A VERY CRISP AND SUNNY MANILVA ON FRIDAY AT THE START OF THE WEEKEND;

FRIDAY 23^rd/JANUARY 2015.

I was up early this morning and after seeing ‘Reina’ into her duvet across the foot of our bed I shot off around to the surgery for my appointment with our doctor to up-date my prescriptions; I was supposed to then pick up some fresh flowers from the market but it was too early.

Today is yet another very crisp day here in sunny Manilva,first thing in the morning, by our standards, its cold, during the night its even colder, we are down to 3degs which for down here on the ‘Costa Del Sol’ is starting to break records! The rest of Spain is also having one of the coldest winters for many years along with the heavy snow falls. The weekend is more of the same and at the start of next week it’s getting a little warmer and reaching 15/16degs.

This morning the Council announced on its Blog-Page that they have signed the contract to start the work on the  very old " Casa De Los Torres" building which is just around the corner at the bottom of our street and is abandoned and derelict to create a new Cultural Center with classrooms,exhibits, a museum & lecture rooms - see the picture below'

At lunchtime ‘Scruffy’ is arriving for a two day sleep over, next weeks bookings for ‘Doggy World Heaven’ are yet to be sorted,. the following week ‘Reina’ is already booked in for Monday & Tuesday, sleeping over on the Monday as Lee & Daniela are going up to Jerez to watch the ‘Grand Prix’ testing which always take place at this time of the year, its only 10 euros to get in ( 20euros VIP!)

Speaking of the ‘Euros’ it’s just gone up this morning, again, and is now at its highest for over 4 years! Good news as the first of our Pensions is due to be transferred on Monday into our Spanish bank account.

Today is an at home day as we did the shopping yesterday, Brenda is catching up with all the house work and as you can see up I’m up in the office, meanwhile on the WWW catching up with all the news, I read the on-line newspapers first, then the various news channels and TV reports from around the world before catching up with the E-Mails and then Facebook which is of course mainly family and friends, yesterday for instance a very loyal lady who used to work for us and lives in Llandudno was in hospital over in Liverpool ( Broadgreen) for a rather daunting heart operation, she is fine and the pictures were on her Facebook page to prove it! Love and good health to Julie and her family xx

At lunchtime we went for a good walk with 'Chispa' - 'Reina' stayed in her duvet in the office, we went down to the local market for the fresh flowers and on the way back I picked up the fish from the fish market and then called into the chemists for some of my tablets.

For our supper this evening we are having plain dry-grilled Hake fillets with Garden Peas and just a few Baby New Potatoes in their skins and of course some freshly made Tartar sauce. Tomorrow it’s ‘Entrecote Steak’ again dry cooked on the hot griddle plate with a Baked Potato before we have a nice treat on Sunday when we are having a large ‘Roast Leg of Lamb’ with all the trimmings including ‘Boulangere’ potatoes, when the ‘Queen’ of Skelton is joining us!

Later we will catch up with all the news, sport and weather details before channel hopping to find a film to watch.

NEWSFLASH;

David & Paul have just signed the contract for the 7th 'New Moon Pub Company' site - its for " The Old Blind School" in Hardman Street LIVERPOOL ! Opening in May !! See the 'logo' below and the building;

Thoughts for the Day; See above.

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FERIA DE MANILVA AGOSTO 2008

Thursday 7th/ Friday 8th August.

