Festivities and Feet

Those short and not really fat hairy legs

... in the Empty Nest!

Ready for the unkindest cut - but they were pork!

No Chloe this year for the Xmas etc holiday as she needed to slave away in Brighton with anti-social hours and the minimum wage to try and dent the student debt and take a rest from study before the Masters! Thus we hunkered down for austerity, atheist fun. On the night of 24th we attacked a pheasant. This year not a wild English one helpfully and cheaply transported by the daughter, but rather a farmed creature reared on the Spanish Peninsula and expensively shipped to order by our friendly supermarket butcher. (Who also could have done the same for kangaroo, and did have a turkey in the chiller for 130 euros.. crisis?) Bob rooted out the Bash Street festive socks.
On 25th we did the usual breakfast thing and then went down to the studio for Hot FM's mince pie and mulled wine "meet the audience" event. No trouble getting a seat there, then! Onwards to the Blue Rock, which was heaving, and well into serving its roasties and roast meat rolls! Scrummy, and the sun shone wonderfully until about 4.30 - as it usually does on Christmas Day! This year the excellent decorations there have had the theme of Santa's Workshop. This includes a list of locals annotated to show whether Santa will be calling because they have been good or......

Poor Laurence shouldn't have been so naughty!

We are not sure what happened to the evening, but we were "up and at 'em" the next day (which is not a holiday in Spain) with an early evening invitation to a buffet chez Dave and Sandra. This went on until 03.30 Tuesday, with a wonderful range of very live music from Dave, Pete and guests, and a plastic chair incident about which we will say no more! Needless to say the Monday's MoTh day suffered a little slippage!
Between this and New Year we wrestled to meet a deadline for greatly reducing our broadband costs. Bliss and rapture.. Telefonica are now all under the brand name of Movistar - but are still blue and yellow! Their particular speciality is the Catch 22:- you can't have X because of Y, but you can't have Y because of not having X! This done in pigeon Spanish and imperfect English was a ghastly experience, but we have won, and saved 20 euros per month, and the passports got back from Madrid though we had to stick notes on the entryphone - that is another story of frustration that we will spare the world!!!


On New Year's Eve we went for a bike ride and ended up at El Campenario shopping centre, where there was an excellent local duo singing and playing, whilst one of the waitresses got into the party mood with gusto! We had booked once again for dinner at Caracoles, which was full. A beautiful five course set meal- and we were seated next to a couple from Madrid whom we have met there on several other New Year's Eves. As midnight approached we went to see what the council had laid on in the square and the answer was a rather dull DJ, so we moved on the Rock and saw in the New Year there. No fireworks again in town!


 So into the next phase of a Spanish festive season... growing shopping frenzy up to "Kings" on 5th to 6th, and other enterprises not sure whether they are operating or not! We spent time on exploring health care! Bob took the newly delivered certificate of entitlement up to the Health Centre and was issued with the magic card and assigned a GP.  He asked if he could have a check-up and was given an appointment for that very afternoon. In the ensuing weeks with follow-up and so on we have been very impressed with the service - although the 8am "extraction of materials" session was an interesting experience with several dozen punters waiting for the doors to open then standing in a queue to give their armful! What they won't do, however, is chiropody; but we were given excellent directions to a private clinic in Puerto del Rosario, and Bob has now been there three times to try and sort out some ancient and deeply embedded verrucae. Some very painful treatments have ensued, mobility has been restricted, and Spanish medical vocabulary has expanded considerably. Fingers are now crossed for the month away!

At last on January 6th there is relief! Ruth was on the radio in the afternoon, and based the whole lot around the Twelve Days of Christmas. Rather clever! We watched the Kings' procession from the vantage point of the American Burger Bar terrace, and it was a good one (three marching bands, one float, two mini-trains and the Kings themselves on camels), although chilly. No boat arrival as last year - they had come from Lanzarote on the 11am ferry, but what was new this time was a decent firework display to welcome them to their thrones in the square. That's another year done, then!

December: a month of Spanish Practices and Displaced Moths!

As described previously during December one is never sure what will be open when, and when the kids will be off school. With the two official holidays of 6th and 8th falling on Tuesday and Thursday there is scope for not just "forming the bridge" but also expanding in either direction to weekends. Then things go quiet so it could be a good time for restaurants to take a holiday! Carefully negotiating our way around these obstacles we chose the 12th for our little "do" at Casa Manolo's.
There is not much to say about it - just good and relatively clean fun!

