Oasis

And following on from Gucci.....we have Oasis. Another UK high street fashion store which opened in Gib this month.

As Partner was working there on the elaborate interior decoration, he took the opportunity to take a few pix before it opened.

Like all chain stores, it has to fit in with the corporate image, and Oasis in Gib needs to look like Oasis in Regent Street.

This is not a couple of coats of white matt emulsion whacked on the walls. Oh no.

Specially mixed paint, Lincrusta panelling (put up by Partner of course, which luckily he has done before) and an exclusive huge chrysanthemum logo on the walls.

To make their job even more difficult, the huge chrysanthemum was self-adhesive so there was no flexibility and no margin for error. Just as well they got it right. So here are the pix of their craft work. And some clothes pictures to finish with, seeing as it is a clothes shop.

And if anyone in Gib notices a disproportionate amount of construction tradesman lurking amid the flounces and frills of Oasis, it's almost certainly some of Partner's colleagues going to look at the finished decorating rather than floral frocks.

His colleague, a joiner, outside the shop.



The joiner moving one of the panels.



Admiring their work.



Columns in the middle of the shop, which now have Lincrusta inside the moulding.



Window dressing.



And a few more clothes.



And more ...... and a nice long shot of the chrysanthemums.

I can see clearly now.......

Some time ago I bought some new contact lenses in Spain.

When they arrived the prescription was wrong. While I could see reasonably well out of one eye, the other was little better than my own very short-sighted vision.

After a few months, one eye was feeling a bit itchy so I took the lens out. It had ripped across the middle - not completely, but very nearly. Certainly more than half way.

I gazed at the offending torn lens and felt slightly sick at the thought of having narrowly escaped two shards of plastic scratching around in my eye.

At this point I went back to the previous lenses which I must have had for ten years. Although somewhat battered and knocked around, they were still intact. Just not brill vision as my eyesight has deteriorated since I bought those lenses.

Sadly the other day I dropped one of them on the floor. Even more sadly it happened to be the one lens that was the better prescription.

Despite not vacuuming (not something I do much of anyway), examining the contents of the dustpan every time I swept up, and crawling around on my hands and knees, I found nothing but dog fur, dust and grit.

There was no way round it, I was going to have go through the tedious eye-testing process again.

For anyone who doesn't wear contact lenses, it basically takes twice as long as a normal eye-test and your eyes get filled with yellow gunk. Then there is the cost. And I am not fond of spending money if I can avoid it. Shopaholic me - never.

Partner suggested I get some glasses. He thought it would be more sensible than me crawling around on the floor every time I dropped a lens.

So I wandered into the local opticians and had a look at some frames. Mmm. Yes, there was quite a nice dark brown pair. I decided I could cultivate a new image. The sort-of librarian look. To any librarians out there this is not a derogatory comment. I was thinking, thoughtful, serious, intellectual. I asked the price. They were something over a hundred quid. Not cheap - to my way of thinking. Although there were cheaper frames. There were also dearer ones.

I wondered if I could get some of those cheap off-the-shelf jobbies from the supermarket like Partner wears for reading. Nope. They are only for long-sighted people. They don't do the same stuff for us myopic types.

I bit the bullet and made the appointment. Partner came to help choose the frames. We all - me, him, the three staff in the shop - agreed on the same pair of frames.

Gucci. I ask you. How embarrassing. I have never bought anything by Gucci in my life and I end up with a pair of designer spectacle frames. I am sure it would be perfectly possible to design a pair of brown frames without putting that all-important double G sign on them.

Still, they looked better than all the others. And much better than the Prada ones that had disgusting pieces of diamanté on them. Diamanté on spectacle frames? Definitely not me.

I decided I wanted contact lenses too. Hard ones. PMMA. The nice easy-to-maintain, tough-as-old-boots ones that I have managed with for the last 20 years. My optician said she would need to get a price. Heart sank on hearing that.

In the meantime, they would try and get my spare pair of glasses (it was "buy one get one free" although unsurprisingly the free one did not include another pair of Gucci frames) made up as quickly as possible.

