Cappuccino on the cheap

Afore travelling to Spain I threw all my remaining food into a box and brought it over on the ferry. In addition, came a sack of the remaining potatoes and onions I grew last year and my infinite sack of rice, which is now entering its third year.

Now, I am not a coffee addict and less still a connoisseur so in my box were sachets of instant cappuccino. I know nothing about the intricacies of coffee drinking and certainly, here in Spain, coffee drinking borders on a religion. Indeed, I was invited to a dinner a week or two ago and, after eating, was offered the smallest cup of coffee I had ever seen.

Apparently, it was an espresso or something. I tried to explain that I preferred more than a thimble full of coffee and my hosts, knowing what I didn't (that you don't drink espresso by the litre) tried to give me a bigger cup with a load of milk in it. Not what I was seeking. I just wanted a big coffee. Faux pas a plenty. The milk was returned to its bottle and I downed the coffee in miniature, without due reverence, with one gulp.

So, as you can tell, I am no coffee expert. However, I do like chocolate and I do like baking chocolate muffins. A cup of coffee and a couple of muffins are just the perfect end to a day of eating. "Well done James. You ate your five-a-day and avoided saturated fats. Here's your reward."

I reached into the cupboard but the cupboard was bare. I was out of sachets of the only coffee I really like to drink and only had the regular stuff. Time to be self-reliant.

I remembered a post on another website about making your own milky froth for cappuccino so I decided to have a go. Easier than I thought. Prepare your coffee of choice, in whichever manner you choose. Put some milk into a lidded glass container and shake hard, until you get a little froth. Pop the jar (with lid off this time) into a microwave oven for about 30 seconds, until the froth builds and wants to exit the jar. You are done. Pour into your coffee and sprinkle a little of what you fancy.

Instant coffee? Undoubtedly not fair-trade! Microwave oven?! I never said I was ethically green, just a bum who does everything on the cheap.

Something for the weekend, sir?

I bought a set of electric hair clippers about 5 years ago and have not visited a barbershop since. The clippers cost me €35 and, assuming three visits to a barber per year at €10 a visit, I have saved €115.

Cutting your own hair is not difficult so long as the style you choose is a simple one. Of course, the simplest style is to skin yourself but that style isn't for me. The sort of style I usually have can be seen in the photos.

Of course, the hardest part is cutting the hair on the back of your head. The trick is not to use a mirror during the cut, only to judge the cut before and after, otherwise you will be going the wrong way, more often than not.

In the following photo, you can see that I have done a fairly reasonable job of the back of my head. By feeling the skull under my hair I get to know its contours and can judge when to stop when I approach various contours of my skull. You can also place a finger at strategic points so you know where to stop.

For the back of my head, I wanted the top half to remain uncut above the ears so I left my comb along the line between the tops of my ears, which kept hair down against my skull to be cut but also gave me a stopping point.

Everyone's head and desired style is different so you need to experiment on your own. After a few attempts (in the beginning I gave myself the same length of cut all over until I got used to the apparatus) you will be more skilled.

For the lady with long hair who needs an intricate style then you will probably need to find a friend who is willing to help you with your frugal haircut.

And don't forget to compost your hair clippings!

Soy Irlandes

y no hablo mucho Español. "I am Irish and don't speak much Spanish." My favourite phrase of the moment. Even the Latinoamericana in the supermarket was totally unintelligible today so I employed my get out of my face phrase and all was blissful silence again.

A cold wind blows through here at the moment, my ears are sore. There was a small outdoor market set up outside the bullring but nothing I wanted.

I am looking forward to moving on to Asturias. These little commuter places are quite antiseptic. Neither the city nor the country. People just sleep here and jump in their cars to "live" elsewhere.

I have a list of 6 rentals to stay in for the time being and 7 properties for sale I would like to view in Asturias. Hopefully, I will be installed sometime afore May.

Currently, I am drawing down my food stocks. I don't want to be travelling with perishables so each day I base my menu on what needs to be eaten soon with a little of my dried or storable staples.

