Hóla amigos,

Probably shouldn't be Blogging right now, just been reading my Blog from 2 years ago this month, and December and was just getting into January when I realised this self infliction of pain is, probably stupid? Reading about those last months of my Mom's life, are seriously not the life and times my Mom would want me to remember!  But I cannot keep away, I had even checked out her place on google maps again, did it the other week, what's the matter with me??

All the change that's going on now for me I guess, the move, different direction on the path of my life.  These boxes!  Will be glad in a way when they're gone, the house will be empty I know, and we will be left with the bare minimum, in fact just the way the first few months were, a couple of sets of cutlery, few kitchen cookware bits, few clothes... Ending here how it began, and at Christmas too, no tree, no decs, this time no Mom.

No cards for anyone this year either I am sorry to say... Next year yes! So bare with us on the card front!

Reading your comments too from two years ago, once more, I have to say, thank you, thank you, those words helped me so much, and my Mom, when she would ask if there were any messages on my Blog or Twitter!!!

Think I really should close this now, give my self a shake down, and get a cup of tea, sorry for being so melancholy....

We learn simply by the exposure of living. Much that passes for education is not education at all but ritual. The fact is that we are being educated when we know it least.

DAVID P. GARDNER 

TTFN
Marian


Keep forgetting must link to our house! SELL SELL SELL Property Search Spain

Well organised the removal of our Welsh Dresser, phoned to let her know and oh surprise surprise, she had changed her mind, worried it would be difficult to paint behind????  Well I guess that can be said for all furniture, period!

So I was a happy bunny, had to call the guys back to cancel the removal I had just booked with them!  He suggested I try a fb flog it site, so I went straight on it, posted a photo, and it looks like its sold, again, its for Thursday, so lets all keep our fingers crossed please!

Because the boxes came on Wednesday and today I started packing, they are taking everything away in two weeks, and I can't just sit here looking at them, so today, had a nice morning around town, wandered into lots of the shops, beautiful day, warm in the sun, a pleasure to be alive!  Then I came home and began the beguine....Mmmmm just googled exactly what 'beguine' means and it means white lady in Creole language! So no I just started packing actually!

And I stopped for a bit of lunch, started again, kept telling myself to stop, relax, leave it!! And I did, eventually, 18 boxes are standing here, so the living room looks like a warehouse now!

I have numbered the boxes and written what's in them on in notebook!

I now have two kindle books pending to publish, have to edit and type out the first, the second, another cartoon book, I have scanned but need to change in order to be able to publish it...

Hate sitting in this disarray, its like having an untidy desk at work, too much mess, makes my head messy inside!  I may go to the market in the morning, either that or I will start work on the rest of the packing and be shattered by midday.... and ill all week!

So adieu my friends for now...

TTFN
Marian

The Sneezing Whale

Another book to do now, about a Teddy Bear that tells the time.... Will be typing it out over the next few days, and hopefully latest mid week it will be 'live' on Kindle!  Going great guns now, kindletastic!

Been a frustrating week thus far, the boxes for boxing up the house, [as if it were that easy!], that should have come last Wednesday will be here tomorrow now, I do know its early, but its not going to be easy to do it all in only two weeks!  Worse as I have been known to pack everything up at least a good month in advance!!  And when it arrives, its all unpacked in a matter of a couple of days likewise!

Anyway.... Also been trying to move on the Welsh Dresser, a neighbour is having it from us, but has it been easy to get it gone? Nope!  Trying to find a man with a van, who actually answers the phone, calls back or can do it immediately there is not!

Thankfully we have found someone now, probably should have called him first, but wasn't up to me... so I did take over today and its sorted, for Friday!  So we shall have 50 or more boxes and the Welsh Dresser to fight with in the living room!!! Mmmmmm!!!

I did something so funny, but not really!!  I was filling out an on line application for a job website, I had to put in an open letter.... well! Whata mistake'a to make'a!!!

I wrote the letter, sent the letter, received a copy in my in box and woah! OMG.... I didn't write Dear Sir....

I had written Dear Sire !!!!  Well as a facebook friend said, if I am applying to Kings of old for a job as a servant, all well and good, but in the 21st century?? oh dear what a typo to make to a job firm!!

Oh well, they will either see the funny side or think I am especially subservient!!!! Not!

