44. The Deluge and the Sun

 So much has happened over the last few days I really don't know where to start,I am told by locals that Easer here in Valencia usually turns up with changeable weather, now there is the understatement of the century, we have had the worst storms in 75 years 4 days of non stop rain, thunder and lightening a total of 24 inches of rain in those few days which caused flooding in so many areas of the Costa Blanca. I spent Easter sitting in front of my PC with torrential rain outside my window while watching racing from the UK which was bathed in sunshine....don't tell me there is nothing wrong with the climate!!!. I feel so sorry for all the people that came to places like Benidorm to escape the normal British Easter weather to get some sunshine like my old friend Chris and her family only to find flooding and cold winds, there is so much footage of all this on YouTube even LadBaby was there in Benidorm over Easter.

Some clips of the rain

     

And yes it did rain inside my house downstairs and upstairs it was that heavy. The day the rain stopped was the day I had to drive to Valencia airport to pick up our Beth I have been so looking forward to this as I have really missed her, I managed to get lost twice even with the Sat Nav switched on. Beth hasn't been too well it appears that one person on the plane had a bug and of course now everyone on the plane has that bug, We have managed to go down to the beach a couple of times and will be going again today, and done some shopping of course. 

The weather got so much better so quick

Sadly Beth is leaving on Monday to meet up with a friend for a week of..well partying I suppose in Barcelona I just hope it is not another 6 months before we see Beth again.

Beth with a Buddha exiting her head

In other news we have been thwarted in our first attempt to gain our 5 year temporary Citizenship, we managed to get health insurance for the pair of us at an astronomical monthly cost of way over £600 of course wee were going to cancel this as soon as we got our green cards but, the man who says yes said no because for one he had never heard of the insurance company we were using even though they are based in Spain and have been trading for over 30 years and even though we had enough money in our account to show we could meet the income limit of 550 Euro each a month the man said we could just take that out of the bank at any time he wanted to see pensions payments into the bank and 3 months of them at that, but you can also cash in your pension as well at anytime, he didn't like that, So we are going to attack from a different angle  we do have three years, and you never the British public may come to their senses yet.

Another wee problem we have a dog called Willow one called Harry and my name is Russ or Russell you would not believe the trouble Spaniards have pronouncing these names..Willow become weeyow, Harry becomes huayay and don't don't even go there with my name, they pronounce their "R"'s different from us double "LL" is a yu sound etc etc so might have to use my middle name and call myself Tony just so the locals can talk to me...??

43, Then the sun shines..!

When it rains in Spain it really rains I have never seen a downpour like it, then the thunder and lightening, then more rain. Well thank god it didn't last too long.

A couple of things have been done this week, after a lot of mucking about and googling we have made an appointment to get our Green Cards these are 5 year temporary residency cards, we have to have our earlier NIE numbers, proof of income and health insurance and then fingers crossed that will be another problem sorted. Another small problem we sorted this week was the car, we had only had it a few days when I noticed that there was a small crease on the rear passenger door drivers side, a car park job, it really pissed me off as I could see it plain as day every time I got within a 100 feet of the car, then Lorni just clipped the wall at the end of the road here, it is very narrow.

I know it's not much but I thought sod it lets get it done so off to the bodyshop it went and I was shocked that the price to sort it out was so low?? we picked the car back up on Friday and it looks new again...for now.. We also took all the paint we bought from "Leroy Merlin" back as it is totally shit, we have bought some more paint from a more reputable shop so I'll be getting on with that next week.

Also this week was my wedding anniversary Lorni and I have been married 12 years now, strewth where has that time gone? anyway I tried to get some flowers but couldn't all flowers have been earmarked for Easter hmm..!! no cards either in this Country so we went for a little drinkie at a local watering hole and had a few bacardi and cokes, the measures have to be seen to be believed.

I have no idea how she has managed to put up with me for so long...love you to bits Lorni.. The following day was another trip tot he dentist for me, on a Saturday! this was another part of my treatment but I didn't expect what happened, I was sat in the chair had three injections to numb the area, the tooth had bee extracted a few weeks ago so the gum had healed up,so they cut it open cleaned out the cavity then drilled a hole, changed the bit size and went in again, three more times then hammered a bit of metal into my jaw then filled the remaining gap with a bone graft material and then stitched me up...didn't hurt much at the time but later on...ouch, the stitched come out on the 24th and at the same time they will do the other two implants. really looking forward to that. Five months later they can actually fit the teeth in. oh to be able to eat steak again!

As I said the weather after the rain storms has improved greatly so much so that today it hit over 30 degrees and boy it was hot, time for shorts again, even Harry didn't want to go ut for a walk bless him.

Amazing what you find in this village.

Today is Palm Sunday which is a big thing here in Spain being a Catholic Country so around 11 this morning Lorni went out armed with my Go-Pro as I had to stay in because of my dental surgery and she shot tons of footage I have mashed it down to this, a bit shaky but not bad for a first attempt.

My birthday tomorrow and that's another week gone by or year in my case on Tuesday I'm off to Benidorm to catch up with an old friend of mine from many years ago should be fun.

42. Dogs and rain...!

It's been a frustrating few days here in Planet Haven Spain First off is the non progress on decorating here in Spain they just don't have the same stuff we are used to in the UK, for example the plaster and filler they use is far too brittle which is why it cracks so easy and for some reason the paint over her just does it's own thing and dry's to what ever colour it wants at any time it wants and therefore I have one green wall that is around 30 different shades from the same container. Lorni has had a lot to sort out in town and when she is in town I have to watch the puppy so nothing gets done. Going to have to sort this out this week before we start getting visitors.

Keeping on the subject of dogs, I think Harry has been brilliant with this hyper active over the top Galgo puppy he has been so tolerant, of course there are times when he has to tell her off but for the most part they get  on.

Willow is still learning of course and she is getting better and better every day but we still have a way to go, when out walking she really gets excited when she sees another dog well I hope it's excitement and she pulls like mad to get at them, I hope it's because she wants to play but! I'm not taking any chances, so to help both Lorni and I and Willow we bought her a decent harness,

Two days ago I cut a walk short as it started to rain, more on that later, I opened the front door but Willow wanted more she wasn't ready to come in I felt a quick pull on the lead and when I looked down I had hold of the lead and the harness but no Willow she was off like a shot boy is she fast down the road and after Lorni who was driving into town, thankfully she saw what happened and stopped, Willow then ran back past me and then back again I waited in the park and when she came back for the fourth time I called her and she stopped and trotted over. I wont be using that harness again.

Back tot he rain, over the last few days we have has some wet stuff and yes I know that if this part of Spain has 300 days of sunshine a  year then we are going to get 65 days of non sunshine which includes rain. But boy did it rain the other day.

I have my fingers crossed that the better weather is now on it's way and we can say goodbye to the wet stuff for a while. Next job is to sort out some medical insurance and go claim our 5 year residency cards.