Month: August 2015

Hook-a-duck, happy kids & Hank Marvin: Gibraltar Fair week 2015

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Hot on the heels of the cardboard boat race on Saturday afternoon (see this post for more on that), saw the opening of the 2015 Gibraltar Fair on Saturday night. Another regular feature in the Gibraltar social calendar which we like to dip our toes into each year. Normally, we turn up early in the evening (ie well before 8pm) forgetting that the fair doesn’t start until around 8, and like a handful of other families with young children prowl around the fairground checking out which rides we might have a go on.

  
Over the years (this is our 7th Gibraltar Fair), it’s become apparent that we are a family of observers rather than ‘doers’. Usually after an hour or so of watching other people enjoying themselves, we manage to coerce our offspring to ‘have a go’ on the tame children’s version of the dodgems. Then we get a portion of calamares and chips in the Family Pavillion before heading home.

  
Every year we stand by this ride, a train which loops in a circle through a tunnel, and look on mesmerised. The ride itself is nothing remarkable (well we’ve never been on so we wouldn’t know) but the chap who performs on top of and around it certainly is! He wears a rather snazzy flamenco/disco dress with coordinating tights and Plimsoll shoes and dances about whacking the train passengers with a small broomstick! At times he rides along on the roof of the locomotive ducking under the tunnel at the very last minute, at others he juggles the two tennis balls masquerading as bosoms, tossing them high into the air and catching them in his top! He really has to be seen to be believed. If anything says Gibraltar Fair to me it’s him.

 
  
This year, despite much encouragement our children refused to partake in any of the rides at all. The fair however, isn’t just about the rides there are stalls as well run by local charity and voluntary groups. The Lions had a raffle as usual, there was a plant raffle and the Girl Guides were selling cupcakes among a few others. But there’s one stall which is bound the attract our boys, hook-a-duck!

  
As we have done every year since we arrived in Gibraltar, our youngest two handed over their money to the ladies and merrily hooked their way to win their prizes. They may not have wanted to go on a ride but they experienced all the fun of the fair as they fished their yellow plastic ducks out of the water! They were thrilled with their prizes of a ping-pong ball pistol and a puzzle cube. 

   
Armed with juice, a plastic tub of candy floss (it doesn’t taste the same as it did when I was a kid) and a couple of lagers for Mum and Dad, we took our seats in the Family Pavillion. Each night different acts perform shows on the stage there, singing dancing and magic have all featured before now. In previous years we’ve stayed until the beginning of a show and then something’s happened, a poorly child, a tired child, a frightened child and so we have had to up and leave just as the fun starts. This year that wasn’t the case, not only did we see the start of the show, we saw the middle and the end! We had happy kids, who despite being embarrassed at their old Mum singing along to ‘Sounds of the Sixties’, were quite happy to stay put and enjoy the evening. 

 
We were even serenaded by a Hank Marvin tribute (although I thought he was a bit more Austin Powers than Hank Marvin)!

  
And so it ended, with one child asleep in a buggy, and the other two content and awake. Our route home required that we pass the churros stand…

  
   

  
… It would’ve been rude not to have some don’t you think?! Churros and hot chocolate was the perfect way to end our longest and most successful trip to the Gibraltar Fair yet. And who knows, next time we might actually ride on something!

Better late than never… a birth sampler for my 4 year old!

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When my first son was born, I was given a wonderful gift by a work colleague and fellow cross stitcher, a baby sampler. As I had previously made similar things for friends of mine when they’d had babies, I was incredibly touched by the gesture. I know at first hand the time and love which go into making such an item:

  
It was treasured and hung in No 1 son’s nursery. It has moved with us from house to house over the years and now hangs in a corridor near the boys’ bedrooms.

Fast forward a few years and No 2 son put in an appearance. In an attempt to be fair and make sure each child has the same treatment, I set about making a cross stitch sampler to mark his birth too. However, having moved countries (England to Gibraltar) and juggling two young children, time wasn’t on my side so at the ripe old age of 2 years old I began his sampler. As he was now officially a toddler rather than a baby, I chose a slightly more ‘grown up’ design than teddy bears opting for jungle animal name plate kit from Daisy Designs. 

   
  

It took about a year to complete and eventually both he and I were pleased with the results. Once framed, it hung on his bedroom wall, where it remains to this day.
  
  
Fast forward another few years and No 3 son arrived. I’m afraid that for quite a while, crafting took a back seat and although I always meant to get around to doing a cross stitch picture for him, it just didn’t happen until he was … 3!

