She doesn’t stand a chance

Just look what Dave and Laura did for Molly to celebrate Halloween (a day early but they are elsewhere tonight).

The poor child is in danger of being scarred for life!

PS I hope they gave her a treat.

Trick or treat

I hope you are stocked up with treats ready for tonight. 

Last year, a night that is meant to be about fun turned sour for some of the residents at Villas Andrea. When they refused to answer the door bell to the trick or treaters, they got their gates pelted with eggs – that was the trick!

In order to prevent a re-occurrence, two of the ladies from the estate visited the police station in the town to seek their help. The police have promised to send a patrol round on a regular basis.

If anyone does feel intimidated, phone 60715447 and the police will send someone up to the estate straight away.

Dodgems in the park

Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in the Parque Huerto del Cura will be party time for the young of Bigastro especially on Sunday, 21st November when they will pay only 1Euro per ride.

21st century cops

Local Police in Bigastro now have three PDA devices, along with portable printers, which  communicate directly with SUMA allowing the officers to transact fines and sanctions on motorists in real time. 

The all important weather

A bit late in the week I know but as you have worked out Pam and I have been in England this last week.

I had my netbook and my Vodaphone mobile broadband dongle with me but in the hotel in Chester it was hard to lock on to Vodaphone’s 3G network.

Speeds on the GPRS network are just about OK for text only pages but uploading pictures is hopeless. Annoyingly I could see 3G connections for O2, T-Mobile and 3G but the Vodaphone one was pretty elusive. So that is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

Anyway back to the weather. First off England was typically Autumnal, bright skies and sunshine one day, rain the next. Still we could not really complain because we did have three good days out of six. Nice to get back to Spain though.

As you can see this week for Bigastro looks good. Very little chance of any rain, warm days but getting distinctly chilly at nights.

A very busy trip

be Pam and I are used to a very peaceful life. We get up when we are want and go out when we are ready. After years of working life when time was not always our own. we enjoy our relaxed existence in Spain.

Trips to England are always hectic though. There is so much to fit into the short time we have, so many people to see and business to attend to.

From when we touched down at Manchester it has been a whirlwind of activity – today should be calmer and then tomorrow we fly home.

So what have been the highlights so far:-

Number one of course is to see our family and especially our granddaughter, Molly.

Joint number two has to Laura and Dave getting engaged and the wedding we attended on Sunday.

As I have said the engagement was a bolt out of the blue. I knew it was going to happen because Dave had asked me if he could marry Laura when they were over in summer but I had no idea when he had in mind.

The wedding we did know about. We’ve been looking forward to it for months now – ever since we were invited in fact.

Pete and Laura could not have picked a better day or venue for their wedding. Rawton Hall is such a perfect location in every way but is even better when the sun shines as it did on Sunday.

The ceremony was delightful, the guests were such good company and the meal was to die for. I took loads and loads of photos which hopefully Pete and Laura will enjoy.

Now for today we are going to see Pamela’s father and sort out a few loose ends on the sale of his house. Then tomorrow back to Sale to drop off the things we can’t bring back to Spain and home for a rest.

A wonderful surprise

Pam and I are over in England to attend the wedding of my good friend Pete to his beautiful Finnish girlfriend Laura in Chester today.

First stop Sale near Manchester to see Laura, Dave, Jemma and of course Molly.

Saturday morning – we call round to Dave and Laura’s house for breakfast. The plan is we were going out for the day but before we did, Dave surprised all of us by proposing marriage to Laura which thankfully she accepted. The ring he had bought for her is absolutely stunning – a perfect choice.

PS The sun is shining this morning – perfect weather for Pete and Laura’s wedding.

True to character

Well, well, well -Wayne Rooney has really set the cat amongst the pigeons. In March he was saying that he would end his career with United and now he has all but left. It is possible that he will never play for United again and may be allowed to transfer to another club in January.

Rooney questions whether, under the Glazers, United will ever be able to attract good players to the team. He believes that will inevitable mean their run of success will come to an end. Rooney does not want to be there if that happens.

