GUADALMINA ALTA.

Monday/Wednesday 1st/3rd. December 2008.

After the weekend festivities we settled back into life at the villa;the two house cats have been coming and going as normal and the wild cats outside,now down to four,are still hanging around waiting to be fed.Bruno has not been his normal self as he has a sore paw so we have been walking him at a gentle pace and bathing it in warm salty water,there is no sign of the fish in the fountain but their feed is gone in the morning!The garage rang to say that the part had arrived from Madrid and they would call us when the car was ready;the pressure cap took no time to fix and reprime the system but it turned out that the door lock part that had broken,a very small and simple plastic clip and wire, took over five hours to repair as they had to strip down the door to its metal frame! They took some pictures to show us what they had to do,this was after they had been on the Smart car repair site on the Web,as usual nothing is simple with the Smart car!! Hermann,the “Auto Doctor” then brought the car up to villa from Estepona late on Monday night.On Tuesday we popped out in the car to give it a little run as we had to call into the bank and catch up with the shopping,over the weekend we had to use the Toyota Land cruiser as the Astra has a flat tyre which was like that when we arrived!Today the tree surgeon was due to come and treat the Palm tree as well as chop down and tidy up the trees at the bottom of the garden but he has just rung to say that he is ill!We are still waiting to hear when the folks are coming home,it could be on Thursday or even Friday so we have arranged for the cleaner,Merly,to come tomorrow;at the moment the gardener,Miguel,is out side the front door planting a display of Poinsettias.