The Drug Addiction Problem in Spain

Apr17

There is a major drug addiction problem in Spain. Everyone I know my age (forties-fifties-ish, so now you know I am really old haha) used to take tons of drugs like marijuana, hashish and cocaine, and I was wondering why. It was like Spain in the 1990’s was like Woodstock in the 1960’s.

So turns out that the reason drugs were so popular was, well asides from the fact that it is easy to get them because they just smuggle them over the strait from Morocco, where most of these drugs come from.

Turns out that after Franco died and Spain became a democracy, in the 1980’s, Spanish law made it legal to consume drugs! That turned Spain into the drug haven of the world.

Lots of young people travelled to Spain from all over the world just so they could buy these substances easily and take them legally and not have to worry about going to jail. And young Spanish people also took psychotropics because they were so easy to obtain.

(And by the by if you happen not to agree with me or you think that I am wrong, please don’t put up hate comments, which will be deleted. I am not working on a doctoral thesis on this subject and therefore I didn’t do the thorough research people must do when writing a thesis, nor can I put up citations or quote formal studies. I merely consulted a couple of websites as well as relied on my own personal observations of people that I know and met.)

Today drug addiction and drug use in Spain doesn’t seem to be as big a problem anymore as it was 20 years ago, thanks to the fact that there is a lot more awareness that drugs are NOT okay and that drugs DO cause permanent health problems.

20 years ago Spain was a new democracy and it was like everyone went crazy and there was a big free for all and all of a sudden everyone felt like they could do whatever they wanted, anything at all, including taking drugs.

People here in Spain were so naïve because having been cut off from the rest of the world for 40 years they didn’t know the things people in the rest of the world already knew. After all we didn’t have internet back then.

People here had zilch knowledge about drug addiction and didn’t know things such as that drugs are bad for your health. They just didn’t know that. Such information simply wasn’t flying around on every street corner over here.

So they thought it was okay to take drugs and that nothing would happen if you took them.

And now today there are hundreds of thousands of drug addicts and ex drug addicts in Spain, all of them over the age of 40.

The problem of drug addiction is worse here in the south of Spain, because southern Spain is where all these illegal plant derivatives arrive to first, coming from Africa.

My ex brother-in-law died of an overdose. He was actually in rehabilitation treatment, but it involved him taking other strong medication to help him overcome his withdrawal. And one day he overdosed on the strong drugs he was taking to overcome his withdrawal and passed away.

He was maybe in his mid to late 50’s.

So you can imagine there must be a MAJOR drug addiction problem in a society if the majority of people there with such problems are that age. If he was in his late 50’s it means he must have been indulging in the habit for 30 years or so.

Lots of people take recreational substances as teenagers or in their 20’s, but after that they stop and they get serious with life. They get a job, forget about that lifestyle. So if people in their 50’s and 60’s are still doing drugs, that means they were never able to get over their addiction.

When I arrived in Spain in the late 1990’s there was a whole load of hippies here from all over the world and all they ever did was spend the whole day smoking hashish and juggling.

That’s where I learnt hippie things like poi (in Spanish it’s called carioca, who knew?) (dancing with poi balls originated from the Maori in NZ) and fire juggling using lighted twirling batons, which is something I did when I was working in a theatre.

You twirl the lit batons around in your hands and make patterns.

We used lit poi balls too, we made them out of asbestos. I’m sure today they would make them out of much less toxic materials. And we lit them with kerosene, clearly Spain didn’t have a lot of safety laws back then.

There was a bloke in the theatre who swallowed fire batons as well. Well, he put them in his mouth lit and they would go out inside that oxygen-starved space, and he “breathed” fire as well. The way he did it was he would take a mouthful of kerosene or gasoline (there really really really were no safety laws in Spain back then, and probably not now either but don’t quote me on that……) and spit it out and as he spit it out he would light it with his torch.

In those days there were all these hippie camps in places that are famous for them such as Órgiva or even Granada itself. Youths from all over Europe used to hang out there in droves dressed in loose tie-dyed outfits, banging on drums and spending their days in a smoke-filled daze zoning out on weed and hash.

If you’d dropped by southern Spain in the late 1990’s you might even have seen them for yourself.

Well I guess in a way I was privileged to enjoy a glimpse into what might’ve been the Woodstock lifestyle, without needing to jump into a time machine or having to be born in the 50’s.

Yep, those were the days.

So do you have any thoughts on this subject? Feel free to leave me any comments (except hate comments as mentioned earlier) down below.

And if you’re in the mood for some good, creepy scary reading, do check out some of my thrillers. You can read about them here: Thrillers by Moi.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

Bentonite Clay for Hair

Homemade Soap

Malaga in Winter: Mexican Flame Vines

Pies

Influencers’ Morning Routine vs. MY Morning Routine

Jan9

If you watch YouTube videos, you might have discovered that it’s all the rage these days to uncover popular Influencers’ morning routines.
I understand that. I watch all the morning routine videos YouTube throws at me, because I’m curious to find out what successful people do every day in order to be successful.
So here is a comparison of my morning routine versus popular influencers’ morning routines:

Influencer’s Unrealistic Morning Routine*:

*(Based upon an amalgam of real YouTubers’ real videos)

When I first wake up I try to spend a couple hours without looking at my phone. (Says the influencer.)

