Well we are home again and guess what, it’s still raining. So after our few weeks in the sunshine of Barcelona and the French Alps it is back to the real world, rain and Christine’s Black Book.


We have only been back a few days and already I have painted one bedroom window and according to the Black Book there are three more to go and that’s just the first item. There is a lawn to lay, a compost bin to set up, trees to prune and the gutters to clean all with my name next to them, but what I don’t really understand is the note to herself saying “winter clothes from York”.


Next week we are going back to Barcelona for a month or so and we will be over there again for Christmas, so I can’t see the need for winter clothes, which I mention to Christine. I also just happen to mention the wardrobes and drawers already full of winter clothes that have not been used for the past two years or so while we have been over wintering in firstly The Bahamas and now Barcelona.


Christine looks at me with total exasperation, as if I ought to understand. “Those are winter clothes for English winters” she says “not for Barcelona. I can’t wear the same winter clothes in England as in Barcelona, totally different styles”. With that she pencils Wednesday in the Black Book as the day to go shopping in York. I assume the styles of winter clothes in York are similar to those in Barcelona but I keep this comment to myself.


I think back to the Bahamas days and remember that Christine had clothes that were only suitable for the Bahamas and now we have clothes that are only for Barcelona, I hope Alex and Dave don’t up and move again anytime soon I can’t keep up with the shopping days.


Mind you I think we may need some English winter clothes before we go back to Barcelona next week, we have just had mugs of hot chocolate at Hornsea Freeport shopping centre with the temperature at nine degrees, for those still in Fahrenheit that’s about 48 degrees in other words pretty cold for September. I mention to Christine that we could have stayed in Barcelona but she just opens the Black Book and looks at the list of jobs and shakes her head.


But on a different note we have just booked our Christmas flights with Ryanair with the return flights costing 2p plus airport charges which sounds pretty good and comes to about £30 each. But then it goes downhill. A further £10 is added to put a case in the hold, a further £4 to use the check in desk and a further £4 for using a credit card. So the cost of a 2p return flight is actually £48.


Why don’t they just charge the flight at the right price and stop adding on all the extras, it’s Dixon’s Car Services all over again or the Habitat tables that could only be delivered. I have just looked at a return rail journey from Hull to London and the cheapest fare is £53, so a return to Barcelona at £48 is good value. So why annoy us with the add ons? Just say what it costs up front. OK that’s my rant for today.


On a plus note our garden is looking very good, my sister Margaret and her husband Howie are staying with us at the cottage whilst their house is being rebuilt following the floods in Hull so she is spending all her time putting our garden right for the autumn. At least that’s some jobs that won’t appear in the Black Book for me to do. If I can just get her to take the wall paper of the dinner room whilst we are away on the next trip that will be another job off the list. Then there’s the bathroom to decorate and one more bedroom but maybe that’s going a bit too far.......!




The even better news is that by time we get back to Barcelona next week the Bordega will be open again so all will be back to normal, long lunches followed by a siesta and dinner at eight thirty with Dave and I turning up late around nine.