Christmas and New Year on the Costa Blanca, Spain

Relaxing on the terrace with Elizabeth, Richard & Jane

How has so much time passed? As ever while here, we’ve eaten and drunk to excess. We’ve worked hard as expected, I’ve helped with feeding the 5000, Brian has been painting, it’s a bit like the Forth Bridge, never ending, each little bit makes another bit need doing.

We’ve collected wood for the fire which B and father then chopped on the newly repaired saw horse. We were expecting more wood today, the tree pruning man was expected at 08.00, yes, today, 1st January, we were surprised, but he promised. Sadly we were all up, but he never showed. Very irritating, though it possibly stopped us drinking to excess last night as we knew we’d be up early. I’ve done some cleaning and sweeping, nothing very exciting, though I did manage to poke myself in the eye on a bush. It seems ok, so fingers crossed...

The very familiar view we can gaze at whilst sitting on the balcony at Richard & Elizabeth's. Even better is knowing we have been to the top of most of those peaks visible there

The Bernia Ridge at sunset, We've done all those peaks too

There were six of us for Christmas dinner, we were joined by Jane, Elizabeth’s sister and Sue, a long-standing, recently widowed, friend. We did most of the prep in advance, had a leisurely breakfast opened presents with Jane and had dinner after listening to the Queen. I’d been left alone with the timings, which I have to say all worked out well. The turkey was fab, and did us well afterwards too. Cold in sandwiches, with rumbledethumps (bubble and squeak baked in the oven, rather than fried) and in pie. The carcass has been boiled for stock, hopefully for a paella this week.

There's the Bernia Ridge again, towering over R&E's house with Big Ted neatly parked on the drive

Down the local barranca collecting firewood

Yesterday Brian and I went climbing, just to Sierra de Toix, where we have been many times before. It was, however, lovely to get out on some real rock again after probably 3 years. We did some easy climbs, one of which we’d done before and three new ones with new bolts and a lot less polish. We came back, just as the dinner prep was done. We really enjoyed a fabulous prawn and smoked salmon starter followed by a stunning beef wellington. All this plus trips to the new Indian/Nepali restaurant in the village, out for tapas and to Calpe for fabulous fish, as I said at the beginning, we’ve been eating well.

This was the first car load, we collected two loads in total. Amazing what you can get into a Ford Fiesta!

And then Richard and Brian had the job of cutting and chopping them into fire-sized pieces with chain-saw and axe. That's after we'd repaired the aging saw horse. Proper macho work!

It's a lovely house but, as you can see, it's all white and needs periodic painting...

Here's one of the walls down by the swimming pool. It needs a good coat of paint...

6 hours later it looked like this - both sides I would add! There'll be a few more walls done like that before we leave

But it's not all work, we've eaten and drunk plenty

As with all great traditions, here's everyone watching the Queen's Christmas Message on Christmas Day afternoon. LtoR: Sue, Jane, Richard, Elizabeth & Jackie

Even time for some activities. Here's Elizabeth competing with the William's clan (Brian's sister's family) in the UK via Messenger. They were all doing the plank for as long as possible. Paul managed 5 minutes like this. Elizabeth told me to say she did 1 minute - and she'd be right if minutes were only 15 seconds long! 

Time for a stroll into Altea-La-Vella village through the orange groves

The old town is very pretty and makes a nice walk

This is down on the seafront at Altea, an upmarket resort just along the coast from Benidorm. The mountains in the distance almost forming a chain are the Bernia Ridge on the left, the Sierra de Toix in the centre (where we went climbing) and Calpe rock on it's own on the right

How about this for a sunrise seen from our bedroom window one morning

And here's another odd one at sunset where sea mist rolled in blanketing lower Altea in a fog

Yesterday we went climbing on an easier crag at Sierra de Toix. Here's Jackie abseiling off a 4+ (French grade) bolted climb on fabulous natural limestone with nice holds. We might have used these as warm-up climbs years ago, but now we just like to enjoy our climbing stress-free. It's a popular crag, as you can see from the other people in this photo climbing by us. Only one Spanish couple, the others are Brits

This is R&E's very shy little Pepa cat, who only came this close because she was being fed

We don't normally put food photos on, but this was a fabulous beef wellington that Elizabeth cooked for our NYE dinner. It was heavenly! Smoked salmon, prawn and avocado starter too - oh and we might have had the odd glass (or four) of wine too!

So that's our roundup of our Christmas and New Year in Spain, we're having a great time and we hope you are too - Happy New Year!