Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!  Booha! from the Bruja!

TTFN
Marian

Roses are...

Happy Sunday!  The trees are all the colors of autumn, leaves fluttering to the ground, so much so that I can nearly see the river Wye and the moutains, hills? on the other side of the road, they've all been undercover of foliage for the summer.  A horse next door making a noise all night I can't possible find a way of telling you the sound... maybe 'phhhhbbbbb!' LOL  That blowing out of mouth noise they make!

The sun is now filtering through the misty clouds after a gray start... and it was almost light when I got up this morning at 6:30am, and by 7am it was light!  This I know of course will change over the next few weeks!

The woodpecker is back at the bird baskets, first time I have seen him since, at least the time before last I was here... June/July shift maybe?

The mouse may have been spotted this morning!  'Hey ho' here we go again! Still the traps are down, so hope he finds his way out of the house and stays out!!  One of his kind has a run by the back door, he hurtles up past the porch door, across the mat by the back door and darts behind and under the big flower pot under the window! He flies along!!

And.... Oh, you know, I think I did a draft the other day and never finished it on here!! Bare with, going to check...

LOl while the internet off... its a no no, so shall carrying on writing and copying and saving as I go so I do not lose all of anything!!  The internet here is the worse I have ever come across, anywhere, at any time, the old dial-up was 100% better than this!  So that's saying something isn't it?  I realise this is out of the way, off the beaten track, but this is the 21 century! The supplier here goes by the two initials of my sons first names!  So that's an easy one! LOL

Okay I have the draft!  It was a 'memory' from Facebook the other day...

"Well heard it all now, conversation between Franco and I just now...

F. They've got Britain's first bug restaurant
M. Where is it?
F. London probably, us Welsh wouldn't eat that ***t!
M.Ummmm, don't know that town... Exactly where is it?
F. Wales!!!

So was...

The 'So was...' was also in the draft!  What was I going to continue with?  Why would I leave it here hanging?  Who knows... Oh I know I know!  LOL it was to get me back with the font!!  It didn't work though, and getting back into the font again reminded me!!

Does anyone reading this ever just leave halfway through my ramblings sometimes?  I wonder? Although of course I could put some really great snippet right at the end!

Going back to my last post... the malaise I had been in, turned out the lady I support and her hairdresser felt the same on the same day!  Must have been something in the air!

Thank you for listening to my ramblings by the way, I never thank you enough, and without you listening to me, and being here for me, I'm not sure what I would do some days...  Especially not having my camera either!

Lemony slice

TTFN

Marian

The malaise I had yesterday morning lifted... I spend most of the day boostering the spirits of the lady I work with, which apart from positive speaking means a lot of smiling, and of course smiling fools our brains into thinking we're happy lol... Maybe all the negative things I hear all day do bring me down, and a reason I feel a bit flat sometimes...  Its hard work being funny and positive all day... but someone has to do it! LOL.... Mmmmm humour falling flat on me this morning too!

I have a headache, again, most mornings, bed is comfy enough, maybe the heating? Who knows... but back to the constant pain relief meds.... Lots to do today so it will lift soon enough and day pass swiftly.

I seem to have been having a shopping frenzy on eBay!  Put bids on a few things, lost three quite soon, which was quite good!  But I put a ceiling limit on what I will pay... and I have three bids on three more tank tops!!!  Yes!! Tank tops!! Who would have known they would be back in fashion... Wish I had kept mine from the 1970's!  Although not sure how the too tight in a 'sausage look' would go down! lol... still, I'm not paying more than the starting prices really, and they're only a couple of pounds each... Also, I travel light!  So maybe its just a distraction...

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, felt warm too through the windows!  Thousands of ladybirds! They were tapping at the windows... "let me in, let me in..."  No photographs, I really must bring my camera next time, it helps... somehow, gives me something to focus on!! haha!! Focus on! Get it??

TTFN
Marian

Trying to add a photograph... is a PDF, can't convert to jpg on this Chromebook, sure its possible, was a site offered to convert, but you have to log in with your email??? Sounded dodgy, so haven't, it was a photograph of my mom, one I am sure I have posted before... maybe on fb or here...



Couldn't find the one I wanted, but this is ideal too....
This machine isn't doing what is was paid to do, probably the download speed, maybe not... maybe just me wanted it to work quicker than it can, because technology never works quick enough for me anymore.

I seem to be on a low again, I'm worse than a big dipper!  Whoever said losing ones mom gets better... blah! or did they?  Did they just say it fades a little, the pain?  Some days I guess it must be, or I wouldn't be able to cope at all... Then days like these all I want to do is just talk to her, that's all I want to do, just talk, just pick up the phone, and talk, to her...