As his parting shot he added, "I know I will always owe Sir Alex a huge debt. He is a great manager and mentor who has helped and supported me from the day he signed me from Everton when I was only 18. For United's sake I wish he could go on forever because he's a one-off and a genius." That is a nice tribute but it won’t cut ice with either Sir Alex or the fans.

Rooney may have a point about the fate of United but I’m sure the prospect of a £260,000 a week pay packet at Eastlands has more to do with his ambitions to move to the other side of Manchester.

Wayne Rooney’s form has not been that good lately; his value has diminished since the World Cup, where he appeared unfit and out of sorts and he has not scored a goal from open play in seven months. It may be that it isn’t United that are on the wan Wayne – it might just be you. I hope whichever club gets him doesn’t find themselves with a lemon.

As for Sir Alex: quote, "They look in a field and see a cow and they think it's a better cow than the one in their own field, and it never really works out that way." I think you mean - the grass is always looks greener on the "udder" side.

Wearing a pink ribbon

It is disturbing to note just how many women we know that have suffered from breast cancer. Thankfully almost all have been successfully treated and are leading normal lives again. 

Because Bigastro recognises this as an important issue, the Councils for Woman and Health, in collaboration of the Association of Progressive Women of Bigastro have organised a series of activities to mark the World-wide Day for Breast Cancer.

At today’s market there will be, table with advice and recommendations for women. Then at 5:30pm, public health technicians from Orihuela will provide further information about the prevention of this disease.

That is brutal

Yesterday our Spanish teacher asked us if the financial situation in Britain is as bad as it is in Spain. Our reply was “yes and possibly worse”.

The proposed spending cuts in Spain sparked of a general strike, the plan to raise the pension age in France has created chaos so what will happen in Britain?

This is from the DailyTelegraph:-

Leaked documents yesterday showed that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility is likely to forecast 500,000 public sector workers will lose their jobs because of the cuts, the biggest in public spending since the Second World War.

Public sector workers will also have a two-year pay freeze and be told that they face increased pension contributions from next year.

George Osborne will announce more than £13 billion in welfare cuts today. In total, including cuts announced in the emergency Budget, the welfare bill will be reduced by about £25 billion over the next four years.

The reduction will be achieved by stripping hundreds of thousands of people of their incapacity benefit by introducing means testing. Those who are judged capable of eventually being able to return to some work will lose out if they have savings and investments worth more than £16,000. The move is expected to save more than £1.5 billion a year.

Ministers are also likely to tighten the eligibility criteria for tax credits, although details will not be finalised until next month. Mr Osborne will confirm that higher-rate taxpayers will lose child benefit from 2013. Negotiations were continuing last night on whether to scrap child benefit for those over 16. Mr Osborne is understood to have had a late “wobble” over the plan and is studying the proposal again. Winter fuel payments to the elderly will be maintained but, as ann­ounced by the Labour government, will fall by £50 to £200 for the over-60s. Housing benefit payouts will be cut by £5 billion and the right to a council house for life will be scrapped.

Under the spending review, every government department – except health and international development – has had to find budget cuts of up to 40 per cent by 2015.

It is thought that the budgets of the Home Office and Justice Department will be particularly hard hit. Last night, a leaked memorandum disclosed that there are expected to be 14,000 job losses at the Justice Department. It said that the “front line will bear the brunt”, with 9,940 redundancies in the prison and probation service. There is expected to be a reduction in the number of front-line police officers and fewer criminals will be sent to prison.

Transport projects – including the widening of roads – will be abandoned and rail fares are expected to rise by more than 8 per cent a year.

and from The Guardian:-

Osborne acknowledges that his unprecedented spending review will take Britain into uncharted social and economic territory as he announces £83bn of spending cuts over the next four years.

The cuts will involve the loss of thousands of jobs, massive cuts in university funding, wholesale reform of public housing and further cuts to the welfare budget.

