Long time no post!  But we’ve had a busy week…

We were looking forward to half term, because it felt like for both us and the children we had arrived then pitched directly into work/school, without much adjustment time – well, it’s not easy to be tourists in midwinter in any case.  We had plenty to look forward to as we did our best to get the house cleared up and rearranged in anticipation of our first houseguests.

Sunday morning I got up early and scooted down to Grenadella, looking forward to my first ‘proper’ walk, a free guided excursion organised by the local tourist board.   It was a 3 hour hike through beautiful countryside, initially well inland and steep hairpin bends that left me without sufficient breath to curse my lack of fitness and embarrassed at being the youngest and least fit person there apart from our guides (who were around my age but in far better shape for climbing I hasten to add).  Then we came out onto a slightly scary but incredibly beautiful ridge walk, from which we could see for miles in every direction, from Cap San Antonio in the north to Ifach at Calpe in the south.  It’s a shame it was a dull and gloomy day, the views were still quite incredible but I wondered if I would be able to find and follow the intermittently marked path again on a sunny day.  We passed down to “Grenadella castle”, the ruins of an 18^th Century defensive fortification, after which we appeared to be quite close to the beach.  The last part of the trail was extremely hairy however, at one point involving nothing I would describe as a pathway at all, just chains bolted to the rock to help you scramble round – not a little stroll up from the beach I would fancy attempting en familia, unfortunately.

Anyway later that day my sister, her husband, and 2 and a half kids arrived from the UK, and the girls were thrilled to be reunited.  Lara wore herself out completely, and spent most of the night awake with earache which was far from ideal as she ended up in our bed (so we had no sleep instead of the other kids), and next day was Cassie’s long awaited birthday party – deferred from her actual birthday the week we arrived.  Lara perked up magnificently though Richard was feeling unwell too after our rough night, but somehow I got all the food prepared and between us we shuttled up to Pinosol Park, a short distance up the road, where her friends from school all arrived.  The kids seemed to have a really fantastic afternoon, all mixing well including her cousins from England, and Lara’s best friend from nursery also came so there was a great spread of ages - although at one point we lost most of the older ones who seemed to set up a tribal camp on the opposite side of the park, only emerging to wave sticks at the grownups and shout a lot, before a quick cake raid.  A lot of the food, even the savoury stuff, got eaten, which is always a good sign.

The party ended abruptly when Lara, running on fumes by now but having a brilliant time, suddenly got to tired to hold on to the swing and dived headfirst to the floor instead.  Nina rushed the two of us home where I got her cleaned up and tried to calm and comfort her, but it was really scary as she cried for about 2 solid hours before drifting off to sleep, and her face was badly bruised and scratched.  As always when a small child is tired and  in pain, she regressed a good year or two in age and communication skills, and we had no way of knowing how badly she was hurt.  Eventually she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, and thank god woke up more cheerful and apparently with no lasting damage, but it was a horrible moment, and we were rushing round researching hospitals and clinics etc whilst trying to be jolly hosts and cope with post-party clear-up – not much fun.

The rest of the week went well though and the weather was kind – we spent most of the time at local beaches where it was paddling weather, certainly for fast-moving small people, and indeed emergency clothes changes were required on more than one occasion for those inclined to misjudge the incoming waves and suddenly find themselves doing rather more than paddling.  Picnics and sandy toes reminded me why we had uprooted our lives from the familiarity our guests represented, and I knew we’d done the right thing watching the children play so happily – all my childhood, beaches were a 2 week treat in Wales every summer, and I always promised myself I would live near the sea sometime, why had I we waited so long to give our children this lifestyle?  Well, lots of good practical reasons as it happened, but here we finally were, even though our guests kept saying how it wouldn’t suit them.  We checked out new beaches at Moraira, Cap Blanc and Denia, but the kids always loved the Arenal (with its climbing frames and golden sand) best of all.

On their last day we went into Jalon, just to explore a bit of the interior, and although our Nina and Mark didn’t enjoy the mountain roads as much as we had hoped – we took them the pretty way through Gata and Lliber -  they made it half way up the Coll de Rates where we stopped for a picnic in the pineforests with incredible views, across the whole of Jalon valley and out to the Montgo and the sea at Denia.  The weather was perfect – just right for picnics without worrying about sunburn – and the kids loved exploring the mountain trails.

