Ramblings in Retirement
April 2009
April has been a lovely month with the weather becoming hot and little rain. The air is filled with the smell of orange blossom and spring is truly here. Talking of oranges, the main crop has been picked and sent off to the packers for export but there are still many orange groves where the fruit has been left on the trees to drop and rot. This is because the price to pick isn’t worth it for many growers. I recently saw 20kg (44lbs) for sale at €6 and that is only about 12p per pound!!
Work in the garden has stepped up; more weeding, planting of geraniums and work on my special project (you will learn more of this in May when I hope to complete it). The rose bed in particular looks great this year with many aromatic blooms. Our Jasmine which is arched over the back wall has been profuse with flowers and I only wish you could smell the heady aroma which greets us each day we go out.











Penny has created a lovely little spot at the end of our pool patio, it’s what we call our “Rincon de Silencio” (quiet corner), see for yourself but no noise please.








On Easter Saturday penny went to the UK for a few days to see the grandchildren, staying with Steven, Gail, Millie and Daisy. She enjoyed every minute although unaccustomed to the noise of young active children!! She had bought the children a dress and cardigan and had insisted that they be identical. The picture below does not do justice to either the dresses or the kids but what can you do!






My good fortune at golf seems to be continuing and I manage to pick up a couple of prizes yet again this month.


I was invited to a memorial golf day in the UK (it’s in memory of a restaurant manager who died of leukaemia) and went there with my friend Paul who lives near Tarragona. The flight from Barcelona with Ryanair was only €59.95 return which was a very good deal however, on enquiring about taking my golf clubs the cost would have been €60 return for the clubs alone! We flew out from Reus to Stansted on the Wednesday and all the weather reports gave out that it would rain heavily on the golf day, Thursday. On landing in the UK we headed off to a shopping centre to buy some wet weather gear and some golf balls and managed to pick up a bargain. On the actual day it was a little drizzly early on however this soon cleared up to a beautiful sunny day, sod’s law! Unfortunately my game was very poor and although I had to play with borrowed clubs and golf glove it would not explain my miserable performance. My only success was to get “nearest the pin” on one of the holes. Nevertheless, it was great to meet many old friends from Scottish & Newcastle swap horror stories and generally have a good time.


This issue has been written rather later than usual as things have been a little hectic since returning from the UK and the first few days of May have been unusually busy but should make for some interesting reading when I get round to writing. I’ve put many more photos on the weblog so go there if you can.
Meanwhile take care,