John's visit, also known as wow we can relax!

He's landed!

John was due to arrive on Saturday June 2nd at Almeria Airport and was staying until the 5th as he had to take the time off for the Queen's Jubilee so he'd booked a flight to come out and deliver personally the things we had ordered plus some housewarming presents. 

Stuart checking the board!

We took the opportunity to go to Carrefour before his plane landed to buy some more things that we needed like an iron, an ironing board and some Blu ray discs as we wanted to see something in true HD and we also got a 3D one as well to test that side out too!


We got the airport in good time and were waiting to meet him when his plane landed. He had flown in from East Midlands Airport and the flight was on time.


I have known John since about 1982 and he is my best friend. He has a lovely personality and wouldn't do anyone any harm. I am so glad all these years later we are still as close friends as back then! 


We drove him back to Bedar via Mojácar Playa and a tapas lunch at our favourite cafe down on the seafront. Once we'd had our fill we came up to the house and it got the same reaction from John as when we first arrived here. He was in awe of the views, loved the house and said he couldn't wait to get out in the pool and into the sun!


I had elected to make Chili that night for us to eat so set about doing some preparation for that while John set about unpacking the stuff he had brought us and his small amount of clothes he'd need while here! John fully intended to take advantage of the sun and came packed accordingly - i.e. next to nothing!


Sunday we had breakfast then set off for Villaricos for John to see the  - now expanded for summer  - street market. Stuart and John bought various items there and we as usual stocked up on fruit and vegetables. After Villaricos we drove to Garrucha for lunch at El Almejero a well respected Fish restaurant there. Garrucha has a good fishing industry and these places serve the fresh catch of the day to eager diners! Even though the fish doesn't have far to travel it isn't a cheap meal and the service there is excellent also to go with it! We had Anchovies cooked like whitebait and some excellent locally caught red gambas (shrimp) to start. This was accompanied by bread with alioli - a beautiful locally made whipped mayonnaise with garlic that you smear on the crusty bread - beautiful! For main course Stuart and I went for John Dory and John had (I think!) Hake, it looked very nice anyway!


We headed back to the house for sun and the pool and to play with some pool flotation toys that John bought. For the first time this weekend since we got in the house we actually stopped and enjoyed the place for what it is, a lovely home and we all ended up in the pool at one time or another too! The temperature in the pool was at about 22.5C so it was initially a bit of shock going in but lovely once you did! 


Monday we had more time in the sun and the pool plus we took John up into Bedar for lunch and to see the amazing views and it's charming architecture. We ate in the Miramar where we'd been before and it was beautiful looking out over the valley towards the Playa beyond. We came back again for more time at the house so John could relax and Stuart prepared one of his specialties Garlic Shrimp pasta for dinner.

His arrival, he peeked through!

Bag collected he came out into the arrivals hall.

Myself and John in our favourite tapas place down on the playa

Bottom left of the bed is John's stuff, the rest was ours!

John got in the pool first!

closely followed by me, I "fell" in mind you!

I misjudged the step and it was a Candid Camera moment!

Saturday evening, enjoying the chili I made!

Stuart & John at Villaricos open air market

In El Almejero enjoying lunch

Stuart toasting in El Almejero

John, mid course break in El Almejero

I was designated driver and was only on water!

The pool lit up at night before John got in!

Stuart's first pool outing!

Fun with pool toys!

More fun with pool toys!

At the deepest end of the pool, about 6 foot deep.

The boys next to the miners memorial in Bedar.

Myself & John in Bedar.

A panorama showing the view from Bedar, the boys moved!

Fun in the pool!

Tuesday we did very little so John could get some more sun in before he flew back in the evening. He was flying at 9pm back to the UK so we set off after an early meal about 6 to get him there on time. We again took the opportunity to visit Carrefour to get yet more stuff we realised we needed! John loved being here and while he was here he checked and found some cheap flights for next month. So he is here again July 7th to 10th and will again bring out some things we'd like bringing from the UK!

The week leading up to John's arrival....

The daytime vista - beautiful!

The whole of our second week we carried on with pretty much more of the same as the first week with our usual trips to the gym on Monday, Wednesday & Friday interspersed with more deliveries, more shopping and getting ready for John’s visit.

