Spanish Eyes, English Words

I'm writing this looking out over Bigbury Bay from our static caravan in Devon. The sun is shining, and it's really warm. The wedding went off splendidly, and although the weather was quixotic to say the least, it was dry and sunny when it needed to be - going into and coming out of church, and for the photographs outside church and at the reception venue.

My daughter picked us up from the campsite to go to the church, and then we dropped the car off and shared a taxi to the reception, so we could have a drink without worrying about driving. Of course, because I could drink, I didn't really want to, but I bet if I'd have chauffered a few people to the reception, I'd have sold my soul for a vodka or several. Such is life!

We drove up through Spain and France, because it's just too expensive in the motor home to go both ways on Brittany Ferries. Even allowing for extra fuel, and overnight stops  on campsites, it still comes out at around half the cost of the shorter crossing. In any case, we enjoy it, because we keep off the toll roads and go through some fantastic scenery.

One thing that's really been brought home to me on this trip is that mainland Europe is much more motor home friendly than the UK. On our last night in France, we stayed on a lovely campsite on the banks of the River Loire in Vendome. It had a fantastic shower block and laundry room, and it was just a few minutes walk into the town. When we arrived, the warden had gone home, but another visitor gave us the code to raise the barrier, and said we could pay in the morning, before leaving. Apparently that's the usual routine there.

Come the morning, the barrier was raised, and if we'd have been so inclined, we could have just driven off without paying, because the warden didn't come knocking for his money. We had to go and find him to pay our dues. Our night on this beautiful site cost us 12 Euro including electric - just a few pence over £10.

When we arrived at Dunkirk in the early afternoon for the ferry to Dover, we couldn't travel until 10.00pm, because there'd been fog in the English Channel on the Calais route.  This meant the ferries had been cancelled until lunch time, and people had been piling on the Dunkirk ferries. As we hadn't booked - we never do on that crossing - we had to settle for the 6.00pm Calais crossing. This was also late, because they were still playing catch up, and we finally got into the UK at around 7.30pm, which was several hours later than we planned.

We had a 4 hour journey to our campsite in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, so we decided to ask if we could stay the night on Oxford Services rather than have to do the drive in the dark, and risk the campsite being closed by the time we arrived. Yes we could, as long as we paid £10 for the privilege. I started to provide our vehicle registration, but was told they had it, as we'd been captured on CCTV as we drove in. If we hadn't have paid the £10, we'd have been fined £100 for unauthorised parking, even though the area designated for lorries and caravans was almost empty.

We couldn't even have a shower in the morning, and there were signs telling us not to cook or make drinks in the motor home, as it could be dangerous. The only danger I could see was to the service station's profits, so I brewed a much-needed pot of tea and felt very anarchic doing it.

On the odd occasion, we've had to park on a truck stop on a French or Spanish motorway, because we haven't been able to find a campsite, and I've been too tired to drive any further. That's the problem when there's only one driver. There's no charge, and showers are provided. They don't  even expect you to buy anything, but we always make a point of having breakfast there before we leave, as a small 'thank you' for their hospitality.

You can also park for the night in lay bys or on the beach or in parks and forests in France and Spain, but not in the UK. We've always said the UK was not motor home  friendly, but it was really brought home to us on this trip, when we paid the same to park on a car park with no facilities as we paid to park on a fully serviced site in a beautiful location. It's just one more reason why we prefer Spain to the UK these days.

Hello everyone. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported me and sent such favourable feedback on the blogs. I am staggered that, although the blog has only been running for two months, I have almost 22,000 views. Obviously, I'm doing something right, because you all keep coming back for more.

Life is going to get in the way of blogging for about 10 days, so there'll be a bit of a lull from me. We're heading for the UK in our motor home tomorrow, driving up through Spain and France and crossing from Dunkirk to Dover on Thursday. We have a family wedding to attend on Saturday, and then we're spending a few days with friends. If I can get online, I'll post something, but it may be that I don't get Internet access until we arrive at our caravan in Bigbury Bay, Devon, on 3rd May.

We're spending three weeks there, and then we're heading for Portugal for 10 days or so before we come back home, so that may mean another break - unless I can get myself organised and write a few posts for the EOS editors to publish while I'm soaking up the sun in Portugal. We've never been before, so if anyone has any recommendations for 'must sees,' it would be really great.

