Spanish Tapas

An extract from my book ‘The Bougainvilleas

Hilary and Carla decide to have a get together and what could be more fun than a visit to a restaurant for Tapas – read the following extract when Carla decides to dig for information and also enjoy herself. Here Carla opens the conversation. Read on

‘If you don’t mind I think a set meal is to formal, shall we go for the tapas? They make a surcharge if you have them at the table but there’re fun, and if done well delicious. Here they’re really good, set meals tend to be tourist orientated, but with tapas you get a real Spanish feel.’ At that moment the waiter returned with the fruit juices, set them down on the table, and then stood waiting in anticipation for the order. ‘Shall I order?’ said Carla.

‘You’d better, I wouldn’t know where to start,’ Hilary replied.

‘Bien,’ Carla spoke to the waiter. ‘Jamón serrano, gambas a la plancha, calamares fritos y patatas bravas, mejillones a la marinera tortilla y salada verde, oh y salpicón de mariscos,’ she looked at Hilary. ‘Would you like some of the local potatoes, they’re cooked in very salty water?’ Hilary nodded. ‘Y papas arrugadas,’ she glanced towards Hilary again. ‘Do you like Cava … sparkling wine?’ then as Hilary nodded. ‘Bien, Cava Seco.’ At this the waiter departed.

‘What did you order it sounded quite a lot to eat?’

Carla smiled at Hilary’s question, as the company was paying she had ordered most of her favourites. ‘The Spanish salt cured ham, prawns, squid rings, potatoes in spicy sauce, mussels. Then Spanish omelette, a salad and finally the local potatoes.’ She didn’t mention salpicón de mariscos; the dish was her favourite but inclined to be expensive. ‘Don’t worry it comes up in quite small dishes which are placed on the table between us. You put what you want onto your own plate, then you pick at it slowly while you sip your wine, it’s great, you’ll love it.’

‘Tortilla I know, but surely that’s mainly potatoes, there sounded like a lot of potatoes!’ Hilary saw anything resembling a controlled diet going out of the window. ‘You did say salad, a plain salad?’ she added hopefully.

‘Look, eat only what you want,’ said Carla, ‘we’ve a couple of hours, and we can pick and chat without worry.’ At that moment the waiter came with the sparkling wine and some more glasses. ‘Just open it, we can pour it ourselves,’ Carla was feeling in a party mood, ‘Would you like some in your orange juice, a Buck’s Fizz?’

The extract is about Spanish Tapas and continues for over two hours. Did Carla find out all she wished to know? For that you need to read the book!

Regards to all Patrick

HOW TO STOP SMOKING!

Everybody has the answer – just log on and pay for their advice! This time the advice is free based on my personal experience. You can follow it and I hope you are successful.

I was smoking approximately 100 cigarettes a day, is that a heavy smoker, I’m told yes. Why did I want to stop, actually it was because we were about to fit the house out with new velvet curtains and I knew they would be tainted by the smell, and colour change, caused by a heavy smoker. Health and cost wasn’t a consideration. So I stopped and here is how.

I looked at some books on self hypnosis, very lengthy and detailed but I analysed what they had to say and worked out a programme.

Every morning I arose from my slumbers/bed at 6am, my normal time had been 7am so I was only losing one hour lying in bed wondering when to get up.

Downstairs within a completely silent house I would lie comfortably on my back on the floor, and carefully tell my body to relax. This meant I would consciously tell each part of my body to relax starting at my toes, working up through my body until every part of my body except my mind had become completely relaxed with a sort of numb feeling. My body didn’t move , not even a twitch.

Next I would visualise standing amongst some clouds with ten steps leading down before me. Slowly I would descend and with each step I would instruct my body to go further into a state of complete relaxation. By the time I reached the bottom I would be almost (probably was) in a trance.

I was now below the clouds and before me stretched a meadow of grass leading down to a lake. Slowly I would walk down to the lake. Remember this is all a visualisation within my mind but I really felt it was taking place.

At the water’s edge there was a small boat, I got in and headed out onto the lake where there were two islands. I had to choose which one to go to. On one were a crowd of people smoking, choking on their cigarettes, spluttering. The air was polluted, horrible atmosphere, you can visualise the scene making it as unlikeable as you fancy. The other island was also occupied, but this time with healthy, good looking, pleasant people. The air was clean and everybody walked, or sat around, talking pleasantly. Not a cigarette in sight. Again your mind can make the scene as pleasant as you can.

Which island to row to; of course you choose the second and mix with the pleasant people who welcome you to join them. Finally, and reluctantly, you leave and reverse the route you took to get there, do this slowly and in detail. As you walk carefully up the meadow and then ascend the steps you let your body come out of the trance like state. Eventually you arrive back where you started, on the floor downstairs in your house. You find you have been there about an hour, possibly slightly more.

Yes – but does it work you ask? I can only speak for myself – all this was thirty four years ago. I set myself a date to stop smoking, it was for the 1^st December 1977, and I constantly reminded myself of the date. One day, six weeks after I started my programme I smoked my usual one hundred cigarettes, often lighting one from another. That night I went to bed and the next morning I arose, this time not to go downstairs – but never to smoke again; never to want a cigarette again, never to fancy a cigarette again, it was the 1st of December! The cure was absolute!

I never criticise smokers, sometimes I ask if they ever fancy giving up, usually the answer is yes. But then who am I to criticise them for smoking, I smoked heavily for quite a few years!

I hope you try my cure, it costs nothing, and the benefits are great.

Paperbacks or e-books

With the sale of over one million copies of some individual books on kindle, and other e-book libraries, all being downloaded on to PC’s, ipads, iPhones, iPod Touch, iPod, Kindle, the concern shown by the publishers and retail outlets of paperbacks is brought into the spotlight.

Major high street shops selling the printed books, whether paperbacks or hard cover, have to consider just how viable the sale of books consisting purely of text will be when in competition with e-books. Certainly e-books are normally less expensive than a paperback and for the indie author it is an easy way to see their stories available to the public.

Is the content of a story any less intellectual, less interesting, does it lose any of the content value because it is an e-book? As an author the difficulties of entering within the closed wall of the established publishing world becomes apparent. Not because you are not welcome. Not because your work is not worthy of being published. It’s the cost of putting a book out onto the market place that is the problem. Estimates are usually put at roughly £30,000.00. for one book. No publishing house will take the risk unless they are certain of some return.

Writing a series of books, of which the author feels sure are going to be a block buster, takes time. To then find what you consider your epic series will never go before the public is to say the least heartbreaking. So more, and more, authors are turning to placing their cherished works with the electronic world of the e-book. Once you have established the distribution, something that requires some work on your part but only work, then you can forget about the cost of printing.

You can of course advertise, but that can prove costly! Getting known to the public means diligent work. Now you can go twitter, facebook, blogging, and by asking friends to mention you and your link to the book or books you become known for free. Home and dry, not really, the question of cost per book must now be tackled. In this your distributor has a say, how low, how high, or are you not going to charge, it no longer is going to cost you anything so why not give it away? Writing costs money and time , you should have a return.

This is where the printed paperback hits several problems. The cost of printing and distribution of a printed book, and the retail outlet shops including their staff, the profit margins, and the holding of stock. All this can be very heavy. However on the internet there is a different story!

This writer has several books in his stable and the prices have been set. But the guide lines have now been redrawn. Take one of my books ‘Hocus Pocus and the Pentacle Pendant’. The paperback is part of a series and is £6.49, the kindle version was £3.39, but no longer. I can sell it at a much cheaper rate, it has become a ‘loss leader’ without actually being a complete loss, now it’s 70p, and I still retain a profit! Do you have to search for it on the internet? No - all you have to do is click on the following link, this link this now appears on all the non cost outlets! http://amzn.to/jAD5PR or you can type ‘Hocus Pocus and the Pentacle Pendant’ onto books Amazon web page search window.

IRELAND

Now I am always being told ‘You should go to Ireland, you will love it!’ So a couple of weeks ago my wife and I booked the ferry to Dublin and we were ready. Well not exactly I planned to drive to the ferry on Monday catch the 5:15pm ferry and be there (in Dublin) by 7:10pm and zip into our hotel which was pre-booked!

My wife thought not - better to travel to Holyhead on the Sunday, stay at a hotel and catch the 12 noon ferry on Monday and be in Dublin by 2:00 pm. OK so my plans would have been a bit tight to say the least,. So we went to Holyhead on Sunday. Now there is an expression that goes ‘The best laid plans of mice and men etc.’ The Valley Hotel was fine and the food very commendable, the staff very friendly, any way before breakfast I checked my e-mails – whoops what was this.

' Adverse weather conditions exist, your fast ferry is cancelled and you are booked on the slow ferry at 4:00 arriving Dublin 6:00pm. Now I am a patient man and I agree rough weather on the Irish crossing is not to be ignored, anyway it was roughly the time I had originally expected to arrive so that was fine.