Today's menu is apple and juice for breakfast. For lunch an omelette with cheese, the last slice of ham with the last of the lettuce shredded as a garnish. That will leave me with two eggs to make some more muffins, later in the week.

Later, I will cook my "Spanish stew" as I call it; potato, carrot, onion and chorizo in a tomato sauce with some pimenton dulce (powdered sweet red pepper).

One of the many reasons...

why I left the UK, Christians discriminated against, bishops warn - I am not a Christian in the traditional sense but I am one in the cultural sense, ie. I am a western European.

Here in Spain, the government wouldn't dare say other than Spain is not Christian or that most stupid of remarks, "We are a secular state." Yes, Turkey might call itself secular but we know it isn't.

The government said, "it was committed to valuing the contribution Christians made within British society." How gracious. That statement makes Christians appear to have just gotten off the boat. The UK is a country of Judeo-Christian heritage even if the Labour Party wished Christianity would disappear.

Don't worry, Labour will be kicked out. And if they don't get booted then Labour supporters must realise that they are importing the most conservatively minded people on the planet, who will eventually set up their own party, when enough of them have migrated to the UK, and Labour will never see the light of day again.

A few weeks ago I saw a television programme about various departments of the UK government. A Labour politician, Jack Straw, was remarking on his good fortune over something. He did not say, "Thank God..." but said, "Insha'Allah...". That's the kind of people running the UK.

Please register and vote in the coming election. Don't listen to Labour lies about why you should not vote for other parties. I shall be posting my proxy vote though I expect it will be opened afore polling day and "lost".

Not totally cut off from the modern world

The sun is out today and so it is much warmer. This morning I went to a hardware shop and bought a flour sieve. I asked the shopkeeper if he had one in "plastico". Nothing doing and so a metal one, which will eventually rust, it is.

There was a time, when I first started learning Spanish, that I would say something and receive a blank look. Now, I can ask something, get an answer and it is me giving the blank look. Why do Spaniards have to talk so quickly?

No such trouble at the supermarket. I bought some baking powder and the hottie at the checkout was a Latinoamericana so I could understand her and the old ojos azules turned her to jelly. I still have it!

So, chocky muffins it is. But first, I shall be making some pancakes. The muffins will be for the coming week.

This week is Semana Santa or holy week, as we would call it, so the place is even quieter than it usually is. Most people have gone away for the week. Not that I would notice as most of the people living here commute to Madrid for work and go straight to bed when they get home every evening.

Last night I went to bed early and listened to the radio. At night I can just about pick up BBC Radio 5 but it is sandwiched between two stronger Spanish signals so the BBC signal drops out a lot.

I also listened to someone from the Canary Islands being interviewed on a Spanish FM station. People from the Canary Islands speak pretty much as Mexicans do so again I could understand pretty much all of the interview. It was about the film industry. Dull but a lesson in Spanish all the same.

I have a piece of paper and a pencil on my beside table. I write down anything I don't understand and look it up on www.wordreference.com the following morning.

My Blackberry phone doubles up as a Spanish dictionary. I write words and verb conjugations on a Blackberry memo application and it is available to me when I am outside the house.

I have Internet in the form of a friend of a friend's wifi router. I built myself a cantenna, which allows me to pick up wifi signals from quite a distance. I point the cantenna towards the neighbour's window, some 80 meters away. Whenever the friend goes to bed and switches off their router I have access to other wifi routers using some backdoor skills that are best Googled (try - aircrack-ng).

I am still working on a UK proxy to allow me to get access to the BBC iPlayer but I can still watch sports using Sopcast and other video sharing technologies.

All-in-all, I have settled in well with all the self-reliant skills I have picked up over the years. I am currently building a list of possible rentals in Asturias and will be moving again soon. However, I will be deep in the country so I better make use of my Internet time as I could well not have any in a month or two.

Untravelled Minds

I like this post on Secret Tenerife, about tourists visiting a country but never immersing themselves in the local culture. The article sums up why I am not living in the south of Spain, in an expats gated village.

Yes, I miss certain things but then so do did my ancestors when they migrated from Norway to Normandy, became Normans, then resettled in Wales afore moving again to Ireland in the 13th century.

