Changing Clocks, Cats Eyes and Winter Weather

Am I the only person I know who LOATHES with a deep and vengeful passion the fact that, like lemmings to the cliff, the whole world changes their clocks with religious monotony twice a year without ever fighting against the reality that this ritual freaks out thousands of families every year, twice a year, for life?

I HATE it. More children get killed immediately after the Winter clock change than at any other time because people don't see them, and what would be wrong with enjoying the last of the afternoon sun after school .... WHY DO WE DO IT????? And don't tell me it's about the farmers, every farmer I have ever met gets up when he or she NEEDS to get up, not because GMT or British Summer Time said so.

As we drove yesterday afternoon in the dark rainy gloam to Teruel, I really FELT Winter here for the first time. It is a proper drive - 45 minutes of which 30 are along VERY Spanish mountain roads - beautiful in the Summer, when you can see, and rather HAIRY in the dark, when you can't see three metres infront of your nose because there are no Cats Eyes on hairpin bends! What a wonderful invention Cats Eyes are, but I guess in a country as enormous as Spain, the idea of putting them on really dangerous roads would mean millions of the things and there isn't the wealth to do it (arguably because, some people say, that the Government, Officials and the Estate Agents pocket it all - but I wouldn't DARE be so contentious)!.

And we went all that way so I could buy knitting wool - rather cotton - to knit my son some sweaters to keep him from freezing solid in the imminent sub zero temperatures - BUT....... ALL THE SHOPS WERE SHUT! WHY?? A perfectly normal Saturday evening in Spain, and every single bleedin' shop was shut! I was SO frustrated - all the diesel, sweaty hairpin bend palms and promises, and we couldn't even buy a hot chocolate! HOW FRUSTRATING!

We then had to drive the 45 minutes back in pitch darkness and I actually found myself feeling really grateful - because I am being gently eased into the reality that in about 2 months I will be facing some of my worst fears - driving in snow and ice consistently for 6-7 weeks! So the moral for me?

Get USED TO IT GIRL!!!

Have you visited my website yet? www.amanda-hamilton.com

Education, Blisters and Dust

Okay I need to have a grump here. Why? Spain's rural education system - that's why ............ The education system here in the mountains absolutely stinks. If you want to give your child a chance here to succeed and have any sense of their own brilliance, my honest view is that you need to be prepared to put a LOT of behind the scenes effort in. Sometimes I feel like opening a separate blog on the subject to offend the Powers that Be sufficiently that SOMETHING GETS DONE to support these bored out of their wits children. My own son is learning everything in a foreign language, and so for now he is hugely stretched, but it is a living tragedy that while in the UK and other parts of Europe we have the likes of Montessori and Steiner inspiration, here, we have a system staffed by gum chewing unshaven litter bugs setting the example for the next generation. Boo Hiss - watch this space as I do not intend to take it lying down!

They don't even have a system for teaching children to read like the Oxford Learning Tree - my son's first book, which his teacher suggested he chose himself, had words such as Haciendonos in it- for a 6 year old who had never read a Spanish book!! Very not funny!

However, moving onto more practical things, I have British friends here who are in the process of moving from their Masia in the Mountains - QUITE the most beautiful position - too isolated for a single Mum but an absolute Dream for an adventurous, land loving family. We spent the entire morning on All Saints Day heaving tons of gravel to finish off an outside walled garden - hence lots of blisters all round!. On a clear day, you can see the Mediterranean from their house ........... It makes me yearn for my very own home with VIEWS and a parcel of land around it. I am almost certain that I won't be buying it here as prices are British in their expensiveness - but then in fairness, Rubielos is a BREATHTAKINGLY beautiful village. Fortunately there is still a more reasonable market in the villages around Rubielos de Mora, but greed is becoming a known entity now ...

Read my Blog about my ruin in Fuentes to get an idea of the prices - oh, and the greed!



Don't forget to check out my website - www.amanda-hamilton.com

World's Longest Derek & Clive

A day on the beach today - it has been GLORIOUS weather again after a few days of utter drear. We scooted off this morning utterly oblivious of clocks changing or anything remotely practical like that, armed with a picnic and gardening tools. By the time my 6 year old wanted lunch, his nose was SO blocked I started looking for tissues - NONE anywhere. So, ever resourceful, I had an idea. Dig a hole and blow your nose into the hole. TEN MINUTES LATER this child was waving his head around with the scariest entrails hanging out of his head - about a foot long on each side. I couldn't bring myself to help, I thought I was going to gag, so left him to it! He finally sorted it out by burying it an inch at a time until it finally decided to reluctantly detach.

