Next instalment from HHH - Paddys Day

Andalusia in the rain is absolutely no difference than Ireland in the rain, except that it might just be a wee tod warmer.....like 23 degrees!!! A bit like having a shower in the garden. We found out that the best way to get the two young ones to have a shower before school, is to ask them to clean the car. Half an hour of trying to drown one another turns them out quite clean!

At this moment, (2nd week of April) Andalucia is looking rather beautiful. The crops for this year are now showing their colours and the land is looking like a patchwork quilt. You can have a choice between the cotton fields, the wheat, garlic, onions, melons, carrots, swedes and any other veg you can think of. The crowning glory are the fields of Sun Flowers. These are really beyond my feeble efforts to describe to you the beauty of this very special land. We have chalked up our first year now and feel quite at home. The villagers have made us feel very welcome, and Helen and I have a few Spanish friends that we go to lunch with at weekends. The three kids, Christy (Cristobal) Lucas (Luca) and finally the cheekiest one of all, that has Dad around her little finger, Roisin (Rosea) are all doing well at school and learning the language better than Helen and I.

The property boom continues in rural Andalucia with little 3 bed houses fetching ridiculous prices. It would seem that everyone is trying to escape the coast, due to the violence and robberies that occur on such a regular basis. We are an hour and a quarter from Malaga and in this rural area only peace prevails......long may it continue. It does have it's drawbacks in as much as the locals don't speak any English.! We have all had a very urgent crash course in Spanish and it seems to be working. Horse riding. Perhaps some of you know that we have spent quite a few years Endurance riding and we brought 3 of our Arabs with us (That is a 2 page story on it's own!). In Spain there is no 'Law of trespass' Providing you are not causing damage to a crops, you can ride anywhere! Sounds good? It is good! We can ride for 50 miles without any problems and the trail from Osuna, 25 miles away, can offer you 375 kilometers of continuous riding without a gate or a fence in your way! There is a hell of a lot of bars that you will have to drink your way through.......at 45 cents a liter for a good wine it might take you longer than you had planned!!!!! For anyone reading this on Inishturk, (how is my dog Sophie doing?) or Clare Island, (Bernard are you keeping well? how's the B&B doing, have they finished that dammed harbor yet?) Inishmore and Inishman are distant memories that Spain will never remove.

​We had Paddy's day in Spain! Would you ever believe it? The kids were asked by Pepe, the Head, if they could come in Irish dress for St. Patrick's Day! Lucas and Roisin wore our Endurance shirts as they were the only things we had that looked anything like a St. Patrick's day dress! The two kids left as usual at 10 minutes to nine for school, they only have a little way to byke. I found it hard to keep the tears from my eyes as the two green terrors rode off to school wearing the Irish colours so proudly. Roisin rides away shouting 'Bye Dad, see you later, love you. St. Patricks Day for ever!!! The Tripple H...in Espana! xxxxx