tinyone

2009-04-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone.

I decided to stick the innersole to my slipper again as it had come adrift, not a mean feat as it turned out!

What a mess I was in with both hands stuck fast and no Dave to help, I had to ring Jay my friend for help (again no mean feat) Jay arrived and the task of getting me unstuck began. We tried everything, in the end Jay had to cut my hand out of the shoe...

The tube of glue was a very different story, it kept springing leeks every where, I kid you not; it shot straight out on my tummy like a balloon full of water springing a leak.

You will possible notice that I had to take a shower with glue still stuck to me and change my clothes due to them being stuck to my tummy!

After the shower (which we had hoped would do the trick) it did not, we tried soaking the glue of in acetone but as you can see my hand could not go in the widest cup we could find!

We eventually managed to get it off by dipping a stick in acetone and forcing my fingers apart!! The air was blue with screams of OUCH. Only I could put a sticky messy tube onto a shelf. You have guessed it, I was stuck again!
Once we removed Tina the glue was stuck fast

Dave returned home and came to our rescue…well sort of, as you can see once the tube and I was free of the shelf, it became firmly stuck on Dave!!!

Once we removed the offending tube from Dave, poor Dave was left to chip the glue off!!

My Little Miracle

2008-09-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

I was thrilled to bits to see an Iceland open just down the road from us. The opening day was last Wednesday but I had Bible study in the morning and then straight on for lunch at a friend’s house and so could not go. I was not too sad because I knew I would be sooo devastated to see all that cheap English meat that I so desire to cook with, and not have anywhere to store it. We never got to go on Thursday either because other things kept popping up, as I said I was not sure I wanted to be upset by it anyway. Thursday evening we went to Bible study. After the study we were all sitting round chatting and someone mentioned the new Iceland, they were all saying how wonderful it was and how cheap the food was. Someone said “You are quiet Tina, haven’t you been yet? “ I laughed and said I had not but as I haven’t got a deep freeze there wasn’t really any point. Everyone seemed surprised I did not have one. I said “Well I nearly had one about two years ago. Do you remember that someone gave one to the Church and Mary said after they had gone that the Church really did not have a use for it, she then asked if anyone needed one. I kept quite because I was very new and too shy to grab it. So I missed out” Irene Maria said “Well maybe not Tina” she went on to explain that it was Joan who had claimed it but as she lived upstairs in a flat and had a good one in perfectly good working order (just a bit rusty on the outside) they decided it was not worth all the effort. It got put in the store room and that is where it has remained for well over a year! Irene Maria asked if anyone had any objections to the Church giving it to me and everyone was delighted. I had my Freezer! We took it home that evening and could not believe how new it was, it has a top for ice cream etc and three large draws. It has not got a mark on it and did not even need a wash (although I gave it one lol) Friday morning saw Dave and I in Iceland spending next weeks house keeping. Oooh I was so excited…a large bag of pork and beef sausages for just 3.50 Euro, chops… mince, even a turkey breast joint for 6 Euros. My freezer is now quite full of the most exciting meats and vegs. Even a few ice-lolly’s in the top :O) You see there are Miracles aren’t they? God waited for Iceland to open before giving it to me. wooooweeeeee

Testing for Tina

2008-09-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

This is just to test if I can put a blog and a photograph on for Tina, as she is having trouble.

Golden Wedding Anniversary

2008-06-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

Mary and Ernie celebrated their GOLDEN WEDDING ANNIVERSARY and asked Dave and I if we would be their guests in the new and wonderfully large posh Chinese Restaurant.

To make the evening as special as we could we had a pale pink (Mary’s favourite colour) crystal heart engraved with the words MARY AND ERNIE 1958. On it. I gift wrapped the box in gold paper with a pretty gold bow. I made them an anniversary card all in gold and very gold glittery as well.

The evening of the meal arrived, earlier that afternoon Dave had gone to see the staff to ask for the anniversary waltz to be played and a presentation of cheap champagne to be presented. We all set off to the restaurant. Dave wrote on a piece of paper ‘Mary and Ernie. Golden Wedding Anniversary’ and gave it to the man as we entered the restaurant as a reminder.

The meal was fantastic meal.

The live singer matched the meal, the manager of the restaurant gave us a nod and the band struck up and the singer sang loud and clear ‘Happy Birthday to you’ Happy Birthday Maryernie happy birthday to you. Then he announced in broken English that it is Maryernies 50^th Birthday today!

Well Mary did not know whether to be pleased they thought her 50 or to laugh out load, she did both :O). The manager came up with half a bottle of really expensive champagne (Mary and Ernie said so) we were so scared as we had said four glasses of a cheap champagne. To our amazement and gratitude he then said ‘on the house’

Later after eating Dave and I did our usual thing of getting up to dance to a slow Elvis song. After the dance was finished the singer then said in a load voice to the room

“Everyone say happy birthday to Maryernie” and promptly blew me a kiss!

I really think that this was the last straw for poor Mary lol.

We finished off the evening back at our house eating the large trifle I had made for them. They stayed really late and had a wonderful evening and a very good laugh at Spain and the language barrier.

Some photos of carved tree roots etc that were in the gardens.

Helen Shapiro

2008-05-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

Helen Shapiro

We were quite excited about hearing Helen Shapiro’s story about her converting from a Jew to a Christian.

As we had managed to sell 800 tickets (along with the Church that organized this outreach) we decided to get there really early in order to bag good seats if possible.

Dave and I had made a run the evening before and peeped in; we found the seating to be 800 plastic chairs one behind the other (not graduated). Both Rosemary and I were only 5.½"tall, also having Millie with us, (a tiny Philippino lady who is a head shorter than me!) We needed front row seats!

The outreach started at 7.30pm, we live about 15 minutes from the venue, and we decided to start off at 5.15pm. We arrived at 5.30pm and were the very first in line :O).

All the counselors were let in first for a briefing and a bite to eat (they had been there all afternoon praying for the outreach), eventually at 6.30pm the doors were opened for us, 800 seats are a lot of seats so there were no jostling at all. We managed to get the very seats we had decided we wanted the evening before, right in front of the rostrum!

We had been warned by Babs not to be disappointed as she had heard on the radio thgat Helen Shapiro did not sing at out reach events, also Jeanette who had attended one in Doncaster thinking it was a concert, was also very disappointed to find it a ‘boring two hour talk’ also a third lady who had attended one of these outreached by Helen Shapiro said Helen did not sing.

Well all I can say is we must have prayed hard enough and been very blessed because whilst we were sitting there at 7pm Helen walked onto the stage, she smiled and said “ I have 30 minutes before I officially start, what say we have a few songs” We were on the way to a fantastic evening :O)

Helen sang 21 gospel songs; we had not heard many of them before, a lot she sang in English breaking into Hebrew. It was extremely nice the way she had arranged the evening, she would be talking and the music would start very quietly, gradually getting loader and Helen would break into a song that was relevant to what she was saying, again the music would gradually get quieter as did her voice until it stopped and she would continue with her story.

Of course like many of these ‘witnessing’ stories there was also a lot of humour. At one point when she was telling us she had dared to eventually touch the new testament without God striking her dead on the spot, she then built up the courage to actually open it, she said she has never looked back, in fact she…. At this point the music started up and she sang ‘Walking back to happiness’

It would take a long time for me to tell you how she became a Christian, you must go yourself next time you see her advertised, but it was extremely interesting, funny and inspiring, not at all like Jeanette described as a boring two hours (sorry Jeanette).

Sitting where we were Helen often looked straight at either Dave or myself when singing, we would of course smile broadly at her. After she had sang her last song she came off the platform and whispered to Dave and myself, thank you for smiling so much, it is always so nice to get someone that welcomes you like that. Oooh great stuff :O)

Many, many people crowded Helen and virtually ignored the counselors who were lined up either side of Helen. She also had a body guard each side of her, one from our Church and one from the other Church.

Unfortunately at one point she got very agitated as people crowded her and kept tapping her for her attention whilst trying to talk to someone else. She said in no uncertain terms “Please step back, let us have privacy, I have been singing and talking for over two hours, please stand back.” They did so, for all of two seconds! I think that the body guards should have perhaps organized to row to stop her being crowded.

We waited patently until all had finished and then Dave and I went up to her, she gave us a wink and asked what she could do for her ‘smiler's’ Dave said he had always been confused about the Jewish ‘New testament’ how could the Jews have a ‘New testament’ when they have not excepted Christ as their Messiah. She explained that the Jewish New Testament was written by Christian Jews, she said she had read it and it was very heavy going, for her, she preferred our new testament.

We spoke to her for a while and then told her to go get some rest, she smiled and said ‘God Bless you both’ and was led off.

I asked one of the councilors from our Church ‘Liz’ if she could get the photo signed to all in ICA Church for the next News letter :O) Catherine managed to do so, in hind site it would have been very easy for us to have got it signed.

We returned to the car all buzzing from the evening. Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time BUT the main highlight of the evening was when Dianna (the Mum of two members of our Church) gave her life to the Lord. Also Millie (the lady we took) friend and neighbor who is also a Philippino devote catholic also committed herself. Her husband who was a Steward become a Christian some time ago but his wife had remained a Catholic. She had many tears and trepidation but eventually went to talk with Helen,

after about 30 minutes we saw her repeating a prayer so we new at this point she had committed her life to being ‘born again’. Her husband was over the moon for her.

We have been told that eight people on that night became ‘born again in Christ’ many others perhaps to follow at a later date. Many asked for the leaflets and booklets and showed interest.

Tina Spain

FIRST DAY OF DIET

2008-04-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

09.30am Decided to have a breakfast, which I normally never do. A bowl of
cornflakes with skimmed milk.

11.30am Staving, which I never am at this time usually.

12.30pm Fainting…

01.30pm Hurray nearly lunch time….

02.30pm Dinner: made up of one slice of ham (fat free) lettuce,one
tomatoes and cucumber and a spoon full of baked beans.

04.30pm passing gas… and staving….

05.30pm fainting again

06.30pm Dinner of lean chicken breast.. Carrots.. Green beans… full

09.30pm Peckish…but I do not eat …

11.30pm Hungry… Eat my knuckles

12.30am Just looking in the fridge…nothing

01.30am Must go to bed soon before I faint

02.30am So hungry I should eat something… But won’t

0.03am I know, I will drink a glass of water to fill me… Go into bathroom brush my teeth.. Get undressed… Still hungry.. Very hungry. Get into bed and try to sleep.

03.30am Hunger pains and sciatica keeping me awake. Drink another glass of
water.

04.30am Hungry…miserable... in pain and my bladder is bursting!

Sleep ah! First day over!

FORGOT TO TELL YOU

2008-04-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Dave has reminded me that I forgot to tell you, the surgeon wanted to do key hole surgery but he dropped the key so had to make a zip to get in!
Tina

Home at last

2008-04-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

Surgery was early hours of Sunday morning. Dave got through the rest of the night with the help of morphine. The surgeon arrived about 8.30am that morning to talk with us and to explain how very seriously ill Dave had been and how serious the operation was, it was a bit scary for me. Dave slept for most of Sunday with regular visits from various nurses and doctors throughout the day, he also got regular morphine injections and one of his Four bags changed for a full one, this seemed to happen every hour or so. The day passed full of visitors for him, starting as always with Steve and Irene-Maria, although Dave was unaware of most :O) I had a very disturbed night looking after poor Dave who had a lot of pain and felt very sick. No sleep at all.

Monday:

The following Day was a Monday and Dave’s improvement was evident to all. At six am the nurses would arrive to take blood. The surgeon arrived about 8.30 am to examine Dave’s tummy and explain all that was going on. He was amazed to see Dave sitting up and looking so healthy and happy. He kept saying “How you so well?” The blood results were also very good; the jaundice was disappearing faster than the surgeon could believe.

Later that morning Steve and Irene-Maria arrived and prayed with us, Steve explained that he had put Dave on a prayer chain (along with Poo) also the church were going to hold a prayer time for Dave, and have done so ever since. Joan (Dave’s sister) phoned to tell us that Dave has been put on their prayer chain and the Church body were also praying for him. Sunday passed with lots of food and drink for me, poor Dave was not allowed to eat at all.

We had visitor after visitor all that day, many Church family who prayed for us, but at the end of Monday Dave and I were exhausted. We were both ready for sleep. I had not slept of course since going to Hospital Friday.

