Julie's 50th in pictures

I woke up to beautiful flowers on Thursday morning

Lunch at our local bodega/tapas bar - Dave keeping tabs on our wine consumption...!

Rather a lot of barrels to get through as you can see behind us!

A notice on the wall advised us to try 'Grandmother's Herbs' (she's just decanting them!)

.......so we did......

....Delicious......we were given a bottle to bring home....mmmmmmmm

As the meal came to an end we were all more than satisfied with the real experience of Spanish tapas and bodega!

The party continued back at the caravan, with the whole street coming to wish me best wishes....

as the cava flowed!

The party continued into the late evening....

and moved inside the awning...

When everyone had gone it was time to open some pressies......which were more than wonderful.

..beautiful jewellery and an album of special photos..not to mention a host of art equipment as I am learning to draw here in Spain - fantastic.


We then went back to the kids' chalet where the boys and their dad relaxed with a cuddle knowing they had given me the most perfect birthday anyone could ever wish for.


The next night....saw a happy, relaxed Peter with a favourite friend, a pint of beer......

and the beautiful girlies....




and last but not least .....
our happy family!

The whole week was wonderful. It was more than any mother could wish for, so thank you David, Katie, Paul and Rachel, and of course, Peter. I feel so blessed to be loved so much.

And thanks as well to all of you who sent me birthday wishes by email, which also made my week so special.

Thank you all so much.

Julie x

Birthday Week - Part One

This is our first blog entry for a while because we were invaded by the Ebsworth clan for a week of birthdays.

23 years ago we were blessed with a second son - 2 days before Julie's 27th birthday. 23 years later we celebrated Paul's 23rd birthday alongside Julie's half-century in the sunshine of Alicante.

We won't make this a long entry but spread it over a couple of posts, so here goes with the arrival of number one and two sons with their beautiful girlfriends.

We picked them up from the airport mid-morning on Sunday 15th November. It was obvious that they had had precious little sleep the night before, but an Ebsworth welcome awaited them and the beer was flowing with a breakfast of sorts!

The afternoon saw us on the beach followed by a meal in the local taverna and an introduction to paella for some!

Tuesday began with a birthday breakfast for Paul, opening pressies at the caravan then off to the beach for a picnic. When your birthday is in Novenber, having sunshine, not to mention warm sunshine, is an enigma, so you make the most of it.

We spent the best part of 3 hours swimming, digging, playing, eating and drinking. Julie was the allocated driver for the evening so I only had coke!

After leaving the beach we showered and changed and went 'karting'. This is only the second time Julie (I), have been karting and it showed. Paul and David really gave each other a run for their money with Paul (birthday boy) just pipping David to the post! Katie and Peter came a close 3rd/4th while Rachel beat Julie by laps. (We won't say how many!)

From Karting we drove into Guadamar for a drink, again Julie only had coffee!

Then back to the camp site for a Paul supper of croque monsuier, cerveza and a game of cards.

Exit Julie and Peter, while the rest of the family get told off for making too much noise!!!!

Next instalment about Julie's 50th another day!.................

Free Parking

Every day there is a market in at least one of the surrounding towns and villages – we have a list kindly provided by the site. We’ve been to 4 or 5 in Spain so far and every one has been a different experience. Some (and our favourites by far), are the simple food markets with the best of local produce on sale, which is usually very good and extremely good value for money.

Last Tuesday, having not been off site for a few days, we decided to have an outing to a town about 20kms away, a place called Orihuela. We knew Tuesday was market day so chose that day to visit.

As we approached the town we realised this was a big market with police directing the traffic.

Parking was on a large area of rough ground adjacent to the market. It was a free for all with cars waiting at the corners of rows waiting for other cars to leave. We thought we were next in line for a parking spot but as the previous occupants left a car reversed neatly from the other direction into the space we thought was ours. We drove around for quite a while trying to find another space. People were parked everywhere so the available roadways were very narrow.

At one stage we came face to face with a nun driving a Peugeot 105 – we both came to a halt and she made it very clear that we should be reversing out of her way. We disagreed and swapped a series of lively but non-abusive hand signals. By now we had spotted another potential space in the adjacent row so just sat still hoping she would reverse. Instead she just put her foot down and drove past us. How she managed to get past without hitting us I’ll never know – I can only assume it was divine intervention! We had a few similar close shaves and looking at the rest of the cars in the “car park” it was obvious that minor collisions are an every day part of Spanish life as every car had at least one significant scratch or dent. It was with some trepidation that we left our (almost spotless) car amongst this assortment of banger racers.

