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| Greetings from Spain. Richard, Elizabeth and Jackie |
We've been in and out of the UK recently and, already this year have ticked off a 14 day trip to Norway to see the Aurora Borealis, followed by a ski trip in the French Alps and, since the last blog have had 15 days in sunny Spain to see Jackie's dad, Richard and Elizabeth and it's not even the end of February yet. Now back in the UK we're catching up with friends and family and catching our breath whilst planning our next trip. More on that in the future.
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| Their lovely house on the Costa Del Sol with the Bernia Ridge behind |
How enjoyable it is, as always, to spend sometime at R&E's lovely villa on the hills above
Altea-La-Vella beneath the amazing Bernia Ridge on the Costa Blanca. It is one of the sunniest places on mainland Spain, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea being and being protected from Atlantic weather by the high Spanish plateau. The result is a relatively dry, sunny climate but, at this time of year can have a cold air temperature not benefitting from the warming Gulf Stream. This means that, once the sun sets, evenings can get quite cool, around 11 or 12 C, so packing warmer clothes for the evening is a must. Daytimes however are warmed by the sun giving air temperatures of 18 C which, in the strong sun feels like 25 C - pleasantly warm, to hot in the sun. Our first weeks weather was less than perfect due to the storm that engulfed the UK and western Europe and, although we didn't have rain we did have very strong winds that prevented us enjoying the views on their balcony, but by week two things settled down and we enjoyed the calm pleasantly warm, sunny days that we have been accustomed to.
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| The views on my running route from the village |
We flew from our local Birmingham airport after getting a taxi there from home and got another taxi from Alicante airport to their house at the other end, making the whole journey easy, apart from the huge queue's at the airport for passport stamping, fingerprints and photos in preparation for Europe's rolling out of a new electronic entry/exit system. In the interim we have to suffer the delay but hope that once its fully rolled out it'll be much easier (he said hopefully!). The machines wouldn't accept our fingerprints on entry so, after waiting in a long queue for that and being rejected we had to wait in another long queue to be manually processed by a man in a booth with the old fashioned stamp. Joy!
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| One of our evening quizzes |
Anyway, we arrived and were greeted in their usual hospitable way and settled down to catch up with everything that's happening over there. Richard is not so well these days, moving quite slowly, so they don't get out so much, but Elizabeth is still is doing a sterling job looking after him whilst ably managing shopping, cooking and all home finances, so full credit to her. Our trip coincided with the Winter Olympics, something Jackie and I are fans of, so were keen to keep up to date with it and watch some events on the TV. Elizabeth also had an interest and, between us we got quite into it, cheering on GB when we could but also enjoying the spectacle of the various events, cheering and shouting at the TV (good job they're well away from neighbours!). The new ski mountaineering event was great as we could relate to it having done it ourselves. To see how quickly they could ascend uphill with skins on their skis, then whip the skins off at the top without even removing the skis before skiing down at top speed left us amazed, their fitness is astounding!
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| Altea La Vella old town |
The very high wind during our first week put a stop to watching the Olympics when the swaying trees brought the fibre optic cable down freezing the picture of a curling match I was watching on TV and cutting the internet to the computer. Luckily we had mobile phones we could still use to contact the provider. It took a couple of days for them to repair it, the first visit just to confirm that the internet wasn't working and, oh yes, there's the cable on the floor, then a second visit with two people to rerun the cable. At the same time they upgraded the router, which is now super fast, but that meant that everything had to be reprogrammed with the new password. It took me a while to work out how to reprogramme Alexa, my first attempt left her thinking she lived in Alvechurch not Altea. The second attempt was successful but only after I told her she was in Spain so she started taking in Spanish so, more time to make her speak English
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| Sunday lunch at Restaurant Mallol |
We've been out quite a lot, eaten at the local Indian restaurant in their village,
Buddha Castle, had Sunday lunch at the excellent and very popular
Restaurant Mallol and an Italian meal at
La Gondola Art Restaurant all in their local village. Together with a number of cafe's and shops they are very lucky to have all this close by and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time and made maximum use of it all. We even had a takeaway paella from Restaurant Mallol which Jackie and I collected in their car and ate on their sunny balcony with a few glasses of wine.
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| On my walk back from Albir. That's the Bernia Ridge and we've been on the top of it all over the years |
We made ourselves useful too, I did a number of jobs in the house, repaired a kitchen shelf, refixed some roof tiles loosened by the storm and used their long reach chain saw to chop some branches from trees that had processionary caterpillar nests in. If you don't know about these, they can cause significant damage to trees and pose a health risk to humans and pets due to their irritating hairs. To do the job I first had to repair and rewire the long reach chain saw, cover the patio with plastic to catch the falling branches containing the nests and get Jackie to hold the ladder so I could reach them. As I didn't want the falling nests to touch me I protected my head with one of Elizabeths shower caps. Although Jackie took a photo, there won't be one on here! Whilst I did that, Jackie helped Elizabeth with other aspects of their life, something that took a lot of time and I think she's helped a lot. They certainly spent a lot of time poring over the computer in their study.
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| The internet people running the new cable after the wind brought down the old one |
Early evenings before dinner were spent outside in the sun on the balcony with drinks and quizzes, which I had on my phone. It was a great group thing we did and thoroughly enjoyed by all. As soon as the sun went down, if we weren't going out, we came in for dinner and more drinks. What a pleasant life! I also spent some time with Richard on puzzles from an app I have on my phone, so we did Wordle, the cryptic crossword and various word games which keeps his mind active and gave us both lots of pleasure.
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| Jackie and her dad working on a crossword |
I did a few runs by getting up early, driving to the village and running a couple of circuits of a route I've found that takes me through some very pleasant lanes with orange and lemon trees and always amazing views of the mountains. I was back before breakfast just as everyone else was getting up, showered and ready for the day in no time. I also did a couple of walks, one about 7 miles back from
Albir after Jackie and Elizabeth dropped me off in order for them to do some shopping. I followed tracks and footpaths on my off line maps on my phone and managed to meet them on their way back in their village for coffee and lunch, very pleasant!
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| Our paella on the terrace day |
All in all, a nice break in the sunshine before returning on Monday last to, at least relatively dry and reasonable temperatures in the UK. We were straight out to shop, followed by a beer and curry with Ian and Helen to celebrate Helen's 60th birthday and then, yesterday, out for a Tuesday walk with John and Brian W around Worcester. A seven mile walk with a few beers afterwards made another good day, although Jackie was below par so struggled with the beer afterwards. It's really nice to chill out today and catch up with things, but I'm out tonight at a lecture in Birmingham about parallel universes and their possible existence which should be good. Couldn't talk Jackie into it so I'm going with Bill and Martina.
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| Jackie munching away on the paella in the sunshine with their view beyond. And, yes, we've been on the tops of all those mountains in the distance too in the past |
That's it for now, until the next blog...
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| Elizabeth and Jackie on the seafront at Altea with Calpe rock in the distance and Sierra de Toix mountain above E. We've rock climbed all over those in the past |
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| Back home again in the UK and out with Ian and Helen celebrating Helen's 60th birthday at Akram Kashmiri Indian restaurant in Stirchley |
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| Out yesterday on our walk with Brian W and John around Worcester. Here Brian is pointing out the flooded Worcester racecourse. No racing on there for a while! |
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| Looks like we've brought the sunny weather back from Spain with us |
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| It was followed by a few of these in various drinking establishments. The evening disappeared into a blur after half a dozen of those. Apparently I was grumpy to Jackie in the evening, something I apologise for! |
