MANILVA LAST NIGHT.

THURSDAY/FRIDAY/SATURDAY 14^th/15^th/16^th JULY 2011.

On Thursday morning after our tea and toast we went for a very short walk with Cheta and then settled back into our summer mode ‘ A la Casa ’ as it is getting hotter by the day; I found that I am able to watch the live BBC TV coverage of the Open Golf Championship from Royal St.George in Kent, so I watch that before going to the live ITV4 coverage of the Tour de France ! Brenda is as usual on her non-stop mode of finding things to do, she complains when there is nothing! In the evening we had cold, thinly sliced local York Ham with New Potatoes and Garden Peas for supper before we settled down to watch ‘ The Tudors ’in Spanish !

As usual on a Friday morning we headed down to Sabinillas to do the weekend shopping; two Supermarkets, the English bookshop for the papers and cards, the Tourism Office for some posters, the main furniture showroom for a new office chair, which was delivered later in the morning, the local market, back in the village, for fresh flowers and finally the butchers for our steaks ( Entrecote ) for Saturday night, we arrived back home ! We then went up to Bar Rojas for a cooling lunchtime drink !! For supper we had Scampi Provencale with rice; I made my special Provencale sauce earlier in the day, it is made with the usual ingredients but with the addition of Diced Smoked Red Peppers and sweet Paprika which I then leave on the stove to cook out; in the evening I lightly dust the Prawns with flower and quickly pan fry them in Lemon butter before putting them together and serving them with Basmati Rice ! It always reminds me of the good old days back in Liverpool in the late sixties at the ‘ Stork Hotel ’when the old headwaiter, who had worked on all the great liners of the 30s.40s. and 50s, taught me to how to use the Flambé Trolley and cook at the table, Scampi Provencale,Steak Diane, Steak au Poivre,Monkey Gland Steak and of course Crepe Suzette !! Those were the days !

After supper we put on our glad rags, all white, as we had two function/parties to go to down in Sabinillas; the first was a Brass Band concert by the Manilva Band led by Fernando, it took place in the award winning Villa Matilda Park under the new bandstand, for the first time ! It was live on Manilva TV at the same time, the band played some very difficult pieces and also some old favorites and ended up with a standing ovation ! The Park is rather spectacular and was the perfect setting for the occasion, the pictures below give you just a little idea of the park, at dusk, before the band started to play; as the concert was nearly ending across the sky,high up, the Lanterns started to appear that had been let off on the beach for the Full Moon Party; the pictures don’t do it justice but they were very spectacular as hundreds of them floated across as the Moon came into show. We then walked down to the sea front, they had turned off all the promenade lights and everywhere was lit with flame torches,all the bars and restaurants had candle lights, on the stage the jugglers, acrobats and fire eaters performed on the beach in front of the large crowd. We walked along to a beach bar that we use and had a stiff drink before heading back up to the village,late,so when we got in we treated ourselves to Heinz Spaghetti on toast to end a perfect day !

This morning we had Poached Eggs on toast for breakfast which is part of our Saturday routine; Brenda has just been for a short walk with Cheta, the Tour de France stage 14 has just started, and it is the last day in the Pyrenees and takes them from Saint-Gaudens to Plateau de Belle over 168kms. They have six major climbs and end up at the top of the steepest ! The Golf is on and it is also the qualifying day for the Motor Cycle GP in Germany, so its all go in the office in front of the PCs on my new Leather executive chair !! Tonight we are having our steaks with good old fashioned chips and all the trimmings and then will watch three Saturday night films one after another on the TV ! The poster above is for the Classic Car rally which is coming to the village at lunchtime on Sunday so watch out for the pictures ! 


PS; This weekend is also  the ' Virgen del Carmen ' festival which takes place in the port of Sabinillas and on the beach;it is the fisherman's patron saint and they end up walking into the sea with the Tableau and placing it on a fishing boat.

Thought for the Day;

Worry is a misuse of imagination.

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CASA ABUELA.

Friday 17th April.

On Friday morning we went across to Guadalmina to take Carolyn to the airport in Malaga and used the Range Rover, the builders have moved in to their villa and have started on the work to re-wirer-plumb the whole building and then rebuild various parts and put in new windows everywhere as well as new roofs on different parts. On the way back we called into the supermarket to pick some essentials and as we left the car park around a back road which has cars parked on both sides I saw a Blacked Out Range Rover coming towards me at great speed so I pulled over as far as I could; it shot past and took off the wing mirror! It did not stop and shot off into the distance,not a good start! We stopped at Casa Palazana which is just around the corner from Clive and Carolyn’s villa,this is were they are staying for the next three months in an apartment on the ground floor and the owners Tony and Yvonne made us very welcome into their beautiful villa ,as you can see in the pictures below.We then went around to the villa to check out the dogs,Bruno and Abbie as well as the two house cats and one of the wild cats that has just had babies! We also made contact with the builders as we are watching what they are doing; Carolyn left us a list about the current work to be done. At the same time I tried to log on to catch up with the blog only to find that it was not working due to technical difficulties !.In the evening we went across to El Rosario just past Marbella to the Cantina Beach biergarten-grill where Vidal was playing to surprise them! The pictures below show Vidal in full flow and Gissy looking great! This is were the evening went a bit wrong, I started to get pain around my Kidney’s just after arriving similar to my Colic attack last June and the first one in France in 2000 when I ended up in hospital with Renal Colic!! We went back to the apartment and as the night went on it got worse,Brenda,at 4-00am had to ring Yvonne as we did not know the address of the villa as she was going to ring Helicopteros Sanitarios which we joined last year after the last attack in June; they are the main medical help on the Costa Del Sol,and they attend to you very quickly with two medics and an English speaking doctor, the Spanish system is very similar but the language problem can be difficult at a stressful time.They stabilize you and if necessary they transport you to the hospital by Helicopter;They put me on a drip and after 30 mins,I was feeling no pain! The doctor then gave Brenda prescriptions for a course of tablets which she picked up later in the morning.