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2002 -- January's snippets Noche Buena is the night before Christmas, what we call Christmas Eve. You go to your family and pretend you're having a good time. Then you go out with your mates and dance all night. Noche Vieja is New Year's Eve. In Coin, it's traditional to get dressed up in fancy dress, or disfrace (translation, disguises), and hang out in the bars. For a change. Goodbye Peseta -- it's quite sad, seeing this quaint money system being replaced by that oh so complicated decimal Euro. To commemorate it, Canal Plus, a Spanish telly station has "Goodbye Peseta" adverts, where it's personified as a dancer doing a farewell performance, to the tune of Bye Bye Love. As a singer sings "I think I'm gonna die" you see the Peseta girl falling to the ground and her hand becomes all limp. There are four versions of this advert, and one of them shows the Euro personified as an American-looking young boy with a bit of a goatie. I'm sure the Euro isn't old enough to have a goatie. Hmm. Is it goatie or goatee? 1st January -- Celebrated Noche Vieja hanging out in the streets of Coin with Ferny and mates. Was going to dress up as an angel, but many things occurred to stop that happening. Felt a bit off all day, I think I had some cross-contamination on my salad the day before at a friend's house. At about 3am I started puking -- I've never puked so much. Went home and puked again at 6am. Fasted all of today, and laid down doing nothing. I think I'll take my own salad next time I go to a non-raw friend's house -- just to be on the safe side. The Euro is officially here! I'd seen it a few weeks back, as some mates with businesses here have it. It's so funny watching the old Spaniards on the news programmes talking about it and looking at it like it was from another planet. Stupid government in England won't have any of this Euro business, though. It means I still can't write a cheque out in Euros, and have to pay ridiculous exchange rates on all my money I spend here, as all my banking is done in the UK. Blimey. 3rd January -- Put my redesigned web site live today! Blimey, that was a lot of hard work, but I'm very pleased with it. Big thanks to Jessie, of Jessett.com for all her techie help. Must also alter my Rawcreation web site, it's been the same design all it's life! And it's my 2nd Raw Birthday today! Not bad for a 6 month experiment. Oh, how could I ever have dreamed how it woult change me so much. I love it!!!!! This new web site is a great birthday pressie to myself, too. Cor, isn't life lovely? 7th - 22nd January -- managed to get a flight to the UK for 69€, that's about £40 inc taxes! Couldn't believe it. Wasn't going to go back to England so soon, but need to buy some stuff for work, and I can claim the VAT back if I get it in the UK. Also have to see clients, and wanted to see mates and family. Also wanted to get some descent food! I can't believe how impossible it is to get organic food where I am in Spain. Am visualising my farm. 13th January -- It's Sunday and I went round Jessie's house all day. Her and Bob are on a detox and so I gave some moral support and nattered loads. I made her a raw vegan quiche (secret, but very fantastic recipe) as a surprise treat. We loved it. We kept a tiny piece for Bob, the lucky boy. It's been a great trip so far, I've got a bit more business, and I've seen a few mates. I'm glad my clients are happy that I don't live in England any more. It really makes no difference with this ADSL super fast connection stuff. I love the Internet soooo much! Have yet to see the family. Must buy Christmas pressies for the boys tomorrow, before I see them on Tuesday. Am missing Ferny, though realise now that the smell of smoke in the house from his father has to go! When I got to England and unpacked my clothes from my suitcase, they all smelled of smoke. It doesn't matter how many anti-tobacco candles I burn in that house, his father's smoky stench still penetrates the air. And if it's doing that to my clothes, imagine what it's doing to me! Anyway, I told Ferny last night that I want him to put a very heavy curtain up to separate our living area from his father's. Oh, Spaniards and living with their families! Bless them. Must buy farm. 17th January -- Just got back to Karen's from being at parents. Got some more business, and saw the kids. They were beautiful as ever. Mum's worried about the oldest one, James because he'll be going to big school soon where there are lots of drugs. I must talk to him about it. How horrible for kids to have to grow up with all that stuff going on around them. How hard is it for them to turn down the temptation time after time. Gevernment's getting soft as well. Now they're making GPs give heroin out to junkies. Like wouldn't it be better all round to put them in rehab? Wouldn't that actually solve the problem rather than mask the symptoms? Am so glad that drug thing passed me by. I'd hate to be