The temperatures here remain gloriously unseasonal, just a few days from November and still it feels like summer, normally at this time I´ve packed away me fair weather gear and have de bobbled the old jumpers with a view to actually wearing the things. Instead I spend the days (and nights) ligging round in me undercrackers with the windows wide open and one of the customers in the bar complained that he has over 20 mosquito bites on his buttocks! (maybe HE should have been ligging around in his underwear). That´s an impressive tally though isn´t it? – 20 - were they all delivered from the same mossie? – couldn´t it find a vein? – must have been the size of a bumble bee when it made its getaway - leaving its victim with an arse like a Belisha Becon no doubt.
The November fiestas are looming and I have sorted the garb for fancy dress day, - I´m going as Dick Emery´s vicar. Have got a long frock coat thing, grey wig and some rubber teeth – these strangely make me look more like Larry Grayson (“what a gay day”, “look at the muck in here” etc.) but I´m sticking with em.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
"Let There Be Light..............."
And God Said “Let There Be Light, And There Was Light, And Then There Was No Light, Then There Was A Bit of Of Light, - And Then The Water Went off”
It´s a hardy old annual I know but, electric and Spain simply don´t get on do they? Everybody knows this and it will be forever thus, but why for God´s sake? I remember in the 80´s working in the Canaries, which of course isn´t actually in Spain, but we had power cuts most days of the week then. Usually early evening when I was getting ready, and many´s the time I turned up for work wearing the wrong trousers, toothpaste all around my mouth and underpants on back to front.
Fast forward 20 years and what has changed? – well, bugger all really. It´s not just that we get regular power cuts for no apparent reason either, generally the standard of wiring to household appliances tends to be shambolic. Where I live now the light in the living room consists of 2 bulbs within the fitting, sometimes one comes on but not the other, other times the other one will come on at the expense of its partner, but hardly ever together. It´s a similar story in the bedroom, once turned on they make an eerie fizzing sound, which results in one bulb burning out after a couple of weeks whilst the other one intermittingly goes brighter then dim, goes off altogether, then might come on again 10 minutes later. This has got steadily worse, and being a late night reader this was driving me up the pole. So today I moved the Light standard from the enclosed balcony and placed it next to my bed, there are two lights on this, a big one at the top and a separate arm which will do as a reading light. The only problem with this is that the light at the top sometimes emits a bit of light – even when it´s turned off! but not always. I´d earlier tried an ancient looking 60´s bedside lamp that I´d found in the wardrobe, and that flashed rapidly, like a strobe light, very impressive, but not much good to read by.
In my last apartment, - which was beautifully decorated and very pleasing on the eye, when I turned the bedroom light off, it turned off every other light in the place. Also the living room light would turn itself on! This could happen any time, but usually between 6 and 6.30 in the morning for some indiscernible reason. Two nights ago I read by candlelight as the electric had gone off altogether, and I laid there resigned to my fete, being eaten alive by rampant mossies (my mosquito killer plugs in) and squinting at the flickering pages of cricketer Micheal Atherton´s autobiography whilst listening to the “plink plink” of my fridge freezer gently defrosting. Well, at least I´ve got water, er,.........hang on a minute!
Fast forward 20 years and what has changed? – well, bugger all really. It´s not just that we get regular power cuts for no apparent reason either, generally the standard of wiring to household appliances tends to be shambolic. Where I live now the light in the living room consists of 2 bulbs within the fitting, sometimes one comes on but not the other, other times the other one will come on at the expense of its partner, but hardly ever together. It´s a similar story in the bedroom, once turned on they make an eerie fizzing sound, which results in one bulb burning out after a couple of weeks whilst the other one intermittingly goes brighter then dim, goes off altogether, then might come on again 10 minutes later. This has got steadily worse, and being a late night reader this was driving me up the pole. So today I moved the Light standard from the enclosed balcony and placed it next to my bed, there are two lights on this, a big one at the top and a separate arm which will do as a reading light. The only problem with this is that the light at the top sometimes emits a bit of light – even when it´s turned off! but not always. I´d earlier tried an ancient looking 60´s bedside lamp that I´d found in the wardrobe, and that flashed rapidly, like a strobe light, very impressive, but not much good to read by.
In my last apartment, - which was beautifully decorated and very pleasing on the eye, when I turned the bedroom light off, it turned off every other light in the place. Also the living room light would turn itself on! This could happen any time, but usually between 6 and 6.30 in the morning for some indiscernible reason. Two nights ago I read by candlelight as the electric had gone off altogether, and I laid there resigned to my fete, being eaten alive by rampant mossies (my mosquito killer plugs in) and squinting at the flickering pages of cricketer Micheal Atherton´s autobiography whilst listening to the “plink plink” of my fridge freezer gently defrosting. Well, at least I´ve got water, er,.........hang on a minute!
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