I disconnect and just devote the first hours of the day to myself and have some quiet me time. I then drink a big glass of water, do some yoga, run 50 miles and have a cup of coffee.

Then it’s time for my shower, where I use all natural homemade products that I made myself.

After my shower I enjoy an all-natural breakfast with homemade bread and all homemade foods. Check out my videos with recipes for homemade rye bread, homemade spelt bread and gluten-free corn bread. I make them every day! (Winsome smile.)

Then I spend some time journaling. I find it helps me to put myself together and I recommend everyone practise journaling as a part of their daily lives.

I practise meditation — I trained with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi himself in my last trip to the Himalayas.

Then I take about an hour to read the Bible and pray.

After that I do my hair and my makeup and get dressed.

Only after I finish all that do I get into my car and drive to my job as CEO of a major international banking corporation.

Now, this is me when I try to follow that Unrealistic Influencer’s Morning Routine:

MY Morning Routine:

I get up, spend about half an hour trying to resist the urge to see if anyone has sent me an exciting whatsapp inviting me on a trip to Africa and then in the end I can’t resist any longer, and I spend about an hour on the phone checking all my groups and all my emails.

And then since I’m lazy and don’t feel like getting out of bed yet, I lounge around some more and read up on all the news.

After that I have a big glass of water and a big glass of diatomaceous earth. I take half a teaspoon of diatomaceous earth (make sure it’s “food grade”, I take it because it’s supposed to make your hair grow) stirred into a glass of water.

Then I spend a long time preparing the cat’s supplements. Then I have juice and supplements as well.

After that it’s time for yoga where I put on a podcast and listen to the podcast while I do yoga.

After the yoga routine I find the podcast so fascinating that I then need to listen to another one. Then another one. And finally another one. So then I just spend the rest of the morning listening to podcasts and do nothing else.

Then I realize it is now lunchtime and I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.

So I go to have breakfast, which might include store-bought items like sliced sandwich bread from a plastic package (as opposed to fresh baked baguettes which is what most people eat here in Europe, but I’m too lazy to get dressed and run down to the bakery), supermarket brand jam and UHT milk.

I eat breakfast while I spend the whole afternoon watching YouTube videos. By the time I finish breakfast it’s dinner time.

And I haven’t even practised meditation yet.

So I sit in meditation, fall asleep and sleep until the next morning. Where I do all these same things all over again.

One day I’ll get that popular and successful influencer’s morning routine down pat!

If you’d like something to read during your evening routine before you go to bed, I’d like to suggest you check out my thrillers. You can check them out here: Thrillers by Moi.

So what does your morning routine look like? Do you do what the influencers do? Do leave me some comments down below. I LURRRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

The New Mask-Filled World to Come

Malaga’s English Cemetery

The Orange Trees

The Blueberry Fiend

Life is Complicated When You Use Natural Products

Dec26

I wish my life could be as simple as that of “normal” people, like my ex.

Natural Red Flowers and Natural Products

My ex doesn’t use anything natural or ecological. He just goes to the supermarket and buys what everyone else buys.

He washes his laundry with any generic brand (supermarket brand) of detergent, whichever brand is cheapest, and uses generic brand fabric softener which in addition smells good. He doesn’t complicate his life.

He showers with regular shower gel and washes his hair (what little he has left) with regular sulphate shampoos. He doesn’t use conditioner, but then again he doesn’t have much hair to condition. (Har har I’m so mean aren’t I hehe?) He doesn’t use henna or colour his hair and it’s peppery hair.

But then again as they say I guess once you wake up (become aware) you can never UN-awaken again or become unaware again.

Unaware of all the harmful synthetic chemicals that they put in all the products that we use like in laundry detergent, fabric softener or shampoos.

Unaware of how harmful these synthetic chemicals are both for your health as well as for the environment. Unaware that going as natural as possible is the best thing you can do both for your health as well as for the world.

And you can see the results in the health of both my ex as well as his father. Ex has hardly any hair left. Of course I realize that is hereditary.

But maybe a healthier diet, lifestyle and healthier hair care might have made him go bald more slowly or even stopped him from going bald. I certainly know I DEFO have more hair and thicker hair since I started doing things to take care of it.

My hair has certainly come a long way since it was strawlike and fried years ago from monthly hair dyes dyeing it red. Before I discovered henna, I used to use a home hair dyeing kit in a box that was supposed to be more “natural” since it was supposed to be herbal. Well there was nothing herbal about it it was full of harmful chemicals. Maybe it had like a drop of herbs in it haha.

It just seems to me that my life is so much more complicated than my ex’s. He doesn’t wash his clothes with soap nuts, nor put baking soda, washing soda, ammonia and soap flakes into his laundry. He doesn’t wash his hair with solid shampoo, spend hours oiling it and whole days hennaing it.

