My Mum sent me an e-mail last week saying that there's building work going on in my street – it sounds like things will be quite different by the time I get back! As long as they leave my house as it is, it'll be fine. When we had our extension done, back in the 80s/90s, the JCBs destroyed my sunflowers :-(

The weather here in sunny Badajoz, Spain, on the Iberian Peninsula (just to catch you up on what's happening) has greatly improved since last weekend. It rained heavily for most of the day last Friday then poured continuously on Saturday then was lovely on Sunday and ever since. Today it's windy. Boo :-( I’ve been spending a bit of free time every day sitting in the sun. I came in from one free period in the sun and one of the teachers looked at me and said, "ooh, un poco más morena" (that's tanned to you and I.

I am so looking forward to getting home for a haircut! Jay and I met up with 3 other language assistants on Saturday night, one of whom I shared a room with in Cáceres (she has since had a haircut here and strongly advised me against it!), and her flatmate (a lovely French girl from Normandy) and an English girl who lives in the same town. It was so good seeing Callie again and the other two girls are lovely, too. I hope to meet up with them again. We went out to a few bars that are open ‘til about 3:30, got robbed by the barstaff when paying for drinks (€3.50 for a bottle of beer, €6 for a whisky and coke – not even good stuff!), but it was alright because Jay and I had gone out before that to the new Portuguese bar that we really like, where we talk to the staff, and it was a lot cheaper there. I actually discovered Sunday morning, when I was sitting half on our balcony and half in the house (that’s how small our balconies are), that the Spanish guy who works there is one of our neighbours, just a couple of doors down!

I was sitting outside in the sun on Wednesday during my free hour at school and heard a rooster/ cockerel crowing. It was 11:45. I guess it reflects the Spanish mentality. It was funny because Jay and I had got up really early that morning to go down to the river to see the sunrise (it was nowhere near as romantic as it sounds)!

It was Eli’s (the youngish English teacher) birthday on Saturday and we found out on Monday that we’d been to the same bar, but not at the same time. It was nice to have something to talk about! Later on Monday, JL, Jay and I went to La Albuera, a town near Valverde, to pick up some things for an exhibition at the high school about the Battle of La Albuera. Over 10,000 men died fighting there during the Spanish War of Independence in only 6 hours and every year, on May 16th, they have a reenactment of the battle. It’s a big festival that attracts a lot of British tourists (‘cause there were armies from Middlesex and stuff, and also from France and Portugal and even Poland involved in the battle), so the men we met there on Monday were really nice and keen to practise their English on us!

Valverde and Badajoz are looking lovely just now because of all the spring time colours from the flowers (and all the rain last weekend helped!). There are loads of poppies everywhere! And apparently it’s strawberry season here so Jay and I bought some strawberries and chocolate fondue – it was yummy and, just like the sunrise at the river, massively unromantic! :-) I quite like the fact that we’re not all over each other like a lot of the Spaniards are. I feel prudish here!! Was up sunbathing at the Alcazaba one day and there was a couple there who were actually dry-humping. There were kids and dogs all around -- just wasn't very respectful, but I notice respect is somewhat lacking here in general...

Jay had an interview on Tuesday, but it was really more of a screening process with only 6 questions and the next stage will be in a couple of weeks, which is actually when he leaves. Sad face. But then it'll only be 4 weeks 'til I'm home!!

We received our “save the date” from Vicky and Neil (my sister and brother-in-law-to-be) the other day and it’s on our fridge. It feels very strange, but very exciting, that my big sister’s getting married! Just wish I was there to help her with the organising, which'll probably be done by the time I get back at this rate!

My Dad is still not smoking! It's been almost a year now! I’m looking forward to having nights out or going out for meals back home and not having to breathe in other people’s smoke. JL still insists on asking me if I’d like to go out and stand with them while they smoke (“just to chat while we smoke”) but I’ve been quite firm from very early on ‘cause it’s just horrible!