It was a big thing to be welcoming our first visitor to our home. Not least because we hadn’t yet got all the furniture so we had to give thought to where John might sit if we watched TV together for instance!

I love this part of the house - GREAT for drying washing! LOL

We did a lot of cleaning as with all the moving of stuff with doors being left open the dry climate tends to let a lot of dust in so Stuart and I set to cleaning the floors throughout, plus the kitchen and bathrooms. 

Up to this point we hadn't really had chance or the opportunity to draw breath really, let alone actually enjoy our home as such, so John's visit would serve as an enforced break from our activities.

Various garden shots at dusk

We were lucky enough to inherit a lovely garden with our new home. I took them at dusk so please excuse the poor lighting. We have Palms, huge Yuccas, lemon, orange, fig, almond, pomegranate amongst many other plants growing in the garden.

Views from the house at dusk

A view to the coast, taking in Turre, Mojácar Pueblo and on to the Med!

Looking down the hill to our nearest neighbour's house with mountains beyond.

A different view taken minutes before showing how the light changes at sunset.

A panorama taking in the view from the front of the house at dusk.

A panorama taking in the view of the front of the house at dusk.

Sunday May 27th.....more cleaning!

Bye bye Turre apartment!

So we could literally make a "clean" exit from the apartment in Turre like Stuart said in a comment we went back to finish cleaning the apartment early on this Sunday.

Villaricos marina with market above.

We had been told they would charge us 20 Euros an hour to clean which is quite frankly extortion so we weren't prepared to pay that! We had left ourselves 10 days from signing for the house to having to hand in the keys for the apartment anyway so it meant we could exit and clean at our leisure. Today we went back to clean surfaces, windows, bathroom etc. We worked for a couple of hours and were satisfied it looked as good as when we entered, in some areas even better!!

After we finished we took a trip to Villaricos market for some fresh veggies and fruit and then got back to the Bédar for a short well earned rest!

Just after I'd set up the first lot!

After a bit of down time I got busy setting up the rest of the audio visual gear we got to go with out TV. We had purchased a Denon 5.1 surround system, a 3D Blu Ray player, plus we now have got 2 different satellite receivers and a multimedia computer all hooked up too!

A momentous week - Saturday 26th of May!

We had been trying to source suitable bedding for the guest rooms and for our master bedroom for a little while. We had found some duvet cover and pillow case sets and some all season duvets we wanted to buy from Amazon in the UK. Amazon ship to Spain and we thought this would be perfect as we could get all the stuff from them and it would be delivered with no problems. Wrong! Amazon also host outside sellers using their website infrastructure to sell their wares. If you buy anything from one of those sellers then they don’t adhere to Amazon’s policies but have their own!  Confusing huh?

Well we had set off shopping and ended up with 6 items and found out at checkout that only one of them was Amazon’s own stock so we’d not be able to have them sent to Spain! Dammit! So plan B was duly sought. I have a wonderful longstanding best friend in the UK called John Lloyd. I asked him if he minded ordering the items on our behalf and then we could transfer the money to him for the costs and the shipping. We had found out that Parcelforce in the UK could ship to Spain pretty reasonably and within 5 days so we would be quite happy to take this option to get what we wanted.

John had ordered all the items for us and they had begun to arrive with him. He had begun to realise that they might be a little bulky to deliver in one go. But his way of getting around this was unexpected and also a great surprise! He messaged me via Google Chat on the Saturday to say that the shipping was costing him about £200! I said what the hell did he mean? He asked me to go onto Skype and told me that his new employers (Bentley Motor Company) had told him he had to take the Jubilee holidays off so he had booked to fly out with most of the items in his luggage with him! A personal delivery and a very welcome one at that! John was due to arrive at Almeria airport on Saturday June 2^nd at 11.00am; he was going to stay with us till the Tuesday. We were overjoyed as he was going to be our first visitor!

One down, three to go!

I had woken up at 5.30am that day and watched the sun come up over the Mediterranean from our lounge. I had been given a tip that we could slice lemons and freeze them and they would serve two purposes, be like ice and also add lemon to drinks!  I had picked a load of lemons the previous day so they were duly sliced and put into freezer bags to freeze for drinks! As usual there were all the usual things to do, empty the dishwasher, put some washing on the line and another load in. I also had to turn on the water to top up the pool. Another new thing to learn about! We had also begun assembling sunbeds for the pool and patio later that morning before heading out to do some more shopping.

