This and that!

After the long hot summer life seems to be settling back into its predictable autumn routines - in my case busy but doable without the searing heat! I think I mentioned previously that around October last year I'd tried to look up my best friend from school days as I always remembered her birthday was October 10th - I never had any luck though as she has a very common name. Anyway, on October 10th this year I gave it another shot on FB and would you believe it, a couple of days later Joy P. B. contacted me through messenger asking if my birthday was September 24th, and if so, bingo, we'd found each other!!! It was such a lovely surprise! I reckoned we hadn't seen each other since age 16 when I went to college and she stayed on at school, but she reminded me that we had once met up for drinks back in England not long after I'd moved to Switzerland (I always thought I'd dreamed that for some strange reason). Anyhoo, we chatted back and forth for a while but I get the feeling that unless we can get to meet up our chats won't go very far. I mean, after almost 50 years of radio silence I'm guessing it will be difficult to reprise the friendship without a get-together. Who knows, though, I thought the same about my old buddy from infants school and yet after 36 years of not seeing each other, I flew out to meet up with him in Bulgaria and we just took up where we'd left off at the age of 16!

In other news, when I went to fill up my car the other week I realized that I was pretty close to LIDL, so decided to have a look in there as a change from my regular supermarket. I stopped going to LIDL about three years ago because of the aggressive Roma beggars but as they weren't there this time (too cold I guess, or the Mercedes that used to drop them off had broken down) in I went and I have to say I was pretty amazed at the price differences. I don't care for their fruit and veg much and you can't buy name brands (not that I care, for the most part) but by golly their prices for meat and paper goods were pretty amazing! Since I didn't want to buy my fresh produce there I wandered over to the local farmers' market, but I'll probably give them another shot if/when I want to buy more meat. Later in the week I went back to my usual store (more expensive but they offer a greater selection and it's much more pleasant) and when I paid they handed me a scratch card so I scratched it off and I'd won €20 to be credited to my store card. That takes the credit on my card up to almost €100 as of now, which will come in really handy around Christmas I'm sure. Then, when I was putting away my groceries I saw that there was a competition to win a "plancha" (a table-top grill) with proof of purchase of pretzel buns, so I took a photo of the packet and uploaded the receipt, and wouldn't you know it, but I won a plancha, which arrived a couple of days later and is now sitting proudly in Jordan and Jen's house as theirs had given up the ghost. So since I was hooked I did the same with a packet of chocolate M&Ms - and maybe I'll win a two-night stay for four at EuroDisney in Paris. If I do, I suspect Jordan and Jen will luck out again but who knows, I might even go with them because it would be nice to see the kids at Disney for the first time. I know some people do really well entering competitions but there's no way I would buy something specifically to enter a competition, it's just that I had these items anyway and decided to give it a shot. As for EuroDisney, I'll let you know if I get lucky!

I think I mentioned briefly in a previous post that I'd gone on a trip to a lunch/cabaret with the old fogies club when I got back from Spain. It was in a place called La Grange à Jules and was just outside Annecy, so about 40 minutes away. The food was truly sublime but the oldies generally moaned about the cabaret as I think they were expecting to be up and dancing for a few hours at least, rather than the 45 minutes or so they got to hop about after lunch. For some stupid reason I was expecting many of the songs to be in English since it was supposed to be a "songs of the 80s" cabaret, but then I guess that would be a bit selfish on my part to hope for that. In the end I didn't care either way, but I know there were a few complaints about the cabaret. I thought I would do my good deed for the year and "volunteered" to sit between miserable Chantal (with the nice Portuguese partner) and Monique. Monique, as is her want, yapped on about how "everyone blamed her for Leone missing the plane to Spain" and Chantal (whose breath could have stopped a camel at 50 metres) was her usual unpleasant self (I swear her face would crack in two if she ever actually smiled). I've said before that for the most part it doesn't bother me, but I could see she was getting on Véronique's nerves (she was sitting opposite her) and unfortunately some people just can't hide their irritation so I was praying I wouldn't end up trying to break up a fight between Véronique and Chantal, all the while having Monique wittering away in my ear about how "she said this, and it wasn't my fault, and if that's the case I'll just resign"!!!! In the end we all made it back in one piece and I, for one, had a pretty good time despite being seated in the main line of fire!

