Sunday, June 26, 2016

A VERY HOT & SUNNY MANILVA ON SUNDAY;

SUNDAY 26th / JUNE 2016.


















We had a nice long lie in this morning until the church bells started ringing, calling the ‘ faithful’! The village is very quiet even though the schools have broken up for their long summer recess ( 23 June- 10 September !) – the children come out to play later in the evening when it goes a little cooler; we had a breakfast meeting to sort out the week ahead.

We have another very hot day ahead as there is just a little breeze, yesterday in parts of sunny Manilva it reached an all time high, for this time of the year, of 45 degs !! We have more to come next week.

‘Doggy World Heaven’ is busy with ‘Reina’ back with us for her normal five days and ‘ Scruffy’ joining us for a sleep over on Monday evening, Brenda has her next appointment with the Physiotherapist tomorrow afternoon, I’m taking the hire car back to Marbella first thing in the morning and Mano is bringing me back, I have to arrange with our local garage for them to take our car in for its annual ‘ITV-MOT’ -  ASAP! We also need to make appointments at the surgery for our six month checks up etc. On Friday I will catch up with all the shopping down in Sabinillas.

Yesterday afternoon we had a phone call from Jane, who was at the 'Chester Races' with David, the ' Mockingbird Taproom' is the nearest pub/restaurant to the famous course, they has bumped into some very old friends from over 30 years ago, Janet Newman from Birmingham, who worked for us at the " Hotel Seventy Degrees " and went on to run a very successful private accountancy business and Meralyn England, who is married to Mike England, the ex Wales Football Manager, they were very good customers and the last time we saw then was at Meralyn's 40 th Birthday party at 'Pale Hall' outside Bala in North Wales! We had a nice chat we both of them and a good catch up, Janet has a sister that lives above Malaga and Mike & Meralyn have a villa above Puerto Banus, its a small world, we are looking forward to meeting up with them in the not too distant future!

This coming week Andrew Charles, the owner of ‘ Castle Radio FM 89.2 & Online on the WWW’ is planning, time permitting, to come up to my office/studio to install all the programmes/systems so as I will be able to broadcast ‘ live’ from here in the heart of sunny Manilva, watch this space.






For this evenings supper we are now having ‘Roast Leg of New Zealand -  South Island Lamb  ‘ with ‘ Boulangere ‘ Potatoes & small ‘ turned’ Roast Potatoes together with a selection of Brenda’s vegetables, finger licking Pan Gravy and of course lots of Mint Sauce. Next week’s menus are being planned tomorrow morning, watch this space.

On the sports front I’ve had a technical problem on ‘ Film On ‘ were we watch ‘BBC 1 & ITV 1’ – the coverage of the ‘ UEFA European Football Championship’ is now not available, the other ‘IT’ channel ‘ First Row Sports’ is also proving difficult to make a connection with, most of the games are on the ‘Spanish’ TV Channels but only when Spain are playing! Watch this space.

Over the weekend we have been watching for the first time in many years the ‘ live’ coverage on BBC 2 of “ Glastonbury “ – some of the ‘new’ bands are very good but we don’t like the ‘Grime’ music from East London; ‘Madness & Squeeze’ were very good, ‘ Muse’ are not to our taste but a lot of the alternative music is interesting, my current favourite artist, that I played on last week’s show ‘ Christine and the Queens’ performed a live acoustic set on the ‘BBC’ stage of ‘Tilted’ &  ‘ ZZ Tops’ which I also happened to play on the show rocked out a ‘ Helluva’ loud show, last night on the main ‘ Pyramid ‘ stage it was Adele’s first time at Glastonbury, she was very good and we like most of her hit songs but the ‘chat’ in between them is terrible with lots of swearing, she has a young following and its just not right, from ‘ Hero ‘ to ‘ Zero ‘ – and we are not prudes!












Thoughts for the Day; See above.


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Saturday, June 25, 2016

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY FROM A VERY SUNNY & HOT MANILVA;


















A VERY HOT & SUNNY MANILVA ON SATURDAY;

SATURDAY 25th / JUNE 2016.



















We had a surprise lie in this morning as my radio show was cancelled late last night; ‘ Sir Malcolm’s Saturday Classic Show ‘ broadcast ‘ live ‘ on “ Castle Radio FM 89.2 & Online on the WWW “ between 11-00 am – 1-00 pm as work is taking place on installing all the equipment in the new sound proof studio in the ' Las Galerias ' in ‘  Puerto de la Duquesa ‘ the new office/recording studios of the ‘Castle Radio Media Group’ See the pictures below.


















My show is the only one that is ‘live’ from the old main studio in ‘ Castillo de Duquesa’ over the weekend, hopefully I will be back ‘ on-air’ next Saturday and possibly broadcasting from the new ‘ Studio 4 ‘ – my office here in sunny Manilva, watch this space and don’t forget to listen!!






Back to normal now after the visit of the folks, they had a good flight home to Manchester last night and are now well rested and all fine, Jack & Lyn are in the UK until the 8th July when they fly back to Melbourne. All our love to Norah & Jenny and Jack & Lyn ‘ Health & Happiness ‘ – all the time, you are all in our thoughts.






