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2010-05-01T11:57:00.001+02:00

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That's a poke in the eye for me then...

2009-09-23T17:28:00.002+02:00

Maybe the campaign to get the raisins removed from the chicken balti pies on sale at the City of Manchester Stadium, and which I wrote about so sniffily a while back has been successful? In any event, they are clearly back in favour with one person who, at this weekend's match was carrying a placard announcing, "I love you Sheikh Mansour [our owner] and your family and your mates. I want to buy you a pie." And to think that some people go to watch the football.....

Announcing....

2009-09-21T21:13:00.002+02:00

..the arrival of:

Jude Samuel McKay
Born at 11.41 a.m. BST, 21st September, 2009

A brother for Billy (William Reuben) and Jessica Rose (Banana Cake) Trickey

His grandparents adore him already

Take a look-autumn in chiclana by Mike

2009-09-18T19:18:00.002+02:00

Worrying, very worrying

2009-09-02T19:36:00.004+02:00

One of the most poignant memorials I have ever seen was in downtown Buenos Aires. It was so simple we might well have missed it but for our guide, William. It consisted of a small garden with trees and a white stone bench and the markings left behind by the rooms of a building upon the wall of the adjoining building. The wall had been painted a ghostly white. We were told that it marked where the Israeli Embassy had stood before it had been blown up by Iranian terrorists, killing about 20 people (each tree in the garden commemorated one of the victims), and that shortly after this an Israeli community centre in the city had also been blown up. This was all thought to be a campaign against the then Argentinian Prime Minister, Carlos Menem, who had failed to deliver on his promise to support Iran in some anti-sanctions vote in the UN. Menem's son was later killed in an unexplained car accident. Anyway, one of the alleged suspects for the bombings, Ahmad Vahidi, is in line to become the Defence Minister in Ahmadinejad's cabinet.

Meanwhile, here in Spain unemployment continues to rise. It stands at about 19%, higher than in many parts of Eastern Europe. Worse still, the figures for youth unemployment are higher-38% of those under 25 are said to be unemployed.

And now for a little merienda

2009-08-29T19:54:00.002+02:00

Mike has joined a photography group and is also doing a photography course. Last week his group went to Medina Sidonia, just down the road from us, which in the time of Al-Andalus, roughly between the 10th and 13th centuries, when various kinds of Arabs ruled large tracts of Spain, was the cake making capital of the peninsula.
It still is and Mike took this photograph as a souvenir.

You realise that he had to climb into the cake to photograph it? Well, that's his story anyway....

Well I never no.2

2009-08-25T00:13:00.004+02:00

I was a little surprised to read in the online Guardian today the headline, "Labour fightback dashed as Tories extend poll lead" if only because-in fact only because-I was unaware of any Labour fightback. And meanwhile Cameron's sanctimonious Tories present themselves as born again social democrats. Ah well, they say we get the government we deserve and after year's of whinging from those who like to think of themselves as the radical left aided and abetted by the "we are all going to hell in a handcart" journalists of the Daily Mail (it is sometimes hard to tell the difference)it's looking more than likely that the Guardian headline augurs the future.

Meanwhile, here in La B, we are not hanging around. El Presidente has been deposed. Viva Senora Presidente!Yes, a woman! She is a lawyer and, according to my next door neighbour, "una Maravilla". We have been promised speed bumps! We have been promised that the street cleaning man will not wake us up at 8.00 in the morning with his amazing blowing machine! We have been promised that he will not blow dust under our gates so that we have to sweep it out again! We have been promised that the community accounts will be transparent and sent to all owners,not just pushed under the gate, irrespective of whether there is a force 8 gale wind blowing! Oh happy, happy days!

We shall see....

Hola

2009-08-23T10:37:00.002+02:00

One of the things I like to do on Wednesdays when we finish our second and final Pilates class of the week is to buy a copy of Hola to read with my coffee. Hola is the original celebrity gossip magazine and now appears in various versions across the world, each one with its local twist. For instance the Spanish version takes a deep interest in the love life of bullfighters as well as the doings of minor starlets, key members of the Spansh aristocracy (including Franco's grandaughter) and the Royal Family. One of the things I like about it is that despite its obsession with tittle-tattle, none of it is malicious, with the possible exception that they allowed Ana Obregon who claimed to have had an affair with David Beckham to poke fun at Victoria who never became popular in Spain because, it is said, she claimed not to like the food.

Anyway, Victoria Beckham apart, it is all generally good humoured. Last week, for instance, there were photos of the Danish King frolicking on a Spanish beach. Since the said monarch has obviously been at the pies he is, how shall we say, a little corpulent, or, in Hola speak, he has una curva de felicidad-a curve of happiness. How nice is that?

But this week beats it all. A story about Carmen Martinez-Bordiu on holiday with her daughter began by telling us that Carmen is an intrepid traveller and adventurer. Apparently her "espiritu inquieto" or restless soul, recalls those Victorian women who, two hundred years ago, roamed across the most remote and undiscovered areas of the globe (I am quoting here). What follows are 11 pages of photos of Carmen and Cyntha enjoying the 6 star delights of Dubai....