Tuesday:

As usual the nurses woke us at 6 am for blood etc. and at about 8.30 the surgeon arrived to say that Dave’s jaundice had gone and his temperature was back to normal, again he kept saying how amazed he was at Dave’s recovery rate, impossible but it is true. He told us not so many visitors today as Dave must keep walking around the room to stop blood clots. He had so many drains and tubes that he wore only a very short hospital gown that done up badly at the back! What a sight he was lol. The surgeon removed the dressing to look at the wound. “Fantastic” I took a quick shot

he told Dave how pleased he was with his recover and that the ‘weeks’ may turn to days in the hospital” Dave immediately jumped in to say could he go to casa tomorrow. The surgeon said with a shrug of his shoulders “Maybe, you have a miraculous recovery rate, maybe indeed” He also said that today you have no visitors so you can walk around room. We said OK.

When Steve and Irene Maria arrived with all the goodies (it always included a plate of cakes and chocolates, and a yogurt.) We asked them to let the Church know how very grateful we were to them but we have been told by the doctor that we were to have no visitors until we returned home. This Steve did and apart from Jeanette and Brian and
Liz the day was visitor free.

It was also my 64^th Birthday :O). Only Jay knew this and she brought a card and present of sweets. A bag of liquorish allsorts (Dave’s favourite) so I gave them to him for when he got better. A chunky kit Kat- a bag of liquorish fruit sweets, and a very miniature carrier bag that held a musical ‘happy birthday’ tune.

Jeanette had gone to our post box and brought all my birthday cards up to me. You can see them in the background on the bed photo. Poor Dave only had two get well
cards! (He has now got five: O) The Church brought him a lovely one and all signed it with well wishes. (That was his first)

Later that morning Ernie came up with a beautiful birthday card with a message that It made me cry. It said

He also shocked us by telling us that Mary had been discharged, we were all confused as one minute she had surgery booked to unblock or replace the large artery that they could not manage to unblock before, and now suddenly she was going home!

I popped down to see Mary and she was very worried and not at all happy at being suddenly released like that. I do not think that Ernie could understand why or make him self understood. We were indeed blessed that our surgeon spoke perfect English with a little struggle.

After seeing Mary and Ernie off with the help of Liz I returned to my room to spend the rest of the day with Dave.

We spent a very quite afternoon with my help taking a slow walk down the corridors and around our room. What a funny site we must have made, I was wheeling one of his bag holder and his pee pee bag at the same time trying to hold his gown together and Dave was holding the other wheelie thing with a bag attached and his drainage bag whilst at the same time trying to get me to guide his catheter towards where it came from!!!! I kept lagging behind to clench his robe together! He said he would rather show off his bum than have his catheter pulled!!!!

We got a very early night, I had a sound sleep but Dave evidently did not. I was very upset at six when the nurse woke us to find that Dave had got out and into the armchair as he was in pain and then could not get back to bed. He did not wake me to help. I was so upset that I had slept through it.

Wednesday:

After the usual blood etc Steve and Irene-Maria arrived with goodies and then Jeanette and Brian with a salad and potato in jacket, Liz came later with sandwiches and a thermos, I had enough food to last me for ever. So different from my ten day stay in Vega Baja hospital where I had NO visitors at all, no money no food and no bed or bed clothing for me! A room was shared between two families, the other bed was occupied by an elderly man who looked and sounded as though he was 102 years old! About ten members of his family were there at any one time and as with most Spanish they were extremely loud with the Spanish radio blaring full blast.

Oooh nasty memories, back to today :O)

In this room I had a beautiful bed with a pillow supplied with crisp white sheets and a lovely blue velvety blanket, bliss! My bed folds away and becomes the wall to the large shelve.

I will take you on a quick tour of the room (although for some reason my mobile phone camera would only take sort of close up’s, I stood as far away as possible yet when I put the camera up it zoomed in, I could not show you how big the room was because of this.

This is the shower room (again it was quite large with shelving up inside.)

other photos.

This was a large TV (only Spanish of course!)

bed has been tucked away

The surgeon arrived for his visit much later than usual, He was very pleased with Dave and said a few more days, maybe three or four. Dave said he would be happier at home and heal much quicker. The surgeon asked if he was unhappy with the hospital, Dave assured him that we were delighted with everything but home is home.

Eventually he said lets see how you manage with this out, he pointed to the catheter. After he left the nurse came in within minutes to remove it. I said to Dave I was taking a little walk and left them to it. When I came back he had NO tubes of any kind. All gone!

I was amazed, Dave said “I am free at last” not long after they brought him his first proper meal

I ate my wonderful salad and warm potato. It was simple delicious.

The surgeon came back to speak to Dave, he once again asked if he was sure about going home, it has been a very short visit. Dave assured him he would be fine. He shook Dave’s hand and said come back if you are feeling unwell at all, if you vomit or have pain. Dave said yes and he was gone with a smile and a ‘wonderful’

Once the forms were all filled in and the surgeon returned to check Dave out he said OK you can go but you are very welcome to stay a few more days, Dave thanked him and said he would be happier at home. We phoned for a lift and Jeanette and Brian arrived to take us home.

The doggies were delighted to see us, we were home! Over the next two days our home was like Piccadilly Circus, the phone never stopped ringing, I think every member of our family as well as every member of our Church family phoned. The visitors were also none Stop. Every neighbour and friend visited Dave along with members of our Church.

This carried on for Thursday and Friday until we pulled down the blinds and turned the camera on the TV to monitor the visitors.

Saturday went by with hardly any visitors at all.

Sunday I decided to go to Church on my own as Dave was not up to it. I welcomed everyone in and stayed by the door as usual for 15 minutes after the service started to welcome late comers in. I had just sat down when I heard the door go, I decided to leave them to come in alone as it would be less disruption. I noticed someone walking down to the front and taking the platform, I thought it looked a lot like Dave. Suddenly he turned to face the front and to everyone’s amazement it was Dave. He asked Steve if he could say a few words. Steve was delighted to see him and said please.

Dave thanked every one for their prayers and said the surgeon had told Tina and me that I was very seriously ill and I had emergency surgery that ended with dialysis and the ICU ward and three days later I was walking from the hospital! God is good. He was so excited he was almost jumping!

We did not stay after the service as someone gave Dave a big hug and almost had him screaming in tears!

The rest you know. Thank you all for your well wishes and love.

Tina and Dave x

Operation

2008-04-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

We settled into our room and I sat with Dave as he waited to know what was to happen to him.

The surgeon came in, he spoke very good English. He explained that at this point he wanted Dave’s temperature and blood count to return to normal before operating if possible. He said that Dave’s gall bladder was in trouble and that it would need surgery at some point, either tonight or tomorrow depending on the results of a blood test. He smiled at Dave and tapped my arm and said see you later and disappeared. A little later a nurse came and gave Dave a morphine injection (in his tummy) and took some blood. Dave was still on drips (three of them).

Dave was in a great deal of pain and kept saying the morphine wasn’t working. After about one hour the surgeon came back. He said to Dave “Your temperature is going up..up..up and your jaundice count is also going up..up..up we have to operate now!”

He disappeared to get ready and a nurse came in with his hospital gowns

I felt so sorry for him, he must have felt so nervous, it is his first proper operation (apart from the emergency surgery on his lung and he did not know much about that!)

A little later two young nurses came in; they were very sweet but could not speak English. They had an incontinent pad in their hands and a small towel, they trying to tell us something, eventually we understood that Dave was to lift his bum as they put the pad under, then from the towel dropped about ten razors into the bed!! All at once we both new what was to happen to Dave. I said I shall wait outside (I thought it may embarrass Dave with me there) but the nurses said “No you stay” I asked Dave and he said stay.

Well I have never seen the likes of it before nor will you ever!

They stripped the bed sheet up along with his gown and a nurse stood each side of him, they each placed a razor in the middle of his tummy just under his ribs, they each drew it towards themselves and flicked the hair of onto the pad and met again in the middle. They worked together and very fast! They worked there way down in the same way. It was all over very quickly and cleanly. They lifted his but and whipped the pad out with all the fuzz and the razors, rolled it up and threw it in his bin. Done! They removed all his rings (including his wedding ring) Dave tried very hard to keep it on, saying “tape on it” but she said not possible. The nurse started to take it off for him and he said “No, my wife put that on 43 years ago and she will take it off” Sweet, he handed me his hand. I was nearly in tears. They then asked about teeth, poor Dave had to take his teeth out to!

At this point Liz and Tony arrived for a visit

a few moments later Ernie arrived from Mary's room to see how things were going.

Upon all the visitors arriving Dave quickly asked for his teeth again lol. I got them out and he discreetly put them in. It was now getting on for 9.40pm.

I think the visitors helped take David’s mind of what was about to happen, I think I felt more worried then he did.

Just before ten the door opened and the nurse and the porter arrived to take Dave down. The visitors all went out side and Dave suddenly got out of bed stark naked! The nurses had removed all his clothes! He said sorry and rushed to the toilet. The nurse gave me his operation gown and asked me to put it on him. I slipped into the bathroom with him and dressed him, He told me he was dyeing to go to pee pee but as he had no clothes on and had visitors he could not get out of bed. Poor Dave.

The nurse painted his entire tummy with the pad you see in the photo of his op clothes and then they got his hat and bootees on and into the bed he slipped

They wheeled him out and past the visitors, I was so sad because I would have followed him down if we had not had visitors. I suddenly remembered his teeth and had to run after them. I think the Nurse thought I wanted to kiss him goodbye when I bent close and whispered “Teeth” :O) he slipped them out and gave them to me. I did kiss him goodbye then: O (

The visitor said goodbye outside the room, they left me to go into the empty bedroom with just a pair of slippers left of Dave

I felt so lonely and sad. Thank goodness I did not know how ill he was and what was about to happen to him.

The specialist had told me he would be gone about two hours so I waited for his return at about midnight. I sat there and sat there, at 2am I went to see a nurse, I eventually got her to understand what I was asking and she said that there had been an emergency and David was waiting. I thought she meant he was waiting for his op at the time but she meant Dave was the emergency and he was in ICU on a dialysis machine!

I felt so sorry for him. As the surgeon had told me three hours I thought if he hasn’t even had the op yet he won’t be up before about 4.30 – 5am. I started to make my bed up when the door opened and the surgeon came in, he sat on the wheelchair and explained to me that Dave was very seriously ill; I thought he said he may go to ICU but I have since been told he did go there. He explained that his gall bladder had burst and all the puss and poison had evaded his blood and organs. He had removed the gall bladder and cleaned his inside; he was at this point just coming off dialysis. He told me that Dave would be in the hospital for many, many days perhaps weeks as he was very ill. I just felt numb and scared to death and very alone at that moment. I had no way of contacting the children or family.

Dave was wheeled back within 15 minutes of the surgeon leaving the room; he looked so ill and had so many drips and tubes. I was far too distressed to take any photos: O (

He was sleeping but moaning and groaning all the time. I went to see a nurse and she gave him morphine which settled him down. He woke about 30 minutes later asking to be sick, he wasn’t. He was in a bad state of pain. He said could I take him to pee pee, I explained that he had a catheter in, at first he did not understand and then he said “How do I use it? I am not sure, do I just wee in the bed? “Poor little thing, I explained that he did not need to go to pee pee it would just empty into the tube as it went in the bladder.

I was so worried about the children and whether they had been told. I could not get in touch with Jeanette via her mobile or Brian’s.

I had managed to let Jeanette know both the Leeta’s telephone numbers when she took the dogs and asked her to tell them that Dave had gone into hospital possible to have his gall bladder removed. That was all I knew at that moment.

It is all a bit of a haze now but I think Sandie phoned at about 10.30 and I was able to say Dave had just gone down, I am not sure.

This will continues tomorrow.

Hospital visit

2008-04-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

As some of you are aware both Dave and I have been with Ernie and Mary at the hospital for a period of two weeks. We arrive early morning and leave late afternoon. I have been supplying them with sandwiches and hot coffee! I must say they was a delight to be with, they are both such darlings, although they do not appreciate this themselves :O)

We were returning from just one of these visits and both feeling a little tired on Friday 4th at about nine pm. I started to make the dinner and Dave sat down, at about 9.15 Dave suddenly said “No dinner for me Tiny, my tummy is aching” that was the start of all the pain that worsened as the evening got later. By about 11 Dave said he was going to bed, we both thought at that time that he had very bad wind. The pain was very high in the middle of the stomach just in-between his ribs and also in the right side of the neck. I have often had such bad wind that it affects my neck, so I thought that this was perhaps what was wrong with Dave.

