This photograph does not do what I have just seen justice! On my Facebook its at least able to move to give a better idea...

I was sat here, Blogging, and the room turned red... well, Sahara red... I dashed upstairs onto the terrace and wow! What an amazing view!!! Incredible!

Apocalyptic! Crazy skies!

I am a very lucky person in so many ways; I don't thank everyone enough... Thank you to the people in my life who make me smile, who lighten my life and heart...

Cod, from the Crispy Cod

I've just run up onto the terrace, the light in the house is red, Sahara red red! I've taken some photos, next blog now!!!

Photograph taken yesterday morning walking into town... sunlight and shade...

The purple church.. bit misty? AKA rubbish photograph!

A photograph of Alhaurín Golf in the distance...

Today I went down to the coast to spend some time with friends, the third and final time in the last week, they are back to the UK and I am of course back to work soon!

Been good spending time with them, out and about and just chatting and catching up on whats been going on... Today we went to the Crispy Cod in Fuengirola, we usually do, but I didn't think we would this time, the town being so busy, but we got a space nearby for the car, no problem, even seemed a bit quiet down on the coast.... The food great as always.

Okay, posting this and then getting the next batch on!! Amazing skies!!

After my strange start to the day I spent five hours with friends down near the old place...

Talk talk talking! Laughter and tears as always, always good to see my friends and will see them again before their holiday ends...

Went to Aldi on my way home, and came back to a beautiful cool house, I'd left everything closed and shut up, no sun no hot air! My skin is actually cold!! Lol...

Just watched a movie called I Kill Giants... It was good, just an easy to watch movie, nothing frightening like yesterdays choice!!

And I'm leaving now with a quote from the movie...

***

All things that live in this world, die.

This is why you must find joy in the living, while the time is yours, and not fear the end.

To deny this, is to deny life.

But to embrace it... Can you embrace it?

You are stronger than you think.

***

Dogwood

One of my favorite plants... The dogwood tree... I have a book from when I was a baby and this dogwood tree was in the story... Its an American book, and the above photo taken when I was back home earlier in the year... the last placement I was on he also had a dogwood tree in his arboretum!

I'm in that strange place now, a week before work, ready to go, wanting to just get back to it, and be busy... Yet not wanting to waste precious time here, it would be like working Monday to Friday and on Saturday morning thinking, oh well, I'll be back to work in a couple of days! Already thinking of going while I should be enjoying the here and now!

I am off to see friends on the coast shortly, but my head is stuck in a wedge! lol... that would hurt wouldn't it!!

I dreamt last night I was in a car, a passenger, coming down from Hemel Hempstead on the Two Waters Road, and at the T-junction at the bottom, there was a sign, numbers I can't remember, I was checking my phone to work out what they meant... I said, we can't turn to the left, to Apsley! and then woke up! So I guess that was telling me to take the right road! Lol... the right road! the correct road? Wish I could remember the numbers!!

Did I mention I had a sore eye a couple of weeks ago? I did, my left eye in the tear duct, and I just bathed it with warm water and it went away... I got another sore eye now, the right, its a stye!! So I am guessing that's what I had in the other eye!! Whats that all about!! I used to get them all the time when I was child... Google says stress, or infection! Terrific! In either case! So I am bathing this eye now, I'd forgotten how sore they are... oh and I had a nose bleed too! a couple of days ago!?! after the neck ache I had last week!!!

So that's me today! Bloody, sore and a pain in the neck!

Cordoba

For all the photographs I take; like most people, my best and worse memories kept in photographic detail in my mind, my Kodak moments,  (other named brands on equal par!) flash sometimes through my mind at the best and the worse moments also!

This morning seeing something I have seen before, when I was 17, a dog in the aftermath of being hit by a car, the same spinning and heartbreaking screaming... I cried, while driving... It was awful.

Then as I drove to the coast this morning, both visions so far apart in years all but a blink apart in my memory!

I shouldn't have been in my car, I wouldn't have had to see it!

And I shouldn't, I had lent my car to my neighbor, but then my neighbor got let down, and I had the opportunity to visit friends I thought I couldn't see today, but did, but only after the above.

Funny how life is sometimes.

So I wouldn't just be home most of the day I took myself on a longish walk up to the Mirador, on the far side of town, heading up towards Laura Golf.

Seemed further than the 1.1 miles it said it was!! So yes okay, that's 2.2 miles from my starting point!

And unfortunately, my backpack looks a bit like... strange!

A view not normally seen on foot from me! And at only 10 something in the morning! I had a cold cafe con leche at the bar on my way back through town!

