MANILVA OVER THE WEEKEND.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY/MONDAY 4th/5th/6th FEBRUARY 2012.

On Saturday morning as we got up the sun was out and the forecast was for more sun and getting warmer over the weekend; after breakfast Brenda popped out for some local shopping and on her way back spotted the new Manilva Cycle Club ‘ El Club Ciclista De Manilva ’in Calle Mar taking some PR pictures, I shot up our street and got my first picture with the new camera ! The other pictures came off the Manilva web page – thanks. The club was formed in November 2011 and the council have backed it along with various sponsors down in Sabinillas; after our usual walk Brenda settled down to some washing and cleaning as it was a good drying day, up on the roof terrace it gets warmer as it is shelted from the breeze’s,Cheta loves laying on top of the water tank –sunning her self as Brenda does the ironing out on the terrace ! Meanwhile I was trying to go online on the sports channel on which I watch all the sport in England; sadly with no luck, it would not connect, I tried all day with no result so it meant that I missed the City game, they beat Fulham 3-0 in the snow; it was also the start of the Six Nations rugby so I did not see England beat Scotland at Murrayfield. Over here both Madrid and Barcelona won in the coldest conditions that they have played in for many years; the game at Barcelona was the late kick-off at 10 pm and it was minus two so all the players has their gloves and snoogs on except Puyol who was in short sleeves as usual and played his heart out, at the moment he is playing tremendous football and attacking all the time and is even scoring goals ! After our supper of Steak and Chips with all the trimmings we watched the football highlights from the Premier League in the UK on the Spanish sports channel. I then tried for one last time to bring up the sports channel on the PC and found out why it was not coming online; the ‘ ICE Homeland Security Investigation Department ’ in the USA had closed it down for illegal use of copyright etc. “ Oops !!

Sunday morning was another glorious day and it soon reached 16degs. As forecast with more to come on Monday and Tuesday and the rest of next week is also starting to look OK. We got the Sunday Roast on the go – Loin of Pork with Chestnut Stuffing and of course Brenda’s vegetables; Cauliflower and Broccoli florets in Cheese sauce, Glazed Baby Carrots, Cabbage with Alselgas and Garden Peas along with Baby new Potatoes, skinned and of course my Goose Fat roasted Potatoes. The finger licking Gravy was cooking out and in the evening I finished off the Pork with caramelized Apple slices!
At lunchtime Mano and Anna called and Anna set up the new camera and solved one of my problems, I’ am now able to delete pictures from the memory. I had spoken to Brian on Facebook in the morning and he sent me some details about a new live sports,film,tv and radio channel that he gave me the details for a couple of weeks ago if I ever needed a new channel so I would be able to watch the sport etc. ! Sadly it was not in time to watch the football, Manchester Utd,drew with Chelsea and in one “ Helluva ” game over in Dublin the new Wales team beat the Irish with a thrilling finish and lots of tries and incidents in the Six Nations Rugby.
In the evening Andy and Maria joined us for dinner as you can see in the picture below; when he arrived Andy finished off the setting up of the new sports channel and showed me how to connect it – it worked! He then set about sorting out the problem with transferring the pictures from the new camera to the PC and then onto the blog; it turns out the USB ports on the large PC are not reading so he is going to update them, he then connected the Casio camera disk on our second PC and it worked straight away – as you can see below. Andy and Maria them watched a film with us after our local Strawberries and Ice cream to end a “Helluva” day in sunny Manilva that you can see in the picture of the valley and mountains below.

Yesterday,Monday,it was warm and sunny as we set off with Mano and Anna to the hospital on the far side of Marbella for Brenda’s appointment. We dropped Anna in Puerto Banus as she was going to have a walk around window shopping – her next favourite pastime! Brenda went into the consultants right on time and after her check up they said that everything was fine but she would need a Biopsy – we thought that it would mean another visit but they were able to arrange it within the next hour ! We retired to the cafeteria and had a Menu Del Dia lunch between us sat on the balcony outside in the sunshine - 19degs ! We then went back downstairs and Brenda was on the operating table just like that and had a local anesthetic before they took the small Biopsy from her thigh and then two stitches !!At the same time they arranged the next appointment with the consultant to get the results. All very efficient and quick !
In the evening for supper we had Minute Steak with square chips and salad for Brenda and a fried egg for me; the late film “ Heat ” from 1995 is a cracking story about cops and robbers in Los Angeles – Al Pacino is the good cop with family problems and Robert De Niro is the vicious and ruthless bank robber, John Voigt plays a creepy fixer and Val Kilmer is De Niro’s sidekick with his wife played by Ashley Judd, it is very gripping and you must watch it right up to the end. The only technical problem was we were watching the film on a channel that has the longest and most frequent commercial brakes – six minutes ! They start and finish without warning as all the Spanish channels do so it makes the film twice as long !!
The pictures above were taken this morning on our walk when we discovered another part of the old village; the orange trees are in a small square and the exotically painted stationery shop is in a street that we have not been down before, they have started work on the new centre of the village and on the way back we spotted the small ‘ Churro ’shop that only opens on a Saturday and Sunday morning.


Thought for Today;

Money does not change men, it merely unmasks them.


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