At the weekend we were back to the valley for lunch at La Vall with the Montgo Vegetarians, lovely to see Brian and Cindy and everyone again and the food was very excellent – even Richard seemed to like it.  The journey back was interrupted by road closures in Gata as the local kids had their Carnavale parade, it appears our kids had theirs a week early due to half term timing, so we got to watch all the village children and their famililes parade past the car in their colourful costumes.  On the last day of the hols we went back to the Arenal again to meet Lara’s friend from school, and it has already reached the stage where we can go there anytime and both girls will be pretty much guaranteed to hook up with friends from school or last time.  I love it so much that we live 5 minutes away from this kind of fun and the sheer delight they take in dodging the surf… though I hope that as the season and temperature develops we may reduce our laundry load slightly, or simply learn to strip them off in anticipation of the inevitable soaking that seems to occur whatever the our plans/instructions/the weather.

On the final afternoon we drove out to the lighthouse at Cabo San Antonio, for amazing views of the bay, though it was very windy and none of us were dressed for a walk.  We drove back via the mirador at Els Molins, from where the views of Javea were simply incredible, and I longed to follow the path back down into the Port – with different footwear and no small children though, so another day.  We contented ourselves with a stroll around the pine forests at the top, and once again thanked our good fortune in living at such a beautiful and inspirational place.

One of the most fundamental and hopefully enjoyable aspects of life is what we eat and drink… so I decided this week to write a bit about that and how it gets done around here.

Whenever we’ve been in Spain in the past it’s been as a tourist, and of course what you eat on holiday is not what you eat at home – so whilst we knew a lot about restaurants and bars before we arrived, there was a lot to learn about the day to day stuff, some of which was familiar, and some less so.

Supermarkets for example are pretty much the same anywhere in the world… but as in every area, they each have their own feel and culture and good and not so good points.  Some names are familiar – Aldi and Lidl and Carrefour are spattered along the coast including a Lidl in Javea, and others are new.  Eroski is huge and seems good value, with lots of non-food items (eg we bought Cassie’s bike and our office chairs there, as well as some kitchen stuff).  Mercadona is a good all-round weekly shop, Masymas seems to be a fairly local chain with stores all over the area and some regional produce, medium sized premises.  Dia is cheap if you chose the right promotions, Consum is cheapish but mainly because you can’t find anything you actually want…  Supercor is part if the Corte Ingles chain, with choices and prices to match.

There are lots of little supermarkets too, many serving the expat or tourist trade.  Quick Save has several local branches for those who can’t live without Heinz beans or PG tips, though the prices are very different from the UK chain with a similar name.  There are smaller independent ones out in the urbs where lots of people live, the closest to us is a German run store with a surprisingly good bakery.

But the fresh produce in the supermarkets is generally disappointing, so we try to be a bit more Spanish about it and get to the markets when we can.  A lot of these are during the working day which is a shame, apart from Pedreguer on Saturdays which is heavingly busy.  The Thursday market in Javea is great and we have found all sorts of things from a charity stall selling secondhand English paperbacks for 1€ to cheap socks, along with a great range of local fruit and veg.  There is also an indoor market in Javea with permanent stalls selling all kinds of foods, and the produce there is excellent and also competitively priced.  Lara has a school trip there in a week or so, as they have been learning about healthy eating and hygiene as a topic.

Eggs we get from a local mum at school – amazingly fresh and very free range, daily from their own finca.  Bread we tend to buy every day or so fresh, but exactly as in the UK generally also have a sliced sandwich loaf (‘pan moulde’, though it keeps pretty well!) on hand for simplicity in lunchbox making.  Wine of hugely varying quality and price is available in all the big supermarkets, and we keep forgetting to make some note of the good value ones that turn out surprisingly nice… although for everyday drinking its hard to beat the reliable and acceptable brew from the bodega in Jalon (95c per litre!) -you wouldn’t take it to a dinner party, but then we don’t go to many of those.

