December 2012 - A Fun Month

Madrid's Gran Via at night

The month started with the annual Patronal Procession.

Our branch of the U3A has been invited for the last two years to be part of this event which is a feast day for the patron saint of Torrevieja. I suppose it can be said that this isn't a saint in the true sense but more of an event in itself. The feast is the Immaculate Conception. Catholics believe this to be the conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in her mother's womb, free from Original Sin.

Each year at the beginning of December, a procession takes place starting from "The White Cathedral" and winding through the streets to the main church of the Immaculate Conception in the town square. Here offerings of flowers which have been carried in the procession are made to the church and they are placed in a framework either side of the main doors.

Our members preparing for the procession

Our floral presentation

The British military representation

The Parish Priest receives each floral display

The church on 2nd December

Representatives from many organizations are proud to be invited to take place in the procession which is followed by the inauguration of the Nativity scene, also known as a Belén, in the Plaza de la Constitución. This is more than the traditional "crib" of English towns and churches but a whole Nativity Story set out in a large tableau, complete with villages, temples, etc. Many towns have a Belén in Spain and, unlike in vandalized England, they will remain untouched throughout the Christmas period. The joke is always to find the person doing what he shouldn't be seen doing - like taking a poop behind the barn. There is a whole tradition behind Beléns in Spain and the setting up of them is a delight for children as it begins the Christmas festivities.

The last two photographs show how the local interest is put in.
In Torrevieja's case it is the salt industry.

Mid month we travelled to Madrid. We have promised ourselves that we would visit this city before long and we, along with our friend Penny, were invited by Sue, another of our friends who intended to go there to see the Gaugin exhibition.

We travelled on an organized trip with Dave's Coaches, a much grander company than it sounds, for a visit of three days, two nights.

We set off at the crack of dawn, stopping en route for lunch and comfort breaks (and for Kathie to buy very expensive but extremely comfortable leather boots) and arrived in the city in mid-afternoon.

What a fabulous city. We were given a tour around the major boulevards on our arrival and were most impressed. Big wide avenues, impressive monuments and fountains, and posh shops galore.

On our first evening we had decided to visit the Gaugin exhibition as it was open until quite late. By taking our passports along to show that we were of pensionable age we were admitted at a reduced rate. I am not a fan of Gaugin and his works were mixed with those of other painters. Some of them in my eyes were just a waste of paint and canvas but each to their own.

The city was decked out in its Christmas regalia and the weather was fine so we continued with a walk to the Atocha railway station, the scene of the bomb atrocity committed there in 2004 when 191 people were killed. The station has been put to new use and the whole of the old central plaza is a giant tropical garden, with craft and market stalls around the walls. We sat outside a cafe and had a bottle of wine and a chat then found our way into an old quarter where we had dinner in a Moroccan restaurant.

A "Garden Wall"

Christmas decorations

The area approaching The Atocha Station

The Tropical Garden in the old Atocha Station

Being pensioners has a few advantages and the following day we were able to take the open top tour bus at a much reduced rate for a guided tour around the city. We made good use of the bus and were able to criss-cross the two routes available, alighting wherever we wanted. It was bloody cold however and more than one of us wished we had taken warmer coats out with us that day. Kathie ended up with a hoodie which stated "I Love Madrid", it being the cheapest means of getting warm.

Ski suits would have been a better option

The Eternal Flame

Madrid's version of a Belen

The Bernabeu Stadium - home to Real Madrid - in the heart of the city.

Penny and I travelled to another exhibition once Kathie had decided to go back to the hotel and here we were able to see Picasso's famous painting The Guernica. It is huge. I did not expect to see something so large. It is over seven metres wide and three metres high. It was closely guarded and photographs were forbidden but - WOW! I felt really moved just to be seeing this picture with what it meant etc.

The Guernica

In the evening we walked from our hotel, past the Madrid Royal Palace opposite, past the Cathedral, and into the old centre of Madrid with its narrow streets and old market area. In there was a Christmas market which is strictly controlled so that all the stalls are only allowed to sell Christmas related goods. I have never seen so many stalls selling articles for Nativity scenes. Baby Jesuses, donkeys, oxen, cribs, bundles of fake straw etc. etc. were available at every stall in sizes from the minute to the enormous.

