Doors

 

Random post of door photographs, primarily because of the quote that came through in my inbox today..

Above, the doorway in the folly at Casa las Flores.. on the way up to town from Fuengirola, we saw it being built, so very long ago now.. and still, the bar here in this garden centre, continues to serve up the best patatas fritos in the entire world!

Okay yes, it comes for me, with memories abundant, cooked by the same person, probably in the same pan! Not the same oil!! I am sure... And what fries would be perfect in the surroundings of that place.. the verdant growth, the palms, the water with the tortugas, the flowers and scents from the herbs.. the birds flying amongst the foliage, the warmth, the sounds.. of my nirvana... Twenty five years worth of patatas fritos..

Okay! Enough already eh! 

Above, I believe is in a park near Swansea, that's all your getting folks!

Above, a doorway in Mijas Pueblo.. 

And lastly, doorway in Granada province, from Christmas 2007, and our ten days in a cave house... Wonderful...

M.

Realize that if a door is closed, it's because what was behind it wasn't meant for you.

Mandy Hale, Author

Or did it close just when you were on the wrong side of it? Taken a quick peek to see by chance, was that a shade of green better than yours? 

Did the wind catch it? Or a draft was caused because you opened it? 

Did you snag your sleeve on the door handle and pull it closed by yourself!

Is it a swing door? 

Spent two hours on my terrace  this morning before the sun touched down on it!

A pallet flower planter wasn't doing too well, so have taken it from the wall and added it to the table, makes it higher and maybe more of a table...

I've replanted a type of yucca? Lol question mark because I've forgotten what it is, and frankly my dears... Dammit!! Lol I had to check didn't I! It says it's an agave!! Wonder if it's the blue variety? I can make tequila!!

Sunset last evening...

Terrace is now swept, all rubbish cleared up and in trash bags downstairs... Some old bricks and pipes... I did scream once! When a little lizard I wasn't expecting darted out and made me jump! Poor little thing! Him, not me!

Honied eggplant! Yummy!

Had a friend stay last week, was good to have company, someone to laugh and cry with! Spent some of the week away, went to the lakes, of course! La Cala beach a few times, Mijas Pueblo... Not much more, but was really nice, and helped for a while to ease my loss of Pippa...

The lakes are exceedingly low considering the huge amount of rain we had this year! January, February, March... It didn't really settle until June! Crazy weather!

So to see the reservoir so low was a shock!

Had to park beneath the gardens at Mijas Pueblo, and walk up from there it was so busy, a beautiful doorway above, leads down towards the path, so a new vista for me, somewhere I love so much.

I have some friends visiting again this week, at their place, so I'll be busy with them, and others who live here...

I don't like this keeping busy thing! I actually, just want to relax when I'm not working; yes go out and about and adventure around, but I feel I am having to force myself to keep my head from filling with things I can't change.

I have found out I don't talk to myself though now, I thought maybe I did, but I really actually was just talking to Pippa afterall.

Mijas Pueblo

This morning walking Pippa, in a break in the torrential rain... I pass as every day a tree now in bloom; over the past week more and more little pink buds have turned into flowers... This tree was full of bloom and returning leaves last March and April when Franco died...

This morning as I stopped beneath and looked up into its bare branches and small flowers I thought how life returns eternal... and that even if life cannot always be seen life force never leaves... I've always said this, always will say this because I will always feel this, that our energy lives on; with us when our bodies live, but our energy our souls, live on eternally afterwards... In what we have done, in where we have been, people we have loved and known, in the difference we have made in others lives even...

Mijas Pueblo

Yesterday was the eighth anniversary of my mom passing... Eight years.  Time continues on its merry way doesn't it, it doesn't care, it doesn't take away anything either, it doesn't take away the loss or the missing or the sadness.  It changes it, we have to change because we can't live with that degree of loss and continue to live.

Some days its like we can time-warp back, to that one moment where time stood still... because that one moment lasted forever, a big empty blackness of eternity for us, unable to see the eternity that had opened up for our lost loved one... I am again reminded of a sermon at a funeral of a dear friend, when the minister said... "Imagine our loved one on a boat, sailing away from us, from our coastline, headed out to the horizon, towards a setting sun (that bit I think I have added to my memory of it!) Well that vessel carrying them away from us is also carrying them towards a new horizon, where we lose sight of them, others get to see them again." And adding my extra shillings worth! I feel, that they travel to a new day, they travel with the light, not away from from it.... Away from us but towards others... past and future maybe even.

