T is for Traveling home

Happy T Day! It’s good to be home in the sun, it’s been quite a busy week. Our journey was good, we were off the boat and on the road by 8:15am even though three drivers didn’t come back to their cars and we had to wait as none of the cars could get past to go down the ramp.

I took a few photos on the way, the first one is Burgos, from a distance but if you look closely you can see the cathedral, we’ve never stopped off for a closer look as we are always eager to get home.

A couple of quick snaps of two lovely old building in Lerma, the town is set on a slight hill, very typically spanish with the houses clinging to the hillside.

Our first stop is just past Lerma, we always have breakfast here and fill up with diesel. I take over the driving from here until Madrid.

Our breakfast, bacon bocadilla with sliced tomatoes grilled, a la plancha, as they say, delicious especially when you are hungry! My drink for this week too, our first Spanish coffee, goes down a treat.

I took this photo of our Sat Nav in the car, at 5.15pm an hour from home and it was reading 26c, not bad for February, I took it to show our sons, I’m sure sometimes they don’t believe how hot it can be in winter.

Steve finally got his new armchair delivered although at the time he was at the dentist, he broke a tooth, would you believe he was only eating Rice Crispies for his breakfast, trying to encourage our GS to have some

We are having two new lights fitted in the bedrooms tomorrow, we are having air con in the spare bedroom on Friday so we can finally get rid of the ceilings fans, they get so dusty and it’s hard to clean them as they are over the beds so they are going at last, the new lights are very glitzy, silver and sparkly, I’m just hoping they don’t look like a disco glitter ball when they are lit, LoL

Well that’s all my news for this week, I hope you are all safe and not flooded or snowed in, we’ve had high winds today, we felt as if we had been sandblasted walking along the Paseo this morning. Take Care Jan x

T is for Home Sweet Home

Happy T Day to one and all, by the time you are reading this I will have arrived home!

Our final week we spent most of the time taking our DGS out to soft play and the park, I actually met quite a few of his friends and their mothers which was good and he enjoyed running around with his friends from Kindergarten.

One morning we walked into Whitstable, the wind nearly blew us off our feet sometimes but we like to get out if it’s dry, we didn’t even go near the sea, just walked along the high street, coming back we past through the church yard as it’s not so steep.

We also pass this pub/restaurant often but it’s quite quaint looking.

Our Sunday lunch, we stopped off at a Restaurant in Portsmouth, it’s just outside the docks so its a good place to eat before booking in. I had roast beef and Steve had chicken, our drinks, white wine for me and a non alcoholic beer for Steve, not as good as Steve cooks but it was very good and only cost £13 for both meals, good value I think!

I wrote this on the boat coming over as we decided to pay for WIFI in the cabin, with all the problems with the virus we decided we would take all our own food and drink rather than risk catching anything, a bit extreme I know but Steve has heart problems so not worth risking.

Thank you to everyone who visited me last week and left kind comments, it’s very much appreciated. Jan x

T is for to Pack

Thanks to all my visitors last week, after seeing all the artwork on display I’m looking forward to getting home to start some of my own, I also have plenty to scrap too. I’ve been watching some YouTube videos of photo journals too to give me some ideas.

Some of you commented on the beach huts so I’ve taken a photo of them from the beach side.

I think they are used for storing chairs etc to take on to the beach, some have camping stoves to make tea but many people like to sit outside of them enjoying the views. When I was young you could rent them for the day, my grandparents did once as grandad loved nothing more than having a cuppa on the beach, in those days there was always a cafe selling a jug of tea but he was very excited to actually be able to make his own, we also had a little camping Gaz stove and my dad would fry sausages to make sandwiches for Lunch.

Around here the cheapest I’ve seen for sale was somewhere around £26,000, I saw one once for sale for £56,000, I’m not kidding, it had been beautifully decorated and had a mezzanine with a day bed, as far as I know they don’t even have running water they are quite small as you can see, some are decorated better but it was too cold to walk further to find one!!

We took a quick visit to Canterbury, we didn’t go into the city centre but this is the Westgate Towers, you drive through it going into the City, it has a museum apparently.

This street is very Olde Worlde, this is a Pub as we call them in England, I couldn’t get a good photo of the whole street as we were in the car and too much traffic was passing but most of the houses are very old with timbers on the outside walls.

This week our GS is only at Kindergarten for three mornings so it’s going to be very hectic as he’s not one to sit still for very long! It’s also our last week in England. Fingers crossed the gales die down and the ferries are on schedule as they’ve been cancelled the last two weekends on our Sunday night sailing!