La Grange à Jules!

At club the other week, Monique called a few of us into the kitchen and announced that she had, indeed, decided to step down as president of the club. I guess she'd already spoken to Martine about this because apparently Martine was fine with taking over, assuming no-one else wants the position (no-one does). When I pointed out to Martine that we'd then need to look for a new secretary she said she'd keep both positions if we couldn't find anyone, but I said that was an awful lot of work for one person and while I didn't mind helping out with the computer work, I was not willing to take on extra work as secretary in addition to treasurer as I have other priorities. To be honest, bashing out work on a computer doesn't bother me as I'm used to it, but no way would I want to get involved in the administrative work as there is a helluva lot more than I realised, this being a formal association with a fairly substantial budget. I thought Martine was very kind though in saying that she wanted Monique to stay on as a committee member because there were some things that she enjoyed and that she was good at, but she just needed to have the stress of the presidency taken off her. She also pointed out that in her opinion Monique would fall into a depression if she quit completely (Monique agreed with her) so I guess all's well that ends well!

Yesterday after club, eight of us stayed behind to set up the room for lunch for 120 people at the AGM to take place on Thursday (tomorrow). We couldn't do it today as it is Armistice Day and a holiday here in France. With eight of us working for a solid hour we managed to get all the tables and placings set up ready for tomorrow so I guess after a year of working together we've finally settled into our groove. Monique will be announcing her resignation tomorrow and elections will take place for the new committee (I'm guessing it won't be "new" because nobody has come forward wanting to join). We have all the accounts ready to hand over and will just need Monique to sign tomorrow as she wasn't in club yesterday as she'd broken her dentures and was desperately hoping her new ones would be ready in time for Thursday. I know she's a walking catastrophe and I have to admit I had to smile at the image of her trying to give her farewell speech with no teeth but ..... here's hoping everything will be all right on the night!

In other news, I was contacted by a member of the parent/teacher association of the local infants' school, asking if sewing club "would help" make pochons (tote bags?) in which to put the books they would be giving all the kids for Christmas. I spoke to our teacher asking if she thought the ladies from club would be willing to help and, thinking we were looking at about 50 kids, we said yes. Well it turns out there are 165 kiddos (!!!!!) but having spoken to all the ladies at club and with most managing to come up with suitable fabric from their home stashes (I had a ton of beautiful fabric which I donated because I have a weakness for it) we set up a production line with a one lady ironing, another cutting, another sewing initial seams and another inserting the straps (this was my job on Monday). In fact, since we'd offered to help financially we ended up only having to fork out €100 for the strapping as we've managed to come up with enough material to make all the bags. I'm so glad all three sections of sewing club were willing to help out as I think we may even get them all finished, if not by this Monday, then certainly by next and given that no-one from the parent/teacher association knows how to sew, we were kinda thrown in at the deep end. While I'm pretty sure none of us would impress a Chinese production line, I have to say I'm pretty proud of everyone's willingness to help get this task completed. I just hope the kiddos like the end results, although being around three years old I don't suppose they'll really care!

Birthday lunch!

The week after I got back from Spain we (14 of us I think) had arranged to go up to the Plâteau de Glières for lunch to celebrate my, Jen's mom, Jen and Millan's (André's gf's son) birthdays which were all in the space of 10 days. I had thought we were going up to a different place, which I was quite looking forward to as I'd never been there, but somewhere along the line it got changed to Chez Constance up at Glières. I didn't really mind as I like it up there, but it's nice to discover somewhere new too. I'm pretty sure we'd taken André up to Glières as a kid but since he couldn't remember he started reading up on it beforehand and then regaled us with tidbits from his reading. I've written about it before but basically it was a famous battle between the French resistance and occupying German forces. The British dropped supplies and munitions onto the plateau to help the resistance, but despite their bravery they were beaten by the far superior German numbers. You can read more about it here if you'd like. André's tidbits included the fact that the Germans were trying to ship young men off to munitions factories in Germany (hence they took to the mountains), that they confiscated cars (so they rode bikes) and took their shoes (they took to wearing wooden clogs, called sabots in French). (On a totally different tangent, the word sabotage comes from sabots, and of course means deliberately doing a poor job to sabotage industrial production etc. In fact I remember our teacher telling us that during the industrial revolution in England workers would deliberately throw their sabots into the machinery to try to prevent it from taking their jobs - sadly it didn't work)!