Once again, thanks for all your encouragement and feedback, and I'll see you again very soon.

If you've been paying attention since I started this blog on EOS, you'll be aware that one of my pet peeves is the unprofessional approach of some of the free English language newspapers on the Costa Blanca. They run on a shoestring, and encourage enthusiastic amateurs to contribute just to get their name in print - and it shows! Some of the pieces are full of typos, poor sentence structure and grammar - hang on, don't get me started on that again.

Wait a minute - I started it, didn't I? Back on topic - one of the happy exceptions is The Courier, which is a relatively new kid on the block, being a little over two years old. Consultant editor Donna Gee runs a tight ship, and she doesn't pull any punches. I don't always agree with her opinions, but I do always enjoy reading columns, because she says what other people are thinking.

Last week, Donna was incandescent with rage after being forced to pay 50 Euro to check in her hand luggage, because when she put her handbag into her case - as per their rules - it wouldn't fit into their anorexic luggage cage. As she said, effectively it was a fine for being a lady and carrying a handbag, and it happens all the time.

I'm right with Donna on this. When we moved to Spain 5 years ago, T. J. Hughes - remember them? - had some stylish suitcases on offer which were guaranteed to fit the infamous luggage cages. I thought it was a good idea to have two dedicated bags to use when we were travelling to and fro, so we could toss things in there as we thought of them. I took along the tape measure just to make sure, and even allowing for a bit of expansion, the measurements were just right to fit Ryanair's diktats guidelines.

In fact, all the airlines give the same measurements for hand luggage, so why was it that when I took my shiny new suitcase along to our local airport for a dummy run, it would fit snugly into Easyjet's and Flybe's cages, but couldn't even be forced into Ryaniar's? Because Ryanair's cage is smaller, that's why!

Even worse than our wasted purchase of suitcases was this story. A friend flying from Bristol  tried their case in the cage at check in, and it was fine, but when they were asked to fit the case into the cage at the boarding gate, it wouldn't go. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it's pretty clear to me that the cage at the boarding gate is smaller than the one at check in, because once you get there, it's too late to jettison some stuff, so you have to fork out to check in the bag.

It happened to us once - the case easily fitted into the optional cage downstairs, but when it came to the compulsory check upstairs, it had suddenly and inexplicably gained girth - just like when I look at a slice of Bailey's cheesecake.

The operative on the departure gate detailed with repelling all boarders said I'd have to pay to check in the bag, but I launched a two pronged attack. I opened the bag and filled all my pockets - and my husbands - with as much stuff as we could fit into them, and when she said we weren't supposed to do that, I replied 'And you're not supposed to use a smaller cage up here than you use downstairs.' I was hoping she'd argue a bit more, so that I could call the manager and test my accusation, but she let me through - probably because she knew that it wouldn't stand up to investigation.

Like Donna, I'm also incensed that they don't allow women to carry even the smallest handbag on board. I've got around that one by using a very slim pouch with just a few Euros and the essentials such as a comb, a few printed out sudoku puzzles and a pack of tissues in it. My 'real' bag is packed - empty - into the hand luggage for use on the other side, and Tony carries the passports and boarding cards in his jacket pocket. I conceal my pouch under a jacket that zips up to the neck, once we've gone through security, and so I beat Ryanair at their own dastardly game.

In Alicante Airport's shops, there are numerous signs up saying that purchases can be carried on in addition to your hand luggage. They should amend those signs to read 'Unless you're travelling with Ryanair.' They should be shamed at every available opportunity, until they either stop these sharp practices or rename the airline 'Dick Turpin Airlines,' because what they're doing amounts to highway robbery. Unfortunately, it's no longer a capital offence.

Algorfa, my adopted home village, has a population of around 3,000 souls, which is swelled in the summer months by holidaymakers staying in the village itself, or on the prestigious LA Finca Golf urbanisation. At some point, most of these people have passed through the portals of Mail Point on Avenida Maria del Mar Rodriguez. Officially, it's a Communications and Technology Centre, but unofficially, it's an information service for residents and regular visitors to the Algorfa area.

Mail Point is the brainchild of Dave Allen. Originally from Kent, he was at a crossroads in his business and personal life a few years ago, and he decided to set up in Spain. Although he'd travelled extensively through Spain, he'd never visited this area, and hadn't even heard of Algorfa until he saw a photo of the old village square and decided that this was the place he wanted to live and work.

