luck!
This looks like a fun place to eat	and so does this

I love 'killing two birds with one stone'. On Friday and Saturday, I tried to achieve four tasks while I was out. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful with donating my 75th pint of blood. They refused to accept my blood on the grounds that I have a cataract operation scheduled for 6th January. A WHOLE MONTH AWAY. I was more than a little disappointed at their decision. I think somebody has been over zealous in their risk analysis. But there was no way they were going to change their collective mind. so, off to the fourth appointment. My son and I had arranged to meet in 'Tom's Cakes' in Cambridge. Sadly, 'Tom's Cakes' Cambridge is no more, although he has opened branches in Ely and St Ives. The situation was resolved when we were invited in to St Barnabas church on Mill Road for free coffee and mince pies. Who can say no to mince pies, especially free ones? It appears that Gareth can, so I had to force myself to eat his as well as mine. The sacrifices you make for your children...

London Lunch with Hazel Dinner with Sara ✅ ✅ Cambridge Give blood Coffee & mince pies with Gareth ❎ ✅

Finally, I always know Christmas is just around the corner when I hear Jona Lewie singing 'Stop the Cavalry'. 

475: When plan 'B' stands for Burger King! ('A' was A McDonalds!)

Plan A was to walk to Cambrils this morning, aiming to arrive there just on midday, which is when the McDonalds opens. Or does when it's not being renovated or 'done up' (капитальный ремонт). What a disaster! (qué desastre).

What was I to do? I'd already had Spanish food this week when I went to a Freesia group lunch on Thursday. Twice in one week is pushing it. Inspiration came to me, just in time. I took a bus halfway back to Salou and alighted at Vilafortuny where there is a Burger King. Joy of joys. A burger, an ice cream and a cold beer. Just to put back all the calories I had walked off getting there. Then I walked home - it was time for my power nap.

A lovely walk today. Wall-to-wall sunshine, with an almost cloudless sky. Not bad for November. It was a bit windy, I'll grant you, but not enough to dampen the enthusiasm.Most of the tourists have returned from whence they came, leaving locals and expats. You can hear and see the sounds of work being done to upgrade/repair holiday apartments and hotels (and McDonalds) ready for next year's sun-seekers. Many of the bars and restaurants have closed for the winter. 

 More Hale & Pace. If you're going to watch it, I suggest watching right to the end.

474: The colours of the Mediterranean

 Every so often the bathroom scales remind me that it's time for a long-ish walk. Yesterday, then, I managed much of the Cami de Ronda, a coastal footpath meandering from the Levant beach in Salou to the lighthouse on Cap Salou. The first 'half' of the route is along a definite path, and the second half isn't! Lots of scrambling up and down, and in and out. Sometimes there is a message saying a particular path ends in a dead end and other times they kindly allow you to find it out for yourself.

 

The colours of the sea were beautiful yesterday, different shades of blue and turquoise and the water was even transparent in places. How lovely it was. After 2½  hours walking I was more than ready for a drink. Luckily I wasn't hungry - look what they brought me to go with the beer! Different country, different culture.

This morning it was back to the classroom. Teaching, these days, involves some 'chalk and talk' and then some 'activities' to help the little grey cells absorb what they have just learned. These activities are a disaster for me personally. The noise level, of  >20 people speaking at the same time, is too much for my old ears and I'm forced to leave the classroom until things have quietened down and I can slink back in.

After class I went for coffee and bumped into some Russians who had been on the year 1 Spanish course with me the year before last. How much more pleasant to speak, and listen to, Russian. Sometimes I wonder if I'm on the Spanish course just so I can meet, and chat with, more Russians! 😁       (Miryam, if you're reading this, I don't mean it!)

473: It was all June's fault!

Is there such a relationship as a cousin-in-law? If there is then I've got one whose name is June. She and my cousin Steve have just celebrated being married 38 years. Quite impressive, although I can beat that by a country mile. Anyway, I was reading June's FB status and got the distinct impression that they were celebrating in their Spanish residence, in an urbanisation not far from Mazarron. She confirmed this and said "come down for a brew". So I did. A bit more than 'a brew'.