After John’s news we had had lunch and did more things around the house to get things sorted out and put more into an order we would be happy to live with. 

A momentous week - Friday 25th of May!

Friday potentially had been shaping up as a fairly empty day for running around so we had decided to finally get round to painting. We had also been overjoyed to find out our Samsung 55” 3D Smart TV was going to be delivered by the guys from Mediamarkt also!

We got up and got back into our usual Friday routine and hit Veraqua for our Friday gym workout. We had to go into the Repsol Butano office in Vera to sign some paperwork for the gas bottle supply contract for our hot water and central heating. We dropped in at our solicitors to let them know we had completed the contract and let them take a copy for their records and had a late breakfast before heading home to contemplate our painting!

The guys from Mediamarkt came and set up the TV and demonstrated it’s features as far as they could as we found out we didn’t have a Spanish TV aerial, only a satellite feed. We were very pleased with the picture and its features and I said I’d complete its setup later when we got the aerial fitted. There were also software updates to download which I said I would do and install also.

We decided to paint the master bedroom first as it had no furniture in it. We are going for a uniform colour of Ivory throughout the house so we can accessorise each room with colour from furnishings and bedding etc! Neither of us are exactly what you might call DIY’ers! We set off painting and 5 hours later our arms, knees and backs were aching but we kind of finished the room. Some bits of trim around the wardrobe hadn’t been done but we felt we had nearly broke our backs doing it so gave up for the day! In the meantime our closest neighbour Chris (who also happens to be a handy man) came to say hello as we had also let him know we had a few things we’d like him to do for us. We had decided we wanted to have a couple of ceiling fan/lights fitted if he could do it along with some electrical socket outlets on the patio area and also the sink in the master bedroom bathroom was slow to drain so we wanted him to sort that out for us too! This was on too of saying hello and introducing ourselves! As it happened we’d also decided by this time we didn’t want to paint anymore so we asked if he knew anyone that could do it for us. He said he could along with a guy he works with sometimes! So we were very happy with this news!

We again finished the day relaxing after dinner and watched a bit of TV before falling into bed exhausted! 

A momentous week - Thursday 24th May!

Thursday was a special day again for Stuart as following on from picking up his Visado/Visa in Los Angeles he had then 30 days to apply for his Residencia otherwise it would all be null and void and he'd have to apply again! Not a situation he wanted to find himself in obviously after spending a number of months waiting for it to come through and more than a few thousand dollars flying to America again to pick it up! So he had arranged with a solicitor to go to Almeria to apply and file the needed paper work that morning. I took him to the Repsol petrol/gas station in Los Gallardos and left him there to wait for the solicitor. I then drove onto Turre to begin cleaning the apartment.

We had been told by the rental agency we’d be charged 20 Euros an hour to clean the apartment. Bear in mind we had just found out we could get a cleaner to work in our house if we wanted one for 6 Euros an hour and you can see it was a rip off! Plus we had arranged the closing of the house purchase to suit us giving us a 10 day period from our completing on the house to us giving up the apartment so we had a nice buffer zone to get things done at a slightly less frenetic pace! Well as it turned out we were still out of the apartment pretty damn quick as we had our lovely home completed on and our beds delivered all on the same day, quicker than we thought they might be! So I broke out the new Dyson vacuum cleaner, got a mop and bucket loaded up and set about the first stages of the cleaning! I stripped all the beds and took the bedding out to wash and dry up in Bédar as we have a great hotspot for washing at the back of the house. I left the place about 2 hours later with the main cleaning of floors etc done and went into Mojácar Playa to go again to Ferriteria Lopez for more needed supplies, grabbed an early lunch and then headed to Mercadona for more needed shopping. Stuart checked in with me to let me know how things were going and I asked him to call me when they passed Sorbas on the motorway so I could head back down to Los Gallardos to pick him up.

In the meantime I set to washing to bedding and towels from the apartment. By the time Stuart got back to the house it was nearly Sangria o’clock and it was welcome as I was knackered by then! 

A momentous week - Wednesday 23rd May!