If you think that this sounds like some dippy expat who doesn't stand a chance of making it in business in Spain, then you couldn't be more wrong. After 7 years in business, Mail Point is going from strength to strength, at a time when other businesses - particularly expat businesses - are folding with depressing regularity.

When you've been in the IT business for 40 years, you don't just branch out into the unknown on a whim, and Dave identified a need in Algorfa for a reliable computer repairs and maintenance service with IT solutions. Also, because the village is located inland from the coast, it doesn't turn into a ghost town in November. The client potential is year-round.

While he was looking for a business to buy, Dave recognised that he could also fulfill another need. It can take up to two years for the Ayuntamiento in Algorfa to recognise new urbanisations, and there was a lot of building still going on 7 years ago. Until the urbanisations were recognised, the residents couldn't receive deliveries from Correos, so all you could do was queue up in the Post Office for the hour it was open to the public, and hope the Postmistress would look for your mail, rather than glance at the pigeon holes and say 'Nada,' as if she had Superman's x-ray vision.

Dave could have bought an existing mail service, but the price was eye-watering so, as he says, 'I was arrogant enough to believe I could set up something superior for a fraction of the cost of buying an existing business.' That 'arrogance' has paid off handsomely.

Even though most of the urbanisations have now got their own post boxes, many people - myself included - would still rather pay the modest 7 Euro monthly fee to ensure that our mail is safe until we can collect it - particularly when friends and relatives send presents from England, or we order from Amazon or other online stores.

And if your parcel is going to Mail Point, you don't have to wait in all day when you could be on the beach or having lunch with friends. It's not all about profits, it's about providing a service, which is why Dave offers a one-off acceptance service for just 2 Euro. If you want to send something over from the UK and avoid the cost of bringing it on the so-called 'budget' airlines, or if you need to order online when you get here, the 2 Euro cost covers acceptance of the parcel and storage for up to one month.

Another great service offered by Mail Point is the facility to have new and old tapes transferred to CD or DVD. It's not as expensive as you might think, either, with prices starting at just 7.50. A couple of years ago, I was chosen to appear with members of my belly dancing class in Algorfa's fiesta. Tony filmed the performance - which wasn't bad, although I say so myself - and Dave transerred it to DVD, with a picture of Yours Truly on the front, in full shimmy mode.

I felt a bit like a film star when I picked up the finished article, and that's another great thing about Mail Point. Dave and his assistant, Tracy, make everyone feel welcome, and they'll go the extra mile to help you - whatever it is you need. They've been asked where to get a watch cleaned and repaired, and where to buy a rosary, among other things. In the unlikely event that Dave or Tracy can't answer your question, they'll probably know someone who can, so over the years, Mail Point has built a reputation as Algorfa's unofficial information service.

With so many people passing through every day, I asked Dave if anyone had ever really surprised or shocked him. It's only happened once up to now, when a customer said, 'I know that voice - it's Dave Allen, isn't it?' It turned out the lady in question had worked for Dave back in Southampton, in the early 1980s. As Dave says, 'I'm thinner on top, and thicker around the middle, but the voice is the same as it was 30 years ago.'

So is the friendly manner and the commitment to customer service. If you're in Algorfa, call into Mail Point and take a look at the services on offer. You'll receive a warm welcome from Dave and Tracy - and you may even stumble across a long-lost friend or colleague!

We tend to take aloe vera for granted around the Costa Blanca, because it grows like weeds, but a couple of things happened last week that reminded me just what a treasure trove of healing this plant is. We have a big aloe vera plant which takes pride of place in our courtyard, and it's just come into flower. The timing couldn't have been better, because we're off to the UK next week, and I'd hate to have missed it.

Some friends were over on holiday, and it was their last day, so their teenage son had rather overdone the sunbathing, and you could easily have fried eggs on his back. While they were admiring our plant, I suggested they take a leaf from it and apply the gel directly to the sunburned area, and repeat the process several times until the heat and soreness had gone.

With the first application, he remarked that it felt better already. By the time they left for their flight, he was much more comfortable, and even better, the prompt treatment with aloe vera gel meant he didn't peel afterwards.

