Well we are back home again having had a vary interesting few weeks in Barcelona. What with me being laid up for a week with a very severe case or pneumonia, or possible it was just a bad case of the flue, well I suppose it may have only been only a cold but I wasn’t well for a few days and Christine having had her handbag stolen it has been, as I say interesting.


Add this to Christine’s visit to the accident and emergency hospital last time we were there and we begin to wonder, is Barcelona coming down our list of places we want to visit. The answer of course is no. Naturally we will spend quite a bit of time out there because that is where Alex, Dave and the grandkids live, but also we still love the place.


Christine is still trying to get to spend some quality shopping time in Barcelona with Alex and I am sure that next trip it will happen. Although I thought that after the handbag had been stolen was the ideal time for Christine to go shopping. Having lost her credit and debit cards she could spend all day in Barcelona without doing any serious damage to our finances, Christine of course didn’t agree.


So we still want to go back as often as possible, we have taken to the laid back lifestyle out there in Gava Mar on the outskirts of Barcelona, the morning coffees down the JAS Cafe for an hour or so, the Menu Del Dia lunches that last for at least two hours and of course for me the Bodega for a few ‘sherbets’ with Dave and Sven before our evening meal. It is a very relaxing way of life and one that we have very quickly got used to, not conducive to getting any work done but as a couple of retired old codgers it suits us well. Not that I am suggesting that Christine is anything other than 51 and definitely not old or a codger.


But there is a problem, as we moved out of Alex’s to come home the next guest was just moving in. Chris, a friend of Dave’s from Beverley was going out to Barcelona to watch England play Andorra and was staying with them for a few days. The number of people wanting to stay there seems to keep growing, the calendar is filling up. Visitors are due from The Bahamas, York, Sheffield, Holland in fact the last visitor had to stay at the local hotel because we were still there.


We have had to make provisional booking for the rest of the year to ensure we get our slots. Dave is currently looking at some type of on-line booking system so people can check availability before booking a trip but we have dropped very strong hints that we expect to be accommodated with our dates. Planning is becoming very difficult and the use of a Black Book is a necessity, unfortunately Christine’s designer black book that she had just started using was in the stolen handbag.


But I did notice that she was writing in a small pink book yesterday, not that this book can be described as a designer book of any sort, in fact it looked more likely to be one left behind by our grand daughter Amber when she was going through her Pink Phase.So I assume this is just a temporary Black Book as I am sure Christine will not be seen with this one in public, but it still shows that she has bought into the principle of project planning and is now listing our dates to go back to Barcelona. Probably also putting in provisional dates for our trip to New York and our social arrangements for whilst we are home



Sometime later I casually picked up the Pink Book and glance at the first page. Repair fence, paint wall of house, rotavate garden, move shed, fix leak and there next to each item was my name and a date. There were two items listed for herself, curtains for garden room from John Lewis and visit Meadowhall. The pink book is now in the dustbin. I don’t mind her planning but I do the job allocation, I was a project manager you know. I wonder when the next flight to Barcelona is.