I’d like to be able to live like him. I’d like to just throw the clothes into the washing machine, dump in some detergent pods and pour a bit of fabric softener into the fabric softener compartment and then just forget about it.

But I can’t do that anymore. Now I know all the junk that’s in laundry detergent, and that’s getting on your skin every time you put on your clothes washed in laundry detergent, and now that I know how bad laundry detergent is for the environment and how it’s killing fish and birds, I just can’t do that anymore.

I wish I could. It would make life so much easier, but I can’t. I wish I could continue to live in blissful ignorance.

But once you become aware you just can’t become UN-aware anymore.

Of course you could also not care. Ex probably sometimes hears about how laundry detergent is bad for lakes and fish and stuff, but he probably just doesn’t care.

I’ve been using soap nuts now I think for about 6 months. And it’s not as simple as using laundry detergent. I have to put the soap nuts in a jar of very hot water for about half an hour in order to activate them before doing the laundry. You can see already it’s more complicated using soap nuts than laundry detergent.

Then after half an hour, when the soap nuts have been activated and have started releasing soap, I throw the sack of soap nuts into the washing machine and also pour in the hot water that was in the jar with the soap nuts. Then I pour in a ton of water into the washing machine because I have a high efficiency front loader — the most popular type here in Europe I guess — and the reason it’s high efficiency is it hardly uses any water. But soap nuts need water to activate. So I have to manually pour in lots of water.

After that I just let wash as normal. But if the load is quite dirty and greasy then I do another cycle with ammonia before the soap nuts. Because soap nuts don’t work well with very greasy clothes. So you can see already that it’s more complicated than using laundry detergent.

But I think the results are worth it. Because then after that I know we are wearing clothes that have no harmful chemicals in them that can get into your skin. We didn’t throw anything down the drain that will later kill fish and birds. And it’s very cheap to boot.

And nothing feels like clothes that have been washed with only soap nuts. Clothes have a softness, mmmmmmmmmmmhhhhhhh, like you’ve never felt before not even with fabric softener. They feel like LIQUID CLOTHES that is how SOFT they feel.

But once again if you are a normal person you probably don’t care if your clothes are soft or not. And you’re probably not thinking too much about wildlife and all these strange and unknown plants and flowers out there. After all, animals and plants you never see have nothing to do with you anyway, right?

I read somewhere that if animals died, humans would die too. Because we depend on them in order to stay alive.

And I’m not just talking about how some people can’t live without steak or lamb chops either haha. But I’ll get off the soap box now. I’m sure everyone already knows all about this stuff.

Moving on to the category of hair care. My ex has hardly any hair left, but you really can’t tell how much of it is due to heredity and how much is (slack) hair care and lifestyle. I told him there are things you can do to not go as bald but he said he’s just given up.

I know there is some medicine you can take that prevents going bald even if you suffer from hereditary baldness. I used to work at a hair clinic and the doctor told me that. He said he himself takes that medicine and he has some of the thickest hair I’ve ever seen on a man his age.

And I told ex that. But he said he’s given up on his hair.

And then people say when women get old they lose their hair too and it gets weak and fragile and thin and breaks easily and falls off. And so I am fighting against that. Genetics helps, I’m blessed with very thick coarse hair so it doesn’t get as fragile and thin as easily.

But you still have to WORK to have great hair, especially after a certain age or certain life events (ie. pregnancy haha).

I still look at the hair I have today and the hair I had before my oldest son “Ermenegildo” was born and really, there’s no comparison. It doesn’t even look like the same hair.

I did have pretty thick hair before Ermenegildo was born too. But it was so strawlike and dry and damaged and fried from using hair dye every month. It had no shine at all and it looked stiff and hard. It did have a nice colour, it was redder than it is now because you can get a stronger colour on dark hair with artificial dyes than with henna.

But it was so stiff and dry. Today I have such soft hair and it’s shiny and has big bouncy curls.

But I do have to work harder than my ex to have that kind of hair. I have to henna every month because I do have grey hairs now, and also it is what I have to do if I want red hair and I am not a natural redhead.

I do try sometimes to go back to a simpler routine of just throwing in some laundry detergent into the washing machine and some fabric conditioner.

But then I KNOW all the gunk that is in the clothes, even if they come out soft thanks to the fabric conditioner and they smell nice. But I still KNOW all the gunk that is in the clothes and that will then go into your skin and then into your blood.

Laundry detergent is full of chemicals that can cause cancer and even if they don’t give you cancer they can still contribute to all kinds of medical conditions like heart probs, diabetes, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and a long list of etc’s.

Now that I KNOW what laundry detergent does to you when you wear it, well I mean when you wear clothes that have been washed in it, you just can’t NOT know about it anymore. And I KNOW what is in clothes that have been washed with laundry detergent.

And so on with everything else in life.

Which makes life complicated when you use natural products.

And I’d always wanted a simple life. But I guess we do not live in a simple world.

If you’d like to read about more complicated things in life, such as complicated and twisty plotlines, I’d love it if you checked out some of my thrillers. You can read about them here: Thrillers by Moi.