I gave Dave a windeze but the pain did not let up, I sat up with him whilst he was propped in a sitting position in bed, he did not go to sleep at all and was moaning a little.

I wanted to call an ambulance but Dave said it was probably wind (As Dave is one of those luck individuals that have never suffered an ear ache, muscle pain, heart burn or much of any other pain he was not sure as to what this was.)

My dear friend Sheila

I decided to phone Sheila, who speaks fluent Spanish; she is a member of our Church. I waited until eight am before phoning. she told me she would be straight over.

We were in the hospital by 8.45 and Dave was seen right away by a doctor who told us that he had a high fever, his blood pressure was fine. He was immediately transferred to another room to await a specialist, I was not aloud in but Sheila went with him.

I could not understand it; people were coming in with broken bones, cuts and bangs and were also going through that double door into the room that Dave had disappeared in but coming back out with plasters etc. Still no sign of Dave, I waited for 4.1/2 hours! Eventually I went up to the guard (there were two blocking the double doors) everyone argued to go in with their loved ones: O(

He seemed to understand me and disappeared through the doors, he returned about ten minutes later saying my friend will come and see me. Very shortly Sheila returned full of apologies, saying she had not been able to leave Dave as he was having many tests and seeing a few doctors! She said he was being looked after very well and had already had x-rays, scans, heart monitors, blood and seen several doctors and had many other tests. He was evidently Jaundice.

Sheila returned through the double doors again leaving me scared and alone.

Eventually she re appeared and said I may now replace her, there was nothing further she could do as Dave was waiting to go up to the ward!

At last I was aloud through the illusive doors, I was greeted by a very long corridor with cubicles that had curtains closed down each side. I did not have a clue as to where Dave was. I had no other option then to peep in all of then until I found Dave about half way up! He was sitting by a bed looking very sorry for him self. He did look a bit yellow now that I looked! A bit later a nurse came in and got him into bed.

Very soon after that another nurse came in and wired him all up ready for a heart monitor I think. He had wires clipped to ankles, arms, and chest.

I managed to take a quick photo of the chart before she disappeared with it :O) As soon as she left Dave got out of bed as it was far too painful to lay flat, she returned to attach a drip to his arm, smiling at him and pointing to the bed, Dave said (in sign language) that it was painful so she just nodded and left him sitting.

After a doctor came in and spoke to us in broken English Dave was taken along many corridors and up lifts to the ward. Well you cannot really call it a ward; he was put in a very large clean and bright private room. This was the new hospital that has only recently been built.

We were not sure if this was where he was going to stay or what was going to happen to him, we were not even sure if he was staying the night!

This is a view of the hall in the room, far door is the door into the room, to the left of the photo is the double wardrobe and shelves and to the right is the door into a large room that houses a shower/toilet and sink.

Thank you for reading this. I will do some more tomorrow.

Tinax

A Christmas tale

2008-03-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

Naughty List or Nice List ?

Remember the Christmas magic of things like- sitting around the table together making popcorn chains to decorated the Christmas tree; The look on a child’s face when you plug in the Christmas lights; Catching Mum’s head turned long enough to snatch a chocolate from the tree. Those are the Christmas gifts that can’t be bought in shops and they are the ones you remember long after the electric train is gone.

One of my goals as a kid, was to stay up late and catch Santa Claus on Christmas eve. I don’t know why kids do this, maybe we think if we catch him- we’ll get all the presents he has left in his sack. I tried for years to catch that rascal, but never could. I always fell asleep and he’d slip right past all my traps. It didn’t matter how much string I used or how many pie pans I tied them to- he’d still get though without making a noise.

My favorite food for Christmas was those butter cookies cut out like a wreath. The only time we had any of those butter cookies was at Christmas time and thats what kind Mum wanted to leave out for Santa. I told her to leave Santa those burnt up chocolate chip that she always tried to make instead. But she wanted to leave him the good stuff. No matter, I ate up all Santa’s cookies while I was staying up late trying to catch him. The best Santa ever got at our house was a few crumbs and half a glass of milk.

When you get on that naughty list, its hard to get off- just ask my granny, she’s been on it for years. She would never admit that she tried to catch Santa Claus, but I think she took a garden hose out one year and iced up the roof. Santa fell off in the yard and dropped his sack. Granny got there first and wouldn’t give it back. Anyway, her Christmas tree had a whole lot of stuff with other people’s name crossed out and hers written in over top.

The other day I went to Santa’s web site to see if I was still on his naughty list? Yeah, I’m still on it. While I was there, I decided to check up on a few other people and find out which list they were on. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I did. And here is what I found out. (note, the names have been somewhat changed to protect the guilty.)

Papaw - Nice, but has been naughty at times. Has shown improvement with cleaning up his room. Still has a naughty tendency to leave his socks on the floor. With a little more effort, could be near top of "nice" list.

Granny - Nice at times, but needs to be good all year, not just around Christmas time. Overall, niceness outweighs naughtiness. Was good a whole week last month!

Be careful which list you get on. Its not Santa’s birthday we celebrate at Christmas and Santa didn’t go to the cross for you. That little baby born in a manger is Jesus, the son of the most high God!!! Jesus can get your name written down in the Book of Life, thats the most important list of all to be on. I didn’t know this for a long time, and I grew up in a neighborhood full of church members?

Written By Johnny Lee Hall Dec 1, 2001

angel_heart.jpg (JPEG Image, 388x335 pixels)

2008-03-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

angel_heart.jpg (JPEG Image, 388x335 pixels)

oooh thank you every one :O)

2008-03-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

Just a small blog

I just want to thank everyone for their fantastic present I was bestowed with. Lots and lots of craft items along with loads of pretty card. All to be used when card making.

I will be undertaking a project soon; making a bible book card.

Sandie gave me the cover in the form of a deep chocolate leather look card, Sindie gave me this fantastic paper to make very fine tissue like pages that can hopefully be typed on.

I am not sure where she got it or what it is called and unfortunately have forgotten how to use it BUT no matter, my friend Jeanette has come to the rescue as she used to use it when making cards for the infants she used to teach.

I shall do a proper blog with some photos another day. I am very busy and not feeling the biz at the moment.

Tinax

Oh my goodness me

2008-02-18T04:47:00.000-08:00

As you know I have a bad stomach, it just is very painful. Because of this after chatting for a while with Babs I tidied up and went to bed early (about 2am) I was very uncomfortable in bed and thought I could not sleep UNTIL both Dave and myself was woken with a jolt by the dogs barking wildly.

Dave got up to investigate and I snuggled into his spot until he told them off and came back to bed :O)

He did come back to the bedroom but only to say “Tiny get up the police want to speak to you and he disappeared! I thought I must be dreaming, it was 3.15am and the police wanted to talk to me! Whatever for?

Our bedroom door opens into the front room as does the front door the other side! I was very embarrassed to walk out of the bedroom in case they were in the front room, they were not. Our front door was wide open and there was a police man standing just behind the Nat screen, he had a torch and shone it into the front room and on my face. I switched the light on (although the room was well lit up with all the car head lights lol)

He asked me to step outside (thank goodness we live in Spain, although it was still very chilly) I did so and was horrified to see poor Dave surrounded by police, three police cars had been driven (at what looked like high speed in order to swerve them round and up the pavement facing out front door) Dave said there were at least three more parked the other side of out wall! And two more up the road. There was also an ambulance with flashing lights, and I kid you not at least ten policeman, about three others dressed all in yellow and the ambulance medic, all in our front garden!

There were three police all asking me “No problem? You no phone? You no scream” I said ‘no’ and they said can they step in, I said yes of course. Once inside they tried to speak to me, it was hard for them to try to explain in English but I gather someone phoned them and they were screaming and said come quick to No. 4. They gave this address.

At the same time the ambulance man were checking my arms and said again “No problem” making the sleeping jester I repeated I was fine, I was asleep. They then asked if anyone else was here, again I said No, they asked if they could check around, I said yes two policemen one behind the other opened the bedroom door, shone the torch and shouted something, at the same time two went upstairs, they shouted something and returned down. I had heard them opening the back door onto the sun roof.

Dave returned inside with a few policeman and they asked me if I was OK, I again said Fine thank you.

After apologising they said goodnight and got in there cars and drove away, the ambulance following.

I soo wanted to take photos but did not know how to explain it, I did click one off without the flash from the front room window just as they were leaving, you can just see three cars headlights shining on the pavement facing our house.

There were still lots of policemen in the garden but because I took this from the window left window they were not in view.

Well goodness only knows what it was all about, but needless to say it was very exciting after the first shock! I did pray for whoever was screaming and made that phone call. I hope the police found them.

Well Sandie you asked me to blog about what happens in Spain!!

have a go

2008-02-07T16:09:00.000-08:00

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oooooohhh

2008-01-31T09:43:00.000-08:00

Don't think I have downloaded this photo quite right Babs. It downloaded the same as with my other browser.

2008-01-03T08:14:00.000-08:00

Do you like my mouse Jeanette brought me ? (ages ago for my Birthday)

Forgot to show it to you.

Tina x

We had a wonderful Church service on Sunday by Christingle Light

2007-12-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

I forgot my camera so had to rely on someone sending me these photos over the e mail.

Gilda and Nila made some wonderful Christingles for us.

Our Parson and his wife was visiting family in Ireland so it was up to us! The good news was we had no sermon :O).

The artificial lights were put out and we had our service by candle light.

We had a visitor from Scandinavia, he played the guitar and sang Silent night, the first verse was in his own language, the second was Latin the third was German and then we all sang it through in English of course! No photo :O(

After singing several other carols we had visitors (a brother and sister) from Indonesia, they sang four songs and apologised that they were about to sing Silent night again in FOUR different languages again! Their own, English, Dutch, Malaysian. Again I have no photo.

The three singers were very good, especially the man who had such a rich voice, it was wonderful to hear that beautiful carol in six different languages as well as ours. They all had the same tune except the German one.

We were allowed to bring the Christingles home so I have copied them for our Spanish neighbours; this is what we gave them. I used Dates and chocolate and poor Dave's liquorice all-sorts as I did not have any other sweets :O(

Also I did them for our Christmas meal.

As usual our babies were allowed on this one occasion to eat their meal from the table, before we did I hasten to add!

Note their Little presents! At first they refuse to eat and look so innocent, once they realise it is OK there is no stopping them. Tiny was with us this year and she was not going to be left out, she would not sit to close to ours so I had to move Toff along a bit. Jeanette will be very surprised at Tiny, she is so scared and timid. She really loves it with us and the babies; she soon becomes one of the pack! She settles down immediately the front door is closed behind Jeanette. Just look at Toff licking her lips at the Trifle in the photo below, waiting for permission to eat it!.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day and enjoyed all your company.

Tina xx

My friend Jeanette

2007-12-10T15:04:00.000-08:00

Hi

Just a very small blog to tell you all that Jeanette has been working very hard and in secret for two weeks or more. Today I found out what she has been up to. She has made me a beautiful decoupage calendar. It is very personalised, to give you an example April is on the theme of ‘Happy Birthday Tina’ etc. I shall scan in a special page for you.

I hope you can see it is a picnic with Toffee and Gizzie, my two darling friends.

What a good friend I have. She says she loves me too.
Tina

testing a video.

2007-12-02T06:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas free day out.

2007-12-02T04:12:00.000-08:00

Today is the Free Christmas fun day that our local super market puts on each year. It is an all day event with lots of fun for the kiddies. As you enter they give you a Santa hat and you pass on to a table full of cakes, they place three on a plate and give you a cup nearly full of melted chocolate to pour over your cakes.

There are many, many raffles and many really good prizes. It must cost thousands to put on.

..............................................................First and second prise.