A couple of days later the lenses had arrived for the free pair so I went to collect them. The flash Gucci number arrived another week or so after that, and then a couple of days ago my contact lenses arrived too.

Total time from start to finish? Around two weeks. Cost of glasses (two pairs), eye test, and clip on sun-things - equivalent to one week of Partner's take home pay. The contact lenses were not dear - cheaper (and better) than the ones I bought in Spain, and also cheaper than the spectacle frames. The prescription seems fine too, and the service has been excellent.

To anyone in Gib or Spain, I totally recommend Gache and Co opticians, just off Main Street in Cathedral Square.

That all-important double G for Gucci logo

Take away or eat in?

As readers of my dog's blog will know, we have had a flurry of eating out. For the first time in I can't remember how many years.

This is how it started.

I decided to ring for an Indian. You have to imagine the right accents for this conversation.

"Hello Take-Away Restaurant" says Indian in that combination of singsong Indian meets singsong Welsh accent that they have.

(I'm not very good at understanding accents but I can manage Indian ones because they all sound like Partner when he's had too much to drink. He's Welsh. Not Indian).

"Hello" says me.  "I want one vegetable jaipuri" in even sillier combination of Gibbo speaking English with clipped accent meets singsong Indian/Welsh accent.

"No vegetable jaipuri." 

I scan the menu quickly.

"OK.  I have vegetable rogan josh."

"No vegetable rogan josh."

"No vegetable rogan josh?" says me parrot fashion.

"No vegetable rogan josh" says Indian robot.

"Well what vegetable curry do you have?" still in silly accent but at least reverting to proper sentence structure.

"Only veg curry sag aloo."

"Only sag aloo?" (return of the parrot).

"Yes, only sag aloo" says robot, clearly dealing with the thickest woman in Gibraltar.

"Well thanks sweetheart but no thanks" says me, so annoyed that I even forgot the silly accents and reverted to posh Yorkshire.  And put the phone down.

Looked at Partner.  The parrot came back to me and I told him there was no veg jaipuri, no veg rogan josh, only veg curry was sag aloo. Which was pretty stupid as he had been sitting there listening to the whole surreal conversation anyway.  

Then I ripped up the menu and threw it in the bin.  It's always satisfying to DO something when someone annoys you, I find. Then I was stumped.

Why was the Indian not doing veg curry on a Thursday night?  It's not as though I'm not a good customer.  I have spent £8 there on my veg curries at least twice in the last two months, maybe three times.

"What about the other one?" says Partner.  No. Don't like that, I said.  (Mainly cos I didn't feel like the walk as it is near Morrison's, although I'm not that keen on it either).

"Well I'm sure that one at the marina (near us ie Ragged Staff, Queensway Marina) does take aways," says Partner.  So I rang up - with strict instructions from Partner to speak properly.  Without any accents apart from a posh Yorkshire one.

Yes they did.  This seemed a Good Plan.  Near, and we could all (ie us plus Pippadog) walk down and choose what we wanted and sit and wait for it.   So we walked down and I went inside.  Partner and Pippa leaning against the railings looking cool.  

Indian waiter escorted me outside with menu and tablecloth.  

"We've got a dog," I said, pointing to Pippa.  "He's big", I added unnecessarily.  

No problem.  We all sat down, actually Pippa lay down to get the best cat-spotting position.  Chose the food, went for the impossible veg jaipuri which was available, sag aloo which I'd refused from the other place, nan and rice.  

"Do you want a drink?" says me to Partner, thinking how nice it was sitting there.  

"Ask how much it is", he says.  Less than two quid - cheap.  Beer for him, glass of wine for me.  Nice.  Evening sun, boats, a drink. Someone cooking my tea. No washing up, or at least only the plates when we got home and I dished it up.   What more could I want?  

"Shall we eat here?" I said brightly.

Partner looked horrified. "No.  I want a take-away.  I want to eat in the flat."

"Why do you want to eat in the flat? We could eat here. It's nice here.  It's nicer than eating in the flat, I think."

