Scooty blog!

Well here it is, the long awaited Scooty Blog.

I had planned to put some good photos of my new scooty on here, but after a month of not getting round to taking any good ones, i am just going to stick this one on that i took standing in the door way of the clinic with the zoom out as far as it would go in case anybody saw me taking a photo of my own new bike!

Car crash cakes

No, this is not a scooty blog. I did just take a photo of the new scooty, but it was all sunny so there was loads of reflection. I will take a better photo this weekend.

Instead im posting a picture of my car crash cakes. I promised Jon i would make some cakes because his car got crashed.

They were eclairs because Michael likes eclairs, and i had been moody at him the day before, so they were doubling up as Sorry for being moody cakes too.

You have to be thrify in this current economic climate you know!

Anyway, they were very tasty!

Miss Ellany

Little Kew in bloom

Mega courgette ( its even bigger than the toaster!)




Creamy banana pie
( Not as fattening as it looks, but the mercadona fake philladelphia made it a bit runny!)

Birthday Blog: Brownies and Ballons!

Happy Birthday to me for last tuesday. I had a rather tafferish birthday as usual. i had to work in the day, but finished at 3. Then i went to see my friend who's birthday it was too, and she was having a Sweedish sandwich party in her Cafe, so i joined in. The Sweedish sandwich was huge, and had lots of fruit and salad and cheese and ham and mayonaise in. It really was the size of a baking tray, i have never seen anything like it!

In the evening michaels family came over and we had a BBQ on the balcony, amid my very own kew, which is coming on nicely, dispite not having alot of time to attend to it this year.The tree top walk will have to wait till next year!

It was a proper BBQ party because Mum had sent me balloons and pink serviettes which i made eveyone use, and i got straws with paper fruit on for 90c from mercadona. I also made a lovely jelly cake which i forgot to take a photie off. I did make some little birthday muffins though and michael make me lovely gooey chocolate brownies the weekend before.
Jane was out last weekend too, and we all went to the international feria and blues night. It was fun, but i burnt my mouth on some roast potatoes, and drank just enough to talk non stop about boob jobs for 3 hours and feel suitably embaressed.
Anyway i think Jane had a good time. We spent most if it on our new balcony sofas chatting, reading and drinking tea!

So, Thankyou for all my Happy Birthdays! Im still getting over turning 25, though Paul at work has made me promise not to grow up!

Squirrels, potatoes and Camu-camu's

Well, yet again Paul is away and im at work on my own. I already spend a few days painting the clinic, swapping all the plasic plants for real ones and removing the awfull old pictures in mismatching frames. This weekend i am going to buy some new frames and get a few photos i have taken of Spain and brighten the clinic up a bit more.

I have rung all the patients due for check ups (one of my least favorite jobs), ordered new stock (another of my least favorite jobs) and tidied the kitchen (stock room) and reception draws (the sort of jobs i can only stand when im REALLY bored). So i though with all of that done, i really have no excuse for not writing a blog!

I don't have anything overly exiting to tell you all, most of my time has been filled with thinking about studying, starting to study, then doing something far more interesting and important, like washing up, or making new cusion covers for the outside chairs. Oh and of course wearing in the now balcony sofas. The best thing about those is that the sun shines on them at certain times of the day, so i can get a tan lounging on the sofa!

Anyway, all of that is over for now, as i took my exam last monday. I think it went ok, apart from the weird questions on albino squirrels, osmotic potatoes and cumu cumu fruit! I was hoping to just draw a big carbohydrate and a few bits of DNA but it wasn't to be.

I managed to fill in most of the answer spaces with half sensible answers, rather than photosynthesis for all of them like Michael tells me he did! he was sure to get one right!

Now i have to wait till 20th Agust to get my results. In the mean time i can start learning about 'the voice of the genome' and 'biodiversity', and watch the spansih news and weather (yes, today it is 'Scorchio!)

A few weekends ago we went on a vespa do in La Cala. it turned out better than i though, we were sat next to couple while we were eating the paella (of course) so i practiced my spanish out on her, and i won on the raffle (as did everyone else) and got a pair of bicycle handles, a pair of pedals, and about 6 spark plugs, 2 straw hats, a other hats, a t shirt, and a load of other junk.

This weekend i will mostly be nagging Michael to take me to ikea. I have a family card now and they have an offer on fabrics, what better excuse to cut and stick and generly make a mess? If the results turn out ok, ill take some photos for you.

I will also be trying to find a new book to read, im in that awful situation when you have just finished a good book (A thousand splendid suns) and can't get into another one, though i bought ' the pirates Daughter' cheap in the bookshop yesterday, so ill give that a go. Its on the Richard and Judy summe reads, so what more can i say?!

Right, better get on with shuffling bits of paper i keep asking to Paul to sort out, and make the place look like ive done something.

