A short path to inevitable

Before moving to Spain I got myself a few pairs of beach shorts. I figured I'd try and be cool and hip and hit the beach/pool in some surfer shorts.
Now it's been a few weeks and I've gotten myself a bit of an all over tan.

Well not quite all over. I now have white bits that extend down my thighs, from my waist to just above my knees. When I've been getting changed or having a shower it sometimes looks like I still have some ridiculously white shorts on.
Which has given me a bit of a image issue. Although I'm not a major fan of hitting the beach and laying in the sun for 12 hours, it's still something that I'd like to resolve.

So I tried wearing my swimming pool shorts a little more. They're much shorter but not quite short enough.

Now I've bought myself some smaller shorts. They're about the size of boxer shorts. Actually I think most of my boxer shorts are longer.
The first problem I have is now I have tanned shins, small shorts and in between bright white thighs. Something I'm going to have to work on now.

The BIG problem though is I'm going to get to the stage where I start to think that even these tiny shorts are giving me too much white bits.
So next I'll be changing to Speedos and walking around the beach in just them.

Which is eventually going to lead to the man-thong. It's inevitable. The Path to the Thong has started.

And that's a shame, as I thought that I would at least be in my 30's before I started walking around the beach in a thong.

I do have picture's but I think the mental image is more then you can take.

Get along with el vecinos

When we first arrived in Spain one of the things we had to come to terms with was our new house.
When we seen the house for the first time I was pretty dismayed. I was expecting a lovely, small, Spanish holiday home. What I saw -on a drizzle afternoon in the middle of the Spanish Spring- was a residential home. Not just any kind of residential home, but a high rise residential home. The tallest building in the whole of Nerja.
Except for the fact that geography of Nerja is so that it appears to be built on the side of a valley so the building isn't as protruding from the skyline as you would expect.

After a few days living here I started to find more things I liked and disliked, close to the beach; pool is closed, those kind of things.
One of the good points was the "residentialness" of the building.
I figured that no one is going to want to holiday here. The building is going to be full of Spanish. It'll be good to get to know a few of the faces and eventually, and hopefully, get in to small talk with people.

It turns out I was wrong. I don't think I could of been anymore wrong?
This building is like a big piece of fresh, clean, bare skin attracting annoying, buzzing mosquito's from far away.

We get plenty of holiday makers here. Mainly the French. Although there is the odd English, Spanish and German holiday makers. But those nationalities are no where near as noticeable as the French.

I'd say that about 80~90% of mosquito's holiday makers arrive on Sundays. This is the one day that I've started to hate.
All day we get taxi's and minibuses pull up. Kids shoot out screaming and running about. Suitcases being pulled up to the main door.
I'd like to mention at this point that we are extremely unfortunate to be living on the ground floor and have our bedroom right next to the only door in to the building. So we have all visitors pass us.
Some times, if we are very lucky, we will get a French group pull up on a Sunday/Monday morning at about 2am shouting and banging on while removing their suitcases from the car to the door. All of this happens right. Outside. Our window.


Another annoying point to having different weekly neighbours is you never know who is going to turn up at the pool.
A few weeks back we had a large group of French kids. The flat they were renting must of had bodies laying down in all directions at night.
For the entire week these kids did nothing but sing songs, scream and shout as loud as they could while in the pool. Which is really annoying if you just want a nice swim, relax and sunbath.
Some weeks we just avoid the pool and don't think of the holiday makers.
The last week or two we have been very lucky. We've had quite a few new families/mature people who have been very quite and reserved at the pool which has been beautiful.

But Saturdays are always nice. Things are much quieter around here. The pool is more then often empty. And all this quit time gives me the chance to pray to the Gods of First Choice and Thomson Cook that the next visitors we get are quite....


...and not French

I don't wanna be a pirate

Yesterday I sat down to watch a pirated illegal video but all the way through the guy recording the movie was chomping on sweets. And not just any sweets, sweets in noisy wrappers.

Have these pirates -ripping off the movie industry, not the highsea ones- not got any morales?