Warming to theme and with incontrovertible logic I thought.  Repeated it to get point across.

"Don't you think it's nicer sitting here in the sun looking at the boats instead of eating inside in a small poky flat?"

Furrowed brow from Partner.  "We don't like eating out.  You won't enjoy it.  It will be dear."

"No it won't.  It's the same price as the takeaway."  Actually I didn't know what price the take-away was, ie I didn't know if there was a reduction. Maybe not, there isn't always.

"I want to eat here."  I said.  Therefore end of discussion as far as I was concerned.

"Well, when was the last time we ate out?" says Partner suddenly trying to convince me we should eat out.

"And it's really nice sitting here isn't it?" he says persuasively.

"I've just got paid too, so there is plenty of money," he says generously.

He turned into the parrot and repeated this mantra a few times while I sat there doing the goldfish routine.  After a while I remembered how to speak.

"Why are you trying to convince me?  It's you that doesn't want to eat out.  I want to eat here."

"No, no, I think it would be really good ......blah blah" parrot mantra again.

So ate out we did. And have done since repeatedly. The take-away has lost out. The food at the restaurant is better anyway.

I can recommend the Maharaja on Queensway Quay. Lots of veg curries, choice of rice dishes, different nans, some interesting starters, good salad, and an excellent pickle tray. Average price including a couple of drinks - £20-£25.



And a great view too. Starting prices of the flats overlooking the marina with the same view - around half a mill (sterling). Worth £20-£25 for a lovely meal out.

A few thanks

Sometimes it's nice to be able to say a few good things. It doesn't seem to happen very often these days.

Firstly to the Alsina Graells bus driver.

We were travelling from Málaga to Algeciras on the directo bus which has one stop in Marbella.

Approaching Marbella after about 50 minutes, there was an odd smell. Some of us turned round to look at the other passengers. Someone, somewhere at the back of the bus was SMOKING. Which has been banned on Spanish buses for a few years now. And interestingly, although smoking is ingrained in Spanish culture, the ban is rarely transgressed.

We pulled into the bus station and whoever it was had stopped by then.

Some fifty minutes later, same thing again. Second-hand cigarette smoke wafting through the air-conditioning.

I wondered if it was the driver as I have seen the very odd few smoking. I looked in the mirror. He looked right back at me. No. It wasn't him. He was looking for the culprit at the back of the bus. Then he clicked some switch and the roof light shot open.

"NO PUEDE FUMAR EN EL AUTOBUS!" he hollered down the bus.

Everyone turned round at this point. One very red-faced looking person ducked down, presumably to put out the offending cigarette.

Very good, bus driver. It may only seem like one cigarette, but to those of us who don't smoke, it is not a cigarette we want to smell or breathe for five minutes or so. Good on the bus driver for not ignoring it.

Secondly to the Gibraltar Health Authority. I have finally motivated myself to get our official health cards. I took the forms in on Wednesday and I was told they would be ready on Friday. And they were. A very efficient and friendly service.

Thirdly to our local shops. Given the current fuel problems and strikes by lorry drivers there have been some problems in Gibraltar. Shortages of petrol and empty shelves in Morrisons.

Petrol stations started allocating petrol to Gib reg cars only. I think that is fair enough. Nothing wrong with people driving in from Spain to get cheap fuel here in Gib but when there isn't much of it around, it's good that responsible garage owners are putting local residents first.

I said empty shelves in Morrisons. When I went, the fresh vegetable shelves were empty (apart from turnips and kohlrabi). But when I went to my local veg shop, which happens to be a) nearer b) cheaper c) provide (IMO) better quality veg, there was still plenty of stuff. Nor was there a sudden hike in prices because there was a shortage of food elsewhere. Still for all those people who don't speak Spanish and don't want to go into small dark shops when they can just use the supermarket, I guess this type of shopping isn't an option. Fortunately for the rest of us.

Anyway, thanks to all of you. For being thoughtful, considerate, polite, and in the case of the local shopowners for not taking the opportunity to profiteer by hiking up the prices in a time of shortage.

