FUELLED BY RIOJA

Show me a woman with an obsessive cleaning disorder, who spends her days washing  and ironing, cleaning and polishing, sweeping and hovering, for hours on end, and I’ll show you one who would rather sit writing ‘stuff’, whether it be on the computer, or in dust on the telly.

However, once I’m on my way to Stansted airport, en route to Spain, I find myself verging on the edge of a different sort of OCD, the Obsessive Compulsive one, which makes me do the same things, every time I fly.

I won’t deny it, I gets excited walking into the airport. I love the buzz, even if Stansted often has the ability to infuriate me, as well as make me very happy in equal measure. 

Unless you can get your smalls in one small carryon bag, we all know the drill. Even now they’ve introduced ‘baggage drop off areas’ the queues are just the same.

We just have to check in twice now, once online, AND at the baggage drop off area. It’s just the same thing in disguise. A desk by any other name springs to mind.

I like to get there early, buy some girly magazines ( NO not those sort), a huge Mocha Coffee from Pret, then it’s a long happy wait, and a people watch for me, till the information board calls me, and I make my way to gates 42-50. 

Those are the ones where you go down the escalator, walk what seems like miles, and then go up the escalator, and then walk what seems like more miles. After that, your gate is always the one at the end, and if its gate 50, good luck, that’s another frolic on the escalator and back into the bowels of the departure lounge.

It’s at this point that my mild obsessiveness starts to kick in.  If I haven’t bought my priority boarding pass online, I always buy it at the airport. It’s exorbitantly priced, I agree. But to a disordered woman like me, it has to be done. It’s part of my flying ritual.

I head to the boarding gate, and stand in the left hand PRIORITY BOARDING queue. And that’s when my eyes go into overdrive. I find myself peering ahead of me, and if I spot ‘OTHER QUEUE’ on a fellow passengers boarding pass my indignation meter goes off the scale.

After all, I’ve bloody well paid to be in this queue, any interlopers can totter off to the back of the ‘I’ll get on the plane just as quick’ queue. Go on, do one. I'm the silly one here, let me have my moment!

I wonder if I should point out their oversight, or wait for Miss Efficient to check for their Priority Boarding right of passage, and whose day is only made when she can’t fit your bag into the ‘ does your bag fit’ thingy, and if it doesn’t, smiles smugly as she charges you a small mortgage to actually take you’re not so small smalls on the plane.

I ALWAYS board the plane from the back, and my seat is ALWAYS 4^th from the back on the right hand side, and it’s ALWAYS an aisle seat.  God help anyone who is already sitting there. MY hand luggage ALWAYS goes in that little overhead luggage cubby hole. The single one. Never any other.  I paid to get there first, it’s mine I tell you. Mine.

And then I sit and watch as the ‘other queue’ take their seats and the Ryanair kerfuffle begins.  I know you’ve ALL seen it. As the plane fills up, there’s nowhere for the luggage to go. The blue clad beauties shuffle bags, and when they simple don’t fit into the over-head locker, then they stoically stow them under seats. They insist on separating families and friends, as if their badge of honour wings depended on it.

A kind of calm pervades the cabin as we prepare for take-off. I’m in shreds because, in  case you hadn’t got the message.......  

I BLOODY HATE FLYING!  I really couldn’t have picked a more unsuitable lifestyle.

We reverse slowly out of the gate and head towards the runway. Miss Ryanair x 2 are doing their thing with the gas mask and blowy up life jacket.

Miss Ryanair number 3 ALWAYS runs up from the rear just after they’ve pointed out the emergency exits.   Have you ever wondered why she’s always late into the safety check party? 

Well I did wonder and so after about 20 flights I actually asked.

It’s because she has to work the switch that lights the floor to show the exits during the safety talk.  Job done, she joins in with the others, even though hardly anyone has the good manners to listen.

‘Cabin Crew seats for take-off please’ comes next, and I’m ready.  The engine revs up, my hands go over my ears, and I shut my eyes tight and brace myself for that moment when the wheels have left the runway. To be honest, I’m not even that keen on lifts, so now is not my moment.

At 30,000 ft above the clouds I always eat the sandwich I have bought with me, and, I always buy Sour Cream and Chive Pringles, and treat myself to the most exorbitantly priced, smallest bottle of wine in the history of aviation. 

But then, when the rear cabin door opens, and the blue sky and heat greets me, I actually do know exactly why I put myself through all my silly rituals.

I'm back in SPAIN!

