Mike & Liz In Andalucia

Since the last entry things have been steadily busy. I had a few weeks of work, injecting babies and taking peoples blood and we have had the lovely company of David and Gillian for a week.

However what I want to share is the new experience I had today. It is an experience that can be stressful enough in England when it comes to hoping people understand what you mean (especially for a woman); The Hairdresser!

Its funny, just when you think you are getting to grips with a language you decide to try something new out – like a spanish hairdressers. It seems like a good idea, a chance to practice the language etc. Except when you sit in the seat it dawns on you that you haven’t yet covered the vocab for “I want layers” or “side parting” in your lessons. Once I had rehersed the whole “can I have an appointment” vocab I felt pretty pleased with myself. But that was just the beginning…..

I could feel my heart starting to beat faster as I had images of my head bald or half of it really short on one side as I managed to stop him from cutting it all off. After hoping he understood my instructions I watched his every move and measured, in my head, every strand of hair that was cut and was (thankfully) pleasantly surprised!

I explained to him I was learning spanish and if I looked like I didn’t understand, that was why – just incase I needed to cry out uncontrollably at some point. But as it happened it was the best and cheapest wash, cut and blowdry I’d ever had!

Even more car news – it went in for it’s 90,000 km service yesterday and there were no problems. Praise the Lord! Unfortunately it did not come cheap and it was only after I parted with about 500 Euros that they allowed me to take away the car. Next service will be a small one, in fact just a little oil change and that’s it. Less that 100 Euros.

Today David & Gillian arrived. They flew into Jerez this morning and I met with them at the flat this afternoon. So they are gonna be with us for one week.

Anyway I must go as I’m talking to them right now. Speak to you next week.

Mike

Well another blog and another day. Things here are well, busy and active as always and sunny too!

Car news – On the way back from worship practice last wednesday we got a puncture at 1am. Nothing too traumatic but I must admit not the greatest of times. In most cases, it would’ve been straightforward but for some reason, the previous owner had used locking wheel nuts – so I had to quickly familiarise myself with the new system and find a way of removing them. Needless to say we got home about 2/2.30am – although we didn’t need to call the AA man! 🙂

Last sunday we had the pleasure of seeing Martin Hall & family (from Ichthus Chiselhurst) at church. They had come over for a holiday and after a few emails back & forth they managed to find the church and join us in our morning worship. Afterwards we all went out for a meal (including Pastor Dave & his wife Judy) to a local restaurant that does a 3 course menu for less than 10 pounds!

Also this week we heard that we won our court case wrt Powell Road (a year later). Praise God! She’s thankfully paid our costs, however the twist is this: she’s now refusing to pay our legal costs saying that they are too expensive as we expect these have escalated to between 4-5k. Oh well, what can I say – our solicitor reckons that she will probably pay but if she doesn’t then I guess we might have to go back to court again to get those costs from her which will incur even more costs. What a vicious circle!

You’d all be happy to know that both & Liz and I are due back in the UK for the 2 last weekends in sept (fri-sun). Ryanair has got some great cheap flights at the moment – otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to come.

More car news – next week is the dreaded 90k service (nearly got 95k on the clock) and that’s gonna dig into the pocket as it’s a big service. Now for those of you that know me well, I’m not great at taking care of cars, but I’ve decided that I need to take care of this one and because it’s a 2nd hand motor then it’s good to be reassured that there’s nothing wrong with it.

Next week we are also looking forward to having David & Gillian staying with us for 1 week – so we’ll tell you all in the next blog entry.

Enjoy the August Bank Holiday guys. Speak to you soon.

Mike

I can safely say we are back into the swing of things after the adventure to the UK and back.( It was great to see everyone and realise how much you miss people!)

And I was back into the swing of giving babies pain – well, its something I´ve never done before… Amazingly on some days I am temporarily covering for a midwife in a private clinic and giving babies their vaccine jabs. They come in, mostly all happy and then leave with a wet reddened face. I could say the same for the mums but that would be unfair..

Actually it has been quite enjoyable and a new challenge for me. I´m having to do a bit of studying on the latest motherly advice but all in all the staff are helpful. Its also good because its a mix of english and spanish so I can practice without feeling isolated.

It was really good to see you all the other week and hopefully we´ll see some of you in September.

Liz

Back from Revive 2005! We arrived at 9.30am yesterday after having left the UK on Sunday evening. Our crossing was delaying an hour or so and with the time zone we lost an extra hour also. No problem. So we decided to crack on with our journey and not stop the night in France. Anyway on the route down from Bolougne we had a small accident – but thankfully no casulties.

It was about 2am in the morning and I was driving about 140km and all of a sudden without any signposts or anything there was this roundabout in front of us. Needless to say we went straight over it and ended up on the grass verge on the other side of the road. The most amusing part of it was that as we stopped Liz said to me “Don’t panic!” – I wasn’t until that point :-). Soon after that a french man stopped and asked us if we were ok and told us we were going way too fast. (thanks for the observation Sherlock!) I then got out of the car and tried to assess the damage on the vehicle and thankfully apart from a few minor dents on the right tyre/wheel and some superficial damage to the left bumper everything seemed ok. I then got back into the car, turned the ignition and drove away. 30 hours later we were at home, so I guess the car held out pretty well.

Anyway, all things are back to normal and one soon gets into the routine – I was back at work at 9am this morning and liz was off to her class at 12. Then she’s doing her 1st shift at the local clinic from 3-7pm. After that we will head off to Fuengirola for our weekly worship practice. This weekend it’s a national bank holiday in Spain so we’re off next Monday – we will have time then to catch up on our lost sleep.

