Blog

On the 16th of this month it will be the 10th anniversary of my being Bridget’s legal keeper. I thought it might be the right time to do a review of our time together, but then realised that not a lot has happened. Bridget still looks pristine and I am still blissfully unappreciative of her other attributes. I believe I can say in all modesty that I have looked after her as well as anybody could be expected too. In return she has contributed, in a small way, to my travel experience. Seriously, as the pages of this blog witness, we have had a ball. Our appreciation goes out to all the people around the world that were so helpful and hospitable, and our prayers are that the politicians around the world start to work for the betterment of their country folk and put aside their own desires for power and international status. Perhaps they should consider that leaders such as Gandhi...

Well the main reason for being here, the weather, has not failed to impress with only one exception when it attempted to rain, but failed. There has been a couple of overcast days and one where the temperature dropped to 18C but the rest of the time has been bright with temperatures in the low/mid twenties. I have maintained my regime of four mornings a week at the gym, one day a week walking in the mountains and the rest of the time completing normal daily living tasks such as shopping, washing, cleaning, etc. or lazing on the beach. An unexpected portion of culture was absorbed watching a performance of ‘The Nutcracker’ by the Moscow Ballet Company. Such a highlight is almost unheard of in Maspalomas, but there is a relatively new theatre here and they are testing the populations’ response to different events. The almond blossom is out all over the mountains (well all over the trees that is), about a month...

We have been on the island for three weeks now. I have fallen into a routine of visits to the gym, mountain walking and lazing around. We are staying at the same complex as on our previous visit and so know some of our neighbours. Maspalomas itself has changed little except that the local authority is constantly upgrading the pedestrian walkways. Also several of the hotels and tourist bungalow complexes have been given facelifts. The other welcome improvement is to the roads into the island interior. From Maspalomas the GC60 is the main route to the centre of the island and the mountain range. This is a route Bridget and I normally take each week when I go mountain walking and it has been both widened a little and resurfaced. Being a mountain route the road is both steep and very winding, which is great MG motoring but, if it is full of potholes, can be very wearing on Bridget. I have already...

It's almost time that Bridget and I weren't here. After almost 18 months in the UK it's time to take the brakes off and get rolling. We leave on the 25th Oct, destination Gran Canaria again. We will be taking the ferry from Huevla to Las Palmas on the 30th October, arriving on the 1st November and staying for the winter. To get to Huevla we are taking a ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao, then driving through Salamanca and Bandajoz. Need our sea legs! The plan, or as near as I ever get to having one, is to return in the spring via the Balkans. We have never visited Croatia, Bosnia, Kosova, or Serbia before so it will be a bit of adventure. The intention is to go as far as Albania and possibly Moldova or, if the fighting has ceased, Ukraine. I don't know why, but for some reason Moldova never seems like a real country to me (no disrespect meant). The name conjours...