Other stuff

Dougie arranged a surprise holiday to Cuenca (near Madrid) in early October. The old city perched on a hill and the two gorges either side were absolutely stunning. Cuenca is an official historical site as it is one of the oldest cities in Spain. The hotel was an old Cathedral choir boys school, which was superbly maintained in it's original glory (but with all the mod cons too). The views from our bedroom were breathtaking and the whole place was so peaceful, making it an ideal place to relax and unwind from a very busy summer.

In the Autumn half term holidays Heather and family came for a visit and stayed close by in the beach resort of La Mata. Although it was late October the weather was mainly fine and we had a great time. Danielle, Chloe and Heather did some horse riding, with the assistance of Jenny, and later on the men and Jenny went Go Karting. We even played around on the beach, digging big holes and burying Jack. Heather and I took the opportunity to go for a dip, something we haven't done together for a good 15 years or so!

The new house overlooks farmers fields where, in the winter months, broccoli and oranges are harvested. Beyond this is an uninterrupted view of two mountains and also a further mountain range to the right.

Tomatina Festival - Gwenie was chief photographer and bag holder so couldn't get in the thick of it, but still managed to get well and truly splattered.  T-shirts that were once white, have a pink tinge to them and everything has a distinct smell of tomatoes. Now, we didn't think that tomatoes had a particular smell, but it's now one that we'd recognise anywhere!

40,000 people descended upon the small town of Bunol, and 120,000 kilos of tomatoes, along with hundreds of ripped and soggy t-shirts and stray flip-flops, were hurled around for approximately 2 hours. All in the name of fun! The main street was knee deep in toms which, by the time it got as far as the camera girl (at the bottom of a slight hill) was total mush and covered everything in it's path in a carpet of red.

The atmosphere was electric, and even though we've not had the pleasure of attending a football league final, we'd guess it was similar. Thousands of bodies of mixed nationality, although we do believe mostly British or at least native English speakers (lots of Aussies), jumping up and down, shouting and chanting. Everyone was laughing and they were all covered from head to foot in the red stuff, pips and all. Even before the tomatoes arrived in the enormous trucks, the locals in the apartments above the streets were chucking buckets of water and using their water hoses on the crowds below.

After it had all calmed down again the locals continued with their hoses and buckets of water to help the mad, tomato soggy visitors to wash the worst off before everyone made their way, like a herd of migrating wildebeest, back to the station. By the time that we left the town, the council were already power hosing the streets back to their normal colour, and sweeping up the piles of stray flip flops and t-shirts that were previously ammunition.

All in all, good, but not so clean, fun!

Valencia was good too, and if you're thinking of a visit we can recommend our hotel as it was 5 mins walk to the station, and in the immediate area of restaurants and shops.
 

We treated ourselves to a Playstation 2, which also plays DVDs, and have had many hours of entertainment. No more concern as to what language the DVD is in as we can just change the language to English, or if we want to practice our Spanish we can change it to Spanish and add English subtitles! The playstation games have taken a bit of getting use to, but the kids have shown us how!