An iffy day

It rained here this morning. (No hose ban here!) Not a lot to do on a rainy Sunday in Puerto de Mazarron. We went out to lunch. Turbot for J. Fillet steak for T. Playa Grande the venue. It's on the shore. Just a short walk. When we emerged it had stopped raining but the wind was something else!

Remember our Mayor Senor Blaya Blaya's windbreaks? The ones the Minister of the Environment has told him to tear down? Well, he hasn't yet.

All done up - and me in my best new suede boots, too - we sat on the sand under Senor Blaya Blaya's protection and watched a lonely windsurfer in the waves.


And the sun came out, too. Which is why my friend has a smile on his face.












No we haven't moved to Tarifa. This IS a body-boarder. This is NOT the Atlantic.

We never imagined the Med could have so many moods.

Terry's lemons

Before we fled from the UK, Laura gave us a gin & tonic kit. Two lead crystal glasses - one engraved with a J and the other with a T. In addition to that was a wee wooden board with integral knife for cutting our lemons.

Now the G&T kit is complete. We had to rely on our neighbour, Chris, for supplies from his magnificent tree and occasionally we resorted to scrumping.

Now we have our very own supply.

It's a tape measure my friend is holding in his hand, just to make sure our fruity friends are coming up to the required stature.

This pic was taken tonight at about 5 o'clock. Note the thermometer on the wall - it's reading 60 Fahrenheit.

Thank you, Laura. When are you coming out for another G & T, complete with freshly picked accompaniment? Lemons straight from the tree smell and taste exquisite. And we have flowers and buds to guarantee a continuing supply.

Arthurian legend

Yesterday we picked wild flowers. Probably not supposed to, but there's no passing traffic on most of the lovely, although lumpy, mountain roads anyway.





Like, what's the Spanish for 'Wow'? And you should smell them!




Then it was time for a wild party, an 80th birthday well heralded in our 'Calendar Update' slot.

Birthday boy, best friend Miles and some wild woman

Is this Judy's new toyboy? No, just that Judy giving the Arthurian legend a birthday hug.

Miles & Maureen (another wild and wonderful woman) from the Emerald Isle

The irresistible Irene, the beautiful Beverly (I have to say, looking a tad like Joanna Lumley here, but MUCH younger) and the charismatic Chris!

But where's Terry, I hear you cry? Off to get another helping of wokery!

Thank you, Arthur, for a feast worthy of any royal court. You can see the evidence on the table!

The stuff of life

As I remarked to Dan about an hour ago, bricks and mortar are NOT the stuff of life. However, just a little excursion into the progress of getting 'quince' closer to how we want it to be may be of interest to some of our probably very tiny club of readers.

This is what our 'archway area' looked like before. When we first shook hands with Miguel, the previous owner of our house, this is partly what we fell in love with. Very Spanish - very cute. 'Una casa muy bonita', as Rosa, our cleaner was heard to remark on her first visit. But when you sit in it and look at it and really see how it was put together, you discover over time that it's crap. So work began, as you see.

We had been inspired and did not know where from. Uncanny this - we went away so the 'constructores' could do their work. We went to Granada - The Alhambra. You have to see it before you die, by the way.

This is what we saw:
















While we were in exile, we met a very famous Portuguese bullfighter:














I digress. This is what we now have. On a modest scale, yes, but we have our own version of the Alhambra.






















Remember that floor in the Alhambra? How did we know?

Maybe it's an ancestral memory or something.


And just in case you're getting bored with the bricks and mortar of life - here is the stuff of it - taken today:




















Post lunch drinks on our closest beach just one minute's cycle ride away and . . .














. . . tonight's sunset - a bit of a trek, 3 minutes' ride away.

As someone was overheard to say, describing this day: 'puta madre', which roughly translated, according to my friend Helen, is 'the dogs bollocks'!

Special edition for Colin and Maria

I didn't know that Maria's home city is Sevilla, capital of Andalucia. That's my fault for never asking. It's a lovely place. Dan, Helen and we shall be spending some time there at Easter (semana santa).

For those of you who don't know Sevilla, you haven't lived!

Here are some pics taken there by us on a recent visit to Granada, Sevilla and Portugal. More about our trip tomorrow (or the day after) depending on how inspired I feel!!!










