Author: Franco

Winter Flutterbys

The Three Kings, which is a 12th night present bonanza and a bigger deal in Spain than Christmas, is done and dusted and things are now returning to relative normality, whatever that is. We are currently enjoying a spell of

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

First of the Year

Yes, the first day of the new year and a sunny one here at the Costa Blanca. 2019, if you please. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we in the IT industry were fretting about the havoc that a

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

Beside Las Salinas

We’d popped into Calpe for a spot of lunch.  Not wishing to eat large lunches, ours tend to be tapas, either calamares [squid] or chipirones/chopitos [baby squid – I think chopitos is the Valenciana name]. The astute reader may see

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When Stacking Goes Wrong

There are times when one just have to laugh at technology. Currently, our car is one instance with its irritating “BONG!” every time we turn it off even though everything is just dandy … everything except the monitoring system, that

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

Es- What!?

For a Boxing Day leg stretch to get the blood pumping around again, with a pleasantly sunny day we decided to go on our more usual kick-off walk up to the cross above Senija. There’re usually some butterflies hill-topping up

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

¡Bon Nadal!

Which, I believe, is Valenciana for ¡Navidad Feliz!, the latter being Castillian, or what the British would normally refer to as Spanish. With what seems like a plethora of languages in the Iberian peninsular, we Brits, who are world-renowned for

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

Spanish Orange

Spain is, of course, well known for its oranges. I think it’s fair to say that there is a surfeit of oranges in Spain. There are so many that, at this time of year, the going rate for a 5kg

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

A Fated Journey

Our winter escape to Spain last year had been reasonably successful so we thought we’d go for a repeat performance. Our outbound ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao was booked for midday, Wednesday 19th December. After another medical procedure (just for

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

All Hallows’

It’s come around again, my most reviled night of the year. A bit of harmless dressing up in costume is fine – kids’ve loved to do so since time immemorial – but I detest the “trick or treat” nonsense that

Posted in 2018-10 Spain

Autumn Orchid

Aim for Xàbia/Jávea and miss, was my instruction. Whilst on our spring visit to Spain early this year we had called into the Visitor Centre at the Parc Natural del Montgó. In addition to a large relief model of the

Posted in 2018-10 Spain