I struggled to find a kit I liked at first and considered using my many cross stitch books to create a unique one just for him, but I just didn’t have the time or the creative inspiration I needed to hit upon the right thing. Then I saw this:

  
The kit by Bothy threads, although quite ‘baby-ish’ for a 3 year old had a very important feature; a giraffe! My LO has a very special friend in the shape of a cuddly giraffe very similar to the one in this pattern – decision made!

And so, just over a year ago, I began. It started on our summer holiday in England last year. I made great headway, then stalled…. for most of the year. You may remember seeing this photo featured in my post WIP Mountain!

   
It spent an awful lot of time at the bottom of my pile of projects to complete, but I think writing about them all spurred me back into action and so, instead of embarking upon another new project (which I am supremely good at) I decided to make this summer a time to complete one or more of my old ones!

 
While in England this year, I finished the animals and began the shelf they were sitting on.

   
Fueled by gorgeous homemade strawberry smoothie, Operation Cross Stitch continued in Portugal!


Then that magic moment came when you stop cross stitching and start working on the outline/accents – my favorite bit!

    
I love the way that the outline and details transform blocks of colour into little creatures with personality!

  

Just look at how this little blue rabbit comes to life with a few stitches.
  
I think he’s really rather sweet!

 
So at long last, I’m very pleased to say I’m almost finished. It’s just waiting for the name and birth date to be added then it’s off to the framers. Very soon, my conscience will be cleared and my youngest won’t be the only child NOT to have a cross stitch picture. He’s not that interested in it right now to be honest, but perhaps one day when he’s older and has children of his own he might be glad I made this for him.

   
 

Cardboard boats and memories of moving

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Life here in Gibraltar has a certain rhythm to it, the longer you stay the more you realise that the same things happen every year. For some that might seem boring but for us as a family it gives us things to look forward to and back at as we work our way through the year. It’s six years ago this month that we packed our lives into boxes and headed off from our home in the north of England and arrived here in Gibraltar. 

It wasn’t an easy thing to do with two small children, we had a house with a small  (but perfectly formed) garden and lived a 60 minute drive from one set of grandparents and within half a day’s drive of the other set of grandparents. Although we usually saw the nearest family once a week we would also have regular trips for long weekends to visit the rest of our family further away. We never lived ‘out of each other’s pockets’ as it were, but the boys got to know their grandparents, aunts and uncles well and had good relationships with them. However, due to work commitments we chose to leave our family and friends behind, waved goodbye to our ‘forever home’ and for me, with a heavy heart, made the trip south to our new home in Gibraltar. 
Thankfully, colleagues at my husband’s work were well prepared to welcome newcomers to the Rock as many of his company’s employees came from abroad. People helped us settle in, one colleague even picked up the keys to our rented apartment for us because the agent closed before we were due to arrive. He met us outside the front door, key in one hand and housewarming pot plant in the other. I soon discovered that when people live a long way from their oldest friends and family, newly made friendships soon accelerate into much deeper relationships and fill some, if not all, of the holes left behind in our old lives back home.

Gibraltar itself, or should I say, the Gibraltarian people also helped our transition into our new life. On the first day of school a local mum approached me to apologize that she hadn’t invited my son to her son’s party as she hadn’t expected a new child in the class in September. The next day my eldest came home with an invitation to his first Gibraltarian birthday party. The two boys went onto become fast friends. Also at school, after a couple of weeks, my son’s teacher called me aside saying, “now we have your child settled into school, what can I do to help you and your husband?”. What an amazingly kind thing to ask.

Aside from the people we met during our early days here, two other things stood out to me; the weather (doh how obvious) and the social calendar. There were mornings when I’d wake up with the ache of homesickness, wondering whether we’d done the right thing moving countries, missing my family at home and counting down the days until our next trip back to England. But how can you stay down in the dumps when you wake up to this outside your window?  


Oh that blue sky! I’m not sure how well I would have coped had we moved in January and not August, but thank heavens we arrived when we did!

The hectic social calendar here also meant a week didn’t go by without at least one public event happening so there was always something in the diary for us to do as a family in an evening or at the weekend. Due to the small size of the Gibraltar population, such events usually meant bumping into people we knew, either from the school gates or through my husband’s work. One of the first I remember going to was the annual charity cardboard boat race. 