The market itself was a mixture of food, household items and clothes. As always the food was wonderful, the rest was similar to Wycombe on a Saturday but 5 or 6 times the size. Having bought our fresh produce we couldn’t wait to find the car (which thankfully was unscathed) and return to the peace and quiet of the campsite.

That will be our last visit to a large market for a while - the pine and palm forest at the end of our road is far more beautiful for walking around than any market stalls, be them big or small!

How do you like your pig sir?

We saw a flyer about a local restaurant that was celebrating its 3rd anniversary with a food festival over the weekend with the highlight being the cooking of a whole pig on a traditional open fire barbecue. What's more the entire "gastronomic weekend of pork tasting" was free - all you had to pay for was your drinks.

Sounds good we thought so early yesterday evening we set off on our bikes to find the restaurant which was about 6km away. The pork tasting was supposed to begin at 8.00 but we arrived about an hour early as we wanted to find the restaurant while it was still light. The pig was sizzling away nicely on the open fire and we settled down at a table outside with a drink. By 8.00 the effects of a couple of drinks and the smell of the pig cooking had made us really hungry. Must be ready soon we thought as the owner of the restaurant walked around the pig, prodding it, turning it and re-arranging the fires underneath.

9.00 came and still there was much deliberation about whether the pig was ready to eat or not. By 9.45 all the customers were getting so hungry there was a danger that some of them might hurl themselves on to the still-cooking pig and rip pieces off with their bare hands.

At 10.00 the carving began - hooray! It took a while for the platters of pork to make it round to all the tables but we eventually had our fill and at around 11.00 left to cycle home, full of the joys of free food and cheap alcohol.

I slept soundly but Julie unfortunately didn't. In case you are eating your lunch while you're reading this I will put it as delicately as possible - the speed with which the pork travelled through her digestive system would leave one to doubt whether her body had a chance to extract any nutritional benefit from it.

We're having a quiet day today, probably meat-free.

Spanish Lessons

The site we are staying at offer 2 hours of free Spanish lessons each week. There are different classes depending on how much Spanish you already know. Ours doesn't go much beyond "dos cerveza por favor" so Julie and I signed up for the beginners class.

Twenty-eight of us turned up for the first lesson. We were the only English speakers, the rest were a mixture of Dutch, German and French. Our teacher can speak two languages fluently - Spanish (of course!) and English (her native tongue), a little French, but no Dutch or German.

So, she only speaks to us in Spanish, a language that none of us know! It seems to be working though along with plenty of sign language. Maybe we'll learn a lot faster this way - and maybe one day I won't have to start every Spanish conversation with a hopeful "habla Ingles?".

It Ain't Half Hot Mum!

We have finally set up camp for 3 months on a site just south of Alicante.

It's lovely to know that we won't have to dismantle and move on for a while. We won't be in Portugal before Christmas as we first intended, but then plans are supposed to be broken.

We are staying on the site we picked out for the boys to come and stay with us. It has everything we need to get through the cold, dark winter evenings!!!!

Kidding aside, we are camped amongst some very friendly English, German and Dutch couples, in our own cul-de-sac of 14 caravans and motorhomes. The facilities are outstanding on site and there is a wonderful beach 800 metres away through sand dunes, pine trees and palm trees. (It's the first time I've seen dates growing on the tree.)

There are numerous small cafes and resaurants within walking distance and a very, very good bodega and tapas bar just down the road.

In the village there is a pet shop cum poodle parlour cum vets that can provide everything we need to keep Benji happy, he's even had his first hair cut there today and looks the best we've ever seen him. I dare say tomorrow he will be full of salt and sand again from playing on the beach--oh it's a dogs life!

From scruffy mutt to posh poodle!

We've been here a week and have found a wonderful church about 20kms away in Torrevieja. It's an International Christian Assembly. From what we have experienced so far the preaching is of conference standard, and the worship is similar to our church at home. We think we will be very happy there. We have also visited an Anglican church closer to us, and we will see how things progress there, but it's more traditional than we are used to and prefer the other one.

David, Paul, Rachel and Katie are flying out in 10 days time to spend a week with us and we're really looking forward to seeing them. Absence certainly does make the heart grow fonder!