Polished off the steaks and varnish off the trousers

..Plans are well on the way for Christmas in La Cala, although unlike the UK the Christmas lights and trees etc. are confined to British homes here, the Spanish tend to start in the penultimate week to Christmas. Having said that, most of the big stores have been selling Decorations and trees and lights since mid November. Christmas is also a sad time in La Cala, The Marina bar actually closes for Christmas day and Boxing day so if I want to go to a bar it has to be another one. But this year we are entertaining. Dave and Pete and our son Ian will be having Christmas dinner with us and we will therefore be drinking at home and not venturing to the bars at all.

The Spanish celebrate Christmas quietly. They will attend church on Christmas eve and then go home to open presents and have a family meal. Christmas day is a family day and most go back to work on boxing day which is not a traditional holiday here. Their celebration if Christmas is on the 6th January which is Epiphany. That is the day when the three wise men are said to have visited Jesus in the stable and took him gifts. The Spanish call the day "The three Kings" re-enact the event in all major villages, towns and cities. La Cala is no exception and on the lead up to the arrival of the three kings on camels, Christmas carols abound around the bay. When the three Kings arrive they distribute gifts to all the children who have been nominated by their parents.

As always there are celebrations right up to and beyond Christmas and of course we all meet up in the Marina for a drink and discuss what we are all doing this particular year.

Yesterday Ange and I were invited for dinner at Dave and Doreen's. We were asked to be there for 6 pm, so we set off a little early because they live at the top of "Cardiac hill" and as the local name implies the hill is very steep. So what with my heart problems and Ange's aches and pains, we thought an early start would be the best thing.

We managed the tortuous journey slightly ahead of schedule, so whilst panting like a bull mastiff I worked out which button to press to talk to Dave over the intercom in order to be let in. Once at Dave's floor he met us from the lift. As soon as we entered the room his opening words were "What a day we have had" he said adding "Can you smell anything in here", I acknowledged I could smell something like turpentine. He said "well we were just sat here taking the sun and it became too warm, so we decided to go down to Pepi's (The Marina Bar) for just an hour to cool off and get some fresh air." We could see that this was leading to an explanation of Dave's obvious state of agitation. "we sat down and after a while I could feel something damp and sticky, I stood up to look at the chair and realised there was varnish on my trousers." Apparently Antonio and Pepi had decided to varnish the wicker chairs and obviously as they are the only chairs they have it has to be a quick turn round. Now considering they shut for only a few hours a day (at the busiest time of year 4 am until 7 am, they didn't have much time to do it and clearly not enough time for the varnish to completely dry.

These wicker chairs have been in the Marina since opening day and to say they are a little tired is like saying the titanic is letting in water. When you sit on some and grip the arms you can feel the nail heads which have started to come out, and some of the wicker arm supports have fell off. There are two types of chair, one that is comfortable and one which has such an incline at the back the locals have named them "birthing chairs". You can often see Pepi on a slack day with his drill and some screws doing alterations. So news that they were re-varnishing wasn't a complete surprise, but one would have thought they would ensure that the chairs were dry. They may wish they were once Dave has finished with then because his trousers were in the washing machine and the smell of turps drifting from the hall around the place.

We were at Dave's for his 'piece de resistence' fillet steak. He had noted how we preferred our steaks, mine medium to well, Ange medium, Doreen well done and Dave was medium rare (in fact so lightly cooked that a good vet could get the beast back on its feet). We did indeed have a lovely meal. Later we chatted with a few drinks and we decided to go home around 9.30 pm.

We had to pass the marina bar on the way home and you've never seen the place so empty, we thought about calling in, but the thoughts of buying turpentine the following day ruled that out...