Summer 2019 Episode 12 - 4th August - San ISidro - Crevillent

Hi, glad you could make it on this, the penultimate full day of the San Isidro leg of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. Yes, only tomorrow to go now.  

When I got up this morning, I had a think about the day ahead, and decided that opportunities for on the spot sketching were probably going to be like jockey’s legs – few and far between. Bearing this in mind, I cheated somewhat on today’s sketch. I took a few photos as well as making the sketches in Murcia last week, and so today’s sketch is just based on a photo I took. This is not the nicest looking bridge over the Segura in Murcia – the nicest bridge I already sketched last year. But hey, I’ve got make a sketch of at least one bridge whenever I’m away, I’m sure somebody passed a law about it a while ago. 

Sunday lunch in the Las Palmeras restaurant in Crevillent was the big event of the day. John really wasn’t feeling very well at all before we left the Casa Me Duck. He’s developed a bit of a bad chest. Jen did check his blood oxygen level, and he’s fine on that score, so working on that principle we proceeded towards the restaurant, and he did improve somewhat while we were eating. A nice meal it was too, although interestingly, as it was last week, the starter was better, and more of a main course than the actual main course was. Speaking of the main course, I did think twice about sole in orange sauce, bearing in mind experiences with Chinese lemon chicken before now. The second – and last – time I had this particular dish it consisted of cubes of chicken served up in what resembled nothing quite so much as lukewarm Gale’s lemon curd. Thankfully, the orange sauce was quite subtle, and the sole cooked to perfection today. 

Thus replete and satisfied we set off on the short walk back to the Hancoxmobile. Now, forgive me for using actual photographs for the next bit, but they can probably better convey what happened next than mere words. We came out of the restaurant, and looked at the Hancoxmobile. This is what we saw:-

Then we got a bit closer and this is what we saw:- 

As they say in Spain – bloody el. 

I did offer to get the spare out and whip it on, but John and Jenn were adamant that this is what they pay their insurance for, and called out breakdown assistance. More about that in a while. After Jen had rung up the breakdown people, we had a good half hour’s wait, and John wanted to answer a call of nature. His wheelchair won’t fit in through the door of the Gents inside the restaurant, however the restaurant has its own swimming pool, and we were certain there was a toilet down by the pool, even if we weren’t sure exactly where. I wheeled John down the ramp, and two rather unhelpful steps and we found the toilets, a rather ugly blockhouse with unisex cubicles. After we’d waited for a good ten minutes, and then did the necessary and came out, a lady stopped me, laughing, and said something I’m afraid that I didn’t understand. Then she pointed to the blockhouse next to the one we’d used. Then she pointed to the sign above the door – I can’t remember the exact words, but it was pretty clear that it translated as disabled toilets.  

Once the breakdown guy arrived – and to be fair, I thought that being there in 30 minutes on a summer Sunday was pretty good going – he whipped out the spare, a lever jack, and a wheelbrace, and he was done in a matter of minutes. Impressed as we were, I passed on a 5 Euro tip, and said “Toma una bebida conmigo”, which I think sort of means – have a drink with me. Mind you, judging by the look on the guy’s face when I said it, it might just has easily have meant – have a baby with me. No, I did google it when I got back, just to be certain.  

Well, after all that excitement I’m afraid to say that I scarcely moved from the sofa in the Casa Me Duck once we returned home. So this is of necessity a rather shorter episode than we’ve become accustomed to. As for tomorrow – well, Russ is coming in the morning, and with the cleaners coming in I shouldn’t wonder that we’ll be going out for a bit tomorrow morning.  

Hopefully see you same time tomorrow.

SUmmer 2019 Episode 11 - 3rd July - San Isidro - Catral

Evening. Here we are then at the second weekend of the English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook summer sketchpedition. It’s Saturday! That’s about the only thing I don’t like about the school holidays – Saturdays somehow become less special. Still Saturday – Sabado – it is, and so let me ask you this. What do I normally do at least once on a Saturday whenever I’m staying in San Isidro? How very dare you! No, not that, I meant we go to the market in Catral.

First of all, though, we passed through the market to grab a coffee and a tostada in a café close by the church, which you can see in the sketch below. The Café Plaza – named after Port Talbot’s sadly dilapidated art deco cinema, I believe – was an interesting place. The coffee and tostada were delicious, but it was one of those places which has led me to formulate a theory, which I am sure that posterity will dub Clark’s theory of inverse volume. Basically it means that the smaller the volume of a café or bar in Spain, the greater the volume at which the locals within it will talk. And there’s a certain type of Spanish chap who is very, very good at speaking at full volume. Every bar/café has at least one, and the Plaza, in its small space, had 4, two in front of me, and two behind. By the time we came out I did feel a little bit like I’d been beaten over the head with a blunt instrument.

Now, just in case you’re starting to think that I’m being unfair to Spanish men, fear not. Now I’m going to have a go at the English as well. I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity critic. A practical move we could take to lesson the toll being taken on John’s feet was to provide some cushioning and protection for him, and so we visited a chemist just off the main square. Now, if alarm bells happen to be ringing in your mind following my experiences in the chemist in San Isidro, well, I can understand that. However, this chemist, being in cosmopolitan downtown Catral, was well used to dealing with British customers. Which was just as well. There was a queue ahead of us, all of us being held up by a senior citizen, whose accent irresistibly reminded me of The Last of the Summer Wine. See what you think about what he was talking about.

“What I want to know is, why are you closed sometimes?” When met with confusion from the pharmacist, he elaborated,

“What time do you open?”

“Half past eight.”

“I was here at nine and you were closed.”

“Ah, well, it’s the summer . . . “ Trust me, that is a perfectly adequate excuse in Spain.

“This was in the winter.” – and so on it went. The poor girl was berated for the fact that they closed during siesta time, and weren’t open the second after it ended, and so it went on. Eventually the miserable old devil gave up – maybe he was starting to feel all the daggers that everyone had been looking at him , although since everyone in the queue was British, we just silently wished him a bout of amoebic dysentery rather than saying anything to him about it.

