Viveros Guzmán, in Alhaurín De La Torre... 

Wonderful coffee, wonderful pastries! Mmm wish I could carry them all back to England with me! 

Had coffee here yesterday, Monday.. apart from coffee and cake, they have a massive selection to buy of loose tea and coffee beans, fresh vegetables and fruits, jars full of the most beautiful tasty items! And flavored spirits! 

A selection of scrumptious, yummy, lush amazing stuffs!

Lols, you'd think I would want it all! You would be correct in your assumption!

Enjoyed a coffee with the best pecan pastry that exists, anywhere! Yes! 

And yes, nuts are on my avoid list according to the diverticular disease! 

But you know, if I don't try some things on my avoid list, I'll be missing out on good foods too! So... Mheh! It is what it is eh! 

M.

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.

Henry Ward Beecher - 1813-1887 - American Minister

There is a whole rainbow up in this photograph, if you look very closely you can see the beginning and the end.. 

Yesterday was a duvet day, or blanket day, we left the apartment for a five minutes walk, but rain came again quickly.. and most of the day; it also came into the kitchen at one point and a bucket was needed to catch the drips from the ceiling light fitting!! 

K. got the landlord out and they cleared a drain on the roof terrace, a small lake had formed and although there were no ducks or seagulls there was a small garden growing around the drain! 

All cleared and water drained away, eventually the water has stopped dripping, but under an orange alert last night, the expected storm hasn't arrived, yet! 

Today is very high winds and we walked down to Bar Cruz for coffee's, it felt freezing and only just now my fingers are coming back to life with pins and needles and burning... 

A few random items of clothing in the street, underwear and other stuff from washing lines around!! It's the time to watch out for falling tiles and such!

My old neighbor stopped by for a coffee too, was like the old days... Funny, I have old days now, already! 

I am back off soon for another coffee with another friend.. keeping under cover this time I hope, rain looks imminent!

These photographs taken yesterday!

Except the rainbow from this morning.

M.

Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.

Horace - 65 BC-8 BC - Poet

 

La playa near the old apartment.. taken from the boardwalk... I have thousands of photographs of the ever changing beaches here... After each storm the coastline changes..

I am back in Alhaurín now, my friend brought me back up here from Calahonda this morning...

Leaving gray skies for blue, K. and I walked straight out and took our usual places at the Bar Cruz, two cafes and a croissant later, for me, and we walked down to a store then to my old neighbor G., down at his store for a quick catch-up.

Came home and napped! Sun still shining and rain forecast for this evening.. 

It is Peter's evening at the Artisenal gallery at the other end of town this evening, hoping for many of his friends to come and celebrate an evening in his name...

M.

It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience.

Roger Ascham - 1515-1568 - English Scholar-Writer

Ain't this the truth!

And so reflections of times passing are so evident.. walking along to Calypso just now.. over the decades .. thirty-seven years of Calahonda.. 

Bars stores roads.. So many changes over nearly four decades... 

This morning a walk down to familiar places...  

Half of me wants to keep going to them, then when I get there the other half hurts and hurts more, never less, each time.

I have had two days up in Alhaurín, 'hellos' to many friends and even my old neighbors in Mercadona, an unexpected meeting.

Saturday a friend brought me down to Calahonda, in the rain! 

It stopped by mid-afternoon, staying with J. she's taken the week off work so it's been lovely.. We came to the bar where I presently sit, next to work, ladies lunch on a Saturday so met up with lots of customers I know... 

Here today, empty tables all around and I am at a table for four, which a few are, could have sat at a table for two I guess, of course... And a man and woman have sat at my table and started smoking!! So funny! NOT!! 

Seems like I am with them, regardless! 

Monday J. and I walked down to Cabopino, had a lovely lunch ..

Monday afternoon I had coffee with C. nearby, two coffees, and a catch up...

Tuesday we went to Fuengirola with J.'s grandson, was a wonderful day out, taxi and buses, and lunch out, funfair ... Really lovely day.. 

Had lunch at Fuengirola Port ...

Wednesday! Yesterday, and can't remember! Oh yes!! Lols, off to La Cala for an appointment for J. and J. I left them to have a coffee with a friend who'd driven down from town... I met up with them after... I unfortunately was left to my own device's in the market, and succumbed to temptation before they came to save me! 

We then walked into the town and had some tapas, for me the egg plant with honey... Was lovely, but not as nice as the pensioners place along the paseo...

Then we were back to Calypso for coffees and home after a drink along by work.

In the evening I was out for dinner at the Indian at Cabopino, very nice.. lovely evening, back home by nine, shattered!

Today! Coffee again with C, then my walk to the boardwalk.. passing the missing phone booth, and old apartment along by the beach..

Better post this! Or y'all think I've disappeared! 

M.

You can't change and be somebody else in the future unless you start becoming a little better at being that future person today.

Richie Norton - Author-Entrepreneur

 

As I sit here in the departures lounge I feel a sense of strangeness ... My last journey to Spain in September, back from the states... A direct flight from New York... My last to Spain from England was back in August after our trip to Sheringham...

So flying to Málaga like this, is like returning to pre-life in Spain.

Back to 2001... Twenty four years ago.

It's just a visit, a holibobs visit... With a huge amount of wonderful lifelong friends there to see.. That is the difference, and a massive one.

Very mixed emotions, I miss everyone so much, but also worried how I'll feel when I see what I called my country, my home.

Thankful for being picked up by a good friend in the arrivals hall, a familiar face, and staying with the best friends a girl could ask for.

Yet, for some reason sat here feeling like tears are close.

East Midlands airport has changed a little, a reform, we came through the area that is designated normally for crew, and the new scanners etc will be ready by the summer.

