This is just a quick note to say thanks to Ray, Pepa and Joe for a lovely evening at their place recently. Ray (my boss at the school) cooked us a fantastic vegetarian-stlye-christmas-dinner of homemade nut roast and vegetables from his garden. Yum. Dave and I were very surprised to find that our hosts had […]

At the end of this month, we’re renting a car to undertake a ten day roadtrip around the Andalucia region of this fine country. We’ll start off with a night in the Troglodyte Cave Hotel in Guardix, near to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountain range. A short drive away we’ll find the beautiful city of […]

I can’t believe it. Not only did the Hollywood Casting Zone not employ Squiffy and I to play as Iraqi militia in next year’s blockbuster movie (working title: The Green Zone), but they couldn’t even see what a fine military transport Yoko might make with a camouflage paint job. She very upset. Unbelievable. Seems as […]

Catamarans are generally perceived as the F1 of boats, so when John, a local sailor, invited me out on his Stealth F-16 Cat, I was excited about the prospect of zipping across the Mar Menor, on a trapeze with the wind in my hair. However, as on most occasions when I make the effort to […]

…the mice will play. And I am a mouse. Squiffy recently went back to the UK for a couple of days, leaving me to make my own fun in Los Alcazares. I spent the evening in the bar at Hotel 525 as, for the price of a coffee and three cervacas, I can use their […]

A Hollywood film production company are in town shooting one of next year’s [hopefully] blockbuster movies. We heard on the grapevine that they’re  looking for North American- or Iraqi-looking extras to act as either soldiers or journalists, so we paid a visit to their Casting Zone — a make-shift office in one of the local […]

(From Los Angeles to Los Alcazares.) There we were in the local bar drinking coffee, reading newspapers (my new pastime) when this American guy walks in an asks the barman if he has the Fox sports channel, so that he can watch the college [American] football game that’s on in a couple of days time. […]

Christmas Day is not such a big day here in Spain. Rather Three Kings Day, on the 6th of January, is traditionally the day that the children receive their presents from the New Testament’s Three Wise Men. The night before, each village in Spain throws a party to celebrate the coming of the Kings. Santiago […]

In between glorious warm sunshine, we get the occasional bout of heavy rain. Here’s a picture of the road outside my front door — still it’ll be bone dry in two hours…

Almost straight after my sister left, Mum & Dad came over for a a few days to relax (and to give and get their presents – thanks!). Unfortunately both the bad weather and my poor Mum falling ill from day one meant that we didn’t get to go out as much as I had hoped. […]