Now from the Ferry terminal to our hotel is a fifteen minute drive (O’Connell Street), now that was what I expected BUT – I hadn’t allowed for President Obama, now President Obama may be of Irish descent – I know not! But two and a half hours later we got to our hotel. The President was in town and everywhere was blocked – you can go off people and the American President was not my favourite person when I finally booked. The hotel restaurant had closed (the less said about the hotel the better) and we had to go hunting for our dinner!

The next morning I (we) were up early – no breakfast and let’s get out of town.

Did we enjoy our trip, well I did. It did rain a lot, and it was cold, and as I was researching the ‘Nine Year’s War’ –Tyrone’s Rebellion’ for me the trip was a success. For Margaret who was feeling cold and wet it may not have been great. Tyrone’s Rebellion – Yellow Ford – Curlew Pass – Clontibret mean anything to you, it didn’t to most people I spoke to. It all happened in 1594 – 1603 and was the time when the Troubles in Ireland really started – followed by the Plantations. I know it suddenly got boring if you’re not into it. So I enjoyed the trip. And I will write a little about another time, in fact I intend to write a complete book set during the Rebellion, fiction of course but fiction does need to be correct on anything factual you include. Keep reading my blogs – have been very remiss lately but shall now give it some attention.

Regards to all Patrick

Music in the Garden

During the summer of June, back in 2009 to be exact, my daughter suggested we go to The Stables to see John Dankworth, or rather listen to his new group Tugboat. With Alan Barnes they would be playing some great jazz. Now for the American followers The Stables is to be found near Milton Keynes and is a small but internationally known Jazz and Music venue; a very popular centre for entertainment in the Old Rectory. The house is the residence of Cleo Lane which she shared with her husband.

At The Stables they hold performances in the gardens, and if the weather is fine then you can picnic while listening to the music.

They will hire you a gazebo, and provide a picnic if you don’t wish to bring your own.

This was to be our first visit to The Stables and having bought and listened to the John Dankworth music over the years we settled down to await the performance. There were some nice old chaps fussing around cameras take you in closer to the subject and with it came the realization that the nice old codgers on the stage were actually Johnny Dankworth and Alan Barnes

Yup, I was getting older and had been listening to Sir John Dankworth and Dame Cleo Lane for more years than I like to remember. I like to remember the music, but not think about how many years.The Jazz was great, the music was great; as they say - real cool. It was a pleasure to see the performance live and we resolved that this would not be our last visit to see John perform. We now have our memories of that day almost two years ago but sadly we shall be unable to repeat our visit to see him perform again. He left us to enjoy his music on record, and no doubt he is playing on a higher level.

To go there with my wife – daughter – granddaughter made it a lovely visit.

Stables is still a great venue for a varied choice of entertainment and I can only recommend that you log onto the web site and see if there is something you can go and see either in the gardens or in the theatre.

Monet's Gardens at 'Giverny'

On a lighter note I thought I would blog about flowers. But anybody can blog about flowers so I have given it a twist and taken Monet’s Garden at Giverny as the subject.

I always like to read a little about anywhere we are about to visit and on this occasion had made a careful study of the information that explains this garden. I'm the chap on the right! My first surprise was to find it is in two parts. The upper gardens around the house and the water garden are on the lower area below the road.

Margaret in front of the house

The first area to look at is the Clos Normand which is also where you can view inside the house.

Monet settled at Giverny in 1883 and planted the hectare of land which had originally been an orchard but he preferred to plant out with varied flowers.

He liked to mix flowers and let them grow in a disorganised manner, but his blending of the varied colours created beautiful flower beds on either side of a central walk

Iris's and long stemmed grow freely with daises and poppies. Roses climb the iron arches and you can wander along the main and sidewalks which divide the flower beds admiring the varied varieties of flowers.

It is certainly not a place to be missed, especially the Water Garden. In 1893 Claude Monet bought the land lower down and using the waters from the small stream- the Ru – there he created a small pond the first attempt of what was to be a much larger pond, this he planted with Water Lilies –Nymphéas.

Eventually the small pond was made much bigger and the Water Lily Garden, which is famed throughout the world as a result of his paintings, was created.

Here also is the famous Japanese bridge with the wisterias growing over it in profusion. There are weeping willows and smaller bridges but the Japanese bridge is a must to view and possible have your photo taken on.

But as a founder of the ‘impressionist’ style of painting, and his wonderful Water Nymphéas paintings he has made the gardens a must to visit.

After Monet’s death in 1926 his step daughter Blanche looked after the garden, but after the Second Worlds War they became neglected. In 1966 the Academie des Beaux-Arts became responsible for them and in 1977 restoration was started. In 1980 thanks mainly to this work which was greatly helped by donations from the USA, the gardens were opened to the public.