The parachute drop zone!

The memorial to the resistance fighters!

Anyhoo, back to the plot. The restaurants located on the plateau must have made a killing that day because there was also a race taking place at the same time. At first I thought it was a bike race, but it turned out it was a hill (mountain???) race and as it was a lovely day, there were loads of people out supporting the runners!

When I was in Spain I bought my boys joke "beer mugs" as I like anything joke-related (and probably tacky) and gave them to them while we were having lunch. At one point I could see a table near us giving us weird looks and then I realized what they were looking at!

Elynn had been pouring her water into the mug and the people at the next table were horrified watching her "drink beer". I burst out laughing and turned it upside down to show that no, we weren't letting her drink alcohol - and thankfully we all had a good laugh about it afterwards!

I kept Charlie overnight again on Wednesday and as it was raining I took him to the library in town where we read a couple of books before heading to a cafe for a hot chocolate. He's as good as gold but (a) he never shuts up and (b) it's that much harder when the weather is bad. The following day I had a few errands to run and then took him out to lunch before heading to the lake at Passy. And the highlight of his stay??? Well that was when he realized the cows were in the field behind my garden!! I think it had probably been a couple of years after the farmer died since the new owner had put the cowbells on his cows, but Charlie was so excited every time they wandered down to "our" field that he had to put his shoes back on and run out to watch them!!!

He knows where the dressing up
box is - you should see what
I've got him for Christmas!

A couple of times now on my way over to their place I've spotted a grandma (who I'd guess to be around 75) pushing a double stroller with two littles walking either side of her. I'd guess the oldest is about five, number two about three, and what looks like twins of around 18 months, and to say she looks thoroughly miserable would be an understatement. I would absolutely hate to be in that situation, but then I guess we don't know the back story either, do we!

I got a pleasant surprise the other day when my electric company notified me that they would be reimbursing me €234 and that my automatic debit would be lowered by €20 a month, so I guess my electrician (with the nice bum) was right when he had me change all my lightbulbs to lower wattage. Add to that a first time reimbursement of around €300 thanks to my solar panels and I was pretty pleased (for once) with my bills. I'm also delighted that through no real planning on my part (the make of car I wanted only came hybrid petrol/LPG) I'm now running my car on LPG, which is just over €1 per litre, as opposed to €2.40 for diesel! I guess with the price of gas shooting up it was sheer good luck that I changed my car when I did!

I've just finished watching the first series of The Gentlemen, which I happened to stumble across quite by accident and have to say I really enjoyed it. At the same time I started listening to Cheere Denise reading Charles Spencer's book Swan Song (Charles being Princess Diana's brother). I've always thought him to be a pompous prick and after two chapters of this book it just confirmed my opinion of him so I gave up. At this point Cheere had started reviewing Collin Gosselin's book In The Shadow of Eight (Collin being one of the Gosselin sextuplets from the series Jon and Kate Plus Eight) and it was both horrific and absolutely riveting - that is until today when she let everyone know that the book's publishers had contacted Youtube and she had to take all of the episodes down. It's a shame as I always enjoy her readings, but she encouraged everyone to support Collin by buying his book and I've just downloaded it on Audible, so at least I'll get to finish it!

I have to go into Geneva tomorrow for a routine medical check-up but as it's always hell to try to get parking at this clinic I reckon I'll park at the border and walk. It should take me around 45 minutes each way, so at least I'll get a few steps in tomorrow - I'm just praying it won't rain!

And finally, I was wondering what to do with the few remaining green tomatoes from my garden when I stumbled across a short clip on Youtube. Knowing that there's no way I would be making pickles from them, I was interested to see how "grandma" used to simply cut up left over tomatoes and bury them about an inch deep before the winter frosts set in. Cover that layer with crushed eggshells (which I always keep) and a thin layer of soil and (hopefully) some of the tomatoes will self-seed for next year. What really tickled me though was someone in the comments section from Germany said he'd like to try doing the same with his mother-in-law but he was worried she'd grow back! Dark humour I know, but it made me laugh anyway!

Home again!