On the way to Coín yesterday about 10am

I should check when I last wrote... Okay, that seems like ages ago! February 24th... Yesterday I went to La Trocha with a neighbour, showed him where to park etc, walked around the quite empty underground parking lot, so much rain, so few people! We had a nice break in the weather yesterday...

We had coffee there, saw a few friends, everyone was outside in the outdoor bar, nice to be out and dry for a change!

From there we went to Mijas Pueblo, as he had missed the village a few times when they have been out previously.  He loved it, so now knows how to get there, where to park and where to take people!  Another coffee and boquerones fritos!

We have rain rain rain! I can't even remember when it started now! The skylight has been leaking since day one! The contractor is coming out to fix that! My U-bend has been leaking, but fixed now. Also the direction the wind has been blowing the rain, it has been coming in under the cap on the chimney, so a constant stream of rain water has been coming down the chimney to the wood burner! Unluckily its been making its way out of a small hole in the pipe near the connector into the burner itself! And into a bucket!! There is one more place the rain water has found its route through! The cave of course, as it would by nature with this amount of rain, it must have only happened about 3 or 4 times in all these years... Or maybe I don't remember... but its coming in through the cracks in the cave, making its way down as water does, gets into the cave, onto the tile then down onto the little patio and out through the drainage system!

And still it rains! But the worse thing has been the wind, gusts of up to 95 kph... about 60 mph, something like that... the roofing is trying to lift off, or at least it sounds like it! It is just giving into the wind, or the pressure of it I guess... It sounds like something dragging!

Still, the Pipster and I have been warm enough, had the burner going when we needed it, its much milder now, despite the rain and winds...

The worse thing is being marooned in the house! The worse day the electric started going off and on, and then just staying off!

I've had rain soaked clothes drying every day... Pippas towel constantly out! She only stopped one day, and went about 18 hours without 'going'!!! It was just to fierce outside!!

Yesterday I went down to the coast, to a store I do not frequent very much at all! Yes I know, no names and no disrespect meant, it is what it is shall we say!

I also went to Aldi, where I got the things I actually wanted, so a bit of a wasted journey, but the day was lovely, so lovely, I drove back dropped the shopping picked up the Pipster and we drove to Mijas Pueblo...

It is so difficult not to take repetitive photographs in Mijas Pueblo, especially after 29 years!!

Luckily the plastic bottle Christmas tree still standing was there and real quirky, another tree or two... I didn't get pictures of, were frames decorated in can tops! real pretty too!

The other photograph above and the one on the left below are of the new single track road that circumnavigates the area below the gardens... there are steps up to the village from there! Phew, not take them yet!

A different view above... with a cold looking sky... and below wild lavender.... This has changed so little in some ways and so much in others... the walls and railings safer now... no wobbly parts as there were...  steps safer too... that wall on the left that runs the whole way round, it was just rock on rock, now its cemented in place... so precise... and without the momentum Tony placed there back when we were only on holidays, and I used to look for, and find, and look each and every single time we walked the steps... and then... cement... change... It is the same but not the same.. life I suppose, the same but not the same.

Boquerones Fritos

I sat with my back in the warm sun eating the above boquerones fritos, Pippa was getting harassed by a little furry male dog...

Yes I was in a thoughtful mood our whole visit, because I didn't want to be in the house, I needed to be out and away... Because sitting here all I do is plan my escape, I want to go through things, I want to clear more things I need to do something, I know what I want to do, but the next step will be difficult, the hardest next step.

Horses!

Photographic post I must keep it light!

So! Prawn cocktail! Light on the prawns! Two of them! Lovely weekend visit from friend, in Mijas Pueblo, three course meal €7 and light on each plate! But enough for lunch... the company was the important part...

Keeping it light on the drinks too! Very hot day, Fuengirola in the morning and Mijas on way home.

How many photographs of the gardens have I taken over nearly thirty years! It's difficult to find a new angle!

Same goes for the chapel near the bar!

Horses the night before outside Bar Cruz!

More horses tomorrow if I post, very horsey weekend!

Nearly Christmas 2016

Sunrise Alhaurín El Grande

Well, what haven't we done since last posting... We had Francos first phsio session, some good ideas to help with his back and shoulder pain, and also an appointment with the nurse from our local clinico, two full hours with him, amazing length of time, an interpreter on the phone too, the doctor wrote notes while we were answering his questions, so I know he does understand much of what we say, exactly as we understand much of what he says, but to make sure, and no mistakes... better to be safe.

He also made an appointment immediately for more x-rays, the date was for about two weeks time, but he got it changed and we had the x-rays two days ago already!  He called in the morning to say he had brought it forward and to collect paperwork from clinico and then go up to Coín to have them done, we did, and they were!