The market. Right, would you like the glass half full appraisal, or the glass half empty appraisal? The half full appraisal was that there was quite a lot more stalls there than there was when I visited last year. Last year it was a couple of weeks later in the year, and a lot of the stallholders were on holiday. The half empty appraisal was that I just wasn’t really that interested in what was there. Fruit and veg stalls, sweet stalls, and above all else, ladies’ clothing stalls. Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that ladies need to wear clothes, and ladies clothing stalls would seem to be a reasonable solution to that problem. But, how should I put it, to me, when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

Still, looking on the bright side, the fruit and veg stall did at least allow me the opportunity of  making a Spanglish pun. It helps if you know that the Spanish for spinach (hmm, the Spanish for spinach? The chalice from the palace and the vessel with the pestle come to mind.) – the Spanish for spinach is espinacas. Hey – stop making up your own puns! Jen pointed out the spinach on the stall which was looking very sorry for itself, and said,

“That spinach looks like I feel.” To which I replied,

“Espinackered. “ No? Well, please yourselves.

That, then, was about it for today. Just Sunday’s and Monday’s instalments to go in part one of the trip, good people. I hope to see you then.

Summer 2019 - Episode 10 - August 2nd - San Isidro - Catral

Well, hello, good evening, and welcome. Now the really observant among you will probably have noticed that although I have posted an episode of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook every day, by spreading my post about my trip to Murcia over two days, I cunningly avoided having to say anything about yesterday. Clever huh? Well, the fact is that there really isn’t much to say about yesterday or today, so it will be interesting to see if I can string one episode out of the both of them.

If that introductory paragraph didn’t manage to put you off, then I applaud your tenacity, and just hope that what follows will be worth you sticking with. Yesterday, then. Jen left the casa very early in the morning for an appointment at the hospital. The good news is that when she returned she said that her immune system has improved considerably, and certainly she has seemed much more like herself in the last couple of days. 

She’d been given another prescription, and John also had a prescription which needed picking up, so this put me onto chemist duty in the afternoon. The pharmacist I’ve been dealing with in the last week has been a holiday relief apparently. As I walked in and she saw me, I saw a cloud pass momentarily over her features as I walked in. I bet she was thinking, “Oh, flipping heck, not Senor Ladythings again.” After I handed her the prescriptions and Jen and John’s cards, I did for a moment think that I was actually going to achieve my mission without any fuss for the first time this holiday. But no. She stood there, looking at Jen’s medicine, then her computer screen, and shook her head. She couldn’t work out whether she was just supposed to give the one box, because if she was supposed to give more, then she’d have to order it. Still, between her uncertain English, and my far worse Spanish, we worked out between us that I could have the one box, and would come back if there was supposed to be more so she could order it. 

Now, having sampled the delights of Catral, Dolores, San Felipe Neri, El Realengo and Callosa de Segura over the last few days, I’d decided to venture in the other direction and check out Crevillent for a suitable subject for sketching yesterday afternoon. And I found one. Heading down what I presumed was the main street, I saw a sign for the centro urbano pointing uphill. – That sounds promising. – said I, and drove the Smart uphill, and round a complicated maze of streets until we came to a very promising looking church. Unfortunately there was absolutely nowhere I could park even the Smart. I resolved to try going around in a big circle, and have another look for a parking space when I got back close to the church. The only thing is, in these nearby small towns, the Spanish do have something of a fondness for one way systems. I could go up, and I did. I could go down, and I did. I could go round and round and I did. Could I find my way back to the church, though? Could I heck as like. So I’m sorry, but there’s no sketch from yesterday. 

Unable to satisfy my creative urge through my pen, last night, I ended up cooking for all of us. We quickly fished out all of the ingredients, and I got cracking. And you’ll have to take my word for it, but let me tell you that once you’ve had a nibble on my Bolognese, you don’t go back. Sometimes you can’t.  

Today, then. On a more serious note, Russ has been worried about John’s feet for a week now, and after yesterday he saw to it that John had a Doctor’s appointment to examine them. Without going into huge detail, as I said John finds it very difficult to walk any distance at all now, and is also experiencing difficulties with his hands. Up to now, this has been treated as a consequence of a spinal injury which John suffered some years ago. Now, according to the doctor John saw today, it is a consequence of his diabetes. His diabetes was diagnosed a few years ago, and his sugar is stable, but all the years it went untreated did the damage according to this doctor. He’s making an appointment for John to see a specialist, so we’ll see what they can do then. 

The big event for the day, then, was lunch out at El Burladero in Catral. Quick trivia question – where would you see a burladero, and what is it used for? No? Well, you’d see it in a bull ring. It’s a wooden screen which a bull fighter can cower behind when the bull finally decides it’s had enough of a big red hanky being waved in its face. To be honest, it turned out that dining here was a little bit of a gamble, not because the food wasn’t good, but because there was no written menu and the lovely waitress couldn’t really understand us any more than we could understand her. More by luck than judgement, though, we ended up with a rather delicious meatball starter, and a definitely delicious cod main course. We sat out in the open, which was just as well. There was a bull’s head mounted on the wall, and had we been eating beefy meatballs under its nose it would have been rather insensitive to say the least. In the forecourt, the restaurant had fans which sprayed a fine mist of water over the diners at intervals, and very refreshing it was too. 

So there you go, dearly beloved, we made it to the end of the episode after all. Without much chance for sketching today, I’ve included a sketch made in the station in Murcia, which I’ve been holding back for a sketchless episode just such as this one. 

Summer 2019 episode 9 - 31st July - Murcia

Okay, so when I left you in the previous episode, I’d just scarpered from the Testivos de Jehova. I sat myself outside the Church of San Bartolomeo, fully intending to sketch the church as an act of penance, when I noticed a rather interesting statue right in front of it. Dios Mercurio, or the God Mercury as we call him. My first thought was that the Church was rather bidding against itself by having this statue outside its entrance, but then, thinking about it, I suppose that it’s the ecclesiastical equivalent of a Marvel comics/DC crossover. By the way, if you’re looking at the sketch, that thing sticking out in front of the statue is his caduceus. Ooh, Matron. That’s his wand – ooh Matron. Honestly, get your minds out of the gutter, please. The caduceus is the staff with two serpents wound round it which has since become an international symbol for medicine and medical help. As for the strange thing seemingly sticking out of his cheek, well, this was all part of a baseball hat and scarf combination which had been hung rather haphazardly around his neck.

