Spain (Part 1)

I don't get away to foreign fields as much as I would like these days. It doesn't really appeal travelling alone and friends have busy schedules (or other friends they go away with), so I don't get much opportunity. Kay quite rightly goes away a lot with her long-term boyfriend. I keep plucking up courage to travel solo. Maybe one day. Meanwhile, when Kay suggested she had a spare week in July during which we could do something together, I leapt at the opportunity. 

I've never been to mainland Spain before. Greg and I visited a few of the Balearic islands in the past, but never ventured onto the mainland. I guess all those horrible visions of Torremelinos and Benidorm put me off and those who did venture there came back with squiffy tummies. However, a recent read of Victoria Hislop's The Return made me curious to see Granada and Seville and to learn more of the history. I knew very little about the Spanish Civil War and had been quite alarmed at what I had gleaned. So with laptop before me and ideas whizzing in my head, I booked Kay and me onto a flight to Seville, a hotel in Seville for three nights, a bus to Granada and hotel for four nights in Granada, as well as the fight back to London City Airport (a first as I had never flown in or out of there). The weather forecast was for very hot temperatures every day and I did question the wisdom of a July holiday sightseeing in a furnace, but your intrepid blogger decided to cast all concerns to one side and go for it.

Seville did not disappoint. I found it easy to manage all the sights within a  10 minute walk of our hotel (I had deliberately opted for a hotel slap bang in the centre of the Old Town traffic-free streets). The shops were sophisticated, the local women immaculately dressed, despite the heat, the tourists more shabbily dressed in comparison. The ice cream parlours and tapas bars provided welcome shade in the 35C - 38C heat, as did the churches and palaces. Here is a mere small fraction of the photos  I took whilst there. More to come on Granada in another post...

Our hotel in Seville - Moorish style

Alcazar Palace

Alcazar Palace- beautiful ceilings

Alcazar interior -  intricate patterns

Alcazar interior - stunning walls and ceilings

Alcazar interior - stunning walls and ceilings

Alcazar interior - beautiful with every turn

Alcazar interior - stunning courtyards

Alcazar interior - even the doors are not plain

Alcazar interior - it gets better

Alcazar inmate

Alcazar  grounds

Alcazar  grounds

Shops with a difference

Public transport

Cathedral

Cathedral

Cathedral

Cathedral -tomb of Christopher Colombus

Cathedral

Cathedral

Plaza de Espana

Plaza de Espana

Plaza de Espana

San Salvador

San Salvador

Santa Ana, Triana

Statue of Juan Belmonte - famous bullfighter

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Reunion

It's fifty years since I left school after taking A-Levels. It seems like yesterday, so how can it be fifty years? My school, at the time I was there, was an Inner London grammar school. It has changed over the years since - first to a Comprehensive, then a Technology College and currently is an Academy. I struggle to understand what this means in real terms, but am comforted to see the history of the place and the ethos is basically the same. A few buildings have been added on, but the Old Victorian ediface I knew is still the hub. One of our "Old Girls" is the newsreader and TV presenter Fiona Bruce.

Every summer, there are Old Girls reunions. I have only ever been to one. That was about 25 years ago when I dragged a 3-year-old Kay along with me for moral support. The date chosen for the reunions (always the middle Saturday in July) usually clashes with Kay's birthday, so I am never able to go. Not that I probably would anyway, as I am half frightened to meet up with old rivals and maybe see they are more successful in their lives. A lot of my very close friends live in other countries or at vast distances in this one, so I would not really meet up with anyone I wanted to spend time with, assuming anyone from my year group was even there. 

But this year seemed different. Kay was celebrating her birthday on the next day for a start and this year was the fiftieth anniversary of leaving school so I thought an immense effort on my part was needed. I couldn't let fifty years go by without celebrating.  So go I must. But what to wear?  First impressions are so important, particularly after fifty years.  I tried on dozens of outfits from my wardrobe until I was a fraction happy with what I chose. I have never wanted to have a flash car, but suddenly my 20-year-old Micra wouldn't fit the bill, so I decided to take the bus there - in London that is sensible anyway, as parking and traffic can be a nightmare and I wanted to arrive as cool as a cucumber.

With dry mouth and pounding heart I approached the oh so familiar building I had spent seven teenage years in remembering like yesterday the sweat of exams, the hatred of hockey and the heartache of teenage boyfriends. Within two minutes of arriving, I was approached by someone who looked vaguely familiar and, staring at my name badge, she announced who she was. Yes, indeed, someone from my old class. Amazingly, we got on like a house on fire and chatted non-stop for a couple of hours reliving the past fifty years and what we had each done with our lives.  It was like we had never been apart, we got on so well, we swapped emails and promised to stay in touch.  If only we'd had the internet and facebook in our day, it would have been easier to stay in touch!

Having had a rather difficult tooth extracted a week ago and still in some degree of pain, I managed to negotiate my first true solid food in the form of crustless sandwiches, scones, cream and jam and a fruit meringue with lashings of tea in china cups and saucers, all without it dribbling down my face. I wandered corridors and peeped into classrooms, retracing my steps as an 11-year-old entering the school and as an 18-year-old saying goodbye to our much coveted sixth form attic rooms, the "cool" place to be.  All in all a very satisfying visit to my old school and to quote a line from the cartoon Chicken Run "All my life flashed before my eyes". But it was most definitely not "very boring".

Under arrest

If you don't hear from me for a while, it is because I've been locked up in Holloway Prison. No joking! 

I've just had yet another one of those phone calls supposedly from Her Majesty's Tax Office, informing me that I am being charged with fraud for non-payment of taxes. I was then told by a very posh voice to press 1 to speak to an adviser. If I didn't, the voice told me in no pleasant tone that I shall be arrested shortly. To which I shouted down the phone "Oh good, I look forward to seeing you".

Over the last year or so, I have had quite a few of these scam calls on the main landline phone, but today was a first, because the call came into my mobile/cell/handy phone and had the additional threat of arrest. I wonder how many people fall into the trap or how many little old men or women have a heart attack with the shock.  It must pay off. I suppose if one in a thousand hand over their money, the scammer gets a result.