Ramblings in Retirement

October 2007

In stark contrast to September, October turned out to be a hectic month. Penny and I both set off from Valencia Airport in different directions, Penny to Leeds/Bradford Airport and I to Milan (Bregamo).

I was going to visit my old friend Julio who lives in the Tyrol arriving at his house to a warm welcome at around 9pm after driving some 300kms. As a piece of trivia, did you know that when driving in Italy you must have your headlights on at all times irrespective of the weather conditions? The following day Julio took me to the nearest town and we met with several of his relatives (on each occasion stopping for a coffee, beer or several glasses of wine). On the Sunday we went into the mountains where the scenery was stunning. After lunch we went for a stroll further up the mountain and I found the climb breathtaking (literally). Julio, despite being 10 years older and having recently recovered from a serious operation, seemed unaffected and marched on like a true yodeller! The following day we visited his brother-in-law who owns a nice tourist hotel in the Dolomites

On the Tuesday I returned to Milan and caught a flight to Prestwick, in Scotland, arriving at my sisters house for an overnight stay. The following day we headed out to Falkirk to see my Auntie Ann who looked to be in fine fettle and as witty as ever. She is an accomplished “poser” for the family who often want to have pictures taken with her and, I am no exception.

Later that day I set off to meet up with Penny at our house in Gildersome. Arriving at the house I only had time to dump my bags and we were off to a restaurant to meet up with Steven, Gail, Millie and Daisy. Boy, life can be hectic at times!

It turned out that the lounge window of the house had a crack running from bottom to top. Despite being installed only last November, the company concerned did not want to know, claiming it was not their fault. I contacted the Home Insurance Company who promptly sent out one of their team and it turned out that the window had been installed incorrectly with the glass lying on top of a screw-head, which, with the cold weather, had caused the crack. Worse was still to come, he advised that the glass (and that of two other windows) was not “toughened” and as such did not meet with the building regulations!! Calls to Trading Standards and the regulator “FENSA” did not bring any joy so, with my neighbour (it turned out that his windows were also not to specification), we went to demand action at the showroom. This seemed to work and I was promised the replacement would be done before we returned to Spain. Well, you can guess the rest, almost at the last minute and, after storming into the offices, a guy was sent with the glass to fit. During all this carry-on, our boiler had been playing up also; often not producing any hot water despite repairs supposedly having been carried out, there was still a fault.

We did eventually get the boiler fixed properly but between both of these incidents we were more often than not tied to the house waiting for someone to come and fix something or getting the garden under control. This has been “the straw that broke the camels back” so we decided to put the house in Gildersome up for sale. It is quite possible that we would purchase a “pied a terre” (but they don’t call them that in Gildersome), we will wait and see.

Thanks to a strike by the postmen, I was unable to do my normal “internet shopping” for fear that the goods would not arrive. PC world were unable to fix my laptop despite having it for a week so another couple of bummers there. I did however enjoy my pints of Timothy Taylor Landlord bitter, fish and chips, and pork pie with mushy peas plus visiting family and friends, so not all bad I suppose.

On arrival at our villa we found that the Costa Blanca had suffered the worst rain in 25 years and there were various stories of bridges, cars and even pleasure boats being washed away and substantial damage to peoples homes. Nothing much had happened to our property apart from losing the contents of a small freezer (the heavy rain had knocked out our electricity). However, closer inspection in the garage showed that it was under several centimetres of water and, worse still; the lift shaft had flooded on the bottom, causing the lift to fail . The following week was all about getting a submergible pump, a wet and dry vacuum and draining the water from the garage. This proved to be more difficult than I thought as midweek the heavens opened yet again and refilled the garage! Never mind, I found the ideal solution!

On the Friday, I went to play golf (it had turned out nice) and found the garage under 12cms of water yet again making it a wet foot job to get my clubs out!!! Then I played lousy into the bargain.

Penny continues with her artwork albeit slower this month owing to being in the UK but this one is good.

Got a big showing of Video clips at the computer club on the 1^st November and I will send you the link for my entry before the next Ramblings.

Bye for now.