dependant on anything which damages my health and happiness. I told James he could come and live with me in Spain, as a joke and he goes "Oh yeah. Mum can I?" Jennie said he couldn't as she might miss him a bit! He wanted to eat a fruit evening meal one night but I forgot to bring some round with me. I'd already had a smoothie. Note to self: When making promises to children try to remember them. Went to an Astanga yoga class with mum. It was packed. There were about 60 women from the age of about 12 to 70 all wanting a body like Geri or Madonna in 4 easy moves. Well, that's not really true -- some were devotees (if that's the word), and it was interesting to go to the class. Got a bit embarrassed (OK, no I didn't!), coz loads of people were going "Cor, look at her!" when I was being too flexible. What was really amazing was when we walked in at the beginning. Mum said "Isn't that the girl who used to teach us in Yarmouth years ago?", I couldn't remember so I asked her. It was, and it turns out it was 17 years ago! And she's still doing the exercise teaching! The class was so different to before, as I did self-practice with Isabel and Shoshana. And it was a bit more like disco yoga, certainly not Mysore style, but great all the same. I wish I could go again, but it's a bit too far to go from Malaga to Hopton Village Hall. Mum loved it, so I hope she keeps it up. Messed up in my diary about when I was meeting Lisa Currants. I thought it was this weekend, but when we arranged it I didn't say which weekend, so she thought it was the first one that I was here (you would, wouldn't you!). Shame as I won't be able to see her. Did a similar thing with Lisa Butch, must be something to do with Lisas. My Karen friends were more successful as I managed to see all 3 of them. Quick! Call the gas man! 20th January -- Went to London on Friday 18th, and met up with Arun for a natter. We got into a deep and meaningful on the Tube and ate dinner at a lovely green cafe in New Row (by Covent Garden) who made me a salad which I adored. I bought a durian and crouched down in China Town eating it and loving that I've-missed-you-for-5-months-but-you-are-still-my-best-friend feeling. Arun tried some and liked it. I told him it was because he's half Asian. He loves my generalist race statements. My durian was a massive £27 jobbie, and smelled amazing. It was so lovely and ripe -- perfect in every way. Then we went shopping for music. As I was paying for my CDs the staff were kind of hunting high and low for something. I asked them what was wrong, and they said that they could smell something odd. I told them it was my fruit, and showed them the carrier bag. One customer asked "What do you do with it?" Guess what I said? "I eat it." Went to meet Joe in the evening, and we finished off the durian. It was soooo big and gorgeous. As we were going out a while later, Joe opened the front door to his block of flats and there was a gas man standing there. Joe and I didn't flinch. "Did you report a gas leak?" he asked us. "No," Joe said. Then two people came running up behind the gas man. "It was us, we live upstairs. Can't you smell gas?" they asked. Joe said "No. Maybe my sense of smell isn't very good". We got into his car, drove round the corner and pissed ourselves laughing. Can you believe a durian could be mistaken for a gas leak. It's like some sick society joke. Whoever invented the smell for gas (it's added so you can smell it if the gas leaks, as natural gas doesn't smell) must have tried a durian and thought, "Yes, the association with gas leaks will put people off this mind-expanding fruit and leave them trapped in work-slave cages for eternity". Or something. We had a great time at the bar, eating our own olives and stuff. One man called me Lava Lamp because I had a dress on which I don't think looked like a lava lamp but he did. I also got called James Bond Girl, and as I'm fast approaching 33 I rather enjoyed that comparison. Another man told me that he thought I was beautiful but he wasn't sure if I'd want him. I answered "Of course I want you, but there are so many men and such little time". When we got home at about midnight, there was a note under the door. The gas man had turned Joe's gas off! I couldn't believe it. He rang Transco, the gas people, and asked them if they'd found leaking gas. They hadn't. But as they'd smelled it, they thought it best to turn it off for all the flats in that house. I asked why they'd turned off the gas if the detector hadn't detected gas! It took 4 phone calls and 8 hours to get the gas turned on again. When the gas man came into the flat he stank of tobacco! How can people be so engrossed in their own filth that they don't realise a beautiful smell when it punches them in the face? I told Joe that the next time he smells someone cooking bacon in the flats, he should ring 999 and say that a policeman is being murdered in the house. Or if he sees someone drinking milk he should report a