So, Tuesday night was the big night. The night of Rach’s (or “Ratch” as Alexa calls her every time she connects her phone to the device) birthday dinner. As said previously, we were getting catering in from El Truc. We knew our chef was Sergei, and we had been told to expect him from around […]
Read More →Andorra is quite an unusual place. Essentially, it seems to be one long road through a valley. From the border to the city centre, we went past over numerous roundabouts, and it’s quite unusual to see a sign simply saying “France”. And coming back a sign saying “Spain”. It was at roundabout with one of […]
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He’s a quick test for you. What do you know about Andorra? I know very little. Mainly because they have never made it through to the grand final of the Eurovision Song contest (sidebar: they are actually the only country NEVER to have made it to the Grand Final…a record in itself). They have never […]
Read More →For Rach’s birthday, we are getting catering in for the big day itself. The chef was recommended to us by the owner of the villa, and he runs his own restaurant in Agramunt. Fortuitously for us, he closes the restaurant on Tuesdays, which is the day of Rach’s birthday. We are all following him on […]
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The other day, we went out to have lunch in the local town of Agramunt. We found a bar which seemed very popular. In fact it was so popular, that we couldn’t sit inside in the lovely air-conditioning, so we were very English and sat outside under a canopy. There was a pleasant wind and […]
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Early on in the holiday we realised that even though we had done the big shop (see other Spanish blogs for the relevance of the big shop), we still managed to forget matches. This meant we had nothing to light the barbecue or the mosquito repellent with. Tibu offered to go through to the local […]
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As I have said in previous blogs, the villa we are staying in is on the outskirts of a tiny village. The village itself is completely surrounded by fields. No matter which way we look, we see fields that have recently been harvested. Today we saw the combine harvester and bailing machine going round collecting […]
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I wouldn’t exactly call myself a cat person. Karen and I have never lived in a house with a cat. Dogs yes. Cats no. However, Rachel and Tibu and Nikki have had or still do have cats. They are fond of the felines. They are catty people. They are kind to kitties. You get the […]
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On the first morning here myself Karen and Tibu decided to go and explore the village. The villa is set outside of the village and so we have no immediate neighbours but just a couple of hundred yards down the road is the village of Ossó de Sió. It stands on the top of the […]
Read More →As we settle into our new home, we really are appreciating just how big it is. As I said before it’s two apartments joined together to make one huge property. The oldies have taken the penthouse apartment, otherwise known as the granny flat, and we are on the main floor of the building. This does […]
Read More →We left you with arriving in Spain and eventually being let into the country. We then picked up a hire car from okmobility (which we know does sound like some sort of mobility scheme and that we were going to hire five electric scooters, but they are a very good car firm, they just have […]
Read More →My dear reader…..oh sorry, I went all Lady Whistleblower from Bridgerton then. Well hello, how are you? Not seen you for a few years. You’re looking good. Have you done something with your hair? It’s been a few years since I’ve done a holiday blog. I guess for the past couple of years, the vibe […]
Read More →1 – You can get a shot of grappa in your Espresso for an extra 50c, usually to a ratio 50% grappa to 50% coffee. 2 – People really do say “Mama Mia” – I first heard a couple say it in a lift on our first day here and it made me smile. 3 […]
Read More →We got off the boat at 2:30 pm and the plan was then to walk to Central Station to pick up the bus to the airport. As we set foot on dry land, I noticed a shuttle bus for free. Never one to turn down a bargain, I went up and asked the driver where […]
Read More →Once we got on the boat we picked up our cabin key, panicked that the key didn’t work, then got it to work, then tripped in because we forgot about the lip at the bottom of the door. You know, the usual thing that you do when you first arrive in a hotel or on […]
Read More →The time had come to move on from Napoli. The plan was that we took the overnight ferry to Palermo on Sicily, get the bus from the train station to the airport and pick up a hire car to drive off to our next accommodation. The boat was a midnight sailing and arrived in Sicily […]
Read More →Last Saturday when we were doing the final bit of packing, hiding the laptops (burglars, don’t whatever you don’t lift the manhole cover above the drains and look for a sealed bag) and watering the plants (no point, they are all dead) Karen said “we must pack a fan”. My immediate thought was how are […]
Read More →Napoli is hilly. I kind of knew that from pictures, but Google maps lulls you into a false sense of security. To my knowledge, Google maps doesn’t have a topographical feature yet where you can see the hills, which seems a bit weird as Google knows everything about me so really it should know that […]
Read More →A schoolboy error which both Karen and I made when booking our accommodation for this holiday was the lack of washing machine. When we normally book a villa with the gang, in our list of requirements a washing machine is pretty high (after hot tub, Barbecue, Wi-Fi, satellite TV, concierge). Without having Nikki and Rachel […]
Read More →Since we arrived here we have seen adverts for Bufala Fest. This was a obviously a festival of buffalo mozzarella cheese. It seemed to start in August and go into September and the other day when we were on the open top bus, we saw them setting up down by the seafront. We decided to […]
Read More →The other night when we were having our dinner (that’s tea to fellow northerners), we got chatting to a family next to us. They spoke English but we worked out that they weren’t from England. The mother and grandmother in the group were fluent in Italian, so we assumed they were of Italian origin. When […]
Read More →Now that we have worked out how to buy Metro tickets (see yesterdays blog) we have been using it quite a lot. The other night though we had quite an interesting journey. As the Metro was pulling out of the station, a small gentleman jumped on the train at the last moment and to everybody’s […]
Read More →Napoli has a great metro system. Actually let me rephrase that; Napoli has a metro system. It consists of 2 lines and various funiculars (all of which I will have travelled on before we leave. That’s a promise). The only problem is trying to buy a ticket to travel on them. We have a metro […]
Read More →The kids have gone back to school, the leaves are turning brown, the telly had got good. It can only mean one thing. It’s time for the Fenners’ Summer holiday! Yep, myself and Karen have two weeks exploring the delights of Italy. We have a week in Naples as a city break and then we […]
Read More →The kids have gone back to school, the leaves are turning brown, the telly had got good. It can only mean one thing. It’s time for the Fenners’ Summer holiday! Yep, myself and Karen have two weeks exploring the delights of Italy. We have a week in Naples as a city break and then we […]
Read More →This is the last day of the holiday so I don’t usually write a blog as we are normally up stupidly early and off to the airport to fly home. However on this occasion we are flying back on a late evening flight so have the luxury of not having to set off for the […]
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This is the last day of the holiday so I don’t usually write a blog as we are normally up stupidly early and off to the airport to fly home. However on this occasion we are flying back on a late evening flight so have the luxury of not having to set off for the […]
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Over the course of this holiday I have managed to completely destroy the Spanish language. The salami type sausage called Salchichón. will forever now be known as “Salty John”; the card game “Chinchon” has been rename “Chimmy Changa” and I have starting saying “Chinky-Chinty-Uno” which is, of course, the number 21, or 51 depending on […]
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A regular feature of these holidays is me attempting to keep my religious running regime. By religious I mean that I only do it on a Sunday because I feel I should and even then only do it half heartedly. (Hopefully most readers will see the irony in that last sentence). I tried it in […]
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The weather here has been, to say the least, changeable. Being in the mountains, we do have a bit of a microclimate and the weather can be completely different 2km down the road. When you look at a rain radar map of the area you can see a yellow splodge with a red edge over […]
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