My parents migrated from Ireland to London and then moved to Northampton where I was brought up. And now, here I am, a Viking on the move again.

I struggle with the language but it's a challenge, which I know I don't have the skills to master. The food is different but then it is far tastier and healthier, although I wish it were cheaper and I was growing my own food.

The growing will have to wait a few more weeks until I can get a property with a patch for my vegetables. A miscommunication (not on my part) meant that the owner of the house I am currently in is now not willing to let me grow anything.

Brrr - Que frio!

Last night, I just got into bed, fully dressed, and went to sleep. I only brought a thin duvet from the UK and promised myself not to make use of the modern facilities in this house so that means no heating.

I was intending to make chocolate muffins last night as biscuits and cakes are expensive here. However, I have neither baking power nor vanilla essence. I need to add "levadura en polvo" and "extracto de vainilla" to my vocabulary list.

Sunny but windy today. I might take a walk around the village. The shops here are not centralised so you might think a street is full of houses only but there might be a frutería (grocer's) or carnicería (butcher's) hidden along it.

For such a small place there may only be one supermarket but lots of "mom and pop" (as the Americans like to call them) shops that people have the decency to frequent and keep alive.

The rain in Spain...

Well, the heavens opened up last night. Thunder, lightning, hail and torrential rain. Everything but a plague of locusts. Not the kind of weather you think of when you imagine life in Spain but then, I am not living in the south of Spain and have no wish to.

This morning I went to the supermarket to get some staples. With biscuits and cakes at many times their UK price I shall be doing a spot of baking so I bought flour, butter, eggs and milk. I think chocolate muffins are on the agenda for this evening.

Being of a charitable nature, I couldn't help but reach out to a bimbo at the supermarket. Only in the Spanish speaking world can you go to a supermarket and, in broad daylight, pick up a bimbo, take it home and pleasure yourself.


When I was in Mexico City there were many Bimbo trucks making deliveries to bread shops and super markets. Until I knew what was actually in the trucks I thought that it was a very forward thinking social service and wanted to know if I qualified for such "treatment".

Not only did I see Bimbo trucks in Mexico but also Durex vans. I always wondered what would happen if a Bimbo collided with a Durex on the Avenida de los Insurgentes. I can only assume it would have been a positive "coming together".

To those of you who are totally confused... Bimbo is the brand name of a bread producer in the Spanish speaking world but a loose woman in the United States. In Latin America, Durex is a brand of adhesive tape but in the UK it is a brand of condom.

Well, here I am, in Spain. Step one complete; deposit myself in the wrong part of Spain. I think Buñuel filmed "Simon of the Desert" here. I need to see green on a regular basis or I go bonkers and so the next step is to head north, to the Costa Verde, and rent something there.

It's raining again. "Oh we're all going off to sunny Spain..." Oh do sing along!

Hate TV? Move to Spain

When depressed, lonely, bored or sad television takes your troubles away. Well, it gives you something to do whilst your life passes you by.

Thankfully TV in Spain is so awful that I find plenty of other things to do instead. I was told to watch Spanish TV to improve my Spanish. However, there is no way that I am going to watch badly dubbed US movies or daytime TV so the TV is almost always off.

I do watch a little of "Aprende Ingles", a channel devoted to teaching Spaniards how to speak American English. In other words, how to speak English badly. However, by reverse engineering the show I get a little Spanish help by watching Peter Vaughan's interesting monologues through which I get a little Spanish and life counselling. Also, Hannah Cho is hot and she speaks Latin American Spanish very clearly so I can understand her well.

Instead of television, I mostly listen to my little travelling shortwave radio receiver. You get on with life and listen to something rather than devoting your life to television.

I get most of my Spanish language teaching from that other land of cute women, China. Yes, "Radio Internacional de China" is a service beaming the truth to the downtrodden proletarians of Spain in the clearest Latin American Spanish I ever heard. Last night I listened to the news and then listened to a documentary on Sechuan cooking. "La comida sechuan es picante y sabroso." SHIP IT!

