Only women think this way

We learnt that the daughter of our ex neighbours in Greasby had a baby girl last night – Elizabeth Mary. Many congratulations to mother, daughter and of course the father who I understand had a small part to play in the process! (the old jokes are always the best).

The only bit of information we didn’t get to start with was the birth weight but we have that now. This made me think, why are we so concerned about the weight of babies at birth? Surely, the two things that are vital to know are the sex of the child and that all is well, everything else is of little importance.

Of course, I understand that the size of the child would be important to the mother when you consider how babies are normally delivered (I don’t need to stretch the point here do I?) but it is almost an obsession for the rest of womankind to know the precise weight – why?

When these matters are discussed, as they always are, there almost seems to be an unspoken hidden message either way; nine pounds – that’s a big baby or six pounds - ooh that’s small. It isn’t like, the mother has a lot of control over the size of her offspring at birth. If she has been careful throughout the pregnancy i.e. ate sensibly, avoided smoking, taking drugs or consuming alcohol then the mother has done all she can to produce a healthy child of whatever size it is.

The fact is that mothers produce different size babies at each pregnancy, the first might be larger or smaller than the second and so on and of course babies born early will be lighter than those born late – we all know that. Babies generally come when they are ready, I don’t think they wait until they achieve a certain size.

The other obsession that women seem to have is to figure out who the new born child looks like. From my own experience of having two daughters, they don’t particularly look like either parent at birth so this to me is a futile exercise. It is only when they grow that they might start to look like some member of the family which might not even be the immediate parents. Some children end up not looking like any of their family or they might be a real mixture. I dare say many are grateful for this.

No, the important thing to know as far as I am concerned, is that mother and baby are well; that they both survived the trauma of delivery and I am pleased to say that is the case with Catherine and her daughter.

House repossessions at an all time high

The  state of the economy has brought about a record number of evictions in the Alicante area. Families unable to pay the rent or the mortgage find themselves in court being told that they must vacate their home.  This situation is causing stress on the system that can’t cope with the numbers involved and so they are looking for ways to expedite the process by removing the need for the courts to be involved. That might be good news for the people seeking to evict but not for the poor victims.

You can’t have it every which way

	On the whole it looks like it should be a much better week than last. Plenty of sunshine, very little chance of rain after today and daytime temperatures gradually climbing. That is what we like to see!
	Clear skies in the daytime though lead to colder temperatures at night. It does look like it should be pleasant for the Medieval Market in Orihuela next weekend.

The mobile phone dilemma

There is no denying that mobile phones are a great thing and I would not want to be without one. From their humble beginnings they first of all shrunk in size so that they became light and pocket size and now have started to grow back again as manufacturers add more and more features.

The cool ones now are the so called smart phones with their touch screens, 3g/wi-fi connections, multiple applications even satellite navigation. They are the Swiss army knife of the phone world – everything you need in just one device. You can take pictures with them, make movies, listen to music – everything your heart desires. Best of all a smart phone is great to impress your friends and colleagues with as you slip it gracefully out of your pocket.

The thing is though, I don’t need all this computing power in one device. I already have a Palm PDA to store information which I have had for years, I have a very good compact camera, I have a TomTom sat. nav. to find my way round and an iPod to listen to music with. All I really need is a phone that makes calls and which I can send the odd message from. What would I do with all these other devices if I had an all singing, dancing smart phone?

The difficulty I am having at the moment is finding a phone that is OK cool enough to be seen with but at the same time cheap enough not to worry too much about. Unlike the 20 to 30 somethings, I am not going to spend my waking hours with a phone glued to my hand as I wait for the one call per month or the odd text that I might receive I don’t really want some fancy phone that costs me an arm and a leg, I can’t warrant that sort of expense.

Finding a reasonably priced, half decent pay-as-you go phone though is becoming more and more difficult because the phone shops don’t seem to want to sell them. They either have the cheap budget ones that you would give to a child or the out of my price bracket ones.

I thought I had found a reasonable replacement for my old Spanish phone but out of the five shops I have visited that advertise it none have it in stock. Actually that is not quite true, because most did have the phone on contract for a minimum consumption of 8 Euros a month (actually 9 Euros if I want to send cheap texts to the UK). What they don’t have though is the phone outright for 59 Euros on pay-as-you-go.

If I signed for the contract, the phone would cost me a minimum of 144 Euros (or 162 Euros) and all I would get for the difference in price would be that much worth of calls or texts which I don’t actually make too many of. For Pamela, things would be a little different because she can spend as much as 20 Euros on texts in a month on her pay-as-you-go phone.

