Life between the mountains and the sea
When you live in paradise the temptation can be to stay put but every now and then the urge to stray a little further afield still sneaks up on us. It doesn’t have to be very far, there are plenty of spectacular places to visit within just a couple of hours drive and, let’s face […]
Two years ago to the day I published a post entitled ‘Renovating Houses’. It opened with a stark statement: ‘Somebody please shoot me if I threaten to buy another house that needs renovation’. And then I more-or-less disappeared from this blog. Yup. We only went and did it again. It’s been a busy couple of years. Rebuilding […]
As an expat; exiled from family and life-long friends, forever barred from the spontaneous ‘pop-round for a cup of tea and a chat’ or the casual catch-up in the street; Skype takes on a different level of importance. It’s not that the occasional buffering, freezing or simple malfunctioning becomes less annoying; if anything, it’s more so. […]
I remember how my mother used to scold me for ‘putting the heart crossways’ in her whenever I gave her a fright. While I *knew* what she meant, I didn’t really know what she meant until after I had my son. There is nothing quite like the knowledge that your child is in pain or […]
We are coming up to our 9 year anniversary of living in Spain. Nearly a decade. A lot has happened in that time. We’ve bought three houses and renovated them. We’ve set up a couple of businesses. My other half has written and published a sport climbing guide book to the region. I’ve gained a titanium […]
Somebody please shoot me if I threaten to buy another house that needs renovation. Truth is, I am not a lover of Do-It-Yourself. I am a lover of visualizing the end product, of adding value, of maximising potential. I am a great dreamer. But I am a lazy-arse when it comes to the reality of […]
I’ve been largely absent from this blog for quite some time, happily wrapped up in family life over the lengthy summer holidays, so it seems appropriate that this week’s Gallery theme of ‘Family’ should be the jumping off point to draw me back into the blogging fold. This summer was the first time that my […]
It’s been a stressful couple of months here at Casa Asturian Diary. No time to climb, no time to surf, no time to blog. And I’ve resorted to some time-honoured stress management techniques: eating too much junk, drinking too much wine, and generally not getting enough exercise. (Better coping strategies are available. See: long walks, […]
It was the last day of our holiday and we had just been smugly congratulating ourselves on how epic-free it had all been. Three mums let loose from their families for a week of climbing together, we had swapped responsibility for little ones for the simple responsibility of getting ourselves from crag to crag […]
As of last week we find ourselves in the grip of winter. The temperatures have plummeted, wild winds and rain intermittently lash the landscape and the sky seems permanently set to a dead grey tone. The first snow has daubed the mountaintops in the distance. Our wood burner has been pressed into use and already […]