I know I shouldn't be like this, should I? Its on its way to seven years... Seven years, isn't that how long it takes for our bodies to completely renew or something like that, does that mean in March I won't even be the same person I was then?

So this isn't helping, better get on.
TTFN
Marian

Short post today!  A beautiful picture of our beautiful granddaughter... she moves so fast all the time, she is always a blur!

I moved the room about here at the work the other day, my room that is!  The bedhead was just out-there before, I hate sleeping with nothing behind my head, like a wall for instance!  So I moved two things, the dressing table and bed and now I have my head against the wall, where it should be, but now of course, I will have a few days of disorientation, again, while I work out where I am in the nights!

Thankfully not as cold today as it was last week at this early time, new boiler being installed today and, so that's it for heating until its done!  And I better hit the 'publish' button because he is due right this very minute!

TTFN
Marian

What the *

I am sorry today is a vent of frustration, I am unbelievably flabbergasted.... so much so I think I am gasted'ly flabbered!!

We checked out a pellet burner the other week, I mentioned it?  We went to a shop down on the coast at La Canada, got a price for the burner and organised an estimate for the works to be done, and two guys came up to the house and did a reckky!

Well, extracting the 'P' or what!
We were expecting, I don't know... maybe €800 euros, maybe as much as €1000, and that was our limit, so when Franco called into the store today! He had gone down to find out what was going on as the 'we'll call you in 48 hours' ... had been surpassed by about ten days!!

And... the man said it would be €1300 euros... Franco called me and we thought, heck! Well we need it, we want it, it will last sometime... So, okay!  Then Franco called me back - the price had skyrocketed to over €1800!!  Because they need 38 pieces of pipe work!! Add the nearly €400 labour and the cost of the burner, and VAT, of course... if you add the price of burner and labour, that's about €800 and the €1000 plus is for pipework and VAT!!! What the *.....

I said have they got the facts wrong?  Do they think its a wood burner, as Franco mentioned the man in the store said "well, its a two story house..." I mean, with a pellet burner you go straight out the wall behind the burner, add a vent, maybe a pretty little cap to stop the rain getting in!!!  Yes with one six foot pipe inside the house.... but only because you don't want snow [somewhere snowy], or rain, [somewhere wet!], or people sticking stuff in the vent [that's more like it!!]

With a wood burner, yes!  Take that pipe up through the dinning room, through the concrete floor, yes! Take it up next through the living room, and through yet another concrete floor, yes!  Then up onto the terrace, yes! and stand it six foot above our floor! Then ask us for 1800 flipping euros!  Be our guest!

Phew... thanks, as always, for listening, I shall go watch Gilmore Girls now... relax, smile, rest, and tell the bee tapping at the window to go hide, winter is coming!

TTFN
Marian

Sing a song!

Oh how I wish I had my camera... a parade of wildlife having just passed the back door!  Two female pheasants, one male pheasant[!!], pigeons, squirrels, two rabbits [chancing each other!], something that I call a wood hen, but after googling it seems it can't be, so maybe its a quail or something??

Thought for a minute I was going to start singing "five golden rings" three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pair tree!!  Partridge!!! Its a partridge, just Googled again! So that's sorted then!

Anyway, that't it from this small half window door view I have had this morning, a parade of British garden life!

Three weeks to go then I am home again!  Time is going well, weather is weather and that's that!

I am being short and sweet today!  LOL well maybe just short!

TTFN
Marian

Sky Views...

I took above photograph I think it was when I was coming over to Wales two months ago, I know the flight was a six am flight, the red eye! It was dark as dark leaving and we flew into the light, the sun was coming burning through into the day... gorgeous...

Last weeks trip to work was brighter, an hour later in leaving, but an amazing view out of the window once sun was up... I was on the left-hand side of the flight so missed sun-up...

Autumn is well on its way here, the trees are the most wonderful colors, I unfortunately do not have my camera with me, and the phone, although great for world contact and all web issues, isn't as good as my camera for the best shots...

TTFN
Marian

Here I am! Back to work! Only three weeks and a few days to go already!  See how quickly time goes... I am sure it won't be long before I am making the days last as long as possible!  Maybe when I am seventy I will rise at 5:30am... and have a ten minute power nap at three in the afternoon before going long haul until midnight!

Weather has already been many faceted in just a few days!  There has been wet low cloud, drizzle, rain, and heavy rain; then there has been watery sun, sun and cloud and full warm sunshine with all the midges!

It feels like I have never been gone on the one hand and been a long time on the other!  Nothing much changes here I guess for either of us when we're gone...