On our last day in Spain we weren't due to leave for the airport until around 16h so we had plenty of time to pack our bags and have lunch before setting out. I had withdrawn the cash to handle all the tips before leaving France (drivers, guides, restaurant and hotel staff and so on) and Monique and I agreed on amounts for each beforehand. Then I would put however many €€€ into an envelope with a "thank you" on it and hand it to Monique to hand over. In retrospect it was a good job I handled the cash because I'd withdrawn €700 for tips before we left France and carried it on me each day - and it was Monique that got robbed and not me! We'd have been down a helluva lot more money if she'd had it on her! Anyway, on the last morning I handed her an envelope with €50 in it, which was the amount we'd agreed on for the local rep at the hotel. After a little while Monique came over all pissy and tried to hand it back to me, and when I asked her why she made some remark about how "he'd not come to see her the night before so he could forget a tip"! I told her that maybe he was busy and that in all respects he had been excellent - and sure enough, about 30 minutes later he showed up with our boarding passes and final arrangements for our journey back to the airport. At this she came scuttling over to me and said "see, he must have smelled the money, what shall I do now" so I told her to keep it or give it to him because at this point I didn't give a rat's ass! I guess maybe people should speak to her like that more often because she immediately went quiet and handed the money over to him!

After leaving my luggage in the safe room at the hotel, I decided to go out to lunch rather than eat in the hotel. It was around 11.30 am when I set out and as I got down by the beach I saw a man, who I would guess to be in his late 60s/early 70s who appeared to be paralytic drunk! He could barely stand up and was holding on for dear life to a post before crossing the street. It was a case of two steps forward, one step back and he had that strange gait that you see with drug addicts on tranq. I've watched a few documentaries on this epidemic in Philadelphia (I presume it's the same the whole world over), but he was leaning so far back I don't know how he stayed upright! I suppose it could indeed have been drugs but I'm more inclined to think it was alcohol - either way it was very sad to see!

The sad gait of someone on
tranq - or something
equally horrendous!

We made it to the airport in good time to get a drink before boarding and airport assistance had been arranged for two ladies who had difficulty walking - one of whom was Motormouth's mom! As I was standing waiting to board a young Spanish man arrived pushing mom in a wheelchair and then asked if she was capable of walking to the plane (probably about 50 metres - she most definitely was capable of walking that far, as she'd already proven). At this Motormouth launched into "ah non, maman can't walk, she's disabled ...." so then I translated for him and said that was a shame because if maman had been able to walk on her own he could have boarded her ahead of everyone else! I had to laugh when he said that because all of a sudden maman was perfectly capable of walking - so I turned round to Catherine and smiled - at which she went "hallelujah, praise the lord, it's a miracle"! To be fair to maman, she was never the problem, but bloody hell, I'd have to swing for Motormouth if she were my daughter!

All in all I'm glad I went, even if it was exhausting, and I'm sorry we didn't make it to Ronda, which is apparently beautiful. Oh well, maybe next time! The return journey went well, even if we didn't make it back until 1 am but at a lunch the club had on Friday Miserable Chantal (the one with the nice Portuguese partner) said to me she'd heard that three people missed the plane on the way back and had to spend an extra night in Malaga????? I don't know if she'd genuinely heard that or if she was just sh€t-stirring as she is known to do, but I just said that there were 29 of us on the bus when we left St. Pierre and 29 of us on the bus when we got back, so unless we'd done a "Home Alone", nobody had missed the plane on the return journey!

Club started back up again on Tuesday and the atmosphere was tense to say the least. Then on Friday we had a committee meeting to go over what would be needed at our AGM in November and to throw out ideas for next year's programme. Well that meant that Monique had to go over yet again how Leone had missed the plane and how everyone blamed her for it, how if she'd known Martine wouldn't fly she would never have booked southern Spain, and how everyone had it in for her, and that was all she had to say on the matter! So then Catherine started to make some suggestions, only to be shut down immediately by Monique who had another monologue lined up - at which point Catherine exploded and said "you say that you want to give everyone the floor but then never shut up and allow them to speak". So Monique got up and ran into the kitchen (presumably to cry) and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the meeting!

