Mr Grumpy

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This we decided to spend that pointless and depressing period between Christmas day and New year’s day in the UK. The week where there are no schools, hardly anyone works and very little gets done.

It was probably a good time as most of the people we wanted to see were off work, so able to catch up with us, and after not seeing them for 20 months plus it was perhaps overdue.

However, my prolonged absence from the UK made a few things stand out far more than others :

1) God how cold is it ? - I know it is cold in Spain at the moment, but this is a different sort of cold (if that makes sense)

2) How dark and grey is it ? - Honestly, I was debating whether or not to bring my sunglasses with me to the UK or not as I was parking my car at the airport. I needn't have bothered. It just about gets daylight by noon, remains grey for three or four hours, and then starts to get dark again.

3) EVERYBODY is constantly moaning about something (I know what you are thinking : "Pot" and "Kettle"...)

4) If everybody is so skint all the time, why are all the shops and supermarkets constantly heaving ? Consumerism in the UK is still as mad as it ever was.

5) It is impossible to get a decent cup of coffee anywhere. And I mean coffee as opposed to that overpriced pretentious Skinny-Latte-Mocha-chino-Frappe with gingerbread sprinkles crap that they serve in Starbucks. At the other end of the scale the likes of the Golden Arches serves half a cup of bitter, gritty scalding hot 'coffee' in a polystyrene cup, but zero chance of getting a decent coffee at a fair price.

6) The Pubs : Demanding cash up front from you before they hand your round of drinks over to you and calling 'time'. What's that all about ?

7) Out shopping in Town all I was appalled how almost every girl between the ages of 16 and 22 was overly made-up, over weight and wearing leggings and Ugg boots whilst pushing a baby in a pram who was sucking on a Greggs sausage roll.

8) Central Heating, Cavity wall insulation and carpets are great. My daughter asked if we could have 'some of that fluffy stuff for walking on' at home. Whatever will they think of next ?

9) I have seriously lost count of the number of times that I have either fallen up or down a flight of stairs this week (and yes, I have been mostly sober). Living in a Finca, built on one level, I am just not used to carrying a scalding hot cup of tea down a flight of (carpeted) stairs wearing socks - it's an accident waiting to happen.

10) Hardly anyone shops in Town centres anymore. Unless they are going there to look for a charity shop or pound shop.