Toodle pip

Mosquetes and patios

Semana Santa

Spanish Easter:

My Easter:

Meatballs, mud, markets and muffins

Oh, its really been ages since i wrote a blog hasn't it. Well,since the last on we have had chistmas (work, jamon, feinting) , new year (killer fireworks and late night kebabas) and valentines day (dressed up candle lit dinner and the worst lemon tart ever).

Last week I went back to England (tea with nanny, cheep sandles from primark, yummy roast dinner, watching voyager with Will, long 'walk' with Jon, snow! squidging in the mud in wellies, fish rissotto (my clothes still smell!), massive que at the cinema, lime in the coconut, larkrise to candleford, and back, moofan, pride of the river,Over indulged at carluccios, coffee before pudding! oxford market, hanging rabbits, more real ale, best cookies ever, short skirt-cold bum. meatballs and custard, saying bye at the airport.

Lets admit it, by the time i have written up a blog for everyday of my holiday no one will even care that i had one, or we will be onto the next on and you know how often we go on holiday!). SO im going to cut it down and just stick in the interesting pits and some photies.

Sunday

The shower broke this morning, luckily after i had already had mine! I held the shower hose onto the tap so michael could at least wash the soap out of his hair.

We went out for tostados con mermalada but ended up on the beach. I pursuaded michael to get his tootsies out and walk in the sea. We walked on and on and on, prorably most of the 8 k's of the beach.

On our way back we came across a manga convention. It was full of kids dressed as manga characters and there were big tents where you could do origami, or play card games and buy fanasy t shirts. Complete geek fest!

Finally made it back to the center and walked down a little alley to find a little flemenco festival!

Mon

Managed to fit an old semi broken hose to the shower and went out for toastados by the market. They have special churros stands where you buy them wrapped in newspaper like fish and chips, then go to a cafe and order and hot chocolate to dip them in.

The market was full of fruit and veg stalls. We bought clementines that were green on the outside but delicious on the inside. Also saw a girl get her leg stuck in a hole in the grating.She got it out though.

Went of in serch of food, and after the mandatory trek found a german bar and had some lovely tapas and a cana.

Mooched around some more and found a bar with a big picture of barney form the simpsons and a speech bubble saying 'pon me mas' (give me more beer). Had a few canas then headed of in search of food. Found a tapas bar/restaurante with lots of big legs of serano ham hanging up. We had 6 pinitos de pollo ('ito' signifies little, whcih they wern't) and some chips and headed off.

Tue

Set of in the car as its a holiday and most things are closed. Food lots of shopping centers around Jerez so had a look and ate kebab (very spanish!)

Drove around Jerez to get the general idea but couldn't be bothered to get out (still ill). Like most places it is nicein the center but a bit scanky on the outskirts.

I was woken from my siesta by a little boy outside the window shouting 'mama, quiero ver la prosecion' (mum, i want to see the procesion). So i said 'michael, i want to see the prosesion'.

Had coffee while figuering out where the noise was coming from and followed the crowds to the the cathedral. The streets are so narrow there was no chance of seeing anything and spanish religous prosesions take hours to move, so we stood on the steps of the cathedral and managed to see the top of one of the floats.

Wed

Went back to the cathedral and climbed the tower. The views were pretty impressive. As cadiz is sort of stuck out on its own you can see to the sea in all directions.

We came down and had a look at the fish in the market which made me feel a bit sick. Pottered about for a bit then went in search of lunch. We were trying to find a street we had seen before full of fish restaurants but these roads have a habbit of disapering when you want to find them again. Anyways we were walking around when we both suddenely stopped and sniffed. a delicious smell was waffting from a small tapas bar we wouldn't have otherwise seen. First we ordered potatoes with chorizo, and bacalao (salf cod) salad. They were so yum we ordered carne mecha too which is roast pork in a thick meaty gravey. It was delicious and with 4 drinks only came to 15€

We walked around the shops for a bit and i came away with my wallet a bit lighter by the time we sat down for churros and chocolate. The waiter short changed me 1€ too!

Thur

Tried to find the fried fish street again but still could't so went back to the german bar. I made Michael walk through the city gardens by sea. They were quite small but very pretty and well kept.

Despite it being windy in the morning it was hotting up. Nothing for it but the beach! We even swam in the sea! It was F*****g freezing, but we soon got used to it. It was a really nice beach with a really shallow shore an no stones.

Found a bar alled the wookstock bar and had a few pre dinner drinks. It was a cool bar playing oldschool music like pink floyd and had loads of international beers.

We walked in the drizzle to a little pizza place i had spotted earlier. It was good Pizza! We went back to he bar for a post dinner drink and headed off after we heard the last orders bell (in Spain?!)

