What Did I Miss!!

I´ve just watched a really brilliant programme about the making of ´The Phantom of the Opera´ starring Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford.

Back in the mid eighties, Brian treated me to a weekend in London, for my birthday, I think!! He was working there at the time and I remember catching the train from Plymouth, after work, and meeting him at Paddington. He had found a lovely hotel, just behind Kensington Palace. The barman was in his eighties, doing a degree in Military History and living hand to mouth. A wonderful man who I often think of.

Anyway, back to my tale. The highlight of my weekend was supposed to be a visit to the theatre to see the ´Phantom of the Opera´ but the Scottish blood in him refused to pay the price of the tickets!

I don´t normally nag but he did get it in the neck during tonight´s programme. I really would have liked to have seen it.

When Topsie Met Charlotte

She is a little scared of dogs after some fool let his alsation jump up at her and so we always lock Top away when Charlotte pays a visit.

For some reason she asked to see him on Thursday and they ended up the best of friends. Charlotte was playing PS2 with Top´s head on her lap. Who would have thought it?

He doesn´t know it yet but he has been invited to the park next week. It´s a long way down that slide mate!!!

An Apology

My friend Valerie and I had a difference of opinion a few weeks ago. I won´t go into the details but I missed her out on my Xmas message.

I´m sorry Val. I hope you and your boys had fun and all best wishes for the New Year.

xxxxxxx

A Quiet Day

Boxing Day isn´t a public holiday here in Spain and so everyone was out and about as usual. We didn´t do much though and hardly moved all day!

Pork chops and chips for tea which was kind of normal after all the salmon, pork pies and the other Xmas stuff with which we overfed ourselves with yesterday.

It was a lovely Christmas Day though. A nice breakfast with our mates followed by a lovely evening at Caron´s house. We treated ourselves to my favourite film........´Dirty Dancing´, and chuckled at Charlotte´s attempts at joining in. Look out Jennifer Grey!

I had a natter with my son which was lovely, but didn´t manage to speak to my daughter until today. Next call was to my brother´s house. It appeared that he was watching Blackburn Rovers play. That was a brave move after their 6 - 2 defeat against Arsenal last week. He must have gone home on a high though after watching them beat Liverpool. It all comes to he that waits!!!

It´s Xmas Eve!!

I´ve been thinking about my grandchildren and imagining how excited they all are. I hope they all get everything they have wished for.

We don´t have plans for later today but we have decided on a complete change for Christmas Day. No huge lunch for us this year after the ´Tommy Turkey´ disaster of last year, but a nice breakfast of bucks fizz, salmon, poached eggs and toast, followed by ´picky bits´ at Dave and Caron´s house later in the day. Sounds good to me!!

I feel a little like the Queen delivering the Xmas message but here goes..........
Lots of love to my son, Mark, his wife, Katie, and little Tully, my daughter, Sam, her special mate, Baz, Jamie, Martin and Maisie, my brother, Ray, Alison and their children, Dean and Bradley, and to Simon, Karen, Carla and Sophie.

Love also to Shona and William, not forgetting the new addition to the family.....Apache!! George and Alison and Alan and Karen.

Hazel, my bestest friend in all the world and her lot, Tony and his girls, my mate John and Top´s doggy friend, Joe.

Finally, to all at the Inn on the Shore, Downderry, Cornwall and our friends here in Tenerife (a special hug to our Charlotte).

Have a good one everyone. HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!

PS. Does the Queen have a blog??

So Useless

I had to pay a visit to the Post Office or Correos today which is a mission that I really dread. It´s advisable to get there before ten o´clock as it closes at eleven and as I don´t do mornings, I have to make a tremendous effort!!

Needing at least two mugs of coffee (decaf these days) before facing the world, I was up at eight thirty and out of the door just after half nine. Not a bad sort of queue I thought. Only five in front of me. This should be a breeze and I´ll have time for coffee number three at Antonio´s Bar before meeting my friend, Barbara. Not a chance in hell!

I´m not too sure about the size of the population in our village but it must run into thousands. The one and only Post Office opens for two hours a day and one girl runs the lot. Just as I got to the front she went off to sort out the outgoing post which involved a lot of date stamping and ten minutes on the computer. By this time the queue was out of the door! Near on an hour just to buy a couple of stamps!

Just Another Week.............

...........until Xmas Day! Not that I´m excited or anything like that but I did have a moment earlier when a good old English Christmas came to mind. Finding a parking space, rushing around crowded department stores, listening to endless christmas carols and suffering hours of adverts for perfume, toys and electric razors.

It´s so different here. There are lots of decorations around but stuff isn´t pushed into your face. I have promised Charlotte that I will plug my tree in before Thursday and maybe put a few decorations up but that will be my lot. I refuse to have a repeat of last year when most of ´Tommy Turkey´ ended up in the freezer and was still looking at me at Easter!!

We have a break from bowling until the 7th January. Happen it´s a good thing as Doreen and I were useless today. The ´boys´ didn´t do too well either!

Silly Me!