A couple of days after that, I developed the biggest spot you've ever seen, right in the corner of my mouth, on my chin. Being me, I couldn't resist squeezing it and generally mucking around with it - it's one of the few pleasures left in life when you turn 60 and you have three types of arthritis. Of course, that meant the already huge zit had spread across half of my face, and we have my niece's wedding to attend next week.

I have Lupus, which means I don't heal very quickly, and short of hiding at the back when the group photos were taken - which my brother wouldn't have liked - I couldn't think of any way to avoid unwelcome exposure. I treated Tony's suggestion that I should buy a pretty paper bag to co-ordinate with my wedding outfit and wear it over my head for the day instead of a hat with the contempt it deserved.

Then I had a lightbulb moment. I picked another leaf from the aloe vera plant, and rubbed the gel on the spot every time I used the bathroom. Four days later, it's practically gone, and my good looks are restored. Tony's looking over my shoulder as I type this and asking 'What good looks are those then?' He's very brave in front of witnesses, but he'd better be very afraid when I finish this post.

I also remember last summer when I had a particularly nasty mosquito bite which made sitting down very uncomfortable. I gave the bite the aloe vera treatment, and the relief was almost instant.

I know you can buy preparations with aloe vera gel as the active ingredient, but for me, nothing beats the real thing, and of course, it's free, once you've paid for the plant. We didn't even do that - we dug one up from the waste ground while we were out walking. It was a baby when we adopted it, but now it's on its third pot, and soon it will need another. I usually only have to look at a plant and it dies, but even I have managed to nurture the aloe vera, so they must be really easy to grow.

If you decide to get an aloe vera plant for yourself, remember it's the one with the yellow flower you want. There are a number of varieties of aloe plant, with various coloured flowers, but only the yellow aloe vera plant has the healing properties you need.

One of the many good things about being a freelance writer is that I'm not tied to an office - or even a country, for that matter. Thanks to the Internet and WiFi, I can write from my apartment in Algorfa, on the road to England while the motor home is parked up for the night, and from our static caravan overlooking Bigbury Bay in Devon.

I don't tend to write articles and blog posts when we're on the move, as there are too many distractions, but one thing I do concentrate on when we're mobile is forum posting. Believe it or not, there is a lucrative freelance market in paid forum posting. The rewards range from just a few cents a post on a traffic exchange site to a decent retainer for working on promoting an independent forum network.

I work on a combination of these. I have a client in the UK who pays me a fixed sum each month to create content and promote his network of seven forums, and a new client has just approached me to do the same for his forum - City Forum.org. Basically, it's a forum based on life and lifestyle around the world. It's an international forum, so there's a focus on American states, but also a Europe and Expat Life board, so there's plenty to interest people in Spain, as  well as all aspects of lifestyle from Abuse and Addiction through to Weddings.

The forum's gone through an extensive beta testing phase, and it's now ready for the world to come through its portals, and earn a little extra cash while sharing your views and experiences with the world at large.

Through the Ambassador Programme,City Forum is prepared to pay $10 a month to people who can post 60 quality posts a month. That's just 2 posts a day, which shouldn't take too long. If you enjoy posting in forums, why not earn something for doing it? Take a look using the link above and see what you think.

You won't make your first million by forum posting, but once people get to know what you can do, you can certainly earn some useful sums if you want to, I get approached all the time to help with new forums, so I never have to go looking for freelance work these days - it all comes to me.

I get so much work because I treat a 50 - 100 word forum post in the same way I treat a 500 + word article or blog post. It has to be the best piece of writing I can do, with attention paid to grammar, spelling, sentence structure and readability.

As well as my freelance forum work, I also work for Postloop, which is a forum and blog traffic exchange. That's also interesting, but not as lucrative as private work. However, on the odd occasion when freelance work is thin on the ground, I know I can go to Postloop and earn a few dollars, and I also earn residual income from people who've joined as my referral.

If I've sparked your interest in paid forum posting and you want to know more, either comment here or send me a PM and I'll answer any questions you may have. Even if you don't aspire to being a fully fledged freelancer, you will enjoy paid forum posting, and you'll learn and earn as you do it!

Sometimes you can get information overload on the practical benefits of life in Spain, so I’m going to talk about those advantages  from a personal viewpoint.  If the non-existent English summers, fuel prices which need a second mortgage to fill the tank of anything larger than a Ford Fiesta, and rapidly rising food prices haven’t convinced you it’s time to move to the Costa Blanca - or wherever you fancy - perhaps this will.