So do you use natural products? Do you find it complicates your life? Do leave me some comments down below. I LURRRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

The New Mask-Filled World to Come

Soapmaking

Rain

Harira Makin’

Cricket Adventures

Dec20

Warning: Contains highly gruesome and squeal-inducing, large-sized photos of INSECTS with triangular, insect-shaped heads and ANTENNAE. Please abstain from reading if you are at all squeamish or suffer from insect phobia.

We caught a CRICKET in the bedroom!

First time I’ve ever seen a cricket here in Spain. I HEAR them quite often. But they’re always hidden away somewhere, I’ve never actually SEEN one before.

I did see one when I went to South Africa and I went bonkers. Because in Canada they are GREEN and in South Africa they are BLACK.

This is the one I saw in South Africa. As you can see it looks like the Spanish one but the Spanish one is even bigger!

These hot weather crickets look so scary because they are BLACK. In Canada they look green and innocent, cute even. Well sort of. As cute as an INSECT can ever look, anyway.

Green bugs are not scary. BLACK bugs are scary!

Well more than black it’s dark brown here. But it’s BIG!

We let it out the living-room window, hope it doesn’t hop in again.

Our poor cat had been going crazy all night trying to hunt down the cricket haha. He couldn’t catch it, cats can’t catch things that JUMP.

Finally he went out on his own personal high-rise apartment window catio trying to source another cricket to hunt.

Well we’d been listening to that tiresome cricket CRICKING away every night for ages, but it always sounded like it was outside not inside. I wonder when and how it got in.

It used to make the HUGEST biggest racket. I wonder how many decibels a cricket can produce.

And now it was the first night in ages that we enjoyed absolute, complete, sublime SILENCE haha.

So I decided to do a tad bit of research and I discovered why crickets are BLACK in South Africa, dark brown in Spain and green in Canada. Apparently they are different species of crickets, it’s not the temperature that determines their colour.

So the black crickets are black because they are the African black cricket. European crickets are brown or dark brown and the green ones in Canada are another species altogether.

By the by the cricket started CRICKING away again, this time it sounded further away. I’m glad it found a new home to accommodate itself in, hopefully not too close to our windows hehe.

At least the good thing about it cricking is that it means it’s a male cricket, so it wouldn’t have left any eggs.

Our poor cat who couldn’t hunt down any crickets. They sure would’ve made a tasty meal for him.

If you’d prefer to look at a book instead of at insects, why not check out my chilling thriller novels? You can have a look at them over here in Thrillers by Moi.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

The New Mask-Filled World to Come (Already anticipating the world that would await us while still in lockdown this spring)

Life in Confinement in Spain

DIY Catio or Sun Window / Sun Balcony for Cats (Where a cat can safely hunt crickets in a high-rise apartment)

Pizza Makin’ (Because we still spend a lot of time at home cooking (or at least we should))

Quarantine Diaries: Life in Confinement in Spain

May31

Life in Confinement in Spain, or What It’s Like to Live Under Lockdown in Spain.

Includes the popular description of Why I Need to Run Down Alleyways and Hide in Pedestrian Streets Every Time I Go Grocery Shopping.

Todo Saldrá Bien Poster

I’ve heard that many people feel a curiosity to know, or have no idea, what living in quarantine due to the coronavirus was like in Spain. What were the conditions like? What were we allowed to do?

Today we are in the process of coming out of lockdown. That means that little by little we are seeing restrictions to our movements being removed and little by little, they are allowing us to leave our homes.

But during the time of quarantine, coronavirus lockdown in Spain was the strictest in the world.

From March 14 till May 4, 2020, we were in complete lockdown due to the coronavirus emergency. This is what confinement looked like in Spain.

Only the most essential services were open and running. Essential services meant, basically, large food stores, mostly supermarkets. But any establishment that sold food, such as smaller grocery stores and corner shops were allowed to open as well.

Also specialty food shops such as bakeries, greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers could also stay open.

Large department stores similar to Target or Walmart were allowed to open if they offered food or sported a food section. Here in Spain we don’t have Target or Walmart, but we have similar businesses such as Carrefour and Alcampo.

However, these department stores could only open the FOOD section of their stores. Any sections not selling food items, such as household goods sections or clothing sections, were required to remain closed. A simple ribbon cutting these sections off to keep them closed to the public sufficed.

Pharmacies (chemists) and drugstores were the other type of establishment that were allowed to remain open.

In Spain, pharmacies and drugstores are two different types of shops. Pharmacies sell medication, as well as some specialty types of cosmetics (Avène, La Roche Posay, that sort of thing).

Drugstores, on the other hand, are where you go to acquire hygiene products such as bleach, detergent and soap. Fortunately the government considered cleaning products a basic necessity — after all, we needed to disinfect our homes and clothes — and drugstores could remain open.

People were allowed to leave their homes ONLY in order to go shopping at these establishments.

You could also go out for the following reasons:

to visit your doctor or any clinic, health care centre or hospital for any medical reason
to go to work, if you worked in a sector that was allowed to work and where working from home was not possible
to visit a person who was dependent upon your care, such as an elderly relative who was ill or if you were babysitting for a child while their parents worked
to return home, for example in the case that the sudden declaration of the state of alarm should have happened to catch you travelling far from home

Going for a walk, to go jogging or bike riding or to practise any form of sport was NOT allowed.

