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Another reminder that nothing comes for free
Posted by Squiffy on January 24th, 2008
I made a trip home recently to see my family and sort out a few logistical things. On my way to the UK, at Murcia airport, I was asked the standard question “Do you have any liquids in your hand luggage?”. I showed them my pot of lip balm and they waved me on my way. When I returned to Spain, via East Midlands Airport, I faced the same enquiry. On production of the pot of lip balm I was told that I needed to put it in a clear plastic bag. Of course, this is routine procedure in this day and age, but I generally forget, partly due to the fact it isn’t imposed in every airport.
I told the security guard that unfortunately I didn’t have one with me and waited for him to produce one from the airport’s stack. He smiled and said “I’m afraid we don’t give them out now, this rule has been in place for 2 years you know and we can’t give them out for free any more”. With this, he lead me to a vending machine, yes, a vending machine, in which every slot was filled with plastic bags, with a sale price of 2 for 50p. “Why two?” I wondered, he shrugged and grinned again. As I swung my rucksack off my shoulder to dig for 50p, I noticed a food bag in one of the pockets, obviously from a previous flight. The clever-sneaky-forward thinking people who created and installed these machine won’t be making any money out of me just yet.
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Hollywood film production team? Read here!
Posted by daveb on January 15th, 2008
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 hotels. Turns out we couldn’t quite complete the registration form as we didn’t have our Spanish resendency details with us at the time (we’ll take them along next week).
One of the production folks also displayed a passing interest in using our vehicle in the film — it’s a 1982 Volkswagon Transporter (internally converted to a camping car). As promised, there’s a photo of it below. And, yes, we’d be happy for you to change the livery as you see fit — we understand that military transporters aren’t generally white with Web-addresses emblazened down the side (they’ll peel off with hot water).
One thing though: Please don’t blow her up. Or if you do, please give us some money for her!
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From LA to LA: Tinseltown comes to town
Posted by daveb on January 14th, 2008
(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. Rare indeed is it to have somebody from across the pond in this neck of the woods, so I opened my ears to try to figure out from whence he came. I was at the bar at the time, just settling the bill and overheard him say that he, along with a film crew who have filled the local hotel, are in town to shoot ‘on location’ in a military base just a few minutes walk down the beach promenade from here. The hotel in which they are staying has the appearance of being closed over the winter, so it got me wondering whether there might be some big names in town hiding behind the locked door.
Naturally, I was curious to find out more as the biggest names that we usually have here on the Costa are Star Dogs who are touring the bars of Benidorm as I type. Outside the bar, we got chatting to the guy and discovered that the director of ‘United 93‘ and ‘Bourne Identity‘ was in town making a new Hollywood film, the title as yet undecided and that Matt Damon was also here too.After telling us that he just flew-in from Los Angeles today, Squiffy asked the man what his job was and got the slightly downplayed-response of “I’m an actor”. To which she responded, “Oh! Anyone we should have heard of?”.Bless him, the poor bloke could only respond with “Umm, probably not in that case then, no”. In fairness to him, there is no good way to answer this question: One can hardly say “Of course! Don’t you know who I am?!”He introduced himself as Sean and we said our good lucks and goodbyes. For all we know, we’ve just met a A-list celebrity and Squiffy just told him to pick-up one of the local free papers to get the TV sport listings.
I might go out for a bike-ride a bit later on an do some further undercover investigative work, in my bright blue helmet. It’s amazing how one finds things to pass the time…
STOP PRESS: With the help of the Internet, we’ve deduced that the film is likely to be ‘Imperial Life in the Emerald City‘ by Paul Greengrass, starring Matt Damon.
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Three Kings Fiesta
Posted by daveb on January 13th, 2008
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 de la Ribera, the next village up the coast from us, throws a particularly good fiesta in which the Kings arrive by boat and then travel on horseback along the high street, flanked by carnival-style floats from which gifts and sweets are thrown by children in costume.
In all the weeks that we’ve lived in this area, Squiffy and I haven’t seen anything like the crowd that descended upon this village — parking our car was no trouble at all, so we’re left wondering where everybody came from. We really enjoyed the evening and were particularly amazed at Spain’s take on Health and Safety: Fireworks being set-off from an uncordoned patch of sand on the beach just next to us. Small children, each brandishing a flaming torch, squashed-in together on a boat. JCBs and tractors–front-mounted farming tools still attached–with six-foot high tyres rolling along the high street, the festival-goers at the back push the crowd forward as they try to get closer to the action whilst those at the front just try to avoid getting ploughed and/or flattened.
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The Rain in Spain…
Posted by daveb on January 11th, 2008
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…
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Belated Christmas with family
Posted by daveb on January 10th, 2008
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.
Get well soon Mum and look forward to having you over again when you’re better. x
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SistaB drops in
Posted by daveb on January 9th, 2008
In between a Christmas stint in Wales and a New Year’s Eve party in London, my sister, Sarah, found the will and the way to Spain to spend a couple of days with us. We didn’t do all that much really, just read newspapers, ate out a lot, walked and talked.
Nice to have you over Sis — look forward to seeing you over in your neck of the woods, when we get there.
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Happy New Year
Posted by daveb on January 8th, 2008
Happy New Year to you; hope you had a good one.
A quiet New Year’s Eve celebration for us this time: we sat on the beach and watched the various fireworks displays going off around the Mar Menor lagoon. In Spain, it’s customary to eat twelve grapes in quick succession in the last few moments of the year. I only managed two in time as I had assumed that the grapes would be seedless (which they were not). Claire put in a good showing with nine in her mouth at once, which more-or-less doubled the size of her head!
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Winning the bread
Posted by Squiffy on December 31st, 2007
After 5 months it’s back to work for me! Well, for 2 hours a week anyway: I need to break myself in gently. Thanks to a small language school in a nearby town, I’m teaching English to a class of 12-14 year old Spanish kids in the evening. The school is very relaxed and the children are good, if a little loud and chatty, so it’s good fun and brings in some pocket money. Above all, it means I get to tease Dave by referring to myself as the sole breadwinner!
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Not your average Christmas Day
Posted by Squiffy on December 30th, 2007
After a Christmas breakfast of scrambled eggs (Dave’s favourite), we exchanged presents. I was happy to find lots of Cadbury’s and Thornton’s in my stocking – my family know me well. Dave and I had lots of well chosen travel gifts, including a device which relieves the pain of bites and stings by delivering a small electric shock; Dave is convinced my mum is trying to bump him off!
Whilst touring the Champagne region of France, I purchased a vintage bottle of Veuve-Cliquot champers, to be consumed on Christmas Day. To do it justice we packed 5 champagne flutes and walked to the beach, where we sat in the sun and the brave amongst us paddled in the sea. Perfect!
Lunch was a modern twist on the traditional turkey (thanks to mum for cooking), and we ate outside on the patio. Too stuffed to walk, we drove to a local hotel by the beach for after dinner coffees, then watched The Life of Brian (dad’s Xmas present) and fell asleep in front of Love Actually.
We had a wonderful day and I really appreciate H, mum and dad giving up their traditional Xmas to visit us. Thanks for coming, and especially for filling your suitcases with everything from cranberries to board games to make the day perfect.
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