Gee thanks

Those of us who live in Spain with pensions from the UK are vulnerable to the exchange rate of the pound against the euro. 

When the referendum vote was announced, the pound slumped and was near enough on par. That meant we had one third of our monthly income slashed at a stroke. 

Gradually the pound recovered although not to pre-Brexit valuses. 

With the mini budget that the new PM and Chancellor announced on Friday, the pound has nose dived meaning that we will have to be mindful of spending. Meals out, replacement items and fancy gadgets will be out of the question. 

We have been spared (so far)

 Looking at the weather over the last couple of days, we were placed in the middle between two storms; one to the north that caused severe flooding and one in the south that did the same. 

For example, whilst we had a few millimetres of rain in the night, Javea had 70mm in two hours followed by a further 35 milimetres a few hours later. 

As per normal, the intense rain was localised - some areas were deluged whilst their neighbours were spared.  

There are some horrific videos on Facebook that are reminiscent of  the flooding in September 2019.

Times they are a changing

 We weren't really fans of Strictly Come Dancing much in the early years. It's only in the last few years that we've become addicts. 

Although we didn't watch the series where Anne Widdecombe clumped around the floor with Anton du Beke, we've seen the videos on YouTube. We did see Ed Balls and particularly laughed at his Gangnam style routine with Katya Jones. 

However, Strictly is supposed to be a dance competition, not a comedy show Ultimately, the best dancers are the ones that should survive to lift the glitterball trophy. 

In these days of inclusion and political correctness, we should expect radical changes to be made and so they have. We've  had dancers with prosthetic legs and then last year Rose Ayling-Ellis, who overcame the fact she could barely hear the music,  went go on and won. 

We've also had single sex couples starting with Nicola Adams and Katya Jones who sadly had to withdraw, then last year, John Whaite and Johannes Radebe who were sensational. 

This year there are two single sex couples; Richie Anderson with Giovanni Pernice and  Jayde Adams   matched with Karen Hauer. From their first performances last night,  Anderson looks like he is set to camp it up and Adams will stomp across the floor in a very wooden style. I can't imagine either of them getting very far. 

The real surprise for us was the inclusion of  paralympian Ellie Simmonds who will dance with Nikita Kuzmin. 

With five gold medals to her name, Simmonds is clearly a determined competitor. However, it is hard to imagine how a couple so mismatched in height will cope with the ballroom dances where being in hold is supposed to be so important. We shall see. 

PS Let's hope Hamza Yassin ties his long mane up otherwise he could whip his partner off the floor with a fast turn!

Coming up

 

Our tribute

 We were only five years old when Princess Elizabeth became our Queen. Since then she has been a guiding light, an example of selfless service to the nation and a constant inspiration to all.

We followed her through Royal Tours, Jubilees and many other memorable occasions.

Through good times and bad, the Queen was always there, offering hope, unswerving love and devotion to her people.

Her infectious smile lightened our days and her mantra of “never explain, never complain” served as a fine example for us to follow.

We count ourselves most fortunate to have lived through the second Elizabethan reign. She will always be in our hearts as we were in hers.

Que pasa

 You may be wondering why I haven't posted anything for awhile. 

We were supposed to be going on a family holiday to Funchal last week. That had to be cancelled though, at least for us. 

Pamela had been experiencing pain and swelling in her left leg for a few weeks. She'd been to the doctor who sent her for an x-ray. The conclusion was that her knees were shot and she needed replacement joints. Thee was no mention of the possibility of thrombosis.  

However, the evening of the concert for San Joaquin we walked down from the Holy Cross to the Town Square and by the time we reached there, Pamela was in agony. It turned out that the concert had been moved to the Park and so she had to walk further provoking even more pain for her.

The next day we went to Urgencias at Vega Baja Hospital where they performed various tests.  The conclusion was that she had deep vein thrombosis in the left leg. Pamela was initially prescribed injections of Clexane (a form of heparin). 

Pamela does not like injections and there was no way she was going to inject herself so I had to do it for her. Of course I am not a doctor and so I did not have the technique to perform the task without hurting her. Over the two weeks though, I have got better at it and mostly the process was pain free. 

Thankfully, the clotting level has now increased to the point where she can just take Sintrom ( a modern form of warfarin). NO MORE INJECTIONS!!

Although the leg is still swollen when she stands on it for too long, it has improved a lot and should continue to improve over the next few months. 

Flying and even driving in the car for any distance are out of the question for Pamela.  We also doubt very much that they will go ahead with the knee surgery until it is clear that the clot has gone but we shall see. 

Highly recommended

 We've just had the en suite bathroom reformed. 

The main issue was that the original bath had near rusted through.  

It was an ideal opportunity to have a walk in shower installed instead and at the same time have the largely unused bidet taken out. 

The work was done by Fonta Bigastro who did a magnificent job. There was very little mess made and only a minimum of disruption. He even replaced the ceiling light and had the ceiling painted. When the work was done, Fonta's wife came to clean the whole of the bathroom. Between them, they did a beautiful job. 

The company is: Mediterranean Econet - email mediterraneaneconet@gmail.com tel. 966 272 358

Fiesta brochure

The book for this year's fiesta is available now.  

 There was a competition to design a cover.  This painting by Antoni Hernández was chosen as the worthy winner. 