I was amazed when I saw news reports where people in countries under lockdown were calmly strolling through parks, riding bikes down the street or jogging along the seaside. These activities were NOT permitted here in Spain during lockdown.

In fact, parks and beaches were closed during the whole of the quarantine period.

Another activity which I observed a good deal of on TV in other countries was the celebration of protest marches. Protest marches were NOT permitted here in Spain.

However, you were allowed to go to your windows or out on your balconies to protest. Popular forms of protest here in Spain during quarantine included pot-banging on your balconies.

If you violated any of these rules, you could and would expect to be fined. A typical fine could start anywhere from 600€ upwards.

Needless to say, get-togethers and parties were totally forbidden and if you were caught attending one, you would definitely receive a fine.

You couldn’t go to visit your family members or friends. You couldn’t go grocery shopping — which was the only type of shopping permitted — with other people. Grocery shopping had to be carried out singly. So you couldn’t, say, arrange to meet up with your friend at the supermarket.

Another condition which was striking was the prohibition of going grocery shopping far away from your home. In theory, you were limited to doing your shopping at the grocery store or supermarket nearest your home.

So you couldn’t, for example, grab your car to drive to Carrefour (the Spanish version of Target or Walmart) if you already happened to enjoy the presence of a grocery store on the corner of your own street. If caught by the police doing that — and police controls were ubiquitous and frequent — you could and would receive a fine.

In my case, one of my favourite supermarkets is Mercadona. It’s the national supermarket par excellence and just about everyone loves it.

However, in spite of Mercadona sporting a heavy presence in the entire country, the nearest establishment is about 1 km from my house. Whereas on the other hand, there are 2 smaller grocery stores right across the street from me.

So by law, I was only allowed to do my shopping at either one of the 2 grocery stores across the street. I was not supposed to walk 1 km to Mercadona.

But like most people, I like Mercadona. It sports the greatest variety of products and unlike many grocery stores, it also offers non-food items which, since they are mixed in with the food products rather than separated in a separate section of the store, they were allowed to sell these non-food items as well.

With all other non-food shops closed, oftentimes our only option for obtaining non-food items was at Mercadona. So you can understand why we all wanted to go there.

In addition to food, at Mercadona you could buy plastic food containers, cosmetics, personal hygiene items (shampoo, shower gel etc), all products related to your pet needs, ice-cube makers and even candles and incense.

I might add other department stores also sold these items. But in other shops, they would have been displayed in a different section from the food section and therefore unavailable to the public.

But as I mentioned, the nearest Mercadona was 1 km from my home. That meant that every time I wanted to go to this particular supermarket, I had to duck into some narrow alleyways that lead in the general direction towards Mercadona. I also made good use of pedestrian streets as much as I could on my way to this favourite supermarket of mine.

The reason for this was in order to not get caught by the police walking to a supermarket so far away from my home. Since the police patrolled in cars you could sneak down alleyways and pedestrian thoroughfares in order to not get caught.

This turned every mundane, routine grocery shopping trip into an exciting grocery shopping adventure that made me feel like a spy every time I went shopping!

If your nerves are not up to so much excitement and reading a good chiller thriller in the safety of your armchair is more your cup of tea, I’ve got a few I’d lurrve you to check out. You can have a look at them over here in Thrillers by Moi.

So, how have you been enjoying your time in quarantine? What is life under confinement like in your country? Tell tell.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

The New Mask-Filled World to Come

Back to Granada Again (Because who knows when we will be able to go back to Granada again)

Pies (Because everyone is still at home cooking)

Shikakai: My Recent Experiment

The New Mask-Filled World to Come

May10

Do you think from now on we will always have to wear masks? New generations will consider putting on a mask before going out as essential as putting on shoes or trousers to go out.

Young kids would be unable to even conceive of a time when people could still go out without masks.

Well who knows, it could happen. Millenia ago people didn’t wear trousers. They just wore a tiny piece of loincloth. But life on earth has developed and today no one would think of going outside without their trousers on.

Generations of the future will design masks with all different shapes and colours. There will be designer masks with paintings by Picasso and Velazquez as well as paintings by contemporary famous artists on them.

There will be a new type of business. Alongside graphic designers who dedicate their businesses to designing only book covers, posters or publicity flyers there will be artists who only paint pictures for masks.

There will be masks with sequins. Decorated nose and mouth masks that form a set with decorated eye masks, for people to wear to balls where you have to wear a mask to cover your eyes.

There will be new types of hijabs that at the same time serve to prevent the spread of viruses.

The lipstick industry will be threatened.

But people love lipsticks and red mouths. So I’m sure industry leaders, or even just everyday women — because we loooveee our lipsticks and lip glosses so much — will strive to invent a way to continue using lipstick even though we have masks on.

So maybe they will come up with some sort of clear masks that prevent the spread of viruses but at the same time allow your lips to be seen. So then you will still need lipstick.