We’ve been here for 5 years, and we immediately started to feel the benefits healthwise. My husband Tony and I both suffer with arthritis; he has Osteoarthritis and I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoarthritis and Lupus, which, simply put, is a type of arthritis in the vital organs. Anybody else would settle for just one painful, chronic condition, but hey, I’m greedy!

The point of this isn’t just to elicit a sympathetic response – though TLC and bottles of vodka are always gratefully received in the Piddock household – I want to tell you how our health has improved in our  time on the Costa Blanca. The World Health Organisation says this is the healthiest place in the world for people with arthritis, as the climate is hot and dry with low humidity. You know what? They’re right!

Our joints are so much easier already; this means movement is less painful, so we can exercise more than before. It’s a bit early to enter us for the London Marathon, but at least we can both manage a gentle swim most days and a steady walk into our local village a couple of times a week. This extra movement, combined with living on salads and fruit because it’s too hot for anything more, means that I’ve lost almost a stone without trying. I’m more Fern Britton than Dawn French these days, even if I haven’t got their money.

Talking of money, we can now save a little each month, which hasn’t happened in the Piddock household in living memory. Brits who’ve lived in Spain for 10 years or more are bemoaning the increases in prices over here, but to us relatively new kids on the block, it’s like shopping in a Third World Country pricewise. Let me give you a couple of examples. Most eggs are free  range in Spain, and they cost around 1.50 Euro in LIDL  for a dozen large eggs. Back in Cornwall to see the family, I recently paid £2.50 for 15 medium eggs – and they were on special offer!

On the markets here, I can buy a week’s supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, perfect to eat, for between 5 and 10 Euro. Last summer, I paid around £5  for a punnet of peaches and a bag of oranges in the UK, and the peaches were so hard my grandson could have played cricket with them! And it took the whole bag of oranges to get a couple of glasses of tasteless juice. When you're used to fresh, exquisitely tasting Valencian oranges every morning, that's a bit of a come down.

Petrol and diesel is expensive by Spanish standards, but it’s still around 20% less than in England, so you don’t need to check the mileage on the satnav to see if you can afford a day out. When you’re on the road, there’s less traffic, few road works and no speed cameras, but watch out for radar traps. The only barrier to complete enjoyment of your Spanish road trip is, of course, the Spanish drivers.

Life’s literally a beach here. We’ve got beautiful beaches in Cornwall, but we don’t have the weather to make the most of them. Going to the beach on the Costa Blanca has given my 79 year old husband a new lease of life. When he sees dozens of bikini clad beauties cavorting in the sea or stretched out on the sand tanning their white bits, he’s like a recycled teenager.

I’m not too concerned about that, though. He’s a bit like a dog chasing a sports car; in the unlikely event that he ever caught one, he wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it!

 

This post was sparked by two things really - something we saw on the way to Rojales market yesterday, and a blog post by Sam. It's all about the toilet habits of Spanish men.

Sam said in her post that, when she ran her bar, men would go outside to relieve themselves, even though they had to pass the toilet on the way. She wondered why this should be, and I have to say I think a lot of it is to do with the fact that there is only ever one toilet for caballeros and one for senoras in a bar.  In fact, I've been in some bars where there's only one toilet for everyone.

Now, maths and biology weren't my strongest subjects in school - I'm an artist, not a scientist. In fact people have often said to me, 'Sandra, you're an artist!' That's usually after midnight, and there's another word inserted ahead of 'artist,' but it's good to know my creative talent is so widely recognised.  Now, where was I?

Oh yes - maths and biology. What goes in must come out at some point. If a caballero has imbibed several litres of cerveza, and/or a bottle or two of Vino Collapso, then after an hour or two, he's going to need to Point Percy at the Porcelain. Multiply that pressing need by the number of customers in the bar, and you can see why there'd be a problem, and why some men may want to bypass the facilities and water the grass instead.

It doesn't excuse it, of course, but it seems to be part of their culture, along with things like beating everyone onto the roundabout, for example.

Another thing we've noticed, and which Sam pointed out in her post, is that Spanish men are not averse to relieving themselves at the roadside. Now, most of us have done that at some time or another, when there was a pressing need and not a service station in sight. However, we usually try to disguise what's going on. I'll let you into a trade secret here - Tony's favourite trick is to stand between the two open car doors, with a phone clamped to one ear while he does the necessary.

