Only myself to blame

I know that some were overjoyed when we had heavy rain a couple of weeks ago. For them it brought relief from the heat of the summer. However, the rain did provide ideal breeding conditions for one of the worst of the summer pests – mosquitoes.

Whenever it rain like that, pools form. then the sun comes out and the mosquitoes lay their larvae in the water. In order to feed themselves during this breeding frenzy they go on the attack providing misery for those they choose to bite. The poison they inject is an anticoagulant which stops the blood from clotting as the insects feed. Unfortunately it leaves behind a fluid that itches like mad and in some cases causes a severe reaction.

If it is bad here in Bigastro, between the two lagoons near the coast it is even worse. The urbanisations on the way into Torrevieja suffer horribly and have to be sprayed to eradicate the problem on a regular basis.

On some of the beaches in Torrevieja last week, great clouds of the insects could be seen and the toilets became unusable - not what the council were hoping for in the middle of the tourist season.

Now there are hopes that the council in Torrevieja will build an observatory where they can monitor the situation and anticipate plagues of mosquitoes, cockroaches and rodents before they arise.

The fact that I got bitten last week and again on Saturday is my own stupid fault. We have citronella patches that are very effective and cologne that still works well to keep the insects away. Stupid me, I forgot to use them!

This was the worst of the bites just above the ankle on my left leg. Strangely though, it didn’t really itch that much.

Bigastro in the future

At the turn of the century, the city council in Bigastro started a bold project which they called, ‘Bigastro 21’. That lead to 'Bigastro Mejor' and 'Bigastro Avanza'.

In September the council, with the help of the Conselleria de Solidaridad y Ciudadanía, will launch the next phase of this development with the project, 'Bigastro Futuro’ which will continue with the work of the previous ones.

Inmaculada Martínez says that the council will set up public forums to enable all the citizens in the town to participate in forming the future for Bigastro.

Cooling off period

By anybodies standards, last week was hot. When I could see the thermometer outside getting close to 40 I knew it was time to stay indoors with the air conditioning on. Pam did brave it out on a sunbed with a parasol to shade her and said that it was beautiful. I think she was in a small minority of people who enjoyed the burning heat.

This week,as you can see, is set to be cooler – a more bearable 30 – 32 degrees with even the chance of a spot of rain on Thursday.  YOu notice also that it will be cooler at night which should make sleeping more comfortable for those without air conditioning.

The changing face of the Pedrera

The Albergue at La Pedrera has seen a lot of changes since we first moved here only a few years ago. Originally conceived as a club for the campers who stayed up there, it seemed a perfect venue for the Brits who were living on the new Villas Andrea estate.

It wasn’t long before some of the residents wanted to form a committee to organise things at La Pedrera. Conceived with good intentions and with a majority of the people living here in favour, in hindsight that was a mistake. What it eventually served to do was to split the community and cause rifts between groups that had previously got on well together.

One chairman followed another and things got steadily worse. The committee became the focus of the rifts that were forming and the voice of dissent. Eventually the committee was disbanded which was a shame because there was a lot of good done and a lot more that could be done. I suppose the bottom line was that we did not want to be organised, we just wanted to get on with our lives and find our feet in our own way.

One of the issues that Pam and I identified early on was that many of the new residents were living as if they were still “on holiday” here. They were making friends too easily and involving themselves in each others lives without the usual cautionary time period that this would have taken back in Britain. British people are by nature reserved. In the circumstances they found themselves in, the new residents had dropped that reserve and paid the price.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge. Friendship groups have split up and new ones have formed, people have found themselves in their new environment and have settled back to a more normal way of life. Sadly along the way there have been a lot of recriminations and some major fallings out but then that is human nature and I imagine it is similar in many “new towns” in Britain.

Pam and I had always wanted to become involved in the town culture rather than remain part of an English culture existing outside. Setting up ourselves up as a sub culture seemed to be contrary to our aims in moving here. I suspect the same could be said of many other residents. We have been careful not to make enemies nor to take sides in the arguments that have taken place. We’d like to feel that we take people as we find them because that is how we have always been. Making Spanish friends has been just as important, if not more important to us as making friends with our British neighbours.

