Costa Rica
Well I am finally away from the company I used to work for in Gibraltar and due to start my new job in Costa Rica on Monday. I'm writing this in the early hours of the morning as I went to bed at 23:15 local time which is 07:15 in Spain and woke up a little under four hours later. I am sure the jet lag will pass.

I arrived at 6pm by which time it was already dark, it is warm enough but very humid, I'm worried about the camera and lenses growing mould on the inside. I'll have to get some silica gel packs.

Mental note: Always get a lot of small bills, giving people a 5 dollar tip for carrying your suitcases from the arrivals lounge at the airport to the taxi is excessive.

The restaurant at hotel Jade is fantastic. I was presented with a little appetiser consisting of two little thinly sliced discs of bread that had been grilled with olive oil until crisp, covered with a piece of lettuce and a lump of a delightfully sharp mix of tuna, peppers, onions and tomatoes lightened with a little lime. Unfortunately the crisp bread gave way mid-bite and most of the first one ended up on a page of the menu. The friendly staff brought me a couple more.

The soup arrived with hot bread rolls and a small bowl of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and rosemary. The soup itself was excellent, mind you I think it's hard to go wrong with green lentils, it was a hearty farmer type soup with a little smoked bacon a few cubes of carrot, potato etc. After clearing away the very empty bowl the waiter brought a lime sorbet which looked great, tasted superb and was just the ticket for clearing the palate.

The steak arrived with a simply superb mix of fresh saute'd vegetables and some gratinated potato. I followed this up with a pleasant and well presented chocolate mousse and washed it down with a couple of glasses of wine. The service was friendly, courteous and very efficient. All in all it came to about $50 US which although expensive by Costa Rican standards is a steal for someone from western Europe.

Kay has been an absolute saint helping me to get all my affairs tidied up. Maria is quite upset and has said that it's better that we switch to friends mode. My mum is a little worried, she's not feeling too well at the moment and is concerend about me getting yellow fever, dengue fever malaria and tennis elbow.

My good friend Ken has had a blow, his girlfriend has just died and I worry about him. One day Ken's story will be told in full. He was the first person to put a Bristol engine in an AC Ace, then the AC factory employed him, where he put bigger and bigger engines into the little AC until they had a 289ci Ford engine in it. Then Carole Shelby who had nothing to do with the project whatsoever camed along and bought AC's production output and told everyone he had developed a car called the AC Cobra.

Anyway now I'm away from home for a bit I'm sure there will be more time for blog updating.