Well I never

2009-08-12T17:28:00.002+02:00

One of the reasons that I like reading the Manchester City forums is that they keep you in touch with...mmm, well, with something.

At the moment, apart from the ongoing saga of whether Everton, or, probably more accurately, David Moyes will sell us Joleon Lescott, to shore up our creaking defence, the big thread(16 pages and rising) concerns the discovery by one fan at the recent friendly against Celtic that the Chicken Balti pies on sale in the Eastlands stadium contained...sultanas. It's an outrage. A campaign has been launched. The name and address of the marketing manager of the pie makers concerned has been obtained and published. Letters and emails have been sent. We will not rest until our chicken balti pies return to their original recipe as passed down, father to son, on saturday afternoons at three o'clock from time immemorial....

Don't you just love them.

2009-07-23T19:39:00.005+02:00

There was a moment today when both grandmas were siting on the porch next door and competing to entertain the children with flamenco singing and clapping, the dog down the road was barking (not our resident dog Howie, he couldn't compete, but one brought from Madrid for the summer), a delivery driver had left his car running outside our gate and Sebastian and his companeros were cutting the grass at our neighbours below while passing each other instructions in the loud voices necessary to attract Sebastian who has a perfectly effective hearing aid but leaves it in the car, whilst preferring to wear an old one that has no battery (he has told me this. I am not making it up). It is a wonder that the workmen who have been digging up random bits of the road on and (fortunately mostly) off for the last 6 months now appear to have finished their work and moved on elsewhere.Auguast, as someone once told me, is the time when the Spanish live outside and annoy their neighbours. Only a week to go then.

That was the week...

2009-07-17T19:24:00.002+02:00

Well, here we are, another week older and we still haven't solved the world financial crisis, found a cure for cancer or even found a way to persuade our gardener,Sebastian, to turn his hearing aid on before we start the conversation rather than half way through by which time half the neighbourhood is hanging on our every (loud)word. Speaking of which (the neighbourhood), there is a scandal brewing in our "communidad". A few weeks ago we got a round robin letter pushed under our gate signed by assorted names, none of them familiar to us, accusing "el presidente" of taking actions under his own initiative without consultation. "El presidente", whom we have met a couple of times and who seems a pleasant enough chap and not at all dynamic (we are unclear as to what these unilateral actions might be, since nothing happens here), has obviously been hurt by this because today Antonio, the community's "empleado", who sweeps up the pine needles and buzzes round the place on a noisy "moto", came round to give us the first of what we are promised will be regular "noticias informativas" telling us what's been done, what's planned and asking for our suggestions. There is a list of do's and don'ts including do NOT take the rubbish containers into your own gardens and when out walking DO pick up your dog poo-when I told Mike this he inquired as to whether we would be provided with a dog on leaving our compounds...!ho, ho! What it doesn't say is DO stop your dog from waking up your neighbours. With Howie in mind,I might send a suggestion to our new community email address. We are very up to date here!

Not much other news. Still meandering on with Spanish. Getting a bit stuck with my homework last week, I went and asked Sebastian and his two "companeros", who happened to be working in our garden at the time, about one of the questions. They gave me three different answers. No wonder we foreigners find it difficult. We went to a tapas evening at the school on Tuesday and out to Cadiz to a concert on Wednesday. The latter was in the cathedral square-very beautiful-and the music was good (Joan Manuel Sarrat, a Catalan singer-songwriter who upset Franco by refusing to represent Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest when he was refused permission to sing in Catalan)but we still, after all this time, have not got used to things starting at 10..00 at night and on finishing after midnight, even though we seem to have adapted to changed eating hours, second breakfasts and such like. Very sleepy for the rest of the week.

Now here's a turn up for the books. Before the concert we wondered through Cadiz, picking up the tickets and finding somewhere to have some tapas. On our route we passed a sports shop and Mike commented through gritted teeth, as he always does, on the ubiquitous Manchester United shirts prominent display... only to be stopped in full flow at the sight of an enormous Manchester City Banner draped in the middle of the window. Perhaps the future really is blue. Or at least more blue than the past.

That was then, this is now

2009-07-13T13:22:00.002+02:00

When we first started to get to know Spain we used to say that the Spanish, unlike the British, don't drink to lose their inhibitions because they don't have any.I still think that is the case and it has its charming aspects. But there is also a downside to this belief that almost anything and everything can be done,discussed and shown without reference to context. This morning while we read the local paper and had our post-Pilates coffee and tostada we came across an example of a step too far. Turning to the back page, which usually has three or four photographs of major local and national news stories, we were presented with a photo of the precise moment when the Pamplona Bull gored to death a 27 year old guy who had been running, for reasons passing at least our understanding,in front of the bulls through the narrow streets of Pamplona in the annual festival. It is not something I want to look at again. Much less so, I imagine, his family and friends.

What do you thnk?

