Holibob pics!

Some shots from Malaga, taken July 17th ... Above, just an attractive apartment building!

The front end of the market in Malaga, mostly a fish market, it was closing up by the time we entered it to walk through to the next street, beautiful stained glass windows this end, and Arabic arches on the other side...

If you look closely the apartment on the second floor is up for sale!!! Hope it looks better inside than its does from the out!!

Alhaurín el Grande, our church near our house, so pretty at night.... and during the day with the Roman pillars outside the town hall and the buena vista of the valley... magnifico!

The path towards the gardens in Mijas pueblo, every house recently painted white and the pots painted a beautiful blue, so fresh and clean looking, there were two little girls selling small hand made knitted bits and pieces, babies booties, gloves etc...

This picture, a bit of an optical allusion, because I took this looking down into a gorge in the gardens of Mijas pueblo, there is a little walkway bridging the gap where rock climbers climb or abseil! Centre of the photo is me, arms raised above my head to take this photo, but afterwards looking at it, I can see the big shadow on the left, and to me, just me maybe?  but I see my Pippa dog, sat down, and leaning slightly to the left, one ear up the other down...!! Only me then is it that sees her??? Oh well... I was missing her....

This beautiful avenue of trees is on the way from leaving the grotto of the Vigin de la Peña... also in Mijas, one of my favourite places in this village, and I was more than a little bit annoyed on leaving, I had gone in on my own, put some money into the electronic candle box, lit five candles for various thank yous, and wishes... and there was a couple in there laughing about and taking photo after photo.... flash flash flash, shouting and acting about!!  I know its not some great Cathedral, but to me, its somewhere special, and beautiful, and is normally so calm and sort of listens to your thoughts... oh well!!! Tourists eh! lol!!!

Above and below taken in The Palm Trees restaurant in Calahonda, the whole place has changed, I know some would say for the better as it hadn't since I first set foot in there, back in 1989, but went in there to see Antonio, who had managed the place for all those years, or at least up until three years ago... now he is gone?  Maybe still has his other restaurant near Fuengirola, one I will try and visit next time, car permitting, its out of the way somewhat!  The whole place has been repainted, the seating running up the left hand side, the booths, are raised on a platform, they still are, but all totally new!  Less tables in the main area, but where the pool table was, are now more customer tables and chairs, gone are the champagne holders, the ice cream machine...

Franco had to settle with pasta, not the greatest thing to eat out, for those of us that eat so much of it at home, cook our own sauces etc ourselves and are rather critical of Italian food other than our own!

But I had the most wonderful salmon dish and was more than pleased with it!!!

Fuengirola market Saturday and half way round, near where mom and I nearly bought a place is this area, below, two bars, the one of the left, hardly seen from here is where her and I went often whilst living in Fuengirola, at least twice a week anyhow!

TTFN
Marian

Florence, time to go back there....

Sunday afternoon went out for a great long walk with my crazy friend, well, I guess we're both crazy, so walking along laughing till we cry, looking and crossing roads in one full swoop, we went to cross one street, saw there was a car with VIP, in, so waited, not wishing to do wrong... a guy crossed without waiting, so we did too, laughing all the way, quite expected to get a warning for mis use of a crossing... but no! I guess we knew we did wrong... ;-)

I had had a headache coming on all morning, so the walk did me good, although later on the headache came back, and on Monday it came back much much worse, