MANILVA MID - WEEK

WEDNESDAY 17^th/ THURSDAY 18^th/ APRIL 2013.

After the early morning excitement of the UGT – union protest I have ended up with the Red Flag in support of the members, whatever next! The council is communist and in most parts I support them but I have to agree to differ on some of their policies!!

The day started sunny and went hotter as the day went on, the forecast is for more of the same over the weekend and into next week but a little cooler; we then settled down in front of the PC to watch the funeral of Baroness Thatcher on my new channel in full screen with the excellent coverage of the days events on BBC1 with David Dimbleby; the coverage, which the BBC excels at was very informative and his studio guests added to the occasion.

I love the ceremonial side of these occasions and our armed forces are at their the best, the ‘Slow March’ which was always my favorite, was at 70 paces per minute and was in fact a ‘quick’ slow march especially to be able to follow the horse drawn hearse as the horse’s can’t walk that slow! Two of the main Welsh Guards in charge of the bearer party were brothers; one was the Colour Sergeant Major and the elder is a Major, both served in the Falklands War and where on the ‘Sir Galahad’ when it was attacked! In a swathe that stretched nearly three miles through London, the ordinary people of Middle England turned out in their tens of thousands to pay their last respects to Margaret Thatcher.

At St.Paul’s old friends, old foes along with friends, celebrities and family joined in a traditional service with ‘Proper’ Hymns and readings; Margaret Thatcher’s granddaughter displayed a steely composure worth of the Iron Lady herself, as the 19 year old ‘Texas Rose’ made a perfectly-delivered reading at the Lectern without hardly looking down in a strong pronounced ‘Texas’ accent – an extraordinarily self-assured reading with remarkable poise and confidence.

As a very good friend said it you didn’t like her, don’t watch, if you did, have it on during the day – whichever way have some dignity!!

Later in the afternoon we took our friend Gillian over to the bus station in Marbella as she was flying back from Malaga on her way to the Isle of Wight where she has sold her house. The weather by then was up to 26degs and it was glorious drive over to sunny Marbella.For supper we had Minute Steak with crisp Chips and a sauce boat of the ‘Charcutiere’ sauce from the night before – delicious and very tasty, even if a do say so myself! It was time for the second episode of the Spanish Masterchef on TVE1 – sadly to say it’s not very good –last nights elimination test was to make a simple Cheese Flan, it was just unbelievable as they could not even make the pastry and some of the finished flans where terrible! Oh dear.

This morning, Thursday it was a little overcast as we went for our walk with dog around the village and checked out how the work is going on in the three projects in the village, as you can see in the rather overcast pictures above. Before we went out we had our showers and as usual I was playing my 50s Blues Music very loud – my ‘Hot’ track at the moment is ‘Natural World’ by Sonny Landreth – it rocks and we can’t stop jigging around – now there’s a sight for sore eyes to think about!

Tonight for supper we are having flattened Chicken Breast coated in fresh breadcrumbs and cooked in foaming Lemon Butter with Sautéed dry-cooked sliced Baked Potatoes with a rich homemade Tomato salsa on the side, our next door neighbour has just passed in some fresh Broad Beans from her Campo for Brenda!

Thoughts for the Day;

Give your stress wings and let it fly away. Life is short, wear tropical shirts!  The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.

..

.