 

 

A day to stay inside

 

Passport stamping for UK Nationals resident in Spain

Pam and I had or passports stamped when we visited England in October. 

This from Brits in Spain:

Many of you who are resident in Spain and protected by the Withdrawal Agreement have contacted us to say that your passport has been stamped on entering or leaving Spain (or both). The most important thing is that this does not affect your residency or rights within Spain and any stamp should be considered null and void when accompanied by a valid residence document. 

In March, the European Commission published an amended note on rules for stamping the passports of Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries, which says: “The Commission considers that there is little practical use in stamping passports of Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries. Stamping a passport serves to establish whether a non–EU national respected the authorised length of a short stay within the Schengen area, but beneficiaries of the Withdrawal Agreement in a Schengen Member State are not required to leave the Schengen area as they legally reside in one of the Schengen Member State.

So, whilst the Commission considers that there is little use in border guards stamping the passports of Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries, EU law does not prevent them doing so. 

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Turn up the heat

 In the past, friends of ours in England have asked, "what is it like in Spain when the temperature rises to near forty degrees?" and "how do we cope?"

Well now they know because it is hotter today in parts of England than it is here in Bigastro. 

To be fair, we do have air conditioning in our house here and we have a pool we can dip into to cool down. 

On the basis of a few days of extreme heat, nobody would invest in air conditioning for their homes in Britain. A couple of fans would help though. Although fans will not cool the house down, the circulating air would make it feel fresher. 

Highly decorated

After two years without parades, the Scorpion comparsa had a large fund to spend this year. There were spectacular dance troops, large models of scorpions, a large float carried by men on their shoulders along with lots of horses and camels including this one that you could barely discern under all that decoration.

 

This will be popular!

 

Any takers? - GONE!!

Buenos días

Tenemos dos sofás  que nos gustaría donar gratis.

La única condición es que alguien venga a nuestra casa a recogerlas.

Good morning

We have new sofas ready to be delivered and so we need to find a home for these ones we have at the moment. We are not looking for payment, we just need whoever wants them to collect them from our house. 

Keith y Pamela Williamson

Movil 661298590

Well that didn't take long. I put the same information on Facebook and within minutes we had a taker. Minutes later there were two more. 

So the sofas have now gone to a new owner who we hope will enjoy them. 

Masks are back

 

Don't go to Madrid this week

 Security around Madrid will be ironclad between June 28 and 30, when the Spanish capital is due to host a NATO summit at a time of heightened global tension due to the invasion of Ukraine.

The Spanish government is planning to deploy 6,550 National Police officers and 2,400 members of the Civil Guard, in addition to 1,200 municipal police officers who will collectively watch over the safety of more than 40 heads of state and government scheduled to attend the gathering.

The NATO summit will significantly affect mobility in Madrid, admitted sources at the Interior Ministry, who recommended using public transit whenever possible. In addition to the traffic snarls that will be caused by the motorcades moving across the city, and the closure of lanes on some main roads, authorities are considering whether to suspend Metro service on the 8 line, which has a stop near Ifema. The ministry has recommended that businesses headquartered in the area allow employees to work from home for the duration of the summit. The Prado Museum, where a dinner event is scheduled for June 29, will remain closed that day and the day before to finalize preparations.

Source El Pais

What a legend

 Over the years we have watched some excellent sets performed by artists at Glastonbury. It has been a mixture of old favorites from our youth along with some excellent new bands and singers that have impressed us most.

Last night we tuned in and first of all watched Haim (a group we had never heard of), then Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds. That put us well  into the mood to stay up for Sir Paul McCartney. 

Having been brought up in the 60s in the North of England of course we were Beatles fans. However, we were perhaps not so keen on some of McCartney's later work - I'm thinking of songs like Mull of Kintyre here.

Thankfully, the new material in Sir Paul's set was lively and listenable to. It was though, the Beatles material that got our toes tapping. 

There were also a few touching moments to remember like when he staged a “duet” with John Lennon’s voice along with video and sang “I’ve Got a Feeling” as if they were back together singing on stage. 

Then Sir Paul brought out two surprise guests, David Grohl from the Foo Fighters followed by Bruce Springsteen both of whom I am a fan of. That was the icing on the cake for me. No wonder the New Musical Express has given him five stars. 

 

Concert for Corpus Christi 2022

The front of the church is the perfect setting for the Corpus Christi concert. However, it is not the best setting to get good photographs. The main lighting is a large floodlight behind the band. The floodlights at the front are too far away to reach the band. 

On the plus side though, the open air setting is OK for getting a sound recording as long as you set the recorder close enough to avoid the crowd noise but not so close that you miss the instruments at the sides. 

My photographs are in an album in the sidebar and here is my recording of the music. 

The heat wave continues

 We like it hot but not too hot!

Very odd

 We knew that celebrations for Corpus Christi had to be cancelled during the pandemic. However, this year we expected them to resume. 

The odd thing is that there are has been no publicity on Facebook or on the town's website about this. 

Luckily, my friend Christopher messaged me on Whats App last night to find out if we would be able to go to the concert for Corpus tonight at 10:00pm. We are really glad he did because otherwise we would have missed it. For those of you who are interested, it will take place in the Plaza de la Constitucion. 

Now we are wondering if the procession following mass on Sunday night will take place.