They went on to put out two more mountain bikes a child's bike a pram they were still putting prizes out as we left. We arrived at 9am but did not stay very long this time as we were on our own. (Jeanette and Brian are in England) and no family this year :O(

Doug and Liz came to in 04 and Leeta and children came in 05

as did Pip & Jo. Can you spy Jeanette in the photo of Jo? It is a great day with lots to do. There is a bouncy castle, face painting etc for the children. Father Christmas and his helper arrive and all the children go for their presents and then the adults!!! Here I am queuing

........................waiting for a kiss and my pressy. (can you notice me copping a quick feel)

There is a professional photographer there and all the photos are given out free later. There must be hundreds of people that pass through as it opens at 8am and closes at 5am. ALL get a present from Santa.

Dave was not to be left out of the pressy or the 'feel' Just take a look at Santa's face and the shock horror of what this OAP is doing to him, his expression is ace!
The food as you see is plentiful and scrumptious.
They serve wine beer and juice & coke etc all day also.

At the end of the day they throw loads of sweets and all the remaining presents out. The year before last we brought home eight parcels and lots of bars of chocolate. (Last year I was at Leeta's)

I don’t think we shall go back this year for the sweets, photo and presents as we have Church and it would be a rush.

Every where you look are red hats :O)

Tina Spain.

Ford Focus Estate year 2000

2007-11-17T15:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry, have just read the comments on my car blog and you are all right of course, I did not tell you much about the car or how we came by it. I will try to put it right.

Yes it is a lovely car, and yes I have already mentioned to Dave about how much more we can pack in it and he has once again reminded me that it is not the quantity but the weight that worries him!.

It was definitely a God send to us, our car had the air conditioning broken and we had plenty of quotes (cheapest 600 Euro) We had been saving for months and months to get it done and was about to pay out the 600 Euro when I had to go to England, Dave had his accident a few days before it was due to be taken in for the air con.!

Not only did we not waste the 600 on a car that was about to go to heaven BUT we now had 600 towards the next car.

Ernie and Mary owned the car we brought (you know the ones that we had fallen out with) they had offered us the car when Ernie was passing and noticed that our car was missing, once Dave told him what happened he said they had finally sold their house and were about to sell their car as well. As they wanted a very quick last minute sale they offered it to us for 3,000 Euro. Dave knew it was a bargain as Ernie had never used it more then once a month to the hospital and chemist. The mileage was very, very low. It had been serviced every year and was up to date with its m.o.t. in short quite a bargain.

The deal was almost in the bag when the man buying their house phoned to say they would not complete until April/May of next year. Ernie phoned up to say how sorry he was but he could not sell the car now until April or May and as we needed one sooner the deal was now off. Dave was miffed to say the very least and tried to get me to phone back and say that if we brought it they could still use it until they go, I would not do it.

The phone rang about 9.30 that evening and it was Ernie who apologised for the late call but wanted to put a suggestion our way. How would we feel if they shared the car with us until April? for this they would knock 1,000 Euro off the price! Also we need not pay in one lump; we could spread it out until April. We said a quite “thank you God” and accepted his offer. Man oh Man, we had what we wanted with 1,000 bonus!!

The only difference was that as soon as the money came through from the Insurance we paid in full. Yes that was another thing, Dave spent the day going between the breakers yard and the Insurance Company arguing his case about only getting scrap price for it as he was fully comp. After about four visits a very exasperated lady promised to do what she could. Dave returned home without much hope of improving the quote much. The next day (two days after Ernie’s offer) a Spanish message had been left on our answering machine for Dave, Pillar happened to pop in and Dave asked her what it said. She said it is from an insurance company saying the money has been put into your bank. Once she had left Dave looked at the bank statement on the web…Nothing… The next day he looked again and 4,000 Euro less the 400 scrap price had been put in!!

We now had a car worth a lot more than 3,000 for 2,000 which left another 2,000 in the bank!

Dave is having his much needed treatment on his teeth done, he has already had root treatment and then the tooth repaired ( three visits) in all 150 Euro, he is about to have another the same on the other side and then a tooth removed and a replacement put onto his existing plate. We estimate that it may cost about anything up to 600 Euro. It is a private Dentist. Me? Well I had my computer done as you all know and the rest is not to be used unless it is very much needed.

The final piece of this story is that the man buying Ernie and Mary’s house phoned the other day to say he had sold and wanted to move in after Christmas! Ernie and Mary went to England and brought a lovely cottage in Devon, so the car is all ours from January.

Tina Spain

The vets

2007-11-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

Hi

I am writing a blog on Sandie demands..Over and over and over… he he

The dogs:

We have had as you all know a very hard year financially and because of this we have let the dogs injections for returning to England laps by nine month!!

Dave made an appointment with our normal lovely vet and was convinced he would do the honours of back dating everything by nine months, Ummm Hello.

The appointment finally came yesterday, we arrived with me feeling pretty uncomfortable and refusing to ask the vet.

The vet greeted both dogs with his usual loving and boisterous way. (On his knees stroking, kissing and playing with them) He was saying to them that he hopes they are feeling well and that Mummy and Daddy are being kind to them etc. etc. (he always remembers their names) anyway he asked us if they had a problem, I took a genteeel step back and looked sweetly at the vet and then pointedly at Dave, leaving the vet in no uncertain terms as to who was the boss this time!!

Dave said “We wish a favour please, a big one” The vet said “ci” Dave said we have forgotten completely about the injections this year and we are a little over due. A little duh! I sort of made myself a little shorter and whistling looked at the ceiling. Well inside I was!

Dave handed over the passports but before he looked inside at the dreaded date he asked me how Toffee’s eye was? I was surprised he remembered and said “Oh fine, it has been great thank you” He the looked inside the passport “Oh she is February it is due, yes?” we sort of mumbled “yes” me still looking sheepishly at my feet.

He then put the passports down and said “Toffee you first, and no shaky shaky” we were not sure what he was going to do as he had not said at this point. He whisked Toff onto the table and started to smell inside Toff's ears, he said in Spanish “Beautiful no” at this point I was thinking he must have gone mad as Toff’s 'ear' smell is not beautiful!

He then looked at her eyes, her teeth, her paws, her bum, at this point he felt her glands and said “ooh we need emptying No?” he started the horrid job of 'emptying the bum gland scenario'. As usual I heaved and he smiled. When he had finished, he washed and sprayed something on her bum, he took her face in his hands and very definitely started to tell her that she was about to get a lovely manicure, so she must not complain, oooheee the doggies will love you later!

With me clinging to her little neck and her face in my arms he started the dreaded nail clipping that Toff hates with a vengeance, Toff gave a little squeal with each nail, and with each nail he kissed her head and told her to be good! He is the most loving and gentle vet we have ever had, he really cares for his four legged patients. After everything had been poked and prodded he got the needle out and started the injection's still talking to her. (Oooh it looked like he was going to back date the passports after all.)

He then started the whole process over again with Giz. Once he had finished with Giz he sat at the desk and opened the passports, he proceeded to take all the labels of the injection bottles placing them in the appropriate place on the passport. He then changed the date stamp and proceeded to date everything. He gave us worming tablets and one spot and told us to return in April for the heart warm injection. He said that it would be better if we return next year in February! I asked if it was OK that they had the injections so soon and he told us that it was fine, they would have better protection, no harm.

The Bill for about one hour of his time and all he did to each dog was only 78 Euro. Under 40 Euro each dog, about 28 pound each. What a vet ah. We do not know what the cost would have been if we had to start over, we do know we would not have been able to visit England next year (or at least for six months)

Tina Spain.

Hi everyone I’m back……..

2007-11-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

Just a very short blog to show everyone our new car.

Blog finished !!

A couple of odds, for a couple of **** :O)

2007-09-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

Especially for Leeta, Dave sitting under the olive tree fairy lights galore!

Especially for Emily!!!! Matching clothes as well.

lemon and oranges

2007-09-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sandie I took these the day you blogged to show that a lemon is lemon colour and the oranges are green. I forgot to post them!

These are oranges

This is a lemon

Rainbow on my ceiling!

2007-09-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

An angel came to visit me today. She left her magic dust behind to make me feel better :O)

Toffee and the Vets

2007-08-27T04:05:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I expect by now you all know that’s its great news with our Toffee. God was definitely good to us and not only listened but answered all our prayers.

We took these last few photos before taking her to the vets in case she lost her eye!

Just before we left for the vets, we made a promise to Toff that we would let her have a drink if all was OK.

Our normal vet was not there and a new man saw Toff, he was lovely, he was accompanied by a female vet, also lovely; it looked like she had undergone a complete face reconstruction for some reason. You could tell the scarring and effect was very good, but she would never look normal.

Anyway they phoned the vet that had done the first surgery and got all the info, they explained to us that they had to put Toffee to sleep and remove the stitches and clean the eye and look for nerve separation, ulcers, inflammation and infection etc. all of which he explained is very possible. He had also noticed that Toffee had two marbles like lumps on the top of her head; they are her horns I always say! (Do you remember Mummy used to say that too?) He asked if I had ever had a biopsy taken from them, I said no, he said he would take a biopsy whilst she was under.

We held her in our arms as she went off, he was so nice and spoke and stroked her the whole time.

We waited in the surgery with Jeanette and Brian, she was gone for almost one hour, once they called us back, the nice man explained what they had done and what the outcome was. He had completely cleaned the eye and injected it with anti-inflammatory medication. He found the eye was not infected, not inflamed, the nerve was attached and everything looked wonderful, he said this was not what they had expected to find, she was a very lucky dog indeed. I think she was a very blessed dog indeed. As for the ‘lumps’ they were also completely normal cysts filled with a fluid.

He could do one of two things to make sure that the eye did not pop out again, (I asked was this likely, he said yes) one was to sew the entire outer lid to the bottom (as the other stitches would not have held long term) and she would have to have a drain put in, this would mean that she would have had a fifteen day stay in hospital and as he said, this is not good to separate you and also very expensive. The second option was to sedate her for the entire day, tomorrow she would also be quite and sleepy, and this was to give the eye total rest. We would have to administer two drops of anti inflammatory in her eye three times a day for six days. She was to be kept completely quite for about four days, no walks, no getting on furniture as she must not jump down. No playing with Giz and definitely no fighting with Rottweiler's. If we noticed the eye weeping we are to squirt saline into it before each set of eye drops. Needless to say we all agreed that the second option was better for all.

He also told us that if the eye popped out again, we were to soak a gauze in clean cold water and try to ease it back, if not possible we were to get her to the vets as soon as possible, if vet is not open we must bind the head and eye with a bandage until we can get to a vet:O(

He gave her another injection and she is still sleeping soundly, she is OK because when I spoke to her she definitely moved her head towards me. I didn’t like the idea that she had not come too from the first aesthetic, but she is conscious in as much as she is aware of me she just cannot move.

He gave us a bill chitty, (they do not write the cost, just a code and she gets it up on the screen) so we were guessing as to the cost of this operation and cyst draining. We both thought (or hoped) it would be no more than the first operation. The charge of the whole thing was 28 Euro. Our vets are unbelievable.

What a wonderful outcome to the whole unhappy saga ah. We prayed there would be no permanent damage, that the bill would be within our possible means, and that Toff would not suffer. All three was answered above all our expectations. Prayer is definitely a strong Allie to have on your side.

Toff sleeps it off! Perhaps we gave her a little too much wine!

I know that in the great scheme of things, this is a very small problem, and I am aware Toff is only a dog, but to us, she is our baby and God must understand that.

Tina Spain.

Poor Toff

2007-08-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

This was taken with Jeanette's camera she gave me and then I took a photo of the screen :O)

I cannot write a blog as I am looking after Toff who believe it or not is still very sleepy and keeps falling when she tries to walk. Poor little Toff, can you see her sore little mouth?

Thank goodness Jeanette and Brian were around to help us. They took money in case the vet would not except a card, they did thank goodness. I shall have to hope Jeanette and Brian are around on Monday morning for another lift to the vets.

Tinax

My new camera

2007-08-23T17:39:00.001-07:00

This is the front of the camera

This is the side view, a guard pops out to protect viewer screen from Light. When we were out for the day I could not see a thing on my screen but Jeanette could see everything :O)

What a lucky girl I am, and what a great friend I have in Jeanette.

Jeanette has also brought her Lexmark 3400 printer for me to borrow until we can afford to get one. It Prints of course and Photocopies, scans, prints photos directly from a camera photo card, it also faxes, and e-mails directly from printer.

