Okay, okay! Supermarket shelves! But couldn't resist the look of the Bubba burgers and huge spices!

I mean for a photograph, not to buy! 

Stopped twice for trains on our way out to dinner the other night..

I love the sound of the trains here... 

Above I took on the bridge taking us to Fire Island and the TWA flight 800 memorial..

Couple of random photographers taken out in the Hamptons...

I don't normally post food on my Blog, maps yes, but not here...

But! This! Was absolutely amazing! At the Bayside Clam & Grill, East Islip Marina Park! This was Pina Colada coconut shrimp! 

Just looking at it, I want it again right now! And will have to make it! And the fries! WoW, they were amazing, very different.. just the best!

On the road as we neared the marina we past deer, on both sides of the road, and turkeys!! Lols, yes! turkeys!

And now, my last evening of my last day here with my aunt ... We have eaten a lot today, she just said after we finished off bowls of peach ice-cream, that she'd eat no more today! And I can't keep staying if she eats so much and puts weight on! 

I'm checked on for my flight, and this time tomorrow will be in the air..

Already missing her.. 

M.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Alan Watts - 1915-1973 - Writer

Coopers Beach, very peaceful now after summer... The many tourists gone home, able to drive through towns now, not bumper to bumper.. still feels like summer to me though... 

Stunning... 

Sand warm and comfortable to walk on.. 

Beautiful 

And in Southampton no Tom Hanks but the Amazing Zoltar was here! 

I slid in a dollar bill... And his advice told me to be kind to others..

I hope, I think, that mostly I am..

We had coffee here, and had to fight the yellow jackets off! 

M.

Other things may change us 

But we start, and end, with family

More from TWA memorial...

Seeing so many family names side by side is heartbreaking..

Flags from each nation who lost souls...

They didn't stop until they found every single person from the sea.. every one..

and most of the wreckage.. 

M.

You know, you can't make up for lost time... The many many years I lost when I was a young child, a teenager, well, up to 30 I guess I was...

But now, the memories we make will stick, we hope! 

So I know I lost some very important things, but I love and very much appreciate everything they do for me now, that we get to do now as a family when I visit..

It absolutely means the world to me.. yes, even walking around supermarkets! 

Even, and probably it's the best bit, just sitting and talking and being together...

Yesterday we went to the TWA memorial, which came about because of the families of the 208 people who died that day, just off the coast here.. 

The three of us felt the loss standing there, reading the memorial.. 

 TWA memorial was haunting 

What else? We've, read I've shopped, we've walked, we've eaten.. 

The Hamptons yesterday, gazing with great difficulty through high and thick shrubbery at million dollar homes... We looked at an estate agents windows... 3, 4 6 million dollar houses! 

Tbc..

M.

 

So difficult to read a book now, the one I'm reading now, full of errors, the latest had me rechecking..

She had arrived at her destination by taxi but very strangely, left by her own car! I wonder if it was one of those new electric ones where she preprogrammed it to come to her friends house! Ha!

I dreamt last night, one dream of many as per the norm!

I was I was in a car with people, and we were leaving somewhere..  we stopped for a moment and I looked down the road I could see a small ancient village with a castle beyond... and I said I want to go there I want to see that I've never seen it before! and somebody said don't worry you can come back and see it..

So good people watching, anywhere really, but at airports, especially the departure gate... The way people run up even an hour ahead, then looked shocked that it's not boarding or anyone there! 

Your questions, the worries, so many people.. Málaga is an easy airport one terminal.. two gate areas, B or C... Gates all in row down each 'arm' and they are joined so if a gate change happens still easy to walk to the other...

Bit mixed here, thoughts and Blogging in bits, not a good way to write ..

But if I don't add bits they are lost.. forever in the eons of time..

And now, here I write from my aunt's kitchen table in New York..

Big news! I have been scammed!

Will relate rest of this later! 

So angry with myself! Always warning other people about scams, so my lesson came late, and I won't forget it!