Most of the stores are closed, probably a lot less flights coming through while they are doing this update, I came through at nearly one and were about ten people ahead of me only.

My bag went the other way too! Ha! So funny, all these years of travelling, especially for work, hardly ever did, in fact I can only recall once ever before.. no! Twice! Once leaving Bristol once Cardiff.. the later was a deodorant issue!! I think the other was an empty bottle in my bag! And now here, nothing needs taking out...and I was stopped for a bottle issue!  It seems the frizzease product was the issue and I said I can't not have that! He checked it! It was fine! Of course!

So, I need to preserve my battery, have my charger with me, good because the new seat charger isn't working!

See you from Spain next!

M.

Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.

Roy T. Bennett - 1939-2014 - Author

Funny the paths we take in life, although maybe funny isn't exactly the correct word.. We choose different paths, for different reasons; sometimes appearing to be the right path, only to find further down, actually it isn't the direction we thought, or even wanted to go, or just not what we thought...

Then, although we can't exactly go back, we have to open a gate along that path, and choose to leave it. Am laughing now, in my head (as I am on a very packed train, just loaded up in Birmingham New Street!), as I am imagining the path and gate and a blooming huge great field with many gates and pathways! But, actually that is it, isn't it!

I have just left, four hours ago already, a great two weeks with my sister-in-law, been absolutely wonderful, family visited, visited family, met up with old friends.. been out and about and every day has been a beautiful gift.

We visited, Swansea, had lunch in the market, where we used to visit every week, and likewise for Neath and Morfa, and The Range, was a two week walk through familiar home locations, even our old street in Briton Ferry.. So much more fitted in! Including the cinema! And Sunday lunches... Where we left stuffed, not unlike the turkey! 

We ate, a lot, so need to get my act together again now! Doctor has just now, this week, added a forth tablet to my list of medications! Nothing to do with food, exactly, but I should be careful of fats and sugars because of the gastritis, just forget now and then.. 

I've slept well, and warm in fleecy fluffy bed linens and wonderful pillows... Been absolutely wonderful...

Now! On my way back to Nottingham as I write, with a new found excitement lighting up my life. 

M.

The choices You Make Today Will Determine Where You'll Be Tomorrow

Dr. Adam C. Bandelli

Monday I had an appointment at the optician, I wanted to check out that weird ocular migraine I had before I left Spain...

Had enquired a few days ago, and just wanted advice, but they suggested an eye health check, so there I went yesterday morning! 

All good, thankfully, but told if I get more and more frequent to go to the doctor..

After the opticians I was back on the tram and off to a Highfields Park, just for a nice walk around in nature, as we're so many other people.

I had a doctor's appointment later so didn't want to be out too late, or too far away.

So, doctors! I have a few issues with my spine, and one of them is causing nerve pain, I have been coping with it, but especially after that awful sciatica last year, probability associated with same issue, I can't sleep because of the severe pain, okay, well okay maybe not, but during the day it's not so bad as at night some reason.

Found this just now, so makes sense..

'Pinched nerves-

Lying down can pinch nerves that are already compromised by health conditions'

He prescribed something for the nerve pain, I took it at bedtime and fell asleep normally, and although I woke up as usual all through the night, I wasn't woken up by the pain until about 4:30am, so that's a bonus! I guess? 

I felt awake and bouncy when I got up at 7:15! Now not so much, really, really tired.. I am thinking it will level out...

Last the pain didn't wake me until 2:45 this morning, feel so blah on these meds, mouth and head... Blah.

In the strange, perhaps strange way that I think, I think that not feeling the pain that the signals are telling my brain, means instead of waking up and turning to release the trapped nerves is worse.. because today I am in much worse pain doing everything else! Because laying down is keeping things trapped!

Do you see what I mean? Pain has a reason, it is telling us to do something.. So, for wrong or right, I'll take it one more time tonight, but if I'm still in pain during the night, and worse during the day, there is no point feeling drugged out all day added into the bargain for no benefits!

Also, a couple of other issues I left españa with... he will also get investigated now, so I was back to doctors this morning, bloods at the blood clinic in town tomorrow, and some scans later in the month! Whoop whoop! 

Yesterday I got a hot water bottle!! Bright pink furry cover with a place for hands!! Who knew?? 

M.

"Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”

Dalai Lama

And my good intentions of Blogger better again has fallen by the way side!

These photographs I took in Ludlow last weekend..

Very pretty town, can't see it much here but the sun was shining.. 

Feeling like a tourists snapping away on my phone, now of Christmas it's so easy to delete people from the photographs I mean, of course!

It's the first time I've been here... But I'm sure my mom had visited..

Sounded so familiar... wonderful stores, luckily being a Sunday many were closed.. you're regular popular names on the high street, but also many independents, including antique and restoration stores, I wish the latter had been open, I would have walked in, and just breathed..

Especially if it smelt anything like my stepdad workshops...

These photographs above and below, same street taken from two sides..

There were many plaques on walls, explaining the history of previous occupations..

One made me stop sharp! It was an ancestor of a client of mine, when I was in healthcare! 

Felt very strange seeing his name there, like a circle completing.

Wished I'd been able to tell her..

I'm catching up now! 

I don't know what made me check back yesterday, I had walked into town via the arboretum here in Nottingham and couldn't see the sweet little dove I'd seen there previously.. So my journey into town was sad... I'd written about him here, and felt sad that he was alone there, lost his loving owner and probably a mate .. 

And now gone!! But, on the return walk past there he was!! I was so happy again!! Thankful he was there .. 

M.

The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence.

Roy T. Bennett - 1939-2014 - Author