Jay and I have been enjoying the warm weather and I wore a skirt yesterday! Trying to get rid of the scars on my feet (from being a crazy person) but getting them tanned, but it's a slow process! We’ve been going for walks a lot this week and noticed so many swifts/ swallows/ house martins – Badajoz is full of them! Also bats. And yesterday we fed the ducks some bread :-) Our little hamster is very well and seems to enjoy most food, be it yoghurt, veggies or muffin cases! And he had a bit of pineapple for breakfast this morning! :-)

I’m really looking forward to getting home and seeing all the changes, as well as seeing all the familiarity! And I desperately need a night out dancing. I bought some stupidly tight shoes t'other day that really need a night out! I miss getting dressed up and looking beautiful and dancing the night away and coming home and looking shit. :-) That's what life's all about, afterall.

Besos grandes a todo.

- Cat (and Jay) xXx

Well, it really has been a while since I wrote: about a month! No disasters in the flat (so far) but the damp doesn’t appear to be going away and paint just isn’t covering it anymore. Spoke to JL and his friend about it yesterday and told them I hoped our landlady wasn’t going to tell us it was our fault and, as JL’s friend pointed out, what is she going to say, that we caused it by heavy breathing?? I’ll not pass comment on that.

Last time I wrote I said I was going to see a play called “The Daily News” with the primary school. It was good (the best part being I got a day off school, really) but quite difficult to understand in parts because 3 out of 4 of the actors were Spanish. It was tailored towards primary school kids learning English, so I was quite impressed with it, really – you wouldn’t get that kind of thing in Britain to help us learn foreign languages.

As for the other play with the high school students (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), it never happened. The theatre couldn’t organise its way out of a paper bag and, after postponing it twice, they cancelled the show. Very annoying for the school after having started work on the play, familiarising the kids with it and collecting the money for it. Still, that seems to be Spain for you!
The exams (I wrote three – go me!) went well, but the marks were not good. In 2nd year I think only 6 people passed in the entire year, and there were some kids who failed everything. There weren’t any surprises, but it was nice that the ones who DO work did well.

I have now purchased sun tan lotion but haven’t needed it much as the weather’s got quite cold recently. It’ll pick up, though! This week is Semana Santa (Holy Week), during which time there are religious processions in Spain. They are spectacular and it’s really hard to do them justice describing them. There are 12 processions in total (from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday) and we’ve seen 8 of them so far (the last one is tomorrow early morning and we plan to go to see that one, too). We live in such a great place to experience the processions as a lot of them come past the bottom of our street. Yesterday we were sitting in the flat when suddenly Jay said, “I was just about to say I could smell chocolate, but I think it’s the incense” and, sure enough, it was! The incense here, like a lot of things, is sweeter than in Britain, and really quite nice, and it was a lovely way to be alerted of a procession. On Thursday we went to one at 3 o’clock in the morning at it was incredible! A lot of the Nazarenos (the ones in the pointy hats) weren’t wearing shoes and socks (as a penitence) and this procession was silent except for the metal poles scraping along the group. Very eerie; very intense. I am absolutely loving the fact that the supermarkets aren’t full of chocolate eggs here and that the true meaning of Easter prevails. Still, I am looking forward to eating chocolate again tomorrow (and crisps and sweets and ice cream). Jay and I have been watching Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory and we want to become chocolate connoisseurs as well! Watching the programmes is great self discipline training!!

In other news, one of my photos of Seville has been short-listed for an online tourist guide website, so I’m quite pleased with that. No money or anything, just something nice for me to be happy about.

Jay’s leaving soon. :( I’ll be sad. But it won’t be for long and then I’ll be home, too!! I’m afraid I’ll probably miss most of the good weather here, but at least I won’t be here over summer when it’ll be unbearable. I will also miss my little Calabazito. He’s running in his ball just now. We found out last night (well, this morning after another early morning procession) that he loves yoghurt! :-)

Will write again soon, hopefully with some news.
Cat xXx

P.S. For more pictures, check out my Facebook account.

Okay I've changed the settings -- now you can leave comments. Be nice!