.. and what of the Moths? On September 1st Ruth launched the MoTh initiative. We had picked up the idea in Goa, where some Brits at The Office are practitioners, although the name is our own.  It involves making each Monday and Thursday alcohol-free, and Bob joined the club in October. Once here in Corralejo we have been discovering acceptable alternative drinks:- fruity things in the supermarkets and alcohol-free beer in bars. As the latter is known as a "sin" there is scope for plenty of puns!
Anyway - until December we managed total compliance by straight swaps of days , but we confess that we have had a net loss of two days across the not insubstantial festive period. Read on! Still... one day at a time!

I am a Traveller - You are a Tourist - He is a Holidaymaker!

After our three days we took the bus down to Maspalomas - as we have done several times now -  for a lazy break based on a tourist complex. We were happy to return to Vista Flor - this time 60 per cent Scandinavian in occupancy - but at least they are generally well-behaved! We didn't do much - but that was the idea! Bob rented a bicycle for a few days and went for some rides up and down the coast. Ruth sometimes took the bus to meet him at strategic points. On one occasion he spotted a Paleo pal:- Fred (as in Zygos) had said he would be there, and  he was! It was very warm most of the time and Ruth used the outdoor pool on four of the days, but the wind was strong and gusty - preventing beach and sea activity. Both the world economy and global climate change have done yet more damage since last year. At commercial centres there are more closed businesses (especially at Faro2 which is reduced to just three restaurants), and at the big beach the wind and tides have swept away vast amounts of sand to greatly reduce beach depth. Various attempts have been made to reduce this erosion, but the effects don't look impressive!

Whenever we mentioned where we live there would be a remark about Fuerteventura being "quiet", and we were - once again - struck by the fact that the Gran Canarian resorts are different from Corralejo (although perhaps not too different from Caleta de Fuste!). In Maspalomas there is no sense that it is a functioning town, the timeshare menaces are still very present and active, restaurants all seem to have the same menu (often with pictures and/or translations into Finnish, Russian, etc), and Spanish is rarely heard! On the other hand there are some nice touches which come from the island having been developed for so much longer:- like the well-established Botanical Gardens, and substantial bus network.
We flew back on the Saturday and encountered rain at Las Palmas airport! We even managed to co-ordinate with Eileen who was picking someone up at the airport, so we were home  in super-quick time, with just two birthday-related activities ahead of us - Bob's registration with the Spanish Health Service, and the hosting of the tapas evening!
The former involved a bus trip down to Puerto del Rosario, bearing many, many documents. We found the right place, pulled our queue number from the machine, and waited half an hour or so. Then it was in to the fray, use Ruth's increasingly fluent Spanish, show the white paper from UK (S1), the green paper, the passport copy and off we went smiling!  We celebrated with tapas at our favoured bar near the port, seeing the new Olsen service (fast to Las Palmas), and in delightfully sunny weather. Then we did the business at the couriers to send off passports for Indian visas, had a beer and got the bus back! Jobs done!
... and then there was the party.. read on!

Hard Times for Some

As it happened our party day was also Election Day in Spain. Not much sign of it in Corralejo - some posters and a PP rally (the nasty ones!) - partly because of the Canarian parties. We had intended to locate a red rose to show our allegiances, but forgot - and that just makes worse the depression over the loss of the last significant socialist government in Europe!
Midweek we flew very, very cheaply to Las Palmas for the significant birthday! We stayed as before for three days near Canteras beach. They were preparing  the Belen sand sculpture for Christmas, but already in place was this magnificent opus for the elections. If you can interpret the precise message you have done better than us. Seemed in the right spirit, though!

 On the birthday itself we wandered down to the port area and saw that the Cunard "Queen Elizabeth" was visiting. Huge! Pleasingly it had deposited around the area - albeit for a very short time span - loads of pretty infirm pensioners! Greyrocks felt less decrepit!
We had some strong winds, but it was also frequently very hot. We checked out Galia :- the lovely French restaurant we had in mind for birthday dinner! It was closed and shuttered. Crisis and very sad! Later we came across the (former) owner, but couldn't ask the main question! He offered us a steak at another restaurant he is associated with. We declined and went instead to Triana at the other end of the city . Whilst wandering round looking for a place for lunchtime tapas we found La Travesia,,  saw its menu and booked for the evening. It is a charming old-style tapas bar, and treated us magnificently:- serving the craved duck magret beautifully cooked, and then bringing free flan with sparklers, and the punters sang Cumpleaños Feliz! And then half of Greyrocks was on a State Pension!
We atyed another day and then headed for Maspalomas.

Birthday Bashing

Half of Greyrocks is now on a state pension! Bob's birthday happened by design in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria - see next post - but just before we left Fuerteventura we held an event to celebrate it (and Ruth's almost forgotten 60th) with Corralejo chums.