Yesterday, as we drove along the Algorfa-Benijofar road, we passed  two men who had parked their cars in the big layby and were watering the grass. The thing was, they didn't even have their backs to us, let alone have a phone clamped to their ears. As they were getting on a bit, there wasn't a lot to see - skin isn't the only thing that shrivels with age.

However, they were executing two perfect arcs of moisture, so I presume they were having a contest to see how far they could go. Being generous Spanish gentlemen, they wanted passing motorists to marvel at their artistry, and possibly decide on a winner. I awarded them 6 out of 6 for artistic impression, and a similar score for technical merit. However, both these scores were wiped out for bad behaviour. It doesn't do to do your doings in public.

Much as we love our home on the Costa Blanca, it’s still nice to ‘get away from it all’ occasionally, and when you’re already on Mainland Europe it can be surprisingly cheap to take a break. When my husband Tony celebrated his 75th birthday, we decided to treat ourselves to a trip to Mallorca. Tony had never been, and it’s twenty years since my last visit. With only 30 minutes flight time from Alicante to Palma, it’s not an arduous journey, either.

It’s possible to pick up some good deals on flights from Alicante to Palma, so keep an eye on flight offers. Air Berlin in particular has some good deals.

Our hotel in Playa de Palma was only 4 kilometres from the airport, and only 200 yards from the beach, the bus route into Palma and lots of shops, bars and restaurants. We found Laterooms.com much cheaper for hotels than the more well-known late availability sites, and we didn’t have to pay a penny until we checked in.

Car hire is expensive on Mallorca, although there are some deals around, so it’s a good idea to choose a resort on the bus route and close to the airport, as taxis are also pricey. Our short run to our hotel, The Palma Playa 1, cost us 15 Euro! Playa de Palma is midway between Arenal and C’an Pastilla. You can reach both resorts by bus, but we chose to walk along the seafront. The views are amazing on a clear day.

There are plenty of coach trips available, but again, they are quite expensive. We bought a guide book and travelled everywhere on the bus. Local buses into Palma run every 15 minutes, and cost just over 1 Euro per trip, but you can buy a card for 10 bus trips in the Tabacos for only 8 Euro, which is a significant saving. Once in Palma, you can travel all over the island. All the buses go from the Plaza de Espana, which is where you will also find the Tourist Office and the train station which takes you through the  Tramuntana Mountains to Soller, so you’ll see plenty of the Plaza de Espana during your stay on Mallorca.

If possible, visit Palma on a Saturday morning for the Craft Market and Rastro, (car boot sale and flea market) which takes place on the Avinguda Gabriel Alomar and Villalonga ring road. The bus into Palma passes the market, which winds through part of the old town.

Palma Cathedral and  the Almundaina Palace on the waterfront are must-sees. Entrance is very reasonable, but if you go on a Wednesday and take your passport, entrance to the Almundaina is free to EU citizens. You can easily spend a whole day in the area around the Cathedral, as there’s lots to see and do.

Visit the beautiful village of Puerto Christo, where you’ll find the spectacular Caves of Drach. Enjoy a boat trip on the underwater lake for a unique holiday experience.

Make sure to take a ride through the mountains. For maximum enjoyment, take a bus ride into Soller along the mountain road, then come back to Palma through the valley on the tourist train. When we were there in February, the almond blossom was at its best, but the scenery in the Soller valley is breathtaking all year round.

I hope I’ve given you some ideas to make the most of your stay in Mallorca. Try and visit soon and tell them Sandra sent you!

We're heading back to the UK in our motor home in a couple of weeks. My niece is getting married at the end of the month, and  it's about time - they've been together for 10 years now. We'll see all the family, and after the wedding, we'll head for our static caravan overlooking Bigbury Bay. After three weeks there, we'll sail back to Santander, and spend a week to ten days touring Portugal before coming home to the Costa Blanca.

It sounds good, doesn't it, but you know what? I don't want to go. I do want to see my niece get married, and I want to see the family - particularly my two beautiful granddaughters, who are aged 6 and 2. I also want to hit the shops and buy a few month's supply of the stuff that's so expensive here - Cheddar cheese, Tetley teabags, bacon, Oxo cubes, baked beans, Vimto to name but a few. And I want to sit in our caravan in the rain and look out over Bigbury Bay.

