One of the less good bits of middle age is getting hairier. I used to have three hairs on my chin which needed pulling out. Now there’s something like twenty. I’m not sure exactly how many because I never let them all grow at once. My eyebrows used to grow in a perfect arch all by themselves and never needed plucking. Now it takes a bit of effort to keep…
We’ve had a heatwave here. That sort of weather isn’t unusual in summer — we get heat and fine dust off the Sahara for a few days — but it’s rare to have it in May. And whether it was the temperatures or a virus or what, my brains felt scrambled for about three days. Then yesterday afternoon the temperatures dropped a little, and I managed a little overdue gardening….
Oh the other hand when I downloaded the day’s photos, I got a nice surprise. I spent the morning in Franceses with my friends, Helen and Theresa. On the way there, I finally took the time to walk on the new bridge at Los Sauces. It’s true, you get a much better view that way. Here’s the shadow of the bridge on the valley beneath. And I had another session…
I’ve just received a UK tax return to fill in. I left the UK for Spain in December 1990, 16 and a half years ago. True, I was officially a UK civil servant while I worked for the observatory here, but I left that job in October 2002. I sold my UK house soon after that. So for teh last FIVE YEARS my UK income consists on one savings account…
I’ve had a productive day. As soon as I dropped my son off at his school, I went to the one where I used to work as an English Classroom Assistant until June last year. Everyone was delighted to see me, wihch was very touching. I stayed for the first class, which was the five-year-olds. I’d forgotten how many calories you burn teaching infants. It’s not a major workout, but…
Today is Mother’s Day in Spain, which is a relatively recent thing. In fact the first place in the country to have it was the village I live in, San Jose de Brena Baja. The custom was started by a local writer, Felix Duarte, who emigrated to South America very young (fifteen, I think) and sent a lot of letters back to his mother. When he finally came back to…