I had a hankering to see the Plaza del Toros, which I noticed on the map. Yes, that’s right, a bullring. Now, let me try to explain my feelings about this. I have never been to a bull fight, and I never want to go to a bullfight. I understand that bull fighting is part of Spanish culture and tradition, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it or condone it, because I don’t. But architecturally, I wanted to see the building – well, the outside at least. For me, a Spanish bullring is the closest modern descendant of a roman amphitheatre, both architecturally, and also in terms of the bloodthirsty spectacle provided. So I did walk along to it, and in terms of architecture, I can’t say that I was disappointed. It wasn’t easy to get a good vantage point to sketch it, and this was a standing up job.

I walked back towards the cathedral, and found a useful low stone wall to sit on while I sketched the bell tower, which you can see on the same page as the sketch of Mercury. Time was getting on by now, and a spot of lunch seemed to be in order. Cards on the table, food never forms an important part of my agenda whenever I’m on a sketching trip, and especially when the weather’s hot as it is here, then it tends to suppress my appetite. However, you do have to eat, and in this case I walked back down the Gran Via towards the bridge, then took a detour towards what I think was the Church of San Pedro, and this was surrounded by restaurants, as you can hopefully see from the sketch I made. I had a very nice slice of pizza with cheese and chorizo, and thus fortified, I headed back towards the river.

It was while I was walking towards an interesting Iron girder bridge that I noticed that something was sticking out of the river. Something huge. A closer look revealed that it is in fact a sculpture, of the head of a fish, and its tail sticking out of the river. I have to say that I rather liked the frivolity of it. I idly googled it when I got back to the casa last night, and found out that it is the Sardina del Segura – the Segura being the river – and it’s a tribute to the most famous ancient fiesta of the city, the Enttierro de la Sardina. It’s held every spring, and the literal meaning of Entierro del Sardina is the burial of the Sardine. And you thought my putative Fiesta del Propane sounded silly! I’m not making this one up. Apparently it is a mock funeral procession which ends with a symbolic burning of an effigy of a sardine to mark Ash Wednesday, the end of carnival and the start of Lent.

Well, I thought, how do you follow a giant, concrete sardine sticking out of the middle of the river? I’ll be honest, I didn’t have much of an answer when I’d finished the sketch. My modus operandi for a day’s sketchpedition is to keep going until my legs hurt, and then stop. It was about 3 o’clock and my legs were hurting, so I headed to the station. Where I swiftly found out that the next train to Alicante didn’t leave until 4. Well, such is life. I wasn’t in a huge rush, which was just as well because it was more like quarter past  by the time the train left the station.

Just one more thing worthy of mention. Only two of us got off the train at San Isidro. The other guy was ahead of me, and we both walked out of the station. Then he headed off in exactly the direction I wanted to go. Every turning I needed to make, he made exactly the same turning before me. As we approached the road with the Casa Me Duck I couldn’t believe that he walked into exactly the same street. Poor devil must have thought that I was deliberately following him. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had preceded me into the gates of the casa, but thankfully he went into a house across the road, and so my brief, unwanted career as San Isidro’s own Senor Stalker came to an end.

Well, that’s it for yesterday’s Murcia trip. Not a lot happening on what has been a lazy, can’t be bothered to step outside the casa, day so far today. So I’ll see you again tomorrow.

Summer 2019 Episode 7 - 30th July - San Isidro - Quesada

Still with me after all this time? I have to say that you’re a glutton for punishment, but never mind, I’m very glad to have you with me. I’ll begin today as I ended yesterday with a shout out. My middle daughter Zara was a little put out that I made a shout out for Tony and Mum yesterday and not her, so let’s rectify that. This episode is dedicated to Zara – I miss you and the whole family loads, but I’ll see you soon.  

Well, there were two major items on the agenda for today, then. The second was a fish and chip lunch out in Quesada. The first, though was the visit of Senor Gas. Senor Gas is not, as you might have deduced, a Spanish gentleman with an unfortunate flatulence problem. (Although I do think I met that one in Madrid last year). No, Senor Gas is the guy who delivers the new calor gas canister and takes away the empties. I’ll come back to him afterwards. It got to about 9 o’clock, and he hadn’t been, so I took John down to the Rekreo Bar for a coffee and a sin alcohol. John can’t walk for any real distance, and so he uses a wheelchair which seems to be assisted by an electric motor – rather like those electrically assisted bicycles you might have seen in the last year or two. That’s great, but the only thing is he goes along at such a clip in it that he’s like Charlton Heston in his chariot in Ben Hur. It’s okay at half nine in the morning before the sun gets too high, but later on in the heat of the day it’s murder trying to keep up with him.  

Now, I know you’ve been waiting for the latest update on the free beer and peanuts situation. Well, all I can think is that we must have really upset the landlord somehow when he gave them to us a few days ago, since not only did he not give us any again today for what must be the 3^rd or 4^th day running, he even ignored me for a couple of minutes before I could ask for dos cafés con leches and dos sin alcohols por favour. We’ve obviously done something, I just wish I knew what it was.  

Okay, so after we’d put the world to rights for the best part of an hour we wandered back, and the empty gas canister was still standing by the gates of the Casa Me Duck. Senor Gas was obviously a little late. Then when we went in we found out that he wasn’t late, but he’d just ignored Jen completely – even though she’d been standing in the gateway, brandishing the empty canister with one hand, and waving a 50 Euro note with the other. – There’s a mental picture to conjure with – I thought – but I don’t think at that moment she would have appreciated had I said it out loud. So anyway we sat down, formulated plans for dealing with the gas situation on Thursday, and forgot all about it. Until about an hour later when there was a furious honking from the street, as another Senor Gas arrived in the street. This one was the usual guy, and so the transaction was carried out  as it should have been. Who the hell the first guy was, and what he’d been doing is anybody’s guess, however, it’s worth noting that about an hour later a third one turned up honking at the end of the street. Is there a sudden rush on calor gas in the locality? Is everyone preparing for the little known local event, El Fiesta del Propane? I think we should be told. 

