Pool blogging

 We are one of those people, who now live post stuff. Relax it's not going to be tedious, we'll give a few bits of info on our hotel and check out, as quite frankly this sounds like work.

So far the bad, we're in room 444, which if you read last week's post, isn't good. You have a view of one block and a small pool. 

On the plus side, we got good food so far with a decent amount of grub. Though the main parts of our dining area have caught jokeyitis, with a liberal amount of piss poor slogans and rip on the Lady and the Tramp but with humans.

Our hotel manual is a QR code with a good run down of channels and a pitiful amount in English.

Oh and fair props to whoever is doing the music, so far I've heard Westchester lady, and the beat goes on and I come from a land down under. An ace selection if ever I heard it.

Ibiza All the rest

 We're back and have been for a few days now. Last week was TV based nonsense and as I hardly had it on, is an easy write up. This is all the rest.

Animals.

Saw quite a lot of lizards that we didn't see the last time we were here. Helps that we were staying on the west coast around San Antonio, which seems to be a stronghold. Not many cats  though there were a few strays and such, what I saw most were dogs. Good bois of all sizes and shapes including  one with dreads and a sad boi with wheels. Most fun was watching this lab scrounge up a football and race around with it with many "Ven aqui's" to get him to behave. 

Venus Ven Aqui 

Quite a lot of crabs on this side too, with your Marmorata crab being the crab of choice clinging to rocks and in pools. Though the other type I saw had nice tortoiseshell brown legs with white knees and a white stripe across its carapace and eyes. Not sure what this was and couldn't get a photo of it, but if I strike it lucky searching, you'll be updated. Oh and before I forget quite a lot of sea bream and of quite massive sizes too, they will come along with you when you swim, been calling them the supreme sea bream team. Which is nice.

Marbled Crab

Area.

We stayed at the Azuline Bergantin hotel.  A really nice place outside of San Antonio, good food and I'd recommend it in a heartbeat. Does get overrun with 18-30 type crowds so if you don't like seeing young women with barely much on around the pool (or young blokes come to think of it if that floats your boat) then I don't know what's wrong with you. 

There are some good beaches and that and its worth walking round past the popular beaches to stop at the ones further along as the small bay is silty opposite where we stayed. Reggae reggae has some rocks and I spent a few days near there relaxing and just watching the wildlife. A patch of sea lavender was quite a draw and I've got an unknown blue butterfly photo of it relaxing there. 

Prices have gone up and its over run with Africans selling knock offs but these do not detract too much, the apples have always been there. But you can still shop around and get stuff as there is a Spar on nearly every corner. San Antonio is worth a trip out to, as its the nearest big town, San Joseph not so much as its a one horse town, stop here for a drink if you are stuck here though, its really chilled and friendly. 

All in all one of my all time great vacations. 

Ibiza Part3

I'm not sure if this counts or not. But this time round I've not been watching foreign TV much. They still had clubbing TV on playing gabber at 5am which is cool and Fernsehn Sud is still showing its space channel which is NASA clips and unsigned techno. 

Spain still has Doraemon on TV and we caught the band bit from ruleta del suerte. AKA wheel of fortune. Oh and there's Sharkey and George in Catalan. 

Dora ey mon. 

 I think last time we mentioned all the animal stuff we saw, and that includes the elusive balcony gecko. We'll add that we also saw a Turtle Dove which is rare here and part of the twelve days of Xmas. 

Ok seems we didin't do that after all. Just talked about the nudists and Es Canar. We had a few good things here including a nice shot of a Bath white and a Locust that crashed into our balcony window at 11PM on the last night home. We saw our Graush gulls and a Shag, along with a blackbird. A few nice cats at a bar but never worked out where the Peacock lived. Finally we saw an octopus holed up in a little hole in the rocks. He had a cask of Amontillado thing going on where he'd walled himself in with only a tentacle and beady eye peering out to give him away. really nice.

