MANILVA LIFE.

TUESDAY 3RD.AUGUST 2010.

This morning I made a Beef and vegetable stew, for a change, as we are getting a little fed up with salads all the time, especially me! We then had a call from Mano to say that they were up at Bar Rojas so we shot up and caught all the news, Anna’s back is a lot better and he is now on top of the repairs to the damp course; in the evening we had the stew with Cabbage and pickled Beetroot and afterwards we went for a walk, this time for a change we went down from the house to the edge of the village and checked out the apartment blocks which have been built over the last few years, they are two/three bed roomed with terrace’s, private pools, lifts and underground parking but they are soulless with no local contacts; for example this morning we have had the plumber in our house to repair the hot water system, at the same time the water board came to the house opposite which is owned by a family from Madrid who come down for a month during August, our neighbour’s from down the street called Brenda down to the shop as the senora who owns the little dog, Cheta,was back from her campo, more locals that pass all the time stopped to talk and others as they went off to the beach discussed the weather – all in Spanish ! At the same time I was watching the TV to see Michelle Obama as she is staying at a exclusive hotel in Benahavis above Marbella for a short holiday with one of her daughters and the local and national press have gone mad, this a massive PR stunt for Marbella and the Costa del Sol !

As we came back up through the street below ours,Calle Andrades,as usual at this time of the night they sit outside their doors and all the children play in the streets; as we passed one house two young boys where sat with a very expensive PC on their lap, I stopped and asked if I could show them our blog as they had an excellent Wi-Fi connection. As it came on a lot of the children came and gathered around to see it; as they spotted family and friends in the Santa Ana pictures they called more people to come and see, soon we had a large audience! The mother of the two boys pointed to the picture of Paco the Chief of Police and said that he was her brother, she then asked me to go on the council web page, which is very good, I follow it all the time, and she showed me a picture of herself,Araceli Luque is the area director for education and of course like everybody in the village she knows or is related to most people that come up in conversation!

We then walked to the top of our street and as we reached the corner there was a loud shout from outside Bar Rojas,Lumy and all the regulars were glued to a small PC and what did they have on the screen, our blog !! We are now famous and are open to giving autographs ! We sat with them and showed them the older blogs from a couple of year ago and our travels in Spain and France in the Winnebago. They also noticed that every time Brenda has her hair done there is a picture showing the result ! It’s a small world.

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