Hopefully, there might even be a few sunny days. We'll go into Plymouth, look around the shops and have a Cornish Pasty from Rowe's for lunch. I'll hit Poundland, and come out with bulging bags. Later in the day, we'll call into J. D. Wetherspoons for curry night.

We'll also catch up with our motorcaravanning friends, and maybe take in a rally while we're there. I'll love it once we get over there - in fact, as soon as we've driven away from La Finca I'll enjoy the journey. We'll drive up through France, with two, three or more overnight stops when we feel like it. That's why we never book the ferry going over - we just hop on when we get to Dunkirk, because then we can take the time to stop off for a night or two in a pretty village if we want to.

So why do I feel that I just want to stay here, and not bother with all that? I can guarantee that when we're getting ready to leave the caravan, I'll say 'I don't want to go,' even though by then I'll be itching to get back to the apartment, my garden and my friends. Does anyone else feel like that when they take a trip back to the UK, or is it just me being silly?

Benijofar is one of those places - like Algorfa, where we live - that rarely makes the news. In fact, unless you live there, or know somebody who does, you're likely to say, 'Benijofar - where's that?' However, now Benijofar is making international news, due to the arrest of a vet in connection with the death of his wife. The facts are thin on the ground, but basically this is the indisputable truth:

A vet in Benijofar has been arrested following his admission that he had his wife cremated after she died in the surgery. Nothing wrong with that, except she was cremated in a place which is usually used for the cremation of animal remains. That's all that the news reports are consistent on.

In some reports, she died following a DIY liposuction operation that went wrong. In others, the vet found her dead from an overdose of self-administered medication. Whatever the truth, a 46 year old woman is dead, and a family is in mourning. That's terrible, but what is even worse is knowing the people involved in this tragedy.

My friend and I have been talking about this all weekend - even before the news hit the headlines - because we know these people well, and we feel for them. The vet - and his daughter - have been a valuable and valued source of support and information to us over the last few years. They've become our friends.

We don't have a pampered pooch or a cosseted cat, but we do keep tropical fish. While they may not need flea treatments, worming, vaccination or grooming, it's not easy to keep them in the rudest of rude health. Our first foray into fish keeping ended badly. We bought a bunch of flowers at the same time we bought the fish, and the flowers lasted longer.

Unfortunately for the fish - and for us - we didn't go to the experts to start with. We got the fish - and the expensive tank and all the equipment that went with them - from a place that was more interested in profit than the welfare of the livestock they sold. We were very upset when the fish died. We hadn't given them names or anything like that, but you don't like to think that something in your care has died because you weren't up to the job of caring for it.

We decided that before we repopulated the tank, we'd find out more about fish keeping, and a friend recommended the vet in Benijofar to us. She knew even less about fishkeeping than we did, but she had been using the vet's services for some years for the benefit of her two dogs. She described him as a very nice person who really cared about the animals he treated, and also their owners. As a bonus, he was an enthusiastic and expert keeper of tropical fish.

To cut a long story short, as they say, we went along to the surgery in Benijofar and called on their expertise. On that first visit, we spent around an hour just chatting to the vet and his daughter. It wasn't even as if it was a quiet afternoon - people were coming in and out, either for treatment or just to pick up supplies, and everybody was treated like a friend. Even the animals who were coming  in for treatment or grooming didn't display the characteristic reluctance on entering the surgery. It was a happy, homely place, where everyone and their dog - or cat, or budgie, or hamster, or whatever - was welcome.

Following their advice, we successfully repopulated our expensive fish tank. Too successfully, some would say. Our Guppies and Sail Fin Mollies have been extremely - productive, is the only word I can use on a family-friendly blog. The vet and his daughter assured us that this was because we were good parents, and our fish were happy. If that was the case, it was down to the advice we received in Benijofar. When the first babies arrived, they talked us through it all and even gave us suitable food for the first few vital days of life.

All this may sound trivial in the light of the breaking news, but I think you have to look behind the headlines. Some of the details in the reports are lurid to say the least, and to people who only know about the vet from what they have read, he may come across as some sort of monster.