Holiday part1 Es Canar vs Cala Nova

 We went back to Ibiza. Es Canar to be exact. To the same hotel. This time its not so great. Had patchier wifi and the lift broke down a few times. But can't really complain its a 3 star place. You get what you pay for. 

Anyway rant over. You'll want some sort of comparison seeing as the pic in the above link is Cala Nova beach. Both are Es Canar, but the main beach at Es Canar along with the harbour is much nicer. True both have a good variety of things to see but there are more bars and places to visit at the main beach.

Cala Nova also has an ever present current when swimming / snorkeling so bear this in mind. Its also a quieter bay further down the coast with much more nature. Though we saw a Purple Stinger Jellyfish when swimming which didn't endear me much. The main attraction of Cala Nova is that its full of naked hippies. Its not a nudist beach per ce, it just has its share of washed up old people and free thinkers in dreads letting it all hang out. Including a grey haired prick with a man bun totally in the raw. Worse everyone who saw him, laughed.

Es Canar doesn't have its share of washed up hippies on the beach but does have a nice array of fish and that. Quite a collection of mullet and two spot bream including the little bastard who took a nip out of my leg. Also if anyone is remotely interested there is a small octopus walled up (entirely its own doing I may add) near the little jetty at the end of the bay. 

Finally you'll also want directions. Es Canar is on the east coast above Santa Eularlia des riu. You can get the 18a bus in and the main stop is in the main square. The beach is straight down the street. Cala Nova is further along and if you're in Es Canar don't bother getting the bus unless you have mobility problems. You can access it by heading along the top road and chucking a left at the Hotel Coral Beach. Cala Nova beach is on the right at the end of the road.

Cala Nova Low light exposure experiment.

Es Cana at the back of the Jacaranda bar

Ibiza part 2

 So Ibiza then. We're going back this August which was a surprise to me. Same place same resort which is nice. Anyway, TV is the regular thing for the second week back and I have to tell you.. it's not much that isn't to do with football.

Euros here ATM. Which reminds me on a tangent, that the auto teller machines here in Spain show missing person notes on their screens.

Diversion over and we saw a few things in Spanish. Salvage Hunters in Spanish, CSI Miami, and of course Doraemon.  

Ibiza being Ibiza there is a few clubbing channels on the TV including Clubbing TV which through the art of glitch, showed some DJ sets as well as gear reviews (a new Oberheim synth was one.) and someone woman trying to take Simone Angel's crown interviewing some no mark DJ. And every one without fail, glitched and twitched via the art of poor bandwidth and data moshing.  

Not clubbing TV but another channel that succumbed to datamosh

Apart from that, though, little of anything of interest. 

Ibiza vol1.

 Animals and plants.

I've spent an hour downloading and renaming about 300 or so photos from my holiday. We have a few apps that will help out, I'm on iNaturalist now so I can get ID of stuff that I have no hope IDing on my own. Also on plant stuff, the app Flora Incognita gave me almost 100% ID rate on wild flowers and also cultivated stuff too. 

Big up to this guy's rizz.

Nice to see a Collared Dove duo. In fact along with House Sparrows these made up a duo of birds in decline in the UK, but doing well in Ibiza. Safe to say I never took a bad shot of these, and I took a few. 

Grauch.

Another bird doing locally well if not so hot overall is the Audoins Gull. These replace the Herring Gull here in Ibiza. even down to the reputation of being a chip thief. Wiki seems to play it down but as its all inclusive here. I've seen them sweep down and steal chips from a Dutch family. 

Finally we saw something that was only really present in Santa Eularlia the Pitiusos Lizard or Ibizan Wall Lizard.

Proud of this shot.

Along with a Red Palm Weevil and its attendant notices of bio control on various palms, this was the creature I saw the least here. 

Cute

To be fair, this is a massive palm pest, so seeing this least, is a good sign. 

Eye beef ah.

 So, you'll get a short entry here. Hate phone typing so suffice to say, I'll not take up your time.

