We have a horse!

We went to back to England recently to look at some dressage horses that were for sale. We were in luck. A dealer that we had spoken too had just brought some more over from Germany the day before we went to see him. One of them was this horse below.

He's three and a half years old. Oldenburg stud book, but Hanoverian bred. Sandro Hit x Welt Hit.
Judy was very impressed with him so she bought him. He arrived on the island four days ago.
He's a great horse and is going to be very good for dressage.

Out with the old, in with the new(er)

I´ve been meaning to get back on here for ages.

Anyway...

We bought a little place in Cala Vedella in July 2008. We have been gradually doing it up when I´ve had a bit of time on my hands. Didn´t have much time in the cooler months because I was too busy doing up other people´s houses. Unfortunately there are noise restrictions in this area in the summer so no noisy building work for the moment which doesn´t leave much time to do any work on the place.
The first job was to turf out the furniture that was left in the house.

The original furniture

The new stuff

Stand by for more exciting updates!

I have nothing in my pants!

We have now moved back to Ibiza town and are staying just inside the Sa Penya district near the old fish market.
Sa Penya is one of the older parts of town with tiny little streets. Most of which you could never get a car through. Parts of it are very run down but it's gradually becoming gentrified. The police often loiter at one or other of the main thoroughfares from La Marina district to catch local drug dealers and their customers leaving Sa Penya.
So anyway, todays exciting story is about my meeting with 6 or 7 of the local ol' bill that stopped me as I walked out of Sa Penya. One of them searched me and seemed to spend just a little bit too much time searching inside my pants! I told a new friend of mine about being stopped and searched and he said this has happened to him loads of times and that you get use to it. I don't think I can get use to policemen putting their hands in my pants. What if all 7 of them try it at once next time? Ooh err!

The Procession of the Three Wise Men

I didn't realize that Christmas celebrations here go on into January. We went for a stroll into town on Saturday evening and saw loads of people about and a long catwalk kind of thing set up in one main squares. We decided to hang about to see what would happen. Well a little while later a carnival parade started along the street. It turns out that this was the procession of the "Reyes Magos" from the port of Ibiza on the night of 5th January.
This is traditionally the night when children all over Spain receive presents from the Three Wise Men. I whipped out my trusty camera and took a load of pics. Most of which were the back of some kid's head because the mother kept holding him up to see the floats. Damn it! Anyway, I've put a few pics (mostly minus aforementioned kid's head) of it in my photo album.
Click here for more pics

Christmas Eve in D'alt Vila

Christmas here is not like the shopping frenzy it is back in England. This is much more laid back. The bars were fairly quiet too.
We decided to go to a French restaurant called La Turra in the medieval D'alt Vila district of Ibiza Town. It's the only restaurant we have been to twice. Great service from very friendly staff who even remembered us from when we were there in August. I suppose my handsome face is hard to forget.
Later on back at the apartment at about 2:30 in the morning a large choir complete with accordion etc started sing in the hallway. It was not my kind of thing but they were very good. I thought they were collecting money but only had large notes (I'm rich you see?). Then one of the neighbors two doors down let them in and so they went in there and carried on singing for another half an hour. I thought it was great but two of the other neighbours didn't look so pleased about it.
I didn't get any pics of the choir but I got a few of our evening out in the D'alt Vila that you can see if you click here

The Eagle has landed

We (Lali and I) landed in Ibiza on the 11th Dec 2007. The plan is to live and work here.
We are about to start looking around for a place to buy. We are not sure where we want to live on the island yet but Ibiza town is the favourite so far. We need to do a lot more exploring of the island before we decide that though.
The weather has been mild and even very warm on a few days but it can also get very cold on a few nights. Not as cold as the UK though so that's good. It’s warm enough to go out without a jacket today.

We stayed at the El Puerto hotel and apartments in Ibiza for 7 nights but have now moved up the coast to Santa Eularia. We had one of the self catering apartments at the El Puerto . The El Puerto is well situated for the old town, marina, restaurants, bars, cafés and shops. The nightclubs Pacha and El Divino are only 10 minutes walk away. The cooking facilities were terrible though which almost defeated the idea of self catering. The stove would not get hot enough to cook properly. The maintenance man tried to convince me that the stove was very hot by touching the the hot plate for a split second and then holding his fingers and blowing on them while declaring “Caliente!” (Spanish for “hot”). It was a good effort but failed to convince. We saw a review of the El Puerto in a guide book which described it as “gay friendly” If we stay there again I shall be sure to mince up to the reception desk and lisp a lot and maybe next time I will get a better stove.

My Ibiza photo album