Today! This morning a trip up to Alhaurín for drinks with the girls.. woke to a sprinkling of dirty rain, and on the drive through the mountains a few drops... But nothing much and dry within moments..

Two coffees and a té verde later... a quick walk around town and down to Fuengirola, parking in my usual spot, the Sohail end... 

Now in Bar Luis, of course, always, why change what isn't broke.. like I just said on my Insta .. until either their doors close, or mine!

Avocado y olive oil on brown toastado... A Nestea..  and full healthy tum! I say laughing.. should be healthy! For a healthy person!! 

Something we noticed yesterday in a particular British bar in La Cala..  half empty when we left.. shootings tend to have that effect on places I guess! 

I'll not post yet! Day still in full swing!

After Luis's I came off the paseo marítimo and walked straight down and through Las Rampas, Dunnes is still open, the real estate agent where we rented the apartment from is closed, Snr Lorenzo has been gone from there many years.. signs on the window say 'Been in business over twenty years', but that business is no more... Just the gates and steps down to the tower we lived in for six months, seems another lifetime ago..

The tattoo place I got my angel done, April 1st, 2003.. that's gone.. most of the bars, clothes shops, other businesses here above in Las Rampas have gone.. it looks so sad.. the day earlier wasn't too bright then either, adding to the overall look of gloom and despair.. at that time it was 85% humidity, the air was bad.. 

Sun came up about 3pm.. brighten our day..

So, okay! I walked a long stretch of the main high streets through Fuengirola.. up one road, down the other... Past where the fish market was, opposite the train station and the mermaids roundabout.. past my favorite tattoo place.. up to where the horses roundabout is and turned right... Left at the crossroads and along as far as Anthony's jewelry store, and back... Stopped in a place and bought a tea cup!?! One for fresh tea! I don't know why?? And when I went to wash it earlier, it actually has Fuengirola written on!! Oh dear! Shaking and hanging my head now! Really!?!

Then! I carried on along past the church, thought I'd have a coffee where we, the boys and I used to have chicken sandwiches.. it's gone! It looks gone for a long while, because two stores are there, both look old, closed, and run down! How long ago did the beautiful restaurant close?

So, back through a small cut-thru, where a long long time ago two gypsy girls snatched some pesata notes from my wallet, and we grabbed them back and upset their tray of roses! 

Out onto the main road by the wonderful, thankfully still open, pastelería.. filled with beautiful cakes and aromas of them.. 

Back and along past the old ayuntamiento, (town hall), and police station and down to the car..

Drove back to La Cala the back way, like I was going home.. why does life hurt? 

Came home here instead... And the fur baby and I cwtched a while.. 

She is so loving.. 

M.

“Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.”

Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Time flies.. as always, Saturday took friends to a tattoo place I use in Fuengirola, Art Monkey, two tattoos later, they're both very pleased with their new ink!  And we headed to the paseo and had a cool drink, went to a bar I've never been to before, it looks recently updated, and maybe I have, a long long time ago..

Time has a habit of running away without us if we don't keep an eye on it! 

We had a bite of lunch at Luis Bar, where I have been going since '89, and also very changed, not sure in a good way though..  then we went to the Sky Bar.. definitely never been there.. it's in the hotel that faces the statue of the woman whose back is to the med.. near Luis Bar..  I say in, the bar is on the rooftop, like at the TWA hotel at JFK.. similar but not the same.. 

Was wonderful up there, sat on sofas, and under a shade, good friends and conversation, the warm sun and a little breeze.. very very nice..

Above and below La Cala de Mijas on Sunday..

Sunday I drove down to La Cala, sat on the beach, then along onto a sunbed, had a bite of lunch.. sea breeze was wonderful, but then I could see dark battleship gray clouds approaching from homeward direction and decided to head home, saw my neighbor and had a coffee with him, before it started to rain, which it did so we had another coffee!! 

Today a coffee up this end of town, before a walk down to town, and, more coffee! 

I've had a bad day on Facebook, shared way too many soppy poems and saved even more in my 'to keep' list..

Sometimes we have days like that, they weigh heavy for whatever reason.

M.

