Catching up



So my entries have dwindled to about 1 or 2 a month now. That's terrible. I'm the first one to complain when a website isn't kept up-to-date and here I am falling victim to the same. I suppose everyday life takes over... We've been here in Spain for almost 3 years now, which is kinda of hard to believe. Things are settling and although everything is still exciting and we're having a fabulous time, sometimes I wonder if it's interesting enough to post on the website.
So here goes a quick(ish) update on almost everything.

The house.
Coming along nicely now. Steve has finished tiling the front and middle rooms and we've relocated out 'front room' to downstairs and made the former front room (which was on the middle floor) into our dining room. I have my much desired Wall of Books downstairs and the cheap Ikea shelves stained dark don't look half bad. It's still a bit echo'y down there as the middle room isn't quite moved into yet, although we've hoping to get the pool table down there today. The back room is slowly turning into a room as opposed to a weird half outside bit, and Steve is building a doorframe as I type. We picked up some windows that we'd order last month in France and they are awaiting the wall to be built so they can go in. My crazy zebra print floor mosaic is on hold as I have run out of room on the board that Steve set up for me so when he installs the first square metre of flooring in the little bathroom, I can finish the second square metre!
Next project looks like it might be the wash room and the much needed bath for the new 'bath' room upstairs might have to wait a bit longer.. Frustrating, but there only seems to be one of Steve, and he tells me he can't do everything at once. Humpth - don't know when that happened!

Work.
Steve is still a stonemason at the local company, been 2 and a half years now, and still enjoying it. SO he tells me. He gets to see the inside of lots of houses and according to him that's how he 'learns' a lot of stuff that he puts into practice on our own house. "I saw some builder doing this..."... Worrying, but true.
My work is going well and the Xpat magazine has been well received down on the Costa Blanca. I'm loving working on it and still manage to dedicate the same amount of time to my other clients. Of course, it has to give somewhere, and sometimes I don't have time to meet Steve for lunch once a week! Terrible.

Bikes.
My new (used) tank is supposedly going to be ready tomorrow so plan to be out on my XS650 more often. Got some marvelous leopard print engineer boots last week although they are far from practical for riding the bike. But they are cool.

Cars.
Still don't have our beloved Chrysler PT Cruiser although that day will come. It doesn't seem like SUCH a far fetched dream now, although...

Lottery.
We still haven't won the lottery. How disappointing.

England.
We went back to the UK for a week this month. First time back for about a year and probably the last time we will spend any large amount of time there. It was good catching up with friends and family and meeting new folks as well. We spent 3 days in Brighton at the Market Inn which was in the centre of the Lanes. Excellent and friendly place and you couldn't ask for a better location. Handy for shopping - which I appeared to do a lot of, judging from the need to purchase an additional bit of luggage for our return journey. Oops. Brighton was fun, although having the rental car was a liability as the parking cost us about 13 quid a day! But all in all, it was still cheaper to rent a car at Stansted for the week than it would have been to take the train to and from the airport. What a sad statement on the cost of rail travel in Britain, no? Actually, still can't get over the whole 2.80 pounds for a pint. I think we're spoiled here.
After Brighton, we headed up to Great Yarmouth to attend the Speedfreaks Ball at Hemsby. Very fun indeed. Saw some excellent bands like Long Tall Texans and Hot Knives, 999, Lurkers, Guana Batz, Go Getters and missed a few bands as well..... but it wouldn't be a proper weekender if we managed to see ALL the bands. Shame on Pontins for running out of beer on the saturday night - come on, these weekenders have been going on for years, it's not a surprise that there's considerably more alcohol consumed compared to your typical summer holiday camp families!

Catalan.
Coming along nicely, thank you very much. Nervous about returning to class tomorrow after missing 4 lessons and apparently skipping quickly through the book! Ah well, hopefully will catch up without too much trouble.

Music.
Going to see Marlango play in concert in Reus next month. Looking forward to that. We were going to see them in Barcelona but Reus works out better as it's on a saturday night and we don't have to rush around to get there.

And on that not-so-interesting-to-anyone-but-us note, there's a nice month of updates.

Posted: Sun - November 20, 2005 at 06:06 PM        

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