All that is left to say is that we had a wonderful time in the UK – Revive was excellent (so good to have been close to family & friends), lots of laughs and lots of things to think about. The little time we spen in London was also good and we look forward to being back in Sept.

Mike

Nearly a month after our last post and so much has happened. Not really sure where I should start. Ok here goes:

Tuesday 26th: We purchased a new car (Seat Ibiza 1.9 SDI)

Thursday 28th: Finished work, went home, packed our bags and then headed off to the UK in our new car. 11pm was our departure and we manage to arrive in our proposed destination just over 24 hours later Boulogne-sur-mer.

Saturday 30th: Bolougne – Dover crossing at 10.30 in the morning and then we made our way directly to Battle for this years Revive! Bring on the camping stove! 🙂

Back to Squash – The pain game….

Yesterday was the 1st time since we’ve arrived that I did some excercise. Went to a gyn close-by and decided to play squash with the gentleman that’s in charge of our IT support. I mean, I’ve been meaning to play but hadn’t found anybody suitable to beat and he seemed like a fair candidate as he’s about 10 years my senior.

Well how wrong was I? Just because he was 10 years older it only meant that he had 10 years more experience and was 10 times better than me. I haven’t had a wooping like that for a while and I feel so in my place. Don’t get me wrong it was a good game, but I think my fitness let me down and I’m definately gonna have to work on that.

Needless to say the pain after the game was quite intense (I mean throughout the game it was bad but at least there was some adrenalin running!) and as I walked / limped slowly towards the superwarket where liz was I realised that I really should start doing sports more often. Next week we’re planning to play again, and after Revive twice a week. I’ll see how I feel after next week before commiting myself to a long term life of “limping after squash”

Shorter news: Rosemary (Liz’s Bridesmaid from NYC) arrives tomorrow for a long weekend. We’ve now officialy booked for Revive and should be getting there sometime on Saturday(I’m looking forward to a break). Tonight is worship practice, time to teach news songs.

Hasta pronto, Mike

Today I just wanted to say that our thoughts and prayers are with all who we know and love in London. It has been such a shock to all of us seeing and hearing whats happened. It was strange to see some of my colleges on television in Spain and could only imagine the emotional upheaval they would have been experiencing caring for some of the more severely injured.

I was only in London myself on wednesday flying a private patient back to Heathrow for cardiac investigations. Initially I was going to stay over somewhere in a hotel and maybe surprise some people as everything was paid for. The results of the olympic bid was announced on the plane and everyone cheered, it was such a great atmosphere. As it happened I decided to get the first flight back as I felt it was too much of trying to cram everything in and prefered to see people at Revive. So I look forward to that time,

Bless you all and may He protect you xx

Where has June gone?

I thought it was about time I contributed, now we have a landline I´m not constantly looking at the clock….

I´ve pretty much got into a routine and I´m getting more confident in practising my spanish. It´s often funny and I can see people wincing at me while trying to understand what on earth I´m saying but generally I´m understood!

That is unless like today when a drunk columbian chap takes a shine to me at the bus station whilst waiting to get home. He started with an innocent request for a light and then proceeded in, drunken spanish, to guess which country I was from. The first was Ireland “what a lovely place”, then Germany “something to do with Hitler” and then I felt the need to put him out of his misery. “England” I said and noticed a young spaniard smiling. It was then I realised I shouldn´t have said anything.
I was now his new friend. Thankfully the bus came – good an escape – no, he decided to change his plans and travel to wherever I was going! Sitting next to me he cracked open an cruzcampo and continued his chat much to mine and all the other passengers dismay. Whilst praying for a way out and at the same time imaginging him coming back to the flat for a cup of tea, he fell into a drunken stuper. Praise the Lord! But oh I´m trapped by the window! Eventually we reached the end of the route and desperate not to disturb him, I climbed over the seats to get out. Ahhhh made it!

Other than that today I had an informal interview re. temp work in the San Pedro clinic. It was a call out of the blue on the bus to lessons. It looks promising and I´ll be going back next week for questions and details re my registration and stuff. So watch this space!

Another week goes by and I find myself sitting at my desk with my laptop coping with the every day runnings of the office. Things seem to have calmed down a bit with the summer being round the corner and more people being on hioliday etc. Finally getting on top of managing different projects, to name but a few things that I get up to.

This weekend it was the company AGM and we (Liz & I) all headed up to Ronda for the event. I was invited to be there to give my General Manager’s report on Saturday morning to the board of Directors. We stayed at the Hotel Montelirio – 4* establishment with lots of class, great views of the gorge (El Tajo) but an unfortunate smell of sewage that cames from below.

We went down friday evening, stayed the night and then left saturday afternoon. I think my report was presented well and as of yet no bad comments, so upwards and onwards.

We were back at church on sunday and a couple were renewing their marriage vows. It was a real pleasure to be there and just to be part of it all. The bride & groom (husband & wife) looked great and there was also a church lunch afterwards which was very satisfying.

Liz is doing well and I’ve been putting some feelers out there for any job possibilities. Right now we have 2 options although like all things in Spain – it’s not a done deal until you see a contract. Most of the time is all talk and no action – so we will see what it leads to. One job is in San Pedro, working at a clinic, and another possibility is working at a private hotel just outside Estepona. So watch this space.

Anyway that’s it from me for another blog. Watch this space for more updates.