The coalition will also announce the state retirement age is to be raised to 66 in 2016, 10 years earlier than previously planned and liable to save billions of pounds in the medium term. It is also expected there will be big cuts to the budget for sport in schools and the abolition of the specialist school network. Some departments including the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Communities and Local Government and the culture department will see cuts of 30%, involving multibillion-pound reductions in the prison programme and to legal aid.

Voluntary groups and private companies operating on a payment-by-results basis will be asked to take over the rehabilitation of released prisoners. As many as 10,000 national offender management jobs will be lost.

Could this be their practical project

We watched as they constructed this plot on Calle de Gabriel Miró.At first we thought it might be another building for Eurener but they filled it with top soil, erected a water tower and then started planting vegetables.

Now I read that Bigastro has initiated a course about the ecological culture of vegetables with 26 students supervised by 7 experts. So could this be their practical project? It seems likely.

Try harder

This is the second attempt by someone to extort money from me by claiming that I have made an error in my tax return to the US Government.

1. I clearly don’t make payments to US Federal tax so sorry but you have got the wrong person in the wrong country.

2. Read the message though and you will find 32 spelling mistakes. Clearly the author does not have a UK dictionary spell checker.

3. The message originates from Russia

This one is definitely for the spam bin but I did receive an email earlier this week purporting to be from NatWest which did look a lot more authentic. Knowing that NatWest would never ask me to verify my login details in an email, I ignored it. It would have been easy to be fooled into following the link to the author’s bogus site though only to find that my account had been mysteriously drained of money.

It should come as no surprise

As good as he might be on the pitch, I find it hard to admire Wayne Rooney as a person. Setting aside his personal life, many Merseysiders remember how he declared that he would never leave Everton. That was until he got a better offer to join Manchester United.

Now he is upset with his manager at Old Trafford because he is not being played as much as he would like. More to the point he is rumoured to be demanding £200,000 a week to renew his contract which I am sure is way more than his boss at United is prepared to pay. So Mr Rooney is apparently contemplating a move to another club but which one?

I dare say there are plenty of clubs that would like to have him on their books but very few who could afford him. Talk is that the favourite at the moment is Manchester City who do have the cash to pay for his transfer and seem to be be prepared to meet his wage demands. If that happens he will need an armed guard to accompany him to local derby matches.

There has been mention of a Spanish club but it is unlikely that Rooney’s wife Coleen will countenance a move to the sun. She will be reluctant to be parted from her 12-year-old sister, Rosie, who suffers from the brain disorder Rett syndrome and whose condition worsened in the week after newspaper allegations appeared of Rooney having a relationship with a prostitute.

I do find it hard to believe that any football player, no matter how good they might be, can be worth £200,000 a week. I can’t help but feel that things were much better when they were paid something closer to the normal sort of wages that any working man might earn. At least then they did not try to rise above themselves in the endless pursuit of greed. They might have driven Ford Cortinas and lived in ordinary houses but they still scored goals and won matches.

Good luck to Mr Rooney, I hope you get what you deserve which isn’t £200,000 a week.

What a difference it has made

The campaign to clean up graffiti in Torrevieja has made a great difference to how the city looks.

Work started in January 2010 to tackle this problem and since then, 8,826 items of graffiti have been removed cleaning up almost 24 kilometres of walls. I dare say there is more to be done but at least you can now see the results of their labour in many of the streets.

Let us hope all this effort has not been in vain and that the buildings remain graffiti free.

Now I appeal to the council in Bigastro to follow the lead that Torrevieja has taken. The problem here is nowhere near as bad as it was in Torrevieja but it is still there. Our town would look a lot nicer without the ugly paintwork that spoils parts of it.

PS I don’t know who VF is but he certainly wasn’t in my art class!

Hair and beauty

Next weekend the cultural program continues with a catwalk parade featuring hairdressing and beauty.

The event will showcase the hair creations of Elizabeth Navarrete from the hairdressing salon, Hairmania and makeup and beauty by our neighbour, Eladia Grau.

