We've had a home in Spain for more than 14 years and it is now our permanent base though we retain a small home in the UK.
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A Day at the Seaside
Just spent a great day travelling around the seaside with Maureen. We set off relatively early for the two-hour+ drive down to the coast stopping at various places along the way.
First Pool Trip of the Summer
A very quiet weekend this weekend – after many trips to pubs and to visit friends recently and having had one friend staying with us, terminating in a Malaga trip late last week, we basically vegged over the weekend so today after Maureen’s Pilates session, we were in a mood for getting out of the house. Despite the fine weather, we’ve been unusually late this year in getting to the pools and lakes – that’s mainly because it hasn’t been THAT hot – and some of the pools here are very cold indeed, no more so than Orce pool which is spring fed. But with the temperature hitting 35c+ (100f+) today and with very little breeze we took a trip over to Orce pool.
The Malaga Trip
First thing on Wednesday we set off with our friend Marsha down to Malaga, via Nerja. As you can see on the map below, the trip takes somewhat over 3 hours, passing via Granada and Motril.
The coast down there is marvelous and both Almunecar and Nerja are well worth a visit. First stop on our journey was Nerja to visit the caves. Discovered by some schoolboys, this massive underground area is just amazing and though we’d been there before, this was Marsha’s first visit and she thoroughly enjoyed it.
Incense or Burning Wood
One of the nicer things we’ve discovered when over here in Spain is Incense – that is burning incense. Nothing special about it being in Spain of course – it used to be on sale when I was a kid in the Kard Bar in Newcastle – but I didn’t take that much notice for some reason.
It has been a long learning curve since our friendly neighbours introduced us to the stunningly nice “Precious Yatra” which we all use constantly at get-togethers and even when having a casual drink inside or outside.
The only problem with the former is… it isn’t cheap and it isn’t easy to get.
And so it was that I started to look around to see what I may have been missing all of these years. First stop, the Chinese store. Typical Chinese stores in Baza and Huescar sell MANY different kinds of incense sticks, cinnamon, Patchouli, ocean, lemon – you name it… and all cheap at under 1 Euro for a pack.
They look great and there is just so much choice. There is only one slight catch… they all absolutely smell of little more than… burning wood. Even the Patchouli, hardly a subtle odour, they smelled like burning wood with some added mint – yes, MINT. Considering the fact that they are always on sale I can only surmise that most of their customers have broken noses. I’m not kidding they just smell as if you’d taken the basic wooden base and burned it all on it’s own!
A Seaside Camping Break
Well, not quite camping, last night, three of us shared a little bungalow down at Camping Los Esculos at Cabo De Gata. What a lovely break with some fabulous scenery.
Meanwhile in Galera
Stop press: The observant reader may notice that the blog is now forcing https: as against http: in the address bar. I’m doing this with all my sites as this simply means the site is more secure and there is no chance of any personal info spilling out. This is good for readers and good for the blog as Google are starting to “disadvantage” site that don’t do this. With luck in your address bar you’ll see a nice green lock. Other than that it makes no difference to you whatsoever….
Right now it is Wednesday evening. Today we’ve been at the garage in Huescar getting the brakes fixed on the car after the last “improvement” made them soft as sponge. Fortunately they sorted it without blinking an eye or charging extra…
Spent part of the morning in Galera at the market – which has a markedly improved atmosphere these days and then spent the afternoon working on these blog changes and sorting today’s rather large postbag full of Chinese gadgets. Yesterday I spent the day slowly recovering from a somewhat late evening (early morning) on Monday in which we had friends over – and for the first time in too long – all of our current neighbours for drinks and nibbles. Sadly we could not invite everyone we know – any more and they’d be hanging over the wall but we’ll fix that in time. The area is wonderfully quiet now and we all spent Monday evening simply relaxing and solving the world’s problems – as you do while enjoying fine Spanish wine.