The legacy of General Francisco Franco continues

It started as a system for taking children away from families deemed to be politically dangerous in the Franco era but then continued as an illicit business until at least the 1980s.

During the Franco regime, children of jailed left-wing opponents were stolen from their mothers with state approval and often the blessing of the Roman Catholic Church to purge Spain of Marxist influence.

However even after Franco was deposed, doctors, nurses, nuns and priests are all suspected of lying to mothers who were told their children had died during, or straight after, birth. Many of the real parents said they had been told that apparently healthy babies had died within hours of birth. They had never seen the bodies and the hospitals had taken care of the burials.

In a separate case, workers from an undertaker's in Malaga said they sometimes buried empty children's coffins that arrived from a local clinic.

A bit close to home

A 60 year old Spaniard along with two accomplices have been arrested for arms trafficking and holding of ammunition in Orihuela.

The leader of the gang ran a legitimate metalwork business but in his spare time bought unusable weapons at auctions, repaired them and then sold them on to criminal gangs at prices ranging from 400 to 1,000 Euros each. Police say he has been doing this for over 20 years without being discovered.

In the garage of the man’s house located in the centre of Orihuela police found glass cabinets displaying the weapons. Further searches of three home in Orihuela and two in Torrevieja revealed 54 weapons including; 39 pistols, 5 revolvers, 2 automatic rifles, a musket that thousands of cartridges. 

You see I was nearly right

Remember my April fool spoof about drilling for oil in Bigastro, well it seems I wasn’t a million miles off the truth.

Central government set out two royal decrees late December granting permission for Capricorn Spain Limited and Med Oil to investigate possible oil pockets off the Valencian coastline from Alicante province to Castellón.

Naturally, the Valencian government have set up a commission specifically to appeal and fight the decision which could have grave environmental impact on the whole region.

A big thank you to Joan and BC

First of all who are Joan and BC?

A. They are the parents of Dave, soon to be married to our youngest daughter Laura. There is probably a name for the relationship we will have with them which I can’t for the life of me recall.

Why is he called BC?

A. His first names are Brendan Christopher – how logical is that? However, I suspect deep down it is because his son’s always thought of him as ancient as in Before Christ. It is the same for me. My girls call me Wilf because it sounds old – in fact it was my grandfather’s name so they are right.

When Joan and BC came to Spain last August, they brought thick books with them to read. In fact everyone but me seemed to have thick books to read. When Joan and BC asked why this was, I told them that it was because I couldn’t read. That brought a withering look on their faces. They knew that was a load of b*******, after all I’d passed exams, I’d been to college and university and then spent my working life as a teacher – of course I could read.

In fact, unbelievable as this may sound, since we came to Spain in 2004, I have read only two books both of which were about bullfighting. And now I have read three. Since the weather has been decidedly dull for the last week, it seemed a good opportunity to get stuck into this Christmas present from Joan and BC and I am right glad I did.

Now here is the thing, the reason I don’t read books is the same as the reason I don’t really care for serials on the TV. I like my stories complete and finished in one go, I don’t want to have to wait for another day or the following week to find out what happens next. There are very few books that you can read in one session so I just don’t bother.

I must confess, I’d neither heard of the author nor his TV programmes about “grumpy old men” or GOMS for short. This may come as a shock to you but there have been odd times when Mrs W. has accused me of being grumpy myself; so, my curiosity was aroused to find out whether she was right. I dipped into the book to see if this was indeed true and liked what I read. Surprisingly, I found that I had some of the symptoms of grumpiness the author described.

Why, because there is a lot of what he says that I concur with and I dare say most men of any age would recognise straight away. For example how many men do you know who enjoy shopping for anything let alone Christmas presents? How many send Christmas cards and how many really enjoy putting up Christmas trees. Most poignant of all, how many of us growl in our seats when carol singers ring the door bell and demand money for singing one line of a carol.

There are things that even the grumpiest old man enjoys about the festive season but to be honest, once we have got to a certain age, most of us are glad when it is all over. For some inexplicable reason though, that does not stop everyone from making us go through the same ritual year after year – maybe that is what makes us grumpy.

Blots on the landscape

The collapse of the construction industry is cited as the main reason for the economic crisis here in Spain. It is also responsible for some very ugly and potentially dangerous abandoned building sites such as this one in Almoradí.