Been here a day and, it's Ok. Weathers nice, and the TV is mostly Great! As Ibiza is club orientated it's like my culture won instead of rock, so you get clubbing TV, where you can watch a DJ spin records or watch them review an Oberheim OBX with its inevitable Behringer clone.

We found the bus stop, and if this actually works, a link to TIBbet (TIB) buses. So if you're here and want to travel you can look it up.

Holiday full round up.

 Where before you'd have to wait to get home for me to round up my holiday, new big phone means you get live updates. But for old times sake, here's a final edit of holiday.

We spent an enjoyable two weeks in Ayia Napa,  Cyprus. Where thanks to a tenant coming on (and her spouse lurking in the background) I spent most of it thinking of her and how my autist ass could have handled her.. if he weren't around.

On the plus side thanks to everyone overlooking each other, I did see some people making out on their balcony even so far as going down on his bird, which is proper dedication in my eyes. They had towels up which was nice but failed to disguise the fact that being of a higher elevation you could watch all that went on. Sadly they left the second day we were there.

Wildlife.

There wasn't much variation in plants, as everything was dominated by Rock Samphire. If you are anywhere near the coast this is what you have to look out for. Inland they had Asphodel and Juniper in the Sculpture park and a load of Agave that had gone to seed. There are a few butterflies around including Short tailed blue and a Swallowtail. They also had their fair share of Dragonflies about which is nice.

TV

Didn't really watch much TV, A lot was either Russian, Arabic (MBC Film) or Greek. But I did wake up in the middle of the night to some drunk dude on skates in this film (Greek only). Citruss TV had a dildiss that they were convinced was for your face despite it being knob shaped. Apart from that there was a nice dairy ad in Greek which was cool.

CATS

Finally in cats we have all your favourites such as Lizard King so named because it ate a lizard and a Mousebob a black tortoiseshell that was hunting mice. Oh and this dude who looked like he's made out of shadow material. 

It doesn't help that it's a fluffmeister so its edges are not that defined. 

Holiday pt2 Beasts and plants

 Last weeks blog was all about the stuff I watched on television. From Crimen in Parasio (Death In Paradise) to an insincere robot on This Morning. This week, fauna.

That area around Alcudia, Santa Margalida, is known for its wildlife and area's of natural beauty. From the public farmlands of Finca Son Real,(ES) to the pinewoods and bird sanctuary at s'Albufera. You are pretty much spoiled when it comes to nature here. Some pretty dramatic weather meant we couldn't really go swimming in the sea, but we did manage to go hiking about, which more than made up for it. 

Weather wise, it wasn't all that, typical English summer, with a few nice days, a storm and a few overcast and windy days. The best of the weather was when we went home. Which is always the way. Put it this way Burgos got snow for the first time ever. Granted its Northern Spain, but its still strange and unseasonal weather. 

Anyway, what did  I see. Along with the small river, with its ducks and coot. There was a small egret and cormorants by the see along with an Audoins gull with its call that sounded like Geoff. A few nice bugs including a Mole cricket, a regular cricket and a tortoise. Also a really long millipede. 

A weird one here. We saw a Two Tailed Pasha Charaxes jasius butterfly drinking the cuckoo spit from a froghopper nest. If anyone knows quite what it's gaining from this I'd love to know. 

Plants

Thanks to the near alpine like conditions on the sea front there is quite a range of plants. Mostly dominated by Felty Germander and Helichrysum but there are a few other species there as well. Sea Holly, Long Horned Poppy and four types of Rockrose. Up in the hills I saw a Gladiolus in bloom for  the first time and a  few other things I can't place, including a nice Speedwell type down by the river.

Holiday 23 pt1 TV

 OK, so I'm back from a well earned break, and it has to be said, some highly disappointing weather. We went to Son Baulo in Ca'n Picafort, up on the North East coast of Mallorca. Been before, but mostly in June when the weather is warmer and getting into the low 30's This time its like an English summer, overcast and cloudy with occasional bright spots and the odd storm to spoil it. In fact looking at the weather there and on the mainland it seems to be storms and hail with the odd reports of snow in places. 

