Change of Tack? Change of Topic?

There  is a structure to the year in Frigiliana. A yearly cycle which repeats itself in a predictable fashion. Each year the same festivals and fiestas come and go, and are each celebrated in its customary manner. Of course, other things happen too. A bar closes or changes hands, a new restaurant opens, usually nowadays more up market than hitherto, so that the village more and more becomes a 'foodie' destination. Babies are born; older people die and are given a respectful send-off.

But the very predictably creates its own problems for the blogger. It becomes more and more difficult to think  of something new. I love my blog, and I love the act of writing it, but I wonder if perhaps we have reached a natural end. I had hoped, as many of you know, that by now we would have said our  goodbyes and moved back to England from where I could find a new lease of blogging life telling of a new dream to live. So far that hasn't happened.

So I turn to you my readers for your thoughts. A growing passion over the past forty odd years has been developing and honing my love of cooking. I have amassed an impressive collection of cook books covering a wide range of cuisines, and I thought that if anyone were interested I could begin to share favourites, old and new - fully crediting the sources of course, so that you might find ideas for your own planning. Looking back, it's amazing to see how fashions have changed. Who now remembers a classic starter from the late sixties, half a grapefruit generously dredged with Demerara sugar and caramelised under the grill, for instance? And who, in all honesty would dream of dishing it up now?

Anyway, I ask a favour. Please let me know what you think about this idea to hold the fort until I can start to regale you with tales of life on the Isle of Wight.

Horses For Courses

I write this in a much happier frame of mind, and for a number of reasons. First and foremost, my back is so much better. I didn't risk the bed last night, but I got a straight eight hours sleep last night without discomfort, and this morning I stood and moved around relatively easily.

Also yesterday I had my appointment with the osteopath. To be honest in view of my suffering at the hand of the physiotherapist on Wednesday, I was dreading the encounter . And yes there was a lot of pain involved. The difference was that my pain responses were incorporated into the assessment of my condition, rather than being seen as being what needed intervention. The conclusion was that the muscles of my lower back were so inflamed and so liable to go into spasm, that he could not do what was needed without inflicting unacceptable levels of pain, and so he recommended that I go straight away to the ambulatorio.

Here, a couple of digressions. The ambulatorio is the emergency ambulance station, and it is located alongside the health centre in Nerja. In addition to the paramedics there is always at least one emergency doctor in attendance. You walk in, explain your problem and you will be seen by the appropriate professional, in my case a doctor who examined my back, immediately called in one of the paramedics to administer cortisone injections into the affected muscles, and then sent me by wheelchair next door for X-rays. These showed problems with my two lowest lumbar vertebrae (L4/L5 for the technically minded). Another injection followed, a cocktail of pain killers, prescriptions for a course of tramadol and diazepam, a report for my doctor and instructions to her for daily injections over the coming week. A visit which took only three hours, largely because the doctor had to leap into an ambulance and go out on an emergency call. Today I am already well on the way to recovery, with no need to head for A & E, nor to seek an emergency appointment with my own doctor.

I later had time to compare this service with what would have happened if I still lived in the UK. The local NHS Trust has just announced the closure of two walk-in centres originally opened to relieve the pressure on the local A & E Dept. Cuts to their budget mean a counterproductive saving has to be made, with no thought for the needs of the patient.

The second digression relates to the osteopath. I trained as a psychologist and worked for many years in the fields of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy. People sometimes asked me which school of therapy I subscribed to. I told them that I thought of myself as eclectic; that is to say I read widely on the basis that no one had a monopoly on truth, and so my task was to nick the good bits from wherever I found them. But also I needed to be aware of when the client's problem fell outside my competence. So I was pleased rather than disappointed when my osteopath was honest and confident enough to say, "I can't help you with this. You need chemical intervention to resolve the immediate problem. He apologized for charging his full fee while not able to do more than examine me. As I shall tell him when I return for him to treat the underlying cause of this flare up, I value treatment by its quality, not by the quantity. He knew his limitations, knew where I needed to go, and sent me off in the right direction. I couldn't have asked for more than that.

If you're one of my local readers, I'm talking about Mark Shurey who works two days a week at Fisioterapia Holandesa in c/ Almirante Ferrandiz, Nerja.

Waiting For Amazon

I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself. Just about a week ago I did something to my back - what, I don't know - and things have got progressively worse ever since. I've been taking paracetamol and using an ibuprofen gel, but neither has really helped. The last four nights I have slept sitting up on the sofa, which has a nice high back, elegantly draped in a duvet, as if I lie down, I get an excruciating stab of pain whenever I try to turn over.

