Merry Christmas!

… and a Happy New Year to (all) our reader(s).

In keeping with tradition, I guess we should have some sort of review of the year, but seeing as the last two years have pretty much merged in to one long lock-in, it could be quite a lengthy process.

Spain eventually got its act into gear and then rolled out jabs at a ferocious pace - and with amazing discipline. We are now both triple-jabbed, anti-flu´d and anti-pneumonia´d, so hopefully ok for a few months? weeks? - or Christmas at least. We have our certificates on our mobile ´phones, so were we to go anywhere, we could prove we were not a threat - although the odds of having to show anything in the Niño are pretty remote. I watch the progress of the virus through the statistics provided by the “Junta de Andalucia”, then marvel at the total (mis)interpretation of them as the local towns desperately try to ignore the obvious in order to make a buck from the tourists. No results published today (Christmas Eve) despite it not being a holiday - probably means the results are too bad to show - and they can prevaricate until the dog-days between Christmas and the New Year, when most people are too bored to care.

So much for covid. It initially stopped the tourists, but by mid-summer they were back with a vengeance, to the extent that I have applied to pay for an annual slot in the town-centre car park - just in order to be able to park the car when we have to go for doctor´s appointments or for anything at the town hall (or maybe even go to a restaurant in the centre). This has been brought on by the deterioration in my knees, which struggle to get me into the village, let alone out again. I know that weight is a contributory factor, so am actually making an effort by going on a 4 and 3 diet - 4 days of soup and dry biscuits, followed by 3 days of excess. Amazingly it works and the mental discipline is probably good for me too. G has nobly accompanied me (to a certain extent) but seems to think any deviation by her is a problem for me. It isn´t - I am like some of my middle-eastern colleagues who used to encourage me to consume what I liked in front of them in Ramadan as it added to their virtue (a word rarely used in relation to myself).

G has continued to help the longer-term patients who are no longer allowed to go into the day-centre at the hospice - her work there with the patients is something she misses terribly. We have met a few very pleasant people in this way, and, in some ways can actually help them more outside the hospice than in.

Sad to say the founder of Cudeca, Joan Hunt, died during the year. Not unexpected, as she was in her nineties and bed-ridden, but it did make us stop and reflect on how much she achieved down here (and without ever learning spanish!). Joan and I used to have discussions about the long-term future of the hospice, with her being in favour of “localisation” of staff and donors and me being in the corner of believing that the expats were the driving force in both. Now without Joan, there are no Brit staff in the centre, so we shall see how it progresses. If ever anyone should have a gold-ticket straight into heaven, it should be Joan. Charismatic, determined, driven and charming - a formidable combination and a simply lovely lady.

After months of hassle, we eventually got some work down on the house - and it was worth the wait and the cost. New balustrades on the kitchen and top balconies, then the small rear lawn paved and turned into a pretty courtyard (serendipity / stroke of genius), then we rounded it off by having the front path widened by a metre and a half. Add a couple of lime trees and it all just works beautifully.

House-wise, thing were all trumped by the neighbour below secretly selling his house. We had prayed (and cursed) to get him to go, but it still came as a pleasant surprise when he decided to sell up - and to cap it all, the new Danish owner not only agreed to me trimming the trees between us, but also decided to cut down the big trees as well. 20 years of 2/3 of a view and now the Med is our lobster (to quote Coronation Street). The new people seem very nice and intend it to be a summer home. They are back home again now, which means things are very quiet at the moment, but that suits us well.

To add to our pleasure, a little black cat has started visiting us too. Named BoBo (partially named after my Ma´s stolen cat which had the the most politically incorrect name imaginable), we are hoping he becomes a regular. One ear nipped, indicating a neutered stray, “he” looks a beautiful animal and is happy to accept food (but aren´t we all?).

As I sit at my office desk (ok, PC desk), it is pouring down outside. Everyone (even the expats) wanted it to happen as it had hardly rained all year and “the reservoirs are very low” (nothing new there)

I have a “doorbell” camera mounted at the far side of the pool, and the camera has a microphone, so I can hear the rainwater gurgling down the drain. The camera is there because I bought and filled a bird feeder, but it proved more of a bid-scarer. Nothing came near it, then the strong winds blasted all the seed out of it anyway. Next G noticed some birds actually eating the seed from the patio, so we installed the camera to see if they spotted that there was lots on the lawn. Sure-enough, we now have a flock of linnets and a gaggle of greenfinches munching their way across the grass (flocks of birds, - new cat - what could go wrong?). Other vaguely interesting flora / fauna has been some Bicolor Hornets which appear about December and about which I report to a new pal in Valencia who knows much about their progress in Europe. I am tasked with finding their nests and reporting them as they are an “invasive species” (nothing but occasional bodies to report as yet).

Our technology has been pretty much restricted to new wifi cameras - but that technology has advanced so fast that it has made my old (and expensive) Foscam cameras using SecuritySpy redundant. Serves the developer right for being so picky about what you could use with his software. Oh, just remembered, I bought a weather station that collects data on wind, rain, solar etc to a display and my PC. It tells me we have had almost two inches of rain in the last 36 hours. The (level of the ) pool gives me the same information, but then I am technology driven! I am in the market for an upgrade to my iMac, but am not inclined to pay 1600€ for an unnecessary hardware change just to allow compatible software to be used (but then I remember when such modifications ran into the hundreds of thousands and months of planning in my previous incarnation). I have looked at Mac Minis, iPad Pros, Macbooks, etc, but none fit any sort of return on investment criteria (despite business access to vat free purchases - leading to my iPhone 12).

Car-wise we still have the Qashqai and the Juke (now two years old and still less than 7k on the clock). The make of the cars is relatively unimportant - we have Nissans because the main dealer is at the bottom of the hill and the service centre staff are so helpful (as the manager says, the sales people sell the first car and the service team sell the subsequent ones - how very true).

My interest in religion and philosophy has slowed a little as I have run into the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta and the sayings of Nisargadatta Maharaj - it all fits perfectly with my views and his sayings are even in an app for the ´phone. Relatively unknown (it took me 60 years to find him) and it is an area too esoteric for almost anyone else it seems. Still. it keeps me happy.

We have managed a couple of trips to Malaga in the final quarter of the year, but found it very disappointing. The “El Yerno” fish stall in the market is still the best starting point, but many of the other bars seem to have closed. A strange atmosphere - more and more tourists, but less and less good tapas bars. Possibly my best “what the ? “ moment came from the Malaga council´s decision to still put up their annual Christmas light display, but not to reveal the times of the “shows” so as to avoid crowds. It should come as no surprise to anyone, that the crowds just turned up and waited- and waited - and grew larger and larger, until they ended up with an area absolutely jammed with people for hours at a time and day after day. Some things you can not make up, and the spanish desire to socialise and get together in large groups is something I still struggle to comprehend. Last week an official actually suggested that family celebration dinners be “limited” to a maximum of 25 people from 5 households. I don´t think I have ever known that many people or households in my entire life.

Well, I got this far without mentioning Brexit, but I guess I should cover it. Very little impact with the exception of an increase in bureaucracy relating to residency at first, followed by the loss of UK dairy and meat products in the "Brit" stores, but recently the customs for anything coming from the UK have proved incredibly cumbersome (actually impossible, with "return to sender" the best option). This has curtailed the use of a couple of G´s UK suppliers, also my go-to spectacle maker "Glasses2You". There are work-arounds, but not for frequent use. Buggeration is the best way of describing it, but it was always going to be so.

Anyway, to end on a positive note, we hope that you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy (and safe) 2022!