The Royal Palace

The Cathedral

A statue of Pope John Paul II

A little hidden courtyard

The Christmas market

In the new indoor market area were stalls serving mulled wine, chocolates, cheese, cakes and other goodies. We sat for a while and it was quite a wrench to leave the convivial atmosphere and find somewhere for dinner. This turned out to be a small cafe a couple of streets away from the market. Prices dropped amazingly quickly as we moved into the smaller streets.

On our final morning Kathie and I had a walk around the park at the back of the Royal Palace before we all boarded the bus for our trip home.

We will be Back!

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November 2012 - Bike riding

November was a bad month for weather here on the Costa Blanca. We had over two weeks when we had no sunshine, it was very cloudy, cool (12-14 degrees) and with the occasional rain shower. (Sounds like a weather forecast for high summer in the UK).

So when the sun finally broke through we decided that we had put things off for long enough and got out the bicycles.

It was like being on holiday all over again.

We did two of the rides we had been planning, along the long causeway at Lo Pagan, and along the sea path from Mil Palmeras to Torre de la Horadada.

The pictures are from a later ride but the weather was just as beautiful.

Timmy was in the basket on Kathie's bike and seemed to enjoy it. We will see next time we get out the basket. If he runs and hides we will take that as a "No Thanks!!"

Great fun was had and it set us up, ready for the winter and many more rides we hope.

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October 2013 - RIP Tina

In October we sadly lost our little dog Tina to a tumor in her stomach.

She was 10 years old.

We bought Tina and Timmy in 2006 after a lot of soul searching.

Our dog Henry had died the previous October and Kathie was not on top form for many reasons. However, in her own words, she felt "dogless", and was ready to take on another pet. Having seen an advert in the local pet shop for two Yorkshire Terriers for sale, Kathie at first ignored it but after some time they were still there. The shop owner advised that they were in a poor state and could no doubt be had for not much money.

Kathie visited the owner and was shocked at the dogs' appearance, but Tina took to her straight away and the bond was sealed.

A deal was struck and we collected the two underfed, unwashed, un-neutered, uncombed, unvaccinated, little animals and took them home.

First job, bathing them then cutting away the tear residue from around their eyes which had built up into marble-sized balls. Tina was in-season at the time so both dogs had a high aroma factor. They scrubbed up well.

Both dogs were completely traumatised as they had led their lives either locked in a back yard, or locked in a back scullery. They had no concept of playing, had no bed apart from a dirty old sheet, and their toilet had been an old towel.

Timmy was quick to recover but it took Tina a couple of years before she stopped shivering when you tried to pick her up as, I suspect, the only reason anybody had bent down to her in the past was to smack her.

The first time she ran on her own was when we took them to Ainsdale Beach in 2008 and she suddenly took off and enjoyed the space.

We enjoyed having Tina until the end and felt that she had several happy years with us, much better than the cold and damp place she had been living in previously.

When she died it was a very sad day for both Kathie and I but I think even more so for Timmy as they had been together for over nine years and everywhere he went he was looking for her. We will continue to look after him until he goes to meet his maker then I think we shall become helpers rather than owners.

There are many dog sanctuaries around here that need help and are always struggling for volunteers and cash so we will see what we can do...

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September 2012 - Eduardo

Introducing Eduardo

This is for Coral and Catherine.

Our friend Coral is Head Teacher of a primary school. For entertainment she has a little teddy bear which gets up to all sorts of adventures and these stories are related to the children. We recently took Little Ted on holiday to Spain and have reported on the great time he had.

Catherine is our lovely granddaughter and loved seeing all the pictures of Ted in Spain so this Blog is for her so she can see Eduardo on holiday in England.

Catherine with a bubble-blowing machine

Ted's Spanish Cousin Eduardo made a return visit to England and some of his pictures are shown here for Catherine and the kids at Coral's school.

Eduardo at lunch

...driving a bus

...standing guard at the Palace.

... visiting Rochdale

... with The Green Man

... in an English pub

Eduardo meets a Pendle Witch

... in the Pendle countryside

Eduardo became the owner of a new pet whilst in England. This is his little dog Perrito.

