Mike & Liz In Andalucia

Hello:)

Well (about 3 weeks ago now) we had a fantastic weekend away in Sevilla. Mike had managed to get a room in a B&B right in the old town so we could walk everywhere . It´s alot smaller than I thought but as pretty as I had imagined. We did most of the main sights on the saturday and then did some of the gardens on the sunday including a ride on a ferris wheel and later a ride on a horse and carriage through the town. One of the high-lights though was on the friday night when we went out for some tapas and ended up having a plate of fresh langostinos…v.nice.

We did however do a tourist classic. Every morning for breakfast there was orange marmelade served which tasted wonderful. We thought, “Oh this must be made from Seville oranges, lets ask where they get it from”. After enquiring about it, the message came back it was some brand called Hero. Our faces collapsed as we realised it was the brand we bought every time we visited the supermarket….we soon left after that.

Since then we´ve had a wedding in an olive grove which was especially beautiful. A couple from church were married and it was very informal, like a faith meal where you bring and share food. Mike and I did abit of music for the service and they just had some cd´s for the evening.

Otherwise we´ve continued working, with mike´s hours increasing instead of decreasing for summer but hopefully things will settle down soon.

I had another check-up last tuesday which went well. We heard the baby´s heart beat for the first time which was wonderful. I´m a little rounder but not that much. Put it this way I´m not in maternity clothes yet! But it´s coming !!!

I know Mike has filled you in on the healthcare experiences we´ve had, least to say it´s all been very interesting for us and I´m sure there´s much more to come…

It´s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster recently. As some of you know, I was in the UK just last week for my grandma´s funeral. It´s been hard especially for my mum having had to see her become unwell over the last 6 months and organize everything but we know she is in a better place now..

On a positive note the baby is due in the same month my grandma was born which brings some comfort as well and makes you reflect on the circle of life!

I had a call from the doctors today and I now have another checkup on 4th July and another scan in October, so it´s good to know we´re in the system!

Apart from all this going on we are following the world cup. Yes even I am watching a few games. Tomorrow, being the Brasil game, a group of us are going to watch it on a big screen somewhere. But we may not watch the second game at the weekend as my wonderful husband has organised a weekend away somewhere….unless it involves watching it….surely not..

Liz

Well, well well. I know we haven’t been posting much but I can assure it’s been worth the wait. We have some great news for everyone out there:

Liz is PREGNANT and she is due in December.

Woohoo! I guess you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to and now you know. Please check below as I’ve now added some posts for the previous dates.

Bye for now,

Mike

Well a week has gone by and we are back at the doctors surgery! This time we have an appointment with the midmife (matrona). So we arrive at 8.30am and we make our way to the family planning room of the surgery. There we are, waiting for our turn and then I start flipping out (quietly) and wondering whether we are at the wrong place at the right time. I start walking around the surgery trying to see if there is anywhere else that deals with family planning and my search leads to nothing. I assure myself we are in the right place and the only thing to do is wait.

Low and behold a lady appears from behind the door labelled “matrona” and asks in the waiting room for “Eleeeasaabef Cartrite”. We soon perk up (I’m now relieved) and respond with yes. Needless to say we soon move into the room and Liz is soon questioned for the next hour about everything in the world except global warming 🙂 (little joke there)

Anyway the midwife then says that due to the lateness of our 1st appointment (i.e. 3 months) that she must organize for Liz to be seen by the gynecologist today and have a blood test. So in good spanish style we get pushed into the queue for the gyne. We wait for a little bit more and we are soon with the gyne and the nurse with him.

All that I need to share about the gyne is that he was definately the most unfriendly, untalkative and unemotional straight man I have ever met in my life. He gets up to do the scan on Liz and he says to me “Ven pa ca” (Come here!) and tells me to just stare at the monitor. So I feel that at this point I should make a little joke about the pictures in the scan, so I say “Oh look, he’s playing football”, and the gyne responds with utter silence and no smile.

Overall I felt quite emotional at the scan but I really felt I couldn’t cry because the gyne might call me a gay 🙂 Anyway, all went well and were soon out of the surgery once again.

Mike

Well today we had a very interesting day. Liz and I decided to head down to the local surgery and register with a doctor. Something that one assumes should be so straight forward, turned out to be quite a challenge.

We arrived at 8.30am, I had my Social Security card ready and Liz had a letter from her work with her Social Security number. In the foyer there are 3 queues, but it’s not really a queue because no one really is queueing. Anyhow I decide to head for a part of the desk that said “Información”, a lady there was able to help us. I explained our situation and got her to deal with Liz’s registration first. About 15 mins went buy and I realised that this lady was moving around quite a bit, standing up, sitting down, speaking to a coleague, looking perplexed, making a phone call and it seemed that things weren’t going well.

She tells us that Liz’s social security number is invalid, and that is missing a digit! Oh no……………. While the lady was describing this to us while holding Liz’s letter from work, I pointed to a position on the letter that said “Social Security Number” and said to the lady “And what about this number here”. She quickly looked at it, then looked at me and said “Oh I wasn’t looking at that number, I was looking at this number across the top of the letter” I have no idea what number she was looking at but after we taught her to read she soon was able to continue her work. It even remind me a little bit of that Little Britain sketch where the woman types franticaly on the computer and then says “Computer says no”

Needless to say things seemed to have got resolved in a little while, however while we were being seen to, we noticed an interesting occurance in the background. A man sitting at his desk in front of a computer and next to it a pile of A4 papers. What followed was quite impressive, he began to take a couple of sheets of paper and using his fingers manually rip it into strips – he was the equivalent of a human paper shreder! What a day!!!!! hehehhehe

An hour later we left the Surgery, 2 people registered and also shocked by the morning’s events. But hey, very funny on all accounts.

More tales later.

Mike

Man, 2 weeks have gone by and I haven’t updated the blog. 🙁 Grrrrrr. Sorry for that guys. I’ve been meaning to add more photos from Granada and so on and I really didn’t manage it. No excuses apart from getting out of the habit. Anyway Easter week has been and gone and Liz and I ended up going to Granada for a few days – back for the sunday service which went very well.

The week after that, we had a conference in church with the Ichthus guys which was led by Roger Forter and the worship was done by Chris Orange. This was a very tiring weekend but a wonderful time was had by all.

At work everything seems to be going to plan. Chris (my boss) has gone off to Dubai, so I’m holding the fort at the moment. No problems so far. Liz is doing well too – busy at work in the afternoons and still going to her classes on and off in the mornings.

Anyway she’s just come in from picking up Debs a friend of her from Solihul from Malaga, so I’m gonna sign off until next time.

Mike

 
As promised here’s the picture of the blackeye from a couple of weeks ago with the culprit himself.

Mike 

I guess it was about time to give this little blog a bit of a facelift. So I decided to change to something fresher. Let me know what you think.

Mike

Back from the UK last night safe and sound and no problems with French air traffic control. 🙂 Although I must say I was impressed to see a little bit of snow coming down in Solihull about 2 hours before we left. Nonetheless the weekend would have been uneventful if Liz hadn’t informed me that there was a new music shop in Solihull.

Needless to say I ended up leaving the shop with a new guitar and some other bits and bobs and 650 quid less in the bank. So what did I purchase I hear you say? Well for all those Guitar aficionados out there here’s the list: