Cake! From my local panadería!

Need to catch up with myself as usual, I'm so spasmodic in my writing!

Let me begin with Christmas Eve working all day, but dressed as Mrs Santa Clause!!

Was good fun, the customers loved it! And I enjoyed it too! That's it now for dressing up until Halloween comes around again! 

My feet hurt, wearing inappropriate Boot-Ware!

Reminds me afterwards how I don't even notice my feet during work! Thank you Sketchers!

I stayed up to do the Harry Potter challenge! Had to start watching Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone at 22:33, so that Ronald Weasley would say 'Happy Christmas' at exactly 00:00 in the movie and for real!

My playback wouldn't work and Christmas Eve came four minutes late in the movie! Can't believe I'd managed to stay awake! And miss it! 

I had a couple of gifts under my tree which I opened and went to bed! Was about one before I switched everything off though...

Christmas day I got up when I was ready, and headed down to the coast and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon and evening with a family who adopted me for Christmas! Was so lovely, I am so lucky, dinner was amazing, absolutely fantastic..  thank you thank you thank you!

Back to work yesterday, the 27th and in today..

Yesterday driving home, I dropped off two colleagues and came up the usual mountain road home, there's a right hand turn once around our side of Sierra de Mijas, the road changes back to one lane, and there was a two car accident.. the line of traffic going back towards home went down into the dip, ours, luckily, not so bad .. 

It's always tricky when two lanes become one here... It seems to be a race for some drivers to beat the car in the inside lane, it's not a race, and of course... No one wins...

I drove up the dip from there, and was on the wriggly bit of the road before Casa las Flores on the left, and the window down, hadn't turned back on the radio since the accident, it was dark, and no one close in front, no one behind, and a light caught my eye, up high in the sky, a bolt of fire like a meteor then zap, out and gone! No noise, no firework type of explosion! 

Very, very strange!

Driving down as usual this morning to work, such beautiful amazing views, sunrise over the Med... And looking towards the area behind La Cala de Mijas, and onwards towards Rivera and Calahonda, what used to be undefined can now be mapped out by yellow street lights... 

Used to just be green and gray rock .. now, civilization is creeping inwards.. 

I wonder if one day it will just be mass all the way to Alhaurín El Grande.. and I hope I do not get to see it!

Mmm interesting thing I just noticed, I meant mass as in larger/large, and of course, Spanish word 'mas' means 'more' muy interesante!

M.

Catching up.. on my lap top too! Need to practice my typing apparently, and of course need to use my spelling abilities more... or maybe not!!

Above is actually a photograph taken two years ago in Ronda! My buddy caught me just right!! Lol my head peaking out over the wall!!

Above Benidorm, this view fascinated me on the way up Spain towards France, and likewise on the return journey... It is like a US city, with old Spain either side, sort of magical and amazing city scape appearing.. suddenly out of nowhere, seen from a distance its like nothing you can imagine being in Spain! Strange too, because I don't kind of think about going to Benidorm as a destination for staying in, but seeing it from perspective, I think I would really find it amazing photography from down in those streets! Do you think??

Above and below photographs taken in Javea... Visited friends I have known for over thirty seven years near here... Time moves frightenly fast it seems these days... Weeks and months creep by until they blur and become years... Years un-reclaimable and gone as if with a blink of the eye...

If only we knew then what we know now...

Had great but far to fast visit and after what must be about nine years felt like no time at all apart, like all good friendships... Can't leave it nine years ago though, because... because it would just be stupid to do so!

Amazing coastal views...

These two photographs taken back in Peníscola

I had a very memorable visit to a hair dressers! Something I can probably count of two hands as somewhere I have visited in my whole life... Mmm okay maybe two hands and one foot now!!

Always given a coffee or some hot beverage offering.. but not at this one, it was late on in the afternoon, my appointed time had been changed because of an electric issue... well, Spain eh!

Whilst having my hair colored... phew, no scissors involved! I was offered and received gladly a glass of cava, (Spanish own type of bubbly!), he who was making my hair a beautiful color, and I, shared the bottle of cava!

He said once my hair was rinsed through... 'had I every had my hair straightened?' Erm... nope, no, never, thank you very much!!

So of course thats what I let him do! Straighten my hair!!! OMG!!! First he straightened it, then he curled it, well, made waves of it!

It did look good, just felt not me... my curls have defined me now I guess, after all these years... But, I have to admit, was nice to have had it done, a once in a lifetime thing I guess, unexpected... Like getting tipsy in a hairdressers!

