Nochevieja.

Monday 31st December 2018 - Torre del Mar.

Nochevieja means old night in Spanish....probably really meaning 'night of the old year'?  The Spanish seem to go out at midnight with a bottle of Cava and eat 12 magic grapes, one on each of the chimes of the clock.  They then party through the early hours.  We will be doing an alternative New Year's celebration, with Cava, my version of tapas and dancing around to 70's and 80's music with radio 2.  You never know there could be fireworks from a nearby bar.

Tomorrow is the first day of travelling north and we are aiming for Córdoba.  It should be quite a wow, on a par with Granada.  I feel like I am talking about makes of car....Granada was a Ford, Córdoba is a Seat and we will travel through Meriva which is a Vauxhall.  It begs the question about why are so many cars named after Spanish towns?  I guess we should also drive through Toledo....it would be a Triumph!!  We hope to travel steadily in stages to Santander on the 6th January for our ferry to Portsmouth.

Last night we completed our Bourne Trilogy DVD set....we hadn't realised till too late that we watched them in the wrong order but...hey!  They are all the same storyline anyway.  

Janice and I had a bit of an extended conversation before we went to bed.  It was a strange conversation progression.....

It started by talking about German numbers (our neighbour is German and we chat most days), Janice stated my age in German, it involves the unit number going before the tens, eg Germans would say I am 7 and 50, meaning 57.  For some reason that made me think of my Nanna Bolton saying the time was five and twenty to the hour, instead of saying twenty five to the hour....hope you understand what I mean.  So, we spent the next 'five and twenty minutes' laughing at applying the same thing to different times, '20 past' could be 'five and quarter past' and 'quarter to' could be 'five and ten to'.  I think this could be my new way of telling the time for 2019.....it could be my New Years Resolution!  The year could actually be renamed as 'five past 2014'!! 

The silly conversation didn't end there.  I thought it could be a good way to confuse the Europeans after Brexit (if it happens).  Next I thought about fooling the EU by reverting back to Imperial Measurements and old pounds shillings and pennies too.  We had to check our own ability to understand Imperial Measurements but quickly found out that we didn't really know the weight of a 'hundred weight' and why it is abbreviated to 'cwt', neither did we know the weight of an old 'Ton' or the length of a 'chain' or 'furlong'....we don't even know the size of an 'acre' or the length of a 'mile' (1,760 yard or 8 furlongs or 80 chains).  I haven't even started on weights or liquid measures!!!  A 'bushel' is 8 gallons or 64 pints.  Yes, that should be our tactic for a 'hard Brexit' we need to threaten a move back to imperial measures! The EU would certainly be confused....probably about as much as any British person under 55 years of age!

Today has been a gorgeous day.  Sunny, not windy and a calmer sea too.  We haven't done much.  We have been sitting in the sun and relaxing.  We had a little walk into Almayate, the nearest village to buy some fizzy water.....we still prefer to drink the bottled water rather from the tap although we have drunk tap water without ill effects.  Once upon a time, we were advised always to drink bottled water when we came on a Spanish holiday!  

I just realised that we haven't got any 'magic' grapes or indeed any grapes at all for tonight but then we won't be awake.  I would like to offer my best wishes to all for a 'Felice Anno Nuevo', Happy New a Year.  We may see you soon.  Cheers.