Then learnt I could have my car, collected it, then saw the awful thing, before heading coastward!

On my way home I popped into the garden centre and found a little serenity walking amongst the fauna and flora! Listening and watching the waterfall, and the tortugas swimming and sunbathing...

To close, a poem I purloined from Twitter, sorry I'm not sure whose it is, I didn't intend to share here!

What comes from the heart

goes to the heart...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Spent two hours on my terrace  this morning before the sun touched down on it!

A pallet flower planter wasn't doing too well, so have taken it from the wall and added it to the table, makes it higher and maybe more of a table...

I've replanted a type of yucca? Lol question mark because I've forgotten what it is, and frankly my dears... Dammit!! Lol I had to check didn't I! It says it's an agave!! Wonder if it's the blue variety? I can make tequila!!

Sunset last evening...

Terrace is now swept, all rubbish cleared up and in trash bags downstairs... Some old bricks and pipes... I did scream once! When a little lizard I wasn't expecting darted out and made me jump! Poor little thing! Him, not me!

Honied eggplant! Yummy!

Had a friend stay last week, was good to have company, someone to laugh and cry with! Spent some of the week away, went to the lakes, of course! La Cala beach a few times, Mijas Pueblo... Not much more, but was really nice, and helped for a while to ease my loss of Pippa...

The lakes are exceedingly low considering the huge amount of rain we had this year! January, February, March... It didn't really settle until June! Crazy weather!

So to see the reservoir so low was a shock!

Had to park beneath the gardens at Mijas Pueblo, and walk up from there it was so busy, a beautiful doorway above, leads down towards the path, so a new vista for me, somewhere I love so much.

I have some friends visiting again this week, at their place, so I'll be busy with them, and others who live here...

I don't like this keeping busy thing! I actually, just want to relax when I'm not working; yes go out and about and adventure around, but I feel I am having to force myself to keep my head from filling with things I can't change.

I have found out I don't talk to myself though now, I thought maybe I did, but I really actually was just talking to Pippa afterall.

The history of Pippa

Pippa, the Pipster... Pip, fur-baby...

Born in May 2005, we got this fur-ball because we were broken into.... Yes, she is a vicious little thing, kills with a lick and deafens with yelps!

We didn't want a pup, but a pup she was, and will always be a pup to me...

After a very short time she was our keeper, ruling us and the house, taking over when anyone stayed, always thought everyone who visited was only visiting to see her!

I knew when we had the devastating news, Franco's diagnosis, that Pippa would suffer the fall out, that for her her life would change forever... as for all of us, only she doesn't know why... 

She doesn't know what happened to Franco....

and is totally unaware that tomorrow she is going to leave me, leave here...

Pippa, my constant companion, when I had all my migraines, she would lay next to me on the bed, as close as she could get, she would neither eat or drink, she wouldn't go outside, she ignored all things to remain with me. I sometimes wondered what would happen to her if I never got up again, how long she would stay and wait...

I keep telling myself this is going to be better for her than a life of here or there as I go to work, backwards and forwards, not knowing when or if I am coming back or not... and I have to work, she could have a year, or two, or three maybe... but would be spending half of that time away while I work...

I have argued the decision with myself, talked to everyone I know, and those I don't! My choice has really been taken from me now... I made the decision and have to stick with it, for right or wrong.

I hope she thinks she is going to stay for a holiday... like when I am going to work, that she will think I am returning to collect her, but in the meantime she will have fun with other dogs, enjoy the company of a family....

That she will make friends and settle, I hope she misses me less than I will miss her... and in time... in time what?

I'm writing this now because I won't be able to tomorrow or the next day, or any other day, my eyes ache, my head aches, my heart what is left of it aches... and as always I bleed my life into this blog, I am now empty. And yet another ghost will walk my life here in Spain...

Time to ride...

So I am awake, it's 4am it's been an hour I am awake for! And now with the lyrics of Hotel California going through my mind, (who knew I knew them all!!) I've got a cup of Joe and I'm going to read to block out my thoughts.

I was thinking you see, that I wished a man would pull up outside pass me over a helmet, I'd jump on the back on his motorbike and we'd just go, get on that open road, to the interior, further up and away... Take the mountain roads, winding up and further in...

And with every mile drop thoughts from my mind, worries, stresses.. empty my head...

And that's when "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night..."

Came into my head.. thank you The Eagles, thank you Hotel California...

So I guess now I'll read a book... The one I started weeks ago... Perfect time now.. hey, I can hear a bike... Is it for me?