     

Roughly translated: The day I understood that the only thing I am going to take is what I live, I started living what I want to take.

TTFN
Marian

"It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And though we are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are—

[Scene shifts to Frasier’s KACL booth.]

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will;

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

I’ve been thinking about that poem a lot lately. And I think what it says is that, while it’s tempting to play it safe, the more we’re willing to risk, the more alive we are. In the end, what we regret most are the chances we never took. And I hope that explains, at least a little, this journey on which I am about to embark. I have loved every minute with my KACL family, and all of you. For eleven years you've heard me say, "I’m listening." Well, you were listening, too. And for that I am eternally grateful. Goodnight, Seattle.


Well friends, I guess you know what I've been watching this morning, well as per the norm... but which episode... Yep, the last one of Frasier, again... As as always this poem by Tennyson gets me, or I get it!

And here I am today, at this time on this path where, once again this means more to me today than usual...

I am off to work for a long period of time, and so a change is a-foot, big change...

This week also I finished watching Friends! LOL for the first time ever I have watched each and every single episode! Thank you Netflix!

That was a bit of an emotional roller-coaster! I don't think I had seen the two last episodes of Friends?  Although I had seen the majority of it, thanks to one of my sons who was a Friends addict... and I have a book, the Friends book, still in its shopping bag... from 2004!

LOL I've just taken it down off the shelf, with it came another item... the card I gave to my mom in 2009... a mere eight years ago... but a couple of life times past...

Isn't it bad enough to keep too much stuff of my own that I kept this too!  Still, I have a photograph now to keep instead... if I should lose this card eh...

On the inside cover I had written a poem, my mom like Walt Whitman...

Took a photograph of this too! Surprise surprise! I was going to purloin it from the www. but none of the copies were background compatible for me... So the photograph it is then!

And a pretty rubbish photo it is too! Oh well! LOL There it is... I wasn't even looking for any of this was I! Just the Friends book... which.... oh well, never mind...

I've just gone from one random thing to another, time for me to take a bow and leave!

View from Ibis Swansea

Tried to Blog from our trip on my phone, didn't work, although the above photograph was there, that was it! I couldn't adjust back to left-hand margin, so abandoned Blog!

Last Saturday, we left here, home and flew to Nottingham, to stay with Barry and family... We went to town for lunch...

Franco has been avoiding a lot of different foods this past year, things he thought, read about... that would cause him more tummy problems, so he is now eating lots of everything he has avoided for a year!  Barry's choice of a pie restaurant was definitely right up Francos street!  Great restaurant, very atmospheric!  Franco loves the trams, he loves Nottingham, me too, even my phone knows it!  Sending me random articles about whats on, for instance an Alice in Wonderland café opened this week, and a place you can go to smash the hell out of stuff if you have anger issues... you know, I really do have some anger issues right now, and I really wish there was somewhere like that here!!!  We went back to Barrys and relaxed with the babe!  She grows so much in between visits!  Her hair is so curly!!! We were shattered too, been up since middle-of-the-night-o'clock, poor Baz had to have an early night, seeing as we were sleeping in the living room... and England was blooming freezing!!! lol...

[I am having terrible trouble spelling!  Not the greatest at the best of times, but the simplest words seem to be eluding me, thank goodness for spell check!] 

Sunday morning we went to Asda, bought a few bits and had a coffee there with the family... and home, a bit of lunch and suddenly the time had gone, far too quickly, it was a wave and we were off, followed by our cases! We had to collect the car from the airport, no car-hire on a Sunday, that in my fast paced booking of everything the other day that I could find..We got the tram from nearby, tickets which included tram and sky coach... but got to the end of the tram line and found that there were no coaches to the airport, because the airport was closed!  Yes, yes, I know we should have known this, but surely with todays technology no tickets should have been able to be purchased!!!  We had to get a taxi to collect the car, which cost twenty pounds!  So close from there, and yet... so far!

At the car rental place it turned out I should have had a visa to rent the car! Er, no a visa debit only!  So we were charged an extra thirty pounds a day on top of original costs, the guy did call the 'agency' I booked the car with, so I could ask for a fully comp. payment to be paid back to me!  After all, that is what we were now paying an extra thirty a day for!!!  The man on the phone asked me, as per the norm after he had very pleasantly repaid our money "Is there anything else I can help you with today?"   Yes!!! I told him, yes, how about changing the system when you book on line that you cannot use a visa debit to book, if you can't use a visa debit to take the car!  He said he had heard that before!!  Well, than fix it!!!!!

