Distracting Moraira

The observant may have noticed that Franco has been strangely quiet since Boxing Day 2013 [a.k.a. Piglet Day]. This silence was largely down to something of a hiatus back at home caused by Francine’s mother taking a tumble on Boxing Day whilst visiting Francine’s sister. Whilst tumbles for a 92-year-old can prove terminal, fortunately on this occasion nothing was broken (except, perhaps, the wardrobe onto which she fell) but mother-in-law was severely shaken up and was not recovering well. This situation resulted in a lot of time spent fretting, wondering about returning to the UK and checking available flights should it be deemed necessary to do such a thing.

Enough explanation as to the delay. Now that we are actually back at home, on with the story with entries dated appropriately.

After the first of many phone calls back home and rather by way of a distraction, we decided to pop of to the coast; the sea is usually an uplifting experience, even the Mediterranean.

We have been to Moraira one a previous occasion but that was an evening social involving 10-pin bowling and fish and chips. Yes, I’m ashamed to say that, just to be social, we did agree to eat in the archetypal English fish and chip restaurant in Spain. Shame on us! Moraira seems to be much favoured by expat Brits and caters to them. This time would be different – now we were playing tourist.

_MG_2109 Moraira looking southMoraira is an attractive, if slightly confusing beach resort. When we parked at this resort on Spain’s eastern Mediterranean cost and began walking along the front, we were not really prepared for Moraira to be facing south. “Wait a moment, what’s the sun doing over there”, was the sort of thought that went through our minds. A glance at a map sorts out the confusion and the bay does indeed curve round and face south. This shot is looking south to the large rock at Calpe. Someone had been getting creative along the front with some large pieces of metal, too.

_MG_2121 Moraira_MG_2156 Moraira

_MG_2133 Moraira _MG_2151 Grey HeronAt the end of this attractively done shaded walkway (that’s Franco sitting down towards the end of it) was an interesting-looking lagoon complete with reed beds. Having spotted a few dragonflies in Jalón immediately prior to Christmas, I couldn’t resist giving it the once over but, alas, to no avail. Other than a collection of Muscovy ducks (apparently natives of Mexico) and moorhens, my most interesting find was a Grey Heron.

We sat and enjoyed a cafe solo [Spanish espresso] served, completely unexpectedly, accompanied by a cream-stuffed profiterole drizzled with chocolate sauce. What a pleasant touch.

Moraira made a pleasant distraction from events at home. If the latter allowed, Francine fancied a pre-dawn photo shoot with muggins as driver. We’d have to see how things developed.

Posted in 2013 Spain

Making a Pig’s Ear of it

Having had Christmas Day off cooking duties dining out with friends, I was back on duty on Boxing Day, not that the Spanish recognize Boxing Day. It was time for us to deal with our medio cochinillo [half suckling pig], which is something we’d both been looking forward to attacking.

Piglet before 600As a result of some serious forward planning, even though distracted by battering winds, we had thought to remove piglet from the freezer on Christmas night. Since there seemed to be no suitable roasting tray, we had even bought him/her a special cheap one from the local Chinese bazaar. The tray didn’t feel as though it would last long but at €4, it didn’t have to. Piglet fitted it perfectly. The observant may notice a few flecks on Piglet’s skin. That’s because, inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi’s TV program on Majorca featuring a whole suckling pig, I drench him in a marinade made of lemon juice, oregano and brandy.

Bottom line: this was not a great success.

Piglet after 600Thursday evening’s being a weekly meeting to sup a few beers at Casa Aleluya in Jalón, I left Piglet in a lowish (125°C) fan oven for two hours, then returned and gave it another 45 minutes at 200°C. That formula chez moi produces a meltingly tender full shoulder of lamb and Piglet was an altogether skinnier beast and should, I’d have thought, been falling off the bone. Piglet certainly looked the part but was it falling off the bone? No. Was all the skin crispy? No.

As advertised, our previous adventure in Spain with a medio cochinillo was a great success, though I can’t remember the formula. However, I’m confident this would have worked well at home so I can really only put this disappointing result down to radical differences between the two oven thermostats, both being electric fan ovens. Neither am I convinced that a wet marinade over the skin helped it crisp – I wish I’d left it off and dry roasted Piglet.

Oh well, live and learn.

