A CLEAR & WARM SUNNY MANILVA ON WEDNESDAY;

WEDNESDAY 19^th / OCTOBER 2016.

I was up again this morning, first thing, to see ‘Reina’ back with us for the day, ‘Pax’ has slept all night, he’s full of joy and jumps around when it’s time to go out for his first walk of the day, we went down to the bottom of the village this morning, when we returned we had our normal breakfast before getting the day on the go, Brenda is washing/ shampooing her hair, then she’s going along to the Chemists for her prescriptions tablets, meanwhile I’m up in the office/studio on the WWW.

The Council, this morning, have started to cut/trim some of the overgrown tress along 'Calle Mar' - it's a start but a lot more is needed to be done to take them back to normal, watch this space!

It’s clear this morning with just some cloud on the high mountains, there is no breeze and by lunchtime, as yesterday, the sun will break through and it will get a little warmer, the rest of the week in now looking settled, the threat of the wet stuff has gone away, for now, the rest of Spain is covered in cloud & rain.

See the picture below taken this morning of the promenade in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, it’s for the Moffatt’s, Tim & Thea, at the moment in Madrid!

Yesterday afternoon Mano & Anna called in for a chat & gossip, they also collected a large tub of my famous ‘ Minestrone Soup’! They had some rather sad news, earlier in the morning they had to call the local vet to their two dogs, both a very good age, ‘ Derick’ the very small ‘Yorkshire Terrier’ & ‘ Feria’ the large lady ‘Boxer Dog’- they have been together for many years, ‘Derick’ had gone blind and ‘Feria’ has lost the use of her legs and was not eating, they have been looking after them for the last two weeks, while Mano has been on holiday, the Vet then decided that it was best to put them both to sleep and Mano later buried them both together in the garden, we looked after them a few years ago when Mano & Anna went on holiday, both the dogs were always together.

For this evenings supper I’m making, later, a ‘ Calves Liver, Sausage & Smoked Bacon Red Wine Onion & Mushroom Casserole’ with Brenda’s famous Mashed Potato & Cabbage with Acelgas, tomorrow we are having ‘ Grilled Chicken Wings’ – on Friday its ‘ Fish Night’ and then on Saturday its ‘ Steak Night’ – Sunday we are fancying ‘Lamb’- watch this space.

Yesterday evening after supper we watched the next episode in the new series of ‘ Great Continental Railway Journeys’ with Michael Portillo, this week he travelled from Riga in Lativa on to Tallinn in Estonia before crossing the Gulf of Finland to Helsinki, he then joined the fast/ tilting train ( Italian built !) to Tempere, the ‘ Manchester’ of Finland, the history of the three regions is fascinating, under the old Russian regime, as they gained independence if different ways,  ‘Tempere’ is also where our old friend Lilli lives so it was very interesting to see the town and the countryside, the land of the midnight sun, with 180,000 lakes, where it never goes dark!

Then on ‘ Later with Jools Holland’ he featured ‘ K T Tunstall ’ with her band performing some new tracks, she was first on the same programme back in 2004 singing the classic “ Black Horse and the Cherry Tree “!

See below a picture taken yesterday from an unusual angle of the “ Radio City Tower “ originally called the ‘ St.John’s Beacon’  - it was built back in 1965/69 by the slip-formed concrete method of pouring the concrete all the time, I was the Manager of the ‘ Stork Hotel’ right opposite the construction and did the ‘ Topping Out Ceremony’ for the builders,( 452 feet high !) - it was officially opened by the Queen in 1969, we went with friends to the revolving restaurant after it opened, later it was taken over by the radio station, a old friend of Jane’s, Dean Sullivan ( ex Brookside’s Jimmy Corkhill!) ) who had a afternoon show which I used to watch via the web-cam and even went ‘ on air’ from here in sunny Manilva!

Thoughts for the Day; See above.