My hotel room was basic with a view of a shop and bar.

Whereas my parents got a sea view. If you don't know the area, its known for its outstanding natural beauty and being close to Alcudia, down the coast from the old castle town. There are a few buses running into either Palma or Alcudia and its worth taking time to visit either. 

Anyway two paragraphs in and what you want to know is what's on the box there. Spanish TV is pretty much what you'd expect a few telenovelas and a lot of imported shows from the states. Including a version of Bones and the worst CSI: Miami. English TV extends to either ITV (we saw a bit of this including an awkward interview with a robot on This Morning before they ousted Schofe for bumming a twink.) And the BBC which is largely dire.

German stuff is largely of the RTL / Sat1 style programming with a few other quirks thrown in. Big props to BR Fernsehen Sud, for consistently showing odd programs throughout the day, and night when the insomnia kicked in. Seriously if you are a techno head you have to watch Space Night, a mix of NASA clips and the more trackier drum style of techno / house, you won't be disappointed. 

They also do a pets show called Anna und Die Haustiere.(German) But its more of an excuse to perv over Annika Preil. If I knew German I bet I'd get more out of it.

Catalan I still don't rate and its more local interest with some election nonsense thrown in, which should be concluding today. I'll add a note on who won what if I remember. The other thing was Firo, which celebrates the Mallorquins successfully holding off a siege from the Moors and is a big costumed ball out on the West coast.

Finally we come to the main show. A few English / Spanish shows I've rated. 

Pop / Tiny pop has consistently the best cartoons with Dragonball Super and some weird Post Apocalyptic Pokemon with Team Rocket as a News Crew. 

A version of Vera where its pronounced Bera. Which is my new favourite thing. I never found out if Brenda Blethyn was dubbed in this or just left as is. Props if it was, we can't understand Geordies at the best of times. 

Mein Freundin Conni on ZDF

Based on an old German kids book, I just love the look of this. It's like if they got Ark System Works to make a kids show in the style of Blazblue, not cosmic horror but that sort of 3D style. I still don't understand German but I bet it's proper wholesome as well. YT Clip here.

Finally a duck at an ice rink with that Felix the Housecat mix of Sinnerman over the top.

EDIT. The PeePee party won. Breakdown here  Catalan.

Hiatus

 We'll be doing nothing much for a couple of weeks, as it's holiday season for me. Rest assured this place will be up and running in 2 weeks time. Peace.

Got SARS2 electric boogaloo

 Was going to end up the Limassol holiday posts with a few thanks and maybe some cat posting if I hadn't done so before then on Wednesday night, I get a fever.

It all started watching QI and laughing like I'm high to some lame joke one of the panel said, like I'm ripped to the tits on E's. Not a good sign as mostly the Toksvig era is normally high on the feminist and low on the jokes. Going up to bed, it all started going wrong. Body temp kicked up and down and got the aches and pains like when I had my jabs. 

Thought it was the flu at first, decided to walk uphill to work from home and that was a big mistake, made ten minutes before texting my line manager and the guys in suggesting I have Covid after its long passed.

Slept till lunch and took a test for about the third time ever, yeah, we have the coof and don't know how I got it. Lost my appetite, my energy but not my sense of smell or taste. Spent the next two days sleeping on and off. Trying my best to keep my distance from my parents who now have it. It's come to the point today that I still have it but now have no symptoms, still a little fatigued and tired. But not burning up or wanting to sleep all day like a cat.

Anyway you might as well have them thank you bits from holiday.

Thanks Harmony Bay for all the cats. You really look after them strays.

Thanks Yellow Cafe Limassol Harbour. For playing that one deep house track while I had my coffee, especially when the 303 kicked in. Along with all the odd reggae covers you played.

Finally thanks to Sigma bakeries. Though we thought you were a national chain of shops rather than the local bakers. Looks like the Cypriots take baking serious. You had really great rolls.