Each year a group of brave (read foolhardy) souls create ‘boats’ (I use the term loosely) out of corrugated cardboard. There are very strict rules governing the methods used to stick them together and make them watertight. Nothing which could endanger marine life (like staples, nail or tar) can be used. The competitors (a minimum of 2 per ‘boat’) have to paddle from one side of Ocean Village marina to the other, go around a buoy and make the return journey. 

Today, Ocean Village again played host to the charity cardboard boat race. Despite the grey and humid levanter conditions, loads of people turned out to support the intrepid crews.

  
There were people craning for a good view from every pontoon. Ready to cheer the teams on.

  
There were two boats entered into the children’s race including this pirate ship which sadly lost it’s Jolly Roger early in the race. Both children’s teams completed the race and did far better than some of their adult counterparts!

  
Then it was time for the main event, and it didn’t disappoint.   

 A couple of entries sank early on but the majority of crews made it all the way around the course. The green one below lost a man overboard halfway round, so he swam along behind pushing and steering when he could!   

 

The real stars of the show were the crew of this boat decked out in the Gibraltar flag and red and white balloons. Despite being submerged in water above their middles, the crew valiantly rowed on around the course and finished the race with the water up to their chins! 

It really was good fun to watch, and was a useful reminder of how far we have come since our first August here in Gibraltar. We are now a family of five, with three children happily immersed into life on the Rock. My husband and I have a great circle of friends and I’m involved in a few groups here which keeps me busy and hopefully in some small way helps others out too. Today  I even had one child asking if we could enter a boat next year. I won’t be committing to that I don’t think, but for now, at least, I’m pleased to say that Gibraltar is my home.

Night driving, cat’s eyes and street lamps

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Hello from Gibraltar! It’s taken us a few days to recover from our road trip back from Portugal. The return journey was slightly longer than it was meant to be. We set off in the early evening with the intention of getting the younger members of the family to sleep for at least some of the way. In preparation for the evening ahead we made a return trip to the fishing village of Alvor for a nice lunch (see my earlier post Trip to Alvor for more on this lovely place).   

After lunch had settled, the boys had one final dip in the pool with Daddy while I finished packing up all our things ready for the trip home. All this was done with the intention of wearing them out and filling their tummies so a sandwich in the car would suffice for tea. The first hiccup of the journey came as we pulled out of the car park at our resort, to see people waving and pointing at the car. Cue the realization that the pair of damp shorts Mr Postcard had left to dry on the roof were now flapping merrily in the breeze. Fortunately a small bit of the fabric had been caught in the corner of the driver door so the shorts were rescued amid much hilarity! On our second attempt, we bid farewell to our holiday home for the past week. 

  
These pretty flowers were growing very close to our holiday home front door, I admired them each time I walked past. I have no idea what they’re called but I’d love some for our patio back home. Right then, back to the trip; off we headed along the toll road to the Portuguese/Spanish border making good headway. As we crossed over the Guadalquivir River at Seville (see my earlier post Are we there yet? Road trip to Portugal for more on our route) we were treated to a beautiful sunset.

  
Once dusk was upon us, the flaw in our great nocturnal plan was revealed; Spanish A roads (at least the ones we were on) don’t have street lights, nor do they have cat’s eyes in the road. So unless you have someone else’s tail lights to follow, it makes night driving a good deal slower and more arduous than we had previously expected. It also means that approaches to road junctions aren’t as clear as we’d anticipated. Our inexperience and lack of Satnav led us to overshoot our turn-off at Jerez. By the time we’d got to the next available junction, we were almost at Cadiz! Miles out of our way and adding nearly an hour of winding pitch black single carriage way roads onto our journey, we took a detour via Chiclana and Tarifa!

Needless to say, we were all a little frazzled when we rocked up back in Gibraltar. One highlight though was that crossing the border back into Gibraltar at quarter to midnight on a Saturday night meant no frontier queue!

Since our return there has been much post holiday washing (I think I counted 7 loads on Sunday, the poor washing machine is groaning!), unpacking and settling back into life at home. We met up with friends for a picnic in the park yesterday which was nice for the boys and the mums to catch up. It was also lovely weather wise, it has changed for the better while we’ve been away. The levanter has gone (due to a change in the wind direction) and although it’s still hot and sunny, the sweaty humidity of the previous few weeks has gone making things a lot more pleasant.

We’re looking forward to a busy few weeks here in Gibraltar, with the cardboard boat race, Gibraltar Fair, the Gibraltar Music Festival and National Day all coming up soon. I hope you’ll join me again soon and I can tell you all about them. Thanks for stopping by and thank you for taking the time to like and comment on my posts, it’s lovely to hear from you. 

