33 – The Next Big Thing (Blog-Hop)

The Next Big Thing is a huge round-robin blog-hop of writers, authors, bloggers and journalists who share what they are embarking on next.  The format is a set of questions, which can be varied depending on whether the current baton-holder is an author of books, or an online blogger.

32 – The Show Must Go On

 

8am on the dot.  No need for an alarm clock.  The digger starts up, the sound echoes loudly, bouncing off the walls in the narrow street.  They’re very punctual, the workmen.  Damnit.

31 – Resurfacing the Street

They started resurfacing my street this week.  It does rather need it.  It was in pretty rubbish condition when l viewed my house back in May,

30 – Bubble-Wrap and Pointless Possessions

A motorbike, two heads of antlers, a billiard table and a bonsai tree.  Somebody’s idea of the 5 most important things to take to Spain.   I suppose it must make sense to them.  Conveniently, the person who had booked three quarters of Graham’s transit van for their antlers and other valuables, had left room at the back for my stuff.

29 – Expats or Immigrants?

Expat:   Expatriate.  A person who lives outside their native country(Oxford Dictionaries, online).    Short for expatriate, which comes from the Latin ex patria, meaning out of the homeland.

Immigrant:   A person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country (Oxford Dictionaries, online).

I can’t see a difference in the definitions, at all.  And yet the words appear to be used very differently.  In Spain I have once heard a Dutch woman describe herself as an immigrant, but with that single exception I have only heard European immigrants to Spain describe themselves as expats.