The nature of the Albergue is set to change again as Darren and Hazel end their stint of running the place. It may continue as a venue for Brits or may revert back to being a place for Spanish people to enjoy. Now that we have all settled in to our new town we may no longer need the lifeline of an English bar to fulfil our lives.

It’s a mystery

When Pam and I set off for Darren and Hazel’s leaving do at La Pedrera last night, we noticed a plastic bag hanging on the gate. Inside the bag was a tube of Wether’s Originals carefully wrapped in kitchen paper.

Since there was nothing written on the bag and no note inside, we have no idea who might have left them there.

Whoever it was though, thank you – it was a kind and thoughtful present.

Actually, for the benefit of lovers of these delicious sweets, you can get a very similar version at Mercadona. The Hacendado Caramelos de Nata con edulcorante sin azúcares are equally delicious and cost less than a Euro for a packet.

PS The mystery is now solved. However, I am sworn to secrecy so I can't tell you who the benefactor was. I know they read this blog so I am offering them a public thank you.

The end of a mini era

It is about two years ago that we went up to a meeting at La Pedrera to be told that one of our neighbours, Darren and his wife Hazel would be taking over the running of the bar at the Albergue.

At that meeting, Dareen outlined his ambitious plans which sounded very interesting. Along the way there would be a loyalty card for regular visitors to the bar, fish and chips on Fridays, regular live entertainment, a market on Saturdays, an auction on Fridays, line dancing lessons during the week along with the already running darts and pool competitions. We would have quizzes, theme nights, fancy dress, race nights and a revival of the Bruce Forsyth game, “Play your cards right”.

Menus for the restaurant were to be revised including a new Sunday lunch menu and full English breakfasts in the mornings. We were even invited to attend a food tasting session where we sampled some of the new items that the chef would be preparing.

To keep us happy, Darren went out of his way to book excellent entertainment for the venue that covered everyone’s tastes and organised special events for charity where several of these acts would appear “free of charge”.

The couple worked really hard to make the venture a success; late nights, and early mornings – always with a smile on their faces, they were the perfect hosts. Fully committed to the project, Hazel even took over to keep the food coming when one of the chefs resigned.

In the meantime, the proprietor José and his wife Maria took a back seat. They had done their bit in refurbishing the place in a style they thought would attract clientele.

However, In our opinion and it is only our opinion, José made some huge mistakes along the way.

Pam and I kind of liked the rural style of the Albergue before José turned it into a dark and gloomy night club with a myriad of flashing lights that gave some people headaches. We liked the openness which José transformed into different areas for dancing, sitting and lounging. We liked the fact that you could go up there for a simple menu del dia and know that the food would be good. Most of all, we liked the fact that it was a place where Spaniards and Brits could enjoy each others company.

It wasn’t all bad though, Pam and I did like José’s outside entertainment area apart from the fact that the BBQ smoked out the entire bar. Actually, if I am being picky apart from the BBQ, the tiles on the dance floor were lethal when it rained and the stage was an acoustic nightmare but the concept was right and we did have some great nights up there.

Sadly one of the residents living nearby complained about the noise one night and José decided to close it down. That neighbour has now moved away but it is too late. To be honest, it was probably loosing money so I imagine José wasn’t too put out.

So what will become of the Albergue now? José says that the darts and the pool will continue but does not seem to have committed himself to anything else as yet. My belief is that there are not enough Brits living on the estate to continue with the project as an English bar. In truth there never was.

My gut feeling is that José may well want to run it as a venue for younger Spaniards. It has after all, the right ambience for a night club with its lighting system, dark interior and José likes to play the music loud (too loud for most of the British residents liking). I would not be surprised to find that the “swinging sixties” gives way to the incessant drum and bass beat of a Spanish disco.

And what of Darren and Hazel? For sure, this will have been a period in their lives and their children’s lives that they will never forget. Thankfully for them, living In Bigastro will return once more to the semblance of normality they enjoyed before.

The couple both worked damned hard to make the venture a success and to please as many folk as they could. Perhaps we didn’t always support them as much as we ought to but then “clubbing” was not what we signed up for when most of us retired to Bigastro. Even if it might not always have seemed the case, we very much appreciated their efforts and wish them both a great deal of success in their future ventures.

From all of us, a huge thank you to Darren and Hazel for all you did for us.