Limassol Part2

 Last time we really talked about television and stuff and nothing about our time there. So without further ado lets do this.

We stayed at Harmony Bay hotel at the edge of Limassol, its a nice place with good access to the beach and a heck of a lot of cats. If you think I'm exaggerating then there is at least 10 around the hotel complex and all are well cared for. There are all varieties of ginger, tabby, black cat if you want luck and of course my favourite the Weedle (black and white.)  

The local supermarket also had a range of cats outside including a tabby sort of like my old cat Zoe. They also had a range of canned coffee which is a favourite of mine. 

The local beach is blackish sand and is quite stony out in the bay, I did see a Sea Hare when I did venture into the water. Was about fist sized and didn't move much.

It seems that Limassol itself is attracting quite the rich crowd, lots of fancy cars and water front apartment complexes which they are calling flats. Which is pretty based, we'd call them apartments. A lot of Indians on scooters doing Deliveroo work and Wolt / Volt food service.

Also you still need masks on buses here. Also pretty frequent service, which can only be commended.

Some photos.

The Icon Limassol

Pinch the Hedgehog

Sigma Bakery a fine selection

A big thanks to Sigma Bakery for rolls and cakes, Pokka for the canned coffee. A few places with pirate DS games and whatever this is below. It rings a bell, but have no room to take it home with me.

Anybody, This shop had god cartoons as well.

Hiatus returns.

 Will be away for a few weeks, so no posts for the foreseeable future. That's all.

Plane crash Holiday.

 Where were you when the planes hit the twin towers? It's twenty years ago that the planes hit and not that any one really wanted to know, I'll tell you exactly where I was, when I first heard.

It was about 3pm when I heard via work radio, that the twin towers had been hit. We had two way radios to keep in touch with and with a 3pm tea break, as we worked longer hours then, we were sitting down to a cuppa and some banter, the kind when you get a bunch of blokes together when we got a call through.

I've just heard the tail end of the news, a jet plane has just gone into the world trade center.

We of course switch on the radio and its a full bulletin of how a bunch of terrorists had committed a mass atrocity in the name of their fruity little religion.

Chatham

Took a trip out to Chatham today, a place I've never been to before. A place that had a  proud naval history that is now long gone. I know that there are plenty of places that are worse, Croydon and Woolwich for one but Chatham seems to be one of those places where its just vaguely depressing. 

It's not multicultural and run down like Croydon, or just a shit hole that Woolwich is. Or smug and left wing shithole like Hackney with no proper shops. It has a Smiths and Poundland for christ sakes, its a proper high street.

No, I think its just a lot of people on electric scooters riding round that have put me off. A general twat chariot, for road men and dealers. Most of the pound shops were shut, they did have a gadget shop selling over priced records, but they did have modern stuff even if you needed discogs app to tell you what it is.

To make matters worse we wanted to go to Maidstone but got lost, so this is the compromise trip instead. Hopefully Maidstone is better. If we ever go.

Hiatus

 This was supposed to be a hiatus of such. On Wednesday we were meant to be going to Benalmadena, on the Costa Del Sol but thanks to SARS 2 electric boogaloo, we had our holiday cancelled not once but twice. I've just got done cancelling our parking reservations for the airport and with any luck we'll get a refund.

Now all I have left is a shed load of leave that I've not cancelled and maybe I can get some scanning done and the conservatory cleaned out. It's not what I wanted to do but seeing as the alternative is a staycation which is pricey. Then a bunch of projects seems much more worthwhile.

In fact, thanks to the amount of forest fires going on across the med, mostly Greece and Italy and a massive incursion of what can be called murder heat (50oF 120oC near enough recorded in the past week alone). Maybe its not such a bad idea after all.

Break

Been busy sorting my room out, so, no regular weekly update this week.We have swanky metal shelves put up, from Lidl's and everything that was in order isn't now. But it's done now and will have to take a day to sort everything out again.

