The winter doldrums, that is. So far this season, the weather in Spain has been terrific, better than last year, so it has been great to escape the British winter. There have always been some butterflies around – more than…

On an earlier trip up the mountain road to the Bernia basecamp, we’d spotted a rough track through some almond trees that created an avenue of sorts. Being a mountain road it’s narrow, i.e. almost wide enough for two vehicles,…

Today would have been my mother’s 101st birthday. I’m not given to noting birthdays of the deceased but I couldn’t help but think about mother’s today. She absolutely hated having her birthday in February because it’s usually the worst month…

Cities are not my natural habitat. [Ed: Quelle surprise!] Much of my feelings about cities have naturally been shaped by London which is an over-priced, over-populated metropolis with no architectural integrity that I’d rather avoid. Crowds aside, I am not…

And so to the driving force for our trip to Madrid, the Van Gogh Alive experience – an audio-visual show. We’d scouted the location yesterday so knew where we were going. Our entry tickets were for the first publicly bookable…

Our first full day in Madrid was forecast to be sunny and so it was; cool, though, topping out at about 8°C. We fortified ourselves at a local café with chocolate y churros – cups of hot chocolate accompanied by…

Well, it was too close to Ave Maria to resist. I’ll explain in a minute. Francine has been playing tour organizer again; we’re off on a trip to Madrid [big city, scary spiders] for three days. There’s safety in numbers…

On Monday our walking group, numbering eight, had gone up a couple of mountains that gave us great views of the mountain known as the Montgo towering above Dénia and Jávea. Today, our Wednesday walking group, the Costa Blanca Mountain…

Monday walking group time again. Unfortunately, Francine had a need to visit a farmacia so could not accompany me. She also needed the car so I was into being dropped off and bumming a lift to and from the walk.…

On a couple of our day trips out, usually heading for dragonfly sites, we have driven higher up the nearby Vall d’Ebo. As one drives the road, high up on the righthand side can be seen a moiuntain peak capped…