For our breakfast this morning we had ‘ Campo’ Poached Eggs on Toast with mugs of steaming tea, I then was able to watch ‘ Saturday Kitchen Live’ before disappearing up to the office/ studio to type & post the Blog; we are having a quiet weekend taking things easy after all the excitement of the past 10 days, next week in ‘Doggy World Heaven’ little Princess ‘ Reina’ is back with us, as normal, from Monday to Friday, ‘Scruffy is with us on Monday evening for a sleep over and of course ‘ Chispa’ comes calling everyday at various times.

Its very hot & sunny today as there is no breeze, over the rest of the weekend we are due more of the same and next week is going to be hot & sunny, no there's a surprise!  At the moment this afternoon its now 38/39  degs+ !  See the old picture below of sunny Manilva ' Pueblo Blanco '





First thing on Monday morning I’m taking the hire car back to Marbella and Mano is meeting me to bring me back to sunny Manilva, on Monday afternoon Brenda has an appointment with the ‘ Physiotherapist’ Our car is now due for its “ ITV - MOT “ so I’m taking it to our local garage and Pedro will take it over to Estepona and do all the work, watch this space.

Tonight for our supper we are having ‘ Grilled Entrecote Steak’ cooked on a very hot griddle plate ‘ Med-Rare’ – then rested before slicing in ‘ French Style’ into strips, garnished with sautéed Mushrooms and served with ‘ Béarnaise’ Sauce, local Green Beans and of course twice-cooked ‘ Frits’ On Sunday we are having ‘Cold Roast Lamb’ with a nice Mixed Salad and Parsley New Potatoes.

Over the weekend on the sports front at the ‘ UEFA European Championship’ football its the last 16 ties as Wales play Northern Ireland today in Paris and on Monday Spain play Italy and then England play Iceland, all looking for a place in the Quarter Finals, on Monday its also the first round games at Wimbledon. At this very moment over in Sydney,Australia are leading England in the final test match 32-28  with 10 minutes to go, watch this space!

 ENGLAND HAVE JUST WON 40-44 to win the 3 series test matches - a " WHITEWASH " !!!











Thoughts for the Day; See above.

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Friday, June 24, 2016

" VENTA GARCIA " ON THURSDAY EVENING;



















THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY FROM SUNNY MANILVA;




















A STILL VERY WARM & SUNNY MANILVA ON FRIDAY AT THE START OF THE WEEKEND;

FRIDAY 24TH  JUNE 2016.


















We were up early this morning to watch the live results on ‘BBC 1 TV’ of the referendum, as we are now no longer going to be members of the ‘ European Union’ our main concerns at this moment are the value of the ‘Euro’ – which has already crashed over night, badly effecting our Pensions and our basic ‘Health Rights’ within the Spanish Medical system; the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, has just confirmed that Spain will stand by its commitments to the British Community for the next two years and after, the only problem with this it that there is a General Election on Sunday here in Spain after six months of stalemate from the last election in December ?! Watch this space.

After a nice cooked breakfast of ‘ Campo’ fried Eggs with Smoked Back Bacon ( British !) we are sorting ourselves out for the day ahead, at lunchtime we are going up to the ‘ Manilva Green Aparthotel’ to meet the folks for a light snack lunch, then later we are heading off to the border and hopefully crossing over to Gibraltar to drop them off at the new Airport?! Watch this space. See the picture below;






Before we left we had a very nice bottle of chilled ‘Cava’at the house and I took some pictures of the four sisters outside our front door, see below.










Last night I had a change of mind as we set off as it was such a glorious evening, I shot up the valley towards Casares and we went to ‘ Venta Garcia’ instead of ‘Venta la Choza’ – all the folks have been there before and enjoyed the ambiance and food, we sat outside in the patio area and they fitted us in with a nice table in the conservatory, after some cool drinks I ordered a bottle of the ‘ Rueda Sauvignon Blank’ To start we sheared some very nice ' Tempura Prawns' & 'Salmon Tartare''

Norah chose the ‘ Shoulder of local Lamb’ Jenny had the ‘ Spanish Mixed Grill’ ( Pork Cheek, Chorizo, Green Peppers, Egg & Frits ) Brenda has ‘Brochette of Cod & Peppers’ and Lyn had a beautiful ‘Grilled Sole’ that I filleted for her ( I forgot to take a picture !)  Jack went for the ‘Roast Chicken in Garlic sauce’ and I had, you’ve guessed, ‘Entrecote Steak’ – they all came with vegetables & ‘Lyonnaise Potatoes’ – a large platter of the best fresh ‘ Frits’ that we have had in a restaurant in a long time also came along! A ‘complimentary’ drink also arrived before we left, See the pictures above.

Its ‘ Good By’ and safe journey to Norah & Jenny and Jack & Lyn, we have enjoyed having them with us here in sunny Manilva and many thanks for everything, until the next time?! Brenda also wants to thank all our family, friends, ex staff, locals etc for all their very kind and lovely ‘Facebook’ messages & ‘ Likes’ ( 80 + ) Birthday cards and even a postcard from Sweden, E-Mails and a singing Birthday card!












Thoughts for the Day; See above.




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