December 2009 – Christmas in Spain

The winter sunrise provides me with a wonderful photograph.

2009 has been a strange year for holidays and I have not been to the apartment since Easter. This time however the Christmas holiday has a major purpose and we want to re-furnish so that everything will be ready for us to move in permanently come May/June 2010.

A further delight for me was to see the beach back in order after the October floods and the pool and communal areas finished and ready for those long hot days I hope we will be enjoying.

A Christmas Day Greeting from the beach

Our pool

Back to the furniture. The Spanish have a different view on furniture in many ways. One is that they do not become so emotionally attached to it and will leave it all in the house when the house is sold. Another is that the stores all deliver from stock and one does not have to wait for six weeks or so.

Our original furniture was supplied as a package when we bought the apartment and has served us splendidly. It was not of good quality however and it is time to part with it. We have been visiting furniture stores frequently to gather ideas over the last couple of years and it was delightful this time to be able to go in and choose the items we wanted. We want to maintain the “holiday feel” to the place so do not want dark wooden items. We found that the best combination of price and quality were to be had in a large store in Los Montesinos, about twenty minutes drive away.

We visited the store on a Tuesday and were promised delivery and installation (yes they always build and install) on the following Saturday. The furniture arrived as promised and the two men installed it all in about two hours. There was a slight problem with one item and one of the men drove back to the store and exchanged it without question.

We like it, what do you think?....

Our new furniture. Click each picture for a better view.

This Christmas was quite cold and for the first time in many years we saw snow on the Costa Blanca.

View across San Miguel towards Crevillent

Drivers reported that certain villages were actually cut off and that snow-chains were required on some roads.

November 2009 - A Night in Blackpool

Continuing with the “last visit before we leave” theme we decided to have a night in Blackpool to see the Illuminations. This would be our first visit since about 1978. The weather promised by the forecasters was not good and we pushed through flooded lanes and between waterlogged fields to get there.

The Illuminations haven’t changed much in the 30 years since we last saw them apart from becoming more commercialized and sponsored.

We booked a package at the Blackpool Hilton which is a huge hotel and is where all the VIPs stay when in town. Our night-out coincided with “Strictly Come Dancing’s” one visit to the Blackpool Tower in 2009 and we saw several people from the show whilst we were there. No complaints about the hotel and the food and service were exemplary.

The weather was atrocious but we were not to be outdone. Working on the principle that at least your skin is waterproof we went out into the pouring rain to “see the sights”.

One of the first sights was the long queue formed by the guests for “Strictly” who were standing along the pavement for about 300 metres waiting to get in to the Tower. I hope they enjoyed the show and that the long wait was worth it. We viewed them at about 3:30pm with at least another two hours to wait.

The rain continued relentlessly but we were determined to take a walk. Blackpool is not for the faint hearted on a winter day!

Since my last visit, Central Pier now has a fun-fair built on it and one of the attractions is Kathie’s great love, a big wheel. There was nobody on it when we arrived but we bought tickets and the owner set it off for us. "Must be mad" he probably thought. Anyway we did about a dozen rotations in this thing with the rain beating down and the wind howling. We must have started a trend because when we finished there was a queue of other lunatics waiting to have a go.

Childhood memories then suggested that we visit Madame Tussaud’s Wax Works but the price has risen to such a level that we gave up on the idea. Other memories were completely wiped out by what has become of the Golden Mile. Everywhere seems to be either a rock shop or a slot arcade. Still people only get what they want so visitors must like the place in general. It doesn’t appeal to me but other folk enjoy it.

We decided then to take a tram back to the hotel and come out again when the illuminations were on and make the entire trip in one of Blackpool’s illuminated trams.

Once on board the standard tram we realized that we couldn’t see out of the steamed up windows so gave up on the idea.

We did take another walk later and really enjoyed ourselves despite the rain.

On a serious note. I would like to congratulate Blackpool Council on the way they tastefully and respectfully incorporated their Cenotaph into the Illuminations. They had a projector showing images and verses on the Cenotaph commemorating the war-dead, especially those who have died in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

We forgot to take a camera with us so the photographs here were taken on a mobile phone and are not of good quality.

The illuminated tram photos are (c) AN Other as I borrowed them from the Web.