After sleeping in the house for the first time on the Tuesday night we got up on the Wednesday morning and prepared for another very full day. We wisely decided to forgo the usual gym visit as we had so much to do. More deliveries were due from Mer-K-Muebles. We had shopping to take care of and more stuff to ferry up to the house from the old apartment in Turre.


The day began with breakfast on the patio as we hadn't got our dining table yet. We had ordered from Mer-K-Muebles a lovely extendable table which came with 4 chairs included. As it extended with enough room to seat 8 we ordered a second set of 4 chairs to match. While there at the time we had seen a lovely glass and chrome TV stand that would fit our soon to be delivered 55" 3D TV and a closely matching coffee table too. The coffee table was on order to arrive later but these were the items we were expecting that day. 


The delivery man arrives in Bédar with the dining table etc and I get a call from Stuart to go up to meet him to bring him to the house. Once he arrived here he began assembling the table which looks exactly as we hoped and then he starts to bring in the chairs. He doesn't speak much English and of course I didn't speak enough Spanish to talk to him to find out why but we were missing some of the chairs AND the TV table. We already had a 32" TV waiting to go onto it while we waited for the other one to be delivered. I had to call Stuart and get him to call Mer-K-Muebles to find out what was going on. The company they ordered the table and chairs from had sent 6 even though the normal number with that table was 4 and an extra 4 had been ordered! So they kept one of the chairs back to send to the company to make sure of a correct colour match so we only had 5 left with us. The man was not carrying the TV stand despite it being a unique stock item and earmarked for us either! So Stuart told Mer-K-Muebles that we of course needed that as we had a TV with nowhere to site it! They began trying to call their delivery driver but he was on a carrier who didn't have good signal in the area so they had to call Stuart who then gave them my number so they could ring me to speak to the driver! The upshot was he had to come back a second time later that day to drop off the TV stand!


Most times things run smoothly here but when they do go off the rails they do it royally! So we later got the delivery of the stand and we got the TV set up and were able to use our new Sky box which we picked up during our shopping trip following the delivery of the table! I had to lock up the house, drive to Turre to pick up Stuart and the rest of contents of the apartment and then we went to buy needed items at Ferriteria Lopez, pick up the Sky box, we grabbed lunch at the Trufi bar and then hit Mercadona for some food shopping and headed back up to Bédar!


By the time the TV had been setup we were ready for sangria and food! Stuart kept things reasonably simple but cooked a lovely meal to get used to the new cooker. We had some more sangria and then hit the hay!  

Spanish driving license will drive me crazy!

Forgive our not keeping up to date as we have been dealing with lots of issues in settling into our new home.

I shall just discuss the joys of having to pass the theoretical and practical parts of the tests required of me to obtain a Spanish driver's license.  There is no reciprocity between the USA and Europe for exchanging driver's licenses.  So I have to sit for the exam which by all accounts is extremely difficult.  I have enrolled in a local driving school and have access to their computers.  Sadly, there is no instruction in English.  However, there are practice tests in English, but without the instructional manual, they are of limited help.

The good news is that I can take the theoretical exam in English.  It consists of 40 picky multiple-choice questions.  You cannot miss more than 3 and pass the test.  I have downloaded a poorly translated English version of the 217 page Spanish driver's manual.  Since I don't completely trust it, I have paid $150 Euros to get 17 English language modules along with practice tests from a British gentleman who is a certified driving instructor.  Sadly, he lives in a different province and can only help me via the internet.

From reading posts of those who have taken the theoretical test, it is supposed to be unbelievably difficult. One man said that is was easier to pass the bar exam to become a lawyer/solicitor than the driving test.  The test covers information about other vehicles including mopeds and trucks. It also can include questions about car repairs, various engines and farm equipment. So I have a major learning task ahead of me.

It is imperative that I pass the test before the end of August.  I will turn 70 at the beginning of September.  Your license is valid for 5 years if you obtain it before you are 70, but only 2 years thereafter.

I shall also have to take the driving test with a standard shift car.  I have not driven one in 23 years.  So I need to have some practice with that too.  We bought an automatic car, so hopefully, the local driving school will help me relearn those dormant skills.

From the studying that I have done, I realize that one's ability to memorize huge amounts of material does not improve with age.  Having survived a doctoral program and medical school, I should be able to get through this.

Stay tuned to this station!

Regards,

Stuart