Update..

I've just had an email from the company, GetTransport to ask if my driver arrived in the end, I've asked for a full refund!

M.

No one is ready for a thing until they believe that they can acquire it.  The state of mind must be belief and not mere hope or wish.

Napoleon Hill

1883-1970 Author

 

More from Sheringham .. three faces Tony spotted on a wall in town!

It is a lovely seaside town, typically English, or is it quintessentially British? 

Many fish and chip shop bars, many candy stores, two knitting stores, arcades, small supermarket in town and Tesco is on the edge, but that's still in town!

Railway line runs directly into Sheringham.

Two mini golfs, so many walks and paths to follow, the maze of course!

Lots of ice-cream parlours, selling wonderfully different flavours.

The rhubarb and ginger sounded good, but they'd run out, so I had apple pie instead, very very yummy!

Lots of dog beaches which came in handy for us! Although we had our favorite, and stuck to it!

I am not used to the tides! And the tide times are all over the place!! 

M.

 

Well, it's been a while! 

A wonderful week in England, day after I arrived off to Sheringham and a whole week of sunshine, even up today's drive back to Stansted.

All above Sheringham, the town, Beeston Bump! The steam railway... 

Every day full of sunshine, so lucky, and not just because of the weather .. 

Back to Stansted! I was there since 15:30, still on upwards journey to 35,000 feet now, and it's 20:30... Flight delay! But I can't complain, I am usually so lucky with Ryanair.

I've had some water and some sweets!

I have a meal ordered but waiting for Bluetooth to get that order in to work! 

We, youngest son and family, have walked and sunbathed, we've eaten ice-cream and, for me, lots of bad food! 

We had a baby ringneck dove outside the house, he couldn't fly yet, all fluffy and puffy, was so sad sending him suffering..

We had a dead adult dove of the same type the day or two before... A parent I am guessing, because the parent that was left kept coming down to see the baby, but unable to do anything.

When it had gone.. it kept coming back to look for it... Thinking baby didn't leave of its own velution.

Back to now! I have some stomach tablets I just bought, because it's going to be bad again now when I've eaten my flight meal!! 

When I get back to the house it's going to look a right mess! A giant mess! 

I have so much stuff for charity, piled up in crates and black bin bags! 

I also have about twenty moving boxes! 

Nothing set in stone, but looks like it's all systems go for leaving the house! 

And that's okay, more than okay.

It is time, it's probably been time, for a long time, but I hold on, always with a grip of steel.

Well, it's time to let go and freewheel a while..

Holding onto a part of life which has let me go, doesn't do me any good.

Flying home to Spain today, there will be one more trip of flying home to Spain..

Although I know, a small part of me will be forever here, of course, I moved here in 2002.. 

And I feel emotional at leaving, but I know, there is still a full life of adventure ahead of me..

I'm not looking forward to my flight leaving, especially on my own.. 

We're maybe forty-five minutes away from landing, captain said we're flying at 1000 kph, great tail wind! 

So soon be landing, and taxi and home, did have a lift, but coming in this late I said not to worry... 

I didn't eat either, suddenly not hungry, so just read my book...

Took two with me, left the first with my other bits and bobs at son's; wouldn't normally keep a book, any more... But this is filled with great Italian recipes! 

The book with me, has some good stuff too.. not worth keeping, but definitely worth noting!

M.

The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and 

which the other kind of eye couldn't detect.

~Mark Twain

 

You can disregard the previous post, I didn't even bother sharing it, I had been looking at the news and had a bee in my bonnet!

And this weekend I had a wonderful break cat sitting in the country, I was about half an hour from Alhaurín, further up and further in towards the lakes. 

I had to drive from there to work on Friday and it was a nearly an hour, but well worth coming back home to.

Plenty of wildlife that we are used to seeing here in Spain from the little hummingbird thingy that's the technical term, to the shield Beetle above on the tree there, he had fallen in the water and I saved him, of course! 

