No smoking laws

The affects of the new smoking laws here are very noticable, bars and restaurants have all created outside areas of tables and chairs for people who wish to partake in the "habit".its most noticable to us in establishments we previously had thought were closed but is now more obvious they are open, i am pretty sure that some businesses will loose trade, because sitting outside in winter does not have the bar type social atmosphere. An enterprising person in Guardamar has opened a "Smoking Club" which because it has membership is allowed, although they are not meant to serve food or coffee.

The 50 Euro man

Apparently this conman is around again, he will knock on your door and explain to you he has lost his keys and cannot get at any money to pay the locksmith who will not do the job without the cash. he gives you his address which is closeby, but this address will be for an unoccupied property, he is very plausible and speaks perfect English, and will try to borrow between 30 and 50 Euros. Dont be taken in by him as you will not get your cash back.

Photo Competition

Today is the final day to put in your entries for Guardamar del Seguras 6th annual Moors and Christians photo competition,After the entries have been judged all the works will be displayed in the exhibition area of the Public library from 22nd January to 6th February, The winners of two cash awards will be announced at the annual music concert.

Fiesta aftermath

Now the 6th January is behind us, Guardamar has really quietened down, nearly all the red carpets have been taken up from outside the shops, and people are obviously trying to recover from the festive binge, our neighbour told us, its been party, party, party since the 25th December and now he needs a holiday, Sunday there were plenty of people on the beach having a stroll because it was another lovely warm day, there was even one or people having a quick dip in the sea, we have been extremely lucky with the weather here considering the UK are having yet more snow.

Animal aid and the lemon tree

We picked up our good friend Lil this morning and had a trip to the Animal Aid charity sale at Churchills bar in San Luis, had a good browse and found some more new reading matter and some handy bits and pieces, among which were 2 unusual flute shaped champagne glasses with no stem and with MM etched on them, then we headed up to the Lemon Tree Market, this market is always very busy now but we arrived just after 10:00 so the masses had not arrived, we got tempted to a full English breakfast again,always good value for €3.50 including coffee and it was very pleasant sitting in the warm sunshine, then purchased one or two bargains like 2 litres of Brandy €7.30, 12 pairs of socks €3.
The fruit and vegetables are good as well, 4 lettuces €1, three cabbages €1, cauli and broccoli, 2 heads for €1, there was not much variety of local fruit this week probably because of the holidays, but we have been getting grapes at 0.80 cents a kilo.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR

We would like to wish all our Family, friends and visitors to A-Brit-in-Spain a happy, healthy and prosperous year of 2011.
Although we had a pretty good try, did not manage to eat all the grapes by the twelth strike of the clock at midnight, but they tasted really nice.
The thing was we bought the grapes at lidl and they were all around the size of a ping pong ball.