Salou to Mazarron by car is 540 kms and takes about 5 hours by car. But I don't have a car (in Spain) so I thought to make an adventure of it by train and bus. Left Salou last Wednesday and returned yesterday (Sunday). Overnight stays in Albacete, Cartagena, with Steve & June, & Murcia.  Lots of fast food because it's available when I want it, rather than having to adjust to Spanish meal times. A lovely BBQ with Steve & June, on their roof terrace.

Let the pictures do the talking:

Albacete (in the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha)

Brekkers: croissant with 'mermelada'

Catedral de San Juan Batista

In Parque Lineal. One of a series of impressive displays of the different planets in our solar system. Should we bring in sharia law for graffiti 'artists'?

Carthagena (in the Murcia region)

I'm going to hang a sign round my neck "No me gustan las aceitunas"

Steve & June. On Friday afternoon they took me to the site of a disused fort with 2 enormous guns set up in 1936 to protect Cartagena. A hair-raising drive along narrow twisty-turny roads up the side of a mountain with a car seemingly coming the other way every time we came to a corner. I'm glad Steve was driving and not me.  

made in Sheffield in 1927!

 There are more and better pictures, and an explanation, here.

Murcia

Two pieces of luck on Saturday. Firstly, Steve drove me to the nearest bus stop to them so that I could catch the 09:40 to Mazarron (and then another bus to Cartagenia and yet another to Murcia). The 09:40 didn't turn up and, just as I was about to ask Steve if he would be kind enough to drive me to Mazarron, a bus turned up and took me directly to Murcia. Great. The second piece of luck is that the hotel in Murcia very kindly allowed me to check-in early. Marvellous. Turned out I was on the conference/congress side of town. I'm very pleased I was in the 5-storey Hotal Azarbe rather than the 5-million-storey hotel opposite! 

472: The trials and tribulations of being an expat

 expat (UK informal) = a person who lives outside their native country

The sun must be over the yardarm somewhere so I'm going to have a beer (and some chocolate), to help me calm down.  

I don't think it matters which foreign country you're living in, sooner or later you come across differences in the way people do things as opposed to the way things are done in your own country/system. And you start to wonder WTF are you doing here. Why are the local people doing things in such an illogical way that doesn't make any sense at all. 

The problem with their Spanish logic started for me yesterday and continued today.  I went to the local adult education centre to confirm my registation for year 2 Spanish. Miryam, my teacher from year 1, was sitting in the entrance hall transcribing everybody's details THREE TIMES onto a piece of A4 paper. No wonder there was a queue of people outside waiting to register. 

Miryam is a great teacher. As a language teacher myself I understand how difficult it can be teaching a class of >20 people especially when those people come from many different countries and have different cultures. But, the centre has had all our details from the beginning of summer when we first expressed an interest in the course. Would it really have been so difficult to use IT to append our details to the form and have a form printed off and waiting? Let me assume for the moment that GDDR (General Data Protection Regulation) was the show-stopper, as it is for so many other things. Then perhaps 2 pieces of carbon paper would have obviated the need to write our details 3 times?

The form, that Miryam so adroitly completed for us, in triplicate, was to allow us to pay 84,30 Euros for tuition and materials for the whole of the academic year. Miryam, being a teacher, and not an accountant, couldn't possibly take the money from us. That would be far too simple. We were offered two choices (when it should have been four!): take the form to BBVA bank in Salou and pay there or make an appointment over the telephone to go to the local town hall and pay there. We then had to take the stamped receipt back to the education centre to prove we had paid. The two choice we weren't offered were: one, to take the form to our own bank and arrange the transfer or two, to make an internet transfer from the comfort of our own home. I considered making an internet payment but what proof would I have had?