Rains looks imminent again,  hope it stays off long enough for me to get everything out of the cave, another reason I really wanted the boxes now, so everything I have doesn't get ruined by water!!  Once I have the cave empty is can rain all it wants.... well maybe not eh!

Ah ha.... got the name of the Artist went to the other week in Marbella... Its Don Clarke!

Polar Bear Tales










Its getting cold at night, thank fully I have a lovely warm duvet, and my hot water bottle,  microwaveable! Whatever next!! and waking up with it stone cold next to me isn't very nice, like a cold dead fish!!!

And on that note!
TTFN
Marian





 

Time is going so quickly, on my Blog that is!  Apologies to all!  Cannot believe its Saturday, a week and a half since my last blog...

I have been busy, honestly!!  Got another book uploaded on Amazon.co.uk, another childrens book called Polar Bear Tales...

Kindletastic I say! and yes, it probably is just me who says this!!

Really really proud of this, the sixth book already, and have another one out in the next week, maybe, talked over the ideas, and given orders to the author, I am the editor in charge now, although not giving any money upfront, which is how I believe Publishers normally do it!!  Checked the reports and the six books are selling well on the Kindle, fantastic.

I have taken my editing steps a little further now too, doing some editing on Wikipedia!!!  Was a bit nervous going in with this its all the http format, but all working out well so far...

The weather has been quite good for the time of the year, a little rain, well heavy when it rains, but little of it I mean!  The house is dry and so is the cave... which is great as its being used as storage at the moment, the boxes are due in the next coming days and the Welsh Dresser on its way out.... shame, I love this piece of furniture, but I didn't bring it out with me, so that's life! Things change...

Anyway, when the dresser is moved I can bring everything in from the cave and put into proper boxes, and then in a few weeks everything will be taken out and away....

Went to the Kasser Rassu in Marbella the other week, did I mention that, I don't think I did because I can't remember linking to the Artist... whose name has completely gone from my memory, or the memory of my computer!!! Ooops!  Well if it comes back to me I'll let you know, either his name or my memory!

Was a friend birthday the other day, from the Boardroom, so took a cake in, and lovely it was too, maybe some would say 9am was a little early to be eating a trifle sponge cheese cake... but, no, it was fantastic!

Had a headache for past few days, and now at the weekend, when I have a medication withdrawal headache, its not getting any better!  And Pippa is staring at me, she wants her dinner!

So adios amigos...
TTFN
Marian
ps photo is up at the lakes from earlier this year...

Beginning with an awful scare I had during the night! I hadn't been asleep long when I sensed something  which woke me up, thought someone was standing in the doorway and screamed out "what do you want??" silly really! I mean had it been a 'somebody' not sure the reply would have been good!  Pippa in her bed, wasn't bothered by my shouting or thought indeed that there was even anything to be shouting at in the middle of the night!!!!

Anyway, I gave myself a scare which was bad enough, couldn't get heart rate back to normal, my normal that is, opened the persiana a bit to allow some light in.... still no good, so went and got some warm milk, switched the tv on for a while while I drank said milk, and tried again, this time I went to sleep....

This happens a lot to me, I don't know what actually wakes me up, but often I think I see something, just black bits on my eyeball, I don't know, usually looks like a person, or huge spiders coming towards me, and I'm not afraid of spiders but when they seem to cover the ceiling even I scream!!!

This morning after coffee at the Boardroom I got the bus down to Fuengirola, I sat on the side to give me the best 'buena visa' of the coast on the way down, and back for that matter.

Its very strange, I almost feel like I am now thinking everytime I see stuff its one less time I will see it whilst living here... like counting down.  I still haven't walked up to the tiny chapel that overlooks Mijas pueblo!  Twenty years of looking up at it, and never made the climb, I will have to persuade Son who is coming over for Christmas to take the walk with me!  He doesn't read this, so will be none the wiser as to my evil plan!!!

The bar I always have coffee in was closed, probably just for this month, like so many after the long summer months, have known Luiz for about 15 years... So I sat at a restaurant in Las Rampas which is opposite the doors Mom and I used every day to enter our apartment, which is by the gates of the car park we first parked after we landed at Malaga airport, with only a case each and no bed for the night! Until we saw Snr. Lorenzo, which, while I was thinking this, came out of his office to go get his coffee!  His hair is almost white, and much less than there was nearly 10 years ago!!!  But his business is still there, which is good, and cannot be said of many of the other shops and restaurants that were here back then, all changed, or just closed in some cases!

