Rest, relaxation and a bit of rain in Spain COMPLETE 11/10 About This Page:

[ccmom]

These pictures looked very Spain-y. For some reason, I don't associate palm trees with Spain.

[Colexis Mom]

More great pictures! Glad you were able to get some wine!

[pamcarey]

Oooh, wine tasting... sounds like fun!!

[Hugmonster]

I like the idea of Free wine, but I doubt I could finish a 5 Liter before it was no longer good.

[KMB733]

The wine tasting sounds like fun. I had to go back and look at the picture with the 2 trucks to look for the arm, and I see it. Holy Cow, that person was brave!

[DawnK]

I just read this whole report. Beautiful. Did you say the wine had raisins IN it???? everything is just georgeous.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by DawnK

I just read this whole report. Beautiful. Did you say the wine had raisins IN it???? everything is just georgeous.

Well, it was raisin flavoured wine, so I guess there were raisins in there somewhere....

[chezp]

Wednesday 14 October – part three: a very entertaining evening out!

Finally, we made it into Javia and walked along by the beach, which is beautiful. It was fairly busy, considering it was mid October and not anywhere near school holidays. I dread to think what this place is like in the middle of summer. It must be absolutely packed. Right now, there was probably just about the right number of people on the beach for me. The weather today was again hot and sunny, but a bit like yesterday and not too hot, although I would later revise that opinion when I tried to sit out in it.

There were some serious waves here today and Dave and Barb explained that, if you enjoy surfing, this is the place to head to. I can see why.


Note the cloud just above the mountain – how cool is that?


We wandered along the front, with me struggling to walk, as my insect bite had flared up really badly and was rubbing on my sock horribly. Darned insects.

We found a really nice looking place just a little way along called Carnaval. It did look very posh and I was very impressed with it, especially the toilets, although sadly I didn’t have the camera with me to take any shots when I made my visit there. You could see this sort of place doing really well with the hip crowd in the evenings, if you know what I mean.



Everyone else settled for a toasted sandwich with ham and cheese, but you know me, I like to be different, so I went for a crepe with Nutella, having spotted that on the way in. Once I see a crepe, I can’t get it out of my head.



Once we were done with eating, we headed back to the car, with me walking barefoot to try and ease the pressure on my insect bite and then it was back to the villa.

On the way, we made a brief stop at the supermarket and then it was home. Mark and Dave headed out to one of their neighbours, as he had some wiring work that needed doing and that was the last we saw of them for a couple of hours, well apart from Dave’s occasional returns home for bits he’d forgotten, that is. Barb and I spent a couple of hours relaxing.

I did try and go into the pool, but the water temperature was now way too cold for my liking. I think perhaps the rain the other night may have cooled it down even more, because now it was unbearable, so I only managed a couple of minutes in the water, before heading out again. I tried sitting out in the sun, but once again, the factor 50 struggled to keep me protected and, despite a couple of sessions sitting inside or in the shade outside, every time I returned to the sun, I felt like I was burning again, so after a while, I just gave up. I guess it was hotter today than I had earlier figured it was.

By late afternoon, my insect bites were both really starting to play me up. It was bad enough that I had one on my ankle, but to have one on my wrist as well was horrible. Dave and Mark came back from their work, not having successfully completed it after three hours and had news that there were cheap flights on offer out to Spain in January and February, so Dave and Barb headed out to Geoff and Jan’s to book something. They reckoned they’d only be half an hour, but Mark thought an hour was more likely. It ended up being about an hour and a half and, by the time they got back at around 7.30pm, I was almost asleep.

I just about managed to get going enough to go out to the Chinese that we’d enjoyed a couple of nights before. The insect bites had just about settled down by now, but I was just so tired. I woke up just as we got there and selected what I wanted from the menu. I decided not to go for the cheapest menu of the day, as I couldn’t face the shrimp curry again. Instead, I had the seafood soup Thai style followed by fish in oyster sauce, both of which were very reasonably priced. Everyone else had the menu of the day, with Mark getting the hot and sour soup and the beef.

My food was lovely, but by the time I got to the main course, I felt as if I was boiling alive, even though I knew I wasn’t and I was struggling to eat anything, as it felt like red hot pokers were being put into my ankle around my bite. There were points where I thought I might pass out, but eventually it did pass and, once we got to desserts, and I could pinch Mark’s ice cream, as he was on the menu of the day, that helped to cool me down.

Then we got to the best part of the meal, when the liquors arrived, but the apple and the rice wine were the only ones that appeared first. In broken Spanish, I managed to explain that we wanted the hazelnut liquor as well and the guy went off to find it. He obviously had to have a good hunt around, as we saw him with his head stuck deep into a cupboard, looking for it, but eventually he returned to the table with it. It was a brand new bottle and let’s just say by the time we left, at least a third had gone. I love the way that they leave the bottle with you and you can just keep topping up, which we did a number of times. That really helped to blank out the pain from the insect bites.

Sadly, there are no photos of the food or the fun we were having, with all the liquor we were consuming, which was a great shame, as both Mark and I managed to leave the cameras at the villa. My excuse is that I felt so lousy when I left the villa, but I’m not sure what Mark’s excuse was. To be honest, I wasn’t too worried, as I had assumed that he would have the camera with him, but it didn’t work out that well.

