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!