Why not check out my Facebook page : Postcard from Gibraltar, follow me on Twitter @postcardfromgib and find me on Instagram @postcardfromgibraltar 

A final postcard from Portugal 

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Today’s the day we wave goodbye to Portugal and head back home to Gibraltar. We have had a brilliant week and were  lucky enough to meet up with friends which meant the children had buddies to play with on the beach and in the pool. 

  
We have had mixed weather for our stay, some days scorchingly hot, on a couple of others we’ve even had rain but that hasn’t affected our enjoyment of this beautiful stretch of Atlantic coastline.

  
The aforementioned friends have been coming to this part of the world for many years and were able to introduce us to some lovely things like the red berry laden, white sangria above. It’s made with a fizzy white wine, spirits and strawberries, cranberries & raspberries and is divine. It also requires the drinker to have an afternoon nap!

We were also introduced to these beauties:   

They are local sweets made with marzipan and filled with egg custard. They looked fab and tasted delicious, from someone who doesn’t normally like marzipan that’s a BIG deal.

We’ve had great meals out, like the one in this atmospheric taberna in Portimão. I was ever so brave and ate clams and baby octopus (another BIG deal for me).   

There has also been plenty of time to be crafty and I’ve been making great progress on one of my cross stitch WIPs. The stitching session below was powered by the most gorgeous homemade strawberry smoothie made by Mr Postcard and ably assisted by the smaller members of the family.

 
On one of our drives to explore the local area we witnessed the sight of a shepherd striding out into the road, bringing the traffic to a standstill. He had a few goats among his sheep as well as a couple of weary looking sheepdogs.

   
My floral appreciation has continued in the Algarve. I have been very disciplined and only chosen a couple of the many pictures I’ve taken for fear of boring you!

 
 

I thought this plasterwork on the side of this building looked stunning.

  
   
Goodbye Portugal, thank you for having us to stay. We’ve had a wonderful time and hope to see you again one day!

 
Thank you so much for stopping by. Until the next time…

A trip to Alvor

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We are already halfway through our family holiday to the Algarve. We have been lucky enough to enjoy gloriously hot days interspersed with cloudy, cooler days giving us a respite from the heat. There have been lazy days on the beach and by the pool, but today we took a short drive west along the coast to the nearby fishing village of Alvor.

  
The sleepy village is situated on the estuary of the Alvor River and although it’s not particularly ‘touristy’ it had a fair few overseas visitors today. On our wander through the village, we stumbled upon the Church of the Divine Saviour. The beautiful egg yolk yellow and white of the paintwork looked lovely, it’s a shame I couldn’t photograph it against a brilliant blue sky. I’m not complaining though, it was nice and cool today!

  
  
Unfortunately we didn’t make it inside the 16th Century church this time, but we are hoping to return to Alvor before we leave the Algarve. Perhaps I’ll get another chance to explore inside.

  
The narrow streets are very picturesque with a mix of modern and older architecture. The photo below is of the municipal library.

  
The streets head downhill towards the waterfront and are lined with restaurants predominantly selling seafood (naturally!).

  
Outside each restaurant is a barbecue grill where the fish and meat is cooked.

  
We took our pick from the riverfront restaurants to find a suitable place to eat lunch. While we waited for our main courses to arrive, we munched our way through a basket of bread and this platter of octopus salad, carrots and olives in garlic and a small dish of tuna mayonnaise.

  
I followed that with a very tasty shrimp kebab – yum!

  
After a lovely lunch, I was ready for a nap, a bit like this dog! (I couldn’t resist taking a photo!)

  
The most bizarre sight of the day was this Portuguese cow on a surf board (yes cow, check out the udders!!!):

  
It was standing outside a shop selling gear relating to the Portugal national football team. I have no idea what the relevance is of the cow to the national football team, if you do, please let me know!

That’s all from me for now, thanks for stopping by, I’ll leave you with a view of the beautiful Alvor River estuary. I’ll be back soon with a final Postcard from Portugal.

  

“Are we there yet?” Road trip to Portugal.

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On Saturday we got up early and set off on a road trip. That’s something VERY unusual for us these days. When we lived in England we had regular trips up to the Scottish Highlands (which we love) and across England to visit friends & family. Since moving to Gibraltar almost 6 years ago though, the longest road trip we’ve taken as a family is around 2 hours up the road to Cadiz. When we planned the trip, we did it thinking ‘what the heck, nothing ventured, nothing gained’ (I shall preface this statement with the fact that 5-10 minute car journeys with my family are rarely quiet, event-free occurrences). Even the prospect of sitting in a border queue to go 5 minutes up the road to Decathlon for some school PE trainers is a big deal for us. 