Anyway, eventually I managed to get an appointment with a local physio, who worked on my back for three quarters of an hour yesterday to no avail, except to leave me feeling worse rather than better. Tomorrow I have an appointment with her colleague,,an extremely well-regarded osteopath, to see if my spine needs one of his therapeutic nudges. Today I shall spend with a hot water bottle on my lower back.

I have occasionally had low back pain in the past but not on this scale, so I've decided that prevention would be better than cure; I have ordered myself a lumbar support belt from Amazon. I now impatiently await its arrival. Meanwhile, just to top things off, right now we are having our coldest spell for over ten years.

Moan over - for the moment!

Blogger's Block

I've spent the past few days telling myself that I ought to write something. That's always a bad sign because it means that I haven't got anything in mind. I've gone with the flow as long as I can, but it's time to write again, so that's what I'm doing. I don't know whether it will lead anywhere, but let's see. One piece of news which is always welcome to receive came in an email from our eldest daughter yesterday to tell us that she has booked flights for herself and our granddaughters to come out and see us at the beginning of April. Something to look forward to in the next two or three months. At the same time, I have mixed feelings because it means accepting that we're still going to be here in the spring. Viewings are still few and far between, and although people make the right noises and ask the right questions, so far that is as far as it has gone. We console ourselves with the thought that there are far worse places to sit out the selling process. So what, I wonder, does 2017 promise us. AS I look back over more years than perhaps I care to, one thing has become clear; things never turn out the way you had expected. The unpredictables creep in, some welcome, others less so. Last Sunday was a case in point. A mutual friend had posted some photos of a meal she had enjoyed at a local restaurant. They came as quite a surprise because the restaurant in question is a pretty standard, traditional Spanish menu which does well from the tourist and holidaymaker market. The food in the photos was not what you would expect. My wife and I decided it merited a visit. Then I got a text message from another friend suggesting meeting up for a drink one evening. I replied that we were going to give Bentomiz a try in view of the photos, and suggested they might like to join us. I got a reply almost immediately saying that the four of them were booked in for a five course lunch with wine pairing on New Year's Day; would we like to join them? Yes, we said. The day before I got joining instructions for the following day, which came as a shock. It seemed odd that we should 'meet us at the roundabout and follow us up, as the turn off the main road can be a bit tricky'. That didn't fit with where we thought we were going.That's when we discovered that our destination wasn't Bentomiz in the village, but Bodegas Bentomiz, a winery in the mountains about forty minutes drive from home. So a stroll up into the village transformed into a drive out to lovely country and some high end food served in the winery restaurant looking out over the valley and mountains between Sayalonga and Cómpeta. A totally unexpected way to celebrate the start of the year. I looked forward to whatever else the new year might have in store. I didn't have long to wait. Wednesday I woke to a tight chest, a hacking, dry cough that hurt my ribs and the father and mother of all colds. Ah well. You win some; you lose some. Happy New Year.

Christmas Day

To be absolutely honest, this is a Christmas that I had hoped would be spent in a new home back in England. Sadly, with the current state of the property market, that was not to be. Our home remains on the market and we hope that a buyer will appear in the coming twelve months.

It's not because we no longer like it here. If you have to be stranded anywhere there are few better places to be. It's just that with increasing age and decreasing stamina, living on the side of a mountain gets more challenging. Going up to the car park behind us involves climbing thirty seven steep steps, whilst returning from the Centre of the village involves thirty five steps to get to the front door, followed by a further twenty eight up to our floor.

On the benefit side this is a beautiful place to spend Christmas. Outside it's cold but sunny with a clear blue sky. We are just the two of us this year, which is a lovely change. It's so easy to be sociable in this village that we tend to forget that sometimes it's nice to be unsociable and just enjoy each other's company.

In Spain the main Christmas meal is held on Christmas Eve, and everywhere closes around six o'clock so that staff can get home to their families. So for us Christmas began on Friday with a visit to one of our favourite restaurants, a fish restaurant. Cream of lobster soup followed by grilled turbot in a citrus sauce, accompanied by a very good bottle of red wine from the Ribera del Duero region. I've said it before, but to repeat myself, when you're looking for a good Spanish red, look for Ribera del Duero on the label rather than Rioja. On a pound for pound basis you'll do far better.

Last night we went to Midnight Mass in the seventeenth century village church (extended and converted from the earlier mosque). It was a 'proper' Midnight Mass; the priest appeared at midnight, so we were already celebrating Christmas, and what a celebration. One of Frigiliana's groups of traditional singers and musicians was in attendance and what they may lack in polish they more than compensate with enthusiasm. After the gospel reading, the children presented their Nativity play with equal verve. Latin countries do emotion so much more uninhibitedly than we Brits.

So here I am, all the bits and pieces I need are ready in the kitchen for a lunch that will stretch across the afternoon and into the evening, and I can pause for a while to wish you all a Happy Christmas.