Unfortunately she cannot find the software so I cannot install it yet. I am looking after Tiny for them tonight and tomorrow. They will be back late so I shall have to be patient and wait until Saturday when Jeanette has promised to re search for the software. Once I have it up and running Leeta, I can print all those lovely decoupage sheets.

Tina Spain

Our day out with Brian and Jeanette

2007-08-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

Jeanette Brian Dave and I went out for the day yesterday. We had a wonderful day. Nothing went wrong at all this time :O) Jeanette has not come over yet so I am doing this on my own, I therefore cannot tell you where we went. Lol Jeanette has just arrived and says it was Fortuna (You are none the wiser are you?)

It was of course beautiful as usual, the lakes this time were green! not the slimy green, true clear water but very green. You can see it's clear as the rocks show through it!!

The skies were very blue but with light cloud turning the sky to white :O), It wasn't far from where we live as it was not a long journey.

Some photos for you.

Dave suddenly disappeared; Jeanette spied him as almost a red dot in the distance and took these photos with her very nice camera, mine isn't good enough for long shots. See if you can see him?

Jeanette zoomed the camera up for this shot!!!

Dave came back with theses bones, especially for Livvie to look at.

Dave came back to get me, he said there was wonderful views, I went as high as I could he he

See what I mean about postcard bums of yesteryear?

oooh I have got to stop this blog now, Jeanette will do some at hers, as she has just come in with a brand new camera! Wow it's lovely. She spied it out shopping the other day and has been working Brian ever since! (he still loves her as it has only been eleven weeks since their wedding) so she got it B U T I have also gained because she has given me her beautiful camera that took all these photos, I can't believe it and cannot spend one more second telling you as I have just got to learn all about it. Some gorgeous photos coming one thinks O)

Here is my Beautiful Hannah and Handsom Ben

2007-08-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

Jo's Mum with Pip

Notice poor Gizzie in both pictures squashed up :O)

Washing Machine two

2007-08-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

We have chosen our Washing Machine. It is a Samsung and has a 1,000 rev spin and 6kg. It was to be delivered on Tuesday. The cost was 299.00 Euro. We had no sooner arrived home when the phone call came, they did not have one for another three weeks :O( As it was a good make and had the spin we wanted we decided to wait. I shall let you know when I am up and washing.

Arts and craft room

2007-08-18T08:21:00.000-07:00

This blog will not be of any interest for anyone but Sandie and Leeta.

There you go Sandie and Leeta, you can see just how I pack everything. Everything has it's own box or draw. I have a chest of draws as well and each draw is clearly marked with it's contents :O) I didn't take a photo as I was scared there were already too many!

Jeanette gave me the table and chairs

These span the entire wall

And the box I got from the tip in use.

A new washing machine

2007-08-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

We are off out tomorrow to buy a new washing machine! I cannot believe it.
.
Earlier today I was washing two bath towels and a double sheet and yesterday clothes. I was washing them in the bath when Liz a friend arrived for a visit.
.
I emerged from the bathroom soaking wet, hair stuck to my head, hot and very tired, (to be honest my hands throbbed from my arthritis) although this could not been seen. Liz didn’t say much at the time, we made her tea and we chatted.
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This evening I had just settled down to watch Corry Street and East Enders when the door bell rang, Dave was out so I opened the door to Liz. She handed me an envelope, it contained 300 Euro! She said it is a loan for a washing machine, pay it back when ever you can.
.
The conversation went something like this:
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Liz said she could not stand by and see me washing bath towels etc by hand in this hot weather when she had money in the bank that was not needed tomorrow. I of course I said it was so kind of her but we cannot except her offer, we would be able to buy one in about one month. At that point Dave returned, Liz put her hand up to quieten me and asked Dave if he believed one good turn deserves another, he said Yes of course why? . She then said, “well do not say no then, this is a good turn returned” Dave helped her earlier today to put up something that had smashed down, he had to climb her high wall, she said he was parked himself straddled across the wall helping her.
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Don’t you think I am blessed to have such kind and good friends, what a very thoughtful and kind thing to do?
.
We have accepted her very kind offer; it was slowly killing me doing all this washing by hand. So that is why we are off tomorrow to buy a washing machine. I am only able to eat soup and pasta and water all day so it will take my mind off that too.

Front room photos

2007-08-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

I have gradually spanned round the room so you can get an idea, you fussy lot!
.

Below is the dispenser of iced and boiling water . An eyesore but Invaluable to us living in this hot country. Everyone that comes and uses it wants one :O)

Just in case any of you asked what that was above the drinks machine! We cannot put screws or picture hangers in the walls in Spain unless you do a very deep screw with a raw plug and butterfly attachment, Dave cannot do hundreds of those so these have gone up with blue tack :O) I change them every month or so. At the moment you lot have just come down and my children up!! Can you see Peter? Daddy in fancy dress? Granny & Grandads Wedding? all of us in fancy dress too. I always keep them up lol.

My little scruffy station. It holds everything I need for computerising though, and more.

Turn your head sideways and see my CD holder on top!! They say CARDS..CARDS..SOFTWARE..COMPUTER AND PHOTOS . The bell is to bring the dogs in pronto when they bark

Last but not least the silly stool I sit on for hours since my one broke. The box is to rest my feet on when the back of my thighs get sciatica until my knees start to hurt! You can imagine how I hang over!! Also did you notice my old fashioned monitor since my flat screen one broke! Also my broken printer!!

Getting ready for Hospital :O(

2007-08-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

The bottle in the middle is the enema I have to administer to myself!!! The bottles either side are to be taken in a cold glass of water and sipped slowly to avoid vomiting :0(

Oh I cannot wait!!! what a thrill it is all going to be.

The diet starts tomorrow :O( I can eat grilled meat (I do not have a grill) pasta or rice, hard cheese, boiled white fish, biscuits without fibre, toast, filtered juice, Infusions, tea, coffee. Nothing else at all.

Saturday I am to eat rice or pasta, toast, biscuits without fibre. black coffee or black tea. water.

Sunday I am to have nothing but the sipped medication at ten, after 2pm I can have as much water as needed, nothing else until I take the 2nd bottle of water at 7pm in the afternoon (the afternoon stops at 9pm in Spain) sipping slowly to avoid vomiting. 9pm in evening as much water as needed. I think the few hours with no water after the medication must be to stop you bringing the lot up again! I do not like the bit that says 'slowly to stop vomit'

Water stops at midnight on Sunday and then nothing else until I have the 'exploration' at 12.30 apart from the much awaited enema!

Please pray for me that I only use one end of my body to get rid of the medication!! Preferably the part I am meant to use.

Unhappy Tina from Spain,

wishing she was from England and wishing she was having this blooming anima in hospital. I can't even reach my posterior when I am laying down!

Our Bedroom

2007-08-16T12:23:00.001-07:00

Right side of window where wardrobes are, well joke for wardrobes are!

Left side of window.

windows. Had to put blinds down as everything is far too bright to take photos.

silly wardrobes. How I envy yours Sandie.

Downstairs Bathroom

2007-08-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

Our units (see your clock Leeta) Units under sinks

Full to the top with sheets, duvet covers and towels
We do not have airing cupboards, under the stairs cupboards, any wall cupboards,

except the kitchen

Speaks for itself

Bath of course :O) Shower is on wall to the other end. The best jet shower I have ever

used. The temperature is always solid, the jets very powerful and a wide range.

I hate the shower curtain and not having matching towel's. One day I shall get both new!

Our journey to our new life. Part Four

2007-08-12T16:39:00.001-07:00

Our kitchen is an American style one, very small with the floorspace in between the units about the width of two door's I would say. This is looking in from the front room. The glass cabinets can be opened from this side or inside the kitchen. Behind the stools is a marbled effect tinted mirror.

At the far end you can see the stainless steel sink, below it to the left is a cupboard and to the right of that a dishwasher. The unit to the right: doubled doored cupboard set of draws and then a doubled door cupboard again. The unit to the left: my fridge freezer and next to that the broken washing machine :O( above on the unit is my microwave, n ext to the washer is the oven

We used to live in a very quite part of Orihuela-Costa in Los Palmeros. Orihuela is full of culture, history, churches and a cathedral. There is 16 kilometres of pure almost white beach not far from us. When we first moved here our road was quite with beautiful views, not built up and we could see for miles across the road, it was all empty spaces. We never, ever heard a car or humans screeching at each other as we do now.

Orihuela is famous for the ‘palmeral’ a huge palm tree forest and the river Seguria, We almost went to see it with Paul and Kirstie, we just never quite made it. Once Dave’s pension kicks in we will be able to travel a bit to see these places.

We live about ten minute’s car ride from this beautiful beach. In our part of Spain (as I am sure they do in England) they keep the beaches immaculately clean. Each morning a big sand sweeper arrives and sweeps up any seaweed that may have been deposited on the beach during the night, each evening it returns to sweep the entire beach, collecting up as it goes any thing left by the tourists.

Dogs are not allowed on the beaches, they have beaches they are allowed on, and one is very near our home. It has sand dunes mostly with a small beach and forest towards the back, well a Spanish forest anyway he he. (I shall send photos when I take them)

We never hear Gizzy cry, you know whimper and yelp except when we are in the car and I say ‘Beach’ she gets so excited that she actually starts crying and whimpering. They both love the sand and the dunes; they sometimes even get their toes wet and paddle.

I did not know that Toffee was capable of making a crying sound until they both had a hysterectomy together. The vet made the mistake of taking little Gizzy down first, I phoned to see if they were alright and they told me all that noise that I could hear was Toffee! I was flabbergasted, it sounded like a pack of wolfs!

They said they were both quite and cuddled up until they took Gizzy, Toff started crying that turned into wolf howls. I should have told them that Toff is the bigger dog but by far the baby; she depends on her Mum for everything. Giz is laid back and would not have cried if they had taken Toff first, she may have been frightened and sad but I do not think she would have made a noise.

Hope you liked the pictures of our stairs Leeta, he he, everyone will think I have gone off my head.

I am most happy to say that the letter is the only bad thing that has happened to us whilst living in Spain, many stupid or funny things, yes but nothing so bad. YET!

Our New pastor Steve and his wife Irene Marie are settling in nicely, They have asked Dave and I to be the welcoming committee on the door, which we happily excepted. The only downside so far is the computer has gone out the window as far as the songs are concerned, we now hand out song books when we welcome people, the reason for this is that Irene Marie cannot play many tunes :O) perhaps one day we may get someone that can help out with the music ah.

We also have just started a 'prayer chain' there is seven people (couples count as one) on it so far and Dave and I are one of them. If any of you need prayer, there is no prayer request too small or too unknown to us that we will not undertake. (i.e. Great Aunt Sophie in Iceland) no matter for what or how small please do not hesitate to ask. Leeta Arthur will be the first to go onto the chain.

Who ever gets the request log the date, name, telephone no. and prayer request then pass it to the next on the list, all the rest need to know is the request of course and whom the prayer request started, that way it should finish in the right place with no 'round robins'.

We have also put our name down for next Saturday to do the cleaning of the Church, there is four sets of couples that will do this months cleaning. It is the first time we have done it so I hope we will do it properly and find everything! There are lots of large windows to clean :O) Our Church will only need to do this once every two months as we share with another Church and they will take there turn. Hopefully other people will put there names down and it will not always be the same four who volunteer!

Irene Marie has just phone to ask can we help them with some sort of cleaning job, not quite sure what it all is as I could not fully understand her accent :O) We of course said Yes, they have invited us to lunch first, that will be nice. We will go to there house at 1.30 this afternoon. Irene Marie said they will of course pay us, we said No.

Hope all goes well with Arthur's results today Leeta.

Tina x

2007-08-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

I cannot do a photo bucket. I get right up to clicking 'create a slide show' and when it finally opens it is onto a blank white sheet. I have tried a hundred times.

Because my computer is very slow I have done it again with just 4 photos all under 100 kb. but it still opens to a white page :O(

I have now run out of time as I have to cook Sunday dinner, we have to eat early today as it is Church and rush home for Dave to do an airport run.
Tinax

some photos I have been asked for lol

2007-08-11T16:08:00.000-07:00

stairs going up!!
The landing!

Looking down from top!

the 2nd landing lookind down

Outside tonight about 1.30am.
My craft room tomorrow!!