As I may previously have hinted, Spain isn’t an easy place in many ways for vegetarians.  Lifetime carnivores too are confronted in a more head-on way with the reality of what they’re consuming, and if accustomed to shrink-wrapped unrecognisable body parts in Tescos the corpses with heads and legs on, especially on the fish counter, might come as a shock – likewise the ubiquitous whole hams, complete with trotter, hanging in every bar and racked in rows in the shops.  Of course there are plenty of alternatives, and local cheese is pleasant and plentiful, as are pulses galore (though many precooked ones may contain the ever-present jamón.  Processed vegetarian foods are rare, imported, and consequently extremely expensive – I remember being thrilled to find quorn mince in a local supermarket, only to drop it in horror on spotting a pricetag in excess of 5€!

I have found one local health food shop that sells organic tofu for a similar price you’d pay in the UK – there is no mass market alternative like Cauldron – and they also sell a good selection of whole organic pulses as well as some limited fresh stuff.  I am currently trying to make my own tempeh, as I have never seen any of that on sale here, although the delicious Indonesian takeaway must be getting it from somewhere.

Restaurants, cafes and bars are of course everywhere in a resort town in Spain, and whilst we can’t frequent them as often as we’d like whilst Sterling continues to circle the drain, it is nice to pop out for a quick bocadillo or café Americano occasionally.  The Arenal area has endless ‘international’ restaurants, including the famous Scallops, renowned for ridiculously low priced food offers.  The Port and the pueblo have many more Spanish establishments as well as some high quality international/fusion offers, including two excellent Indians.  There are places serving greasy chips to Brits in a language and environment that they understand, and there are coffee shops serving brandy and wine at 9am to Spanish workers taking a break for their segundo desayuno.  At lunch time a fixed price ‘menu del dia’ is commonplace, offering a good value 3 course meal, generally with several choices for each and possibly including a drink – us veggies have to negotiate our way around this of course, so we don’t end up with an a la carte salad costing twice as much as the menu steak!  A veggie entrée is a rarity in a Spanish restaurant but often the starters will include soups, salads and tortillas and lots of places will be flexible… it’s no coincidence that restaurant ordering is probably my most advanced area of Spanish language knowledge!

Of course one of the things that really attracted us to the mediterranean lifestyle in the first place is the fact that children are welcome anywhere, at any time – there are no ‘family’ restaurants serving rubbish food in small portions.   Kids in Spanish restaurants are seen and heard, but you can generally spot the natives who are well behaved and accustomed to being treated as part of a society of many elements.  One thing that is a concern eating out though especially with kids is special Spanish loopholes in the supposedly EU wide smoking ban – many establishments opt out of being smoke-free, meaning the interiors are like sticking your head in an ashtray.  Though when you can sit outside that isn’t a concern – bring on the summer! 

We have had a couple lovely days this week and are promised more for the weekend which will be great, as it’s been a long week for us in the office – mainly dealing with the fallout from the extreme weather conditions in the UK.  Cassie is furious to have missed the best snowfall in decades, she doesn’t even know her old school was closed for part of the week whilst she was sat at her desk.  We are hoping to go back to Jalon tomorrow- restock on wine obviously, but the almond blossom should be out, so we’ll take lots of photos.  Right now writing this has made me realise it’s almost teatime…

Try before you buy at the Jalon bodega

The rest of the week at school seemed to go alright. Kids are just so amazingly adaptable… Cassie promptly latched on to a game involving the collection and swapping or trading of WWF gaming chips, which brought with it common ground and friends, in her class and elsewhere – it’s a small school and it seems to be easy to mix with other years in the playground and other areas. She seems to like her teacher too, and whilst most of her friends seem to be boys this is what we’re used to from home, and at least one of them appears to be Spanish. Lara too has been enthusiastic about getting to nursery every day, although by the time we pick her up at 4 she’s absolutely shattered. I think the daily routine is going to have to involve some seriously early nights… we are also really looking forward to getting up in daylight, hopefully soon. We really love the light evenings in Spain, it’s brilliant to be so far west in the CET timezone we have natural light at 6pm in January, but it does mean an alarm going off before 8 feels like night time!

