F?&@@!¿ H$%# !!

It was my intention to wait until after Christmas until Posting again, but things happen!

Firstly for those of you with beady eyes! you may have noticed that the address to this webpage has changed  above, the reference to \’blogspot\’ has gone, and this is to protect my Blog, I was in a position where Google could have closed my Blog at any time, now for just over a fiver a year, I own the site name, and it will stay here, whilst I want it to. There is no need to change your link it will be automatically redirected to the same site, but if anything goes wrong, you know why, and you will be able to find me again!

Our arrangements for viewing the Christmas lights have changed, not through our doing, but we came back from shopping yesterday evening to find an answer-phone message asking us to ring the Company providing the Chiva, at first they said they had cancelled the Chiva due to lack of numbers, but as Marcela worked her way up the chain of command it turned out that someone had come along who wanted to rent a whole Chiva, so we were tossed off! I won\’t repeat my language, suffice it to say, we were not happy, as we paid over two weeks ago, and they leave it until the night before, giving us no time to look for another form of transport. They offered us another trip after Christmas, but at the same rate, not only will Christmas be over, but others coming with us would be at work, so that was a non starter. They then rang back and offered a microbus, which is just an oversized car, no thanks I can do that myself, so now we have a refund. So if you are ever in Medellin, never use Chivas Parranda (www.chivasparranda.com).

We are now going to go by car, then leave the car outside relatives, and walk some of the route along the river, we will just have to watch out for pickpockets!

I was amazed to discover this week, that life goes on as normal for many over Christmas, the shops are open… OK they close early, 7pm!!! but they are open, the Bin men come to collect the rubbish Christmas Day (Can you imagine that in the UK, the word Strike, springs to mind!), now I can understand why the Christmas meal is at midnight, it doesn\’t make it any easier to stay awake, but now I know!