A VERY HOT & SUNNY MANILVA ON FRIDAY AT THE START OF THE ' NOCHE DEL EMBRUJO ' FESTIVAL.

FRIDAY 4^th/ AUGUST 2017.

We were up early this morning and after a quick freshen up we shot off on our travels, in the car, down to Sabinillas for the weekly shopping, Brenda’s firsts’ time in a long while, as we have no dogs in ‘ Doggy World Heaven ‘ We had our toast & tea in ‘ Itzabar ‘ before ‘ Mercadona’ opened, Brenda went off for the ‘English’ newspapers from the ‘ Bookshop’ and I braved the early rush of holidaymakers.

We then went along to the ‘ English Butchers’ in ‘ Puerto de la Duquesa’ and stocked up with, Gammon Steaks, Pork Chops, Lamb Chops, Pork Sausages & Smoked Bacon, Malt Vinegar, Saxa Salt etc. We then came back to Sabinillas and went to the far end of the promenade to the local market for the fresh flowers and wall plants, our last port of call was the main ‘Furniture/ White Good Store ‘ as we needed a new small fan for the kitchen, the old one gave up the ghost this morning, Brenda then treated me to new fan for the office/studio!

We then came back up through the vine fields, the early ‘Muscatel’ grapes are about to go on sale, after unpacking back at the house I put the car away in the underground car park. The Council workmen are finishing the five stages along ‘Calle Mar’- checking the sun awning, installing extra lights and finally washing down the street.

The sun was out early this morning and the sky was bright blue, we had a very hot/sticky night with not much sleep ( 23/24 desg!) Today is going to be very hot and sunny, reaching the high 30s later, tomorrow it’s more of the same for the ‘ Noche Del Embujo’ Next week is now going to be a little cooler, dropping to 28/29 degs, watch this space.

For our supper this evening we are having ‘ Grilled Tail-End of Salmon ‘ with Garden Peas, Parsley New Potatoes and ‘ Hollandaise ‘ sauce on the side. Tomorrow evening we are going along to ‘ Bar Castillo ‘ for a Tapas supper, on Sunday we are then having ‘ Grilled Fillet Steaks’ with all the trimmings.

Last night we had a very nice Tapas supper at ‘Bar Castillo’ – on the next table was Andrian & Rose with ‘ Scruffy’ & Mick & Lllona with their children, to start we had the stuffed Mussels & small grilled Prawns, to follow Brenda had her favourite ‘Rosdao Frito ‘and I had the ‘Fillets of Bread Crumbed Chicken Breast’ with ‘ Frits and topped with a ‘ Campo’ Fried Egg!

As we were sat taking in the sights, sounds & aromas a old friend came along and joined us for beer, ‘Nikito ‘ who is Russian, he was one of the first people we met in the village all those year ago, he ran the ‘IT’ shop and was very helpful with my problems with the old ‘PC’s – he is married to a Russian lady, her mother lives in the village and is married to a local Spanish chap, they now have two children, he went back to Moscow to work and then came back to Spain to work as an engineer, near Cadiz, he’s now back in the village for good, we had a good catch up with all his news, his English is very good.

For the rest of the day we are taking things easy, relaxing and a little ‘ Siesta’ later are called for, we will then after supper find a film to watch, the other night we watched the new movie, just released, “ Dunkirk “ It was a surprise as we were not expecting to see it so soon on the ‘Kodi Film’ channel, it was via a Russian contact but we were able to follow it in English, it’s very realistic, with three separate stories, on land, in the air and at sea, it stars Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, Christopher Nolan and Harry Styles, it’s intense and nerve-wracking, a harrowing story of survival and resistance, don’t miss it!

Thoughts for the Day;  See above.

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