Herne Bay

On Thursday I took a trip down to the coast with my family to Herne Bay. Mum and Dad had to do some things in town there so it was the perfect excuse to take a day and come along. 

Despite it being cold and miserable, I really enjoyed myself. We had never actually been there, either shooting past to visit my aunty in Dover or going to Margate instead.  This also goes for Whitstable too, which I hear is also nice.

Its remarkably sheltered there despite it being on the coast. I noticed a lot of Agave planted out in the communal beds along with Echium (Tajinaste Rojo for Spanish speakers) and a lone Opuntia down by the Indian restaurant. 

Apart from that, its also a dog town, in fact we saw a meat dog (a staffy) carrying a packet of ham along in its mouth, as well as a few other nice dogs. So if you're a fan of dogs you are well served.

But what if I don't like dogs and am a cat person, well, they have a cat cafe which was not open at all when we were there, but you could see a few of the cats milling around, including a few Weedle types asleep in a basket, in the window.

All in all I spent most of the time looking on the beach (stones) and eating fish and chips which had to be done when you're by the sea.

In a few other news I got the Wailing Siren Mystery ported over and am waiting for another book to come before I start work on the Disappearing floor.

Oh and Goemon 2 + 3 are now translated. Though there are some screeching from the left as 3 contains the word tranny in it. Its even present in the original Japanese as new half, but don't let that stop you enjoying it.

Sculpture Park Ayia Napa

This will be the last holiday post from me, with a trip to the Sculpture park on the outskirts of Ayia Napa.

It seems that wherever I go, cactus stuff seems to find me. We saw signs to this up at the crossroads in Ayia Napa, near the harbour and looking at my phone back at the hotel it seems its some way outside of town. And could be walked to, if you wanted a long walk. 

Big mistake, its quite a way outside town and if you are situated at the Nissi Beach end its quite a walk. If you are based in Ayia Napa itself and are slightly outside town, then this is quite doable.

We got about halfway and my map lead us to the Tourist information office so we popped in to get directions. The upshot of this was, get the bus by the big I heart Ayia Napa sculpture in town and then go a few stops to get there.

Is it worth going?.

In a word, yes. And if you don't like cacti its still worth going as that bit is across the bridge, so you can skip it if you wish..

There is quite a few sculptures dotted around this dry and quite arid landscape, they are mostly modern art in style but are also many well done. The bridge in particular is a fine example with its metal gods (I clocked a Herakles, Athene with owl and Poseidon) and numerous photo ops.  But also be on the lookout for a cheeky Minotaur, Large owl and Athene and a Trojan Horse. There are some hippos too, for you to look out for.  And finally there are a few you can climb on to take your photo.

Seems Legit

Cactus Park Portion

The latter half past the bridge is a cactus garden. Mainly showing plenty of the larger species that are too big for pot culture outside larger gardens.

You may think it'll be non stop tall Agave and Opuntia and you'd be sort of right as they are well represented here. You may think they'd have the larger cactiform Euphoriba's that you can see on the main drag and you'd be wrong, as the main Euphorbia is the native Greek Spiny Spurge, Euphorbia Acanthothamnos which acts like a small hedge in places growing between the rocks.

Mostly though it is Opuntia, with an even split between prickly pear types and Cholla. This includes the most evil spined species of all, Cylindropuntia Tunicata, and its rather nice pinkish flowers.

Polaskia and attendant ant.

Other species include some of the bigger Aloes such as Ferox, an old man cactus, and a few of the more obscure species including  Polaskia Chichipe with its yellowy green flowers.

Finally the last part is a Mediterranean garden collecting together the wild flowers that grow in the region. Although I fully suspect this is just a wild and untamed area.  Look out for Agama lizards here, and butterflies. We saw a Bath White as well as Swallowtail, along with a few Painted Ladies.

Info.

Sculpture Park Ayia Napa. Free admission. Buses: From Nissi Beach, 101. From Protaras, 102.