We invited about 70, and about 50 turned up at some point in the afternoon or evening. Mike at the Casbah next door to the Rock did a buffet, we added some nibbles and Eileen made the cake. Pete and Dave took the request for some live music very seriously, and in fact played for hours. They had previously met a tourist called Mandy, and she did some numbers, as did our local Mel.

..and here is the slide show..

A good time was had by all!

Up in the Air - and Back on the Air

After the Lattes campsite we had one night in Perpignan (as did the Scttish rugby team) and then one in Salt near Girona. Thanks to Ryanair (Grrr) with its serious partial withdrawal from Girona airport we needed to avail ourselves of a new free service offered by Punt Central Parking. After saying goodbye to Yvette we were driven to Caldes railway  station which connects easily with the Barcelona airport Metro service. It takes a very long time, but works and is more leisurely  than the bus alternative. Then a packed flight and a pick-up by Windows Dave.
Home again - and a busy time of re-integration, research and repair! It was also the run-up to Bob's Big Birthday, but more of that later! The weather was wonderful at times, but did also feature a red alert for high tide, and some heavy showers. The atmosphere around town is more upbeat than we feared. In our absence:

• The old town re-paving has been finished and looks good
• The urn water feature has been removed after being smashed
• The Cafe Lounge has been under a couple of new managements and fingers are crossed
• The Temple Bar has moved
• Two new and very popular tapas bars have opened near the Shell Staion (one is the old Piratas)
• At the top of the High Street there are major roadworks to widen foot and cycle paths, but make the road one-way
• Our complex has the contentious artificial grass round the pool
• It is impossible to buy The Guardian and Independent

On a beautiful Sunday we made our first trip to the big beach, and caught sight of the International Kite Festival. Bob walked a long way further south for a better view - and here it is:

And back by popular demand... Ruth is once again on the radio, with a regular slot of Wednesday 12 till 2pm, and doing some cover slots, too! So tune in online to Hot FM for an eclectic mix of music and a teasing competition.

Languedoc for beginners

 So the second half of October was a blank slate. The weather predictions were slightly better for France than for Catalunya so after collecting the car we turned right rather than left from Girona, and headed into the region of Languedoc-Roussillon. The plan was to start at Lattes - almost a suburb of Montpellier but even closer to the sea (just west of La grande Motte), and then to come back south and stop at either Agde or Canet - the then favourite spots on this bit of coast. There was a slight thwarting of plans when we turned up at the selected campsite to discover there were two exhibitions on and so no space other than for tents. It was not tent weather, so we spent the night in a local Premier Classe, ate at the Campanile and went back the next day to Camping Le Parc to hire a mobile home. This was an excellent base, and the mobile was almost new and very comfortable. For the first week it was also very quiet - just a few camper-vans. We liked it so much that we booked a second week, making this the accommodation in which we have had the longest stay ever in France! It became busier, with the French half-term holiday, but still very restful. We stayed until it was about to close for the season.

Lattes is not exactly scenic - mostly huge shopping opportunities! It is also currently afflicted by major road works to make a new third tramway through the agglomeration - as far as the sea. This will go down the middle of widened roads, and will - in the spirit of Montpellier described in the Spring - be a grand projet to be proud of! If you don't understand how much better the French are at them take a look at this. Crisis, what crisis! On one of our cycling trips we saw a tram doing a trial run with dignatories and press in attendance.

The weather was - unsurprisingly - mixed! Here is the Metéos' map for one of those six or so days when we were definitely not going for a bike ride! This is when enormous French shopping malls come into their own, and when cheap Wi-fi with BBC radio plays and readings are de rigeur!  .. but there were also a handful of days when the weather was better than we had left behind in Greece! We much enjoyed the nearest seaside spot of Palavas - reached by cycling down the side of the Lez, and we also cycled  upstream to the centre of Montpellier on a beautiful day. There was a film festival in progress and we were once again impressed by this lovely city. We had just finished watching a series of TV programmes about Pathé so this building caught our notice!

 On the dodgy days we went out by car and visited other coastal towns. Le Grau was fairly quiet and attractive. On the way back a navigational error took us closer than planned to Aigues Mortes where there was a Camarguais show of some sort going on; and - of course - we saw a lot of flamingoes!

Star prize for energetic pursuit goes to Bob, who - on a perfect cycling day-rode to Perols and then alongside the Canal do Rhone à Sète ending up back in Palavas -a  ride of one and a half hours and flat as a pancake! He was then tempted by the dégustation of seafood - but resisted!