By the by.... I would not have booked a car through an agency, if I had known it was an agency!!!  More transparency there please!  As in, name of booking company and the words 'This is an agency, and not the actual car rental company peeps!'

So it was a bit later we left than we thought it would be, it was dark, and it was the M1 so busy busy busy.. and an hour or more later by the time we got started down to Tonys.... But we got there okay, although the maps took us to the road adjacent to Tonys, there was a fence preventing us actually going into his road!! So we had to turn about and go the other way!!! Oh Google maps!!! Que pasa!!

We relaxed once we got to Tonys, we went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant, six of us... took a while to get a table, no bookings, and disorganised chaos all round! But a good evening...  

Tony got us to use his Oculus! OMG, what an amazing experience, Franco loved it, he said afterwards that he wasn't going to have a go, he thought I was being dramatic, as usual[!!!] but he did, and he realised I was just reacting normally! as did he!!  Bless him, holding his feet up out of the water! I'll let you check out the link to Oculus here....  

I have spoken to people who may have used the cardboard, or even plastic VR units... #sorrynotsorry they may be okay, but once you have used the real thing, there is no comparison, there are no black edges, there are in fact no edges, its real, its all around you and it is completely amazing, and I am so glad Franco got to have a go using it!  

It is a whole new reality, lol... reality, I think if I had this I would just live in it, although it would be easy to forget the outside world and not even eat or drink! Sounds like a movie...

So, enough about the Oculus!!

Early enough next morning we were off again!  Headed down to Wales, we went via Aylesbury to visit a friend then on with the maps again!  We headed off after a brief and unsettling visit to the Tesco there! Whats with the posh nosh!  What happened to the 'normal' coffee and food counter to get a good filling breakfast etc?  All gone, all changed...

The maps took us off towards Oxford and I suspected the route I have taken before down to the M4 Swindon direction, I think it took of us at the normal place, we were on a dual carriageway, headed in the right direction... then it said to take slip road, I did, I wasn't happy, but took it anyway, and as soon as we did I said to Franco, this isn't right!  We were on a side street, by side street I mean country road, and before long we were in the sticks!! We even went through a toll road!!! Toll road??? Bizarre with a capitol B!!! There was a guy in a small box taking money from both directions, price for car? 5p... yes you read that correctly 5p! WTF!!!

Sorry I am swearing a great deal these days and you what? I really don't give a dam!

So we carried on, well what else really could we do?  and by the by we ended up along a road which seemed vaguely familiar... and time passed by I knew we were headed towards Cheltenham instead... now this is also a route I have taken to/from Ayeslbury from Wales, but never one which included a trip towards Swindon too!

It also took us past a Little Chef Franco and I stopped at on our way home from Tony and Kates wedding, a Little Chef we vowed we would never stop at again, ever!  Until last Monday, when we did, because we really needed a break, unbelievable!  and it hadn't changed, it still smelt like an old B&B [sorry B&B'ers], it still looked like something from a nightmare!  people in there who like us must have taken a wrong road, people who really just wanted to pay and go as quick as possible... and never come back again!

We skirted through Cheltenham too!  Even that delight wasn't to be missed, and then we were on the M5, really? yes really! What a journey, we think we did almost a hundred miles more than we needed to... Then it was down to the M4 at last, a £6.60 at the toll booth... another toll!! and into Welsh Wales...

We got into the Ibis in Swansea okay from there, all good, room okay, hotel great actually, the reception was a very pleasant!

Looked recently done up!  We arrived, check in, went up to our room and about ten minutes later one of Francos friends arrived and we were down in the reception with him, within a couple of hours we had about 35 friends there!  About thirty from Amazon, friends Franco made while working there, a really good group of friends, and also another friend of ours we have known for years, one of my 'angels without wings' and a group of girls I used to work with, so good to see everyone...

Tuesday Franco and I went over to his brothers, the four of us went out to lunch in Swansea, a favourite restaurant of ours down one of the little arcades there...

Franco also wanted to see another mate of his who works in Swansea market...  We got back to the hotel, had about an hour to chill and then it was back down into the reception and about 20 friends of Francos came from Amazon, some the same at the night before, some new ones, and four different friends of mine! A neighbour who we used to live next door to, and two girls from somewhere else I worked!