At sewing club on Monday they were asking me about my trip and I was regaling them with all the wonderful things we'd seen and all the pain in the butt stuff I'd had to put up with. At this point Chantal (a nice Chantal this time) asked me what the name of the president was and when I told her she said that she'd known Monique most of her life and no, it had nothing to do with getting older - she'd been like that all her life, taking on responsibilities and then attaching herself like a limpet to someone else because she was overwhelmed! Bloody hell, that doesn't augur well for the future does it! For some reason Monique told me that her son had asked for my telephone number. I've met him a couple of times and he seems very nice, but I also get the impression that he knows exactly how his mother is (well he should do really, shouldn't he)! I was very non-commital about the whole thing but if he wants to call me and talk about his mother I'm up for it. I really do think she's in over her head but I'm not sure her pride will allow her to step down. Oh what to do, what to do!

On Wednesday I had Charlie again but as he was invited to a 6th birthday party I only had him for a few hours. The mother invited me to stay for the party (it was André's girlfriend, Mel) but I told her I'd rather swim with sharks and I'd be back to pick him up later! At that I took myself off to the lake at Thyez where I sat and read my book in absolute peace for a couple of hours - man it felt good to be home!

The lake at Thyez!

Granada!

I've been so tired since I got back from Spain it's been incredible. I suppose Spain was full on (in more ways than one) and then everything started back up this end too, so I've just spent the last hour going through my emails and updating my calendar and it's a good thing I did. I'm usually on top of all this stuff but I reckon I "lost the will to live" a bit in Spain (figuratively speaking) and it's taken me a while to get back on top of things!

The big draw for Granada is the Alhambra Palace, somewhere you have to book months in advance or you won't get in. Someone was explaining to me that as soon as tickets come up for sale bots start crawling through the website and buying up all the tickets in the hopes that they can do a bit of price gouging later on. Apparently the same is true of Harry Potter World in London (and I'm sure in many other places too), so I was glad we left all that to the travel agent and didn't have to worry about it!

We learned the night before that our departure time had to be changed a little so Monique started running round dining tables in the hotel restaurant trying to catch everyone to give them this news. I got fed up of having to absorb her stress (again) so told her to give me everyone's phone numbers and I would set up a Whatsapp group to pass on the message and ask everyone to confirm receipt. She of course had no idea how to do this (fair enough) but do you think she would leave me in peace to get it set up!!! Of course she couldn't - "are you nearly finished" "shall I run round the tables anyway", "would you like me to read the telephone numbers out to you" (absolutely bloody not! Anyone who knows any French will know just how complicated French numbers are and I did NOT want her wittering in my ear while I was trying to set it up)!

Anyhoo, I got that done and everyone was on time for our bus trip to Granada. We were given about an hour's free time to wander around and then told to meet back at the fountain in the main square by 11.30 am in order to head off to lunch. Well all but one person showed up on time and guess who that one person was - I bet you can't guess. When we realized it was Monique that was missing one of the men started laughing and that set the whole group off. I walked away as I didn't want to be part of that but it did bring home just how fed up everyone was of her shenanigans!

The bad news is that she was late because she'd had her wallet stolen in the souq!!! Now I don't make fun of her for that because it can - and does - happen to anyone (these people are very good at what they do), but as you can imagine this was yet another problem that I sensed I'd end up having to sort out later. During lunch I handed out group paperwork that I'd kept and paid for various things with my own club card since hers had been stolen, and after that it was off to the Alhambra Palace because they have very strict entry times for larger groups! The unfortunate thing is that you have to show your ID in order to get through the gates, and while Monique had left her passport at the hotel, her French ID card was in her wallet when it was stolen and she didn't have a photo of it on her phone so they couldn't allow her in - and believe me they tried everything to accommodate her. Ultimately it was no use so she sat in the restaurant with a couple of ladies who felt they weren't up to the walking involved on the tour!

Hotel America, inside the grounds
of the Alhambra Palace!

At this particular courtyard there were a group of about 15 Japanese "infuencer-types" all doing their "infuencer-type things" and holding everyone up who might also have wanted to get some pictures. They were very pretty, all wore long dresses, high heels and flowers in their hair - and they each had to have their photo taken "influencer style" - trout pout, arched back and come hither smoulder! After waiting a while, one of the ladies in our group barged forward, stood right next to the latest "influencer" and struck the same pose - which kinda helped move them on a bit so those of us stuck behind them were grateful!