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Posted in 2013 Spanish Xmas

An Educational Navidad

Completely unreligious though I may be, one of the things that I feel adds to the enjoyment when travelling through France, in particular, is the chiming of church bells on hours and half hours. The hours don’t chime just once but twice, with a gap of about a minute in between the two sequences. I think this is so you can count the chimes accurately second time around having been alerted by the first sequence but inevitable missed one or two. Most communities seem to stop the chimes over night – between, say, 11:00 PM and 6:00 AM – to reduce sleep disturbance but, even around the odd community that leaves them ringing over night – Arçais, for example – I find it all quite atmospheric.

Here in Jalón at midnight on Christmas Eve we were treated to bags of atmosphere. We are within ear shot of the churches of Jalón and Lliber, both of whose church bells began clattering away with gusto. I think they may have been trying to drown out Santa’s sleigh bells. Terrific!

As well as throwing excellent fresh prawns at us for what seem like ridiculously low prices, another thing that the Spanish give away for peanuts is fresh oranges. The price seems to vary, according to season, between €2 and €3 for 5 kilos. We’re in the €2 season now but we don’t even have to part with €2 because Chris has an orange tree in his orchard that’s still cropping. Perfectly decent Spanish Cava, like Freixenet, is readily available at €4 a bottle, as well. At this point, gastronauts brains should be lighting up with ideas of the perfect start to a Christmas morning. What better than a glass or two of Buck’s Fizz made with freshly squeezed orange juice?

Just because I could, I leapt onto the Internet to check proportions. Good job, too! Fine though the distinction may be – this is similar to the difference between a Dry Martini (mixed) and a Gibson cocktail – it seems that a Buck’s Fizz should be 2 parts of orange juice to 1 part of ridiculously priced Champagne/much more reasonably priced Cava. That’s far too much fruit unit and far too little alcohol, of course = way too healthy. On the other hand, a Mimosa is made with equal proportions of the same ingredients. Right, Mimosas it was to be, then. How educational research can be.

_MG_2105 Xmas breakfastUsing freshly squeezed orange juice improves presentation greatly, I noticed. The fizz in the sparkling stuff causes a very appealing orange-tinted froth on the top of the drink. This is not something I’ve ever seen using that accursed “reconstituted from concentrate” orange juice beloved of supermarkets. A few perfectly reasonable but purchased sausage rolls helped our drinks down and served as breakfast.

Our Mimosas were the only really sunny thing for Christmas Day, which, as had been advertised for some time, dawned an even, dull grey reminiscent of Britain and continued in that vein with sporadic rain as we walked the mile or so across the river to our Christmas lunch engagement with a friend on the other side of the valley. And very pleasant not having to cook was, too, if you’ll pardon the beginning of a sentence with a conjunction for effect. 😉

Since returning after being well fed and watered, the wind has risen and has been battering the house. Scamp dislikes the noise made by the wind and is decidedly jittery, and the wind is doing its level best to rip the sunshade roof off Chris’s gazebo thingy but I can’t see in the darkness to take any corrective action. Fingers crossed.

Scamp was so jittery that he insisted on sleeping in our bedroom. 🙁

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Posted in 2013 Spanish Xmas

Left In Charge

There are many good reasons not to fly Ryan Air. First among these reasons, of course, is that the plonker in charge has no respect for customers and doesn’t deserve to have any. The reason uppermost in my mind this very early morning, though, was that the Mr Plonker’s plane that would be taking our hosts back to their Xmas celebrations in the UK was due to leave Alicante airport soon after 6:00 AM. It’s an hour down to Alicante from Jalón and our friends had a bag to check-in (15kg limit, hardly anything – thanks Mr Plonker) so the alarm roused us at 3:00 AM. In fact, I’d been awake since 12:30 AM waiting for the alarm so it had hardly been worth getting undressed and going to bed at all.

Even when the autopista running between Jalón and Alicante is busy, it’s quieter than our M1 at midnight. In the early hours of a Spanish morning, the road is all but completely deserted. Who else but those poor unfortunates with a seat on Mr Plonker’s early morning flight would want to be on the road at 3:30 AM, anyway?

I’ve never seen an airport so quiet, either. I dropped off my passengers and concentrated on finding my way back home. At 5:50 AM and after having only 80 minutes of sleep, I collapsed again.

_MG_2095 Net maintenanceThe day proper began at 10:00 AM. We shot into Calpe to enjoy the sunshine and see what might be lurking around the lagoon. The sun, however, was accompanied by something more than a stiff breeze, so much so that the normally calm Mediterranean sounded like a proper sea with breakers hitting the sandy shore. Such wildlife as there was, a distant group of Flamingos and the odd seagull, was hunkered down. Most interesting was a small group of fishermen mending nets in the uncannily quiet fishing harbour.