The last time I wrote we had only just got our electricity back. I'm pleased to say we're now gone a full week without problems AND (and this is quite amazing) the people downstairs have finally unblocked the drain. It took longer than I expected for the machine to unblock it. I expected the men to come in, use the machine to suck out all the shit, and that would be it, but they seemed to be pumping water IN to the blocked drain. I'm sure they knew what they were doing; it's fixed now. So now our flat doesn't smell -- hurrah! I've attached a pic of the drain the day they fixed it, before they fixed it. Unpleasant. It's been bad since Valentine's weekend.

Onto happier, less smelly news: I'm going to the theatre on Monday with the primary school. We're going to see an English play called "The Daily News". And then, some time later this month, I'm going to the theatre again, this time to see Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I'm looking forward to it.

There are exams next week and the following week at the high school, and at the primary school, too, i think. I don't really agree with that amount of testing -- they should just set homework and actually collect it in to mark.

Carlos is away at the moment with a couple of classes. They've gone to Valencia (lucky!) until Sunday. He loves his job -- he and his wife are really well-off (you wouldn't know it -- he's very down-to-earth) and he says his job's easy 'cause all it is is going to the theatre and going on trips and reading novels and he gets paid for it! He's one of the few teachers here who see it that way. I have just corrected some of the 'work' the 2nd year of the bilingual section did about the last film they saw. One boy wrote that the Pink PanTer was about "the roberin and the dallamon". "ll" is a "y" sound in Spanish. Got it now? A diamond robbery, perhaps? I can understand why some of the teachers here are fed up.

However, sitting on a bench, in the sun, wearing a sleeveless top and no shoes, I find it hard to sympathise with the teachers. This weather is wonderful. Spain is definitely the country to early retire to! There isn't a cloud in the sky and I'll be purchasing sun tan lotion very soon!

Jay has applied for a job in Italy. Northern Italy, on the coast, near ski resorts and there's free accommodation. It's apparently, the advert boasts, in one of the most "notorious" regions of Italy. Ah, foreigners, eh? I told JL that dragonflies are called dragonflies because they breathe fire. "Really?!" No. We laughed at him. Think he was just tired.

I'd better go inside now before my shoulders burn. Jealous much?

Lots of love, Catherine xXx

Well this has been a fun week! On Monday, I went to work. Work was fine. Good, even. I was proud of worksheets I’d made; I had a couple of nice classes following a nice English conversation hour with the teachers, all about what countries they had visited… and then I arrived home to a power cut. Or rather what we believed to be a power cut. You know that way when there’s a power cut, but it only affects your building? No, scratch that. You know that way when there’s a power cut and it only affects your flat? Yes, one of them. And generally that’s not a good thing. Turns out we’d be cut off. Perhaps I should start from the beginning. But before I do that, I need people to know that we do in fact have money and we’re not squatters or anything. Or gypsies. Or from Larkhall.

When we first moved into the flat, we weren’t sure who lived in the flat upstairs (what his name was, if he lived alone etc.) so when letters arrived we generally left them for the people who knew best (or so we thought). So the guy upstairs has the same surnames as our landlady. I simply (I use this word in both senses) assumed the letters were for his wife and the address was ever so slightly wrong. I assumed, naïvely, that if he got letters that were NOT for him, he would bring them back down and say, “Here, I’ve been a silly and these letters are actually for you” in a Spanish-stylee. However, turns out he’s tonto – estupido – and has now cost me mucho dinero in charges and mucha frustración in lack of electricity… Back to a chronological timeline: In January of this year, we took one of the bills and asked our landlady if our account was the one on the bill, and lo-and-behold it was! So, we paid the bill for January, assuming (again with the assumptions!) that it was the grand total of all the bills we had yet to pay (it was pretty high). Blissfully unaware that there was anything untoward going on, we received another bill in February for a much lower amount (hurrah!) and we had until today (the 5th of March) to pay it. I know what you’re thinking: “If you had until today to pay it, how come they cut you off 3 days ago?” Well, boys and girls, this is Spain. We had no warnings, no notices, no nothing.
So on Monday evening I entered the very quiet, only-just-opened-after-siesta bar downstairs, and said to the nice young man who said if we ever needed anything, we’d just to ask since now we’re neighbours and said, “Hi, I need a bit of help – we have no electricity”. Neither of us knew what had happened, but on standing outside and looking up at our building we attracted the attention of a nice, helpful, friendly neighbour from the opposite building. He and the barman decided we’d had our electricity cut off. (There’s a small, bright orange paper tag on the electricity meter’s box on the outside of the flat – seemingly that was our warning) Friendly neighbour from across the road asked me to bring the bills that I had and he phoned the company for me. They told him there were 3 overdue bills, so the following day at school, after it spread pretty quickly that I’d been cut off (oh the shame!), Angel phoned and paid my bills for me. (yippee!! – except no, not yippee).