A visit from more family

A few weekends ago I had the pleasure of the company of my niece and mum

They have a lot in common

They're both part time SuperHeroess'

We spent a lot of time at the beach

Writing names


Watching waves.

Well some of us watched, while others ran


And after a while the "other" of us were tempted in to the sea

The big inflatable thing was called Cakey...until me mum popped it.

There was dressing up

A Big Mouth, but not a big head.


Nice shoes

And dancing

Flamingo (as it was mostly called)


As well as some "Ice" Skating.

A bit too much Spaghetti was eaten


But all this excitement was too much for the smaller of us.



On a few occasions

But my mum was on her best behaviour all weekend.


It was great seeing both of my favourite girls and I was over the Moon to hear they already have their plane tickets for their next visit in October.

And here is the slide-show

[LINK]

Noche de San Juan

So we finally had the big party on the beach I've been looking forward to for weeks. Not only did we have a fun day out on the beach, but I think I spent more time on the beach in this one day then I had been to beaches in my life back in the UK. We arrived at about 9:45AM. We were warned to arrive early to get places. And we got back home for 2ish. A total of about 14 hours.

Noche de San Juan takes place on the 23rd June. From what I gather John the Baptist is supposed of been born on the 24th June, so the the night before his birthday all water is supposed to hold magical healing powers.
Tradition is that at the stroke of midnight everyone heads in to the sea/lake/river (only ankle deep, although some crazy fools went for a swim).
You're also suppose to wash your hands and face three times in sea and that means you will be blessed with good luck for the year. I forgot to do this.

Newer traditions are the local council allow camping on the beach for this one night only. People can light bonfires, BBQs, there is live music, parties, free food and plenty of drink.

This is what we got up to.


The missus has never put up a tent before. So I let her do most of the work.


Finished tent being modelled.


I'm told that the beach was quieter this year and that the nearby other major beach was a bit busy.


Some bigger boys were being pains so we moved to a quiet area. Where 10 minutes later a large party set up behind us. The missus wasn't amused.

But everything was pretty quite for most of the day, the main party really kicked off at midnight.
At which point everyone ran in to the sea.

The missus and a friend following tradition.


There was a firework show.


The lit a big bonfire. For some reason, that I don't know yet, they had a Titanic effigy.


And all the kids had parties.

It was a bit too much for us and after being in the sea and standing on our towels-cum-beds we got our beds wet. Plus as we had a beach tent and not a proper tent it was a bit chilly, so we decided to pack up and headed home for a far warmer and more comfortable sleep.

Here is the slideshow


There are a few quiet festivals over the next few months but the next major one is the feria. Which is a week long. And the last one I went to ended in a Bull Run.

A well held secret

So last Thursday I had a big surprise.

After the missus made me help tidy up the house, she took me out for something to eat. We headed down the beach to meet our friend, nothing seemed that out of place.
That was until I walked in to the bar and spotted my dad.

I had to do a double take. At first I didn't recognise him. Then I did and I wondered if I where in some wierd dream? Or had I walked back to England? What the hell was going on?
It turns out my dad saying for a while that he had to get his passport sorted first and would hope to visit as soon as he could was all a lie. He and the missus had been planning this since I last visited Runcorn before leaving for Spain over 2 months ago.


Dad at the bar. He made sure he was dressed warm enough for Spains mild 30 degree weather.


Alot of fun was made by the fact I had converted to half pints (canas) since moving over. My dad and his friend would soon start drinking them themselves.


While my dad was here it was his birthday. Unfortunatly Spain wasn't agreeing with his belly so he was off tapas, food and beers for most of the day.
(A very rare photo of my dad drinking something other then beer in a pub)

We had a great night on his birthday. There was tapas, food, much of which my dad missed out on. There was chatting

Lots of drinking and even some dancing.



Everyone enjoying dad's last night of his visit.

And then it was all over far too quickly.

It was great seeing my dad and Mike. And I had a fantastic time showing them around Nerja.
Although I'm not pleased to learn that the missus secret keeping skills have increased an awful lot from the last time she had to keep secret.
And from what I gathered from my dad, he was very impressed with my new life. And the bars. And he seemed to be able to jump to half pints rather too easily.