With the wind spoiling plan A, we headed for the Consum supermercado to implement plan B, which turned out to be a lunch of  wondeful bara rustica (bread similar to the best of the French baguettes) and prawns accompanied by allioli, on the naya back at home. Why is it that we Brits pay through the nose for pathetically small prawns when the Spanish can buy 500g of good sized cooked prawns for a mere €3.00? It makes you want to spit!

ScampA bright afternoon gave us the chance to settle lunch by walking el perrito through the vineyards to Lliber where there is a small bar overlooking the square. A matching pair of cafe solos [espressos] together with a digestivo of generous measures of Soberano [Spanish brandy] finished things off admirably.

¡Feliz Navidad!

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Posted in 2013 Spanish Xmas

Sun at last

2013-12-22 12.13.01 Jalon vineyardAfter a few days of damp weather that peaked towards indifferent, today dawned with crystal clear blue skies. We’d used the rubbish weather to seek out a half piglet for our freezer ready for the festivities but now we were looking forward to getting out into the surrounding countryside à pied. After a few necessary chores, I slung my camera and monopod over my shoulder and headed out into the vineyards lying between Jalón and Lliber [pronounced “Yee-bear”].

_MG_2061It really is amazing what difference a blue sky makes to ones demeanour. It makes a difference to the demeanour of the wildlife, too. I spotted a few Small White butterflies flitting around the hedgerows and lines of vines but I was toting my camera largely for the birds which are always there. Regrettably, the birds proved to be very skittish and always too far away, even with a 300mm lens plus 1.4 extender on a 1.6 crop factor camera body; I began to wonder why I’d bothered. The old vines still held a few small unwanted bunches of grapes. I don’t know if these were what the birds were after or whether their target were insects. Had I been able to identify them, maybe I’d have known their diet.

_MG_2070We continued back along the river towards Jalón, always keeping eyes open for dragonflies. Normally at this time in late December I wouldn’t have been concerned about dragonflies but host Chris claimed to have seen one fly through his garden not too long before we arrived. Other than a few more Small Whites in the surrounding fields, though, the river appeared deserted.

Back in Jalón, we headed for Casa Aleluya in search of a coffee. We wandered past a small pool in the river that seemed to be something of a sun trap and our eyes caught some movement. Lo and behold, not only dragonflies but ovipositing dragonflies. The path was too far away but a lengthy diversion and scramble over some of the river rocks got me to within shooting distance – Common Darters (Sympetrum striolatum), unsurprisingly, they are late season specialists, after all. Given that fellow Odo-nutters had been spotting Common Darters in Hampshire in the earlier days of December, I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised that there was still activity this much further south in Spain. Curiously, I had not found this species here in August.

J01_4574 Common Darters ovipJ01_4587 Common Darter

Toting my camera was a wise decision after all.

Posted in 2013 Spanish Xmas

In Search of Piglet

One of the enjoyable things about a Christmas away from home, other than the actual being away from home itself, of course, is that different celebratory food items become available. Francine and I did spend Xmas 2008 in Spain and we stumbled, quite by chance, upon a suckling pig in a supermarket. Well, to be perfectly accurate, what Francine stumbled upon was a vacuum-packed half suckling pig – the left half, if memory serves. ‘T was Francine who had to do the stumbling ‘cos I was temporarily back in the UK on a classic family emergency, returning just in time for our Xmas together on Xmas Eve. It seems that suckling pig is quite popular in Spain over Christmas. I’d been salivating at the prospect of a repeat gastronomic experience this time since leaving Luton airport.

I had not been looking forward to the rather rainy conditions that we’ve experienced since arriving but at least wet weather makes scouring the supermarkets an enjoyable experience. First, we checked out the Masymas supermercado in Jalon. Nada, nichts, nothing. Darn, I hope the Spanish haven’t gone off suckling pig. The following day found us in the local Masymas again and lo, cutely curled up on the meat counter, its little trotters curled appealingly beneath it, was a whole suckling pig. Francine thought of two reasons not to buy it:

  1. it was too big for two;
  2. it looked too much like Scamp (our charge for the season).

Well, Scamp does curl his paws under him in much the same fashion but really, some people have no sense of fun.