I had Wednesday off. We had no electricity. I phoned Sevilla Endesa (yes – let’s name and shame) and the very nice, helpful man (who offered to transfer me to an English-speaker after I told him I was foreign so couldn’t speak Spanish very well but was going to try anyway) told me that if I didn’t have electricity by 8pm, I had to phone, but that it should be sorted by then. Guess what? 8pm arrived, in the darkness that its friend, 8am, had also arrived that morning. So, brave little Cat phones again and got some bitch who, despite being informed that I was, indeed, a foreigner who was trying her best to speak Spanish, spoke at a rate of knots and told me that there was no record of a payment. So there I was thinking my Spanish had let me down again and that maybe, way back on Tuesday, Angel had told me that I had to go into the bank to confirm payment… so I phoned JL, and asked him how it all worked in Spain, but he wasn’t much help. I hung up the phone and could’ve cried (We spent over 2 months trying to get internet in this damn country, so you can understand my fearing the worst). Jay suggested I phone Angel ‘cause he always makes people feel better, so I did. And he did. He took all my details again (including my card details, so I reckon now Christmas has come early for his family – presents on Cat!), phoned the stupid company (that’s Sevilla Endesa) and phoned me back with the news. The woman he spoke to on Tuesday had done sweet FA about paying the bills. He told me Sevilla Endesa was “like a restaurant” (My head was spinning; I had no idea what he meant at the time) and that the money comes out of my account immediately and that I should then have electricity the following day (that’s today now!). Turns out Tuesday’s Sevilla Endesa lady was talking out of her arse. So, another night without electricity (but with alcohol and fig rolls and DS-competitions) came and went and now we have emerged from the tunnel of darkness, a little worse-off, with yet more stories of incompetent Spanish people.

And breathe...

Happy Valentine's Day to you all!

Black and White biscuits were taken into work for teachers and staff and went down well. We have a meeting with 4 or 5 teachers in the "bilingual section" on Mondays and so I brought the biscuits in for that and we talked about baking. Not many people bake here and Chus (maths teacher) says she thinks people in Britain eat too many sweet things because apparently it's normal for us to eat cakes and biscuits "every day". Yes, but we drink tea; not coffee with half a cup of sugar or churros with chocolate for breakfast!! Teresa (art teacher) seemed very interested in how to make them. :-) Creative people = good.

Work is fine -- getting into the swing of organising classes to try to get the kids to speak. It's difficult with the entire class because if it's a free-for-all the more out-spoken ones talk loads while others say nothing, but if it's done one-by-one the more able ones get frustrated at the shy ones who just waste time. I'm enjoying the private tuition classes on Fridays more because I have 3 pupils at the same time and we can play games and do activities together (and learn Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes!) and it's quite enjoyable and they all contribute and all learn. I got feedback from the new girl, Béa, who said my classes are a lot more fun than the classes she has at the nearby academy. :-) Very pleased. And, with 3 of them all at the same time, I get 3 times the money!

Finally got a reference for the post-grad application (from a different person because that guy didn't contact me for 3 weeks) so the application has been sent off and I should get a letter in the post soon. Really hoping I get accepted into a uni as I really want to do this.