Left for over two years, the electricity boxes are wide open, manhole covers are missing, the pavements are covered in weeds and the fences are broken down. Goodness knows when workers will ever return to complete the work, there are a lot of completed houses to be sold before anyone will contemplate finishing developments at this stage of construction.

And so we are left with these blots on the landscape, reminders of what was and what might have continued to be if the world economy had not gone “tits up”. Blame Freddie Flintstone and Fanny Bright, or whatever those two American mortgage companies were called, for selling off their toxic debt.

The Bigastro ONCE ticket

Galvañ Salvador Blasco, Director of ONCE Alicante, and M ª Teresa Sánchez Cánovas, Orihuela Director presents the Bigastro version of their lottery ticket to the mayor of Bigastro, Raúl Valerio Medina Lorente. Five million of these lottery tickets will be sold throughout Spain, each one with a picture of the Auditorium, Francisco Grau, the coat of arms of Bigastro, the slogan Citta Slow and data about the town.

But who are ONCE? 26,000 people work for ONCE which serves over three million disabled persons throughout Spain. The Bigastro version of the tickets will be on sale from today at 1.5 Euros each. The lottery offers lots of prizes up to 35,000 Euros. There are lots of outlets for the ONCE tickets or you can buy them online at www.juegosonce.com.

Why I don’t like IKEA

	Yesterday we went to IKEA at Murcia. It is only half an hour down the road and should be easy to get to and back but for some reason it just isn’t. The journey there is all OK until we come off the motorway and get to the roundabout which leads to the car park. Then I always seem to be in the wrong lane except that today I’m sure I was in the right lane but still someone had to cut across me. Coming back was perfect. One time we went, I missed the turning to the motorway and ended up in Murcia. This time though, not only did I get that right but I also avoided driving through the middle of Orihuela – that was a first.
	The one good thing I can say about this IKEA is that there is no shortage of space to park your car unlike the Warrington shop where we used to go in England. That was a nightmare especially at the weekends. Mind you, if that car park is ever full, I dread to think how crowded the shop would be.
	Apart from the journey, I don’t like the fact that you have to walk all the way through IKEA and look at all of the displays before you get to the part where you want to be. But the worst part of going to IKEA is the size of the boxes that everything seems to come in. If you only have a small hatchback then you are stuffed. This couple finally managed to get everything in by dismantling most of the car. Companies know this is a problem and offer a delivery service from IKEA to your door in English! I think some of these companies will even assemble the articles for you which is of course the second worst thing about IKEA – everything is flat packed, comes with a bag of parts and a book of instructions that seem to bear no relation to the item you have just bought. I always worry that there might be parts missing. But to be fair to IKEA, only once did we ever find that was the case unlike the stuff from MFI where they seemed to miss parts out of everything they sold.

So what did we go there for? A stool for Pamela to sit on in the kitchen, a picture frame for a photo we have had for nearly six months and a new door mat.

The stools they had were all either too high or were too expensive, the picture frame that we did buy is actually too big for where it has to go and we could not find a decent doormat of the right size anywhere in the shop.

It wasn’t all bad though. Pam did buy a candle snuffer for 1.95 Euros and some boxes for her make up. Oh and yes, the lunch was really good, we both had a very tender, huge ham shank with chips for 6.50 Euros each.

And now for the bad news, Pam will want to go again in about 12 months time. By then I will have forgotten all the bad stuff and only remember that wonderful ham shank.

New museum in Orihuela

The Museum of Sacred Art in Palacio Episcopal in Orihuela will open its doors late February.

The Episcopal Palace was declared a National Monument in 1975 and is located opposite the Cathedral del Salvador y Santa Maria. It was built during the second half of the 16^th Century and was extended and refurbished in 1733.

The mayoress of Orihuela says that the new museum, housed in the Palace, will showcase the cities culture and that it aims to become the largest museum of religious art in the Valencian Region.. Various paintings, sculptures, gold works, textiles, furniture as well as Codices will be on display.

It is a magnificent building – well worth a visit.

Spare a thought

For all those people who have come to the Costa Blanca for an out-of-season holiday. They would not be expecting the really hot weather of summer but should have at least seen some sunshine most days. Instead, they will have looked out of their hotel bedrooms or their holiday apartments at a gloomy grey sky and wondered just what they could do to amuse themselves on cold dark days. The annoying thing is that up the coast and inland, the sun is shining and that is not normal. It is usually this area that gets the best of the weather.