Sunset Alhaurín El Grande

I can't think where we have been!! To Mijas Pueblo the other day, Monday it was... photographs below, not sure what had happened over the past weekend, there were these statues down in the new Plaza, miniature versions of Paris' Eiffel Tower, Londons Big Ben [St Stevens Tower] and Rio's Jesus the Redeemer...

We've been to Fuengirola, Miramar.... The Sunday car boot sale at La Trocha...

Christmas cards coming though the post, thank you.... I'm sorry only the boys and our grand daughter have cards this years, and my lateness in sending them, via Moonpig means they probably won't make it before Christmas at all!

We got one card yesterday, no, yes or the day before?  It had no envelope, Franco said maybe they delivered it by hand!  Although not sure if my cousin and his 102 year old dad popped over from UK to do so without knocking on the door!!!  The idea was nice!

My confusion is because I had a migraine yesterday, a bad one, it started int he middle of the night, been having a lot of nighttime headaches recently but they faded with the day, this one didn't.  And I got up in the hope, fed Pippa and had to get back to bed, I got up another time in search of the meds I shouldn't take to cure the pain, couldn't find the one I knew I still had left... that was I don't know what time, but I got up again early evening and found it, took it and went back to bed, so two hours later I more myself and got up, watched a movie with Franco which stated about ten pm and then went back to bed until six thirty this morning.  I am lucky, not had a bad one like this for such a long time now, maybe once this year before it? Franco and I can't remember, it used to be we couldn't remember a week when I hadn't had one!! Hate missing days.

Have a good Christmas everyone, make it a good one, make everyone the best one...

TTFN
Marian

Above shot one I have been meaning to take for ages, but don't always remember to take my phone when we go on our first walk of the day... Me 'n Pip! If we come past here at a different time its too late!  The sun isn't where I want it to be, and the time has been lost again!

For some reason looking at this is making my head go weird!! LOL, like its an optical illusion or something!!  

                            

Last week when Franco and I were walking around Fuengirola we came across this new place!!  La Galeria Gastromercado! There is was suddenly, a doorway where there wasn't one, and we walked through, like a wondrous Alice and white rabbit, we wandered through the narrow doors and there was this huge area of dining and tables and food food food!!

Another day whilst driving down the long awaited lakes road... only going as far as La Trocha, thankfully, as a giant skip type truck thingy, was losing bits and pieces from its roof and this huge piece of plastic sheeting flew off and onto our windscreen, it caught on a wiper blade and I quickly pulled through what I could before it ripped it off completely!!  If we had been a scooter we could have easily been killed, crazy!  Surely a net would have been a good idea!

And Mijas Pueblo has been greatly improved by all this work at the lower plaza!  It has take awhile I know, but it is... stunning!  Clean, no car fumes as people vie for spaces in a narrow one-way semi-circular run through.  No horses peeing and pooping while you pop a yummy morsel of food into your mouth a sip from a cup of steaming hot fresh café con leche!

The band stand moved, the dangerous steps gone, more room for tables, more space... period!  And a lift to get you to the top if your not able to make it up the stairs!!

Well done Mijas! Its fab!!

Now!  Franco and I have been to the hospital several times, Franco knew he had an appointment, but no-one else seemed to, until we found a porter! LOL... Still, never mind, turned out okay and Franco had the procedure he was expecting to have on the day he thought he was having it... and everyone was great, he went in on time, and if there hadn't been an emergency he would have been out on time too!  But somethings cannot be planned and that's okay...  We now await the results in early November.

We have been out and about of course, all the normal stuff.... Gibraltor, Ikea, Fuengirla, Malaga, La Trocha, as well as above!

The weather has been beautiful, still hot, but cooling down week by week now, only in the high 20's now... So its just perfect!  You can actually sit in the sun without catching fire now!  A cooler breeze coming through the house in the nights... the sun is already missing from the living room sadly, but it means its cooler and will be back next May...

We have made some home improvements!  New bathroom sink, thank you IKEA!  I built the unit and Franco plumbed it in!  New bathroom cabinet, I built it, Franco hung it!  I rearranged the towels and we have sight of the bidet again now, its use from towel bowl can return to foot spa!