The flat -- we've been airing the flat and it's not been too cold, really, so hopefully the damp won't get any worse. I spent last weekend painting the bloody wall which improved it, but since then bubbles have appeared because of the damp. Will probably mention it to the land lady next month. The woman downstairs complained on Friday when we flushed the toilet because the drains are blocked. I'm worried it's our fault because we flush toilet paper... and I hope we don't get hassle from them, or get hit with a bill! I think she said we weren't to use water 'til Monday when the lorry arrives to fix it, but I can't go without a wash before work on Monday, so will probably take a quick shower. I'm annoyed because they didn't give us any warning and she was quite rude. Can't help thinking they could have dealt with it before it got so bad, and what difference is another 2 days' usage going to make? I can't believe how awful the sewage system is in Spain. It's like 1930s Britain. They haven't yet discovered that you should wash your hands after going to the toilet. They have "Wash your hands before you eat" signs and most people don't wash their hands after using the toilet. It's revolting. Truly disgusting.

We went to Seville yesterday! It is beautiful. By far my favourite place in Spain. It's so pretty and steeped in history and cosmopolitan and full of English speakers. We went on a bus tour around the city and on a guided tour around the part of the city with the cathedral and palace and other places of interest. We will definitely go back there as there's still so much we have to do! I would recommend it as a holiday destination as it really is impressive. Expensive to do all the tourist things, but if you could get a cheap flight it would be ideal. Oh and I knitted a mouse on the bus to Seville. It only took me an hour to make it, give it ears and eyes and whiskers. The woman across from me showed an interest when I started knitting so I showed her the Mum and Dad mice and when I finished the baby mouse I showed her, then when we arrived in Seville I gave it to her as a present and she was meeting a friend whom she showed it to and it was just lovely! They wished us a nice stay in Spain! I took so many pictures of Seville. I love it.

The carnival is next weekend. I'll be taking a lot more photos, I should think, and we'll be getting dressed up and feeling silly. I hope it's enjoyable. I hear my family most likely won't be coming for Easter, as planned, so anyone else who fancies coming to stay, feel free!! To be honest, though, as places go, Badajoz is not really worth visiting anyway. I'll be home at the end of May anyway, so it's not long now anyway. And I want nights out for when I get back. Cat is putting on weight because the nights dancing and starving myself have stopped... I need the exercise and Lord knows I need the music!!

I went shopping on Friday and bought a nice, dark blue shirt for school and a Smurf hoody. The Smurf hoody is great! I will try to attach a picture of it!

Cat xXx

For the last couple of weeks Jay’s been applying for Graduate/ Junior Programming positions or directly to companies. He’s had a few “we’ve received your application” e-mails, a couple saying there are no positions available at present but they’ll keep him on file, and last night he got a phone call saying he’s got a telephone interview on Monday! Watch this space... He hasn’t heard anything about the job in Germany yet and quite fancies the idea of working and living in Germany. Other places include Brighton, Birmingham and Warwickshire. He’s also been working hard on his portfolio; programming new programs – a shooty game with space ships that I helped with a bit; and now a terrain program with vectors and... maths and stuff. Stuff I don’t understand, but stuff that makes me proud of him anyway!

I, in other news, have been applying for Post-Graduate Primary Teaching courses, at Strathclyde and Glasgow. I’m still waiting for my advisor of studies to write me a reference. Otherwise, I have had it completed for almost 2 weeks. I still need to send an e-mail to the woman dealing with language students to tell her I’ll not be doing my Honours Year and if I should still write my dissertation. Feeling a bit worried about this, but oh so happy at the thought of doing Primary School teaching and, soon – hopefully – being a teacher!!

Things here are fine. The weather’s rubbish and grey, but I hear Scotland (not to mention the rest of the British Isles) is a lot worse. Work is really good – the only frustrating thing is the level of English: it would be nice to be able to do more things with them. It’s difficult to get them to talk (in the 2nd and 3rd year classes that I have, we should be treating the lesson as a conversation class, but they don’t like answering out and then it’s always the same kids doing the work.

