MANILVA THIS WEEK.

MONDAY/SUNDAY 12TH/18TH JULY 2010.

Well we have had one “ Helluva ” week in a very hot and sunny Manilva; the weather has now settled down to extremely hot every day and very warm during the night – 37degs during the day and 30degs at night ! On Monday after the celebrations of the night before we had a little lie in and then caught up with the chores around the house; the cooking is kept to minimal at this time of the year so we are living on salads at lunchtime and quick and easy to cook in the evening, Pan Fried Chicken breast in Balsamic comes on the menu a lot, anything that requires some cooking I see too first thing in the morning such as Curry and some of our favorite Potatoe dish’s. In the afternoon we have a little siesta and then move up to the roof terrace as the sun moves around; at this time of the year we hear and see a lot of the fire planes and helicopters, painted Yellow,as they take the water from the sea and then go and attack the fires inland, this week there was a bad one just behind Estepona and 200 people had to be evacuated ! We have our cocktail hour and catch up with our reading and then come down to the chill-out room to listen to some good music using the Spotify system on the PC with the speakers turned right up ! Each day I play different music, this week it’s been Jools Holland, Dire Straits, Buddy Holly,Stevie Wonder and Creedence Clearwater Revial ! We have supper as late as possible and then usually walk up to Bar Rojas for Carajillo’s;this week as you have seen Manolo has been constructing the Sonbrajo and yesterday it was finished; on Wednesday we stayed up at the Bar as he does most of the work at night and watched and supervised along with all the locals, everybody has an opinion so it gets a bit loud and Spanish as the night goes on! Thursday evening we had a rocking night at the free concert and on Friday morning we did the weekend shopping, we have not seem much of Mano and Anna this week as he has been putting in a new damp course outside their house; We had to be up early on Saturday morning as the painters and decorators had arranged to come at 8-30 to repair,plaster,paint and decorate all the spots and ceilings that have been effected by the winter rains, on insurance; what we did not realize was that they were going to paint everywhere, which meant that we had to take everything down including curtain pelmets in the three bedrooms, my office was cleared of all the pictures and posters, the lounge was stripped and the bathroom and upstairs utility room were emptied ! When they left us we could not get them to move and put things back up as the paint had to dry so we ended up on the hottest day of the year with a Helluva job on our hands to get things back to normal! I had to borrow a stepladder from Manolo to put the curtains back up, meanwhile Brenda started cleaning,mopping,brushing,moving as I put up all the pictures and posters; we ended up loosing weight as we lost a lot of sweat in all our hard endeavors. So in the evening after cold showers we went up to Bar Rojas for some supper ,sat under the new Sombrajo as their first customers and took in the cooling evening breeze as the world went by and talked to Lumy.Today we are having a at home day and have not made any plans, we will see what comes along!

During the week I have been reporting on the Tour de France as you can see, it is my sport and the live coverage in Spain is fantastic; Jeff and Annette are back in Kuala Lumpur after their travels so we will catch up with them on Skype next week. Jenny phoned to let us know when she and Norah are coming over for their holiday in September and Tim has had to change his plans and is now coming over with Thea at the end of October just before we go to the villa in Guadalmina for five weeks

Thought for the Day;

It’s never too late to be who you might have been.

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