This morning we wandered downhill into Jalón to see how our new house insurance policy was progressing. It turned out that it was progressing quite nicely and was ready for collection and, mas importante, for payment. Now, if our existing…

On our recent trip into Valencia by train [Valencian Markets], Francine had been impressed by the soft quality of the light on that particular morning over the rice paddies of the Parque Natural Albufera as we rattled by. So, we…

[A more difficult pronunciation topic. Spanish Bs and Vs suffer from an identity crisis. They get mixed up. The pronunciation of Vinarós lies somewhere between Vin-a-ross and Bin-a-ross. The lead letter is a sort of soft B, made without the…

[Pronounced Pen-yis-colla, by the way.] A gota fría was forecast for the Jalón area this weekend. A gota fría is literally a “cold drop”, a particular meteorological phenomenon in which a low pressure area becomes disconnected from its normal mother…

Flexible folks are the Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers. This Wednesday there was originally no moderately graded walk, just a red run and two black runs. Two blacks, indeed. Francine says two blacks is quite usual. Clearly we need more training.…

Yes, yet another walk with the Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers. This walk was advertised as the Barranco de Turrubanes Circuit, another blue grade walk of 10 kms with 350m of ascent, starting from Vall d’Ebo, which is itself quite high…

Much as I don’t “do” cities, I can usually be encouraged to visit Valencia for a day so I can drool over the bewildering array of toothsome delights on offer in the absolutely incredible Mercado Central [Central market], It is…

Boots on again. Which reminds me, buying walking kit in this part of Spain isn’t as easy as one might expect. On a descent from our first outing up to the cross above Senija, my toes had been bumping into…

The beat of life, that is. We’ve been in a cool spell recently, where cool means that temperatures haven’t risen much above 11°C. Today, though, the wind felt as though it was coming more from the south, i.e. Africa, and…