Two weeks ago, on Wednesday, with 2nd year, we had an ‘exam’ on the book they haven’t read. The class was really quiet (well-behaved) because it was a ‘test’ but it was far from being a conversation class! On the Thursday, with 3rd year, we spoke about football but it was like pulling teeth! This week, on Thursday, with 3rd year, was much more successful. We spoke about football again and they had quite a lot to say. We started off with a drawing/ photo of a football match and they had to describe it. I’ve found that asking direct, obvious questions is best. For example: “What are the supporters wearing?” (No answer) “Describe the people.” (No answer) “Are they wearing underwear/ swimming costumes?” (“No”... followed by some answers – finally!!) It works well because then they know I’m looking for anything it could be and not a specific answer. JL has kind of made them scared to answer out; I think it’s because he tells them, “You know this; you need to learn it!” It was eye-opening to hear what problems there are at football matches. People throw animals on the pitch!! Odd. And they set off fireworks which is just insane.

Last weekend we were going to go somewhere on the Sunday but the weather was awful so we stayed in and Jay made pancakes and I made biscuits. And then... on Wednesday... I surprised Jay with having a day off!! We went to Zafra for the day and although the weather wasn’t great we had a lovely time seeing new things, being away from Badajoz, and taking pictures of fountains and old buildings. It was nice, but I would’ve liked to have gone to see more tourist places because a lot of them were closed. We went into a convent/ museum (half was a museum: half a convent) which was really nice and they had a very grand oratory/ church in the middle of the building. We even saw a nun! We were going to go into the Parador (a palace) because it said it was a tourist attraction but when we went in we saw it was a restaurant and hotel (an expensive one at that!!) so we quickly left. However, I found out on the Thursday at school, that you can indeed go around the palace/hotel and that the view from the top is amazing! JL has offered to take us there in April because he’s picking up a friend from Zafra so he’ll take us to see all the tourist places. We went for lunch there, in Zafra (not the palace!) and it was lovely. Then we went for a few drinks and they gave us lots of free food (some places do that here – it’s great!!)

This weekend we haven’t got much planned, although I’d like to go to a village called “Feria” because they have the “matanza” – where they kill a pig to signify what they had to do in the olden days when they didn’t have fridges and the weather was getting hotter. They would kill a pig and make it into chorizo and other dried meat, like Jamón and stuff. Anyway, apparently they give out chorizo and wine (they have 4 bodegas in this ‘village’!) on Sunday so I’d love to go there, but need to get info about buses (if there are any!!).

Other News:
Last night I made black and white biscuits (Jay helped a little!) and must’ve made about 120! I made all different sorts. Will try to attach the picture of them!
The flat is getting warmer, which can only be a good thing! We need to go buy paint to cover the discoloured walls. We’ve been keeping the flat fairly clean, which is nice, but we’re not having much luck with drying our washing. Silly rain, eh?
I have another wisdom tooth coming through – must have something to do with deciding my future!
Calabaza is not a girl. We found out he’s a boy, so now he’s called ‘Calabazón’ but sometimes we forget. He’s a lot more energetic now and looking trimmer. We’re waiting for a new wheel to arrive from China – a silent one – which will be a blessing!
Last night we went downstairs for some caracoles, little mini cheese toasties made with Roquefort (mmmm) and un pelotazo de gambas. Jay had forgotten how much he liked caracoles. (I suggest going to get some on a regular basis, but he would always say no, as if he didn’t like them. Tuh!)
Nothing else for now. Enjoy your great weather!!
Cat xXx

Well, after a great time at home I returned to Spain.

I had a really good time at home but I'm glad to be settled back in here.

I've been getting on with stuff, as per usual and have finished one programming piece that I'll use in my portfolio. It's turned out quite well and I'm happy with it. Would be happier if it looked better but I don't mind that.

The journey here was ok. We were tired when we arrived and pretty much lounged about the day after to recover which is always good from my point of view. Needed to sort stuff out in the flat though but that was dealt with swiftly.