They will need to invent new formulas so your lipstick doesn’t rub off on the mask.

Ingenious designers and engineers will contrive new ways to eat and drink outdoors or at restaurants and cafés, so you can eat and drink outside without catching the virus.

And if you’d like to check out some new book covers (or just grab some more reading material) have a look over my thrillers.

So how are you getting on with your masks? What do you think of the new mask-filled world to come? Leave me a comment below. I lurrrve to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

Quarantine Diaries: Fines Fines Fines

Spanish Beaches

Harira Makin’ (Because it’s Ramadan, even if you can only break your fast this year all alone at home…… but at least if you read this post you’ll have homemade harira)

Homemade Soap

Reminiscing On…… Magno Soap

Apr17

Magno soap is the famous classic Spanish black soap. It is completely black like our cat haha.

It’s supposed to smell like patchouli although to me it smells more like sulphur haha.

Magno Soap

It was a real revolution when it first came out 100 years ago because in those days, from what I’ve read, patchouli was virtually unknown in Spain. Also making it black really attracted attention. It immediately sold out everywhere. So you can see it is a Spanish classic.

Even though it smells like sulphur (to me, or patchouli, depending on your olfactive preference) the smell really grows on you and when you don’t use it for a time you miss it. I always have a few boxes of it stored around the house, so I never run out.

It always brings me back to big lofty mansion-sized historic apartments in the luxurious central neighbourhoods of Madrid. Around the Paseo del Prado where the apartments are gigantic and sport many wings and the ceilings are high and lofty and made of marble. The walls and furnishings are also made of marble and everything is gold gilded.

Usually elegant elderly people live in these apartments. Everything they use is classic and elegant. They own classic shiny metal soap holders with intricate decorations on them. And they always boast a bar of Magno soap in their powder rooms.

And mmmhh how the scent wafts out of these art-déco powder rooms!

The scent of patchouli (or sulphur, whichever way you prefer to see it hehe).

And now if you find you’ve got more time on your hands than you know what to do with and you’re bored of watching yet another film on TV, yet one more video, why not grab some reading material? I’ve got a neat collection of creepy, scary horror tales for you. Check out my thrillers here: Thrillers by Moi. You can get them for Kindle so they’re not expensive.

What soaps do YOU like? Drop me a note in Comments down below. I LURRRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments.

And as I mentioned earlier, our cat is black. Completely, midnight-shaded black. Just like Magno soap.

Black Kitty Cat
If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

DIY Catio or Sun Window / Sun Balcony for Cats (Another home DIY project you can nibble on now that you can’t go out)

Walking in the Rain (Now that we can’t go out for walks in the rain or in the sunshine or in anything)

Pies (Because I’ve noticed a huge boom in recipes sites lately, I wonder why……)

Castile Soap and Coconut Milk for Hair

Quarantine Diaries: Fines Fines Fines

Apr12

Well I do agree it has been a while since I’ve been on this blog. But now with everyone in quarantine due to the coronavirus here, I find myself with a little extra time — and a TON of things I’d like to comment about.

So hopefully I’ll be dropping back every once in a while with these comments on these little things that I observe during these uncertain times.

Fines

In general I praise the police for their exemplary performance at a difficult job in what are undeniably difficult times. But personally I also think some of them are going fine crazy over here. They fined a guy for buying a fridge and picking it up. They argued that fridges are not essential items for survival.

Well I disagree! If you don’t have a fridge you will need to go shopping every day because many foods don’t last without a fridge. So you need to buy them every day. And I thought the idea was that people NOT go shopping every day.

And also if you have no fridge food will go bad. And then you will be tempted to eat bad food. And then you will get sick and need to go to the hospital.

Although if you DO go to the hospital you might get turned away because you don’t have coronavirus. It’s not the hospital’s fault, I do want to add. I know all the health-care workers are doing their absolute utmost and putting their lives out on the line to take care of everyone.

But hospitals everywhere are overwhelmed. And just entering a hospital these days is pretty much akin to catching COVID-19, where the virus is floating freely around the very air and so many hospital workers aren’t even provided with even the most basic protective equipment.

So as I said you probably wouldn’t get admitted to hospital. You ONLY have salmonellosis, or listeriosis or botulism, which can also kill you without treatment.

But that’s ok, as far as the powers that be are concerned. Because at least you didn’t die from coronavirus. So you wouldn’t enter into the statistics anyway, so no one will know that you died or what you died from.

After all if you die in your home from salmonellosis no one will know you died from salmonellosis, right? Because you didn’t get into the hospital so you never received an official diagnosis.

And I doubt they’re going to do an autopsy, because although I’m not too well-versed on the subject (ie. disclaimer: I have no idea) I get the impression that nowadays not too many autopsies can be carried out right now. So in most likelihood no one will ever know what you really died from, so your death will most likely be attributed to the virus.

So then you can’t even claim compensation because you will have no proof of any sort that you didn’t die from the virus. (Well obviously I meant your family hehe.)

But at any rate, from what I’ve read it’s still better than in the States where if you can’t pay your medical bills you will get turned away even if you have the virus.

