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End of a Girl Trip

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Girl Trip to Valencia Part Three 3 It was Sunday, so we wanted to go to church. Cousin N’s husband is a vicar, so we asked if we could go to a service. She looked nervous, and made us sign to say we wouldn’t tell embarrassing stories or make jokes or generally misbehave. After showering in the cupboard, and coffee in the sunshine (I still haven’t found my old man smoking a cigar at an outside cafe – I drank Nescafe in the air bnb) we set off. Cousin L seems to be rather good at directions, so we followed her, through streets decorated with flags and lights ready for Las Fallas, and a lot of shut shops. Valencia wakes up slowly. The church, an Anglican Church, was not especially pretty (only the Catholic churches are pretty) but people were smiley, which is always nice. There were lots of children, and we arrived in time for coffee, and met people, and remembered that Cousin N might kill us if we tried to be funny. Vicar Husband then preached an excellent sermon, teachin
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Girl Trip Day Two: Valencia, Spain

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Girl Trip Day Two 2 Day 2 Showered in excellent shower in cupboard-sized bathroom. Bruised elbows trying to get dry in there, so gave up and dried on mezzanine. Bathroom has another large, exposed window, (so am hoping no one was looking). Walked through Valencia, which is very pretty, and very Spanish, with orange trees and fountains and apartments with balconies. We saw the outside of the bullring, and went into the pretty art deco railway station, which reminded me of the one in Portugal with its patterned tiles and beautiful ceilings. We sat outside and had churros and hot chocolates. I was hoping to find an old Spanish man, smoking a cigar and drinking coffee (because this is what all Spanish men are like) but they were all hiding. We walked passed the cathedral, and the old city gate, then walked along a dry river bed which is now Turia park. Visited a lovely park next to the Fine Art Gallery, and enjoyed the sunshine (some of us enjoyed it more than other
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Girl Trip to Valencia

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Girl Trip to Valencia Caught the early morning flight to Valencia (very early). I only had a hand-luggage allowance, so was worried I would have to wear several layers and arrive looking like The Michelin Man, but everything fitted in my pull-along. Met Cousins at Valencia airport. We were meeting to celebrate Cousin C’s big birthday, and were visiting Cousin N and family, who have moved to Valencia. Drove to their apartment in the city, and met their extremely cute labrador puppy. (Their children are also very cute, but I rather fell in love with the puppy.) I was staying in an airbnb with Cousins C and L. New experience for me, so wasn’t quite sure what to expect (my sons stay in air bnb, so I wasn’t expecting ‘posh’). We dumped our bags, and had a late lunch in  Bar Pascualin . All lunches in Spain are late. Walked to  Dolche de Leche  cake shop, and spent several hours trying to decide which cake to buy. (Mouth is watering as I write this.) Chose a lemon meringue pi
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Hearing what is meant...

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Hearing What Is Meant 2 When I was teaching at Limpsfield Infant School, I would very often look up from taking the morning register, to find a child standing next to me. “What’s the matter Tommy?” I would ask (though it might be Jane or Christopher or Matthew). “I’ve got a tummy ache,” they would reply. And I would guess that whatever the first subject of the day was, they found it difficult. Usually I would assure them that maths gave  me  a tummy ache too, and we would sit down together and try to sort it out. (Of course, sometimes they really did have a tummy ache, and I will never forget the day that a girl – whose name I remember clearly – vomited all over me. This was not helped when her mother – who I also remember – came to collect her and seemed to find it terribly funny, even though the child was ill because she’d just been taken to have vaccinations for a holiday. There is so much I could say here, but hey, I’m over it. Sort of.) Anyway, my point is, children
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Spoons and the Tate

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I had another rather nice treat (another of my: “you’re too difficult to buy for so we’re giving you vouchers for Christmas” ). I had a voucher for ‘Lunch in a Spoons followed by a trip to a gallery’ , a gift from one of my sons. Off we set. The travel was somewhat more exciting than anticipated, as neither myself nor the son who gave me the voucher are great at time-keeping, so catching the train involved a rather panicked abandoning of the house, a fast drive to the station, and a run onto the platform. But we made it. I then sat on the train worrying whether I’d remembered to get the dog in from the garden, and son checked his phone for directions to the gallery. We arrived at Victoria, and walked to the pub for lunch. I was expecting the pub to be called ‘Spoons’ because that is what my son talks about (rather more often than you might expect) but it’s actually called ‘Wetherspoons’ – which I suspect you and the rest of the world, already knew. I was also expecting a rather grea
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A Facebook Scam?

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A Facebook Scam? 1 Does Facebook limit which friends’ posts we see?  Have they recently changed their algorithm so that now you only see posts from a tiny section of your friends? And will pasting the below statement on your Facebook account change who can see your posts? Well… no . Recently, several of my Facebook friends have copied the following statement onto their page: “Thank you for telling me how to do the bypass. This is good to know: It’s ridiculous to have over 400 friends and only some are allowed to see my post. I ignored this post earlier, but It WORKS!! I have a whole new news feed. I’m seeing posts from people I haven’t seen in years. Here’s how to bypass the system FB now has in place that limits posts on your news feed. Their new algorithm chooses the same few people – about 25 – who will read your posts. Therefore, hold down your finger down anywhere in this post and “copy” will pop up. Click “copy”. Then go your page, start a new post and put your fin
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