First thing in the morning we called into the local doctors in the village and signed the papers and acquired a doctor,so now we are fully into the Spanish system! Friday turned out to be a “ Helluva ” day that we had not planned,In the morning we went to the hypermarket in Estepona as usual and came home and packed everything away,just as Mano called in with Fabio and asked us out for lunch.He had decided to take the day off and switched off his phone at the same time,Anna is away in North Wales till next week so he had brought Fabio out for a walk and then took him back to his Spanish grandparents for lunch as both Carlos and Ana Mari were working at the Aparthotel.We called into a couple of the local bars and then went down to Sabinillas to a beachfront Chiringuito for a “ Frituria de Pescado” Octopus,Squid,Hake,Sea Bream and baby Whitebaite all cooked in a very light batter with chunks of Lemon on the side and served with a salad starter and accompanied with Baby Clams,washed down with the local Tinto de Verano,sat by the beach overlooking Africa on the hottest day of the year so far! What a life! We then came back up to the village and stopped for a couple more drinks in Bodega Augustine before we called into to see Carlos and Anna Mari in their new house and watched the opening of the Olympic games on their new large screen TV.We then came home for a siesta as we had decided to go down to the Feria as Mano had got us tickets to go and see the concert later in the evening.The Feria ground is down in the valley below us and is now a purpose built area for all sorts of avtivities including the local weekly market as well as a large car park for Sabinillas during the summer.The Feria is a very large Spanish festival and also has a very noisy fairground with all sorts of big rides for us adults and small one’s for the children.As in Spain the whole family goes out together from Babies to Great grandmothers! There are all sorts of food outlets and restaurants serving fast food to typically Spanish Tapas such as Whole Baby Grilled Rabbit! The Feria ground is covered in bright fairy lights and starts to get going as the sun goes down and carries on till 4/5 o’cock in the morning from Wednesday to Sunday.On the open air stages there are all sorts of music and dancing as well as local Samba bands and the concert on Friday was a very popular Spanish singer called “ El Arrebato ” who hit the stage at midnight and went on till past two o’clock in the morning,Every body was there to see him and the show was on live on ManilvaTV.The pictures below give you just a taste of it,the blonde in the new sparkled top,Brenda with the latest hair by Gissy,El Aarrebato on stage,who was very loud and got the place rocking,Mano giving Fabio a ride on the small horse’s,our next door neighbour’s son with his wife and new baby son Pablo all dressed up,the family picture is of Rafael,Marjoleine and their six month old daughter with Rafael’s mother and father and Pablo’s mother,They are all related as our next door neighbour is the sister of Marie Luisa,Rafael’s mother!! The last picture is of Juan and Amelia who are Anna and Mano’s best friends and who live in the village and who we have become friends with over the past eight years since we first came to Manilva in 2000.

WILLASTON ON THE WIRRAL

We started the week with a visit to Liverpool as the Smart car was due for it's MOT. We dropped it off at the Mercedes garage and caught a taxi into the city centre .Liverpool is the 2008 city of culture and is under going a massive re-development program so we visited all our old haunts before they all go under the hammer.We called into George Henry Lees and saw some of the old staff that have looked after us, I have had an account there for over 40yrs.We then hit some of the “Summer “sales before we had lunch.We went into the old banking area and found “The Restaurant” a newly opened bar and restaurant which is the current “In-Place” and had a marvelous lunch of Sea Bass cooked in a wood oven and Aberdeen Angus Rib of Beef.After picking up the car we stopped off at the Albert Dock and went into the Tate gallery for a look round before stopping off for a drink at the oldest and grandest pub in Liverpool “The Philharmonic Dining Hall” I even showed Brenda the gents toilets with the Pink Marble urinals!On Tuesday we stocked up some essential's as we have offered to do the cooking whilst we are staying at our friends Carol house on the Wirral.We arranged to see Norah on Wednesday,one of Brenda's sisters and took her and Darren her nephew out to the local carvery for dinner then went to Norah's house to show them the pictures and video's of our trip.On Friday we had a day in as on Saturday we are going racing to Bangor on Dee again.The rain just about kept off and we had a “Winning”day at the races due to a horse called Norma Hill at 20/1 !! In the evening we came back to Parkgate on the Wirral and had dinner at “The Boathouse” on the front overlooking the Dee estuary and the Welsh hills We started with Eggs Benedictine and followed by Lobster with chips and individual Chateaubriand ! Sunday was not to good weather wise so we watched the football on Sky.City beat United in the derby match.so Chris was not happy and Liverpool were robbed of a win over Chelsea by the ref! We cooked a traditional Sunday Roast Beef dinner with all the trimmings,washed down with a fine Rioja.Today we popped down to Birkenhead to the Shopping Mall and found”Primark” for the first time.We have arranged to see Brenda's sister Jenny for lunch on Tuesday and are going over to Manchester on Thursday to see our friend Zoe,then onto Bridgnorth to stay with our old friend Penny for a couple of days.We have been calling into “The Wheatsheaf At Raby” during our stay in Willaston and it has become our local.The landlord is a old friend from 40yrs.ago when Brenda and I first worked together.Ihad my stag party at “The Thatch”some 36yrs.ago as it is locally known.We are using a new typing page so I must say sorry for the last two blogs,we hope this one is better! Also we can't publish any pictures at the moment as we are in a poor Sat.area which is a bit disappointing as we have taken shots of all the spots we have visited over here.