The journey here was dotted with obstacles!  We had to get a bus to the plane in Malaga, something that doesn't happen much anymore... and for someone who flies every month that's a big thing!  So we drove for a while stuffed in our bus, two buses for a full flight, so a hundred at least on each bus... thought at one point they were driving me home!  Which would have been the best thing ever... but no, just around and about the other runway and then we parked next to the plane, in the dark, and very hot bus!! Elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder and waited... and waited!!  The driver was mentioning Barcelona which made a few of us worried who were listening to him... a man shouted out to "open the doors, we promise not to get off!"  He didn't and we were all sweating.. lovely!!  Eventually the doors opened and on we got!!! Fifteen minutes stood in that hot bus!

So we took off late, but luckily landed on time!  Bus to Cardiff okay, but then the coach to Builth broke down!  We were at Brecon and a passerby got the driver out of the coach and showed him something near the wheel!  He drove us to a changeover spot, usually its just a driver, but another bus came, and we got off our bus and onto that... Sounds fine eh!! Well maybe yes, for us, but not for the people who had been on the bus and also had to get off! They got onto our broken one!!!  And from their perfect bus we could all see the problem with the bus they were now on!  Lots of black oil all over the nearside rear wheel!! "Good luck" we said to them! Bon voyage!!

Got into Builth about quarter hour late, so not so bad...

I am back to the Gilmor Girls on Netflix and all is well with this little world in here... still wishing I get the lady out of house, with me I mean!!   Be so nice to just get out for a drive, or a visit someplace, town, garden centre, somewhere....

TTFN
Marian

Back to work tomorrow, and as a good friend of mine said to me this morning, "Spain is crying because you are leaving for work tomorrow"....

There had been a a few drops before I took Pipster for her walk this morning, then it chucked it down before we made it home, sheltering under trees, and looking dodgy walking right next to the houses!

Above when we sheltered in the doorway to the little chapel under the ayuntamiento...

Our new sun-lounger-bed on the terrace! jeje... just kidding, down at Casa Flores, they are getting some expensive gear in these days!  There were a few terrace sofas, one or two sold already, with, the customers names on!!! So everyone else knows where they are now... jeje!!

One of the little turtles bathing in the sun... and yes, this wasn't today!!!  So sunbathing today!  Its all my fault, I actually sat in the sun yesterday, don't normally sunbathe!!

Pippa knows I'm going soon, she watched sad eyed as I packed my bag today... its so light now! It looks like an overnight bag... wish it was!!

Still, not everyone gets six months off a year do they!

We had a coffee down at 'the office' this morning, say bye to friends for a month for me, then got a few bits I needed... but lots closed today, no scrap that, nearly every thing closed!  Well, it it a public holiday today after all... Think another next week too, although that could be local to Malaga, this one is all over Spain.

After town we popped up to 'our' bar for churros!

This time tomorrow I will be pulling into Builth Wells... Speak to you from there amigos!

TTFN
Marian

Wedding!

The Council House registry room

Belated photographs from my eldest sons wedding last month!  Two days after I finished work, it was trip to Cardiff, overnight stopover there for me, met Franco and then we were up to Nottingham.... aforementioned I think!

Signing of the registration papers

 Some of these photographs are thanks to family, my phone camera didn't do a great job indoors in the registry office or the lunch to follow!  Didn't have my 'real' camera...

My boys...

The Council House in Nottingham is a beautiful place for a wedding, the room was panelled, gorgeous setting, and just as the official read out the bit about "... if there is anyone who thinks this marriage..."  a street drummer started to beat out something!  And the man said he was sorry, he couldn't understand the drums!!

... and Wedding lunch

The lunch was held in a pub in town, on the third floor, in a wonderful room with the longest table, and low ceiling!  There were strange items around the room too!  A sleigh, sewing machine, bits and pieces of all sorts! Great room, great food... and well done to the staff who had to carry full plates and drinks up those flights of stairs, then carry huge piles of empty plates back down again, job well done folks!!

Signing the register

 These two photos above are mine, from indoors, both a bit to misty!! Then the one below... perfect!  Outside and no problems! Never mind!!

Bride and Cassie

Sons, on the right groom in waiting...

Younger son opening door for Bride

Wonderful day!  Wedding was at 2:30pm and then up to the restaurant by way of a drink in a Church... converted to pub!  We sat outside and then moved onto the restaurant... I think it was about 7pm when we came out... We popped back to the hotel, got changed and met up again quite soon afterwards with the Brides family... We went into a small bar, and drank very strong beer!!  Well I did, I only had a small glass, they didn't do pints and I couldn't have handled one!  I didn't get drunk, just very tired, and as soon as we were back in the hotel room I thought I would shut my eyes for five minutes, I was out like a light until the morning!  Knockout beer!!! Very high alcohol content!

So lovely to be with everyone, both my boys together, hadn't seen them together for four years... Too long a time...

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