Spain 1982
Travels through the alphabet — one country at least for every letter
I have only been to Spain once, to my shame — since it is a fascinating country. Only to northern Spain, to the Basque country. In many ways, since the Basque people see themselves as ethnically different from the rest of Spain, I have not been to Spain.
I certainly want to travel there whenever it’s possible, there is so much to see. We were about to book a trip with some friends, then Brexit happened and travel into Europe was uncertain, then the pandemic hit and it all dissolved. So we never made it to Grenada or Barcelona — both of which I want to visit, but also the interior, in winter, of course, to avoid the heat.
But I can tell you a little about Mount Umbe, Bilbao, Las Arenas, and San Sebastian. So I shall.
Margaret and I were at college together and we got to know each other’s husbands and socialised with them from time to time. I am with my first husband and have a son in 1980. Margaret has a daughter in 1981, then she and Geoff move to northern Spain for employment reasons. Geoff is an engineer, working on a radar project at the time. My ex-husband is a communications engineer and thus the men have some shared approaches to life. Margaret and I both share a love of cooking and food at the time, though we both go into very…