So, I went to BBVA this morning as it opened at 08:30 to try and get there before any queues built up. Ha ha! As soon as you get inside the door you have to print off a number and you get seen when your number appears on a screen. Fair enough. The trouble was that the first question, before you get your number, is 'are you a customer of the bank?'  As soon as you say no, everybody coming in behind you, who is a customer of the bank, gets served first. I had to wait 30 minutes to get seen. Disgusting. I asked the guy for help with the machine as I walked in and I think that got his back up so he made me wait as long as he possibly could. That's been my experience with Spanish 'officialdom' over the last 4 years - if you annoy them in the slightest they take great delight in messing you about to the maximum extent possible. Because they can. There was only one cash counter open, instead of two, so things moved along half as fast as they might have. It was also 'fun' watching two bank staff sloping off for coffee as soon as the bank opened at 08:30. I saw them coming back at 09:00 as I was leaving. Why couldn't they have gone at 08:00 before customers started to arrive?

One more thing, while I'm in the mood! I landed at Barcelona Terminal 2 on Wednesday evening and decided to take a bus to Salou rather than a series of three trains. The first Plana bus to arrive turned out to be a ticket bus rather than a bus that takes people anywhere. The driver sells you a ticket and you then have to wait for the 'real' bus to come so you can give the driver the ticket you have just bought. Of course you have no idea whether the bus you need is going to arrive on time or not but, having bought a ticket, you are committed and have to wait.

 That was cathartic. I'm feeling better now. Rant over. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

 

 

   

471: Two birds with one stone

I've just returned from a mini-break in the South of Spain: a day in Malaga and two days in Cordoba. I especially arranged the trip in order to meet my Venezuelan friends, who had decamped from Salou last year, and an ex-RAuxAF friend who lives deep in the mountains of the Sierra Nevadas a couple of hours from Cordoba. It was really great to see everybody.

I stayed airbnb in the outskirts of Malaga in very recently built student accommodation. Here is the picture that Google maps shows of the place. I can report it has now been completed. The ads for the place offer mini-studios to students from 589 Euros a month. That seems a lot to me, but what do I know about the value of money these days. 

My hosts collected me from the accommodation and drove me to their house, where the barbecue was heating up ready. They wined and dined me right royally and then drove me to the station at Malaga to catch my train to Cordoba. Their hospitality was very much appreciated, even though I got told off for not spending Saturday night with them.

 

Cordoba. What a lovely little city - cathedrals, city walls, narrow pedestrianised streets. I did my exploring first thing in the morning before it got too hot. Andalucia was suffering from a heatwave and the temperature away from the coast was nudging +46 in the hottest part of the day. When I got off the train on Sunday afternoon and stepped into the sultry heat it reminded me of my time in Iraq - not a time I fondly remember. A 15-minute walk to my hotel in the centre of town and then hide away in my air-conditioned room until the relative cool of the early evening. It was still 40 degrees at 8pm. I was lucky enough to find somewhere nice selling food at the time I wanted to eat (7pm). Rare in Spain. 

temperature at 8pm

 

An expensive display - all Lladro!

 

On Monday I met my pal, Howard, who had driven in from his hideout in the mountains to meet me (in Burger King 😀 ). I don't understand why I was looking old and he hadn't changed a bit. It was good to catch up and talk over old times and plans for the future. If you know him, and you're planning to write to him sometime soon, please don't mention this visit. I've not been on Karen's Christmas card list ever since I sent a certain student to stay with them for a few days and said student wasn't perhaps as polite and well-behaved as he ought to have been. So I'm a bit like J K Rowling's Voldemort. My name isn't mentioned in their household and Howard somehow forgot to mention my visit. 

To sum up, quite a bit of money and time travelling to Andalucia and back but worth every penny (or cent) to renew, and consolidate, valued friendships.

I would certainly plan to visit Cordoba again, perhaps when the temperature is not so high. Maybe include Granada or Seville next time too.

No more travelling now until next Monday!