Over the years, we have become very Gibraltar-centric. The prospect of a long and arduous wait in a border queue across to Spain and back home again with our offspring in the back of the car doesn’t fill either of us with joy. As a consequence, we rarely venture over to Spain without a good reason like a party, to take visiting relatives over or to go on holiday. We have had a number of quick half-term breaks on the Costa del Sol since we arrived here (around an hour’s drive from home), and we have looked longingly at friends’ Facebook photos of skiing trips to Sierra Nevada and sunny get-always to the Algarve but we’re never brave enough to attempt it. That was until now. 

This year we decided it was time to bite the bullet and head off further afield. Armed with a packed lunch, wet wipes and a couple of movies downloaded onto the iPad we set off. An early start paid dividends as we sailed through the border with Spain. So taken aback was I at the lack of a queue I almost flashed our passports at the man selling Gibraltar Chronicles just before we crossed over! (Not my proudest moment and it didn’t go unnoticed nor without comment from Mr P). We zoomed past our favourite retail outlets at Los Barrios and out into the beautiful Andalusian countryside.

  
As you will notice from the photo, it was a bit cloudy and not at all Andalusian-like in the weather stakes but it didn’t matter. The roads were quiet, the only hold ups being a caravan with a puncture and a toll booth near Jerez where, as you can see, it got rather wet.

  
WET??? In southern Spain IN AUGUST??? It was more like driving on the A1 (in England) than the E5 heading towards Seville!

Having listened to friends talk of downloading movies to iPad to entertain children on long car journeys, I thought that may be the solution to potential boredom problems. As a childhood sufferer of car sickness, I should have known better. We held off on the movie for at least half an hour while we could still get good reception of BFBS Radio 2 and the BBC Radio 4 news from the mast in Gibraltar. When the crackle became unbearable it was time for the big treat; ‘Paddington’. Two out of three of the boys had not previously seen the film so I thought it was a perfect choice. It was, for about 20 minutes until the first cry of “I’ve got a tummy ache!”. We lasted another 10 minutes before a second child complained of feeling queasy. That’s when the iPad went away – permanently. How could I not have realised there would have been a problem with watching a film in a moving car? I certainly couldn’t do it even now. A plane or train is one thing (well alright 2 things), but a car? Hey-ho, I won’t attempt that again!

In just under 2 hours we were further from home than we have ever been before as a motoring family of 5. We crossed the impressive road bridge over the Guadalquivir River at Seville  (or Sevilla as it’s called in these parts).

 
 At Seville, we turned left off the motorway which required crossing 3 lanes of traffic to sit in the fast lane (a bit hairy at times) and wait for the turn off to Huelva and…

  
… the first road sign for Portugal! On we drove, (stopping only for an emergency toilet break), and just 3 1/2 hours after setting off we saw this wondrous sight:

  
… the bridge over the Guadiano river marking the border between Spain and Portugal. It seems a bizarre thing to say but you could tell you were in a different country immediately (apart from the language on the road signs!) the vegetation at the side of the road was different and the farms, etc seemed to be on a much smaller scale than the more industrialised developments we’d left behind. Just over an hour later, we were at our destination close to the fishing town of Portimão. 

  
I’m amazed at how relatively painless the journey was, I don’t think we were asked “are we there yet?” until we were close to Seville, which to my mind is pretty good going. Mind you, we must have been asked it close to 100 times between Seville and Portimão but hey, who’s counting? In the process of undertaking the journey, we exorcised our fear of driving relatively long distances with 3 kids in the car and were rewarded with blue skies and sunshine at the end of the day. Oh, and a fantastic view of the Atlantic Ocean!

É tudo por agora (that’s all for now) from the Algarve, thanks for stopping by! Please call back soon and I’ll be sharing some of our Portuguese experiences. 🙂

Levanter, craftiness & Saharan Dust!

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By jingo, it’s been hot since we arrived back in Gibraltar. Now accustomed to the welcome cool of an English summer, the muggy heat here has been a shock to the system. I do appreciate that while we were in Blighty, Gibraltar residents were experiencing hotter than normal temperatures thanks to a heat wave, but it’s still a bit hot for my liking. The reason for the ‘closeness’ (if there is such a word) is the Levanter. The dictionary definition of ‘Levanter’ is an easterly wind in the Mediterranean. The Levanter in Gibraltar is a large plume of cloud which forms on the top of the Rock, caused by the aforementioned easterly wind. The cloud, as shown in the photo above (taken at Europa Point on Sunday afternoon), acts as a sort of duvet sealing in all the hot, sweaty air beneath. Today, there’s no sign of blue up above, just cloud, and it’s so muggy!