It's not far away, Maria - so next time you visit the family, take an excursion to Puerto de Mazarron. You've probably never heard of it - not many Spaniards or Brits have. But it's beautiful.

Best time, for those who DON'T like the heat but enjoy the sun is, well, just about now. See you next year. See almond blossom and spring flowers below.

Springtime in Murcia

It IS springtime in Murcia. When we came here in February 2005, we were amazed at the shining beauty of the almond blossom. And now it's ours. We just drive around the mountains looking at it. And who can blame us?

The wild flowers aren't bad, either! So here's a gallery, including one of the windmills that Don Quixote appears to have flailed at successfully and sundown in our own little bay, just to round off this quick tour of the area in and around Mazarron in February.

Calendar of events

Calendar update

Belinda (who did the London Marathon in 5 hours, might I add), Jim, Max and Jess will be visiting us from 23rd to 30th May. From 3rd to 7th June, we shall be missing - Monica and Matt's wedding plus other family visits in the ukay. Lorna, Shannon and Courtney are here 9th to 16th July. Jack and friend are coming 19th July to 26th and Lianna will be here 29th July to 11th August. Bill & Marianne are here September 22nd to 28th.

Other candidates are: Dan & Helen; Alister; Annette, Simon & Pattie; Lizzie & Rod; Colin & Maria.

The Quins and the Walsh are coming here for Christmas 2010!

Looking forward

I believe that in Ireland they call a day like today a 'soft day'. We're not complaining; it's marginally better than the unbelievably heavy downpour with flash flooding that we experienced last night on our bikes!

So I thought it might be a good time to look forward to the summer in Puerto de Mazarron. Or more precisely, to look back a few months!
If you walk the 200 or so meters from our house at about 11 in the morning, this is what you will find in August.

Each Spanish extended family comes down here complete, not only with several parasols, but also with tables, chairs, snacks in picnic boxes . . .

At about 20 minutes to two, they start dunking their babies and their chairs in the sea to wash the sand off them and over the next twenty minutes or so, they gradually, efficiently, ritually pack everything away. Each family does exactly the same thing, as if choreographed.

Then the exodus from the beach begins. Each group leaves a rolled-up parasol to reserve their pitch for later on. They all troop past the taps provided and wash the sand off their feet. Then, for them, it's a long drawn-out lunch and siesta.


This is when we go down to a relatively deserted beach.

This our time of day. Relax, sunbathe, have a drink or two, a swim or two and just chill out.
Until, that is, all the Spanish families return with their clobber (or 'tranklement' as my Uncle Jack used to say) at 6 o'clock on the dot. And there they remain, sometimes until dark!

I have to say that their presence is fantastic for people-watching. Never lost for words, Spaniards always seem to be engaged in the most intense of conversations with everyone talking at once. Our understanding of the Murcian accent is improving. So maybe this coming summer we shall understand what these animated exchanges are all about!

Re people-watching - I have observed that 'friends wear similar colours'. This is my theory and I'm sticking to it. Here are some pics to prove it:

Oh yes, and here's another one. Remember me and my friend Jo on Boxing Day?!









Not long now to warm seas and sunshine!

Love this place

After a bbq lunch and several hours sunbathing in the back yard, we felt we should say hello to the sea, as we do every day. So we had a walk along the shore and a sundowner or two on the Playa Grande Hotel terrace - blimey, a new girl served us and she poured a 10er - normal round here is a 7er. For those of you who don't know Spain, that's the number of seconds they spend pouring.

Here is the sundown.

The structure in the foreground is a Mazarron-style windbrake, installed at the behest of our esteemed mayor, Snr Blaya Blaya. He has been told, by the equally esteemed Minister of the Environment for our Autonomous Region of Murcia, to pull it down. He resists. His reason? This is an all-year-round beach. You can get untoward breezes, either from the north of Europe or from Africa. Whatever the direction, people need protection from them when they want to bask.

Anyway, on to the 'snorts'. For the last few days the weather has been inclement. So you have to find things to do. We went to Cabo Cope:

There's a sort of cavity under the rocky shore on which you stand and here and there are holes. When the waves roll in and break they fill the cavity and force air out through the holes, making noises like a snorting giants. That's the audio bit - the visual bit? The spray goes up to make rainbows in the sun. Very uplifting.

Sorry I didn't really capture the spectrum but the camera doesn't always tell the truth - or just maybe the rainbows were in our minds. Who knows.