After some overnight rain it is a fair and bright day so far today.
Being Sunday we have no builders on site today. We thought that we would have a little sleep in this morning but the cats thought differently. Saffi will deliberately jump on us and run round our heads to waken us up, so that he and Pip can go out. If we ignore him he will do it again until he gets a result.
I wrote an email to our dear friends Mike and Joan Newman this morning. They are visiting Barcelona soon and had asked us about the ‘Spanish Tapas’. I thought that this maybe of general interest and may also illustrate to you what a depraved life we now have to lead here in sunny (sometimes) Spain.
Tapas
Our experience, so far, is that nearly all bars sell tapas in some form or another. We often have a lunch time drink with tapas and this then constitutes our lunchtime meal and is sufficient to put us on until dinner/supper / evening meal time. Tapas are a selection of different items from plain to exotically presented dishes of potato, squid, raw fish, kidneys, mushrooms, various meats, chicken and vegetable salads. Most bars charge one euro for a saucer size dish of any of these tapas so Elayne and I will share a selection of four (quatro) tapas, you are usually given half a fresh French stick with it to mop up the glorious juices. Elayne’s favourite long drink is Latino from a pump, also called Tinto de Verano if hand made. Elayne has a long half glass (tuba), and the drink is made up of red wine, lemonade with a splash of martini,(red vermouth) topped with a slice of orange, she also likes zumo naranja (fresh orange juice). I usually have a ‘tankard’ (pint) of one of the available beers (their beers are what are called in the UK lager so don’t actually kill you mid day) For this feast in Taberno we will pay seven or eight euro (about £4.50). However down on the coast or in the city you will probably pay about twelve euro (about £8), still not bad for a lovely lunch, especially if you can also sit out in the sunshine with it. Tapas can be had at anytime of the day and generally all bars will have a different selection according to how good the chef is. Bars usually compete with each other for the best tapas. You can be very adventurous (we have done so and found some fabulous items) and try all sorts of unusual looking things (at one euro each it‘s not too wasteful if you don‘t like it). I usually order the drinks (you have to shout for attention or you will be ignored for a long time) and ask for quatro tapas and then go to the tapas and point to the ones we want. Some dishes are heated before you get them and others are cold. We like them a lot and try out some things that look weird but actually taste fabulous, the other extreme also applies.
We are having a quiet day at the caravan today and I may watch the Wales v Ireland rugby this afternoon, after the enjoyment of watching the Italy v France game and the England (known as Wilkinson) v Scotland games yesterday.
This all presupposes that I can wrestle the television away from ‘you know who’.