We got back to the villa at around 9.30pm and, by the time we did, it’s fair to say, that Barb was very, very merry. I’ve never seen her like that before and she read to us from a book for ages, which was very funny to hear. Poor old Dave was trying to watch the football on TV, while Mark was falling asleep, so it wasn’t long before we headed off to bed, after a thoroughly entertaining evening out.

The weather today was in the mid 80s and sunny.
The best thing today was .
The worst thing today was
Today we tried some wine sampling.
And the result was we found some great wines.
The most magical moment today was

Next: and the rain came down, down, down...

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry about the bug bites! Sounds like a great dinner, especially with all the drinks!

[KMB733]

Those darn bug bites! Sounds like a very nice evening though!

[Sandra Bostwick]

This is awesome! Thanks!

[chezp]

Thursday 15 October – part one: and the rain came down, down, down...

Fortunately, none of us woke up with headaches this morning, following last night’s liquor drinking fest at the Chinese, but unfortunately, the weather forecast I’d seen before left turned out to be right, with it starting to rain at around 8.40am, not long after we got up. That, combined with the fact that my insect bites were still looking pretty livid and that was pretty draining. I think I felt worse about the bites, because of all my problems with the chronic fatigue. Pretty much anything on top of that is likely to exhaust me.

To give you an idea of what they looked like:



Any plans to head for Valencia were now well and truly out of the window. Not only was I not feeling great, but the heavens really had opened and there was no way we were going to drive all that way in pouring rain.




Instead, Dave came up with what sounded like a great plan, hiring a car for the day, so that we could drive to Valencia tomorrow. The only reason we couldn’t go tomorrow was because Dave and Barb were going out for a 40th birthday meal with friends, ironically at the same Chinese that we’d been twice already this week! There was no way we were going to go, as we’d been warned that the evening probably wouldn’t end until midnight and I knew I’d never make it that late.

So, with that thought in mind and a few other jobs to do, we headed out. The first stop was at a nearby chemist, where we were told that the pharmacist, Beatrice, spoke very good English and she did. She gave me some anti-hystimine cream that was also designed to take the pain away from my bites and I have to say, it was very good when I tried it later in the day.

We then made a couple of stops and, at one, we grabbed some photos of the rain:





Then we headed out to look for car hire places. The first one we stopped at told us that it would be €45 (about $67) for the day – I don’t think so. : By the time we got there, the rain rally was absolutely pelting down and we got drowned the first steps it took to get inside, so when I came out, I was looking down and that’s my excuse as to what happened next. There was a car at the bottom of the steps and I honestly didn’t look at it, but assumed it was Dave and Barb and they’d moved closer to save us walking. I opened the back door, saw no-one in there, so quickly slammed it shut and headed for theirs. I don’t know if there was anyone in it or not – I didn’t see anyone, but it gave everyone a good laugh.

At the next place, I insisted Mark got out on his own, as I was absolutely drowned. Sadly, they had no cars available for tomorrow, so that wasn’t an option either.

We headed for the shopping centre that we’d agreed to go to and I have to be honest, I didn’t envy Dave having to drive in the lashing rain. There were points that you couldn’t see where you were going, because of the spray from the other cars. It was horrendous out there and the driving conditions were almost impossible. We spent most of the journey stuck behind a very slow moving lorry, although to be honest, I don’t think we’d have moved much faster, had we not been behind it. We saw football pitches completely flooded out and there was water cascading off buildings near the road. Barb and Dave both told us that this was nothing, as they’d seen much worse flooding both last year and this year, but it did start to give you an idea of how much it rains over here.

Finally, we made to La Marina shopping complex near Ondara and fortunately, they have underground parking, which saved us from another soaking. We headed inside and first explored Casa, which Barb rated very highly. It’s not a bad shop and is full of lots of interesting things for the home, things you never knew you needed, such as candles. I love places like that.

I then headed into C&A, a clothes shop that we used to have at home, except all the British stores closed down probably at least 15 years ago now, but they still exist in continental Europe. I tried on a pair of jeans, but they didn’t fit and, although they had some lovely things in there, nothing really grabbed me.

We carried on wandering, exploring the English bookshop there and the house and garden place and went to McDonald’s for lunch. My goodness, it’s not exactly cheap over here. : For the four of us, food cost €28 (about $41.65), which is a lot more than we’d pay at home for the same things.

With the rain easing, we drove back, stopping at a couple of supermarkets on the way back. At one, Dave and I both got enormous cakes, which are set in a dark chocolate base, covered with cream and strawberries. Oh my goodness, that was good! We both had some when we got back to the villa, but neither of us could manage all of it in one go, as it was very rich. I will confess to feeling sick, after eating so much, but as my mum used to say, what a way to go!




Next: the sun finally emerges!

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry for all the rain! Glad the medecine worked on the bug bites! And that is some cake!

[lauriep]

Those bug bites look terrible! Glad the medicine worked a bit. Glad you finally found a place to wander and shop out of that torrential rain.

[KMB733]

Oh my gosh, those bug bites look horrible! Glad you got some medication to help you. Sorry to hear about the rain.