WE GOT OUR HAMSTER BACK!!!! Although, now, she's a big fat fatty. Seriously huge. So she's been in her ball a lot in the past 2 days. We'll be keeping her well excercised for a while I think.

No plans as of yet for the next few weeks but I'll be discussing things with Cat about visiting somewhere next weekend from Thursday night or possible Friday morning. Maybe then we can get some pics posted on this bad boy!

Hasta luego, chicos!

We arrived back at the flat late Wednesday night. Thursday was very boring and uneventful and I wasn't well. Today has been much more productive! We went food shopping, loaded the basket/ trolley full of essentials and even treated ourselves to cake! Jay left me in charge of the lunch/ dinner (a Bolognese-type dish) ‘cause he needed to go buy some tomato sauce stuff and some pasta (the “essentials” we bought were lacking). Then, after lunch/ dinner I went to my class with Carmen, the 9-year-old daughter of Fani, one of the teachers at the primary school. It was lovely seeing her again. She’s keen to learn; needs to be pushed to actually speak English, but can do so with a bit of help; and she’s a lovely little girl. She told me all about what Santa Claus and the 3 Kings brought her for Christmas, including a High School Musical game and a Puppy in my Pocket Hospital (oh how that brought back childhood memories!) I've actually brought a few of my old Puppy in my Pockets over for her. I’ve not given them to her yet because, to be honest, I didn’t have the foresight to write a wee card or anything and put them in a nice bag, so that will have to wait ‘til next week.

On my way back from Carmen’s I bumped into her mum, Fani, whom I was told was shopping in the sales! :-) She’s great and it was lovely to bump into her. She’s constantly telling me I need to get fatter, yet she’s built like Vicky, my sister, – very petite and I think she used to be a PE teacher! And when I returned to El Casco Antiguo I heard classical music. I thought it was coming from one of the pubs but it didn’t seem to be, as it would fade then get louder again. And d’you know what? It’s being pumped out of speakers all around the streets!! How cool is that?! So you sit in our front room, as I’m doing right now, and you can listen to classical music! It makes a change from hearing the TV of the guy upstairs from us.

It’s now late and Jay’s already gone to sleep ‘cause he was up early this morning. I’m chatting to Vicky on MSN. We paid the rent with no hassle. We returned from Scotland to find we had damp on the wall in the bedroom. I didn’t mention this to our landlady because A. I’m not really that sure how to explain it and B. After talking to Vicky, I’m pretty sure it’s damp because the room doesn’t get a proper airing but it will get one in Spring, when the weather’s warmer. It’s not a serious problem; it’s just that it’s an old building and we try to keep the air that’s in the bedroom IN the bedroom to keep the heat in. We still haven’t received an electricity bill, and I’m beginning to wonder about it... time will tell, I suppose. It won’t be in our name anyway, so at least our credit ratings won’t be affected!! :-)

I discovered yesterday that I can watch Neighbours on a certain well-known video-streaming website!! And I discovered today that I can watch Casualty and Holby City on it, too! Looks like I’ll not be missing out on too much after all.

We’ve still not unpacked, but will do so tomorrow.

My Mum asked me to remind her why Scotland is great. She also told me that Woolies has now closed its doors. Without Woolworths I’m not sure there IS a good point to our country, but clearly foreigners like it: whisky, shortbread, Tunnocks, heather. Yes, heather. There are a million and one heather plants on big conical displays around Badajoz. It’s a very strange town... Scotland has mountains to climb, hills to sledge down, natural lochs, snow if you look hard enough, proper road rules, grass, the ability to grow beautiful and very varied plants, dogs of all varieties, sanitation and hygiene levels to rival most of our European neighbours to mention but a few things. Still, sun would be nice, wouldn’t it?

If anyone else is feeling that all-too-familiar Scottish weather depression, feel free to come over and top up your sun time. For all that it was only about 10 degrees today, the sky was cloudless and the sun was shining... sorry; I don't mean to rub it in.

Goodnight, readers.
xXx