I also have been saving the wasps that seem to enjoy the pool, I have been fishing them out with leaves and letting them dry out by the side.

Also saving the wonderful bullet ants! One had climbed the glass I was drinking cava from... He left the glass for my glasses! And then my face! Thankfully before he bit me I threw him off into the pool, but then, graciously saved him with my pool noodle! 

The hummingbird moth is the focus of beautiful Wilf!

M.

When you let go of what you think you need, you clear space for the Universe to bring you what you really want.

Gabby Bernstein - Author-Motivational Speaker-Spiritual Leader-Podcast Host

 

Thinking about all of these demonstrations at the moment in a few of our cities here in Spain, and the islands, demonstrating against tourism or tourists, or really more to the point the prices that people are charging for Airbnb and private holiday lets.

I believe, and of course I could be wrong, but hundreds of thousands of people are prevented now because of brexs*it of being able to spend time in what they call their second home here in Spain. 

And so with their homes being empty for six months of the year, I imagine a huge percentage of them decided to put them on Airbnb or privately rent out for holiday accommodation. 

And yes of course they're going to charge premium prices, so another downfall from brexs*it.

If you take out the holiday makers and the travelers from this country you will also remove all of the money received that they spend, we see it in our shop they they make a huge difference to the Spanish economy in the stores every day. 

It brings in money to workers who support tourism in their jobs, in fact some jobs that are only here because of tourism. 

I fully understand how the prices that are charged for tourists to stay a week in an Airbnb or rental, affect what we as residents can rent a property for, and I imagine given the option of charging €650 a month to a local or 1200 for a week from a tourist can be very alluring.

And of course the people who cannot live here anymore or stay longer than six months out of twelve, they want to be able to visit their home every other month or every three weeks, or whatever, and therefore allowing it to be holiday let is viable, but renting out long-term is not. 

M.

No greater treasure than lost time.. 

'Letting go' does not come easy to me... It is against my natural feelings ..

Against all I am.

I prefer

Hold on to 

Keep

Bury 

Wrap up and become part of me

Letting go feels like losing, and my whole life from the very beginning, literally has been losing, from my dad when I was born until recent times.

And I know that's not really, actually true, I don't lose, I haven't lost everything, most certainly not every one, but, that small child I still am cannot let go of that feeling, and letting go means ... To let go of that feeling also.. 

And that is what I feel is impossible for me.

Probably everything there I have written makes so sense to anyone else, it just flowed, because I needed to say it.

Because I am changing, always, because it is time for change, because this is the time.

M.

If you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

Erica Jong - Novelist-Satirist-Poet

Today is an important day for a very good friend of mine, she woke up to the news that her brother had passed..

I, in work, far from home, woke up to the news Pippa had passed..

Certain days have a pin dropped, sticking them forever in our hearts and minds at that very moment, and those moments stay where they are forever, and we have no choice but to move forward from there..

We we can't stay where we've dropped our pin, we have to keep on and the days turn into weeks, to months and into years.

And that pin that was dropped was four years ago and it seems an impossible amount of time has already has passed, and when we reach those dates sometimes we feel that it was but yesterday.

M.

My birthday cake for today from dear friends...

I got it home in one piece, mostly unmelted, very soon though in the kitchen it started to! Badly! So I quickly sliced it up, and half of it is in the freezer in small slivers! 

I didn't freeze the fruit.. later this evening I shall consume my first slice! 

We met up this morning in a pastelería, wonderful cake store; sat outside under their veranda and drank coffee and food was eaten.. conversation flowed, as always...

Cards and a present.. I am a very lucky girl... Not sure how I got to be 65? 

That's not even a real number is it? 

Surely not! I'm still me, still the same girl, looking out through my same eyes in awe and wonder most of the time.. still wondering what my mission is? Or did I complete it already?

Out again later for dinner, different dress! No driving though, so I shall partake of a small beverage!