So to lunch then. We ate in a fish and chip restaurant in Quesada, which is about a 15-20 minute drive away from the casa. Or it should have been. Unfortunately my slow ears came into play when we were about 500 yards away from the restaurant, and by the time the instructions of where to turn had percolated through to my brain, we’d gone past. Twice. So we were a good 5 or 10 minutes longer than we needed to be. Now, the restaurant itself was a very, very British affair. Even if you hadn’t have worked it out from the way that the virtues of fish and chips were being trumpeted  from the window displays, the acres of red arms, legs and necks inside would have given it away. Nobody burns in the sun like we do. Honestly, it makes you proud to be British.  

The sketch with this post shows you the restaurant interior and some of our fellow diners. Now, I’d love to have something clever, witty and damning to say about the meal, but I can’t. It was, as they say in Spain, bleedin’ delicious. (Well, they say it in this particular part of Spain. Occasionally.)

 That, in all honesty, is pretty much it for today. We had a chat over lunch, and decided that I’ll go out on a proper all day sketchpedition tomorrow, when it won’t be affected one way or another by Jen and John’s schedules. Not sure yet exactly where – Murcia, Elche and Alicante all have their appeal, and all of them have attractions which I didn’t plumb the depths of last year. I’ll see how I feel when I get to the station in the morning. See you tomorrow.

Summer 2019 Episode 6 - 29th July - San Isidro - San Felipe Neri - El Realengo

So we come towards the end of our first week, dearly beloved, and we’re all still in one piece. A small celebration is in order. Please raise your glass – I’ll have a sin alcohol cerveza while you’re there.  

Right, well when you’ve quite finished all this frivolity, then I’ll get on with some of mine. It was quite a busy morning in the Casa Me Duck. First of all, Russ was round again, and also the lady who does the cleaning on a Monday which is why we all repaired to the El Rekreo for breakfast. This time I made sure that the only way I could get olive oil onto my shorts would be with a great deal of care and effort. Well, as you know, care and effort are not two of my virtues, and so I managed to get through breakfast unscathed today.  

Towards the end of the morning the big event of the day happened. Shopping. Yes, alright, I know, I know. I’ve never looked on shopping as a leisure activity, and far less as a spectator sport. However, I do accept that sometimes it is a necessary evil. Fair play to Jen, she trusted me to find our way to Albatera, and the nearest Mercadona supermarket. Trust which was sadly misplaced as I headed off in the wrong direction, which meant that Jen had to take up navigation duties a lot earlier than she’d maybe expected. Wee made it to Mercadona, though. I can’t ever see that name without the UB40 song “Food for Thought” coming irresistibly to mind – ‘I’m in Mercadona etc. etc.’ I have to say, the young male shop assistants in Mercadona are every bit as helpful as their British counterparts, although sadly nowhere near as smart. We came in search of cider, for the pork dish we’re going to have in a couple of days. In the drinks aisle we asked one of them for cider, then, when he looked blank, for seedra. A smile of comprehension lit up his acned features, and he headed off to look in another aisle. We looked at the shelf beside us. It was there. We didn’t see the assistant again.  

Back to the casa, then, and we congratulated ourselves that we’d only forgotten one item. So we settled down to lunch, and then to wait for the worst of the afternoon heat to dissipate a little bit.

Talking to Jen about my issue with so many local churches being hemmed in by buildings, preventing a proper view, and offering no vantage point for sketching, she suggested that I might like to pay a visit to a little village called San Felipe Neri, pretty close by, where I’d have a far better opportunity of getting a comfortable vantage point to sketch a nice church. Fair play, she wasn’t wrong. In the sketch below you can see the church. According to a plaque on the church, if I translated it correctly, the church was completely renovated in 2014, and it’s certainly in pretty good nick going by the outside.

 Thus encouraged by the fact that the sketchpedition had already been a success, I decided to try for a double. Another of the numerous local communities is called El Realengo. Out of curiosity I googled the name, and it has a small variety of meanings, including free, ownerless, and idle. Much like my good self, when you come too think of it. It’s always struck me as looking similar in construction to San Isidro, and indeed when I googled it, I found that it was built mostly in the late 50s. Hence it has a ‘modern’ church, quite different from San Isidro’s, yet clearly dating from about the same time. I quite like it, and it wasn’t difficult to sketch.  

Back to the Casa from there, then. We did chew over the possibility of me taking off for the day tomorrow, but we’re going out for lunch, which actually suits me fine. I’m perfectly happy to keep taking these little follow my nose sketching expeditions in the afternoons for the time being. I’m not in the habit of doing shout outs, but I’d like to say a quick hello to my step dad and my Mum, who took the trouble to drop me a line earlier today to say how much they’re enjoying An English Fool Abroad With His Sketchbook. Well, they’re only human, after all.

 So that just about wraps it up for tonight. See you tomorrow.

Summer 2019 - Episode 5 28th July - San Isidro Dolores

Good evening. Well, here we all are again, with another instalment of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. It was gone midnight when I finally went to bed last night, so I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t wake up until 7:30. Well, that’s not strictly true. I woke up at three, fell asleep again, and then woke up at half past seven, after a strange dream in which Lewis Hamilton and Geoffrey Chaucer were riding on the backs of ostriches, chasing me while shouting “Give us a penguin!”. Maybe that sin alcohol lager I had last night was more sinful than sin.  

Anyway, it was another day when I didn’t feel quite with it for quite a while after I got up, and couldn’t really get myself going until about ten o’clock. Same as yesterday, I took John down to the Rekreo for a coffee and a sin alcohol. Believe it or not, that’s meant to be John in today’s first sketch. I can only apologise. It looks like a person, which is something, but it just doesn’t look like John. Coming back to the Rekreo, I don’t know what we did to upset the landlord yesterday, but it was very noticeable that today there was no free biscuit with our coffees, and no free bowl of peanuts with our cervezas. Now, okay, I don’t particularly like peanuts, but that’s not really the point. I did miss our usual Sunday car boot sale and full English brekkie, which has become a much cherished family ritual.

