Just a quick catch up ....

.... not that there's a lot to talk about! The weather continues to be dismal - warm, but with rather too many heavy downpours and storms. When the sun's out it's glorious but unfortunately everything can change very quickly.

Finally met my neighbour, the one who owns the overhanging shrub which has been causing me so much grief! He's very nice and amiable. A few days ago I lost patience and hacked off everything that was overhanging my garden. He's having problems finding a reliable gardener but agrees with me that this thing needs dealing with! In fact, yesterday a large branch collapsed onto my garden during heavy rain. I thought I might have caught it when I was sawing a branch off but now I've looked I can see it's partly broken off at its base which is about a foot from the ground. I've cleared what fell in the garden and will go and see him later because it's possible other branches will fall, they're obviously getting top heavy.

Still haven't sorted my tax affairs with the gestoria, and now I have some kind of problem with the Land Registry over what I inherited from Derek when he died. No idea why, but I'm being asked for all kinds of information- and it's a bit worrying.

Socially I've been quite busy - Blue Skies outings to Rusty's last week, (spoiled by heavy rain that evening and consequently a lack of customers; Chloe Hooper, the singer, had her work cut out livening things up), and a ball at El Canor (lovely venue) organised by Javea U3A. Excellent numbered ticket draw - 42 voucher prizes, for shopping, eating, car hire and beauty salons. As usual I wasn't lucky! I went to Las Brisas to a Moroccan evening - complete with belly dancer! Food was interesting and different but disappointingly there was no music for general dancing to round the evening off. Also visited the President Bar in Javea to see John performing. He and June gave me a lift and I hope to go again this week, it's a lovely venue. And of course I've been up to Monroe's on Fridays as usual.

News from my accountant in the UK - our old company has finally been struck off the company register. If nothing else, it will now put a stop to the endless communications from Companies House and HMRC, which will be a huge relief.

Looking like it's going to rain again - supposed to be meeting the gfs at Jimmy's for lunch but if it rains it will have to be inside at La Boheme.

Think that's about it for this time! See you next time, and thanks for reading. Have a good day yourselves!

Bad blogger!

With thanks to my friend Sally in the UK - *waves to Sally* - who reminded me that I'm just as bad as I told her she was at keeping her blog updated!


St. George's Day, 23rd April, was my friend June's birthday. I joined her and another of her friends, Eileen, at the Kopi bar/restaurant in Denia, where June's husband John was singing. The food served in the restaurant that evening was typically English and the bar was suitably decorated with english flags etc. It was a very lively place with the smallest dance floor I've ever seen but it was fully utilised and a good time was being had by all - until the Guardia arrived at about 11 pm. The street where the Kopi is located is full of bars and restaurants and we suspect another bar had made a complaint about the music (maybe a case of sour grapes as it probably didn't have many customers!). In Spain there are two types of music licence, one for playing music on disc etc., the other for live music. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing by the owner finding files and documents it appears they didn't have a licence for live music. John had to stop singing immediately and the four of us sat quietly by waiting until the Guardia were satisfied and left. Had they been inclined they could have confiscated all of John's gear, even though it wasn't his fault! Cart before the horse every time in Spain! On this occasion they let the owner off with a warning but of course it will be a long time before they can again have live music at the Kopi. Live music licences are becoming almost impossible to get because of the possibility of complaints.