On the waterfront

Partner is working on a refurbishment job down at one of the marinas in Gib.

As usual there are a few Spaniards working there too, so he happily keeps up to his Spanish and chatters away to them.

Naturally he does not wear his best clothes to work. Me being a somewhat thrifty person, he is encouraged to wear his clothes for as long as possible, holes and all. And no, I certainly have no intention of mending shirts, shorts or t-shirts so he can look "tidy". His clothes are covered up by his overalls anyway (which are smart).

Pepe however, clearly thought one of Partner's t-shirts was approaching its sell-by date. He grabbed hold of it by one of the holes and ripped it straight down the back.

Not remotely phased Partner wandered into one of the local bars on the marina. Needless to state it was full of women. Partner looked perfectly normal from the front. But when he turned round with his sexy ripped t-shirt there were ooohs and aaahs of admiration at his cool new sartorial elegance.

Personally I think Pepe ruined a perfectly good t-shirt, but at least it won't go to waste. It will be washed and then ripped up to be used for rags at work.

Apologies for the location of this last picture - it was the only decent back view shot I could get of him wearing the overalls. I wasn't in the bar. Obviously.



Oh and the picture of Marlon is from A Streetcar Named Desire - but Partner happens to be working on the waterfront, hence the tangential link. Image of amazingly sexy Marlon from www.t-shirtcountdown.com/ t-shirts/history.html.

Too young....and too soon

We walked down Queensway last night, as we often do with the dog.

It was full of police. In fact, the road was full of police from Trafalgar Cemetery onwards. And the roads were blocked off and diverted.

When we walked past the pedestrian crossing on Queensway there was an officer clearly measuring up the distance and the marks.

When we walked back in the other direction Partner saw the blood. Lots of it. All over the road.

We walked down again tonight and saw the teenage boys putting flowers on the post at the crossing where their mate had died.

Rumour has it that he came off when the rider was doing wheelies and the boy was killed by a car.


RIP. Too young and too soon.

Romeria

This weekend is romería in our pueblo.

In fact it is romería season in Andalucía - they are happening in most places each weekend for the next month.

The big one, the biggest in Spain in fact, is the romería for el Rocio, in Huelva province (Andalucía).

Anyway this isn't about Rocio. It's about the one in my village. It has been going for 20 years now and is pretty popular.

A romería is a Christian pilgrimage, so naturally, an image of Christ gets taken down from his dusty shelf in the church, plonked on a cart, decorated with lots and lots of flowers, and everyone sets off to walk (or ride in a cart) to the local party place.

Because this is a religious festival, and not just an excuse for a piss-up, it starts with a mass in the church at 8am.

About an hour and a half later (don't forget the church is well full - so an awful lot of people to take communion) the procession sets off.

Our village has a "hermandad" - a brotherhood - which takes the lead in organising the whole event. It was founded a few years after the first romería, and now has 200 members.

The procession winds its way slowly, very slowly, round the old town. There have to be some advantages to buying an old Spanish stone house, and one of them is that all the religious processions come past our house.

Then they go back to the main street in the village, hit the main road, hold up all the traffic along the coast for some considerable time, and finally have a rest about an hour later under some trees on the bridge over the river. It's about a 25 minute walk to this bridge normally.

I say rest, I really mean they get stuck into eating and drinking. There is endless jamón, bread, beer and soft drinks. There is usually anís too. I noticed a couple driving past this morning at 10am had nearly finished the litre bottle of San Miguel in the car between the driver and passenger seat.

After another couple of hours the procession manages to move another 1.5 kms into the local town and go to church for a few more blessings and prayers. And then it's party time. Well, for those that haven't already started.

They go to a big open space, eat, drink, dance, and have a great time. The senior member of the hermandad says some 4,000 people turn up to party on.

About 9.30pm [ETA....er.. nearer 10pm, as the noise has just started now] they arrive back in the village and go to church again so that Christ can go back on his shelf for another year. Obviously far less people go to church at night. A lot of them just stagger home. Some hang around outside the church waiting for the flowers from the wagons to be given away. And fortunately for the drunken stockmen - so smart and assertive in the morning - the buyos know their way home and point them in the right direction.

Nearly forgot to add - the council obviously throws a load of money at it too. New straw hats and bandanas every year, plus food and drink all adds up.



























Source: Apart from me, Sur.es for info about the brotherhood.

Photos - 23 April, evening

As yesterday's photos were daytime ones that I'd taken over the past couple of weeks, I thought it would be nice to take a few evening photos.

Firstly someone has had the amazingly intelligent idea of planting a bed of freesia. What a divine scent. And such an elegant and colourful flower too. Plus a couple of other flower shots.









The marina.





The new housing development, La Isla, and their private moorings.



Sunset looking towards the Bay of Algeciras.

Photo round-up

The creative muse is on holiday. Clarity, who is normally in residence, disappeared when Horrid Head Cold arrived.

So rather than writing some muzzy thoughts - here are some pictures of Gib.

In no particular order..............

Mesembryanthemums providing spring time colour in Gibraltar


Royal gun salute




This was for the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II on 21 April. The Royal Gibraltar Regiment was inspected by Peter Caruana.

I was a little disappointed. There were an awful lot of suits around and a shortage of handsome men in uniforms. By which I mean there were no dark blue ones.

Speaking of the Royal Navy - HMS Chatham stopped over in Gib to refuel. Chatham is a type 22 batch 3 frigate, built on the Tyne by Swan Hunter and launched in 1988. She is en route to the Gulf where she will be helping to protect Iraqi oil platforms and territorial waters in support of the United Nations Security Council Regulations and the Government of Iraq. Chatham will also be helping maintain maritime security in the area.

While they were in Gib, the ship's football team lost against a Combined Services team (2-0), and 42 of the crew ran from the dockyard to the top of the Rock. The fastest runner achieved a new record time for the ship of 26 minutes and 6 seconds. Good grief. Well done Petty Officer Dan Bartlett and everyone else taking part in the Rock Run. How amazingly fit. I feel ill thinking about it.

HMS Chatham


Finally to finish off, some views from a trip to Gib waterworks..

A view from the Moorish Castle at the top of town, just at the entrance to the Upper Rock nature reserve


A now unused valve chamber with an amazing interior






And on the other side of the Rock, views from the old water catchment area down towards Catalan Bay. Virtually all the corrugated sheeting has been removed and the 34 acres previously used for catchment is grassland again. Gib's water now comes from a desalination plant.







Sources: Royal Navy website for info about HMS Chatham

Jimena

I arrived back at the finca feeling pretty drained. I don't know why.

The previous trip we had gone back together en famille. There is something to be said for being driven door-to-door in a Land Rover Santana in less than three hours compared with a total trip of four and a half hours - made up of half an hour's fast walk to La Linea and two bus journeys.

However occasionally being a woman of principle, the bus service is there, it is cheap, in fact it is cheaper than one person driving up and down. So on the bus I went. Although it doesn't help when you have a sore throat as you have around four hours on buses to think of very little apart from how much your sore throat hurts - and that you can't drink too much because you are stuck on a bus without a toilet.

When we had left the finca last time, Jimena was proudly sitting on a grand total of 13 eggs. How the two chickens had managed to lay 13 eggs all in a pile without breaking any is beyond me. How she manages to sit on more than three large eggs is beyond me too, as she is a pretty small chicken. Some of the 13 were the little tiny ones that have no yolk, but we just left her sitting there contentedly.

We have tried to breed our own chickens before. I say breed, we got a cockerel and he chased the chickens around a bit and everytime one became broody she sat in the semi-det nestbox made by Partner, and the next time an egg was laid she went next-door and sat on that one instead. So we had a few failed attempts and Partner got rid of the abandoned eggs - complete with developing embryos.

Chickens come and go and so do nestboxes. He chucked the nestbox. It proved a good spot for mice to nest under. This was popular with the chickens as Jimena took great delight in catching baby mice so she was probably disappointed when Partner removed her own personal mouse-trap.