 Nothing worthy of note happened between returning back to the casa, and leaving for Sunday lunch. Sunday lunch when I’m staying with Jen and John usually means a visit to the Las Palmeras in Crevillent. I have to say that the atmosphere of the place really didn’t miss the raucous hen party from the last time I visited. Apparently there’s been a change of management, and certainly this seemed apparent in the Sunday menu. I had the lasagne as a starter, and I have to say that it was so delicious and so plentiful that I could only view the rest of the meal with complete detachment. Oh, yes, I ate it, of course. Well, I know how to do my duty towards Albion and St. George.  

I only drove on the wrong side of the road once on the way back to the casa, which is something of a new personal record. It was gone two o’clock, but I still hadn’t gone out specifically with the intention of making a sketch. No point going out in the middle of siesta time, though, For one thing, it’s just too hot. So I waited until about 4pm, then borrowed the Smart and set off. Target for today was the nearby town of Dolores. Incidentally, is there anybody else who, whenever they hear the name Dolores, instantly thinks of the name “The Great Ernesto”? No, didn’t think so. If you’re desperate to know where that comes from, have a look at the footnote at the end. You’ll be very disappointed, I’m sure.  

Dolores is not that large, with a population of about 7,000, but it has much more of a town feel than San Isidro, and it’s pretty handy for the beach at La Marina (named in honour of  Troy Tempest’s girlfriend in Stingray, I believe). I’ve been to Dolores quite a few times before, and what I remembered about it was that it has a very nice town square, and a rather lovely 18^th century church. Very true. Unfortunately, once again it’s a rather lovely 18^th century church hemmed in by buildings on three sides, and a town square full of trees whose canopies obscures a decent view. Still, I found a bench in the square, and at least made a sketch of the gorgeous baroque porch. Even between 5 – 6 pm the heat was still pretty fierce, but the breeze kept blowing droplets of water from the fountain behind me onto my bald spot, which was very welcome. My neck caught a touch of the sun judging by the feel of it at the moment. My legs, even though they were out in the sunshine, didn’t. My head, face and arms do eventually go through a range of hues until they reach a sort of light brown. My legs, though, don’t. They only come in two colours – a blue-tinged white most of the time, and lobster pink the rest of it. There’s no inbetween, and they never get past lobster pink. I think it’s because I was bequeathed my skin colouring by celtic ancestors who also thought that sufficient melanin would be a sinful extravagance. 

Joking aside though, I did enjoy the drive again. As with yesterday, that’s no reflection on Jen and John at all, it’s just fun to get out and explore a bit , or as close as I’m ever going to get to exploring. And I’ll be honest, there are far worse places to be and things to be doing than sitting in the July sunshine on a bench in Dolores, sketching a church door. It takes all sorts, doesn’t it? 

Well, that’s almost it for the weekend, dearly beloved. I’m not sure what Jen and John’s plans are for tomorrow, so I’ll wait and see before making up my mind about what I’m going to sketch tomorrow. During the week ahead it would be nice to get into Alicante, or Elche, or Murcia, or all three again, but we’ll wait and let Fate take it’s course. Hope that you enjoyed your weekend too. 

* In the late 80s, Dick Clement and Ian LeFrenais, who wrote Porridge, amongst other things, wrote the screenplay for a film called “Water”, which starred Micheal Caine as the British Governor of a forgotten Caribbean outpost called Cascara. Dolores was the name of his dissatisfied wife, played by Brenda Vaccaro. At one point she informs a guest that she was once a part of the magical act “The Great Ernesto and Dolores”. Well, when we first had a video recorder, we didn’t have many tapes which weren’t the kids’ Disney tapes, and “Beverly Hills Cop” (get the **** outta here!) and “Water”  tended to get played to death. So the first time we ever visited Jen and John in Spain, some 12 years ago, they took us into Dolores, and both Mary and I turned to each other and said “The Great Ernesto and Dolores!”, and I’m afraid that every time I so much as think of the name since then, I think of the Great Ernesto. There – said you’d be disappointed.

Summer 2019 Episode 4 - 27th July San Isidro

Well, fancy seeing you here on a Saturday evening. The good news is that this wasn’t – quite – as lazy a day as yesterday. The bad news is that this means it’s rather a longer instalment than yesterday’s was.

Jen wasn’t feeling too well again this morning, so she stayed in the Casa Me Duck while I took John out for a coffee this morning. A few days have passed since the stained shorts incident, and so I guessed it was probably safe to go back to the Rekreo Bar. We both had a cup of gorgeous coffee, and a bottle of sin alcool beer. Don’t let that word sin get you excited – sin means without, and alcool means, well, you get the gist. So that’s two coffees, and two bottles of no alcohol lager. How much do you reckon that came to? Just over 5 euros, or about £5.

I didn’t take my sketchbook to the Rekreo with me this morning, and I hadn’t really made any plans about what I was going to do for sketching today. Most of the places I’d fancy sketching in San Isisdro I’ve already sketched, either in the last couple of days or last year, or the year before. But as I said yesterday, I really wanted to see the way the land lay until making any plans.

A little while after we came back from the Rekreo Jen made me up a shopping list of some bits and pieces that we needed. No problem Jen - said I - I’ll take the Smart. And indeed, there was no problem at all, until I came out of the Hiperber supermarket in the village, stowed away all the goodies and the not so goodies, and tried to start the car. Tried, and for about 10 minutes, failed miserably. If you’ve never driven a Smart before, and have had most of your driving experiences in cars with manual gearboxes, starting a Smart is a little bit fiddly. Basically, you put your foot on the brake, and make sure that the car is in neutral, or it won’t start. Well, for some reason this procedure deserted me completely, and several times I tried to start it with my foot on the accelerator and the gear in reverse. What makes it worse is that I drove this particular Smart several times last year, and Mary actually owns a Smart, which I have driven on numerous occasions. I was on the point of ringing the Casa to ask for help, when I finally asked myself a sensible question – namely – what exactly am I doing wrong here? Something percolated through the alluvial sludge of memory, and away we went.