To us, he's a decent  human being who - along with his son and daughter - is now living through everyone's worst nightmare with the whole world as witness. Eventually, the real truth will emerge; at the moment, the rumour mill around here is in overdrive, and it's virtually impossible to separate fact from fiction.

All I can say is, the whole family need and deserve the support and prayers of everyone out there. And although it's not admissible as evidence or defence in a court of law, nobody I know can bring themselves to condemn this man. There's a lot more to real life than what is reported in the media.

Not the place itself - the television sitcom of the same name. I have to say I love it. It's so true to life, because like all good sitcoms, it takes a germ of truth and stretches it to make it funny. For example, there's Madge on her mobility scooter. While the streets of Benidorm aren't exactly running with the things, you certainly see more of them than in any other resort on the Costa Blanca. Going around the market, it seems as if every other person is on a 'Madgemobile.'

Every hotel seems to have at least one waiter like Mateo - out to score with as many English roses as he can. Mind you, having seen pictures of him on the beach in the local press, I think he could make this old lady very happy indeed. I'd certainly be up for some Spanish tuition - and I'm not talking about the language!

There are also a lot of tourists who are just there for the sun and the booze. They sit around the pool all day, then go for karaoke fuelled with industrial quantities of alcohol every night. They want everything with chips, and think Spanish food is 'foreign muck.' This is one area of the show which doesn't need to exaggerate too much.

Then the show takes the mickey out of the free coach tours - spending several hours in a demonstration for something overpriced that nobody wants, before getting a short time in the destination of choice, or sitting through a mediocre show. Fortunately, the free coach tour operators have improved the service since that hilarious episode was shown back in Series 1.

People in Benidorm are seeing the stars of the show around the resort - filming for Series 6 is now taking place until the middle of July - and there's a feeling that maybe the producers should be showing more of the 'real' Benidorm. I'd have to agree with that - there's much more to Benidorm than sun, sea sangria and Madgemobiles.

If you’re looking for somewhere to take visitors from England, or maybe for a day out which doesn’t involve the beach, Orihuela fits the bill. This lively town is a pleasing mix of old and new Spain, and easily accessible from all over the Costa Blanca.

The only drawback with visiting Orihuela is the parking. There isn’t any – at least not unless you drive out to Consum and LIDL supermarkets, keeping the railway station on your left. You can park there, but it’s a 10 minute walk into town, and another 10 minutes into the Old Town.

We prefer to let the train take the strain. Orihuela is one stop from Callosa on the Alicante – Murcia line. It takes about 7 minutes through the mountains, and the scenery is breathtaking. And at around 2 Euro return, it’s preferable to spending ages cruising around for a parking space or walking miles to get to the interesting bits.

Most of the museums and churches in the Old Town are closed on Mondays. Tuesday is market day, and well worth a visit.  The market winds through the streets and, as Orihuela is not a resort, the prices are very reasonable. The Old Town is a few minute’s walk from the market, and it’s a real hidden gem. Think cobbled streets, narrow alleys and buildings dating from mediaeval times or earlier, and you start to get the picture.

In the first week of February, Orihuela hosts a 3 day Mediaeval Market. Everyone dresses up, and there are jousts, archery and falconry displays. Watch armour being made, get up close and personal with the donkeys and other animals as they are led through the streets, and shop at the 150 stalls. It’s a great day out, but Orihuela boasts year-round attractions, so don’t wait until February to visit.

Make the Ayuntamiento in the Old Town your first port of call. There, you can collect a street plan and heritage trail detailing all the places of interest. Don’t miss the Cathedral, the Church of St James the Apostle, or the Museo de Semana Santa. Here, you can view the stunning floats that are paraded through the streets at Easter, while listening to an audio commentary in English on the history of the floats. All this for a couple of Euro, and when we visited, the Curator gave us a bag full of posters and literature to take away with us.

As you leave the Semana Santa, turn right and cross the road. There’s a small bar there which does the some of the best tapas on the Costa Blanca. Sorry, I can’t remember the name, but you can't miss it.

There are many more treasures in the Old Town, but I’ll leave you to discover them rather than spoil the surprise. Remember that most places close between 2pm and 4pm, so schedule that period for a leisurely lunch. If the thought of all these attractions is giving you severe pains in the wallet, you’ll be delighted to discover that the only place charging admission is the Museo de Semana Santa.

Have a great day in Orihuela, and tell them Sandra sent you!