The small town outside the palace!

The Palace was beautiful, of course, as was the Palais Charles Quint, and Jardins du Generalife, but we ended up being somewhat rushed as we'd wasted so much time beforehand trying to sort Monique out!

On the bus heading back to the hotel I used my phone app to contact the bank about her club credit card, then I managed to get into her personal account and we called them to block that card, but she didn't want to keep going in order to block the last stolen card which was linked to another of her personal accounts. I pushed her to keep going because while I was on the bus I had time to spare but she wouldn't - or at least wouldn't keep trying this account until we were nearly back at the hotel - at which point it was full steam ahead to get this card blocked before leaving the bus!!!! So far we know that the thieves have already used the club card to the tune of €50 (the maximum amount they can spend without having to punch in the code) and I don't know if they were able to use her personal cards but I think jumping on it so quickly will (hopefully) have prevented them from doing too much damage!

When I got off the bus I was fed up, tired and dirty so I wandered over to the bar to get myself a glass of wine to take up to my room while I was getting cleaned up. And that was when Monique came running over to say that the hotel had called a taxi to take her to the police station and I had to go with her!!!! I tell ya, that glass of wine was about one inch from my lips - one inch - and I had to put it back down on the bar and follow her back to reception! I told her to give me a minute so I could at least drop my stuff off in my room and when I got back downstairs the taxi was there. He asked if I was the client and I said yes but we had to wait for the other lady - but after about 10 minutes he said "look I can't wait any longer as I have other clients so give me a call when she gets here" - and he drove off! When she eventually showed up Monique went into a tailspin about how "she hadn't been gone that long and he shouldn't have driven off" but I just asked reception to call us another taxi and we were on our way all the while she's having a caniption fit in the back seat!

In the car Monique tried to give the driver a tourist map of the town to show where the police station was but I told her to put it away because this was his patch and he knew where the bloody police station was! Now I can get by in Spanish but it is hard and I need them to speak slowly (but of course no native speaker in any language is capable of that), so at one point I've got Monique yapping in my right ear in French about how "she couldn't understand how they'd gotten their hands on her wallet" and the taxi driver talking 100 miles an hour in Spanish that I'm finding very hard to follow, so again I had to tell Monique to stop yapping please!!!!!! When we got the police station they didn't speak English or French so I again have the same problem of having to tell her to shut up and let the cop speak!!!! After about an hour we were done and called the taxi to take us back to the hotel - and that was when Motormouth came running out of reception yelling that Leone (the woman who missed the outbound flight) had also been robbed! I asked her what she'd had stolen and it was only about €20 and no paperwork so I told her there was no point going back to the police station because the police would only do a report if paperwork had been stolen, not cash! At that point I told Monique I was going for a drink and when she tried to shoo me into the hotel I just said "hell no" and headed off on my own to a bar where I could hide - unwashed and sweaty - and enjoy a glass of wine on my own in peace!!! To top it all off, when I got back to my room I stripped off to take a shower and that was when I realized the maid service had taken my dirty towels but hadn't left any clean ones - so I had to get dressed again, call down to reception and then wait for them to send someone up with the replacement towels! To say it was not my day would be an understatement!

Gibraltar!

A day trip to Gibraltar was an optional extra which I really wanted to do because "it's worth seeing at least once" apparently! It is a self-governing British Overseas Territory which was ceded to the British forever under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Because of its strategic importance the forever bit hasn't stopped Spain from repeatedly trying (and failing) to claim it - much to the relief of its citizens who voted overwhelmingly (over 99% each time) in referendums in 1967 and 2002 to remain British. More on that later!

The distance between Gibraltar and
Morocco is around 22 km at the
narrowest point.

A google image!

Of course, being the only day we were "going to Britain" it had to start raining, much to the mirth of our tour guide. It didn't rain much but it did make our trip hot and humid, unfortunately! As our guide was calling our names to board the bus she asked me if I was English (because of my name) and when I said yes, she then asked if I was okay with the visit being in French - to which I replied no problem, obviously. So on the way there we got a brief summary of how the trip would play out and what we would be visiting. When she mentioned our visit to see the apes she also said that legend had it that if the apes ever disappeared completely from Gibraltar, British sovereignty would fall! And naturally Monique had something to say about that because of course the guide was just being rude to me because I was English and making fun of Gibraltar's apes running away! I tell you, this is what I was dealing with every bloody day. They have an expression in French which basically states that "she sees insult or bad intent everywhere" and that is so very true in Monique's case. Honestly I would hate to be inside her head! So I explained to her that it was just folklore but that during WWII, when Churchill learned that only seven apes remained, he had another 20 or so shipped out to The Rock in order for Gibraltar to remain British!!!!