Some time after returning to the Casa I made lunch, and then, as a testament to the hectic schedule of the day so far, fell asleep on the sofa. (Stop me if the excitement of this episode is getting too much for you) I woke up about 4pm, and decided that now was the time to sort out today’s sketching. Jen and John both seemed alright, so I took my phone so they could ring me in an emergency, and borrowed the Smart again. My original intention was to head to nearby Catral. However, last year and the year before I made a number of sketches in Catral, so on a whim I turned off for Callosa de Segura. In 2018 I took the local Cercania train from San Isidro to Murcia. The first stop on the way was Callosa, and I was struck by the way the town was so close to the mountains, and decided back then to pay a visit when I got the opportunity.

What can I say? It’s a fair sized town, much the same as many of the others in the locality. However it does have some very nice narrow streets, which go uphill as well as downhill, which is convenient for the pedestrian. It also has a rather nice church – fairly similar to the church I sketched in Catral last year. Like almost all of the Spanish churches I wanted to sketch last year, this one is hemmed in by modern buildings, and in the end I decided the best position for a sketch was the one you can see in today’s second sketch, showing the clock tower from a narrow street.

While I was crossing the main road back towards where I’d parked the Smart, I was standing next to a Spanish chap, and he started a brief conversation with me. His opening gambit?

“Es muy calor!” I nearly laughed, which probably wouldn’t have been the best thing to do, but it just seemed so ironic. It’s us Brits who are supposed to want to talk about the weather all the time. I mean, in Spain you just haven’t got the variety in your weather to make it worth talking about.

“Es muy calor!” - It’s very hot.

“Si.” – Yes

Topic exhausted - conversation over.

As I said, I made just a couple of  sketch, and I was back at the Casa before 6pm. But I thoroughly enjoyed this mini sketchpedition. That’s no reflection on Jen and John’s hospitality whatsoever, but it was just nice to be off and out, with every good chance of getting lost – which I did – and of discovering something which maybe nobody else would be interested in, but which sparked my curiosity. So all in this is a happy Dave signing off today. Nighty night.

August 21st - Elche

The last episode of An English Fool Abroad With his Sketchbook, Summer 2018. Thus ends the expedition, not exactly with a bang, but then not a whimper either.

We left for the hospital relatively early today, and were there before 10 am. We were quite hopeful that John would be allowed home today. He’d not been put on the nebuliser last night at all, which we took to be a good sign. So we took the big car, put the wheelchair in the back, and generally acted as we would if he was definitely coming home.

So we went up to John’s room, and we waited. And about 12:15 the Doctor put in an appearance. He told John that he could come home, and we gave a little cheer. However, we couldn’t go until they’d given us some forms and some medicine. Fine. So we waited again. It was between 90 minutes and two hours, but finally we were good to go.

By way of celebration we parked up by the nearest restaurant we could find, which was almost in the actual shadow of the hospital. This was the Restaurant El Mixto – El Mixto literally meaning ‘the Mixed’. Well, maybe not the most exciting name for a restaurant, but an appropriate one, since when you sat down you were confronted with three separate menus – the Spanish Menu, the Chinese Menu, and the Japanese one. The food was great, but they have a rather idiosyncratic way of serving a party of three. Jen was served with her starter and main at the same time. John and I weren’t served anything. Jen almost finished eating before my starter and main arrived together. John wasn’t served anything. Finally John’s starter arrived. Not his main, mind. That didn’t arrive until long after Jen and I had finished eating, and John had long since finished his starter. Oh well, as I said, it was extremely close to the hospital, which was all to the good. Normally I find that the hot weather is an appetite suppressant, but I was so hungry by the time we left the hospital that I could have eaten a scabby dog. In fact . . . no, let’s be fair, the food in the restaurant was fine.

I could have maybe gone on a another sketch hunt around the village after we got back, but then enough is as good as a feast. As it is I have just one double page left in my sketching journal, and that will do for the airport and for the journey home tomorrow. If you’ve been with me for the whole trip, then thanks very much. Watch this space for An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook again later on in the year.

August 18th San Isidro - Catral

An English Fool Abroad With His Sketchbook has been out and about a bit again today, although you couldn’t really call it as much of an excursion as the trips to Elche, Murcia and Alicante. We were off early to see John in the hospital this morning. He seems pretty much the same as yesterday, but certainly no worse, and that’s all to the good. While I was there I went two floors down to get John and Jen a coffee each from the cafeteria. Despite distinctly asking for café con leche fria – coffees with cold milk – the cups were so hot that even though the lady behind the counter gave me two extra plastic cups into which I could place the takeaway cups with the coffee in, they were still so boiling hot that I couldn’t hold them for long. In fact, he only way I could do it was putting the two plastic cups together, carrying one cup inside it, and balancing the other on top. Up two floors. You can guess what happened, can’t you? Well. . . you’re wrong. I managed it.

After leaving the hospital we nipped quickly back to the Casa Me Duck to change cars- the Smart car needed filling up, and the trip to Catral provided the best opportunity to do it. On the way Jen took a slight detour behind the station in San Isidro. The reason? To show me the Memorial – which is both behind the station, and also the middle sketch on the page below. I didn’t previously know it, but Alicante was the last city to hold out against Franco in the Civil War. The community of San Isidro wasn’t built until the 1950s, but prior to this part of it had been the site of a concentration camp where Franco put , well, basically anyone he felt like. It’s a very understated memorial – just two huge metal bars, with broken chains connected to them, and a simple stone plaque at the bottom, yet it’s oddly moving.

My ulterior motive in wanting to come to Catral, then, was to take a look at the church, which is the picture on the left hand side of the page below. It’s pretty impressive, but true to form it is in the middle of a square which just doesn’t have enough room for you to make a good sketch of it from the front. I mean, you could do it, but then you wouldn’t get the dome or the tower, which are, to my mind, the church – actually it is a Cathedral, which surprised me – to my mind its best features. We did pop inside. It was very dark, and Jen suggested that we might have entered the Lady Chapel. As our eyes accustomed it became clear that the figures and pictures we had taken to be the Virgin Mary were in fact the Lord Jesus. The unworthy and sacrilegious thought that maybe it was actually the bearded Lady chapel came to mind, and I’m glad that I kept that thought to myself at that time. The sketch below is actually my favourite view of the cathedral, which is approaching it from a side street.