Finally, today on Saturday morning prior to an evening dinner party Francine and I hit the Mercadona supermercado in Benissa for some supplies. Ever alert, though our personal needs weren’t our prime requirement, we wandered past a chiller cabinet filled with halves of suckling pigs. The expiry date was 25th December and, having been invited out on Christmas Day, we’d have to freeze our booty but it was too good an opportunity to miss so we bagged €25 worth.

This year’s acquisition is the right hand side of the piglet so we’ll be able to do a taste comparison. 🙂

When was the last time you saw a suckling pig in a British supermarket?

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Posted in 2013 Spanish Xmas

Bound for a Spanish Christmas

After much agonizing over deserting an elderly parent for the so-called festivities, Francine and I finally bit the bullet and accepted a Christmas and New Year house-and-dog-sitting assignment in Spain. I booked the flights, departing on 19th December and returning on 9th January, and ‘fessed up to my mother. The flights were more expensive than usual being around Christmas but, hey, life is for living. Mother was thrilled. [Ahem :)]

Just to add insult to injury, having decided upon a 3:30 AM alarm and arranged with our neighbour for a 4:15 AM departure for Luton airport to get our 6:50 AM easyJet flight to Alicante, easyJet sent out a text message saying,

Owing to high passenger volumes travelling through Luton airport over the Christmas period, we recommend allowing extra time for your journey. We are opening check-in desks three hours before departure rather than the usual two hours.

Screw that! Friendly though our neighbourly reciprocal arrangement for transport is, I wasn’t keen on dragging anyone out of bed any earlier, so 4:15 AM it remained.

Good decision! We arrived at Luton in good time and walked straight up to a bag drop desk (having checked in online some weeks earlier). Maybe extra staff in readiness for the Christmas rush was helping? Our luck continued as we encountered no horrendous queues at security; we got through the scanners quicker than ever before. Great stuff!

Our flight left on time – actually a couple of minutes early – and went smoothly save for a little turbulence approaching the Pyrenees. Alicante’s baggage handers were their usual slow selves getting bags from plane to conveyor belt but our luggage did arrive eventually and we sauntered out past some strangely alert Spanish who actually wanted to see our passports. We were reunited with our hosts, Chris and Yvonne, for the 1-hour ride north to Jalón.

The only fly in today’s very smooth ointment was that we’d left a sunny forecast in England in favour of a rainy forecast in Spain. Nonetheless, since making the almost impossible decision to come, we’ve really been looking forward to a different Christmas and it felt very good to be back.

First job, an early evening beer or five with a few more Vall de Pop friends at the Casa Aleluja in Jalón. 😉

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Posted in 2013 Spanish Xmas

An Early Bath

Having arrived in sunshine last Friday lunchtime and having spent the following four days in sunny, if slightly windy conditions, today dawned with a grey overcast. The noticeable easterly wind was still with us and and has seemed to be something of a feature here. I consulted the weather forecast for the following few days: grey with the risk of some showers. I’d had a very pleasant, probably better than could reasonably be expected at the beginning of October, 5-night stay. I’d pretty much done the things on my to-do list.

For the remainder of the week, the grey skies weren’t going to suit any landscape photography. More cycling around the lanes would have been enjoyable but less so in the prevailing stiff breeze. I checked the forecast at home: worse, if anything, but by leaving today, I should be able to get Guillaume parked in his home field without getting soaked.

Decision made. Guillaume and I packed up and returned home for a slightly early bath, carefully avoiding the current travel nightmare that is the A11 around Thetford.

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Posted in 2013 Norfolk 2

Changed Expectations

The Norfolk Broads is a network of waterways based upon three main rivers: the Yare flowing mainly east-west between Norwich and Great Yarmouth, the Bure to the north and the Waveney to the south. I’m somewhat familiar with the first two but have never investigated the Waveney. The forecast today was average, dry with cloud and sunny intervals, so I thought I’d try somewhere on the Waveney.

On my newly acquired OS map, I spotted a parking area in something called Waveney Forest, just outside the village of Fritton on a bend in the river Waveney. I found it, parked and went off on foot. Dull! That’s “Dull” with a capital “D”. I think it had capital “U”, “L” and “L” as well. This was a managed conifer plantation with a muddy bog for access to teh river upon which there seemed to be nothing happening. The most interesting thing I spotted was a Tesco Extra on the way there but it was too early in the day to go shopping for perishables. Time for plan-B.

