MANILVA THIS WEEKEND.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY 9^th/10^th JULY 2011.

On Saturday morning after our ‘ Campo ‘ Poached Eggs on Toast we pottered about the house and decided to have a at home day, the village goes very quiet when it is hot, they all go with the children down to the ‘ Playa ’

and come back in the late afternoon,Cheta came up to the house and played around on the marble floor as it is the coolest spot for her. We then walked up to Bar Rojas for our lunchtime ‘ Snifter ’ under the Sonbrajo,Manolo is extending it ready for the Vendemia festival and works on it in the morning and late at night with help from his friendly customers as you can see in the picture below ! In the evening we had ‘ Steak a la Plancha ’ with Baked Potato and salad for supper before watching a film on TV.

Sunday morning after a lie in and freshening ourselves up, we shower either first thing in the morning or late in the evening, we then called Jack and Lyn over in Melbourne on the Skype video; it is their winter over there and they both had their woolly jumpers and had not been out due to the cold and rain ! Lyn has had a cataract operation on one eye and is having the other one done at the beginning of September so they are taking it easy and have no plans at the moment, they are going up to Sydney for Christmas with Jacks side of the family and are now starting to talk about going to see Jeff and Annette over in Kuala Lumpur next year and then onto England before stopping off with us on the way back ! Watch this space. We then walked up to Bar Rojas with Cheta for our Sunday Lunchtime drink.Mano and Anna went past in the executive ‘Lexus ’ as Mano’s car is off the road so he was able to use it for the weekend, they parked up and came back along Calle Mar with Fabio who had stayed with them on Saturday night; we then caught up with all the news as we had not seen Mano for a couple of weeks, I went into the kitchen to say hello to Lumy and found out that she was cooking a Paella so we had some small Tapas portions when it was ready, she had also made one of Brenda’s favorite dishes, Diced Liver and Potato in a rich sauce,everthing was straight from the kitchen and very delicious ! We then came back to the house and I watched the Grand Prix from Silverstone on the PC with the full BBC coverage, it was very exciting right up to the last lap, Alonso won after the Red Bull team made a mistake in the pits, Webber was third after the Red Bull management told him not to pass Vettel on the final lap ! In the evening we had some thinly sliced Pork Loin pan fried in foaming Lime Butter with ‘ Pink ’new potatoes and salad before settling down to watch a film.Mano and Anna called in on their way home to say hello, they still had Fabio with them as he was going to stay another night, he always goes up stairs to the chill out room and switches on the fountain as he is fascinated with it !

TOUR DE FRANCE 2011.

On Saturdays stage from Aiguare to Supur- Besse- Sancy over 189kms. Portugal’s Rui de Costa was the sole survivor of a nine man breakaway as he secured his first Tour stage win of his career,Thor Hushovd surprisingly climbed into the main group to retain the Yellow Jersey for another day.

Sunday’s stage in the Massif Central was from Issoir to Saint Flour over 202kms with eight climbs on the way ! The Massif Central scenery is spectacular but this stage was marred by two serious accidents, the first was on a steep decent when a large group of riders went off the narrow road into the trees, six had to retire with various broken bones and then a French TV car hit a rider who then knocked another rider into a barbed wire fence ! Meanwhile a Spanish rider in the three man breakaway, Lois Leon Sanchez won but the ride of the day and the new Yellow Jersey was taken by Thomas Voeckler from France when he rose fro 19^th overall to head the general classification as you can see in the pictures above, Contador fell of his bike after his handlebars got tangled with another rider saddle and is now 4 min 6secs behind the leader, Today is a rest day so it will give time for all the riders to rub their wounds and treat their scratches ready for tomorrow’s stage.

Thought for the Day;

As one goes through life, one learns that if you don’t paddle your own canoe, you don’t move.

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