Sooner or later, whenever I stay in San Isidro, I end up in Catral market on a Saturday. I must admit that I’ve never seen it quite as bare and looking quite as sorry for itself as it did this morning. It was gone midday, and some of the traders were clearing up and calling it a day, but it’s also true that a lot of the traders go on their hols in August. So, with little or nothing of interest within it, this left just one more thing. Lunch. Jen suggested Chinese, and who am I to refuse? The fact that I love Chinese food is totally immaterial. Now, you may recall that when I had a Chinese curry in Madrid, I believe it was the medium through which Montezuma extracted his revenge later that night. Well, I have to say that this one, a prawn curry was absolutely delicious. Whether I’ll pay for it later we’ll just have to see.

And that, I dare say, is pretty much it for today. If you’ve been with me this far, you have my thanks and congratulations. We are nearing the end of the marathon – 3 more full days, and then I’m on my way home.

August 17th San Isidro

Well, an English Fool Abroad with his sketchbook hasn’t done a lot of sketching today, if truth be told. To be fair we had quite a lot to do today. Jen and I did the rounds in ALbatera this morning – chemist – papers – coffee – food shopping – bank, although not necessarily in that order. This meant that we could get to the hospital fairly early to see John.

Basically, once an adult has been admitted to the hospital here, then visitors can come and go at pretty much any time. Although I did have a look at the handbook they give you yesterday, and if my Spanish served me right – by no means a foregone conclusion – they do ask that you limit the amount of time that you bring children, and you bear in mind the times when the lifts are most in demand. Fair enough.

John certainly didn’t seem in worse than he was yesterday evening, and possibly a wee bit better. We knew that the doctor wanted to have a word with Jen, so we stayed. Quite a long time actually. That wasn’t a problem, but I was a little bit concerned about Jen as time went on. She’s a type 1 diabetic – I’m a type 2 – and while it’s not advisable for me to go missing out on meals, it’s not going to do me serious harm. However if Jen’s blood sugar gets too low, it can be serious. So when someone turned up to take John for tests, Jen decided it might be an opportunity to tell the people on the desk that we’d had to go, so that the doctor could ring if he wanted.

A short way from the hospital is a bar restaurant called the Ca Tona. Now, anything which brings to mind those awful Iceland adverts of a few years ago is, to my mind, to be given a very wide birth, but fair play, we went in and had one of the biggest and best steaks I’ve had in a very long time.

None of which is very entertaining to read about, I’m sure, but there we are, that’s my day. Jen went back to the hospital a few hours later – honestly I did offer and would happily have gone as well, but she preferred to go by herself. So I used the opportunity to make a sketch of one of the locations I scouted out last weekend, when I went for a walk around to see if there were any places nearby I hadn’t sketched before and would like to sketch. This is a house in the same road as the chemist’s. Now, last week John did tell me that the occupants of one of the houses in the street won a huge prize on El Gordo a while ago. El Gordo – literally ‘the Fat One’ – is the Spanish National Lottery. Apparently the winners haven’t moved, but have just had a ton of work done in doing up their house. I can’t say whether it’s this one, but the place is by any means to my mind a little bit grander than the other places in the same street.

August 15th - Elche Hospital

I’m sorry if there’s not a bundle of laughs, chortles, or even titters in tonight’s shorter episode of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. There were no plans for an excursion today since it’s the Feast of the Assumption and a public holiday as I mentioned yesterday. However the day turned out to be a little more eventful than I expected. John wasn’t well at all a couple of days ago. He seemed better yesterday, but was worse again today. I knew that he was feeling even worse today when he said that he thought he should go to the hospital.

We all went to Accident and Emergency – Urgencio – together, in the Hospital Del Vinalopo in Elche. John was assessed fairly quickly – his blood oxygen level was very low, and then taken off with Jen for treatment. I spent quite a long time in the waiting room, which was no hardship really since I had my kindle and sketchbook as well. I quickly sketched the entrance to the hospital, then rather surreptitiously made one sketch of the waiting room, but there’s always the danger that the people you’re sketching will cotton on, and get shirty, so I dashed off the one sketch and left it there. So it was a choice between reading my kindle, and watching ‘Got Talent Espana’ (I’m not making this title up) – Spain’s version of, well, work it out for yourself. Blimey, but it goes on for a long time, that show! Or maybe it just seems to. Most interesting act I saw? Two guys running up and downstairs carrying huge trays of glasses. One of them fell. That’s entertainment, folks.

Jen and I had some lunch in the hospital while John was being x-rayed. He’s been diagnosed with pneumonia. That’s not nice, not nice at all, but he’s been treated for it before. Eventually the doctors made the decision to keep him in overnight. So basically, that was today folks. Being in the hospital, we missed the main event of the day. Rain. Lots of it. Now, if you’ve never spent a large amount of time in this part of Spain at this time of year you maybe won’t appreciate what makes it a main event, but you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Evening visiting came and went. Jen went by herself, but came back saying that John said that he was feeling better.

Murcia (13th August)

Hello, good evening, and welcome to another episode of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. Now, I’m sure that you’ll have been paying attention so you’ll know that today was scheduled for a trip to Murcia. I was surprised to learn that Murcia is actually Spain’s 7th largest city. It was actually founded in the 9th century by the Emir of Cordoba, and I saw a couple of traces of the city’s Islamic heritage.

So, I promised you some foolishness, I think. I made sure that I was by the station with some time to spare, so I nipped into the nearby Hiperber supermercado to buy a large bottle of water, and a smaller one. The idea was to drink the smaller one, then refill it and use it if I was going to make a painting. Clever huh? Well, actually not really. You see, I opened it on the platform a minute or two before the train was due. Now, bearing in mind it was called something like Gaseosa I did expect it to be fizzy. Not that fizzy, though. It practically exploded on opening, and the top third of the bottle showered me, just as the train was pulling into the station.