On our June trip here, we’d missed out on one of the main dragonfly attraction spots, the RSPB’s Strumpshaw Fen reserve. [Being a sick puppy, I can’t help but turn that title into The Strumpshaw Redemption. Great movie!] The weather turned out to be considerably better than forecast, clear and bright, though still a little windy; Strumpshaw would do. I left DULL with a capital D-U-L-L as swiftly as I legally could.

J01_4313 Strumpshaw HeronOriginally, I had been looking forward to some walking up here but the OS map for this neck of the woods shows few footpaths, certainly few that can be linked together into a circular walk. Strumpshaw Fen, however, provided just what was missing. I paused at the hide near the reception to snap a Grey Heron indulging in some fishing, then went off on the 5 kms or so circuit. To be honest, I saw little else of interest, other than the usual dragonflies of the late season, but it was a very pleasant saunter in some peaceful countryside.

J01_4320 Railway linesThe last part of the circuit takes the walker across a used railway line with, of course, dire warnings about, “stop, look, listen” before you attemp to cross lest you get ploughed down by the 3:15 to Norwich. I couldn’t help risking life and limb by standing in the tracks and snapping a shot along the lines, just because it was a rare opportunity in our over-protected society.

J01_4325 Wroxham river frontI needed food supplies and wasn’t far from Tesco at Sprowston so that was my next port of call. A day off cooking appealed but all I could reasonably find were some coked king prawn, just the ticket with some aioli. I fancied something more exciting with it, though. Ah, I’d be returning through Wroxham where the famous Roys sells dressed crab. Plan-C, dressed crab with king prawns and aioli, swung into action. After securing my dressed crab, with the waterfront bathed in late afternoon sunlight, I thought I’d better snap it for posterity.

J01_4326 Butchers signI was also forced to snap this sign outside a local butchers shop. I realize that butchers usually have a highly developed sense of humour/cheek but I guess this could be serious. If it is serious, it begs the question, “how do they know, though?”

Dinner beckons: dressed crab and prawns with aioli, all washed down with a cold bottle of Viognier – just the ticket!

Posted in 2013 Norfolk 2

Cold Vegetables

Lazy for me, that is. It was somewhat less lazy for my friend of many years, recently retired [congratulations], who rode his motorcycle up from Suffolk to visit me during my stay in Norfolk. I spent a casual morning on camp duties preparing Guillaume for a visitor and carefully avoiding breakfast since we planned to have lunch together.

J01_4307 from Ludham BridgeWe were reunited at 11:00 AM and, after the obligatory catch-up natter, sauntered down to Ludham Bridge to enjoy the local scenery. [This is an evening shot rather than midday, to get better light quality, but it gives you the idea.]

Then the worms were biting so we drove the five miles or so into Horning in search of a favourable hostelry. Bingo! Not only was there one with tables beside the river but it also sold both Adnams Bitter (for the motorcyclist) and Adnams Broadside, which is one of my personal great favourites. The curly kale accompanying my fish pie was decidedly cool but, hey, I was eating out in the sun on the last day of September and it was one of my five-a-day. 😀

Our afternoon entertainment was a return (for me) to Thurne to see the classic Norfolk scenery of boats and windmills/pumps. We also were entertained by a pair of tourists attempting to dock one of the many rental bath tubs pleasure boats.

Mr Tourist was at the helm (is that the correct term?) while Mrs Tourist sat on the bow armed with the bow line. Mrs Tourist was, shall we say, a little lumpy and seemed incapable of jumping onto shore in order to tie off the bow line. Ever the gentleman, I offered to take the bow line for her, for which she seemed very grateful, as she proceeded literally to crawl off the bow of the boat and onto shore on her hands and knees. She struggled to her feet and eventually wrapped the line around a mooring post but, I think, didn’t allow enough slack. Assisted by the wind which was blowing off-shore, with Mrs Tourist pulling the rounded bow into shore, the stern made its way back out into the middle of the river despite Mr Tourist fighting gamely to correct the situation employing copious quantities of  throttle and rudder.

J01_4301 Wind pump at ThurneGreat fun! I’m not sure how Mr & Mrs Tourist will survive the week. I stopped watching for while. Eventually they did get docked ‘cos I did spot Mr Tourist clambering ashore with the stern line. And [artistic license – beginning a sentence with a conjunction] I certainly couldn’t embarrass Mr & Mrs Tourist further by taking a photograph. Instead, here’s another take of one of the two wind thingies at Thurne.

The temperature must have dropped; the fridge had frozen my spring onions and mushrooms intended for my evening meal of Coq au Caravan. Drat! I made do.

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Posted in 2013 Norfolk 2