Eduardo with his new pet

... with Michael

... at the Garden Party

... with Wallace...

... and of course his good friend Gromit

Taking the sun in Hawes

Meeting his big cousins the Hawes Teddies

Sitting on the head of a fox

Eduardo and Perrito meet Josh for lunch

Eduardo visited Cambridge to see Tommy and Norma and took a tour of the city on an Open Top Bus

On the Cambridge Open Top Bus

With Norma and the King's College Gatekeeper

Relaxing in the sunshine inside King's College

Looking very lost in the countryside...

At Catherine's sixth birthday party.

On the way home to Spain in a French hotel

And finally back at home in the mountains on the Costa Blanca.

Eduardo had a wonderful time in England and enjoyed meeting people.

He hopes to visit again in 2013.

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August 2012 - A Visit to Cambridge

 

Our friends Norma and Tommy, good friends we had met in Spain via the U3A, invited us to their house near Cambridge for a couple of days. We have never visited this part of England so we were keen to visit and take the promised "open-top" tour of the City.

 

On arrival Tommy took us for a ride around the lovely countryside in the area and showed us the farm he used to own before retirement. After that I settled down to one of my usual (and favourite) jobs, that of bringing Norma's MP3 player up to date and loading it with more talking-books and radio-plays. Norma took up listening to an MP3 player only two years ago after hearing some of my stuff whilst I was working on their PC in Spain. I bet there aren't many ladies who venture into MP3 listening in their eighties. Since then she has acquired a Kindle and both items help her to continue enjoying the books she loves without eye strain.

After a lovely dinner and enjoyable evening we retired to bed ready for our next-day tour.

Cambridge have provided a huge Park and Ride car park just outside the city and from there we were also able to board the open-top bus to take us on our tour. We were so lucky in this horrible summer of 2012 to have such marvelous weather.

What a marvelous service. On boarding (£9.00 for wrinklies) we were given a set of headphones each (small in-the-ear type) and advised that we could alight and re-board as many times as we wished throughout the day.

The route took us into the heart of Cambridge and the commentary gave out interesting facts about the route and about the major buildings and colleges which we passed on the route. We alighted in the city centre to do some shopping followed by lunch in an Italian Restaurant in the market square. We had a short walking tour around some of the colleges and quirky shops and Norma charmed the gate keepers of King's College into letting us in to take a few photographs without paying the usual entry fee.

Norma and the Gatekeeper. The Teddy you can see on

his shoulder (Eduardo) was on tour from Spain

and his story will be reported on separately

 

 

All around were young people politely asking us if we wanted to be taken for a punt on the Cam. Sadly we did not have enough time but if we go again we will definitely give it a try.

We stopped to listen to two violinists busking on the street and they gave a fabulous rendition of Winter from The Four Seasons.

All around us were old buildings and famous Colleges and about (so it felt) about 10,000 bikes. The constant mode of transport. Road bikes, mountain bikes, shopping bikes, all were being put to use to get around.

We later heard on the bus commentary that students are not allowed cars within five miles of their colleges but as this was the close-season for University Life it appeared that more than just students chose this are their means of transport.

We then visited what has to be the best stocked sweet shop I have ever seen. I asked, but they would not lock me inside overnight.

There was one black note on the day and that was caused by the tour-bus driver who failed to stop for us at a designated bus stop when we wished to board to complete our tour. Kathie banged on the side of the bus and he then stopped but argued that he had already picked up his passengers some 50 metres short of the stop and did not see us. He was most rude and set off before we had time to take our seats thus endagering Norma and Tommy who are both disabled. We asked that he stopped again and he invited us to leave his bus but we declined and took our seats on the upper deck. Norma was to report him but I don't know if she did or not.

We continued with our tour and discovered more interesting facts. One of them was that Cambridge University used to employ people to stand in the Railway Station to stop students from boarding trains during term time and thus keeping them from the high-life of London etc. The car park at the station had the first double-decker bike rack I have ever seen and there must have been at least a thousand bikes parked there or chained to any immovable object.