I couldn’t understand why thousands of people are dying in their homes of the virus every day in the States. But turns out it’s because they can’t pay the medical bills so they don’t go to the hospital.

So you see, you should let people buy fridges and showers and hot water heaters. Hot showers are also essential because they are necessary for hygiene and hygiene is necessary to prevent illnesses such as getting coronavirus or any other viruses.

Well just my two cents’ worth of comments and completely my own humble but biased opinion for the day.

Take care everyone. DON’T go out unless it’s really necessary. Remember that if you #stayhome you’re much less likely to get the dreaded coronavirus.

And wash your hands with soap A LOT, especially if you just went outside or picked up something that you just brought in from outside. For at least 20 seconds. Count them. I actually do count them: one thousand one, one thousand 2……

In fact, for that matter, ever since my kids were babies I instilled in them the habit of WASHING THEIR HANDS with soap and water the minute they walked in the door.

As soon as we walk in, the first thing we do: take off our shoes and leave them at the door. We have slippers for inside the house.

The next thing we do, we take off our jackets.

And then, straight away, it’s off to the bathroom for our routine HAND WASHING!

Only after they have done all that are they allowed to do anything else, whatever they want to / have to do: unpack the food, go play, watch TV, whatever.

My kids have rarely ever been sick in their lives. They do get illnesses, but most are not of an infectious nature. One of my sons has asthma, but he was born with that.

So once again, remember: #stayathomesavelives.

And spend all your extra time reading blogs like mine haha.

Or if you’re in the mood for some creepy, scary horror tales, check out my thrillers here: Thrillers by Moi. You can get them for Kindle so they’re not expensive.

So how are you spending your quarantine? Let me know what you’re up to in Comments down below. I LURRRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments.

Black Kitty Cat
If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

A Month at the Gym: Is the Gym Really Worth It? (Now that we can’t go to the gym at all……)

Frankincense — Or How You Can Make Your House Smell Like Holy Week (So at least you have the illusion you are celebrating Holy Week hehe)

Pizza Makin’ (Because what else are we gonna do now that we’re stuck at home, except cook lotsa goodies?)

Soapmaking, How to Make Soap At Home

Rant About Lambs

May20

I am not vegetarian. But I refuse to eat lambs.

Lamb

Photo Credit: Nevit Dilmen / Wikimedia Commons

I used to love lamb. But I swore I would never touch lamb again after having babies. Remember that lambs are BABIES! They’re innocent little baby things that the only thing they have ever tasted in their lives is their mother’s milk. And the only thing they have ever known is a mother’s love.

And the lamb you are eating never had the chance to run around in a field and enjoy life. And it was taken away from its mother, who like all mothers probably misses it a lot.

If we all chose to never eat lamb again, people who slaughter lambs for food would have to stop doing it.

Now, I realize that a beef cow or a chicken is also an animal, who used to run around. But I dunno, grown cows and chickens don’t really speak to me as lambs do, I guess. I don’t like beef at all, but it’s because I really hate the taste and feel of the meat, not because I really care anything about the cow, hehe.

End of rant.

Hiring Expats and Immigrants in Spain

May6

I’ve noticed that there’s a lot more work in Marbella than in Malaga, even though Marbella is much smaller. So of course that set me a-pondering. I wondered why a place that’s a tenth of the size of Malaga would have more work.

And I thought, Marbella is richer than Malaga. It might be small, but it’s where all the rich foreigners settle, bringing with them their money and their boost for the local economy.

And it also made me observe, places that are richer have more jobs. How many jobs there are doesn’t really seem to depend so much on the SIZE of the place as it does how rich the place is.

Which I suppose is one obvious reason why unemployment is so high in Spain, and even more so here in the deep south.

Canada, by contrast, has a prosperous economy. (Okay maybe not so much as the US, it isn’t on the list of the top 10 richest countries in the world but it’s doing well.)

And I personally feel (and keep in mind that these are only my own observations, opinions and experiences, not hard facts) that maybe one of the main reasons why the Canadian economy is doing so much better than the Spanish one, is perhaps because of how Canadian society ALLOWS FOREIGNERS AND IMMIGRANTS TO PARTICIPATE IN SOCIETY.

Here in Spain, the mentality (in my opinion) is just so backwards with regards to how they treat foreigners, expats and immigrants. Here, everyone congregates in little segregated colonies based on their country of origin.

You’ve got little English conclaves. Little German colonies. Moroccan and Arab immigrants only socialize with other Moroccan and Arab immigrants and Chinese immigrants only socialize with other Chinese immigrants. Ditto the Africans. To the point that many members of these groups even refuse to learn Spanish, even though they are living in Spain.

Maybe 100 years ago, Italian immigrants in the US and Canada could ONLY own pizzerias. (Or maybe work in the mafia haha.) Chinese immigrants HAD TO own laundromats or Chinese restaurants. Blacks were only allowed to sing, but no one was willing to hire a Black banker or financier.

Today, fortunately, things are different. But that was the mentality that existed back then. And that is the mentality still here in Spain, today — where things always seem to be about a century behind the rest of the world.