Lights go out over Europe

Last year 100W incandescent light bulbs were outlawed, triggering the first wave of stockpiling by worried consumers who do not like the energy saving alternatives.

By next week, it will be an offence to import or manufacture 75W bulbs, although shops can continue to sell them until stocks run out. As you might expect this has resulted in a wave of panic buying of 75w bulbs across Europe.

The greatest concern is being shown by those people who have old fashioned light fittings that take candle shaped bulbs for which there is no simple low energy replacement. This could pose a problem for the landed gentry with chandeliers and wall lights in their stately homes.

Panic buying of light bulbs is expected to get even worse when 60W bulbs are banned next year and all incandescent bulbs are phased out by 2012.

Advocates claim that replacing the old fashioned lamps with more efficient models will reduce domestic energy consumption for lighting by 60 per cent in the EU, equivalent to saving 30 million tons of CO2 pollution every year.

Unfortunately that argument does not sit well with those who simply do not like the colour of the light from the new bulbs of the shapes that they come in.

The Vuelta in Orihuela

Remember that the 186km seventh stage of the Vuelta Ciclista a España will be coming to Orihuela on the 3rd of September.

The route will take the cyclist three times through the city;  the first time at about 1:32pm when the cyclists will arrive at  Ociopía by the roundabout on the N-340:-

OCIOPÍA – MOTA DEL RIO – JAIME I – TORMO DE HARO – ROTONDA DE LA OCARASA – ORIOLANOS AUSENTES – CARRETERA CV-921 TOWARDS ARNEVA.

Approximately two hours later cyclists will arrive for the second passage through the city by the same roundabout:-

DUQUE DE TAMAMES – GIRO A LA IZQUIERDA EN LA ROTONDA DE AVENIDA TEODOMIRO (TRAMO DE LAS ESCUELAS GRADUADAS) – GIRO A LA DERECHA EN JOSÉ ANTONIO – LOACES – ALFONSO XIII – PINTOR AGRASOT – CARRETERA CV-910 TOWARDS REDOVÁN AND THEN BY THE CV-900.

The last pass through Orihuela will be at about 5:27pm arriving by the Calle Marqués de Molíns where it crosses Calle Castellón:-

N-340 – BARRIO DE SAN CARLOS – CV-930 – ROTONDA MARQUÉS DE MOLÍNS – END OF THE STAGE

In order for this all to take, place streets will be closed well in advance and that parking will not be permitted in certain areas.

Weird or what?

When you post pictures to Flickr, it is impossible to predict which ones will attract little interest and which will prove to be a hit.

On day 12 of this years Project 365 (the deal is you take and post a picture each day for a year) I was stuck for inspiration.

Then I came up with the idea of photographing the fountain pens that were lingering unused in my drawer. These pens date back to a time when I wrote everything by hand, preferring the feel of a nib on paper to the more usual ballpoint pen.

I readily admit that it was an easy task to get this shot. Draw three lines on a blank piece of paper, line up the pens and shoot from a low angle to get the nibs in focus whilst the rest of the pens were blurred.

A little work in Photoshop the next day matched up the lines to the tips of the nibs. It was hardly a piece of creative genius. It wasn’t like I was trying to rival great photographers like Helmut Newton or Ansel Adams. This was just a quick shot for my album.

It therefore seems strange to me that this picture get hits almost every day - just look at the statistics in the graph:-

440 hits already beats my previous record of the equally "interesting" pictures of Tor our dentist and the inside of my computer.It has even been marked as a favourite by two people.

Surely there must be more fascinating pictures in my gallery for people to look at. There are a few that I was quite pleased with at the time they were taken which gather a lot less interest than these three pens.

Ah well, if my claim to fame is to be a photo of a bunch of pens – so be it. I suppose there could be worse things to be famous for!

Brace yourselves for a hot day

The whole region is on orange alert for high temperatures today. In some parts of the province, temperatures could well soar to 39 Celsius. The cause is the same mass of air that came over from Africa earlier in the week. Temperatures at night will linger around 23 Celsius.

In Elche, temperatures reached 40 degrees earlier in the week – the highest the city has seen since 1953. With very little breeze, people described it as suffocating.