It felt strange, and I felt like a stranger...

I sat for a while in the sun by the church in the middle of town, where all the wonderful Christmas lights and decorations will be soon, some are already up over the streets, I remembered sitting there with Mom and taking a photo of the church, a woman came up and started screaming at me that I had taken her photo!!! I hadn't, of course, "why would I" I said.... she went crazy! I know now of course, her religion may have meant that taking a photo is like taking your soul....

I should have got off the bus here at the top of town, but for some reason stayed aboard, and had trouble making it home up hill all the way... I had felt that I should stretch my legs after sitting on the bus for over an hour, the trip back home was a nightmare, there is a detour of a local urbanization on the edge of Fuengirola, its sort of like going through Hollywood Hills, without the million dollar houses to look at, i.e. you go really slow, stop outside every single property... and there is nothing to see!!!  The journey down to the coast, takes you almost all the way, then does a turn around at the roundabout and back up to the A7, its like a trick, nearly there folks, oh no we're not, we're heading back up again!!!  The street maybe opened before I go, but I won't be holding my breath.... and now at last they are putting a round about at the T junction where you come off the N340 from Miramar direction, and you come up to the Mijas - Fuengirola road, its been hell trying to turn left, even going right, going around the roundabout and back up to Mijas pueblo is better than just sitting at that intersection forever...

And something else, at last, after all this time [or has it been longer than I know?]  I called up and cancelled my Vodafone contract yesterday, the number I had before when I cancelled Franco's is now a no go... So I popped into Vodafone yesterday, waited about 10 minutes for the lady who was being served, to be served!  Asked for the number and came home to phone it! 22189 Fantastic!  You follow instructions, press 3 for English, and 1 if you want to speak to someone immediately, and after 24hrs, every time you call, you will automatically speak to someone speaking the language you requested!  Absolutely brilliant, late, but brilliant...!

TTFN amigos
Marian

Photos I have taken near our house.

The Santa Vera Cruz to the right here. 

Rainy day today, had a pyjama day! Or would have had I not suddenly remembered something very important I had to do in town at 11:30am, but was back home, before the rain started again too much, my tea was still warm!

The corner of the Ayuntamiento [townhall]
Fun in the bank while I was there... Only one bank person, in the bank, line of five or six of us waiting, la la la, and waiting, when there was a *toot, toot* out side and the man, the only person working in the bank, left the building!  Yes he left the building amigos!  Came back in a moment later with a brown package which he took to a room behind the desks, where you could hear a bit of noise as he put it away, somewhere, then he came back out!!!

And the old pillars!!! Sorry, I mean Roman Columns!
I defrosted the freezer today too, I thought what the heck, plenty of water outside, might as well flood the kitchen as well!  And flood it did, amazing how much water comes out of these things, it wasn't over iced, just 'normal', I thought rain water had come into the kitchen, somehow, then realised it was from the freezer, finding its way out of the door and into the outside passage way!  I always forget the floor in the kitchen has a, so subtle you don't notice it, tilt to allow any water to leave the house quickly!  Same in the lounge too, to allow any flooding out the front door! Very handy, if needed!

This week I am been trying to better the cartoon books on the Kindle, not happy until I get it right, the newest book, The Sneezing Whale, came out so well, I up dated Santa's Pipe Dream, and its so much more professional now! As of course, it should be!

The cartoon books I am finding harder, they will not translate to HTML, so having to use .doc.... oh its just not easy, but so much better now, going to re-do one, one more time, and perfecto mes amis!

Watched a couple of programs that I had missed, on too late for me, wonder how long it will take me to get used to London time?  When I was there for two months last year, I still couldn't... I guess though because of calling home, here, that is.

I watched a BBC2 program called Brains, from the Origins series, fantastic, learned alot, never too old to learn it seems!  Or maybe I did learn it, but forgot it? Yes that must be it!

Don't look back, your not going that way...

c/o a Twitter friend

TTFN
Marian

Today, I have turned with thanks to Winnie the Pooh for help... he who once observed...

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you suddenly know everything there is to be known.

Right now, take three or four long, slow, deep breaths, focus on the pauses between breaths, and feel your consciousness shift.
Visualize yourself leaning over a bridge railing, watching the river of life slipping slowly away beneath you.
Be the river, be the flow... then just be.
Ah!

TTFN
Marian




Property search spain