And I look forward to his next visit.

Here is the rest of the weekend.

Link

Although I recommend you check out the missus photos, as they are much better.

(Also dad if you're reading this, you'll have to get me the videos and photos Mike took emailed to me when you can.)

Next on my family visits is my niece Megan, who I can't wait to see.

While you wait

So I have some photos to upload before I can tell you about my great weekend.

So while you wait I'll show you how my new hair is looking. It's been nicknamed "The Cockatil" by the missus.

Training for el encierro

With the Bull Run just a few days away I have been doing some training.

This video is a bit lengthy, at just over 8 minutes. It took me a day to recrod and an hour to edit, have a look at my training technique.

My training for the upcoming Bull Run

Bull Run Swimming montage

1. 11062008209, 2. 11062008207, 3. 11062008206, 4. 11062008211

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Trailer

What is it all about?

When a plan comes together

I have recently been playing a lot of Wii Fit. And now that we (think we) have access to the pool I've been doing a few laps swimming each day.

I thought that my recent spurts of exercise were to keep me fit and healthy.

It turns out it's not. It is in fact to prepare me for the Bull Run I am taking part in this Sunday that I only found out about last night.

So who can run faster? Me or a bull? Found out Monday.

Keeping up with the Jones'

It's not just the missus that's fell for the mosaic feature at Big Huge Labs.
It does have a simplicty about it that could be abused.

But before I start to use the feature I might as well start with how it all began, I believe the questions are:]

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you
12. And, here’s me!

So here you go

1. Robert Belly, 2. extra cheesy salami and mushroom pizza:), 3. Hidden Place ..., 4. ♫ YO Yo yo, there's no place like a green penthouse... so i told the genie i wanted to be well hung. ^o^ ♫ nah... wildlife from singapore♫, 5. Karen O, 6. UrbanArchaeology II, 7. Akihabara (Electric Town), 8. Toffeeee Cheesecake, 9. The view out the porthole, 10. IMG_8118, 11. He's up to something look, 12. 01062008157

On a side note, I've now updated my blog to include who is on my 'blogroll.' It lists the 10 most recent bloggers. If you don't think you've seen yourself and should be included I apologise, just leave a comment and I'll resolve it.

It should all work out

So if you have been watching my Tweets you may already know a little about this next entry.

On Monday I quit my job.

It just wasn't working out. The original job I was doing there I did enjoy. It was working in sales face to face. We were told that we had to do a two and a half to three hour presentation with people about the product. A holiday club.
When I did my training I almost bought one of the memberships myself. It was a great deal. It looked fantastic.
So I felt good with what I was doing.

Unfortunately there wasn't enough people visiting the sales deck so I was recently moved to telesales.
I was told this was pretty much the same thing, just with a differnet club.

But the whole set up was totally different. Plus you only had a few minutes once someone picked up the phone to get it sold.
Obvioulsy there were some advantages to this picth, like it cost a tiny fraction of the other sell. But this one just felt wrong.
I just always thought if someone phoned me up with the same pitch I wouldn't go along with it.

So I just couldn't do a good job. Which meant that the manager was always having a word with me about how to improve. Which just made me feel rubbish.

Anyway on Monday I walked in and told them I was leaving.
Don't get me wrong there was one product that I didn't like but the office were very helpful and good with me. They gave me a job as soon as I moved to Spain. Plus the people that work there are really good people and I hope that I spot them outside of work.

But I do have another job lined up thankfully. The missus brother-in-law told me about a job listening to telephone calls and ranking them. It can all be done over the internet so I can do it from home.
At first I was unsure that I would get the job. I sent off my application form and hadn't heard anything for a few days.
Plus I thought that the brother in law was only putting my name forward as a possible applicant.
Then the missus tells me not to worry. The in-law is in fact a huge deal at the company and owns quite a few shares. I thought he was just one of their best sales trainers.
Then I get an email which I have been copied in to, which is of my CV sent from the in-law to the HR team. I'm told that the in-law has put himself on my references. I have a look and under job title it says 'Director.'
Then I stop worrying and think, "if a director is going to try and get me a job then it might go through."

