Number Five

I am so terrible at this!  I thought I would be on blog number 42 by now.  I have had a recent burst of motivation from the fact that I feel slightly brain dead living here at the moment and I need to do something to make my brain cells start moving again.  Yes, I know, 5 blog posts ago I was very happy and excited.  But that was over a year ago and I would like to say a lot has happened since then, but it hasn't, and that is the problem.

So since March my boyfriend bought me a Sony Tablet (April), which I have probably spent around 5 hours per day using due to sheer boredom, which turned into addiction.  I do love it, nearly as much as I love Jack, who had his first birthday in August.  In May, me, the boyfriend and two of our friends went to Gran Canaria for a week.  It's great only living half an hour on the plane away, it feels like even though I miss it there, I can pop over whenever I like.  We were there for Gay Pride and we (the girls) had a great time, while the boys lost far too much in the casino.  I also started a new job in a bar with my boyfriend.  I have worked there for around 6 months now.  It's more fun than my waitressing job, but I still feel that emptiness I described before.  I need to be successful and busy and in demand.  Unfortunately, Fuerteventura is not the place to be if you want big opportunities.  The mother-in-law came to stay in our one-bedroomed apartment in August, I wont elaborate anymore on that.  And finally, in July we got a car, which has had some great use.  We have visited Corralejo a handful of times, I take Jack to the beach more often.  It's lovely to be able to get out and about in the car, away from the tiny town we live in.  We have spent more in repairs than the car cost, but I love it and I wouldn't change it.

My parents are over at the moment.  They are in their third week here.  They have three weeks left.  After they both officially retired in June this year, they went travelling in a caravan around England.  They love it, but they have always said they wanted to spend the Winter in a warmer climate, so they are island hopping until March.  It's going fine so far, seeing them every day.  Sometimes I get a little irritated that they make me feel 5 again, but I take deep breaths and remind myself to bite my tongue.

I'm signing off now.  I have spent all day in separate rooms to my boyfriend, who has had his face burried in ebay all day (he has just come across ebay and thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread), yet as soon as I started writing this, his sixth sense told him to decide to do his ironing, which didn't go according to plan and he has spent the last 10 minutes bashing work surfaces, huffing and puffing and asking me why the iron wont work, so I've lost all concentration power.

Until next time...  (May 2013)

Number Four

As I'm writing this, I look like a hamster, cheeks filled with Victoria Sponge cake - home made!  By me!  I've been trying my hand at cooking different things this week, now that I've gone back to part time at work (by part time I mean 5 shifts a week).  I made chocolate brownies, which ended up more like cookies.  The stew I did looked like something you would use to make your plants grow...  The Victoria Sponge was actually quite nice, if I do say so myself.  Although, I put the butter cream in the middle before the cake had cooled, so when I went back to the fridge to surprise my boyfriend with a cake, the middle had disappeared!  I hadn't thought it would melt into the cake.  But, you live and learn.

Recently I've been thinking about what I'm going to do with myself job-wise.  I know my Spanish needs to improve if I want to better myself here, so the next time I go into the capital, Rosario, I'm going to look into Spanish classes.  I get motivated to teach myself for short bursts of time, but I think if I had a commitment to a class, I'd learn much better and faster.

I took my dog, Jack for a walk recently with a friend and his two dogs.  Jack hasn't been socialised very much and I was keen to see how they would get along.  Jack as usual got too playful too quickly and was sharply put in his place by the oldest dog.  I was glad that it happened, Jack needs to learn how to be normal with other dogs.  It's a shame there isn't a dog park here.  Or a dog beach.  You would think that for an island over-run with dogs, there would be more incentive to have one, a nice place to go where you can meet other people with dogs.  Even an obedience school...  Nope.  Nothing.  Don't get me wrong, I love living here, but there are so many things the Canary Islands lack.  And don't get me started on size 42 shoes!

Well, I'm off to bed now.  I've double locked all the doors from the inside.  There have been a few reports recently of attempted break-ins, two on our complex!  So I'll be sleeping with a baseball bat on one side of me and Jack the other side!  Although if someone tries to break in, Jack will probably just want to play with them!

Until next time...

Number Three

Oops!  I did warn at the start that I probably wouldn't be writing as much as I would like to.  My free time has been taken up by the series Desperate Housewives.  I'm on the last series now.  I've figured out that 7 previous series with twenty-two 45 minute episodes each, all watched in 4 months means that when I'm not working I've had just about enough time to eat, shower and walk the dog.  Yep, a dog.  Jack Dog.  A lot has happened in the last 5 months, when I'm not watching Desperate Housewives!

We heard about Jack through a work colleague who knew the couple that were fostering him for a few weeks.  He'd been found wandering on a beach near some bins.  No one knows if he was dumped there, born there or escaped from his previous home and ended up there...  But he has a lovely life now.  He was approximately 4 months old when we took him in, now he is 7 months and a smashing little fella.  A little, black mix of everything.

Me and my boyfriend also visited England a couple of weeks ago.  Apart from doing the rounds with friends and family (which was really lovely), it was shopping shopping shopping for me!  I stocked up on size 42 shoes (99.9% of shoe shops here only go up to a 41, which is a UK 7.5, very annoying).  I used up the other half of my luggage allowance on magazines of every variety - gossip, style, weekly, monthly, home, woman, even baby magazines!  Walk around the airport holding a baby magazine and it's amazing how different you get treated!  I'm not expecting by the way, just an interest of mine.  People think that's strange, but I say "you don't need to be a footballer to buy a football magazine"....

We have also taken up tennis a few times a week.  We have a court in our apartment complex and have always wanted to use it, but we found sport equipment very expensive here.  So we got the rackets from England.  Thought that paying nearly 50 Euros per racket here was a little steep just for a knock around like we do, so bought some £7 Donnay ones, bargain!  All started when the doctor gave us "the talk" about our lifestyles.  So we bought a smoothie maker and tennis rackets!  It's all going very well.  Although I've had to buy some more tennis balls already because a few of my serves have been lost over the fence.  I don't realise my own strength sometimes!

When we are not having all this fun, we are working.  Both in the same jobs as when I wrote last.  My boyfriend really enjoys his job and can see himself doing the same thing for years to come.  I would like a little more for myself.  Don't get me wrong, my job is very nice, the people are great and I know a lot of people would love to have my job - but I have a big empty space in my life, which when Desperate Housewives finishes soon, I will need to occupy with something other than tennis!  And no, not a baby either!  So, while I'm enjoying myself in the here and now, I am thinking of plans for the long term.  First step of the plan - learn Spanish!

Until next time...