leaking cow to the RSPCA. The more I spend time in society the more I realise that everyone is ridiculous to the point of being crazy. Hey, maybe even I am?! Got back to the relative sanity of Karen's house on Saturday night and gave her a couple of durians. Her big eyes lit up like a Christmas tree! 22nd January -- Airport insanity! I took a bit much back with me to the airport and when I checked in they wanted to charge me £100 extra! I couldn't believe it. I unpacked my suitcase there and then, put as many clothes on as I could manage, took all the packaging out of the things I'd bought, put my birthday durian in a rubbish bag and reweighed my bags. I was still overweight and they charged me £80 for it! That's twice the price of the return air fare! Loads of people offered for me to use their allowance but the woman wouldn't allow it. There was no way out of it, I couldn't throw my stuff away. Well, in the end I protested as much as I could, explained that I only weigh 8 and a half stone and that should be taken into account, and then paid the fine. Oh! Then I went to the loo, rescued my birthday durian from the rubbish bag, and a load of other stuff, and went through security with a "You don't see my 3 pieces of hand luggage" Jedi master impression thing. I didn't get stopped or searched and a nice bloke helped me carry my bags to the shuttle. On the plane, the people next to me were over their weight as well but they didn't get charged. Fernando was picking me up from the airport, and I wanted to look all sexy for him, so I went to the loos before I picked my baggage up and took off my 8,000 layers of clothes and shoved them into some carrier bags. I faffed with my hold-ups (they sometimes have a habit of falling down which isn't very sexy), fluffed my hair and went to baggage. After struggling with my extremely heavy case, I took my trolley through to the exit. I saw Ferny, who was looking very skinny (he later said that he hadn't eaten as he'd been pining for me!), and started walking faster towards him, all the time trying to look a bit glamorous amongst my 100 bags. Just like in Tesco's, my trolley had a wonky wheel, and as I was speeding towards my loved one, my trolley was slowly veering off in the other direction. 2 feet away from a kiss, I felt this big bang, and all my bags went flying everywhere. My trolley had pushed itself into a gate. I just stood there looking at it all on the floor while a load of people picked everything up. I just couldn't do any more! Well, I never was destined to be sophisticated, I suppose. When we got home, Fernando's dad was doing his guard dog of the street impression. He sits in the front doorway and says "Hola" to everyone. I said "Hola" to him and he smiled! I'd only ever seen him smile once before and that was when Joe was visiting. He banged his big bald head on a bird cage which had Juan in stitches. Relatively. 23rd January -- My birthday! Had a great time. Well, not strictly true. I had to work until about 2pm, which wasn't in my birthday plan. I think it's the first time I've ever worked on my birthday, I always take the day off. Well, that's what comes from working for yourself, isn't it? Can't complain, my clients Bango keep me full with Mango! So apart from eating durian on the terrace and working and trying to unpack my bags from the UK, I had a pretty uneventful day. Then in the evening Sho and Dao came over, as did Miguel and Pilar (don't know how you spell her name). It was Miguel's birthday, too. Pilar is always so thoughtful and bought me some lovely pressies, and I'm always so forgetful and didn't get Miguel anything. Ooops. But I did make dinner and that was a lot of effort. I made a broccoli and fake cheese sauce, the sauce was made out of pineapple, tahini, sundried tomatoes, orange juice and lemon juice blended and poured over the little bits of broccoli. We also had a tomato and sundried tomato salad with seaweed and onion and herbs, a great big green herby salad, a massive bowl of guacamole, and some of the nicest olives I've ever tasted from Sho. Oh, they were fab. She brought me a whole jar round and I ate about half of them. I'll pop tomorrow. We also had a fruit plate, nuts and a birthday carrot cake. I actually made the cake for New Year but didn't eat it as I was sick, so I froze it. Me and Sho didn't rate it but Dao made light work of it. Ferny can't get over how much Dao eats! 25th January -- What a week! It's been crazy, with loads of work and stuff, and travelling. I realised the other day that last year I lived in 5 houses! There's no wonder I don't feel settled. I think I now feel at home here in this Spanish house, but I'm not sure. Yes I am. Oh, I think I am. I love being here, but I don't like the fact that other people are here all the time. It's so noisy and I like peace. It'll be OK, I'm sure. 5 houses in a year! No wonder I felt like it went really quickly! Next

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