Our journy to a new life..part three

2007-08-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

The letter, it is hard to see. If anyone wants it sent via email I shall.

notice there logo at the bottom!!

The letter was picked up by us on Christmas Eve, as you may be able to see from the date it was typed and delivered to us on 24th Dec. He must have crept up to the post box to post it because neither Dave, I, or the dogs heard him, coward that he turned out to be.

We had to stick indoors absolutely frightened to step out in case the Gaudier Civil were waiting to chain our beautiful new home and auction it. We were unable to take the dogs for a walk, unable to spend time looking at our surrounding town, the weather had cheered up and we were stuck in doors.

We were in a strange country, we did not understand their laws or their language and we were far away from everyone we loved. We had no phone or mobile so we could not contact our sons for moral support. I do not think two people could have been more frightened or alone in their lives.

As soon as the solicitors offices opened we were on the phone making an appointment to see them, we mentioned about the chains as we were afraid to leave the house, we half expected her to laugh and say it was not so but she did not. She said that this is possible if we owe money, they cannot chain the house or attempt to get us out whilst we were in it, they would have to wait until we left, she doubted though, whether our property was being watched, due to the time of year. We decided to go; in fact we had to go.

There we were creeping out of our own house dogs in arms, diving into the car that Dave had already sneaked out to open when he looked about to make sure all was clear, to avoid being seen leaving.

It is so stupid, we took the dogs with us and left them in the car whilst we saw the solicitor in case our house was chained up and they were locked in! Christmas should have been so different to the way it turned out; we were so looking forward to our first Christmas in our new home and Country.

We were told by Karl our rep that sent this letter, that if we went into Torrevieja on Christmas Eve we would see the most wonderful site at the Church in the square, the children all sing and there is a nativity play by the little Spanish children, small presents are handed out to everyone. We missed that to. We have however watched it each year since :O)

The solicitor after reading the letter, said this was quite correct and that we would have to pay this fee of 500, 000, 00 pesetas (about £2,500.00) within fourteen days. We explained that he had not told us about this fee and we had not agreed to it. After a lot of going out the office to check all the paperwork on the property sale etc, she said to leave it with her; she would have lots to shift through to make sure we had not signed something in Spanish offering this fee. She said this fee was quite normal and she seemed pretty sure we had signed something.

We spent a further week trapped in the house wondering ourselves if we had signed something, although Dave was pretty sure we had not. You can get very paranoid in a situation like this, I thought I saw people looking into the windows or scurrying across the garden, and Dave had to go and investigate more than once.

At last the phone call came to go and see her, we once more took the dogs and left our house, we were not protected this time with ‘the time of year’ as we were now well and truly into the new year.

She greeted us with a smile and told us we had not signed anything giving this man any money what so ever except of course the normal fees his company charge, she found out that the company was his, he had no legal right for his company to make a charge the and then try another charge privately as an employer. She said that under normal circumstances most people would be frightened and pay, she was quite sure he was unscrupulous and therefore wrote to him and said that unless we received a full apology from him we would take the matter further; she also said that she was sure this was not the first case.

He rang the bell about a week later, but stayed well back from the gate to say how sorry he was, it was an oversight and then he dived into his car and was gone. The company folded a week later. Dave has recently seen him working for an estate agent. Yes he did think about going in and having it out with him, but decided against it I am very glad to say.

Then second bedroom upstaires

More tomorrow.....

Our Jorney to a new life. Part two

2007-08-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

I am sorry, for some reason it will not save any paragraphs. It is grouping it together. I know this makes it hard to read. I have tried several times now. It looks good each time I go back to edit. I have made the gaps very large but it still puts it back without the gaps.
.

I am sooo clever, I have thought of putting a false stop where I want a paragraph, this surely must give me a gap as it is the same as a line of text. Fingers crossed, I shall see once I post :O) Yes it has worked but for some reason the dots have not stayed in the centre in all cases, and different sizes...Strange, they are all the same on the post...

Taken from across the road on top floor of villa park three

The right side of house, just beyond the blue table is a bench that sits under the large olive tree that Dave loves so much.

The left side where I like to sit reading. just behind my table is the lemon tree and beyond that the orange tree.

The story continues.....

.
We arrived to the coldest weather Spain had experienced for over forty years! It was windy, raining and freezing.

It was nearly Christmas and we had no bed, no saucepans, no kettle no settee and no blankets! All we had was the glass table and four chairs they had left us! Our furniture was not due for another day. They had also left two single beds upstairs but no blankets or pillows. We were starving and freezing, what ever had we done.

We went out by foot in search of some where we could eat. We found a little place that sold a very large chicken and chips (half a chicken in fact). We ate all we could and brought the rest back for later. We slept upstairs with our coat wrapped round us freezing to death. These houses are made to keep cool not warm!

.
The next morning we picked up our hired car and made for the airport to pick up our darling dogs from the plane, we were bursting to get them. We were shown to the side entrance where large items are taken from the cargo planes. We watched until we saw a plane land, eventually we saw the conveyor belt bring lots of animal cages off, the men just almost tossed them from the belt to the big fork truck things, we were the only people there to pick up their pets, I do not know why.

.
Anyway the men disappeared and left all the kennels on the forklift truck, as there was no one around and we could not get to them to peek I decided to call them. As soon as I called “Where are my babies” something I have always said to them on arriving home etc. the barking and crying started, I recognised there bark straight away, we knew what kennel they were in as it started to rock as they scratched and jumped to get out.

.
Eventually a man arrived at a large window in the wall and speaking in Spanish of course (the second of many confusing conversations we were to have) the first being last night trying to order something to eat!

.
He eventually brought the large kennel holding both dogs to us and disappeared, what were we to do, just take the dogs out and go. They were just crying pitifully so we opened the door and let them out. What excitement and love was had by all. We waited nearly one hour before someone came so we could return the kennel (we did not want to be charged for it if it went missing) to our surprise we eventually understood that the kennel was ours to keep! We still have it upstairs on the sunroof filled with tools.

.
We were to live in the state of cold hunger and disappointment for a further week as our furniture did not arrive until one week after we arrived. I cannot tell you how cold we were, no carpets anywhere, the bathroom was freezing and our breath looked like smoke every time we took a shower. We did not have any bath towels either, they had left a couple of hand towels clean and fresh in the bathroom upstairs, thank heavens for small mercies.

.
Hurrah our furniture arrived on 29th November; at least we would be OK for Christmas, that was a laugh.

.
This house has a large front room come diner, yet the packing cases filled it to the ceiling, every tiny inch was smothered in boxes. We just did not know where to start, we could not get to the boxes they had unpacked first, and they had packed them neatly one on top of the other row after row. We had something in the region of 45 boxes.

.
We had tried to sort them as they brought them in but they could not understand a single word and totally ignored our requests to look at the writing I had put on each one. I.e.: bedroom... kitchen... etc.

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It was to be a few weeks before we found the saucepans and blanket etc. We ate out at that little restaurant for a good while until we got ourselves straight, it was warm and welcoming. The husband and wife that ran it were always so pleased to see us and often gave us a sweet free. We found out later, much later that their garden backs onto ours!!!

.
I took photos of all the boxes and the dogs in the kennel from the plane, I have put the CD in but they are all just squares that will not open :O( I can only assume it was because I wrote the CD on my Mac. I do not know. So no photos I am afraid.
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On December the 23rd Dave looked inside the little post box we had in the front garden, to our surprise we had a letter! It was addressed to us both so we rushed in and settled down to read it. From the moment we read it until three days after Christmas we walked around in utter fear.

.
It was from the man that had showed us around the house with Doug and Liz, he had taken us to the Escutoria and made a lot of arrangements for us. He was the one that had been the go between with the German couple that sold it and Dave and I. We liked him a lot, he had been a great help.

.
Well this letter said we owed him several thousand pounds for his services (I cannot remember the exact amount) and as we had ignored his requests for it, as in Spanish law he had put a chain on the house, it no longer belonged to us and when we left it, it would be locked and barred from our re entrée. I cannot remember now what it said exactly (We still have it though)

We spoke to someone we had met whilst walking the dogs and he said that this is normal practice and unless we paid we would have the house taken from us. We could not get in touch with the solicitor that had dealt with the sale as it was Christmas. That man completely ruined our first Christmas in Spain. Dave was sick to the stomach the whole time; needless to say we did not have several thousands of pounds to give him.

.
The weather continued to freeze our bums off, and we continued to wonder what on earth we had done.............................. More tomorrow

This is now my arts and craft room, photos later
.

'our journey to a new life' ...Part One

2007-08-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Hi

Sandie asked me to do a blog on our house, she wanted to see photos of the outside and inside, and how we first decided to live in Spain. For those of you that feel this long and boring, well just do not read it ah ;O) here it is.

I will tell you a little bit of how we came to be living in Spain. We would never have dreamt in our wildest dream that we would live anywhere abroad.

We were selling our property in order to live in Sheffield to be near my sisters.

The first house Dave fell in love with was an ‘upside down house’ we travelled up to Sheffield to view it. I did not like it at all, I had very bad vibes from it.

I felt a strong feeling of sadness and, well evilness all the time I was in the house. I cannot explain quite how bad this feeling was, the walls were closing in on me, and I felt extremely low and sort of breathless. I hated the feeling and could not wait to get out. Unfortunately Dave was so very ‘in love’ with it that after many hours of discussing with Leeta and others, I gave in.

I made an appointment for my Daughter Leeta to view it with us. As the owner was showing us round, I turned to smile at Leeta and she was not there, Dave whispered that she was waiting out side. I thought how very rude of her, we made this appointment with the owners especially to show her round. Once we left I found Leeta in the street a few doors down, I asked her what ever happened and why did you leave, she just said “Mum I am very sorry, I could not stay in there, it had such bad vibes it was suffocating, I felt an evil presence all the time we were walking around, I had to get out”. That freaked me as I felt the same way but Dave laughed it off, as did a few others.

It was called ‘an upside down house’ because it was upside down in as much as the bedrooms and bathroom, toilet and roof patio were on the lower portion, upstairs was the kitchen, dining room and front room with the T.V. and fire place etc. you looked out of the window to a slated roof below!!! The garden was on the upper level. It sort of was built on land that had a gigantic step, so the garden was upstairs and the lower half was below ground level! It was a large ‘L’ shaped garden with a well and small pond. I must admit it was as David put it ‘A real fairy garden’ but even there I felt uncomfortable. Anyway at the last possible moment the owners withdrew the sale, we had spent money going ahead with it, but to me I was delighted we could not have it, as was Leeta...

The next property we once again set our hearts on was beautiful, we had now sold our home. We had previously brought a wonderful caravan from Babs and Mo that came in very useful to us now. We were now living in the caravan full time. (Thanks to the upside down house falling through)

Anyway all was going great with the sale until a few days before we were about to sign the papers, (A young female teacher was selling the property we were about to purchase) our solicitor found out that the powers to be had been lying about the lease hold, it had a 99 year lease on it! The estate agency denied this right to the bitter end, but we had to go along with what our solicitor had dug up. The teacher was astounded and swore she never had a clue about the lease, huh, I don’t think so.

We had previously brought a wonderful caravan from my sisters Babs and Mo. We have spent many a great holiday both with them and without them. I can tell you a tale of an awful thing they did, but that is another story!

Anyway, we were living in our caravan in Hythe. It was September and bitterly cold, the site was closing down soon on over night stays, and we needed to be re homed quickly.

We moved all our shattle into my Daughters home in Leicestershire, it was grossly over crowded, Leeta was sleeping on the settee in order to give us her bed, and we did feel bad about it.

We were going back and fourth to Sheffield to try our luck with property, but nothing was coming on the market in Deepcar, which was the only place we would view, as anywhere else seemed pointless, we wanted Deepcar only.

My brother Doug and his wife Liz were going to Spain at the end of September, they were going to view apartments as they wanted to retire to Spain. they rang us up out of the blue and asked us if we would like to go with them, they were thinking of perhaps living there, we said “thanks, but we needed to stay put in order to rush to Sheffield at the drop of a hat to view property, quite apart from the fact we had no spare cash as we were having our furniture stored etc.”

My brother can be extremely persuasive as any one that knows him will tell you, he told us the apartment they were staying in was for four people and so we could stay with them free (apart from the air fare). In the end, one week’s holiday in Sunny Spain with Liz and Doug sounded a good idea in order to give Leeta a breather.