To be fair the little Cercania train to Murcia passed through some quite interesting scenery. Now, I’m a city boy, myself, and I often find scenery to be a bit like wallpaper – I don’t really notice it’s there a lot of the time. The hills, which we passed quite near to, were impressive. In fact, colour and shape wise they were kind of like I’d imagine the surface of Mars to be like.

It took about 40 minutes to get to Murcia. Now, a little bit of research beforehand had told me that I really wanted to see the old town, and that the railway station was a bit of a walk. When I had researched which bus to take me to the Royal Casino – more about that later - - it gave me two options. Well, when I asked the drivers of both,- Casino Real – they both gave me the kind of reaction they might have done if I’d asked them for a cheap day super saver return to Ulaan Baatar. So stuff it, I thought, and started to walk. I had seen the tower of the Cathedral as we’d puled into the station, so I knew the right general direction. I hoped.

No, I’m not going to try to keep you in suspense. I did get there. And the centre of Murcia is really rather impressive. First port of call was the aforementioned Casino Real. It was built in the 19th century, and is still the HQ of a private club, but in 1983 it was declared a national monument. Oh, and if the word ‘casino’ is conjuring up mental images of slot machines and roulette tables, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Open to the public are some rather grand public rooms – ballroom, a hall of mirrors, and an Italianate patio meant to conjure up images of Pompeii. After I’d taken the audio tour I was pretty much ready for a sketching break, so I walked to the Plaza San Domingo at the end of the street where the casino was located, and made the ink sketch you can see of the corner of said street.

The Casino is the most visited building in Murcia. However, probably the most impressive is the Cathedral. Again, I had the same problem with it that I’d had in Madrid – when you’re in the Plaza where you can see it’s detailed and ornate façade, you just can’t get a good sketch of it. You can’t because a) you’d hurt your neck, and b) the whole plaza is bathed in sunshine and you’d go doolally in the heat before finishing your sketch. On the same plaza is the tourist information office, and all I had to do was ask and they gave me a lovely detailed map of the centre of the city. Incidentally this revealed that I had actually gone in a fairly impressive circular detour on my way from the station to the Cathedral. Such is life.

Using the map then I visited a nineteenth century market, just as it was closing up for siesta time, and crossed the Rio Segura on a different bridge from the old bridge I’d used earlier. Walking back along the side of the river towards the old bridge I came upon a good angle showing the bridge, and the tower of the cathedral, with, more importantly, a bench in the shade to sketch it from. This is the second sketch I made today.

I had two things left by this time. The first was to sort out some sustenance. I’d bought a couple of queso y jamon boccadillas (aka cheese and ham baguettes (aka cheese and ham long crusty rolls) ) earlier before catching the train. Having polished these off I was looking for a little more. I passed a pasteleria and saw what I took to be a tray of cheese pastries in the window. I bought one, bit into it, and found that what I had taken to be light yellow cheese was actually custard. Gotta be honest, it was delicious, for all that. Then it was a gentle walk to the station, incidentally passing by tpday’s winner of the Most Unusual Name For A Museum Award – Museo de la Ciencia y Agua de Murcia (The Museum of Science and Water of Murcia). I’ll be honest, I was tempted to have a look inside, but time was getting on, and so I headed back to the station.

Nothing particularly interesting to report occurred on the way back to the Casa Me Duck, but something interesting happened when I got there. I was sitting in the living room, minding my own business, reading my kindle, when the sofa started to shake from side to side. Honestly, it was an earth tremor, and it went on for it must have been about half of minute. Apparently it’s not uncommon here, and the houses have been built so that they can withstand any amount of tremors of this strength – which I believe from reports locally to have been about 4. Well, I can promise you all that it is the only time that the Earth has moved or will move for me on this trip. (Oh, be fair, you can’t say that you didn’t expect that one, surely.)

So that was the trip to Murcia – nice place and I enjoyed. Tomorrow it’s Alicante. More foolishness? Can’t promise anything. Watch this space. Adios.

Alicante Day Two (Written on August 11th)

Yes, An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook is still sketching. This is going to be a bit of a short post though, because although there’s been a bit of sketching there’s been precious little foolishness to write about. Basically I’ve been chilling out yesterday and today, and in all probability tomorrow as well. Don’t panic though. I’m planning on taking a ride on the choo choo to Murcia on Monday, and then into Alicante on Tuesday, and there should be plenty of opportunity for foolhardy Englishness there.

This morning, then, it got to about 11:00, and I did think that if I couldn’t shift myself, I’d have to leave it until the later part of the afternoon, since previous experience told me that it would just be too damn hot. So I just mooched around, taking note of buildings and places which I might like to sketch later on in the week. Last year I did make a watercolour and ink sketch of Jen and John’s house – although mostly it was of Jen’s Smart Car – but this year I couldn’t resist doing an ordinary ink sketch. However, I digress. Gradually I wended my not very weary way to my favourite public space in San Isidro. Incidentally, when I typed San Isidro on my kindle, the predicitve text decided to render it as San Weirdo. Hmm. You may recall that I got the local train from Alicante to San Isidro on Thursday. Well, the station here is very new, and was only built within the last few years. Now, when they demolished the older station which stood there, they re-erected the platform canopy, and the wall of the station building which faced onto the platform, in a street in the town. I’ve never been there for a performance but I understand that they do have music there sometimes. There are a couple of benches though, and it was pleasant to sit in the shade of the canopy and sketch a couple of the houses opposite. It would have been very pleasant if not for the flies. Oh well.

Later this evening we’re going to a ‘Spanish Evening’ in a place I sketched last year. Back then it was called La Cerveceria, but it’s changed hands since. A ‘Spanish Evening’ in Spain does tend to bring to mind a phrase containing the words ‘coal’ and ‘Newcastle’, but be fair, I’m not entirely clear of what the evening’s going to involve, but since we’ve all been asked to wear white, I’m guessing it won’t be that messy.