Day bed for down-stairs in wonderful!  I actually am looking forward to hot nights next summer where the only cool in the house is down-stairs, and I will in that bed! LOL... The old snap and lay flat sofa-bed we have before was still okay, but uncomfortable as a sofa, and as a bed a small 4' and hard as nails!  It was eleven years old and being kept under cover was in good condition, we had spoken with a lady from a local animal shelter who sells items for the charity, she took our number, said they needed another sofa-bed, didn't think she was being sarcastic LOL... anyway, they never phoned and IKEA take your unwanted goods away... Although, as it turns out, only if you actually remember to ask beforehand!  So they didn't want it either, and as space was at a premium while the day bed was being built the sofa-bed made its piece with the world half in and half out of the kitchen while Franco dismantled it!  It now resides in many pieces, some of which are on the terrace making the pallet sofas more comfortable...

I have caught up with lots while I have been home, and suddenly only just over a week before going back to work I feel there is still so much I have yet to do!!

Its not that I haven't thought of what I have to do, I do, a lot, and thinking isn't getting things done... Which is why I am here writing to you!

TTFN
Marian

Mijas Pueblo

Some photographs taken on Saturday, we went down to Mijas pueblo for a coffee and to sit and watch the world go by... the street is still up!  The work still going on, seemingly not a lot done since, they are working on the whole area in the lower parque and the area immediately in front of the car park, where the donkeys and horses await their next riders... and the coaches park[ed]!

I think they should have finished the parque area before moving onto the other coach area, but there you go, disorganisation at its best!

The coaches and the buses have to turn now down to near the entrance to the car park, so thats a nightmare zone there... And from there you can take a new road!  It does around the base of the gardens, well, a long way down from the top of the gardens, I have always looked down, there was a building, and a rough old track, and now there is a bright sparkling new single direction road!  It even has parking, for walkers to walk, hikers to hike if you want to go back into town straight up the mountain side!! Er, NO!!

Not great photos through the windscreen are they! LOL Still you get the idea!!

This was the building I have looked down on since the 1980's!!! Still I never thought I would see it from this close up!

And Friday night the great artist in the sky painted the most wonderful piece of live artwork on his amazing canvas.... what a display, it could never be mimicked...

Lets see if it works first! I might have to remove it, the preview won't allow me to access it... So as you can see, I removed the short video, it wouldn't work, but I will post some other time....

And now... here today, back at work, still my free time until later bye the bye!  I slept a long time once I got to sleep, kept waking up as per the norm!  Feel like I have overslept now so heavy eyes and a bit blurry!

I feel completely lost without my camera!  On and off during the train journey, so many times I thought, if only I had my camera!  Really feel lost without it!  But minimising my travel load and it had to be one of things that stayed home... its not small, and then there is the charger, another charger!?!  Not too much, my phone camera will have to suffice!

Just back to edit and remembered, on our way out of Mijas on Saturday a bird flew up from the side of the road, we were by Alhaurín Golf, it flew up and with us for what seemed like ages, while I exclaimed and loved it all the more for doing so.... it was my favorite bird in all the world, my Hoopoe bird and he was there just when I needed him most, like the lady I work for at the moment has a memory of seeing Whistle Jacket in an art gallery shortly after losing her love during WW2, he gave her strength to carry on living; and seeing the Hoopoe has always given me a sense of goodness, of wonder, of adventure... of hope...

TTFN
Marian

VidBlog

Don't freak out on me!  My first VidBlog!

Crazy chick that I am! Its this Facebook 'live' thing everyone seems to be doing, and I don't!  I don't know most of the people on my fb any more, and of course I know all of you!!!

I am very confused as to how to turn it off at the end, this is the end of a 27 second vid! Not the longest, I promise future vids will be longer, and only from interesting places, not the safety of my sofa! Because, really, what is the point of that!?!

A trip to Mijas Pueblo today could have been more interesting but I chick-chick-chickened out on that!

So here are some photographs instead!

An insects view from beneath this beautiful flower...

A birds eye view of this human rock climber!

Small frog who I am sure was in the exact same spot last time we were here!

Tiny lizard soaking up the sun before getting frightened away by my phone...

Y al final.... the stairs up from the plaza [still in reform], the beautiful blue flower pots matching the beautiful blue beyond...

It was very windy up in Mijas today, stood in certain spots one could be blown right over!  We had coffee in the little bar up near the famous steps and the small church, lots of tourists about which is great, the roads are closed all over the place, but still accessible by car into the big car park, so no problems for anyone wanting to visit right now; we did see lots of people seemingly lost in their cars [driving!!!], but then, they could have been lost anyway regardless of the roads!

And we are still trying to work out where a new road that has recently appeared starts and finishes, so next time, we will try to find it, and end up lost no doubt! Hmmmm, maybe that is what those people today had been doing, all has become crystal clear... as mud!

Tapas in the bar on the way home and now... home!

And now I must 'publish' or the vidblog will be lost!

TTFN

Marian