The bit that amused me finally was when standing by the Water Gardens a voice behind me was asking a friend if Monet still looked after the gardens himself. I started to explain some of the story behind the gardens pointing to the bridge and the various plants, and explaining the part his family and then how the restoration came about. After a short while I turned to look behind me to see if the two ladies were still listening and found not just two ladies but a small crowd of about twenty had gathered. It seemed I was amongst the few that like to know before I visit what I shall be looking at.

The Way Forward

We complain about the way our politician’s fail, in our opinion, they fail to lead us on the golden path to prosperity but do we suggest anything to help!

The current problems are down to them or maybe us as we elected them! But then they were the cause because they didn’t follow our words of wisdom! What of the future? It’s a fact that what people have they will be loathe to give up hence the protests in Greece, Cairo, Tunisia and others. So we have to take what we can back but don’t expect much cooperation. The answer is don’t give away anything more.

To start with all Government departments are overloaded. So don’t recruit any more staff, redeploy that which you have. Retire everybody at the same age. In the U.K. that is 65 at the moment, and it should apply to all workers throughout Europe – private or civil service. They won’t agree to that! But why not, it should be a new retirement age for all or out on your ear, they will have to listen. Strike they will cry – if they wish go on then strike, but we should make sure it’s without pay.

The biggest problem is too many people. True we cannot go in for mass extermination of sections of the people. But why keep producing more than we need! The world wide increase in population over the last century has been from 1,650 Million to 6,707 million. True the fertility rate in the developed countries is 1-2 children, but even in the U.S.A. it is 2-3 children. This fertility rate should reduce the numbers that draw on those nations resources. But Sub Saharan Africa and some Middle East countries have a fertility rate of 5-6 children and in some areas 7-8 children. And now with the ease of movement from one country to another, immigration is having a drastic effect on some of the indigenous populations.

As much as one country would like to assist another, we cannot support a massive explosion of population in other countries. And that is exactly what we are trying to do. Our governments must stop giving our money away and spend it more wisely at home. We should reduce any form of benefit that encourages more than a fertility of 1-2 children. I didn’t say stop but taxation after two children would stop much of the unbalance that is occurring in some developed countries by the immigrant population taking advantage of the child benefit allowances.

The use of the motor car draws on the petroleum industry; in the first place the design of electric cars should have greater emphasis. We can produce electricity from nuclear power; thereby our reliance on petroleum will be reduced. Something that will take our power supply needs away from external influence which should be seriously considered. It will also help to reduce climate change by less pollution.

Maybe you don’t agree with these comments. I can think of other ways forward, but maybe your comments may have some, and your opinion on my suggestions are very welcome1

To Blog or not to Blog

The last few months seem to have come and gone. Work on my books and the printing seems to have occupied all of my time, consequently I have seemed to have had a chaotic past twelve months and blogging has got less and less – well I now hope to rectify that and get into a regular routine. First if anyone is interested they can go on line to Amazon.co.uk or .com depending on your geographical location! Click onto patrick c coulson and both paperbacks and kindle sales will be revealed?

I am now back on the volcano and writing diligently for the next book in the ‘Celestial Seven ‘ series but intend to blog as well! And also a small amount of tweeting. So I shall start with a little of my personal life.

For those that have read my blogs in the past – and everyone is welcome to go over old ground and read previous blogs – they are meant to be general and interesting, a quick brief look into things I have done or think. Think is possibly the more boring but should I hope nevertheless give the reader something to conjecture with.

Having changed homes last year and also having some much needed refurbishment on my Tenerife villa has meant a continual tramp of builders – carpenters – conservatory erection men tramping through our life. At this very moment I can see and hear drilling for new locks on the doors in progress. And I still manage to write, still the sun is shining and the temperature is very pleasant – my wife swims in the open pool every day. In England it is still very chilly or so I am reliably informed by my granddaughter who is looking after our house.

The cat is pleased to see us back here – Miss Hiss is what could be loosely described as a feral cat. Having adopted us ten years ago she still will not allow us to touch her and if approached arches her back and hisses at us – hence her name. We where away for eight months last year and within minutes of our return appeared on the doorstep asking for food. We were treated to mice and lizards being placed on our balcony for several days as by way of an explanation of her diet when we were not here. She is back on her favourite seat every day, for most of the day – except for regular meals - and still remains outside at night by choice!

Well for those that might be interested I shall be opening some interest blogs by the end of the week so don’t forget to log in.

Regards to my followers old and new - Patrick