Today I had another tattoo, the itch for ink is strong ... Well, can't find a Darth Vader emoji! And may the forth was yesterday, so a tad too late for Star Wars humor me thinks!

Well, I randomly, as I am, picked up a book off the shelf... It was my mom's Grimm's Fairy Tales, and it opened at a bookmark, of mine! The piece of paper above.. which is directions of how to use the tattoo cream it came with! 

Very strange! Of course! 

Next also random, picked up this book below of my mom's.. 

Thought I'd post the writing my grandfather's godfather, Mr G Daniel.. 1894.. had written on the inner page .. almost 130 years ago.. crazy isn't it.. my family have always written in books, to whom and when, and why... And to see the history like this is a beautiful keepsake..

My mom loved the same authors as her father.. and she read them to me.. wonderful stories, I guess my favourite of his is 'Ayesha, the return of She'

And me leaving Art Monkey Tattoo today! All wrapped up! 

This above is a rubbish photograph, but I was sat reading on the terrace and one of black bees came a buzzing around, he started on the sweet peas then came down to these Heart leaf ice plant flowers! Aptenia cordifolia is the Latin name.. 

And no, until this very moment I had no idea of the name of this plant I have been keeping alive in most parts of the wall behind the house and here and there on the terrace, for eighteen years! 

Then the bee came buzzing over me, I just dipped my head down into my book, then he flew off and over to the geraniums etc on the other side and back around again, and again.. quite a busy little bee! Well no, not so little... And while I'm rambling it was the color I wanted to try to show you, but wasn't easy with his speed, I have always thought of them as black.. but he's really the most beautiful dark purple.. gorgeous!

I know I handle British bees, letting them walk on my fingers and hands, and even touch the soft velvet of their little yellow and black bodies.. but not sure about these.. maybe I could try?? Am I a true bee whisperer!  

M. 

Just filing through my photographs on my Kindle, came across this from June sometime...

It's so true, all or nothing eh!

I have been spending time in my Oculus, doing well, well better, learning to navigate my way from place to place, how to move more fluidly, and to fly, when you can.

Not used to interacting with strangers, but it's getting easier. saying "hi" to random avatars is not easy, especially if they look like a robot, or a slime (Ghostbusters), a just a floating skull!!!

There are a few too many young kids on there, school holidays at the moment.

And funny all our avatars being the same height when voices are so young!

In a ketchup only bar, Tony's Bar! Us few adults got together and went on together to other Altspace locations... One place I can't remember what it was and there was a really cool game where I would happily hang out in.. but searching today, no luck!

Still it's great, and looking forward to the Quest coming out in the Spring!

My arm hurts from all the basketball I've been playing the last few days!!

I better change to left handed for a while! Lol!

Went to a cool gallery today, chatted to the artist and he talked about his art, and the problems with loading for the Altspace world.

Yesterday a friend came to visit and we went down to Fuengirola for fish and chips...

And then to IKEA in Malága before heading back home.

A good day.

This evening at 18:00 as the sun was going down... 

TTFN
Marian

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!!

Friday July 27th, a blood moon... not seen from my terrace, I am thinking it was stuck behind the ayuntamiento as usual! The moon always gets stuck behind there when I want to see it for some special occasion! 

                                     

This morning at 6:30am... the full moon, just.... clear as crystal... beautiful morning, cool breeze... Its definitely cooler this year early on... or we're all losing our memories..? Yes always a possibility!

I decided yesterday I would hit the beach today! I know I am not a beach babe, this could be the one hit of the year! Although I might well go again next Saturday! What the hell eh! It was okay, I pulled up a sunbed about 9am and didn't leave until 14:30!!!! Incredible!!

I read the book that had been in the bag since last summer when I think I went to La Cala beach twice, nothing had been touched in the bag, so was my towel, sun cream and the book! Nice!! Yes the towel is in the wash now!!

 So I finished the book too, its a book I must have owned since the last century!! Even back to the eighties! Its been in boxes and maybe a shed or two! Looks like mice have taken a bite and there has definitely been a wood worm having a go!!