Some of the chickens have died since we got our first lot more than four years ago. But Jimena and Negrita are survivors of the very first intake. They had a long period without laying last year, so we figured Jimena would stop going broody too. The cockerel of course, is our second one, and came from Juan the Gitano (the one of the athletic sexual prowess - Juan, that is, although maybe the cockerel takes after him).

So I opened the door to the chicken run somewhat timorously, wondering whether I would see 13 abandoned eggs, or a few dead baby chickens who hadn't survived. Nothing. Just Jimena sitting on the eggs still. I was a bit disappointed, but not surprised.

And then in slow motion I watched as she fluffed her wings a bit and a little head peered out, and cheeped at me. And then another one...and another..until there were five little tiny chickens peering at me and cheeping.

I dropped the fresh food on the floor for them. It was some greens and veg trimmings that we put in to supplement their corn diet. I was so surprised I also dropped the two veggie burgers that I had put in there for my tea. In case this is of any use to anyone, I can vouch first hand that chickens love veggie burgers. The chickens definitely ate better than me that night.



Mama Jimena clucked imperiously over to look at the scran. She pecked at it with disdain and then chucked it aside and the little brood followed her across the shed. And when she thought they had adventured enough, she fluffed up her wings again and they all ran underneath to nestle down and stay warm.





Some years ago when I was reading up about chickens and the various ways of breeding and hatching chicks out, one sage author said 1) never stop your broody chickens going broody and 2) if you are lucky she will go away on her own for a while and a few weeks later return with her little brood.

It is quite salutary to think that for all our previous interference and enthusiasm to make life as easy as possible for our chickens to breed, the only successful occasion has been when we have cleared off out of the way. The arrogance of humans and our desire to interfere with the simplicity of nature takes some beating.

Tales from the building sites....

Partner is not naturally sympathetic. So it is ironic that other men often pour out their sob stories to him.

When we first met, he was working on a dockyard with lots of other men in their twenties. Inevitably the conversation would get round to moans about their girlfriends. Usually the same one. They weren't getting enough sex from their girlfriends. I never did find out what "enough" sex was. Presumably more than they were having at the time. Partner's careful and considered advice was invariably "Get rid of 'em."

I tended to agree with him. After all, what is the point of having a girl/boyfriend and not having much/any sex? Although, as the years have moved on, I have realised that there are often valid reasons. Stress is often the big culprit, either due to personal and domestic issues, or work-related problems. Or maybe people are suffering from physical ill-health. So I'm a bit more thoughtful these days.

Story 1

Last week one of the joiners was telling everyone about his girlfriend. She's Dutch, and he had met her when he was working in Amsterdam. She'd made a surprise trip down to Gibraltar and had been staying with him for about ten days. In all this time the joiner had only had sex twice. The other men on the site looked at him dubiously.

He was taking her back to the airport the following morning. Although the girlfriend had managed to get the bus from the airport down to his flat, it seemed she couldn't work out how to get back on her own. So the joiner was having to take most of the day off work and lose money to take her back to the airport. That's 20 euros in motorway tolls, whatever the petrol cost was, and lost wages of around £60. The bus fare is less than ten euros from where he lives.

Oh and when he goes to stay with her, he has to book into a hotel, because "she likes her own space."

He turned up at work after he had taken the girlfriend to the airport. He had a big smile on his face. "I got sex twice last night."

Partner and the other guy just looked at each other. "Get rid of her," said Partner. "She's milking you dry," said the other guy.

Story 2

On the firm before, another joiner seemed to be having problems with his girlfriend. (What is it with joiners??) Well, not he seemed to be having problems. He was paying half of her mortgage to live with her, and he hadn't had sex for a year with this "girlfriend."

Partner was helpful as ever. "Get rid of her." So he did. He moved out, and rented a small house on a finca for the same price as he was paying for sharing a flat with the so-called girlfriend.

Do men on construction sites only have one topic of conversation?