If they are in somewhere like Benidorm, there will be plenty of diversions to keep them happy but more or less everywhere else it will be a struggle. The area is just not geared up for tourism on dull days. Let’s hope they have remembered to bring a pack of cards with them.

Don’t tell them because it will only upset the holiday makers but tomorrow will be worse. In fact things will not get better until about Saturday when the skies should clear but then wind will start to pick up. Anyone who tells you that the weather is good all year round in Southern Spain has never lived here.

It was just a myth

We’ve all heard the myth which says that if you buy a plot of land in a remote area which has an existing building on it, then you are legally allowed to convert the ruin into a habitable house. On our journeys through the Costa del Sol and the Costa Almeria we saw many such opportunities and whilst Pam and I would never contemplate such a scheme there were those who did.

Ten years ago a British couple bought a 1,400 square metre plot of land on the Costa del Sol in an area classified as unsuitable for building, There was a 30 square metre ruin on the land which they proceeded to convert into a two-storey villa. They had obviously heard the same story as us.

Now a court in Málaga has ruled that the couple should serve an eight month jail sentence for building on protected land. They have also been fined and are forced to demolish the house.

This decision is deeply worrying for many of those who have illegal homes in all of the costas including the Costa Blanca.

Frosts at the weekend cause more misery for farmers

As I said yesterday, it was cold at the weekend and it was dry as well – a lethal combination for the remainder of the artichokes that were not affected by the last frosts. Low temperatures freeze the water in the vegetables leaving them looking as if they have been burnt. It is the same for beans and other crops like lettuces, spinach and chard. The only crop which survives these cold spells is the broccoli where growth is just slowed down. Crops grown in low lying areas are more vulnerable than those grown on high ground because the cold air settles there.

Farmers will need to check how far the damage has spread into the heads of the artichokes. With a blackened exterior they will not be saleable at market and certainly cannot be exported but might be OK for canning if the insides are not affected.

These problems for farmers only add to the misery caused by robberies. The farmers union now suspects that the thefts must be made by organised gangs because in some cases they are stealing the Provence Violet variety of artichoke which is not sold in Spain. These would have to exported to France for sale indicating that this is not the work of amateurs.

The weather continues to be cold but at the same time moist so the danger to further crops is a lot lower.

He must wear bullet proof pants

I reckon, being the prime minister or president of a country, is the hardest job in the world. As you sweep to power it must seem that all the country is behind you but then a year or so on things often start to go sour. When you can’t fulfil all the promises that were made before the election, the voters start to turn on you. Even the highly charismatic Barack Obama has suffered from this type of post election blues.

If you then add scandal into the equation, things must be a whole lot worse. Take Silvio Berlusconi for example. He is formally suspected of paying an underage prostitute and trying to cover it up by exerting pressure on the police. Prosecutors say the nightclub dancer, Karima "Ruby" el-Mahroug, who was 17 at the time, visited Berlusconi eight times at his villa, near Milan, last year. Both Berlusconi and the girl deny that sex took place but the police have taped phone calls which claim otherwise. I mean come on, nobody in their right mind would believe they stayed up all night playing cards or watching late night TV.

There is apparently plenty of evidence that the so called “bunga bunga” parties were a regular event at the Prime Minister’s Milan mansion. These have been variously described as unimaginable orgies even though one of the girls involved has described them as innocent dinner parties where they discussed politics and other topics of interest. However, as sordid as these parties might have been, they would not be illegal. No, the whole case against the PM rests on pinning down the fact that Berlusconi paid for sex with a minor and tried to cover it up. Both of these offences would earn the 74 year old time in jail.

You would imagine that all  this scandal surrounding Berlusconi would turn the whole of Italy against him but no.  A poll published by Corriere della Sera found backing for his Freedom People movement was higher than a month earlier, and less than half of Italians believed he should resign.

Renato Mannheimer, the head of the company that conducted the poll, said "even the Catholic electorate ... does not appear to have significantly altered its preferences". For the first time, the number of Italians favouring Berlusconi's resignation exceeded the number who opposed it, but they represented only 49% of the electorate.

How on earth can this be?  Even a lowly back bencher in the British parliament would be forced to resign for a whole lot less. If the Prime Minister was involved in similar sex scandals, then he would be taken to the Tower of London!  The only conclusion you can draw is that there is no credible alternative in Italian politics that the electorate are prepared to show faith in. Just to think, we considered Italy as an alternative place to retire to!