There's a loose thread in the world... This was on something I was watching yesterday.. I like it, a loose thread in the world... 

My kind of thought process..

Thank you all for being in my life, sharing good and bad and nothing-much-days, for listening to me while I chatter away to you all... 

If I am next to you you can zone out... I guess if you're reading me? Not so easy! Ha!

M.

Two quotes today, just because I can!

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Alan Watts - 1915-1973 - Writer

And...

Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over.

Guy Finley - Writer-Philosopher-Spiritual Teacher

 

I read very varied and diverse things! Surprise surprise! I save way too much much on my phone then have to read it all in blocks when I have time; I delete and forget! Well, maybe some sticks in those places in our brains where useless information goes to be suddenly spoken of when least needed! 

This! The earth's core which was turned in X amount of velocity in one direction, has changed speed and actually reversed it's direction now!! 

It does of course rotate independently of our planet! Or I think we might have noticed, dramatically one day as our gravity would surely have changed! Never mind the rest of other possibilities!! I better put link here now! 

The core is roughly 5,180 kilometres away from us.. I needed to get in head what distance that would be like from me, hence the map above!

Now! I need to get up and have my brekky!

Bit heavy for a Sunday morning! 

And later this evening Spain v England footy!

M.

Follow your bliss and don't be afraid and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

Joseph Campbell - 1904-1987 - Writer-Professor

 

I made jelly, again!

Chatting to a friend just now ...

I said the common phrase for us lucky to live, I said 'another day in paradise.'

Of course it doesn't always feel like that, and most commonly said sarcastically! 

But where is paradise? It really isn't a place is it? It's how we feel, wherever we feel our bliss, our happiness, all our very different paradises! 

Why sometime we find to hard to believe someone isn't happy when we see their beautiful home, their full wallets or bright shiny cars..

Yet, if they're not happy, it's nothing to them, and things don't make people happy in their hearts not true happiness.. 

Or does it? Not for me any way, although maybe I've just never had that so don't have a clue what I'm talking about! 

Outsides J's off to work, another good day ahead, tiring and full of awkward customers! 

Some that is, but all the nice ones too!

M.

Saturday morning having early morning coffee in town before heading to the coast.. and had a Stephen King moment! Expected Pennywise the clown to be nearby! 

Still, I made it down to Calahonda and the beach with J. we got good beach beds in the back line.. there was a strong breeze blowing and sand in the air... looked like a desert storm!

Unbeknownst to us we were joined by a customers family, so that was nice..

We left the beds about four and walked along to Andy's Bar and found some high chairs near the stage and settled in for a good couple of hours with Zac Black and Bruno, absolutely wonderful, took a bit for me to to get up and dance, but eventually I did! 

Was an absolutely beautiful day.. over-did the sun, under-did the suntan lotion, probably not enough fluids either, but a really lovely day.. I got home about eight or half past... Needed to strip my Aloe Vera plant before I went to bed!

Every now and then I think on a pen pal I used to have, his name was Eugene Kumar, from Singapore, we wrote for about fifteen years...

As well as the many letters over the years, he also sent cards and gifts for me and the boys...

We make so many friends along our path of life, many, if we are lucky, we get to keep, forever.. 

Some pass through and then, they're gone.. they come in like the old saying goes for a reason or a season .. something like that.... To help us through our lives or us to help them through theirs...

I'm still friends with school friends, some go back to when I was only four! 

And some, like Eugene, gone, completely...

Today now, Monday, met up with a friend not seen for sixteen years! The third this year, of friends not seen for far too long. So good to see her, I used to work for her here in town, time goes too fast, always reminded of this, every day now it seems... 

And this! Figs! WoW, did not know all of this! Especially the wasp bit! 

Figs are pollinated by fig wasps, they're really a flower, grown in on itself really, and the wasp enters to pollinate, and dies inside! It is absorbed by the fig!

Still my favourite fruit! Flower??? Yes!

Only now I feel like I also enjoy eating wasps!!

M.