Doreen had one of those ´ex-pat´ trips down memory lane yesterday and was reminiscing about her weekly visit to Marks and Spencer. I was sort of half listening and thinking about rows and rows of lacy underwear, tops and skirts etc, when she said that she had to get a lift home with all the bags.

I vaguely thought ´lucky her´, then I realised..............she was talking about FOOD!!!

I Had a Cunning Plan!

A couple of things have come to mind lately which I think are worth blogging and I set off to find the links and comment on them. However, I´ve searched the sites of the local newspapers to find the articles I was interested in, but not a mention. How annoying.

The first one, which appeared in the hard copy of ´Island Connections´ was of Barry and Val´s wedding. They are bowling mates of mine and Barry is kind enough to pick me up from my village every other Monday and take me to the Superbowl for Monday Bowling League.

Barry lost his wife, Chris, around four years ago and I remember trying to help him then, having some experience of losing a beloved partner. He was so lonely. A few months later a friend asked him to attend the funeral of the mother of a new resident to the island as she was without family and had few friends. Being the caring chap he is, he did so and that chance meeting ended up with romance. I recall him telling me that it was a little soon after losing his wife but I told him to go with the flow and have some fun!

Anyway, he´s now married to the ´new resident´ and as I often remark to Brian........I´ve never seen such a happy chappie!

My second search was to find an article written by Katy Kennedy (pictured) in another local English newspaper ´The Paper´ which seriously slags off Monday Bowling League. Again, it hasn´t been included in the online version. As I mentioned in a previous blog, we had to start again from day one. Katy and her partner Carol, couldn´t make the first three matches but did inform the bowling alley. Next thing was that they were ´blackballed´ and were replaced by another team. I agree with quite a bit of what Katy had to say but she was a little wrong in her facts and I feel an apology is in order. She blamed the wrong person and to put that in print was totally wrong.

Rant over.............time for bed xx

Poor Neglected Blog!

I´ve been quite busy this past week which is such a novelty!

Thursday was ´Charlotte´s Day´ and we did the normal sort of things, swing park, ice cream, and computer. I did introduce her to Super Bustamove 2, one of my PS2 games and she wouldn´t rest until she´d cracked it! It was so funny watching her charge around cheering after she had completed a level. Guess what we will be doing this week.

Brian´s sister, Shona, and her partner, William came over to us on Friday. We had a few beers at five o´clock club before going off to eat at Antonio´s. I find that understanding Spanish is easier than William´s Scottish accent. I say pardon so much that I´m sure he thinks I´m deaf!

They came along with us to Sunday bowling. It was a pretty poor show from our teams though, more´s the pity. Doreen and I got thrashed and Jeff and Brian only managed two points. Their big lead at the top of the table is diminishing rapidly.

Monday league was a bit grim today. There has been so much unrest that we have had to start from scratch. Ros and I had to play Doreen and Barry again. We won 6 - 2 last time........we won 6 - 2 this time..........hurrah for us! More on that later.

Talking ´grim´, the weather is really awful. We´ve had ninety mile an hour winds which are really cold. It looks like the ´go to England´ clothes will be out tomorrow!

Playa Paraiso

We caught the bus into Playa Paraiso today to meet up with our Shona and her partner, William. We had a lovely evening catching up, laughing at this and that before they went off for their evening meal in the hotel. (Brian did try to think up a way to join them for free........silly git)

After finishing our drinks we pootled down the road and found the local chinese restaurant. We had the set menu, you guessed it, sweet corn soup and chicken curry! It was ok though, nothing to complain about and at least I got the next year´s calender. It seems that it is the year of the pig! Pandas look better!

They are coming over to us on Friday so that William can meet our Top and sample proper Spanish hospitality. We are looking forward to it!

Clever Me!

After weeks of puzzling over this new router I managed to sort it today. Armed with the installation disk and the idiot guide, I opened a port! Spanish and technical..........I´m such a whizz kid. To be honest, it was a little scary as the router shut down and I thought I´d blown it, but a few seconds later all was well.

Utorrent is now uploading...........Corrie forever!!

Doreen Cancelled Sunday

I did consider calling off our bowling game today, as I´m still on the sick list, but I didn´t want to let folk down. There I was on my way to have a shower when Doreen rang. Jeff has picked up a bug too!! Being male, no staying power! Never mind, it meant that I could go back under the covers with my book. I am feeling so much better tonight, thank goodness, and we can always play our game during the next couple of weeks.

Having ´acquired´ an illicit copy of ´Casino Royale´ from the ´lookie, lookie´ man, ´im indoors is engrossed in it at the moment. I´m not really a James Bond fan and have no intention of watching it, but this new chap doesn´t really look like the shaken not stirred type of bloke. Bring back Sean Connery!!

Three´s

I so hate feeling ill and, thankfully, I rarely am. First of all I caught the flu. Aches and pains everywhere and sore ears and throat. Next, a very sore left shoulder. I think I may have a trapped nerve but at least it isn´t my bowling arm!

They say these things come in three´s so I wasn´t really surprised to find that toothache turned up. As dentists really terrify me I´m hoping that it will go away. To be honest, I don´t think I stand a chance as my face is well swollen. I look like one of the Tweenies!!