   
This photo was taken at 2pm on Thursday 6th August not the middle of winter! It may look cold and dismal – it’s not, it’s hot and dismal! Sorry for such an uninspiring picture, perhaps the next one will help lift the spirits!

  

 I took this one last night as the sun was disappearing behind the hills above Algeciras. The hazy quality was caused by Saharan dust which is being blown across the Straits of Gibraltar and along the Costa Del Sol area at the moment.
Aside from weather watching, it’s been great to be back home surrounded by all my crafty bits and bobs. I’ve not had the time or inclination recently to pick up my crochet hook but this great  Flower tutorial from Mollie Makes inspired me.  I’m rather pleased with the results, I think I’ll be making a few more of these.

  
It felt good to be back in the saddle again! I’ve also revisited a current cross stitch WIP, a birth sampler for (she mutters embarrassingly) my 4 year old. Well, the other two have them and I can’t be seen to be unfair! #betterlatethannever 

 I’ve challenged myself to finish it by the end of the school holidays … time will tell whether I’m up to the challenge or not.

Yesterday I rolled back the years and tried teaching my eldest two how to make old skool friendship bracelets (with mixed success). One jumped ship after the first demo!

   
    
 The blue and yellow one was made by my eldest and is rather good for a first attempt don’t you think?
  
That’s all from me for now, thanks for stopping by. See you soon!

Red, white and Blue

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In case, dear reader, you don’t know much about Gibraltar, here’s a brief outline. Despite being an isthmus adjoining the southerly tip of the Iberian peninsular, (in other words a narrow strip of land/rock attached to the bottom of Spain) it is part of the United Kingdom. The main language here is English, although local people speak an interesting mix of English and Spanish as well as the local dialect of Llanito.  

We are surrounded on almost all sides by sea, apart from the narrow strip of land at the northerly tip where there is a land border with Spain. This is also the location of Gibraltar Airport. The runway is bisected by the main road from the town centre to the border (also known as the ‘Frontier’). When planes are due to land and take-off, the traffic comes to a standstill to let them past!


At the most southerly tip of Gibraltar is the Trinity lighthouse at Europa Point. It stands guard looking out across the Straits of Gibraltar towards Morrocco in the distance.


In order to travel by road around the circumference of the Rock, you have to travel through it at times. There are miles and miles of tunnels within the Rock, all carved and blasted out by the military over the years. The general public can only access a very small percentage of them.

There are also many natural caves within Gibraltar, St Michael’s Cave (below) being a stunning example. The huge cavern has been used to stage musical and theatrical productions and provides a uniquely atmospheric backdrop to performances.


Gibraltar is perhaps most famous for it’s furry inhabitants. The apes, which live in the Upper Rock nature reserve, are sought out by tourists. From time to time, they come down the Rock into town to seek out more interesting meals than the nutritious fruit and veg put out by the Government of Gibraltar in an attempt to keep them healthy. They like to rifle through bins and snatch food from passers-by. Legend has it that as long as the apes stay in Gibraltar, the territory will remain British.

The Upper Rock, as well as being home to the apes, is a haven for wildlife and plants. It is a beautiful place and offers solitude away from the hustle of town.


The town is centred around Main Street and offers many familiar British brands as well as independent local retailers.


A regular sight on Main Street is the Historical Re-enactment March, which takes place at around midday on Saturdays and on special occasions. The volunteer soldiers re-enact the Ceremony of the Keys, which dates back to the Great Siege of Gibraltar from 1779-1783.


I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick insight into the place that we’ve made our home. It’s barely scratched the surface of what goes on and the history of the place, I’m sure I’ll tell you much more about it in future. Thanks for stopping by!

 

Home sweet home!

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Well, I’m pleased to say we made it home to Gibraltar. We had a brilliant few weeks in England and were sad to say goodbye. It’s good to be home though.

The hot weather has had a curious effect on the plants while we’ve been gone. Some have gone crazy like this bougainvillea, others, sadly have been burnt to a crisp. There’s a bit of work to do in the patio!

   
It’s hot hot hot, but check out that stunning sky! 

 
That’s all for now, I’ll be back again soon!