The good news is that, by Sunday, it should start to cool down to a more normal temperature of 30 degrees. However, with a drop in temperature we will also experience an increase in humidity - you just can't win!

A bit pre-occupied

I apologise to those of you who regularly drop in on my blog to see what is going on here in Biagstro. Posts over the last few weeks have been a bit sporadic for several reasons.

As you will have read, we had visitors over the last couple of weeks and as much as I like spending time on my computer, I’d rather be with my granddaughter Molly by the pool than stuck here in the spare room.

Now that our visitors have gone, you might think that I would have plenty of time on my hands. However, apart from sorting the house and the garden back out, I also decided to compile two DVDs for our visitors. The first one is of personal photos and videos from their visit.The second one is of my photos from the Fiesta as a memento for them.

Anyone who has embarked on producing a DVD will tell you that it is a very time consuming job. You assemble the material, insert some titles and add the transitions. Then you burn the final product to DVD only to find that one of the photos is misplaced or there is a mistake in one of the titles. That means going back to the drawing board to sort things out and re-burning the DVDs. Luckily blank DVDs are relatively cheap these days so you are not at too much of a loss to produce a few “coasters”.

The other issue is the heatwave we are in the grips of at the moment. Encoding a DVD from video footage is very demanding of a computer processor so it gets hot. Even at 9:30 am, I have the portable air conditioning unit blowing cold air towards my desktop to keep it cool and I am writing this on my netbook.

Hopefully , my intended audience won’t be too critical but they will expect something that looks reasonably professional. I’m burning the final copies of the Fiesta DVD on my desktop at the moment with my fingers crossed that all is well on the second attempt.

We’re having a heat wave!

Jemma, Laura and Dan in particular had hoped for some typical August weather for their two week stay with us. What they got was a mixture of sun, cloud and even a drop of rain.

Almost as soon as they boarded the plane back to the UK, the weather changed. The clouds parted and the sky was blue again.

Since then it has got hotter and hotter and is forecast to get hotter still. Just look at the expected daytime temperature for Friday – a scorching 38 degrees.

At those temperatures you can’t walk outside barefoot because the terrace tiles burn your feet, the car is like an oven and you need gloves on to open the gates.

As Peter Kay says, “I like it hot but not that hot!”.

 

Foiled again

I managed to foil the south American who tried to steal my camera in the Wok Buffet. Now I have foiled a lady on Amazon who thought she had fooled me into sending her my surplus lens.

Having failed to sell the lens on EBay, I put it on Amazon Marketplace. I had two enquiries for photographs which I replied to. Fortunately, I replied to them from a different email account to the one registered with Amazon which of course they did not know. 

This morning, surprise surprise I got emails telling me the lens had been sold. However; 1. the emails supposedly from Amazon had come to the wrong address, the English was suspect and there were spelling mistakes, 3. the fees quoted were far below those that Amazon had given me, 4. the buyer wanted the lens dispatched immediately to her cousin in Nigeria, 5. the postage costs were far in excess of Amazon’s and finally the email header showed that the mails had come from a Russian ISP.

Unsurprisingly , when I checked my Amazon account no payment to me was pending and the lens was still available on sale. 

So sorry lady, you will not be getting a free lens and furthermore I have opened a case with Amazon so you can expect to hear from them shortly.

The lesson, if you try to sell anything on Amazon and you receive an email asking for further details to be sent to an email address outside of Amazon – ignore it. Again I was fortunate, others may not be so lucky.

It is quiet round here

After the fiesta things do go a little flat in Bigastro. This year though, for Pam and I, things are even quieter because the rest of our family and friends have now returned to England.

First off, our youngest daughter Laura, her boyfriend Dave, Dave’s mum and Dad and of course our granddaughter Molly arrived. They were followed by our eldest daughter Jemma with her boyfriend Dan and then our very good friends, Glenys and Peter.

Jemma and Dan went back on Thursday followed by Peter and Glenys on Friday. Now the rest of the family have returned to sunny Britain leaving Pam and I on our own again.

I know that visitors can be a little wearing, however ours have all been such great company, it has been a real pleasure to have them here.

Star of the show had to be our six month old granddaughter. Molly has been so good for the whole time, smiling laughing and even uttering her first words “dadada Dave”.