So now I am just waiting for some log on details and I'll soon be able to work form home.
I really do hope I don't pick up any bad habbits, like reading blogs all day.
Plus I've promised the missus I'll stay away from the pool of a morning.
I'll still be looking around for any bar work/waitering just for some extra cash/hours. The season here has just started and I have seen a few adverts in restaurant windows. Only problem is they are in Spanish or you have to be able to speak Spanish. So that's how I've been spendning a few of my hours. Getting back to learning my Spanish.

Just one more thing about the office. I was watching an episode of the American version of the sitcom 'The Office,' when Dwight (the US version of Gareth) was giving help to another character on how to do god in sales.
The advice he gave, "K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid," was the same advice I was given to me when I first start selling face to face.
I'm not sure whether that means that this office have been getting selling tips from The Office.
Or whether both offices are using the same sources for all of their material?

Walk in the Hills

It's been annoying not being able to take a proper walk in the hills right behind our house ever since the fall.

Hiking has been a favourite hobby ever since my dad got me practising for our walk across England. So when I injured my feet and could hardly walk it was annoying that I couldn't get up the mountains.

Fortunately my feet have been feeling pretty normal the last few weekends and last weekend I took the chance to go for a Walk in the Hills around what I belive is called Cerro Tragalamocha.

You can follow my walk by heading over here
Link to Sportstracker route or using this on Google Earth yourself


I only had a slight idea of where I was going. The smaller set of hills that the new part of Nerja is being built on. I thought I'd take things easy. I mean I didn't want to get lost or injured on my first walk now.

I managed, without realising, to take my walk on the weekly boot sale day. It's a pretty crazy bootsale they have here. Things range from VHS tapes to SEGA Master Systems. I haven't seen one of them since I was a kid.
I'll be heading back there with some cash another day.

After setting off it didn't take long for me to get lost. But I did have on my a GPS enabled phone and a decent explorer map of the area.
My first hurdle come when I realised that my phone only has the regular international coordinates and Spain has it's own local grid reference. This meant that although I could tell you exactly where I was on Earth, I couldn't find that anywhere on the map.
So straight away the map became pretty useless.
My next job is to see if there is a way of converting GPS coordinates in to Spanish Local map grid references?

So I ended up getting lost.
And heading up the wrong hill.
I wanted to be here.


But it worked out in my favour as I spotted plenty of wildlife

This I think is an Egyptian Grasshopper.

Although there wasn't much in scenary.


But I did get some good views of home.

It looks quite big from up here.

So I headed back. But spotted another route around the side of the Hill I wanted to be up.

So I decided to take this route and see where it went?

The dirt track wasn't terribly wide for most of the walk. And there wasn't much too see.


But when I got to the top I got to see where I will be heading next time!

But first I better get the GPS and map problem sorted out.

But I did have a very enjoyable Walk in the Hills. I got 4 hours walk out of it and climb to 470 metres.

But more importantly I spotted some lizards. And I'll have more on them soon.

I promise. There is a lizard there. ;)

But until then, check out some of my other photos.

Link

I want it all over

Following on from my previous post about cooking pizza's, although this is more of a 'cooking in general' or 'Kitchen Rant.'

Why is it that some ovens, possible mostly electric, more work needs to be done in research, don't cook at the same temperature through the oven area.

Oven's really aren't that big. Not big enough to have huge differences in temperature. So why is it when I'm cooking anything over medium size, pizzas, aload of chips, lasagne, sasuages, everything, does the oven want to cook one side of the food much faster then the other.

What this means is that to get a good all round cooked tea is a rare feat in this house.
Alot of the times one side might be too uncooked or burnt. Obviously the way around this is to move the food around every few minutes...
...but I'm not a ratation device.

Although we don't have the instructions for the oven (which we could of done when the missus thought she had blew up he oven and stopped it work, when in fact she had just made the timer go off and hadn't reset it) I'm pretty sure it didn't say anything about a human rotisserie being needed!

Pizza pie

I love most Italian foods. When I say most, what I really mean is pizza and pasta.