To be honest, you don't go to Gib for the scenery, but (to my mind at least) its history is fascinating. I watched a couple of documentaries on it before going to Spain and will probably read up on it some more when I get the chance. In the meantime, this article gives a brief overview!

In 711 AD Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad captured Gibraltar (Jebel Tariq means Tariq's mountain) and ultimately Jebel Tariq became Gibraltar! (I love this stuff, but skip ahead if you don't)! Between 1779 and 1783 the French and Spanish laid siege to Gibraltar but were unable to capture it, in part thanks to the tunnels that the Gibraltans dug through the rock from where they were able to rain cannonballs down on the attacking fleet. These tunnels were also used during WWII apparently, but I'd have to look up more on that another time. As I mentioned above, in two referendums (referenda?) in 1967 and 2002 the population voted by over 99% to remain British, which so pissed off Franco that he closed the land border completely in 1969, it only being reopened in 1985. In fact, only this July the actual border was done away with completely, thus allowing around 13,000 Spanish workers to cross every day to work on The Rock and greatly helping lower local unemployment rates!

One of the tidbits our guide told us (and which I really loved) is that legend has it that Hercules, after completing his 12 labours, dropped to his knees and fell forward onto his elbows with such force that he split the land into two - thereby creating the continents of Europe and Africa!

Anyhoo, apart from all this history stuff, it is also a great place to buy ciggies!!! I kid you not. I'm not sure if it's VAT-free or totally duty free, but I bought a couple of cartons of cigarettes for Jen for around €45 each in Gib, and another carton for a lady at club for around €61 in Spain - as opposed to approximately €140 in France!!! Not that I like encouraging people to smoke but since they're going to smoke anyway, it made sense to pick up a few cartons while I was there!

We had about an hour to wander round main street and get some lunch, and it was just like being back home in England for me, what with Marks and Spencer's on the street corner and local pubs serving fish and chips - a real treat! After lunch we were taken by minibus to visit the Upper Rock Nature Reserve and St. Michael's Cave (grotto). Our bus driver was a hoot but didn't speak any French so I volunteered to translate for him. When he asked me how come my French was so good I told him I'd been offered a five month contract in Geneva in 1980 and 46 years later ......! So then I asked him how he'd come to be working in Gib and he told me he'd "been on a plane going to watch Manchester United play when the guy sitting next to him ...."! We were both cracking up and again it was so nice to just banter with another Brit!

Hercules splitting the continents!

The Barbary Macaques roam free
but you obviously need
to keep your distance!

They hold concerts inside St. Michael's Cave
on occasion because of the
wonderful accoustics!

Let me in, let me in - or I could just
hop over the fence!

This is an artificial waterfall -
they flush their toilets with sea water!

A mosque paid for by the Saudis!

The port of Algeciras - the port
most often used by North Africans
living in Europe when going home!

Morocco in the distance!

As we were leaving the minibus, I walked over to the driver to hand him a tip. I was loaded up with all my gear when I suddenly realized I didn't have my phone, so he said not to worry he'd go back and have a look. When he didn't find it he looked down at me and went "darlin' it's in your left hand"! I burst out laughing and apologized to him - and of course Monique had to take offence on my behalf because "how rude of him to call you darling, that is just not done"! I swear if I'd had a free hand I would have taken a swing at her by this point, but I patiently explained to her that it's perfectly normal in England (and most likely throughout the whole of the UK) for someone to call you "darling" or "love" - especially an older woman. You hear it in the markets all the time and is no more offensive than when the Italians say ciao bella! Damn, I wish she'd get off her high horse just for once, but it wasn't to be - more on that tomorrow!

Cordoba!

