Do you want to hear a joke? of course you do...

woman goes into a spanish bank to pay in an english cheque! correct bank... but no! you can only pay this in to your own branch... but here is the full account number? no, it has to be paid directly into the correct branch, we can post it there for you? what! no! woman leaves bank laughing, laughter turns to tears.... how ridiculous!

joke? no my reality!

now to my copied and pasted from offline mode notes!

i love this bit in the book i am reading now Brother Odd, by Dean Koontz, its the 3rd in the Odd series, it says..... well Odd is speaking he says something about some gum then goes on to say... "I have leaned a great deal from novels. Some of it is even true." does this sound familiar to you!

wonderful weather today, Saturday, no sign of rain, non forecast though! yesterday it looked like rain but didn't!

we went up to the house this morning, all ok, well same as.... picked up mail, forgot a few things i meant to pick up, brought back things we had in the back of the car that we forgot to take out and down to the house.... there are road works on the Mijas pueblo road now, well been there about 2 or 3 weeks now, its the third Saturday we have had to line up to get past them, the road has subsidence, no one working on it, well it is the weekend after all and a very busy road!!??


on our way back down we went into Miramar, the road to Calahonda and beyond was closed, a truck had come off the road, we saw it on the way down, but it looked like now they were probably using a huge crane to get it out of the gulley, it had gone through the crash barrier and gone some way along the ditch thing that carries away the rain water...


no pictures of that, just the empty bars and restaurants in Miramar, four closed in the food hall near the cinema section! dont know how long the two fast food chains will last... cant believe the pizza place has gone! it was cheap and always good, made fresh right there in front of you... lots of shops closed too, when, and its a big when of course, they have built the massive super shopping centre in Torremolinos this place may be even emptier, but then, you have to go to Torre and parking there is bad now, buses take about an hour!.....

last time we were there was with Barry and we found then the restaurant downstairs, which i preferred was also gone... still is!

met up with our old neighbour yesterday, as in old from where we used to live!!! had a couple of coffees and a good talk...her Dad died December 29th... what an awful last few months for so many people i know, the guy who used to help Mom with the garden, his wife died a couple of weeks before my Mom, i didn't tell her, i went to school with their daughter...i think that's five Moms and a Dad, in just over 2 months.... of people i know of course...

Newspaper news... our Prime minister Zapatero's cuts: public worker salaries, average of 5% pay cut: 3bn euros. Pensions: frozen from 2011: 1.5bn, Baby cheque 2,500 euro pay out to parents at birth scrapped from 2011 1.2bn. benefits no longer back-dated, infrastructure cuts: 6.04bn, few other things totalling estimated savings of 15.015 billion euros.

a woman attacked by a huge dog was brought down by the first bite on her leg, then another 3 dogs joined in the attack, a man came when he heard the poor woman's screams, and said, "tranquila, no pasa nada"!!! quiet, its alright! just like the idiot in the woods with Pip and i, he took two of the dogs, he couldn't manage all four, the two that were left attacked her again biting her neck! she managed to get a way to her home 300 meters away and is now in Malaga hospital needing skin grafts, they tore of the back of her leg, the matter is now in the hands of Seprona, the Guardia Civil nature protection service.

La Barracuda Hotel in Montemar, Torremolinos is an apartment hotel, the laws changed there six years ago and the owners can only use their apartments for eight weeks a year free of charge and then only between October and April, not at Christmas, new year or Easter! if they want to use their own properties outside that period they then need to pay the hotel to use their own properties that they have paid for and have the title deeds to! in high season this equates to 66 euros per night plus tax! there is one British lady who lives off a modest pension and lives there full time and has no other property to move into. she can't sell the lace as no one in their right mind would buy it and she can't afford pay the fees of staying in her own place in the high season, so she could be homeless!!! at a recent meeting the hotel management requested the keys of these apartments in order to accommodate their clients during the summer season. in return the owners would receive a percentage of the profits, however should the business make a loss, the owners would be liable for this too!!!!

school children in Valez who are having trouble getting up for school on time are to get a wake up call knock on the door before 9am to make sure they are up and getting ready for school!

my horoscopes in one paper told me to ... wandering amount the trees, listening to the birds, it will help you to relax!... it doesn't mention to watch out for attacking dogs though does it!!!

in Mijas, we think it must have meant Mijas pueblo, it is now illegal to walk you dog, in parks, near fountains, play areas, green areas, they must be muzzled whatever size and always on a leash, you must also have dog passport on you at all times, although they are supplying doggy bags for free!


photos of dingy...



And here at the apartment on the beach! not in the papers! when Pip and i went out bright and early this morning lots of police down the road to the beach here and in the urbanisation next door, they were all on the beach surveying a massive speed boat dingy, four engines, about 30 foot long! massive thing! so i guess a lot of drugs came into Spain here last night whilst we slept on... the fence had been folded over where the men must have climbed over into next door...

THE most expensive meal at the new restaurant in El Zoco, the Japanese, 300€ per person!

our old place down here at Calypso, when it was raining for so long they had a leak from the roof... i guess despite all the mold and mildew in our house, we were lucky not to have running water, well except in our cave... where the photos and old books are that i am trying not to think about yet, or until i have to!


something also learned from Dean (Koonz).. a Hogshead... is 63 US gallons of wine back in....????? well looks like back to at least the 11th century... so that's where the name comes from for the branches of Hogshead bars in England, if they're still going?

ok back to real time, for me! still getting over the bank *joke*... still shaking my head in disbelief....

i think today i shall use this little quote, been saving it for the right moment, today is it!

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma...
(the banks in spain)
also apparently said by Winston Churchill to describe Russia in 1939

TTFN
Marian