There is one thing that does annoy me about fresh pizzas from the store and that is that all the time the toppings will be grouped together on the pizza base.
Instead of all being all evenly distributed, some sicko in the pizza making factory decides that all the extra cheese goes on one side and the ham goes on the other.

This of course means that I have to reorganise the whole pizza before sticking it in the oven.

The only thing more annoying then this, is uneven pizza topping distribution on frozen pizzas.
Those toppings aren't moving at all unless defrosted.

I did use to have a way around this. Unfortunately it invovled going to the local Asda store. Which is now not possible.
If you do have an Asda store near you, I highly recommend a 14" thin and crispy, regular crust with chicken, mushrooms pineapple and extra cheese on. Fantastic. I miss those pizzas so much.

San Isidro Festival

San Isidro is the Patron Saint of Nerja and the San Isidro festival is the biggest in Nerja. It's the one that the whole town takes part in and there is a huge parade from the church to the Caves, where there is a big party.
It's the best time to see all the men and women dress in their best clothes and have a good time.
Although the missus had very sore feet she eventually caved in to my cries and we walked to the caves to see what was happening. Although we didn't stay too long.
But next year we are going to prepare for it and hopefully take my niece along so she can dress up like a señorita pequeño and walk along with the parade's.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite photographs.

Next time I roll like this


If you look closely the horses you might notice something


Having a relax


This kid was the most photographed person at the festival. Fact!


A small selection of the very colourful dresses that were on display


Let the dancing begin


The missus after a few hours of walking. Doesn't she look happy!

And here is the slideshow


PS Please check out the missus flickr site, she has many more glorious technicolour photos.

Next is the Festival of San Juan. The one I am most looking forward too. Midnight BBQ's on the beach. What more could you ask for?

Things; They are a changin'

I'm starting to notice a few small changes around the house.
Not major ones.
They're slowly creeping in around everywhere.

A bit like that advice "if you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out; but if you slowly heat up the water then it won't notice."
At least I think that was advice? I'm not sure who it is supposed to be advice for? Why anyone would want to boil a frog, apart from a mental teen of course, I don't know?

But the changes around the house are "starting to warm up," if you like.

What I've been noticing is I think the missus is turning in to a Jew.

I have no idea why she would want to be a Jew? I've got nothing against Jews. Infact I'm not a religious man.
But I can't figure out why the missus would, at this point in her life, want to change her religion?

H'actually I don't know her religion, she might already be a Jew. A closet Jew, but I think she is a Christian. Or a Jedi. One of the two.
So I have no reason why she would want to change her religion from Jedi to Jew? Maybe it's less letters? Or she is getting fed up of the Yoda framed photo beside her bed, but I've started to notice things.
Small things.
Things that only someone who has nothing to do in his spare time and gets excited about buying Pineapples and double socket Scart leads can notice.
She is saying "oye" alot. Especially when she is tired or doing something tiring. (Which is the one way I know she isn't turning Scottish as they say "aye" when agreeing.)

It's small, but to a intelligent frog in a slightly warmer pot then 5 minutes ago, I've noticed.

The cheese just ain't the same

I've started to find that I'm getting excited about really strange things.

When my mum was over visiting she bought me Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit. I've spent so much time on these two games (and before you ask 35. My damn Wii Fit age is 35. Stupid frickin balance board)
And it's not just me. The missus has been playing a lot more Wii and even beating me on some Mario Kart time trials.
I love these two games and they are great presents.
But I'm trying to get a point across here, bare with me.
The best present I got that week was not the games but in fact a block of cheese.

Cheese over here just isn't the same.

It's all expensive and I just want a decent block of English Mature Cheddar. But it's so hard to come by.
They do have a lot of sliced cheese or grated cheese. But just not a lot of choice on affordable blocks of cheese.
So I've not had a cheese and (Branston) pickle sandwich in weeks. I'm missing them.

Another great thing that I've bought and I'm happy about is a pineapple. I'm so pleased I've bought a pineapple.
I've never bought a whole pineapple before. I've bought half of one or tinned rings, but never a whole pineapple.
I feel like my life has moved on a lot now.