The next day we were off to Cordoba to visit the "cathedral within a mosque". Monique was already ruminating as I sat down to have breakfast and by this point I was so fed up of her and her witterings that I had to say something. As she sat down opposite me she immediately started in on whatever the hell was bothering her this morning so I told her that (a) at this point I'm full of cold and can't hear her as she was mumbling, and (b) would she mind giving me 15 minutes to have breakfast in peace because whatever was "wrong" - well I'm sure we could sort it out easily enough a bit later on. Pretty rude of course, but by this time I was really starting to have a belly full of her!

After that we headed out to Cordoba, where the main attraction was the "cathedral within a mosque". As I was about to get off the bus I put sunscreen on my arms because apparently we were in for another scorcher. At this point Motormouth asked if she could have some of the sunscreen so I handed it over to her - at which point Monique said that I shouldn't let her have any because it was up to her to bring her own. I mean, seriously???? When will she ever mind her own goddamn business???? We were given about an hour to ourselves when we first got there and after a little wander five of us sat down in the main square for a drink. I happened to notice that someone had left a parcel at an empty table next to ours so decided to take it into the bar and leave it with them for whenever its owner came back looking for it (a young woman came back about 15 minutes later). While I was in there I paid for the round of drinks, after which Monique tapped me on the arm and said that "on these trips people paid for their own drinks", to which I replied that €13 wasn't going to break the bank and in any case it was my pleasure to pay for a round". All of that earned me "oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, can I carry your bag, can I buy you a drink later"! I tell you, it was like this all bloody week and what I really wanted her to do was to back off and leave me in peace for a few bloody hours. (Oh, and it actually got even worse after this - and since we've been back in France - but I'm guessing that will come out in due course)!

Before heading to the mosque we had what turned out to be the best lunch of the trip. One thing we all agreed on was that the cold tomato soup was so very very good indeed. It's called salmorejo and is not gazpacho (can't stand the stuff) so I looked up the recipe when I got home and will be making it sometime this week as it could be a hit at our next board game evening. You can find the recipe here.

Salmorejo!

At lunch I ended up sitting next to Motormouth's mother and she turned out to be quite pleasant and good company (a) if you remembered to look at her when you spoke so that she could lip read and (b) if her bloody daughter would just leave her alone for five minutes straight. When I asked her if she would like some wine, she said just a drop - at which point her daughter chimed in that "non maman, I don't want you to have wine". So I asked her if she was on any medication that meant she shouldn't drink and she said no, it was just that her daughter thought she ruled the world and everyone in it - so I poured her less than an inch of wine in the bottom of her glass and she gave me a big smile as we clinked glasses! Apparently there is another daughter who is just as bad as Motormouth so I'm guessing life's not exactly a laugh a minute for this poor lady!

After lunch we headed out to the old town of Cordoba, which had once been the capital of what is now Spain during the Roman empire. The site of the mosque had originally been a Christian basilica, then the mosque was built on top of it and later a cathedral was built inside the mosque in the 16th century. As a result of all this, the cathedral within a mosque has the most unusual architecture I think I have ever seen - and all of it very beautiful, even if I do tend to prefer the Arab style when all's said and done

The town also has a "fiesta de los patios" where people compete to see who can create the most beautiful patios, which are open to the public to admire on that one day only!

This patio couldn't compete because
there are only small businesses here,
and no private homes!

After our visit we took a short walk around the Jewish quarter - again very interesting with amazing architecture - before heading back to our bus!

I can't remember this gent's name but despite his clothing style he was actually a Jewish man who made great advances in the treatment of eye ailments (I know, I know, that's probably a very bastardized explanation for the work of a man who was most likely a genius - sorry about that)!

After that it was just a matter of crossing the Roman bridge - which was apparently the only bridge into the old town for over 20 centuries! While we were waiting for our bus, Motormouth's mom raised her walking stick to point to something and the lower part of it flew off, just missing one of the men in our group. I must admit at this point if it had knocked Monique speechless for a while I can't say I would have minded but luckily, no-one was hurt!

The Roman Bridge!

When we got back to the hotel I got chatting to a couple of Scottish scaffolders, one of whom had burned to a fetching reddish colour somewhat akin to that of the salmorejo soup mentioned above. Monique started to wander over but as I made no attempt to include her in our conversation (they didn't speak French of course) she actually left me alone for one whole evening, so thank you lads, and I hope you enjoyed the rest of your stay!