Back to the house for drinks and dinner and to meet Norma and Tommy's daughter and son-in-law. Great company and a great evening. We left mid-morning on the next day (still sunny) after what had been a short but very enjoyable visit.

Our thanks to our new friends for making it so.

August 2012 - In praise of the iPad

Ever since the iPad was announced I have been telling people that it is not for me, it is just a large iPod Touch, it won’t run MS Office applications etc. etc. Add to that the number of colleagues who have bought iPads then spent the next weeks trying to turn it into a Windows mini-PC by buying apps to liaise with MS Office, apps to make it print, methods of adding storage, and any other thing you can think of to change the product from what it was designed to be.

I did however want a tablet PC for its size, portability, etc.

Whilst preparing for our seasonal migration to England I was looking for a better method of connecting to the Internet than the dongle we used in 2011. Living in the countryside, on a caravan park without our own telephone landline poses connectivity problems and our Internet connection has to be via a mobile phone network. Of the major networks we found Three to be the best for 3G in the area where we live in the Yorkshire Dales. O2's phone connection is good but they do not recommend using their network for the Internet.

Looking through the options on Three's website I found that they offer a laptop or iPad as a means of connecting to their 3G network. This gave me the push I needed and with a large chunk of mental rationalisation I went for the iPad-3, 32GB, 3G model. It costs me £25 per month and is like a mobile phone contract. I stay with Three for the two year contract, and included in the charge is 15GB of Internet traffic per month and no initial charge for the iPad itself. In Spain I have been paying 34 Euros per month for only 10GB of traffic from Vodafone and this does not include an iPad although it does include a wireless router. There are lots of pros and cons to argue about the cost of the contract in the UK but over 2 years I am happy to pay for this solution.

An so to the iPad itself. It is just a joy to use. I read all the pitfalls before I decided to buy it so was well prepared for the things it will not do. For instance it has only 32GB of on board storage which nets down to about 27GB after the operating system etc. This storage can not be increased neither can you insert a memory stick or card. By modern day standards this is not a lot but you have to remember what the iPad is for.

It is not a PC. It works extremely well as a supplementary PC as long as you have another one at home on which to store large amounts of data, films, music etc.

What it is though is a very stylish and easy-to-use portable device on which you can create documents and spreadsheets, receive emails, navigate using GPS, surf the net, take photographs and short videos, talk to people via Skype, play games (if you really want to, but not on mine whilst I breathe), read books in PDF, Kindle, or epub formats, read newspapers, and view your favourite photographs. It will act as a Wi-Fi hotspot so that you can connect other PCs to the Internet. It is instantly "on" when you open the case or slide the unlock icon on the screen and a full charge will give you up to 10 hours of use. The display is the best display you will ever see.

The new Operating System to be released in the autumn of 2012 promises even more features.

Applications for it are either free or are usually quite cheap. Apple produce their own version of a mobile Office Suite which produces files which may be saved as Microsoft compatible files. Compatibility is not 100% as some of the clever things which may be created in Pages (the word processor) will not work in MS Word. However the finished document can easily be saved direct from the iPad as a PDF document thereby keeping all that clever formatting. The spreadsheet application is called Numbers and to date I have not really given it a thorough workout but I expect great things from it. Both applications come with a huge supply of templates so that you can begin to easily create beautiful looking documents or spreadsheets from the off. Total cost for both apps is less than 14 quid.

Both of these major apps have their detractors but what doesn't. Some of the comments I have read are from people who have bought an iPad and are expecting it to act like a full blown desktop PC. Get real! If you want all the bells and whistles of MS Word then pay the price for MS Office (about £170) and there they will be. All of this extra functionality (and there is not really much extra you can do in Word) can then be used on a net book if you want portability.

Over the coming months I will be exploring the useful apps which are available for this device and seeing what more I can do with it.

From all this it may be gathered that I have been converted to being a fan of the iPad. I would like to become a fan of Apple overall as I also love the iPod and iPhone but alas their computers are outside my price range at present. Add to that the fact that my friends in Spain who I teach in our Computer Group are all on MS Windows then it becomes less of a viable move.

If the lottery comes up then blow it, I will have both.