S forgot to post my drink related pic, a senior moment, this was my breakfast yesterday, bacon and grilled tomatoes sandwich with tea, I had started to eat it before I remembered to take a photo!!

T is for Tankerton

Happy T day, so happy to be joining you all again this week over with Elizabeth and Bleubeard for the T party.

We have been walking every day, it’s been pretty cold here, our car has been white all over with frost in the mornings until the sun gets on to it but as long as it’s dry we can go out. I have bought myself a winter coat, I never need a really thick coat in Spain so I will be leaving it here when we go home,

We had a walk along Tankerton Slopes, we don’t go down to the beach as there’s quite a few steps to go down so we walk along the footpath on the top. The beach is shingle all along this part of the coastline until you reach Margate but It’s a lovely place, quite small with shops on the back street, they have a really good Fish and Chip Shop too, normally our last nights treat before we head home!

All along the beach front you can see the multicoloured beach huts, they are so expensive to buy nowadays, you used to be able to buy a house for that price, ha,ha,

This is the Seaview cafe where we stop halfway for a cup of tea, they do have tables outside but I’m afraid it’s too cold for us, it cools the tea too quickly!

It’s quite small inside but they have quite a good selection on the menu, especially breakfast items. To me it’s a typical English cafe much as you would have found years ago

Of course I need to show you my drink for this week, a mug of tea, my Mother in Law always used to say, “Let’s have a nice cup of tea” , always made me smile as if we would want a horrible one!!

Mind you we have had some awful tea, once Steve told the waiter in Macy’s Cheesecake Factory how to make a pot of tea, it came with lukewarm water so the tea didn’t mash, tasted like dish water!

Peet's do make a good tea as they have a special boiler that heats the water to boiling point, I know this as the manager was a tea connoisseur and I think quite pleased to have someone actually order black tea! With milk for us of course, he even gave us a few samples of different black teas to try!

The sun is out today and hopefully the gale force winds have died down a little so we will off for another walk later, I hope no one has suffered any storm damage! Take care and Happy T Day. Jan x

T is for Trip

Good morning and Happy T Day from England! We had a good journey and a arrived a little earlier than we thought, we were off the boat and through customs within half and hour and on our way, it was rainy which wasn’t helpful when you are driving on the opposite side of the road to normal and trying to listen to directions from the sat Nav, the traffic was awful, plus roadworks which really didn’t help!

I thought you might like to see a few photos from our journey through Spain and on the ferry.

We left home at 5.30 am and made good time to Albecete where we stopped for breakfast. I had bacon and sliced tomatoes’a la plancha’ doesn’t look much but it was delicious and the bread was fresh from the oven and Steve had the usual, sausages!

The shop inside the restaurant selling cheeses and baked goods

Two hours later we had reached just south of Madrid and time for a quick coffee, not too busy this time of year!

Thankfully the snow from the previous week had gone from the road through the mountain pass, you can see it’s only on the top of mountains

Our last stop before the hotel was here in Lerma, just a quick coffee and off we went.

This was on the dockside In Bilboa, that’s our ship just arrived, two hours late due to storms in the Bay of Biscay, luckily the storm had died down a little so by the time we woke up the next morning it was calm again and amazingly they had made up the time so we arrived on time in Portsmouth.

We treated ourselves to breakfast in the restaurant, orange juice, breakfast was eggs, bacon, sausage, hash brown, mushrooms and toast, a pot of tea and croissants with jam, a very nice treat and my drink for this weeks T Day.

Inside the restaurant, we had a window seat but not much to see in the middle of the English Channel.

We spent Sunday out with our GS , first at soft play as the weather was cold and wet and then at the ice cream parlour , it’s been revamped since our last visit and GS was most impressed by the lights as they look like balloons and flowers!

We are off to Canterbury today to shop for some things to take home, mainly shortbread to take back for our friends in Spain, the restaurant owner asked when we would be going back as they are the best biscuits he’s ever had! Fingers crossed my link works this week, thank you Elizabeth for sorting it out for me yet again last week. Happy T Day Jan x

T is for traveling again

Firstly a big thank you to everyone who took the time to come over for a visit last week and left kind comments, it was lovely to join the T gang again.

Happy T Day, it may be the weekend before I get around to visit everyone We are off again, off to the UK to look after our GS, we leave at 5 am tomorrow morning to drive to the north of Spain, a ten hour drive but we do a two hour stint behind the wheel each, stopping for breakfast in Albecete, coffee just outside Madrid, and a quick coffee in Lerma, we are staying a hotel in Santander and catching the Ferry on Thursday afternoon, we arrive in Portsmouth after lunch on Friday, then we have a three hour drive, partly around the M25! (The motorway around London) always good fun if you hit it at rush hour. The last time we went over our junction was closed, it was midnight and we had to go off and drive half an hour in the opposite direction before we could leave the motorway, it was funny that many of the lorries stuck with us had come all the way from where we live and had been on our ferry crossing, they bring vegetables, mainly tomatoes that are grown where we live!