We had already sold our caravan to the people parked next to our one, they were to take it over on the last day the site was open, when we left it :O)

We stayed with Doug and Liz at there home the night before the flight.

The flight was booked and it seemed we were on our way to Spain the next morning. we were sitting in the cafe eating breakfast in the airport the next morning and missed our flight! We had to return to Doug’s for another night, we were lucky as we did not have to pay extra for the flights the next day!

Anyway, the apartment Doug and Liz were staying in, turned out to be for two not four! So we had to rush around to find us an apartment near to them that was affordable to us :O( We eventually found one just round the corner.

We had a good week, we looked at many flats but it all seemed beyond Doug and Liz’s finances. During the week we went with Doug and Liz to a 70th birthday party of one of their friends ‘Dolly’ Gerry is her hubby. You have all heard us talk of them and Leeta knows them personally from way back. We had a wonderful time with them and have been very dear friends ever since.

Towards the end of the week we saw this detached house for sale and just as a ‘nosey’ Doug rang the agents and met them to view.

It was of course the house we brought. It all happened so quickly, we had viewed it, seen a solicitor, had the money transferred over and brought the house in just one week! The owner’s husband had to fly out from Germany to sign, and because of this we had to return one week later.

We spent that week, just Dave and I in the same apartment we had previously stayed in.

We walked past our new home at least a zillion times per day! We did manage to view it once more before we left for England.

We were living in our new home in Spain by December the 22nd! It is hard to believe that we were living in England with no home of our own at the end of September and living in our new home in Spain three month's later at the end of December. Not bad ah! The house was actually brought and ours in a little over one week!

I will write some more tomorrow as I am afraid this will get to long and boring.
Tina

Spain

Blue Lagoon. Part two

2007-08-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Hi

Dave and I were out when Jeanette came so I am writing this alone.

As I mentioned in the last blog, the water was such wonderful colours that Brian decided to take Bessie (the campervan) down to the lake. I also mentioned we were extremely high up, we could see cars at the bottom so knew we could get down. In fact we saw an old rusty broken car laying ¾ way down, it had obviously gone over the edge :O(

Anyway we all started the very bumpy journey down the groovy paths; Jay and I were a little frightened as it tipped the van from side to side rattling all her china etc. Halfway down we could see that the paths got narrower and narrower, the van was never going to get through, there was no way of turning round so Brian said to hold on in the back and he just went for it slowly, the wheels were missing the path and going over rocks and small bushes rocking the van badly from side to side. I was scared and I could see from Jeanette’s face she was too. We made it! Once down we stayed whilst Dave and Brian ran to see the best way back, the best way wasn’t good for Bessie.

We started back up the hill slowly and got well and truly stuck, no way up and no way back, driving backwards down a path that was only wide enough for a car seemed our only option! Dave was out of the van shouting “STOP! BACK BRIAN, OVER A BIT; DON’T COME OVER THIS SIDE ANYMORE! Over a bit, STOP! I know Dave facial expressions well as you can imagine, and I could see he was very worried. Once home and alone Dave told me that he never thought Brian would get us out without turning the van, he said that he just does not know how he did it, a great bit of driving that took a lot of guts!

Anyway, we finally was back where we started and Dave went off running to see the best root out, we eventually veered to the right and up we crawled again, no good, the path was just far to steep with sudden little hills that were almost like a deep step! We were stuck again, only this time we could not go back because of the steep hills we had managed.

After a while with Jeanette and I really scared sitting either side of the van on the long settee seats, with I hasten to add, no belts and Dave and Brian whispering in the front, Brian suddenly turned and told us to hold on as we just had to go forward and would be climbing very steep bits. Understatement of the year, well whole century actually.

The van was really rocking two and throw, it sounded as if all the china was breaking to pieces. One of her pictures shot of the wall and the glass smashed.

One minute I was looking at Jeanette face, she really looked scared and was calling out to Brian “are we going over Brian, Brian are we going over?” the next she was no longer there! She had shot off the seat, legs in the air was sliding all the way to the far end of the van, she scrambled to her feet so fast that I don’t think she was sure what had just happened, her face said it all! She started to make her way back just as Brian attempted to go up a sudden steep hill, once again poor Jeanette went shooting backwards on her feet this time, and she gathered momentum and ended in a pile at the far end again! (I am so sorry, but as I type this I cannot keep from laughing, she reminded me of Leeta and the omelet!) Jeanette is a good sport and did not complain as she crawled back to her seat.

Well not for a few minutes anyway, because we both let out quite a lot of noise over the next fifteen minutes as we very often came close to going all the way down to the bottom ‘sideways’!!!

Several times over the next fifteen twenty minutes Dave had to get out and try to guide Brian through paths that were very steep and far to narrow for the van with a drop (not vertically but almost) a very deep, deep, hill indeed with loads of rocks and bushes on it.

The sight of that wrecked broken car was still in my mind whilst we stumbled our way back to normality, as it must have been in all of our minds.

Wish on hindsight we had taken a photo of the steep hill with the car a tiny speck, but instead we used Jeanette’s fantastic zoom and took a really close up of it which does not show that it lay 3/4 down a drop at all. Well not in our wildest dreams did we ever know we were going down there and may not get up again.

Once Brian managed to get the two front wheels up a very deep ‘well I can only describe it as a sudden steep mound’ but Bessie was far to wide to get the rest of herself up and started to slide down again with Brian revving and making a lot of noise. It was all very scary indeed.

I cannot describe to you the constant noise in the van of plates, cups crockery glasses and all the other bits crashing around, it just added to the fear we all felt. Miraculously on a very quick inspection of the over head cupboards nothing looked broken. The plates are all in deep racks so they must have banged together but stayed where they were as did the cups and glasses. Jeanette will probably find cracks here and there when she takes them out I expect. Everything under the seats we were sitting on was rushing from side to side with a noise like thunder.

Once on the road again we all took a big sigh of relief. No wonder when we got back Brian and Dave had a little to much to drink ;O) lol

Both Dave and I are very impressed with Brian and his managing of Bessie. I do not expect they will be taking us out again in a hurry, why oh why does chaos follow me around!

Dave and Brian coming back from picking up the chips. They look pleased to be alive don't you think?

2007-08-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

Just for Babs :O)

Blue lagoon part one

2007-08-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

We are home from our day out, the men are slowly getting pie eyed in the garden, well in fact they have just gone across the road to get chips and Jay says if she knows Brian, they will be drinking Guinness whilst they wait! At the take a way’s in Spain the men go alone as they are always offered a drink whilst they wait!! I have returned to this bit to let you know that they are still not home!

PS We know they cook fresh chips BUT…..

PPS they have just walked across (well swayed across) about one hour later! Balancing the chips between them! What a sight, they will be suffering tomorrow ;O)

Our day was fantastic, if a bit scary! Brian took us to this fantastic place where the lake’s are a colour that you would say “Oh yea” if you saw it in a painting. I cannot describe it to you,

Parts are the most beautiful green whilst other parts are Turquoise, and others are the most beautiful light teal. We have many photos for you but will only put a few on this; the remainder may have to go on a slide show if we can do it. Anyway the scary bit came on the way home so I will tell you about that in part two.

We took the long scenic way round, so it took about one hour to arrive, but you can do it in about twenty minutes usually।

After we arrived, Jeanette and I decided to cross the barrier to get closer and admire the view (needless to say it was a main road) the photos will show you what Brian thought of us skipping the barrier,

skipping was hardly what we did though! . I was wearing a long straight skirt (not good for cocking ones leg as you will see). It took me some time to get over but once I did a full hand clap resounded, I looked up sheepishly to find a group of men a little way up the road clapping me! Jeanette positively hopped over!! I personally think she was showing off in front of these rather dishy men.

After the utter shock of the colour of the lakes, (Jeanette and Brian had already seen them last week) but for Dave and I it was Awesome, we set up our table for the picnic, well it was more than a picnic I would say, Jeanette had done us proud।

We had a lunch fit for a queen. After we had eaten and tidied away we decided to get closer to the lakes for some photos. Just a few here, we will try to do a photo slide show later. I am frightened as you all know of water but this was very inviting, especially as the temperature was scorching, our clothes stuck to us as if we had already taken a swim. 34.7 Outside and rising! Phew didn't we know it, our hair was stuck flat to our heads!

The lake is full of fish; we were up very high when this photo was taken. I hope you can just about see him!

Brian found out the story of the lakes, it used to be a village called la pedrera In Franco’s time. The irrigation of the land was very poor, the dictator Franco decided it needed a lake, as the village lay in a valley it was the most appropriate place for it. There were about 17 dwelling in this tiny village. The village was notified that they had to clear all their belongings as they were about to be re housed and their village flooded! I hope they were happy about getting a new house rather then devastated to be loosing theirs.
Franco declared that the people of the area would never go hungry again; he filled the lake with hundreds of fish and decreed that all Spanish people could fish the lake without a licence and eat all that they could catch! (All other fresh water lakes needs a licence and the fish caught must be replaced)

Jeannette says that there is a village near Sheffield, up in the dales that this happened to. Jeanette saw the tops of the houses in 1976 (The hot summer) the water had dropped so much. People were taking photos of the roof tops!

Going back to our lake, it is hard to imagine that under all that beautiful blue green water lays a village. Brian dived down and he said you could actually see the tables set for dinner ;O) oops this must be a fib as Jeanette has just said that Brian would panic as soon as water reached his belly button!

As this blog is getting a little long we had better put it into two episodes. More tomorrow.

Tina & Jay x

Spain

knitted boxes

2007-08-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

Did anyone notice the fruit dish in the photo of Giz?

Where are all the brightly coloured ones you were going to knit Sandie and Sindie?

Here is the one I knitted for Leeta (it is on it's way)

and here is another I knitted for me lol.

I want to see all of them all please. I do hope you knitted them.

Looking dogone good

2007-08-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

Mummy said I could go on her blog, I rushed out to get ready.

2007-08-04T05:37:00.001-07:00

Just a short ‘funny’ blog for you

Pilar (our interpreter) came round this morning to pick up my medical card ready for her to get my medication in preparation for the ‘bowel camera’

I offered her a drink and she reclined saying “Oh no, I have hot tea” As she only had her handbag with her, I assumed she may have answered in ' typical Spanish English', I asked if she took milk and sugar, she repeated that she has hot tea, opening her quite large bag she pulled out a plastic 1 pint plastic water bottle filled with black hot tea! I could not stop laughing as I told her about our bag contents fun, she promptly told me to get my pen. She had:
I pint of hot black tea
A screw driver (for her gate!)
Large fan
Cooling spray
The biggest ever address book
A very heavy looking file a fax
A phone
A note book and pen
A Spanish/English dictionary that was very large and heavy.
A red triangular scarf that she told me belonged to her large dog that died two months ago,

she swallowed a ball and they had to operate to remover it but her kidneys failed and she died three days later. She was a lovely large dog that we have met several times. Only four years old. :O(

She had many other things but but as she had started to cry we never continued.

The hot tea beat you all I think!!

Tip runs

2007-08-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

Hi

Thought I would show you what Dave got from the tip runs, this is especially for you Poo to look at.

They came from the restaurant across the road. The large brown wooden box was full of , brown and white sugar packets, also sweetener powder (showing in the photo) any takers :O) The sugar we have made use of. The two boxes above had a very large bottle of champagne in them...empty!

For those of you that do not understand what I mean by 'tip runs' I will explain. In Spain they have a fantastic idea.

With the very hot weather, bins are not kept in the house, nor do we have dustbins, you dispose of the waste into the communal carts as and when you get it. In most houses you see a carrier bag hooked up somewhere in the kitchen and this is filled and emptied whenever you are going out.

3 We have very large bins which are parked usually within a five minute walk from any house (ours is just a few seconds down the road) There is a place next to the carts for a ‘Take it if you need it’

Anything you no longer need, be it clothes, furniture, electrical goods, even fruit and food that have grown in abundance in gardens or groves, in fact just about anything will be found there waiting for a good home. Dave does the ‘Tip runs’ regularly along with lots of others people :O)

You do have to be quick and lucky. What isn’t taken by the end of the day (about 1.30 am) is taken away with the rubbish to keep the streets tidy. Our home is practically made up from these ‘gifts’.