The good news is that they will have to return next year because they are invited round to our Spanish teacher’s house for paella!

After the party is over

It is less than a week since the fiesta in Bigastro finished and peace has returned to the town. In fact, the week after the fiesta many of the town people go on holiday so it is even quieter than usual.

I’ve yet to send my photos to Germán at the Ayuntamiento for inclusion on the Bigastro web site but there is plenty of time for that because he too is on holiday. I hope he is enjoying his well earned rest.

I have started the process of putting my pictures on a DVD for our visitors as a reminder of their time in Bigastro. As I do so, I am reminded of the great number of people who contributed to the success of the fiesta this year.

I would like to add my thanks to all those concerned: from the Fiesta Commission, to the people who took part in the parades. You made for some wonderful photographic opportunities again this year.

I hope you have enjoyed my web albums and will continue to enjoy my photos on the town web site in the months to come. 

What a wash out

Ask anybody and they will tell you that it hardly ever rains here in August and if it does then it will be just a short shower.

Yesterday was more than that, it was a “tromba de agua” which caused chaos in parts of the Vega Baja. Roads were cut off, the beaches were closed and there was chaos for visitors here on holiday.

The worst hit places were on the coastal strip between Guardamar and Torrevieja.In Torrevieja, sand on the beaches was washed away and has had to be replaced. In the area between Beniel and Orihuela, 21 litres of water per square metre were registered as opposed to the 8.5 metres in Rojales.

Half an hour later the rain stopped, the sun struggled to come out and by the afternoon it was a hot summers day again.

A taste of Spain

Now that Molly is nearly six months old, Laura is starting to introduce her to solid foods – just a little taste to get her used to the texture and the flavours.

Pam had got some carrots which she boiled up and mashed to a pulp for Molly. For variety, we also bought some ready prepared foods like the manzana y platana (apple and banana) that Laura is giving her.

I reckon it won’t be too long before we can introduce her to paella, tortilla, calamares and pulpo!

If at first….

The first time we tried Molly in het pool she cried, she even cried when we put her into her own little paddling pool.

Yesterday however we had greater success. Molly was more than happy to splash about in her own pool under the careful supervision of her mother. We didn’t try her in the big pool though because the water there has dropped to a chilly 27 degrees.

Just not fair

Our eldest daughter and her boyfriend fly back to Birmingham today. This has been the holiday they have looked forward to for some time now.

Although we have had quite a lot of sunshine, there has also been a lot of cloud and even some rain.  Bear in mind that it is almost unheard of to have rain in this area during August.

This morning, first thing the skies looked dark; now it is pouring down just as it did during winter.

Hopefully it will clear up before we go out for lunch and before we have to take the two of them back to the airport. We would not want their last memory of the holiday to be of trundling across the airport terminal carrying an umbrella!

I was very lucky last night

Last night we took the family down to the Habaneras and then on to the Wok Buffet to eat. I had my man bag with me which I placed on the back of the chair in the restaurant. We made a point of never all  leaving the table at the same time, there was always someone to watch the bags and of course Molly.

After about half an hour of sitting down, two smartly dressed South American men came and sat on the table behind us. I thought it was strange that two people should choose a table for six and one should sit directly behind me. They neither ordered drinks nor went to collect any food. However we were out to eat and we were being careful so I didn’t give it too much of a thought.

However, my suspicions were confirmed when Pam spotted the man behind me interfering with my bag as she returned to the table. Once alerted, I quickly checked and found that all the zips were open and my compact camera was missing. Realising what had happened, I turned round to confront the man and saw the camera on the floor where he was pushing it with his foot towards me.

As I was returning the camera to my bag and explaining what had happened, the two men quietly left the restaurant so the chance to apprehend them was gone. 

Later on Pam spotted a group of three young men with towels round their necks wandering round the restaurant obviously looking for a similar opportunity. Within minutes there was a distraught lady explaining to the waiters that she had just had her handbag stolen.

This is clearly a ploy that thieves use at the Wok Buffet in the high season. They are taking advantage of the increased number of clientele and the fact that you can just wander into the place and walk round to find your own table.

For all I know, they may do the same thing in other similar restaurants and the bars on the seafront - something to be aware of.  I was lucky, others were clearly not.