Fri

I had totally caught michaels cold by now but we set of in the rain to the subteranean archeological building where the owner of our apartment works. She had invited us to look around and it was pretty interesting seein gthe cannons and things that they had taken from the sea and the processed the different materials had to go through now they were out in the air.

We stopped for lunch at the good smelling tapas bar and on the way back walked past that bloddy fried fish street, it was right by the apartment! (never got any fried fish!)

Weirdly there were loads of dragonflies everywhere today, like swarms of them.

We decided to head for home a day early as the weather was getting bad, and we were not getting much better. We had seen and enjoyed as much of cadiz as we were going to that week and headed home to recover!

Holiday blog 1: Colds and cockerels

Blog time! I wrote a little diary while we were on holiday so i could remember all the good things to tell you, but it turned out a bit longer than planned so i maight have to do it in installments, which isnt so bad coz then i can put more pictures in, and maybe even a video clip if i can get it to work.

We have all got the lurgy here, even over our holiday, but michael is out in the kitchen cooking me up a casarol to make us feel better.

Here goes with the holiday:

Saturday

Left pretty late coz i had booked an emergency hair cut in the morning, then took a slightly longer route by tarifa but got here fine. Some idiot had forgotten to print of a map or the adress of our apartmet, so i had to run to an internet cafe to print them off so we could find our way through the maze of narrow streets to our house.

The woman was waiting and showed us in, showed us the clean laundry on the line and the towels still in the washing machine. Oviously we change the bed ourselves. On carefull and sniffing i suspected that very little had been cleaned, and whoever took the photos for the website must have been a dab hand at photoshop. I finally found the toaster in the cupboard but there is still no kettle. Nevermind, its small and cosy and fine for what we want.

We popped out for a quick look around and to park the car. Its very pretty in the old town, right by the sea. We walked by some gardens and stopped in a square for a cana some tapas of albondigas (meatballs) which were delicious! We also saw a woman feint in the cafe.

As we walked back we saw new parts of the city, and parts we seemed to have past a few times already, so round and round we went till we finally found home.

Decided to stay in for the evening as michael had caught my sore throaty ague thing with extra bunged up nose and aching.

I must have woken up 20 times in the night, there was a baby crying,a kid with a recorder, doors banging, people chatting outside the window, scooters starting and someone dragging a bloddy dustbin up and down the cobbled street. Finally got some sleep but was rudely awoken by a cockerel?!

At Last, a blog!

Its been a while, sorry, but here are some pictures of the beer festival we went to the last 2 weekends.

Everything has started to get busy here again. Summer hours are over and normal opening hours have resumed. That means working late for me.
Although there was another bank holiday last week and of course everything will shut down on feria week in october...

The beer festival was fun. The first time we went they ran out of good beer so we had to drink this weird german wheat beer. It was disgusting. The evenings entertainment was a load of drag queens singing and dancing. The sencond night we were there they got pushed off stage by the brazillian dancers and the brass band. Everyone loved them and were all dancing on the tables, including me, fuelled by the litre glasses of beer michael kept buying us.

I managed to get michaels mum up to do the YMCA but then i was on my own, jigging away all night.

Over the 2 weekends i managed to smuggle out a 1/2 litre and a litre beer glass with the munich october fest picture on the side. They are sitting proudly with my random collectiong of plastic wine glasses and barbie plates. Michael seems to have spent most weekends lately worse for wear (ok and me to) and hasn't got round to using them yet.

Last night i went out with a friend for some tapas and a few drinks. So today i just about managed to do the shopping and get a coffee and now im just chillin, watching memoirs of a geisha and trying to catch up on some emails! Not too different to last weekend, i spent the whole of sunday on the sofa reading.

Well, mum and dad are over on wednessday to sort me out, and i have a new course starting soon, so no rest for the wicked!

One virgen and lots of fireworks

Our visitors finaly got here at about 11 on sunday night, it took us ages to get to the airport because of queues and John had got trapped out of the airport when he went for a ciggerette, so we missed top gear and ended up eating very late.

I was working most of the week exept friday but michael had thursday off too, so we went down to fuengirola because i wanted to see the festival of virgen del carmen, the saint of fishermen. Apparently they parade a statue of her around for hours, then take her down to the see and have loads of fireworks.

I only just managed to catch the fireworks but they were spectacular! I was right at the front of the beach near the water with a totally unobstructed view of the peir where fireworks were being set off down the whole length. The sky was totally filled and the were so loud i could feel it right through my body. Its a shame the pictures don't do it justice.

Everyone (exept me as i had work) was hungover on thursday so we just went out and played mini golf in the evening, but friday we went out to Malaga, had a look around and spent a fair amount of time eating and drinking. They have put big sun shades up in the mainstreet. There was also some excavaition going on, and a big ampitheatre being uncovered.

Their holiday wes finished of with a big steak at an argentinian restaurant in fuengirola. We have spent the rest of the weekend tidying up, resting and being hot!