CRISP AND WARM IN SUNNY MANILVA ON WEDNESDAY;

WEDNESDAY 26^th/ FEBRUARY 2014.

We were up bright and early this morning and picked Josie up to take her across to ‘La Linea De La Concepcion’ so as she could catch her flight back to Manchester from Gibraltar airport – see the picture above; she then catches a train to Middlesbrough before getting home to Skelton above Whitby! We are looking forward to seeing her again next time she is over with her husband Den at the end of March after her great adventure by train for her birthday! Please let us know so as we can arrange to pick you up!!

The weather today is crisp and warm with bright sunshine; that’s why you can’t see the ‘Rock’ in the picture above!

I then called into the Traffic Department office opposite the border to check to see if my Spanish driving Licenses had arrived; it had but you have to make an appointment on-line to exchange and collect it!! Nearly there – watch this space. We then called into McDonalds for a Sausage and Egg Mac Muffin and tea! On the way back we called into ‘Super Sol’ for our English shopping.

When we came back to the house I made the ‘Braised Steak and Onions ‘for tonight’s supper; I first sauté off a lot of sliced Onions, dust the Braising steak in seasoned flour and brown it off, its then time to make the sauce with chopped Onions, Garlic, Carrot, Turnips, Leeks, Celery, Baby Mushrooms and Green Beans – all sweated off, the secret ingredients added including Tomato Frito and then de-glazed with a large slug of Brenda’s red wine; I adjust the seasoning,colouring and consistency after adding a rich Beef & Vegetable stock before I then put the dish together ready to go in the oven tonight to finish cooking! Brenda made a dish of her famous Mashed Potato which also goes in the oven later to brown and crisp. She also has Cabbage with local Acelgas.

Later this morning the first set of pictures arrived on Facebook from Australia; Tim,Thea.Wes and Judith seem to be having a ‘Helluva ‘ time! They have done Melbourne over the last few days as you can see in the pictures above; the city looks spectacular along with the famous trams, they went down the ‘Great Ocean Road’ and went over the ’12 Apostles’ on a spectacular helicopter flight! More to follow as they are now going on to another adventure – watch this space.

Last night after watching the football we then found a film to watch “ Forces Speciales ” from 2011 – it’s a French film with a little English and Persian spoken – its about a hostage rescue operation by French Special Forces to free a captured famous lady journalist who has been kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan; Diane Kruger plays the journalist and Djimon Housou, Beniot Magimel,Mehdi,Tchaky and Raz Degan are in the strong cast, what makes it rather different is that it is very realistic and show’s the French Elite Unit who were trained by an actual  French Special Forces Naval Unit, the weapons and technology are right up to date and the story is very gripping and you need to watch it right up to the end!

Thought for the Day; See above.

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