The following day June was again celebrating her birthday, this time with a long walk through the Jalon Valley, which I thoroughly enjoyed although the last kilometre was hard work and I chose to wait with another friend, Chris, and her husband Archie for a lift back to the car park where we'd started the walk. We walked for about two hours, the most exercise I've had in a long time! There were 20+ of us. We then went to John and June's house (which is beautiful) for pink champagne before going back into the village for lunch at La Solana restaurant. June had arranged a set meal for us, starting with a huge selection of tapas, at least 5 different plates/dishes, followed by a main course of either salmon, chicken, pork or lamb, and finishing with a choice of 4 desserts. And then there was the birthday cake which was a huge chocolate creation. All this accompanied by wine of course and all for the princely sum of €15 per head. Incredible! I've been to places where I've paid twice that for half the food. A few people left after the meal but the rest of us went on to Marcel's bar (at least I think that's what it's called!) where we sat outside playing word games around the table. By the time we left there (8.30-ish) June was very very merry. She and John had given me a lift down to lunch, so for me it was back to their house to pick up my car, after a quick coffee. By the time I left June was curled up on the sofa and all but asleep. She admits she can't remember anything after making the coffee! By the time I got home I'd been out of the house for 12 hours, but what a glorious day it had been. Sadly, like an idiot, I forgot to take my camera.....


The following evening I was back at Monroe's for my regular Friday night outing. Had a close encounter with a very strange man which rather un-nerved me but I managed to get rid of him. John said later that he was singing on 'auto-pilot' while watching what was happening, June and the rest of our crowd were also getting very antsy. We all decided that this man and his 'wife', if indeed that's what she was, and the other man with them were probably 'swingers' - during the rest of the evening whenever he headed in my direction these lovely new friends of mine surrounded me so he couldn't get near me. I waited until they had left before I headed home - no way did I want them behind me following me back to Moraira.


Some brilliant news for John and all his friends and fans - he is back on Bay Radio as of yesterday afternoon! Sunday afternoons, 2.15 till 5.00 - do listen (online) if you can!


It's tax time here in Spain, so most of the last few days has been spent getting my paperwork together to take to the gestoria. I took the opportunity to tidy up my filing system so everything will be much easier to find next time! I've also spent a colossal amount of time in the SUMA office. SUMA collects wealth, property, rubbish and vehicle taxes. For the last four years I've been paying rubbish tax for the bungalow we sold when we bought this one, as well as for this house. Either the lawyer or the agent we were with at the time didn't do their job properly and notify all the authorities of the change of ownership. For the first two years we were still in the UK and I guess it slipped through but I did pick up on it last year and thought I'd resolved it. However, that was just after Derek died and I can't be sure. So this year I was determined to put it right. On the first visit to SUMA I didn't have all the paperwork they needed. I went back with everything I'd been told to take only for the girl to realise she needed a copy of Derek's will as well. On the third visit we finally got it sorted but it took nearly 3 HOURS. I don't yet have the bank's receipt for the latest erroneous payment but I did have the previous three and I will get my money refunded - and get this ........ PLUS INTEREST! (That would never happen in the UK!) When I get my latest receipt I have to take that in and I'll again get my overpayment back. New direct debits have been set up and hopefully everything will be plain sailing from now on (but I won't hold my breath - this is Spain after all!). A nice bonus this morning - I took the new direct debits to the bank and was rewarded with a free cordless telephone for setting up three DDs!

A new branch of U3A had its inaugural meeting in Moraira today. Committee members from the Calpe and Javea groups were there to open the meeting - they brought with them 200 membership forms and had run out by the time Brenda, Annie and I arrived, so we will join at the next meeting in a month's time. As of now no-one has any idea of what groups will be formed, but at the end of this meeting there were two long queues of people, one for those willing to be part of the steering group and the other for those who wanted to suggest activities and/or were willing to run the activity groups. I'm hoping there'll be a photography group so I can learn how to use Derek's Fuji S7000 before I lose patience with it!

Brenda and I met up with Mariel and Helen for lunch, very nice but we're getting a bit bored with our usual venue so plan to meet next week at Jimmy's for a change. The Cap d'Or re-opened last week after a three month refurb, and very classy it looks too. The menu hasn't changed though so it's doubtful we'll be going there.

Despite the council's assurance that work on the new underground car park by the beach would resume immediately after easter absolutely nothing is happening. If the town hall wants to keep tourists coming they'd better start doing something, because for sure people won't want to come back while this area is in the state it is now. Very disappointing.

And on that note I'll end here. Hope I haven't bored you, thanks as always for reading this far!