Tina Spain

Contents of my bag

2007-08-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

Purse / empty
Fan
Pen perfume holder
mini brush in holder for in-between my teeth

thin sheet perspex for teeth
Perfume atomiser…empty
Intimate hygiene wipes
Note pad and pencil
Large safety pin
Three paper hankies
Two indigestion tablets
Silk string bag holding three earl grey tea bags
Three IBS tabs
One tablet for Miniars disease attack
One silver (is it called filigree) pill box

One lip shine
One hearing aid battery
One C.I.B.T.A.C calculator
One flat sewing kITOne glasses cleaner spray & cloth
One flat magnetic address book (this is open partly)

Just look how flat they both are!

One glass nail file in case
One pair silver folding scissor
One St Christopher medal pinned in bag
One mobile phone
One double sided mirror
Pack of address cards I made
One Barclays Visa card
One Regimen Comunitario Residente card with my finger prints

One Tarjeta Sanitaria Europea card (Holds all my details Spain has given me)

Birdie Num Num

2007-08-01T15:45:00.001-07:00

Take a look at this photo Dave took with his mobile in one hand whilst feed num num with the other.

She is getting so tame now. Her feathers are all messed up and sticking straight up in between her wings from feeding her young :O)

I made a bird feeding box from a tray that food came in! I put some pine nuts and sunflower seeds etc. into a little bowel next to it. I brought them for myself as a treat whilst in England two years ago, I completely forgot I had them. I also soak french bread in water over night, I break it for them the next morning. They polish both off.

Birdie Num Num still prefers to be hand fed!!!

Good news at last!

2007-07-31T15:49:00.000-07:00

Good news on the western front. Dave has just phoned England (well earlier today) about his pension and guess what? They have been under paying me; they are upping my pension to …wait for it…£53.00 per week. I believe I have the correct amount, I cannot remember and Dave is out walking the dogs. He he, how wonderful is that.

What with Dave’s pension and mine going up so much this time next year Rodders we will be billionaires.

Just a silly, happy little blog.

Tina

view from Lydl's

2007-07-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

OK, thought you may like to see our view from the Lidl's car park :O)

See the sea behind the lidl'e post?

Very nice ah, makes shopping a little brighter! Look at the colour of the sea and the sky. These two photos was taken on two different shopping days and from two different Lidl's. This one is our very local one. The other a little further on.

Car hic up

2007-07-31T09:31:00.000-07:00

Dave was out in the car when he had to stop at a cross road that was showing a stop sign, the car behind him did not! The chap was German and spoke no English so the whole thing was a bit of a night mare for Dave. He managed to get all the details.

Dave cannot understand why so much damage was done, or why the lamp was not smashed! You should see the other mans car according to Dave, it is completely smashed in, the Bonnet is jammed up and all sorts

When Dave managed to contact the Insurance people he was told that we will have to pay the first £200.00. My gast was truly flabbergasted as I thought it would be up to his side to pay ALL the expenses, apparently not.

We were saving to have the air con in the car mended and then my washing machine and then a printer! Ha it has all slipped back a couple more months now. Dave is frightened to leave the air con in the car as it was not just for our comfort we were having it repaired (and believe it when I say we need it with the outside over 100degrees. Not to mention the inside) it is to keep the car and engine cool or something, Dave said it is slowly being messed up.

The photos do not show the damage in half its glory.

The part that is damaged surrounds the entire bottom of the car and all the side and even the roof, it is one piece! The under bit will have to be replaced as well, so £200.00 will only be a drop in the ocean I think.

I have no washing machine, no printer, no Photoshop and no car for a week, not to mention any money!!!!! That does not sound bad when you just type it does it BUT. Washing by hand in this heat is not funny, not being able to print any inserts for birthday cards or anything else we want to print is a very big nuisance and not having Photoshop to make my photos small enough for me to put on the blog is just another pain! I have to put it all on my flash and cart around to Jeanette’s for her to let me do it on her computer! She is a blessed ark angel.

The one good thing in all this is that Dave was not hurt, you know his track record. He hit his head this morning on…wait for it….The flipping fridge door! I heard the bang and then the Oh, when I rushed in he was hopping around (as only a man can do, when he gets a little bump) anyway the fridge door was wide open, he he, whilst getting a beer out he stood up and hit his head on the top of the door, ha ha he he, sorry Dave I just cannot help laughing, he still had his head inside the fridge!! Lol

Oh well it is all sent to try us, the world is a horrid place and we are NOT in that place so we have to count our blessings ah? I am happy with my lot, warts and all. :O)

Tina. Spain

Salt lakes of Torrevieja and Orihuela (La Mata)

2007-07-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Thought I might tell you a little bit about our famous Salt lakes, we pass them every time we do a shop! We have them at Torrevieja and Orihuela, (the Orihuela lake is called ‘lagoons of La Mata’ they are famous for their salt production. This is a photo I took when we were last there of the pink lake and the Hugh lumps of salt that look much like snow

As you drive into Torrevieja it is so impressive and fascinating to see the huge salt mountains piled up outside the salt storage. Torrevieja and Orihuela produce each year more than half a million tons to be used as rough salt or refined salt for your table! (Think of us when you use your salt and pepper next time). Next time I shop in Torrevieja I will take some photos of the huge salt lakes surround the road down from Alicante and the mountains of salt. Here is a photo of the salt being taken out to sea to the large boats.

The most delightful site of all is the beautiful Flamingos you see basking in the pink salt lake. Dave and I were wondering if the reason Flamingos are pink is because of the bright pink salt lake they swim and eat in. Here is a photo of Paul and Kirstie about to try ‘the floating thing’

The salt lakes and Orihuela is said to be, by the World Health Organisation one of the healthiest climates on the planet, and we live here! Yes we do, take a look at our address. Orihuela-Costa. :O) This is a photograph of our sun sets.
Wish someone would tell Dave that and stop him falling and hurting himself all the time!
The following information is taken from a pamphlet.

The history of Torrevieja is to a large extent centered on the nearby twin lagoons of La Mata ( Orihuela) and Torrevieja. The two lakes are separated by just over a kilometer, Torrevieja is the larger lake, but La Mata has been historically the more important for it’s health value. The salt lakes traditionally belonged to the crown and served as royal hunting grounds. The king however granted hunting licenses and concessions to local allies.

The middle of the thirteenth century saw the first crown licenses granted to the residents of the nearby town of Orihuela to harvest salt.

Remember, this was an era where salt was a scarce and coveted resource. By the end of the middle ages La Mata, together with Ibiza, became the most important centre of salt production in the kingdom of Aragon. In fact, even today salt is extracted commercially from the lagoons. Nowadays, the water is allowed to heat up in La Mata lagoon, but the actual extraction of the salt takes place in Torrevieja lagoon, to where the water is transferred by means of an artificial channel. Because of the high salinity of the lakes there is little aquatic vegetation.

Tina. Spain

Our Church party

2007-07-27T06:43:00.000-07:00

Hi

Some of you are aware that our Pastor Rafael and his wife Mary and four children will be going to America (there home town) for one year. They are missionaries and evidently have financial support from various Churches in America, they have to return once every four years to visit each Church and share what has been done with the donations.

They will also be having ‘much needed time out’ to be with their families. Rafael will be pasturing his home town Church whilst they are in town with family as the town has lost its pastor. Mary was telling me that not one of them want to go at all, they have very tearful days indeed, but it must be done. The return to Spain will also be tinged with sorrow as they will be leaving their two elder daughters in college in America for two years.

Again my sister’s were aware I made them a card to present them on the night of the party.

They were thrilled with it and thought it a great reminder of the ‘family’ they will be leaving behind. It was a total surprise to them. Here is the card for those who have not seen it. It represents the inside of the Church hall. I remembered making one very similar for my Brother Bill and thought I may use the idea once again.

The evening was great and a lot of fun was had by all. The food was fantastic, I was given some chicken legs and delicious cream cake to take home with me, the chicken will do us a treat over the next three/four meals. It has been separated and frozen.

We played lots of fun games, and guess what? I came 1st in the quiz game, yes it is true. I had the most points out of the whole Church! What Tina I hear you say.

Irene Maria asked hands to be put up if anyone had over 300 point. No hands then 200 no hands then 175.Mine shot up and to my amazement I was the only hand. The last question gained me 100 points. :O) The question that won me the first prize was ‘Give yourselves ten points for each ring you are wearing on your hands’ 100 points!!!! I only had up to that point a measly 75 points. Lol

Here is a photo of Rafael Mary and myself with card.

Tina Spain

Our visit to the Vets

2007-07-27T04:31:00.000-07:00

I noticed the other day that Toff was licking her back paw a lot; I tried to look but she really yelped. then I clipped away the hair to expose what looked like a deep hole like a tooth bite on one of her toes. It was red and swollen. She had a very bad paw once before, it was a corn type spike embedded in her flesh.

As money is very tight we decided that we would treat it with the same iodine we had left over from her last visit. She stopped yelping when we touch it, and it was looking better so we thought we had it licked (or Toff had anyway he he)

This morning I decided to clip the dogs and bath them. I started really early as it gets well over 100 degrees after 10.30 until about 7pm. I decided to start with Toff, she is the biggest so therefore a lot more work but very easy and well behaved compared to little Giz who is scared stiff and wingy :O) . See how laid back she is :O)

Once I started on her back paw I noticed that although it seemed much more comfortable for her it was forming puss, I gently squeezed it and it oozed out, Although we would have preferred to treat her ourselves to save the money, we decided she needed to go and see her favourite vet after all!

I have taken some photos as I thought you may be interested

As soon as they saw the front of the building the shivering started! They sort of pull behind as we enter.
Once we had given our name, we wondered about looking at all the little animals they have for sail. This sort of tricks the girls into thinking they are not going to that nasty old room after all.
Oops someone called Toffia, who was that, in we go daddy, aren't we brave then! Oh no, that smell again, that room. Let us go home Mum!

Our usual favourite man vet had finished for the day, we were very disappointed to be seeing someone else, we eventually saw this beautiful Spanish girl, she spoke broken English with a lovely accent that just added to her attraction, she was a truly beautiful and gentle person too.

She took a look at her paw whilst I held a quivering Toff. She said straight away “She is a corn head into the flesh of the toe yes, I make her sleepy to how you say ‘pick her out of flesh with the tweezers’ I pulled a face as I hate them being put to sleep, I am sooo scared they will not wake again! She smiled at me and said “she is good brave dog yes?” I said she is very good, why? "Shall I try to pick out with cuddles and no sleepy, yes?" I said “ Yes please,we can but try” Well you can see by my face that I was hurting as bad as Toff was, she had this sort of warning low quite growl going the whole time! Whilst the vet whispered sweet nothings to her in Spanish the whole time

We decided we would not mind her treating Toff and Giz in the future if our man is not available.

She was squeezing the toe when suddenly this thing shot out like an arrow making both of us jump! Toff reached out to try to smell what had just shot in front of her!! Was it food! He he

I think it made the vet jump as much as me :O)

Once the grass was out, she shot iodine and water into the hole to clean it, and then gave Toff an injection right in the hole UGH! Poor Toff, she was so good.

She gave me a tube of cream with a long thin nozzle that I have to insert into the hole and squeeze. She said it will have to heal from inside out. She also gave a pack of tablet's, she has to take ½ twice a day for ten days.

Whilst we were there we thought we may as well get their anal glands done, a horrid job for that pretty vet.

With her paw better, bums clean, they both virtually ran out with tails wagging.We presented the slip of paper that has the treatment written on with a code so we did not know the damage yet. 20 Euros! I am amazed each time I get a bill. This is about £17.

We took the two dogs to a vet to have their glands done in England on our last trip, and it cost £15.00 each! We had the same treatment as well as all Toffs for just £17.00 total.

I have managed to give her the cream trying very hard not to close my eyes from the site of this thing going into her poor hole. She was good with Dave holding her.

Tina Spain.

Tina on a tiny journey

2007-07-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

Hi all

I am about to start a little journey of Spain, I shall try to take my camera around with me and catch all the strange things in Spain as well as all the wonderful things.

My other blog was not working for me, this one has opened much better. AND it is all in English :O)

I shall start tomorrow as it is 3.10am and I have a lot to do before hitting the sack.