The price of the entrance to the event is 5 € (proceeds to go to the Association of Alzheimer).

Start with a bang

The cultural program for this season started last night with a concert by the bands from Bigastro and Almoradí.

The band from Almoradí played first:-

Mi Amores (Pasadoble) by J Alfosea

Ireland: of legend and lore by Robert W. Smith

and finally a medley of Michael Jackson songs arranged by Frank Bernaerts

after the interval it was Bigastro’s turn to play:-

Mediterráneo (Pasadoble) by A. Torres Climent

Egmont by L.V. Beethoven

and finally a medley of tunes from Caberet by John Kander

These interchanges are not meant to be in the form of a competition but you can’t help but draw comparisons.

Last night I had both both bands neck and neck – an honourable draw.

Looks like a good week

Looks like we are in for a good week weather-wise. There might be a bit of cloud about at the end of the week with the chance of a spot of rain but nothing really worth worrying about.

Temperatures are going to be cooler but not what you might call cold.

Cobblers

In Britain, councils are tearing up cobbles or covering them with tarmac and concrete. Why? Because people trip up on them and then claim compensation from the council. Sixty-six councils admitted to the Telegraph newspaper that they had either permanently removed or resurfaced over their cobbles in the last five years.

For example, cobbles have been removed from part of Liverpool's UNESCO site. The stones were ripped out of William Brown Street - which is lined by St George's Hall, the Central Library, and the Walker Art gallery - and the holes have been filled with Tarmac.

The council said they had loosened and needed to be removed. It insisted that, once funding was found, the cobbles would be restored.Goodness knows when that might be.

Thirty-seven local authorities surveyed said they had received a total of 159 applications for compensation from people claiming to have fallen over on cobblestones or to have experienced some sort of accident caused by them.

While some of these claims have been thrown out, others have are still ongoing and several have resulted in payouts totalling more than £100,000, including one of £25,000 from Worcestershire County Council.

Here in Bigastro, the council is bucking that trend by lining the centre of Calle Purisima with cobbles as part of the refurbishment. Either side of the cobbles there are level pavements for people to walk on. The only time when the cobbles might cause a problem is when there is some kind of parade that needs to use the centre of the road when people will need to take care. Streets leading off from Purisima are entirely cobbled so people will have to take extra care on those.

In Britain it seems that nobody is responsible for their own actions any more. Any accident that people have is always someone else's fault and an occasion to sue. You can’t blame councils for trying to reduce the burden of these claims by taking decisions and actions to avoid them; I blame the people for not showing a bit of common sense.

The perfect mandarin

The aim of the citrus growers in this region is to grow a perfect fruit which ripens early and so fetches the best price at market. To help them achieve this, some of the farmers have been experimenting with high greenhouses and have found several benefits:-

1. The fruit are protected from the vagaries of the winter weather and so are not spoilt by wind or rain.
2. The fruit ripe earlier than those planed out in the open.
3. They need less insecticide because of the protection.
4. The trees produce a heavier crop.

Of course without any form of natural irrigation, the trees need to be watered regularly but at the moment water is not scarce, it is cheap and of good quality.

The cost of installation of the canopies is high but then they can last for eight years and getting fruit to market early brings a much higher return. The mandarin oranges go to the United States, to England, Germany and Italy where prices are high for early fruit.

Wed or not wed

Rebate seems, on the face of it, to be the perfect venue for a wedding. There is a quaint little church next to the restaurant, the food and the service are both good, there is ample space for parking and Rebate has the benefit of decent weather for most of the year. It is no wonder that there are several companies set up to offer wedding packages at Rebate and that they fit in close to 100 ceremonies per year. The companies involved all seem to offer similar deals which include everything for a perfect day except one small important item.

If you read the details carefully, what you get is described as a wedding blessing. In other words, at the end of the day the couple would not be legally married. That part of the proceedings would have to be conducted elsewhere presumably in some sort of registry office. That kind of takes the shine of it and makes the deal a lot less interesting.