My Tea related photo today is a mug that I've had for a long time, our son and DIL bought it me and the photo is of our Granddogs, sadly no longer with us but we used to take them long walks along the trails near where they live in San Francisco, they were both rescue dogs and turned into amazing and loyal pets, very good with the GSs too although the youngest was only just over two when Splodgey died but strangely enough he talks about him the most!

I`ve also finished a Birthday Card for our DIL to post while we are away, she's so lovely and kind, more like a daughter to us so she`s very special.

I’m off to the Hairdresser for a trim and then I will dashing around loading the car , that’s always my job as I’m very good at getting everything Loaded a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, although we aren’t taking too much this time, famous last words, we do load up with wine, beer, chorizo etc, etc before we board the ferry so by the time we are finished the car will be full.

I like to be organised so we have one suitcase for the night in the hotel, another for the boat, containing clothes, food and of course our mini kettle, these have to be at the back so we can just grab them and get to the lift and up to our cabin before the rush, I hate lifts, especially when too many people try to crowd on but we usually end up on deck 6 so twelve flights of stairs are just too much for Steves knees

I’m doing last minute cleaning when I get back, Someone will be complaining, Steve always tells everyone he has to stand on a square of paper in the corner so he doesn’t make a mess, he always jokes that after I’ve cleaned the kitchen he will fry sausages to take with us, He really knows how to wind me up!!

Hopefully I will have time to join in while we are away as GS goes to Kindergarten every morning, I will try to remember to take photos of our coffees and perhaps our scones with jam and cream, when we are being naughty!! Have a Lovely T Day Jan x

T for Tuesday

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and I’d like to wish you all a very belated happy and healthy new year! I’ve been MIA for quite a few weeks as our New Year didn’t get off to a good start, I had a bad cold over Christmas and Steve started with sickness bug on New Years Eve and spend New Year’s Day in bed, by January 2nd I started with bug, it seems it going around the world,

Thankfully we are fully fit now and have been putting a plastic coat over the roof tiles as extra protection, having a flat roof makes us a little over cautious especially as we had a leak last year.

We also had to have a new boiler, over here we use bottle gas, took three days to get it working would you believe, after two days we found out that Romero had bought the Butane gas model, we have always used propane, apparently that’s why it kept cutting out, so steve had to buy a new gas bottle, gas regulator and pipe, it’s been working but it’s only really just hot enough if we only had the taps on half flow but at least we could have a reasonably warm shower, Luckily a friend arrived at the weekend and came around to take a look, after an hour he has managed to fix the problem by fitting a tap to adjust the flow into the boiler, we had a lovely hot shower last night.

Yesterday we woke up to rain, we had been expecting it but was surprised how cold it has turned overnight, in fact on our way back from shopping we realised that it was so cold that there was snow on the Sierra Espuna!

We see that every couple of years but this year for the first time we have snow on Mount Brian, our nickname for it as our friend Brian lives close to it, we were totally shocked,I know so many of you who have deep, deep snow are probably saying, what! You call that snow! but this IS Southern Spain!

In the photo above you might spot the little white Church, it has been renovated by some of the foreign residents, now it’s open on special days.

Last Friday we decided to go out for Lunch, we always go somewhere on the seafront as it’s lovely to have a walk in the sun and look at the views. We went to the Marina to a Restaurant called Calletta, we had to sit in the shade as it was quite hot, a bit different to today!

our starters below, Steve had chorizo guiso (stew) mine was crab and coleslaw salad, our first course was a salad for me and a Murcian salad for Steve, I totally forgot to take photos, again, that is tinned tomatoes, cold with flaked tuna a boiled egg in it! Not something I like but apparently it was delicious.

Our main courses were Pork in Pepper sauce and Hake with Almond Sauce, the photos make the food look quite bland but it was delicious

Our drinks of choice for me was a glass of vino blanco and for Steve a sin alcohol beer, we also had a strawberry cheesecake and a chocolate cake for dessert and a coffee, all for €10 Euros each!

I hope you are all fit and well, I don’t make New Years resolutions but I have vowed to carry on using up my stash and not spending too much this year! I can hear you all saying, good luck with that, LOL!!

happy T Day Jan x

Ps sorry about the strange layout, I’m using my iPad and struggling to adjust the text!!