Richard and I have had a busy week too, getting the office sorted for next week. Somewhat taken aback by the prices of both new and secondhand desks, we ultimately settled for the more cost-effective and easy-to-store option of a garden trestle table! A couple of hipermercado office chairs and rather a lot of gaffer tape later (the phone port is on the wrong side of the villa) and the Costa Del Saros is ready to open for business. My new ip phone seems to be working ok now despite the lack of an ‘ip fija’, and I can chat to colleagues and clients from my old 020 number! People only need to know I’m not there if they actually *need* to know…

On the technical front we’ve also got the hang of watching UK telly in the evenings, on the laptop via a UK proxy server (that convinces the likes of iplayer we are in a licence-paying location). At first it felt a bit weird huddling round a laptop but it’s good to catch up with the new series of Hustle and a couple Christmas specials we missed during the move! Actually it’s surprising how little I find I miss most of it, looking through the schedules it’s sometimes hard to find anything, having decided we’re in the mood to watch TV – mind you that’s not so different from home either. The girls are managing with a lot less TV too, though between DVDs and the PS2 their overall screen-time might not be that much reduced just yet. Hopefully time will bring us the more outdoor lifestyle we moved here to find, it’s still too cold here..! But Cassie has been learning to play chess, and Lara is bringing home Disney Princess books in Spanish from the school library, so there’s plenty to occupy everyone.

We have rearranged the living room this week, so we can huddle closer to the woodburner as well as the laptop. The villa has a huge open plan living room which will be gorgeously cool and airy in the summer no doubt, but is currently a challenge to heat cosily. Being close to the flame is warming to all the senses, and getting a fire going in the first place is viscerally satisfying in a very primal way – it’s also my personal specialist subject, and I have now reached the stage of considering the chemical firelighters a bit of a cop out (the exception being when the wood is very damp due to lack of forward planning). I expect to move on shortly and evolve beyond the need for matches, sparking flames from rubbing bits of wood together or something (or maybe not). But the woodburner has a blower incorporated to waft hot air into the room (only took us a week to locate this, maybe I am not such a Fire Goddess after all…) which is quite effective, especially when the damper underneath is open and you get a strong air current blasting through. Sometimes it’s nearly as strong as the icy drafts that seem to come through from all corners of the house and outside… we are experiencing a very cold snap presently, the same one as the UK I believe.

This weekend we decided to visit the slightly-inland town of Jalón, which is somewhere we are actually quite interested in living in – trouble is it’s a bit far from the primary school in Javea (although quite near to the senior school so longer term we will see). Jalón has excellent ‘rastro’ Saturday mornings, which translates somewhere between a boot fair and antique market. Kinda anything goes – just a long line of stalls in the riverbed, where you can buy things from clothes, food, junk, crafts, furniture… you name it. We came back with some tall glasses for the kitchen, a big bag of oranges, some pick and mix sweets, joss sticks, plus the girls bought some secondhand toys with the ‘Spanish Gold’ Santa brought them, so you get the idea.

We followed that with the slightly more conventional retail experience of the La Marina shopping mall in Ondara, where we finally bought Cassie’s birthday bike! Unfortunately we couldn’t get a helmet in her size that met with her approval (well she is a bit mature for tweety pie or winnie the pooh). We’ll have to get to the expensive bike shop in the port next week instead.

On Sunday we had a quieter day, we’d actually walked for miles yesterday with all our shopping and were all pretty tired. Later on Cassie and I walked down to the Arenal, but it was very cold and blustery. She was watching a kite surfer, but had better not get any ideas! Looks very difficult and dangerous. It was really too cold to watch her on the climbing frames for long, and we soon retired to a coffee shop where Richard and Lara met us, and we introduced girls to the Spanish tradition of churros y chocolate - which was received very positively. It was great to look out at the worsening weather from the indoor comfort of the café – watching the headland of San Antonio in the distant sunlight one minute, then disappearing altogether as a shower moved in, finally bathed in a watery rainbow. Once the rain had moved on we ran back to the car, and home to get another fire started – brrr.