A DRY AND SUNNY MANILVA AT THE MOMENT ON MONDAY AT THE START OF THE WEEK;

MONDAY 23^rd/ MARCH 2015.

No lie in this morning as the workmen arrived early and commenced knocking the outside walls down, just a couple of days more,hopefully,and the main demolition work will be complete, the one problem that we have now is that the bathroom in particular is a lot colder and damp as well as smelling of plaster, as the rest of the house is, as we are totally unprotected since the 2/3 feet thick walls of the surrounding buildings were knocked down! The plans for the development are on the floor where the builders are working but I can't get to see them!!

I took ‘Scruffy’ for his first walk of the day and he was picked up after breakfast by Rosie; we have a busy week in ‘Doggy World Heaven’ as he’s back on Wednesday morning for the day and then with us on Saturday for a sleep over and all day on Sunday. ‘Reina’ is with us as normal on Tuesday & Thursday.'Chispa' came calling later and we have just been for a short walk as it's threatening to rain again!

At the moment it’s fine, dry and sunny as the rain has stopped after more overnight heavy showers, we will find out the forecast for the week ahead in the early afternoon news, fingers crossed for some better weather and especially for next weeks processions.

Mano called in at lunchtime so we had a good catch up and gossip.

At lunch time we had our weekly 'Menu' planning meeting; on Tuesday we are having for a change 'Steak & Kidney Puddings' steamed and served with Brenda's famous 'Mashed' potato and 'Mushy' Green Peas and not forgetting Gravy! Then on Wednesday its time for a 'Chicken Curry with Basmati Rice' - Thursday is left-overs day before a 'Fish Supper' on Friday.Steak on Saturday as normal and then on Sunday another change as we are out and about later ' Cottage Pie' to die for!!

We are not going on the trip to Cordoba on Saturday as they have changed it to a two day excursion with a hotel stop over on the Saturday night, the cost has risen a lot, so we have decided not to go on this occasion.

The ‘Red Limousine’ service will be in use on Sunday as the ‘Queen of Skelton and her Consort’ are arriving at Gibraltar Airport in the early evening for a two week extended ‘Royal’ visit, all her loyal subjects in sunny Manilva are looking forward to greeting her back and are at the moment arranging all sorts of activities, visits and dining experiences! Watch this space.

Also this week Brenda is planning to go down on Wednesday morning to her hairdressers for the ‘full works’ then on Friday we are down again for the weekly shopping, Its all happening on the ‘Costa Del Sol’ on the week leading up to the first week in April which is the ‘Semana Santa’ week of processions for Easter.

Yesterday here in Andalusia is was the regional elections, that were called early, as the President of Andalusia, Susana Diaz, is 5 months pregnant! Her party the ‘PSOE – Labor’ won the majority of votes but will have to form a coalition with another party to gain overall control of the Parliament in Seville.

The second party is the ‘PP – Conservative’ and the new party ‘Podemos - We Can ’ with its leader Teresa Rodriguez, is now the third party as they won seats from the ‘IU -Comunist’party, for the first time, who used to be in the coalition. Another new party 'Ciudadanos - Citizens ' also won some seats from the other parties at the same time. We are waiting to hear about the new coalition later today – are you paying attention as I will be asking questions later!

'Podemos' have stated that they will not join a coalition so it could possibly be with the 'Ciudadanos' party but Susana Diaz has said the she will govern alone if she has to! The 'plot' thicken !! She has just confirmed that she is going to govern with no coalition - good luck to her - see her picture below;

Meanwhile yesterday I was back up in the office in the afternoon and then again later in the evening to watch on the large PC via the ‘First Row Sports’ channel live football; Liverpool were beaten 1-2 by Manchester Utd after Gerrard was given a Red Card after 38 seconds of the second half and they did not play well but Everton won 1-2 at QPR.

Over here in the ‘Clasico’ before 98,000 spectators in the ‘Nou Camp’ in Barcelona saw their team beat Real Madrid 2-1 when Suarez scored the winning goal, as usual it was a match spoilt by all the fouls, Yellow cards and play acting!

One of the Pensions has just arrived in our Spanish bank account this morning, the ‘Euro’ this morning is down a little, but the Pension is up as the yearly government increase looks like it has come through, I had notification earlier this week that mine was going up 4 pounds a week?!

So this evening for our supper we are having ‘Cold Roast Chicken’ with the leftovers of the vegetables and potatoes. We will then channel hop and find something to watch.

Thoughts for the Day; See above.