Briefly back in the UK for three weeks

Enjoying our last night in Spain

Our last couple of days in Spain were enjoyable. We met Dagmar and Michael in Altea for coffee and continued to eat, drink and chat.

And dinner on the terrace in the warm evening

The flight home was uneventful, though we had done the crossword before we even took off due to a delay on the tarmac. One thing I have learned doing these flights is you can order your duty free from Birmingham airport in advance which saves you 10% and you don’t have to pay till collection. On our return we ordered our Larios gin in advance from Alicante duty free, saving 20% on the price which was the same as in the local supermarket (before discount). I did have to pay for that in advance.

View through our window as we flew over. We know everything below, I'll try to explain: following the coastline from the right, the first bay is Benidorm and you might just be able to see the buildings near to the wide headland reaching out into the sea. To the left of the headland is Altea, a slightly more upmarket seaside resort. Moving further to the left, the coast turns sharply out to the sea and you can see a sharp ridge (with a shadow caused by the setting sun) at right angles to the coast stretching inland. That's the Bernia Ridge (we've climbed the whole of that ridge) and Richard and Elizabeths house is on the slopes of that, nearer the coast on this side (you might just be able to make out buildings). Mascarat Gorge cuts from the coast through the upper part of the ridge and we walked that in our last blog. Further round the coast there's another point followed by a small bay with a rock jutting into the sea. That's Calpe and the rock is Calpe rock that we climbed in the last blog. Down at the bottom in the centre is Puig Campana mountain, noticeable by the diagonal gash across it. That's the pointy mountain visible in the picture at the top of this blog. We have climbed that mountain too in the past

The time since our return has been preparing for our cruise, bits of shopping, going into a food and drink detox, Christmas shopping and catching up with people.

We got back to variable English weather, some clear, sunny but cold days, other just grey and rainy. On this day it was raining quite hard and even this pigeon was hunkering down to wait out the rain, not looking very happy!

We went to Fi and James on Saturday, ostensibly to borrow their suitcases. I can travel for 8 months with my wheeled suitcase but only get 15kg of luggage into it. Our flight back from the Seychelles allows us 23kg which is what I want to take! I’d taken a fish pie (part of the eating detox, knowing that the drink detox would be on hold) which meant we didn’t have to go out which was just as well as Oscar cat was really unwell. He had an emergency trip to the vets, but just sat and did nothing. It’s amazing how excited we all were on Sunday when we saw him taking a few laps of water. He was still very unresponsive when we left though apparently has got a lot better since then. Hurrah.

Out on a sunny day on a walk from Alvechurch to the nearby village of Rowney Green. It was pleasant out but a little boggy underfoot from all the recent rain. See our Relive video with photos: click here

Sunday was still a bit of a washout, after 3am bed, but we readied ourselves for the arrival of Simon and Diane who were coming for a quick visit. The weather was ok so we went out for the round village walk that we’ve done with Denise and Paul (click here to see Relive video). Much talking was done with stops for coffee (and half a cake) and a beer before enjoying kurzi lamb at the Indian. That was the end of food detox then! Kurzi lamb has to be ordered 48 hours in advance and is a whole shoulder of lamb marinated and slow cooked. So tender you can carve it with a spoon, it is absolutely delicious. The meal has gone up, to £72.50 which gives you popadums, starter, lamb, vegetable side, rice, naan, dessert and coffee! We all ate far too much, and Brian and I had leftovers on Wednesday and Thursday! I’ve just made the last of the leftovers into a shepherds pie, which smells fab, but isn’t going to be eaten today. We are off into town to see La Traviata at the Hippodrome! This has come completely out of the blue, the lovely Alex is sadly in hospital so has offered us the tickets she had! I feel bad that we are ‘winning’ but it’s better than wasting them. We were meant to be going over tomorrow to help them with some DIY but that’s not going to happen!

Behind us is our village of Alvechurch

We've been spied by an Alpaca! I haven't got many photos to put on this blog as I've been a bit slack lately. I took none of our weekend visit to Fiona and James' nor any of Si and Di's visit to us, our walk to Barnt Green or the excellent Kursi Lamb we had in the New Dilshad in the village. Must do better!