Author: Franco

(Waking) Up in the Clouds

There have often been times at our favourite dog-sitting house down in the Jalón valley that we’ve stared westwards up the valley and watched the mountain/hill tops being obscured by a threatening set of gloomy low clouds. This morning waking

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2

Two Visits

One of the challenges we’d begun to organize on Spanish Venture Part 1 was to get a quote for fitting shower screens, one to our upstairs/guest bathroom and another to our downstairs/main shower room. Upon our return this time, the

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2

International Confusion

A beautiful morning dawned, cool but sunny. There’s an interesting phenomenon we’ve noticed on other visits to our friends’ house which is also half way up the mountain; fire smoke rises so far above the vineyards and then spreads out

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2

Waiting for Our Bed

Monday: bed delivery day. Today we should get our own bed (as opposed to the guest room bed that we’ve been using hitherto). Since the bed delivery men had my mobile phone number, I was tasked with waiting at home

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2

9 Almost Down, 7 to Go

Almost? Well, yes, almost. With a quiet Sunday morning and early afternoon in prospect prior to visiting our friends down in the valley for Sunday dinner, I thought it was a good time to attack more of my 16-box 3D

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2

Shopping Fans

That should be singular, or course. Whereas most women appear to regard shopping as a recreational pastime,  if not an Olympic sport, most men, in my experience, are the exact opposite. A man’s approach is this: if you must go

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2

2 Down, 14 to Go

After our second which was largely spent by recuperating from the financial shocks of yesterday, the morning dawned grey and overcast. Today, we were expecting two furniture deliveries. Our excitement at no longer living in a white furniture-free box was

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2

Arranging Deliveries

After our first night in Casa we pronounced the guest bed fit for purpose. There was a problem, though. For the last three months, my right foot has been plagued by an attack of plantar fasciitis. At some time during

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First Night

After yesterday’s excitement of leaving Portsmouth harbour at 8:30 AM, the remainder of the day had been a mixture of either staring at the horizon slowly bobbing up and down and/or feeling queazy, in Francine’s case. Fortunately, the night had

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2

Welcome to Malta

Despite having to lash out on a Toby Carvery dinner and a night away in a Travelodge – boy, do I know how to treat a lady – we were very pleased that we had not done the alternative 3:00

Posted in Spanish Venture Part 2