Torremar Vi Hotel Torrevieja

21 Nov
We leave Granada mid-morning, and commence our journey to La Manga. This via the Sierra Nevada, which proves to be a slow (hairpin bends windy roads etc) but very scenic drive ... for Lym, who was snapping away, not for Annabelle, who was in the driving seat, switching between first and second gear the whole way.... coming out of the mountains, we reach southern Spain, the main city being Almeria, the far south of Spain proves to be ...

... of Biscay which can be very stormy, fingers crossed it will be a fine crossing. We land at 8.00 am Friday morning and then we drive across Spain to the Costa Calida where we plan to spend a few weeks in a small Spanish village called Roldan, then we move on to a town called Lo Pagan,

Well would you believe it? I've been working for the last 2 days. A friend of Dave's who I met a couple of weeks ago needed a Brickie to build a couple of pillars. So, I dusted off the old trowel. It's been a long time but you never lose it.

Amanda is back tonight. I'm picking her up at Alicante Airport at about 11.30pm. Lucy and me have really missed her and we are both looking forward to seeing her...Ahhh.

... a receipt.

I gave it half an hour before ringing the electric company at first they couldn't find it but then it appeared on the screen...How long? I ask...Within 24 hours, and its going to cost another 20 euros re-connection fee.

I've had to postpone the fitting of the Telephone and Internet due to the electricity situation until Monday...Manana, Manana, Manana.

Good news...reconnected at 10 to 6....Yippee!

... the air traffic from Alicante or Murcia.

So there I am playing with the remote control of my new toy when everything goes off! What's up? I check out the fuse box but everything is OK. Looking out of the window I can see the man from Iberadola driving off...I've been cut off again..AGHHH!

Phoned the electric company who tell me they have no record of the payment from 2 weeks ago so I need to go to the Bank and get them to re-send it but of course the Bank has just closed ...

... hot for the time of year we've enjoyed the cycling and always reward ourselves for our efforts with a nice cold beer before setting off back.

Amanda is going back to the UK today but she is back soon.

So it's Paddy no mates for the next 13 days!

... of an excellent meal and a nice bottle of red at The Square, followed by a few Guinness's and entertaining company at The Shandon Bells, we can see our house in the distance...How much have we had to drink?..Are we seeing things?..No we're not..What light from yonder window breaks?...We've been re-connected!...As the good book says: And the Lord said; "Let there be light"...Well the man from Iberadola did anyway.

Went down to the Bank to sort out the problem with the non-payment of electric Direct Debit.
The Bank faxed the payment through so we might get re-connected soon...Fingers Crossed.

Ah well...at least the weather is hot and sunny...We can sit in the sun while we wait for the electric.

Our friends, Kath and Dave who live at Torrevieja came over this ...

Well...those frogs can give the Spanish a lesson in motorway services...We awoke from our disrupted sleep, having managed to park next to a refrigerated lorry which started up every half hour throughout the night, ready for the last leg of our journey to Villa Martin.We decided to get a steel on the journey and catch breakfast in a couple of hours once we found somewhere a little better to eat at!

The van has started to ...

... path, that was for sale and just wanted to see what the price was and why the owner was giving it up. She said that she was retiring (owned bar for three years) and was going to sell the pub and an upstairs apartment for 650,000 euro. What??? We went back and asked Steve it that was right and he had a big laugh. What we noticed on our whole tour is that when people are selling pubs, they have a whole holy story why thery're doing it (retiring, sick relative, etc). It's ...