Three things that make me wonder:

At Stansted:  Why do they need to hold you like cattle, at the door leading onto the tarmac, to wait for the plane to be ready? 

Why can’t you simply wait in the departure lounge until the plane is completely ready?

At most Spanish airports:  Why, do they lead you out onto the baking hot tarmac to wait for the plane to be ready? 

Why can’t you simply wait in the departure lounge until the plane is completely ready?

Why is your suitcase always the last one loaded onto the carousel?

That one’s easy, it’s Sods Law!

 Do you have any funny little rituals that you follow to take

the stress out of difficult situations.

You can also find me at: HelloSixty.com

They say every picture paints a story and never more so than the images I captured last year which shows in no uncertain terms how a Spanish dream home can turn into an abandoned nightmare!

I had joined my daughter for the last few days of family trip to the Costa’s.  My girl didn’t have much time, or indeed inclination to research the area, it was a quick getaway she was looking for with sunshine, and a pool for the kids being the only ‘must have’s. So she booked a villa through Owners Direct which looked as if it would tick all the boxes.

 The holiday home was on a development on the edge of the El Valle Golf resort, which is between Banos and Mendigo just off the Murcia-San Javier motorway.  The approach was lined with quite pretty houses of various sizes.

Pink and crimson bougainvillea draped itself round trellised gateways, pots of red geraniums, blazed against the white washed walls, it was all picture perfect.

Pretty whitewashed houses, it all looked so promising!

At first glance, the house really couldn’t be faulted.  It was well maintained internally, plenty of big rooms, nice out door area, all this along with the long hot sunny days, what more could you ask for.

But apart from one bar/restaurant, which was situated within the very posh club house, and one very small adjoining supermarket, there truly was NOTHING else within walking distance of either the villa we were staying in, or the hundreds of other properties in the area.

No friendly little café bars, no dedicated bakery, no place to sit and watch the world go by. To me, it truly was a place of nothingness!  

Of course this is probably not an issue for holiday makers such as us, who want to hire a car and go out and about to the beach and see the sights.  But on a daily basis for expats, there was no sense of community.  Nowhere to go where you might bump into friends for a coffee and a chat, as you would do in a friendly village.

Plenty of apartments for sale here!

At any time during the day, the only sound to be heard was the occasional gentle thwack of the golf ball as the players made their way round the course. During my daily walk to the one, tiniest of shops, I did not see one other person, ever. The streets were generally deserted and on closer inspection, so were many of the houses and apartments.  

This was in August, school holiday time in the UK and I would have expected to hear children playing in the swimming pools.  Shouldn’t there have been extended families staying in these large villa’s laughing and chatting, and whilst I know the Spanish often retreat to the hills in the height of summer, surely some of them would have been in residence?

Holiday home pool and patio, ticked all the boxes!

The design of the patio area at our own villa, meant it was very easy to take a peek at the houses situated on each side of our rented holiday home. They had both been abandoned. To the left, the swimming pool was home to frogs and mosquitoes, and a horrible green algae covered what was once the blue tiles. A family of feral cats had made their home on the terrace and the associated smell was overwhelming.

To the right, amazingly, the doors to this house were all unlocked, I actually walked into every room, and the property was full of quite expensive furniture, white goods, pictures, linens and crockery.  It was as if the owners had just left one day and never returned. The overwhelming smell inside this house was of damp and it was obvious the place had not been visited for long time.

Whilst my visit to El Valle was short and sweet, I realised that the original purchasers of the hundreds of properties on the development, probably had expected more, when they signed on the dotted line.  I wondered what clever marketing had resulted in the sales of many of the properties.  What had the developers promised ‘would’ be built? How had they ‘sold’ this dream to the purchasers?  I’m all for peace and quiet, but this was more like a ghost town.  

Sadly neglected garden home to feral cats!    

Even with my own personal quest to return to Spain, (and virtually anywhere will do!)  I wouldn’t want to live, even for free, on a community built virtually in the middle of nowhere, and I can’t imagine why anyone else would want to either. 

Perhaps THIS above anything the reason for the abandoned houses.

I recently wrote about the impact homesickness can have on the strongest of relationships, but surely WHERE you live can also be the making or breaking of any relocation dream.

On reflection, and with the benefit of hindsight, do you wish you’d chosen to live in a different town, area, or even just a different type of property in Spain?

Maybe you even know of, or live near El Valle, if so, perhaps you can paint a different picture. 

Find me also at: www.hellosixty.com