Saturday summary

I was going to call this Saturday spooch but apparently this word has other meanings, I’ll leave you to look it up. When I was at university one of my friends used to refer to spooching around somewhat like mooching around. I think after today’s quick urban dictionary lesson, however, I will start to mooch and no longer spooch. {Or maybe she knew just what it meant]

Anyway, we spooched, mooched hiked up the hill to the Moorish Castle to find a new geocache. Only published a few days ago but it seems a few resident Gib geocachers are getting a bit keen on nabbing the First to Finds (FTF), so there was no hope of that, just an early morning walk uphill struggle.

I spotted the potential hidey-hole, but Gib Monkey Partner had hiked off ahead of me with the GPS, so I had to catch him up, grab the GPS, only to discover he had gone too far so back down the hill we went, to exactly the spot I had seen. Note, to any potential Gib geocachers – no GPS needed for this one!

A rare pic of roughseas. As usual most unflattering taken by Partner. Note the natural sunstreaks and the one grey hair. Or is it two?

On the way back down we visited a few tracks, back streets, shrines, steps, chicken sheds and former military quarters. More pix in a later post. Possibly.

Cristo, with the rather flattering bougainvillea surrounding him

Now where do these exciting looking steps lead?

In other news, the Daily Mirror (British paper) reported that the suspected al-Qaeda terrorists arrested in Spain were not only planning to bomb Gib from the air targeting open air bars, they were then going to shoot the shit out of everyone there. This has of course, been heavily denied by our leaders in both Gib and the UK.

Reading up on security threats against the two, apparently the UK is classified as serious and Gib is a mere moderate. These classifications are apparently done by our leaders in London. Oh, good. How reassuring. At some point, they might want to consider that publicising the intense security around the Olympic Games, and having a soft target like Gib does not make terrorism a moderate threat to us – or does it? Just my view. No doubt there are tick boxes to sort that one out though.

Olympics – congrats to Aus and NZ for taking golds in the sailing knocking us into second place twice (sadly). Deserved winners though.

In boxing – big shout to both Nicola Adams for her gold and the first woman to win an Olympic gold boxing medal, and also to Katie Taylor from Ireland. Britain and Ireland are fighting in the men’s bantamweight final today so that should be a fight to watch if you like to see people hitting each other about.

Commiserations to Keri-Anne Payne and Daniel Fogg who narrowly failed to get medals in the 10km swim around the Serpentine. Rather them than me. What an endurance test, and due credit to the winners from Hungary and Tunisia. In particular, Anderson from the USA did a class job getting silver in the women’s race.

And as for Jade Jones, wow! 19-year old Olympic Gold tkd champion. Great result there – and two years ago, she couldn’t afford to go to the Junior Olympics in Singapore, so the people from her home town of Flint, in Wales, raised the £1600. She won gold at that event. How wrong is it, that we don’t invest in a young person with such sporting talent, dedication, and promise?

Speaking of which, a huge congratulation to the first Gibraltarian to perform in the Olympics, Georgina Cassar, who appeared in the rhythmic gymnastics team. This has to be one of the most demanding sports ever. A mix of ballet, dancing, gymnastics, juggling and all to be co-ordinated with a) music and b) each other. If the individual event is impossible, the team events are beyond belief. Popular too, one of the first events to be sold out. The standards set by the former USSR countries are incredibly high, although other countries excel too eg Italy, so hopefully the appearance of the British team in these Olympics will spur on some enthusiasm for this demanding sport.

Apparently the team were initially rejected from the original selection, appealed against British Gymnastics’ decision, and were then allowed to represent GB. I seem to remember reading they were self-funded AKA, a lot of help from parents – around £80,000 – with no money from UK Sport.

And back in Gib. It is warm. Main Street is full of tourists, who don’t seem to realise I am trying to go about my daily business and insist in meandering across the street in front of me. Or holding hands with their partner and taking up all the street. Or……

On the heat theme, I snapped a pic of the temp as we came back across the frontier last week. Just to prove it is warm here. In case no-one believes me.

35 Celsius on La Linea’s eastern beach

Finally, what’s better in hot weather than a delicious curry? Here is eggs curried. OK, I suppose it is curried eggs, but when I lived on them in India, they were always called eggs curried (as distinct from eggs scrambled, eggs fried etc). Today, to be served with a freshly made pineapple chutney. Recipes may or may not follow later.

After all, I am on summer hours……

Eggs curried, in sauce with onion, spices, tomato, lemon