MANILVA OVER THE WEEKEND AND AT THE START OF THIS WEEK

SATURDAY 12^th/SUNDAY 13^th/MONDAY 14^th/ JANUARY 2013.

On Saturday after going down to the Sports Complex we came back to Bar Rojas and sat in the lunchtime sunshine and had a nice drink and some Tapas; in the afternoon I watched a little football from England, sadly Everton could only draw at home against Swansea. In the evening for supper we had our Steak a la Plancha with Baked Potatoes and a little salad before we settled down to watch “ Mission Impossible 111 ” from 2006 with Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise, Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the Baddie( Very good) and Michelle Monahan as the love interest.

We had a little lie in on Sunday morning and then got the roast on the go, as you can see in the pictures Blog below! After we finished and had freshened up we had a Smoked Bacon Buttie to keep us going; I then retired to the office to watch the football from England, Liverpool lost to Manchester Utd. 1-2 but played very well for last 30 mins and deserved a draw! Then Manchester City won at Arsenal for the first time since 1975 – 0-2 in a very hard game – down to ten men on both sides. In the evening over here meanwhile in ‘ La Liga ’Real Madrid had a goalless score at Osasuna ( The bottom team in LA Liga) Ronaldo was suspended and it means that they are now 19 points behind Barcelona who won down here in Malaga 1-3 with Messi scoring one!

Mano and Anna joined us for dinner and brought a very nice bottle of Champagne which we had with a touch of Cassis; dinner was rather special with all the vegetables, especially the Parsnip Chips and the Gravy was to die for! The pictures below show the meal at an early stage before we finish it off in the evening.

This morning, Monday we went down to the Cultural Department Offices next to the Sports Office to enquire about a coach trip to Cadiz in February; we bumped into Mario and thanked him for arranging the tickets for the basketball this Friday then our friend Lucy who works in the office told us about the trip. It is on Sunday the 10^TH/ February and leaves at 8-00am in the morning and does not get back until after 10-00pm! It is the ‘ Carnival ’ in Cadiz which takes place over ten days from the 7^th to the 17^th February and is the largest in Spain and one of the top three in the world!- with millions of visitors to the city and all the hotels booked for years in advance. This weekend in the city the food festivals have started and also over the next few weeks the singing groups “ Quartets Chirigota ”perform at the spectacular ‘Gran Teatro Falla’ It is ‘ Party Time ’in a big way with lots of live music and singing, rides and fireworks,Tablaos and by tradition you dress in should dress in fancy dress costumes and masks !! Watch this space. We have booked our tickets !! Cadiz is spectacular – it is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest in Spain; it is the principle home port of the Spanish Navy since the 18^th century. It is situated on a narrow slice of land surrounded by sea and to get to it you either cross a spectacular bridge or a causeway. The Old Town ( Casco Antiguo) is where you can easily get lost in the narrow streets as we did last time in the car.

PS; The pictures above show the ongoing work on the ‘ Plaza Pozo Del Rey’ and the children’s playground on another fine day here in sunny Manilva.

Thoughts for the Day;

We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.  Not all those who wander are lost.

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