Another good evening, and again Franco talked and laughed and told his stories, made his mates sad and happy, and sad all over again... Franco is a bit of a legend around Swansea and Neath... Everyone knows him, everyone loves him, everyone has the best memories of Franco, the guys are so overwhelmed by Francos pragmatic and realistic stance...

We did visit McDonalds a couple of times, well, it was next door to the Ibis!

View from Ibis Swansea

Wednesday we visited Francos mom, this was the saddest for us, heartbreaking...

On our way beforehand we had breakfast from Gregs! We used to have a coffee and a caramel toffee choux pastry thingy, probably once a week when we were both off work, so we had to do the same on our visit over, we think the pastry has shrunk since last year? Could be wrong, could be we are remembering it differently, but either way, it tasted lovely, tasted just the same, we ate in the car as we always do...

... and relaxed a little while in the afternoon before heading out early for dinner with friends... we had to travel a bit, first choice was packed, and forty minute wait, Wednesday... but maybe it was Christmas celebrations already... The second place was crowded, and we grabbed almost the last table, sat and ate and talked, about nothing... because its easier isn't it...

We all had a drink, coffee or hot chocolate, back in the hotel on our return was a good evening with Francos best mate... then we said our goodbyes' and headed off to our room to pack.

We were up early, earlier than we would have, Francos watch has been on 'home time' since we had arrived, so instead of up at 4am we were both up and dressed and ready to go by 4am!!! We checked out, and got on the road, it always feels like your escaping somewhere leaving early, or is that just me?

We had to drop the rental car off at a hotel near Cardiff airport, the rentals office was not open, no surprise there really, but the hotel staff were so nice, guys told us where to drop the key, and even took us to the airport!  5* for them! 0* for car rental company!

We were in the airport, carry-on bags only, went straight through, and boarded on time, more or less, walking through the plane, Franco and I were sat next to each other this time, the web site caught me and I fell... but its cheap with Vueling, so no probs!  Just remembered the trip over!!!

Boarded in Malaga, we were not next to each other, same row, Franco on the aisle, me in the middle further over, as I approached I said to the man in the aisle seat that 'I need to sit in the middle please' he said "at least your slim!"  What!!! Bloody idiot!  Then the woman to my left was in a chatty mood, which was okay, but the man did not like it one bit, he was swearing and talking to himself about us talking!  He went on and on, and he was a pig!!!  I had to share some of my seat with some of him! his leg couldn't make it under the seat in front of him it had to spread itself into my foot well!!  And it was impossible for me to even get close to the arm rest!  it was covered by him and more of him!!! OMG!!  He was so rude and nasty and stuff!!!

So! Back home, got our car, picked up the Pipster and we were home!  oh and it was raining! and it has rained and rained and rained, apparently not this much rain since the 1980's, today its floods everywhere! Cartáma, Marbella, Málaga.... people stranded in cars, on roofs [of houses!], cars floating about... nightmare!

We are lucky really I guess, we only have a paddling pool in the small back patio, due in the main to the new skylight, we had to fit it in the rain, it didn't have time for the sealer to go off... so we have water by the bucket load, down the walls, I had to take off the wall cupboard there, I don't want it to rot, we picked it up years ago and did a makeover on it, long before anyone else was doing to chalk paint thing!  Also all the things on it were getting soaked! Water coming in the kitchen the cave... the only its not coming in is in the toilet down there! Ironically that was the only place it used to come in!

So we are lucky, I have heard of a lot worse for some of our friends here... and we got to go out earlier for a walk to the top of the high street and back, when it left off pouring that is... some of the streets are looking rough!  Lots of brickwork paving we have has lifted, where the sand has washed away, some of the manhole covers have lifted too! Franco is tired though, and I worried it was too far, but he is stubborn.

Okay this is enough now, I feel like I have been writing for years, just today...

Oh got the tree up yesterday, do not remotely feel like having a Christmas tree...

Its just our tree from the last few years, think we got it at B&Q our first Christmas in Wales, its a pop-up tree, all the baubles and lights are on it from when it comes out of the box, its on a stick which just pops together and there it is!  We have a few special things hanging from it, four individual things I have bought the last four years, including this one, a bell from Mijas pueblo last week.

Also just a few other bits about the house, but nothing much, I don't do the big Christmas dangling thing... less is more for me, just special things, with special memories... like a Christmas tree that used to sing and shake from every year on my desk at reception for Mercedes...

Yesterday I took this, today we couldn't even see this far!

TTFN

Marian

Lots of E&OE because I'm not re-reading this, sorry amigos.