Of course, there are plenty of Spanish radio stations on FM but they are all in Spanish Spanish and I can't understand a word of it. The only time Spaniards seem to be in a hurry is when they are talking. I listen to the odd football game but all I can hear is "eth eth eth eth eth eth eth Messi gooooooooool!!!!!!"

During some parts of the day I can just about get the BBC World Service but it's usually some boring multicult nonsense foisted upon the people by the Labour Party so I'll have to wait until June and Labour is kicked out of power afore things get better in the UK.

I discovered KBC Radio on 1395AM which is a station based in Lithuania that plays oldies and has DJs such as Wolfman Jack and Emperor Roscoe. Their website gives QXL cards for reception reports so I sent a report for Madrid via email and will get my card in the post. I wish now I had brought my bigger shortwave set up but there was no room in the car.

So there you have it. TV bad, radio good.

My shortwave system remains in the UK, unused

Far fewer obese people in Spain

I went to the supermarket yesterday and felt it in my pocket. What I usually buy in the UK cost me about 25% more here. Couple that with Spanish people earning far less than people in the UK, and having double the unemployment rate, and you can see that most Spaniards don't have the luxury of gorging themselves.

Whenever I went to my local ASDA in Northampton I would struggle to get past some of the huge people swinging one thigh past another as they lugged their basket of crisps, biscuits and chocolate to the checkout.

I haven't seen one obese person yet. Of course, there are plenty of over-weight people. Everyone in Spain lives in urban areas with most accommodation being in high-rise flats. People drive almost everywhere.

There is the superior diet in Spain, which helps to keep the fat down. Straight away I have settled into a diet of fruit, vegetables, olive oil and juice, along with bread and meat. I am active in the garden, clearing it for the owner. I won't be growing anything here as I expect to move on to closer to where I want to buy a place of my own. But above all else, it is warm and sunny and I don't get depressed and snack myself happy.

Segunda semana en España

Well, here I am. All alone (en mi solo) and entering my second week in Spain. I am in a village of 7000 people, about 10 miles from Madrid. Not exactly where I want to be but you can't refuse free accommodation so here I be.

I filled my car to the top with things I thought would be useful, drove to Portsmouth and boarded the P&O "mini-cruise" to Bilbao. The voyage was a two-nighter and most of the other passengers were Welsh people, bedecked in their red rugby shirts, some with inflatable leeks.

For my Celtic cousins the journey was to watch Wales get beaten by Ireland on a giant screen, walk around a wet Bilbao for two hours afore getting back on the ship and heading home. Well, at least the duty free was well stocked.

I drove off the ship at dawn, on a Sunday, and spent the first few hours driving with other British cars. I stopped at a service station near Burgos for a hot black pudding sandwich that took half my gum away. Burgos is famous for its pudding. They call it morcilla, I can't help but use the Mexican word, moronga. I guess I will eventually use the Spanish word, if I expect to eat it again.

Not until the afternoon, as I approached Madrid, did I see many other Spanish cars. Spaniards don't do mornings, if they can help it. A top up at a petrol station, manned by a Mexican, who I could clearly understand, unlike hith ethSpanish couthins. One day everyone will speak English or at least Mexicano. I finally arrived at my destination, after 500 kilometres of driving on the wrong side of the road.

The very next day I was stopped by the Guardia Civil, a paramilitary police force whose only job seems to be to get in people's way. Guardia Civil live in barracks, unlike the Policia Local or Policia Nacional and, as any incarcerated person, like to get things off their chest by making others miserable. What was I doing wrong that made the Guardia stop me? I was in possession of a British car. I showed them my licence and was sent on my way.

This week I will be travelling around the "Communidad de Madrid" (Madrid County to you an me) to convince myself that I should have stayed in the north of Spain. Thereafter, I will be looking for a small part of Spain that shall forever be Ireland. Probably in the north, where my Celtic ancestors (that small fraction of my ancestry that is not Irish Viking/Norman - such are we Leinstermen) originally came from.

There was no room for my camera so you will have to make do with snaps from my mobile phone as I travel about. Keeping you posted. Nos vemos!