Utterly disgusting!

Do visit my more humane blog at my website : www.amanda-hamilton.com - that's the artist site!

Saxophones, Heart Attacks and Happy Ever After

I am learning the saxophone! Actually, I have had a tenor sax for over 6 years, but a very sensitive pregnancy meant I couldn't bear playing it, and then a baby - well, as my sister beautifully put it "you're either busy, very busy or asleep". Hence I am learning it now, 6 years later, nearly 2,000 metres up in the mountains. Oh, and also, at 6€ per month for four loosely half hour lessons (for loosely read roughly an hour), I feel I am onto a winner, even if my mouth and tongue do feel like Jah Jah Binks' tongue zapping in Star Wars I.

The heart attack - not literally thanks be to my Guardian Angel, came when I exited the School of Music to see my son hare-ing round the corner on his bike. That is nothing new - all the children here hare everywhere on their bikes, however this particular corner leads to the "main road" - down which juggernauts cannon, followed by a convoy of cars.

I asked my son if he had been on the "Main Road", to which he sheepishly told me he had, and how sorry he was.

I asked if he had done it before with his friends, to which he answered yes he had.

My blood ran ice cold. The child I thought I knew had deliberately lied to me, and not only lied to me consistently, but over something ENORMOUSLY dangerous. A death inducing danger, seriously.

How to handle? A first for me - all our problems thus far had been relatively easy to resolve with a Star Awards Chart for good behaviour etc - and now this - a REAL biggie.

Obviously the bike had to go in the garage. Trust had been breached, so the bike was banned. A lunch party today was cancelled, as was football practice. But none of this seemed to hit the spot for me, and I couldn't put my finger on why.

I like meditating - so I created a space to get quiet, and during a bit of quiet time felt the need to put a giant sheet of blank paper on our kitchen table in our tiny kitchen with pens, crayons, glue and paints. My hope being to "see" something through creative drawing with my son.

Well, he drew. He drew the Music School, the Plaza, the Tree, and me playing my saxophone. He drew a loop of him bicycling. But no Main Road. I asked "where is the main road? We need to draw that in" and I put it in the other side of the Music School. He then over and over drew his path on the bike ..... NOT ONCE did it go onto the Main Road .....

Turns out, he thought that the Plaza was a Main Road because a lot of cars park there - when I said "what about the "vueltas" (circuits) round here?" pointing to the Main Road, he looked at me wide eyed and said "But Mummy I would never ever go THERE without you"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PHEW!! Heaves a HUGE sigh of relief that my son isn't a liar, he does value his life, and he does respect his Mum's house rules!

Who Needs Nutcrackers?

We went almond picking last week - it was the Day of Pilar - I don't understand the Saints here yet but there are lots and that means days off which we love. Armed with 3 plastic bags we headed off up the hill.

The trees are teeming with almonds at the moment - hard to understand how the Spanish charge 4€ per 200g when they are dropping off in their thousands - except of course when you come to opening them - or figuring out how to open them.

But that's what I love about a simpler life - who needs nutcrackers that pinch the flap of skin between thumb and fingers when you can sit with a socking great big stone in your lap and crack them with a hammer?!

Living the Dream in Spain

This is my first post even though I have been living my dream here in Spain since May. I want to share my experiences, the ups and the downs, in the hope of giving courage and inspiration to people who want to pursue their dreams but feel they can't, for whatever reasons.

A brief history : I have wanted to move to Spain for a decade, but my life circumstances at the time made it impossible. However post a divorce, impossibly expensive cost of living in the UK and encouragement from some very loyal friends, I bought a campervan and began my explorations.

A year later (oh, and a few court cases), I and my then just 6 year old son arrived in the Sierra de Gudar mountains, about an hour inland from Valencia. In a campervan! Every nook and cranny was jam packed with food, paint (I am an artist by profession), natural remedies, clothes to last through +40 degress and -15 degrees, and all the other bits and pieces that the removers said could not be stored in Madrid.

We had been here before, but we had no friends as such - acquaintances, yes. Knowledge of SOME spanish traditions, yes, but essentially (and looking back with six months under my belt), we, more importantly I, knew nothing!

Keep reading to hear more of our adventures here - I have a boy to get out of a lovely bath!