But the greatest thing I have bought in the last few days, in fact for some time, was a double socket scart adapter.
Seriously.
A simple adapter for the TV that lets me plug in my Wii and my DVD in to the TV at the same time. The TV only has one scart plug/AV channel. This causes some unnecessary time wasting.
Before yesterday if I wanted to play some Mario Kart I'd have to turn the TV around, check what scart was plugged in the TV and swap them around if needed.
If after playing some Mario Kart and then wanting to watch some Seinfeld I still have no clue what they are saying on Spanish TV so I don't watch that) then I have to turn the TV around. Unplug the Wii. Plug in the DVD and then turn the TV back round the right way.
And vice verse if swapping from the DVD to the Wii.
But now, thanks to the special magical properties of a little black box I now have both the Wii and DVD plugged in to the TV and to use one all I have to do is switch it on. I don't even need to turn the channel.

And I wouldn't give up my Mario Kart Wii or Wii Fit for any amount of blocks of cheese.

In's and out's

Well here is what I have been up to in the last few days.

Work has been pretty slow. We've not really been having people come to the sales deck so I've not had the chance to earn any cash. I've been told that more effort is being made to get people on to the sales deck this week, so hopefully I should start to be earnig some money soon. Working for €20 a day isn't great.

Life has been pretty much quite since the family left. The missus has been busy loking for a job and after work I have been trying to get some stuff sorted out that has needed to be done for a while, mainly tidying, getting a new bed and sorting out some home movies. And playing lots of Mario Kart and Wii Fit.
If you would like to see our movies then check out robbiesherman.blip.tv or look at the rss feed on the side of my blog.
Here is the video of our first day. Take in to account that we had been up since 3, been stuck out shopping for a few hours, rained on and very hungry.

Apologies about the screen size. I think the camera records in widescreen and the ratio has been messed around somewhere, not sure where.

My feet, having spoke about them in teh previous post, are fine now. I think in another week or two I might try and climb one of the large hills/small mountains outback. Or at least see how far up I can get. Although Spain does not have maps anything like Ordnance Survey maps, so I might have to take a pad and pencil and draw my own. Hopefully I'll come back with plenty of pictures though (although not sure on the quality as I won't have my regular camera.)

The weather also hasn't been great this last week. And it isn't forecast to get much better over the next week but I believe the UK has been seeing some great weather the last few days though. Lucky.....
But today will be spent in the pub. The missus has found a bar that will be showing both the Chelse and Man United games so I'll be down there in a few hours watching the last 90 minutes of the season with my fingers crossed that Chelsea pip United at the post.

Anyways, that's what I have been up to lately.

Lizard Spot 05.05

Well after a little absence lizard spot has jumped right up.

Lizard 7 was spotted while at work. It was crawling on the wall behind where some colleagues were eating.
I had to quickly describe to them my fascination with lizards and how I needed to take a photo. Next minute I'm trying to stick my hands down the back of the bench to photo this lizard.
Although I think this is a gecko not a lizard.

Photo 2

Lizard numero 8 was spotted just yesterday. On the way home from the beach with the missus parents. This one was tiny and took a while for me to point out to everyone. In fact I had to scare it a bit to make it move so people could spot it.
This one was so small that it made me wonder how I manage to be able to spot such small reptiles.
Can you spot it?

Photo 2 might be easier?

Lizard number 9 was spotted today as we headed to work. I seen a little rustling about in the scrub beside the path. I grabbed hold of the missus and quickly said "don't move."
As she had no clue, she freaked out and shook thinking something vicious and scary was about to eat her, possibly a t-rex.
I explained it was a different kind of lizard and tried to get a photo of it, but it was to quick and ran away.
Sorry no photo. :(

Lizard Spot: 9


It's not just lizard's that I have spotted.
While heading the beach the other day the missus spotted this guy throwing himself off a wall (a bit similar to what I did a few weeks back)

Photo 2 Photo 3

Also while on the way home late one evening I spotted a big train of ants walking about. Now these were massive ants. Really big. About the length of a finger nail.
This one stood out the most to me, it was trying to carry the biggest sun flower seed I have ever seen.
I recommend you check out the larger photo.