2009-07-10T17:24:00.002+02:00

Is it possible that the person who called his shop in Cadiz, where we went walking this morning, Yellow Rat Bastard understood the meaning of the English words he was using? And, if so, what image do you think he was trying to project? Would I like this person?

Go Lance, go!

2009-07-07T20:25:00.002+02:00

This afternoon Lance Armstrong, the American cyclist and ex-cancer sufferer, failed by an impossibly small fraction of a second to take the leader's yellow jersey in the Tour de France, a race that he won for 7 year's running until he retired a couple of years ago. We have always supported him and have a particular interest in doing so this year. It is not just that he is old -well, in cycling terms anyway- but also because the French health minister issued a "warning" before the race that he would be under very close scrutiny with regards to drugs tests. It is not that we have a problem with any cyclist being tested for drugs, given the shame that drug abuse has brought on the sport over the last few years (and probably before, if only we had known). What annoys me profoundly is the special attention given to Armstrong, who has never tested positive, and the fact that this is from a representative of a country whose own cyclists are hardly models of probity. Richard Verenque, anyone?

The French really need to come to terms with the fact that the Tour de France can be won by an American.

Oh yes, go Mark Cavendish as well!

We're walking....

2009-07-05T13:38:00.002+02:00

It seems perverse to travel to the other side of the world to go walking and then to sit on our bottoms here, so, since our return and now that our summer stream of visitors is over, we have been trying to get out and about more.

A couple of weeks ago we did a walk that we have done before over the headland from Caños de La Meca to Barbate. It's a lovely walk although the terrain is very sandy and walking uphill on what effectively is a series of sand dunes makes it quite tough. On Friday we decided to do visit the National Park Los Alcornocales (the cork oaks) which is about half an hour south of here. We walked for about an hour and a half from the Mirador de los Ratones (although why the mice need a lookout point I don't know!) to the embalse (reservoir) de Barbate and some tombs from the Third Millenium BC. Then after a picnic, we walked back again.

A good part of the way during this second walk was along the old drovers road so, by comparison to Caños to Barbate, it was fairly easy going, but in all the time we were walking we saw only three people, a ranger and a couple of guys working on one of the fincas.Since we are now into high season here in La Barrosa and the beach, especially at the weekend, is tent city, the peace and quiet was amazing.

As well as wonderful views what we also enjoyed are the smells. On the first walk we came across a plant that has a very delicate curry-like scent and on Friday there was a stretch where we were able to smell wild thyme.....

Hablo, hablas, habla

2009-07-02T19:50:00.001+02:00

When we were in South America we tried to speak as much Spanish as we could, even with the guides who were part of the meet and greet service that we organised through Journey Latin America and who had obviously been primed to talk to us in English. One of them, a charming young woman who took us from our hotel in Cusco to catch the train to Macchu Pichu, responded to our attempts by telling us that we spoke very good Spanish and then added, in Spanish, "and you don't have one of those annoying Spanish accents!" We hope this was because by this stage we had decided to drop the lisp on the "c" which is part of castellano in most parts of Spain. However, just to be on the safe side, we are now back in our Spanish classes. Mike is also doing a photography course and has joined a local photography group in order to get the most out of his new camera. So busy, busy, busy....more news soon.

2009-06-28T18:15:00.001+02:00

2009-05-29T14:23:00.003+02:00

Why is it that people keep wittering (?) on about how we are disassociated from politics? The sheer amount and the hysterical tone of much of the debate around the MPs expenses surely reflects the fact that people are interested. Isn't the problem rather that most people have no language and no conceptual framework with which to discuss issues and so can only engage when it comes down to personalities? I think so, and I think it is a part of the general anti-intellectualism of British culture, its glorification of "common sense", which is often no more than personal prejudice and anecdote disguised, and its mistrust of the innovative and the complicated.

Animals and some humans

2009-05-20T18:21:00.001+02:00

3 at Iguazu....

2009-05-20T18:16:00.000+02:00

...and one in Uruguay

You couldn't make it up....

2009-05-20T18:13:00.000+02:00

...but he clearly did.

Buenos Aires-all this and more

2009-05-20T18:09:00.000+02:00

It really is impossible to sum up Buenos Aires. If you haven't been yet, go!

Yes, well....

2009-05-20T17:56:00.000+02:00

I guess a little PR might help...

From one extreme to the other, via Santiago

2009-05-20T17:54:00.000+02:00

We got up close and personal with the Grey Glaciar, which is actually blue but the Lake is called the Grey Lake-in English-because it contains a lot of sediment. And then we got hot and sticky in the Atacama desert. The photo with the black sky was taken just before a storm. In between we toured Santiago which we liked a lot, despite the pollution. Those damned Andes just trap all the air....

4 favourites from Chile

2009-05-20T17:43:00.001+02:00

The view of the sunrise is from our window in the hotel, a photo of which is below. I woke about 6 o clock one morning and this is what I saw. The animal is a guanaco. The photo of the two of us was taken at The Base of the Towers and represents something of a triumph. It was hard and it was cold!