In contrast, in Canada today, immigrants participate fully in the world. Canadian society makes room for them. And most importantly, CANADIAN COMPANIES HIRE IMMIGRANTS!

I think so many people overlook and ignore the fact that IMMIGRANTS ARE PROBABLY ONE OF A COUNTRY’S GREATEST TREASURES.

People from other cultures bring so much knowledge that is unknown in their new country.

And more than anything, immigrants bring the desire to work and contribute to their new society.

Immigrants contribute so much to the companies that are willing to hire them. Proof of this is how in Canada, Canadian companies routinely hire immigrants, and these companies prosper and are doing stupendously.

On the other hand, in Spain, as a general rule Spanish companies never hire immigrants or expats. For a job that requires high-level negotiations with English-speaking Americans or EU companies, they would rather hire a local Spaniard who can barely stutter out “My name is José” rather than an American, Canadian or Brit who would, of course, have no difficulty in carrying out these negotiations in English.

Even for tourism jobs, such as hotel employees in hotels whose clientele are mainly British and American tourists, Spaniards whose knowledge of English is limited to “What is your name?” are preferred over American, Canadian or British job candidates.

(Or perhaps “preferred” is an understatement. Okay, what I mean is that hotels outright WILL NOT hire any American, Canadian or British candidate, no matter what, if there is so much as one Spanish candidate in the line-up, because they simply won’t hire foreigners, period.)

Well, if you were going on holiday abroad, which would you prefer? To stay at a hotel where you can understand the staff and they can understand you, even if the staff consists mainly of immigrants / expats? Or to stay at a hotel where all the employees are local people, but none of them can talk to you?

Well, if I went to Moscow or Athens for my summer holidays, I know what I would prefer. (Taking into account that unfortunately I don’t know a single word of Greek and my knowledge of Russian is limited to “da” hehe.)

Okay, I’m not saying that companies should never hire locals. I’m just suggesting that it’s just as unfair for a company to ignore, exclude, reject and discriminate against a qualified job candidate just because that candidate is foreign-born.

On the other hand, it just makes me so mad when I see people from rich countries going to poor countries and not doing anything to help the locals.

I don’t mean that you have to set up a charity or an NGO. But you could get out there and try to meet local people. If you have a blog, you could feature local businesses that you’ve become familiar with. If you went to a hotel or a restaurant, or hired a service, you could talk about them on your blog.

You could make friends in your new country and talk about them on your blog.

Here in Spain I’ve observed that most British expats ONLY socialize with other British expats. They don’t even try to make friends with Spanish people. They don’t show any interest in learning Spanish, and they only participate in the most stereotypical Spanish events such as going to watch Holy Week processions or frequenting flamenco shows.

Now, I’m not trying to single out British expats and put them down as opposed to expats from other countries. It’s just simply that, at least in my part of the world, British expats are more plentiful than people from other countries.

But as I mentioned earlier, my observation is that immigrants and expats from other countries around here, such as Moroccans, Chinese, Germans and Africans also don’t cultivate the custom of socializing with local Spanish people either.

And in part, I suppose it could be because Spanish people don’t show any particular interest in getting to know the foreigners and immigrants who live in their midst.

But couldn’t it also be because the immigrants and expats themselves also don’t possess even the smallest iota of interest in getting to know the local people in the country that they themselves have chosen to live in?

I mean, you LIVE here now, for crying out loud. You CHOSE to live here. I understand that it’s sometimes hard to make new friends, especially after a certain age.

Marbella Street With Flowers

It’s true that from what I’ve observed, once people finish their schooling, they seem to lose all interest in making new friends. So I suppose it really is a two-way street, and oftentimes adult Spaniards are just about as blasé about making new friends — be it with foreigners or with other Spanish people outside of their extended families — as foreigners and expats are.

But if you’re a foreigner / immigrant and you’re now living in a new country, could it really be that hard for you to go to a language class and pick up a few notions of the local language (which is probably also the official language of your new country, unless you just happen to be living with a small ethnic minority tribe)?

You could chat with shop assistants when you go shopping. Maybe take a course or sign up for something at a cultural association. If you’re not shy, you could even shoot the breeze with the people around you while you’re in a line-up or someplace else waiting for something.

I’m very shy about speaking with strangers, but I know people who aren’t, and they make friends everywhere — with bakers, with the people sitting next to them at restaurants, with other people waiting in line at the bank. I envy them. I’m too shy and bashful to do that sort of thing.

But if you’re not as shy and bashful as me, and you’re an expat living in a country that you weren’t born and raised in, why can’t you make an effort to make friends with the local people around you?

And if you’d like to read some exciting thrillers and recommend them to your friends, not to sound like a sleazy saleslady but I’ve written a few, so if you’re into creepy, scary, suspenseful novels, I’d love it if you’d check them out here: Thrillers by Moi.

If you enjoyed this post (I really hope you do!), maybe you will also like:

Rant About How Tough It Is to Make New Friends

Best Friends

How Much Do YOU Value Your Friends?

The Meaning of a Friendship