Afterthought-odds, sods and Christmas presents

(Tricia in some of Esther's Christmas presents. There were more pictures uploaded but they seem to have been lost in the ether! Next time, hopefully.)




So excited about getting a comment on our blog this morning (thanks Naomi)that we are posting again. Keep up the rest of you!

First, to increase the educational content of this blog, a note on La Roche-see previous post about the restaurant. This is a private urbanicazion between Chiclana and Conil, the next town down the coast.Like all urbanicaziones (including ours) house owners pay a community charge, in addition to the local town tax, that pays for general maintenance. In our case, we have a man who comes round and sweeps up pine needles, a machine that looks a bit like an ancient steam engine and that goes up and down the streets a few times each year puffing out smoke, which we think is meant to act as a sort of pesticide, and a summer party with bouncy castle, sweeties and a disco. In the case of La Roche, which is a much bigger urbanicazion we think the cost is probably higher, benefits greater and we believe (on the authority of our friend Clare) that there are RULES!!!! All the gardens are immaculate. All the houses are freshly painted. Very Stepford!

And now for a little language session! The Spanish tradition is for mum and the kids to live at the seaside or in the country during the summer and for dad to stay at home during the week-so much so that there is even a phrase in Spanish-estar de Rodriguez-to describe dad's solitary state (although, curiously, no equivalent for mum!). La Roche is the bolt hole for rich Madrilenos and Sevillanos who want to indulge in this lifestyle.

OK,OK,OK, we will go away and leave you alone now till next year.

Hasta luego, chicos (or ninos if you are in Sevilla)

Tricia and Mike

New Years Eve

Greg and Clare post lunch at the restaurant at La Roche



TeamTierney



Christmas lunch at Casa Bernardo




Flipper!



Post lunch Christmas Day










Hola a todos. Lots to catch up on and more photos this time!

We have had a fairly quiet time since Christmas Day but Greg and Clare introduced us to a wonderful restaurant at Roche on Wednesday lunchtime, just down the coast. Lovely views over the sea and good food. Must return! The photos are not in order. The first two are at Roche. Flipper is the fish we cooked on Christmas eve (we were introduced to his brother at Roche and ate him baked in a salt crust which was carved off at the table by a waiter who also gave us the cooking instructions-lots of salt a little water, 20 minutes per kilo at 180 degrees). The rest are Christmas day-various stages of celebration/inebriation etc. Must learn more about this technology. Speaking of which, we now have a web cam (also thanks to Martin's expertise) and were able both to speak to and see Martin and Naomi yesterday. We are hoping for another Brighton/La Barrosa link up on New Year's Day. We do feel, however,that we should try and think of something of world significance to talk about.Waving at each other like mad people hardly seems to do justice to the technology!

Off for a walk now and then to the hotel for New Year's Eve. We have photos of us in our christmas outfits to post on here. No doubt by tomorrow there will be even more photos of us in our new year's outfits. Can you stand the anticipation and excitement?

A Happy New Year's Eve to you all.

Love

Tricia and Mike

Spain December 2005

Mike's bit

Well! We are back in La Barrosa on 'Boxing Day' morning with the rain falling gently outside. Such a lot has happened since we arrived on 1st December, before we set off for our 3 weeks 'adventure' in Seville. We have had such a fabulous time in that wonderful city and really felt at home there by the end.

The three weeks at the Don Quijote language school was to enable us to try out what worked for us and what didn't, as well as to learn a bit more of the language. We stayed in a Spanish home in accommodation arranged by the school and our host, Angeles, was a lovely woman, a great cook and quite mad. The above picture shows her (with customary housecoat because the apartment was so cold!) and Tricia, in front of her Christmas Belen (the word comes from 'Bethlehem' apparently. Angeles is our age with a daughter of 29 who lives elsewhere in Seville. It was hard to keep up with Angeles because she seems to have an amazing social life. On one of the weekends, for example, she went to the disco three times. She was rarely in bed before 3 or 4 am! She was a champion Sevillanas dancer (Seville version of flamenco) and would also burst into song at any moment.

We stayed with her on a half-board basis, although neither Angeles nor breakfast ever materialised before we left in the morning. (We found an excellent breakfast café where we ate every day). We did, however, get fabulous lunches and the girl sure could cook. There were lots of local dishes and Tricia now has a range of new recipes to try. Her tortilla espanola was wonderful. She has a very strong Andalucian accent which was particularly difficult to understand but we picked up a few bits, Tricia more than me. Angeles arranged for a stream of lunch-time visitors for our (and their) amusement. Her daughter Natalia, director of the Seville bull-fighting museum, came to lunch most days and we saw, also, Natalia's future mother-in-law (a Cuban woman) and several other friends and relatives.

On returning to Seville next year, and that is still our intention, we will certainly find our own apartment when we go back for a longer stay. At our age (!) we need a bit of personal space, somewhere to sit and read and not to have to move the two single beds together every night. We like the area on Triana, which is across the river from all the tourist sites and has a village feel to it.

The school experience was good, we thought, although the proof will be in how we absorb all the new stuff we learned (mainly the subjunctive) and then put it into practice. Our class was always a mixture of nationalities - from Germany, Brazil, Sweden, Greece, Turkey, USA, Hong Kong - and all the teaching was in Spanish. Most of the teachers were good but, in order to get some comparison next year, we may try the International House/CLIC school for a few weeks.

In Seville we found
- a cinema showing films in their original language (i.e. not dubbed into Spanish). We saw the new Woody Allen - 'Match Point'.

- a bookshop with a good 'books in English' section.

- English newspapers

- some excellent, and cheap, tapas bars

- a wonderful teteria (tearoom) in an old Arab bath-house

- generally very friendly and welcoming people.

Greg and Clare are here for Christmas and New Year with Adam and Alex. We had a Christmas Eve meal together at their house with some great food prepared by Tricia, Clare and Greg. Greg and I went to Chiclana market and bought 'Flipper', a huge dorada, which was one of the best fish I have ever tasted.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, as none of the beach restaurants were open, we all walked (in light rain) to restaurant Casa Bernado, which is about 4k from our house, towards Chiclana. It was very good and very Spanish, with lots of fish choices. On the way back we stopped off in a little bar for a quick drink. Several hours later we reached home!

Tricia's Bit

Not very much to add. Thank you to all our readers for your lovely Christmas presents.Courtesy of Naomi and Martin, we are looking forward to a weekend in Suffolk in February, when we have been promised trips to nice pubs and the best fish and chip shop in the world (the locals here would dispute that of course since fried fish is very much an andalucian thing.) Before then I shall be cooking,thanks to Sara from the excellent Nigel Slater Kitchen Diaries, whilst listening to one of Ann's CDs. As soon as we have worked out the technology, this site will have a number of photos of us modelling other gifts. In my case this includes an entire mix and match wardrobe from Esther (wardrobe as in clothes, not the piece of furniture) and in Mike's there are black leather cashmere lined gloves from Esther and a fab fat face scarf from Sara. You will all be relieved to know that Mike will not be modelling the England Football Team boxer shorts from his mum (which is not to say that he is not grateful). After this we will settle down with books bought with the book tokens from Mike's mum and dad and eat chocolate from Birmingham's German market thanks to Maureen and John. Our present to each other was the three fantastic weeks in Seville and, of course, we hope to put into practice this year all we have learned and to learn some more.

We'll be in touch again soon.