I did leave the beach about 10:30 to go get coffee and a bocadillo... I went for a stroll up the plaza near the entrance to the port... the two roads coming from the direction of the bus station have gone!!! Gone???? There is just one road now... and a very wide pathway on the far side... So now even more parking has been taken away! And really another part of the old Fuengirola has been taken away...

I went into my old place to get my takeout, and the owner wasn't in there, the girls all chatted to me, in far too much English for my liking! Lol... and eventually I enquired about Luiz... he has been running the place for at least 16 years... I feared even he had gone, but no, thankfully...

One piece at a time, brick by brick, memory by memory things get changed, subtle, or sudden... Change, I guess when its us making the changes its okay, for us... but not for others and hardly ever for me.

Was a lovely although breezy walk along the paseo until I turned towards town on my way in, the sea crashing onto the beach, must be a storm at sea! It's cloudy and I drove through rain as I came around the mountains down to the coast.

It's a bit eerie driving down here so early, few cars, fewer people, kind of spooky, like everyone is just about to get going, of just getting home from an evening out! Probably the latter being a Saturday!

Fuengirola is changing, always changing, intrinsically, visually today road directions different, building works going on and the worse thing Bar Central has closed... The bar at the entrance to Las Rampas... So many memories under its awnings...

I parked at the Sohail end and walked to the market at the feria ground, I stopped for breakfast in a nice bar, Cafeteria Valentino, which used to be my dentist 15 years ago, which is strange, ironic! As my dentist in town used to be a bar I frequented!!

I noticed here today a few of the older long-standing shops have also gone... Change will come (down the barrel of a gun! Alabama 3) quote!

At the market I was only tempted by a few things... a beautiful art deco mirror, and a pair of steam punk boots and a neon New York sign! Tempted, but not enough to purchase! The market full of everything I have managed to get rid of over the years! Quite refreshing to just see them and pass them on by!

I came back up to Alhaurín and immediately had to drive a different route!! Just past the crematorium the road to the car park is the one we have to use! Then follow down, the wrong way if feels the new road, then its an option of left or right once through the park! Left to take down Calvario or right to take you back out of town!! Then the new route leads people up Candilajas and back onto the old road to continue ones journey!!

It looks a permanent route too, the signs are firmly fixed, and for me, its better! Sorry! But it is!!

So! After parking I walked down into town, had a hot chocolate with friends, no more coffee!! And then back home!  The weather has not improved here, still cloudy and cool...

Shared Road...

I was going to say, hey its me Blogging late... but just realised its only 8:35pm, well at the moment, as I begin my post... its very nearly dark... I paused to WhatsApp... and now its 8:40pm and dark!!

Photographs today courtesy of my phone in Miramar on Monday!  The one above, there used to be two flights of steep stairs, with the big screen in the middle... and a lift over near where I was standing to take this, a small elevator, very small, now closed... and it was only when I came down the above escalator I realised it was new!! LOL Even though I went up the other one!

Up on the terrace above all the shops, where we used to go for Franco to have a smoke... and me to take a photograph or two!

Even some sand!! Whoop Whoop!

The sea... from the Med to the Atlantic, soon to the Pacific! Back home home home... she says clicking her heels neatly together!

I went there shopping to get a few things for my trip to work on Saturday and then my holibobs afterwards!  I got everything I needed, the shop I wanted opened at 10am and by 10:30am I was at Calahonda where I was meeting our friend, our neighbour from there, for a coffee!

Worlds smallest merry-go-round near the top of the escalator!

I've had a difficult week, more tears this week than last... Crying for all things lost... Life shouldn't be about loss, it should be about the many wonderful and beautiful that we find throughout life, people, places, inanimate objects even... even if we don't have them anymore, or go there, or they get broken... Why is loss so hard, its all we do is lose one thing after another; how wonderful to be hard-hearted to just feel nothing... That just isn't me, I wonder if I'll harden up to life one day, not be so sensitive to pain and hurt, I don't think I can cope with this forever.

A quote to end on today.... purloined from Twitter, of course!

One day, you'll be just a memory for some people.  Do your best to be a good one.

Hold my hand...

Sardines, on the beach, of course!

