I have been away for so long I don't even know where to start. Happy Halloween! The big pumkin was my last entry for the Floral Art Club competition and 'it has been without precedent that a new member has won the cup with the highest points this year, as she has been with us for only a short time' this was the introduction before Laura the Club's Secretary made the announcement that I had won. Even when my name was mentioned, I had to have a little nudge from one of the ladies to react to my surprising win. It was a real surprise to me since some of the ladies have been in this club for 40 years and I'm a new commer with no experience whatsoever. Well, this means if everything else fails in my life, at least I have a future with a flower shop! but luckily that is not the case, as I also have in sight an art show which will be on the 11th of November so I have the pictures framed and ready for the show. I only need to do some cards and am ready to fly! fingers crossed, things will go well.

Spanish Foot-Ball Win

They defied their critics. The Germans told them that their foot-ball was boring but they beat them. The Dutch told them that their foot-ball lacked imagination but they beat them; the English told them that they had a rotten midfielder but they were beaten too. the Spanish have won not only the World Cup but they have also won the European Cup twice. That has never been accomplished before in the history of foot-ball, three times champions and they celebrated it in great style. Their foot-ball team came back victorious from Kiev after having beaten the Italians 4 - 0. It was quite a sensational win. At their arrival they were greeted with great enthusiasm and the team went to present the cup to their King first and then, the team boarded an open decker bus to greet their public, culminating at the Cibeles fountain where a wonderful welcome party awaited them. Popular singers belted their songs and nearly everyone was dressed in the red & yellow -colours of their flag. People were singing, cheering and dancing until the early hours of the morning culminating in fire-works. The party lasted two days! The first was, the day when they won and the second one the coming home party. The memory of this historical win made everyone so cheerful it should be bottled in a spray can. The Spanish team were humble in their win, saying that it was all worth it to bring so many smiles in people's faces and it was infectious as I felt very happy to see all this too.

PARIS

Without a doubt, Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, it has such gaity and energy and after not going there for so many years, its nice to have been back. Everyone has heard about how bad the French treat foreigners but I'm happy to report that their attitude has now changed and despite me having a very limited French vocabulary I sailed through without a hitch speaking in English all the time and the French were very polite and helpful trying their best to understand me and succeeding in doing so. There was only one particular time in Montmartre in a small crowded shop where I bought a small red handbag in the shape of a rose for my sister Patty and seeing no queues, naturally I proceeded to go directly to the counter to pay and someone sighed: Arg! English! as though I had taken her place. "I'm not English" I said just so the English didn't get a bad reputation and they all laughed relieved. They are like us, if something goes wrong, we always blame the French so I suppose they do likewise. We really enjoyed our few days in Paris, walking around the iconic places like Notre Dame Cathedral, La Plaise de la Concorde in glorious sunshine, what a sublime place Paris is, full of restaurants, cafes with their sweet little tables al fresco enjoying a good conversation. Parisians really know how to enjoy life. We also went for a spot of shopping at Lafayette (which is the largest mall in Europe) and it is by no means like the other generic malls you see everywhere else in the world. At Lafayette's when you look at the ceilings of the building it has this Belle Epoch wonderful look but very modern and chic in the counters. When you are in Paris, you notice the fashions more, as the Parisians are very elegant indeed. I was searching for the latest look in make-up and found it there. Somehow I managed to describe what I wanted to the assistant who was a young fellow with very little English who produced exactly what I wanted with three different products and I left the shop completely enchanted as I thought when I first went in, that I didn't stand a chance in hell to get what I was looking for, so I was very happy that it didn't take too long either. We did this was after spending all day at the Louvre Museum which by the way, how much it has changed for the better. No more queues to see the Mona Lisa, everything seemed so airy and light plus they have opened up more restaurants along side the corridors upstairs of these beautiful buildings shown in the picture. Although when we were having our lunch over-looking the glass pyramid, I noticed that the police had cordoned off the big plaza around it and the public were barred from coming in. Two police cars were at the front and suddenly an enormous bomb exploded! What a fright! but it had been a controlled explosion of an abandoned suit-case. I wondered who had missed their pajamas and their tooth-brush that night. Ha,ha,ha.

I HAVE A NEW FRIEND.

I have a new friend, his name is Louis but yesterday I learned that his real name is Freddie. For weeks now, Peter and I have been wondering: where does he come from? We came across him in a rainy cold day outside at the back of our home. He was looking drenched,cold and hungry. He has beautiful green eyes and his fur is jet-black, so I let him in for a bit of warmth and tried to see what I could give him to eat as I don't own a cat since Diana passed away 4 years ago. I gave him a yogurt which he quickly polished off. What do you do when you have a cat that comes around every day howling to be let in, hungry and cold? you give him warmth and comfort. He is not a wild cat and he wasn't looking as if he was sleeping rough so he obviously had to have an owner somewhere but the way he devours his food was making me wonder if he belonged to an elderly couple who perhaps couldn't afford the cat food every week because of the austerity measures or perhaps he belonged to a family who was away working all day and left the cat out to fend for himself during the day? These were just suppositions of course and apart from food and shelter people tend to forget that cats are sentient beings just like us, in need of affection and company not some furniture or a plant that needs feeding and watering every day. I cannot deny that I'm enjoying having the cat around and perhaps you must be wondering why don't I get my own cat, but since my cat Diana died, the pain of losing her was too great and the sorrow was so much that even after 4 years have passed, I feel I couldn't go through this whole process yet again and I don't have to.- Besides, we travel too much and cats need security. Anyway, going back to my predicament, I wouldn't want to have a tug of war with my neighbours over the cat either. Maybe now that I know who the owners are, I could go round to their place and talk it over with them but right now, I find myself ill with a sore throat and am trying somehow to get well enough, to travel this evening to another town to attend a wedding vow tomorrow, an invitation which has been received and accepted months ago since January. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee is also tomorrow and a street party has been planned in front of our home which would have been the perfect venue to meet my neighbours and talk about Louis/Freddie but that won't be possible either. Life is so complicated sometimes.

IRELAND

Well, we just came back from the Emerald Isle and I have to say the grass is literally greener there. There are areas where it is so unrealistically green that it is magic and I was suitably dressed in green as well like kermit the frog. I love Ireland (the republic), their people are so warm, friendly and with a great sense of humour that is infectious. Anyone who happens to be depressed, go to Ireland; they will restore your will to live. I certainly recommend it as one of the places you must see before you die. If you haven't gone to Ireland you haven't lived a full and happy existence. The pubs have live and cheerful music and there is dance every day. On this working trip we first arrived in Dublin by ferry. We disembarked with our landrover straight into the capital for a few days then we headed south to Cork, afterwards to Ennis a lovely town full of life and then we went north to Donegal where we stayed at the Jackson Hotel. Our room there was a really pleasant surprise, it had a marvellous view of the river from the balcony; the room was lovely with red petals spread over the bed and it even had a massage chair! the bath had a jacouzi too. Really nice. Peter and I must be related to Marco Polo whose voyages over China, Siam and Persia lasted 15 years and were recorded by a writer who was fascinated with his travels. This book has never been out of print since it was published 800 years ago and Christopher Columbus took it with him when he discovered the American Continent. It has been a great inspiration for all of those who like to travel and see the world.

ADVENTURES IN EK-BALAAM

Hi there, I have been away for sometime and it's only now that I have a chance to write again since we have been in Cancun enjoying the beautiful aqua-marine waters of the Yucatan Peninsula but whilst we were there, I wanted to take the opportunity to visit more of the fantastic ancient lost cities of the Maya Route and learn a little bit more about this mysterious culture. The photos you can see here, are from the city of Ek-Balaam which is two hours drive from Cancun, it's worth the trip. There was no tour to go there but this has never been an impediment for me to arrange my own trip to go wherever I wish to go, so I hired a taxi for the whole day which came to pick us up at at 9 A.M. at our hotel. The day was very hot but there is nothing like coco-nut water to quench the thirst! Once we were at the entrance of the site, we hired a guide so that he could show us the city of Ek-Balaam. We climbed a steep temple and as I was climbing the stairs, I happened to notice a sea-shell incrusted on the floor of one of the stairs and asked our guide Casimiro about it. He told me that all of the Ek-Balaam site had been at one time submerged underneath the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and it has suddenly been uncovered when a huge meteorite fell in Ixalum, some kilometres away. Once we got to the middle of the pyramid I was fascinated to see a sculpture of a man with large wings behind his back like an angel. I found it very interesting that the very idea of winged men could be also be seen in this other independent culture that had nothing to do with the Greeks, nor the Egyptians or Mesopotamia who first showed in our culture the concept of winged beings but the other fascinating thing to see, was a stucco painting which looked very much like the ones you see in the Egyptian tombs, there was also a figure perched in what looked like a ledge and that similar to the figures you see in Budhist temples in Thailand. Casimiro told me that this was an eunoch who looked after the Royal ladies, he was sitting on a ledge on an enormous square slab, this slab had heads of Tlaloc in each bottom corner and the really dark square doors beyond, represented the gateway to the underworld unfortunatelly I couldn't stay too long up there because I had left Peter down below sitting on a bench underneath the shade of a tree as he had previously stumbled on a stone before the climb and he had scratched both knees and hands. Poor Peter had his trousers reduced to shreds and he looked pitiful but a nice lady had given me wet cloth towels to disinfect his wounds so I didn't want to leave him too long down there. When I got down, I hired a rick-shaw so that he could sit on it and be comfortably driven to see the stellas and the other buildings like the stadium, where the ball game was played. Some of the structures had the unusual arquitecture of triangle shape doors, which didn't come into Europe until much later. Afterwards, we headed down to the city of Valladolid founded by the Spanish Conquistadores. Valladolid is the second largest city of the Yucatan Peninsula after Merida (which we visited last year) where we made a stop over for a lunch, I enjoyed seeing this colonial town with its iron balconies and the cathedral just in front of the park. Once we arrived back at the hotel in Cancun, in the evening Peter had a warm bath and I summoned the hotel nurse to desinfect his wounds properly, in two days time his knees had completely healed. I could do this again.