A ' FRESH' & SUNNY MANILVA ON SATURDAY.

SATURDAY 1^st/ FEBRUARY 2020.

We started the weekend with a nice lie in after a week of early starts, after a quick freshen up it was Brenda, as usual on a Saturday morning, turn on the breakfast rota, as I had her famous ‘ Campo’ Poached Eggs on Toast – Scrambled for herself on Brown Toast, with mugs of strong/ hot tea, to set us up for the weekend ahead.

The sun was out first thing and the blue sky had just a few patchy clouds hanging around, as there is a light breeze, so by lunchtime it’s forecast to reach 21 degs+ -  dropping down at night to 13 degs, on all the forecasts for February it’s going to be a unseasonably warm weather record, up by 10/11 degs for the time of the year, reaching in some places 25 degs+ by this coming Monday, tomorrow is just a little cooler, before next week when we are starting on Monday/ Tuesday hovering at around 22/23 degs! It will then go cooler as the next new cold & windy ‘ Atlantic’ front comes in, hovering back down in the mid ‘ teens’ – still overnight 10/11 degs,  by next weekend back up to more record breaking temperatures, watch this space.

On the sports front this weekend; over in the ‘Premiere League’ Liverpool are now 19 points ahead as they welcome Southampton, Everton travel down the M1 to play Watford and Manchester City are in London to play Tottenham Hotspur, over here in ‘La Liga’ Real Madrid welcome their near neighbours Altetico Madrid and Barcelona are at home to Levante.

The ‘ National Hunt Racing’ this afternoon is from Sandown Park.

This afternoon sees the start of the ‘ Guinness Six Nations’ Rugby Union as Wales welcome, down in Cardiff, Italy and later Ireland, over in Dublin, play Scotland, tomorrow France will welcome England, at the start of ‘ Brexit’!! 

Meanwhile back here in sunny Manilva this weekend we have the annual ‘Mushing Racing’ in the hills around the village!

For our supper this evening we are having a large ‘Grilled Rib of Beef’ – on the bone – cooked on a very hot griddle-plate - then left to rest, before taking it off the bone and slicing it into fingers ‘ French’ style, garnished with seared Asparagus Spears, Button Mushrooms & Shallots, accompanied with a classic ‘ Bearnaise’ sauce and served Whole Baby ‘ French’ Green Beans and of course triple-cooked ‘ Frits’

Yesterday evening we watched our regular Friday programmes, as Michael Portillo continued his ‘ Great Asian Railway Journeys ‘ – Sue Barker presented ‘ A Question of Sport ‘ marking it’s 50^th anniversary, Rob Bryden introduced ‘Would I Lie To You ‘ and then Sandy Toksvig, in her own style, presented the latest edition of ‘ QI’ over on BBC 2.

We then followed the countdown to ‘Brexit’ on all the channels, as we hopped from ‘ BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 & Sky TV’!

  

PS; Tomorrow evening at 6-00 pm our time, mid-day/noon over in Everett, Ontario, Canada, we have arranged a ‘ Skype’ video link-up with Sandra & Bill for a news catch up.

Thoughts for the Day;  See above.

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A CLEAR & SUNNY MANILVA ON SATURDAY:

SATURDAY 6^th/ FEBRUARY 2016.

We were up early this morning and after a quick piece of toast and a cup of tea we set off on our travels down to Sabinillas for our weekly shopping; I          called into the bank for some cash before we stopped at the English Bookshop for the local newspapers and to arrange to re-new our Passports, the only problem was that the Passport Photo shop was not open so we will have to go down on Monday and try again! Watch this space.

We then carried on to ‘Mercadona’ for a ‘major’ shop before going along the coast road past a sparkling Mediterranean onto Sotogrande to go to ‘Iceland’ were we stocked up with lots of ‘Goodies’ as well as some essentials! It started off overcast and cloudy but with no breeze and as the morning went on the sun came out and it cleared, by lunchtime it due to reach 18 degs. Tomorrow there is the possibility of some rain as another tail end of an Atlantic storm passes over us on its way to the UK, next week is starting to look dry and settled.

For our supper this evening we are having Grilled ‘Entrecote Steak’ cooked on a very hot griddle plate ‘Med-Rare’ with sautéed Baby Mushrooms, finely sliced Green Beans using the new cutter ( thanks Jane!) and of course some twice-cooked ‘Frits’ Its a large steak so I’m going to cut it ‘French’ style into finger-thick slices and serve on the side ‘Bearnaise’ sauce! Tomorrow morning I’m making a batch of my famous and requested ( Mano & Anna!) ‘Minestrone’ Soup.

Its a big sports weekend as the ‘Six Nations Rugby Union’ kicks off, France welcome Italy and then its the ‘ Calcutta Cup’ game at ‘Murrayfield’ in Edinburgh as Scotland welcome the new England team, David & Jane are guests of the ‘Royal Bank of Scotland’ at the match with the five star ***** treatment! Tomorrow Ireland clash with Wales in Dublin.

I will watch the Horse Racing on Channel 4 from ‘Sandown Park’ before the rugby; meanwhile in the ‘Premiere League’ Manchester City are at home to Leicester ( top of the league!) in the match of the day and Liverpool are at home to Sunderland as Everton travel down the M6 to Stoke, over here in ‘La Liga’ on Sunday Barcelona are away at Levante ( bottom of La Liga!) and Real Madrid travel to Granada.

Yesterday afternoon and later in the evening we watched various programmes on English TV as we took things easy and relaxed, first it was  ‘Countdown’ followed by ‘A Place in the Sun’ in Marbella! Quiz time was ‘Pointless’ ‘Eggheads’ & ‘Mastermind’ and finally ‘QI’ - then ‘Great American Railway Journeys’ before a very interesting documentary on the ‘Fall ‘ in New England with some spectacular time-lapse photography! We then caught the ‘Graham Norton Show’ with ‘Sir Elton John’ who sang a not very good song with his aging band! Finally we laughed our heads off at ‘ Would I lie With You’ with Rob Brydon, David Mitchell & Lee Mack.

Thoughts for the Day; See above.

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