Goodbye sunshine

Looks like we are in for one of those dull dreary weeks where the sun doesn’t bother to make an appearance. UPDATE: It is now 11:30 and the sun has been shining for the last hour. Let's hope it stays that way. The good news is that the cloud cover should make it feel a little milder at night. I don’t know about you but I thought It was very cold at the weekend. I was almost expecting to see some frost on my car in the mornings.

At least the rain should only be light and probably won’t last all day. Let’s hope the weather bucks up for the Medieval Market in Orihuela early February and then for the Carnival in Torrevieja at the end of next month.

Torrevieja–almost a new town

When we first came to live here, nearby Torrevieja was quite frankly a bit run down, in desperate need of a face lift. The congested centre streets still allowed traffic and parking and there was graffiti everywhere. The seafront was to say the least uninspiring and there was no theatre to house entertainement. That has all changed in the six years we have been here and now the municipality is the smart place to visit that we knew it should be.

Whilst a lot of work has now been complete, the redevelopment of the town centre is still on-going. When it is complete,an estimated 10 million Euros will have been spent.

The next stage is to pedestrianize Calle Ausentes creating a direct path from the Plaza de Oriente to the Paseo de la Libertad on the seafront. The town also plans to build a new place for the market located near to the Antonio Soria park (next to Aquapolis). There are also plans to extend Avenido Rosa Mazón Valero - linking it to the CV-90, work on the commercial centre at the Torretas Urbanisations and resurfacing of many of the avenues and roads outside the city centre.

With 103,540 habitants, Torrevieja is the third largest city in the Alicante province after Alicante itself and Elche. Statistics show that in comparison with previous years, there has been an increase of residents from the European Union, in particular from the UK and Scandinavian countries. At the same time there has been a decrease in the number of residents from South American countries such has Columbia, Peru or Chile. It is a busy cosmopolitan place where 122 nationalities live in harmony.

Pete Rafferty’s birthday treat

Most people would expect a treat of some sort on their birthday. It might be a special meal at home or maybe they would be taken out somewhere nice. For my birthday this year, not only did I get a lovely lunch out but I was taken to a show in Manchester - that was a fantastic surprise.

Yesterday was Pete Rafferty’s birthday and I dare say there were some nice surprises in store for him too. Pete didn’t get to enjoy a relaxing night though – he had to work and work damn hard. Instead of going out, Pete chose his special day to give the rest of us a real treat - a journey through the music of the sixties.

When we arrived at Villas Andrea, Pete was one of the first people we met. He had a lot of experience singing in clubs, on his own and with groups and I think on cruise ships. He was going to put on a special performance up at La Predera.

That first night we saw him the place was packed, anyone who arrived after 9pm had to stand. Pete wowed the large crowd with his excellent performance as himself which was only eclipsed by his take off of Elvis Presley complete with white catsuit, black wig and sunglasses.

On a number of occasions since, Pete has performed and each time he has managed to throw something different into the mix. Who could ever forget his PJ Proby, his Freddie Mercury, his teddy boy and his Shirley Bassie – so many memorable nights. Pete worries that we will tire of him and want for something different – NO Pete – you will tire of us first.

Last night Pete was just himself, no impersonations – pure Pete and he was damned good. He performed numbers from Cliff Richard to the Who to an enthusiastic audience.

Thank you for your birthday treat to us – it was very much appreciated. We hope you enjoyed your day because we certainly did.

Only the strongest survive

I don’t need to tell you that the construction industry here has been the hardest hit by the economic crisis. Spain is littered with stalled building developments and land values have plunged as the country tries to clear an excess stock of more than 700,000 newly built homes. This has put a lot of stress on the banks that have loaned money for future housing development projects; they will not see a return on their investments for quite a few years to come.

While major Spanish banks like Santander or BBVA can comfortably cope with their bad real estate loans, there are fears that some of the cajas, the savings banks, may not be able to. High levels of bad property loans at the cajas are seen as a major risk for Spain as it slashes its budget deficit to stave off fears  that it will need an Irish or Greek-style rescue from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.The number of cajas has already been reduced from 45 to 17 by means of  mergers to try and stave off the problem.

It is hoped that private investors can be found to put money into the cajas. However, Spain's Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring could take stakes in those that are unable to attract outside investment. In a move to prop them up, Spain is to partially nationalise the weakest of the cajas and force them to become conventional  banks with stock market listings. The cost of this is estimated to be between 25 and 50 billion Euros which is within the 88 billion Euros set aside.