The Shared Road... I have been missing the point with the line of my Blog... The Shared Road... I have never been alone on my road... a bit like the piece by someone many [many!] years ago, about footsteps in the sand and only one pair of feet when the going got tough...

And not so many years ago but still when I was in England a friend wrote a beautiful piece to me, I wonder I might ask her if I can write it out here... I think I know where I left it safe... I'll go check... Later...

La playa!

After I said how this September was just right, temperature-wise, it goes and slaps me down! LOL... Yesterday was hotter than hot, and still last night at 11:35pm 35 degrees! [95F] in the evening in the dark, at night!! Whoa!! On the beach with family around midday, and the sea breeze was lovely, taking the edge of the heat... but hot hot hot all the same... and once back home in Alhaurín I opened the car door and got hit by the heat only a glass melting machine could give out!! lol... Okay, maybe not that hot, just an ordinary oven then!!  Or we would all have melted!

El Torro!

Coming home from the coast yesterday using my track... there was a new road!!! A new massive roundabout and a new road!! I think it probably comes out by the new Aldi and Burger King on the Mijas pueblo road... and when I come home tomorrow from visiting again, I'll scoot down it to try... it on for size!

Okay, going to find the letter from a friend... still a best buddy friend, hope she lets me share this... lol Well that's sorted! Its not where I thought it was, also something else I thought was there isn't!! Something else was that I didn't know about! LOL... starting to sound like an Agatha Christie Novel!

In the letter my friend gave me, she talked about how I had helped carry her load when life got too heavy for her...

Maybe its time to go through my... paperwork? memorabilia? crapola?? again... Every time I do, I thin it out a bit more; no good for anyone but me, and its not really any good for me...

I remember coming out here end of 2002 with about five boxes of 'above stuff' and now I have only a couple of boxes...[plus one]...

Every year I lighten the load of things I never read or look through anymore... every year I feel the better for it!

What counts is whats in our hearts and souls and minds...
I think I've turned another page...

Purloining a photograph of a t-shirt advert I saw on Facebook in July... because? Well, read...

I am like one of those pennies thrown in the air "Heads!" "Tails!"

Spinning around and around, over and over, all the time headed for the inevitable ground to hit on!

... and while I'm spinning? What shall I do? Where shall I go? How do I move forward, because I know I can't stay in this... in this mind set...

I had photographs of Franco on my solitaire game I play before going to sleep, the game puts me to sleep it's so boring I guess! I had Franco as the back drop and on the cards... I know it wasn't healthy... Barry suggested I change the photos to more positive ones... So I have. I'm not thinking any less of Franco just not the last image I see as I close my eyes...

I'm Blogging from Fuengirola just now, sat having coffee in Las Rampas... I am almost opposite where mom and I lived for six months too...

Crispy Cod Fuengirola

With good friends down in Fuengirola today, lunch at the Crispy Cod on Fuengirolas paseo maritimo... We were a little early so drove all the way along the coastal road as far as the windmill roundabout in Benalmadina... Nice drive people watching, although already with so many tourists... No, who am I kidding! I don't think there is much difference in the people!

The journey is an obstacle race! An eyes peeled at all times, people of all ages, on all manner of sets of wheels, randomly criss-crossing, leaving path to road or road to path, with no notion of others place, or reactions, fearless? Lol or something else?

The best today was a woman who cycled onto the road without pausing in front of us, she then didn't stop for pedestrians on crossings, or consider any other vehicle or person at all, she spent a few hundred yards with one hand stuck in her hair... Yes, too much information on one person, but we couldn't get past her and spent some time just so astonished at her complete lack of care!!!

So three photographs from Crispy Cod!
And the one above from our living room... That mountain at the back has been intriguing us for twelve years! Aim: get to it, and look back here! Lol Like we like to do from Casarabonela!

I was going to leave myself out of this as much as I can.. Ha! No chance! I'm doing some very odd things, I'm so emotional...

I really hope going back to work will help me, as I help others I will at least forget me...

I really don't know who I am now, anymore; I knew who I was with Franco... I knew who I was before Franco, but I don't remember her, I guess we evolve slowly throughout our lives... and now? Who am I now?

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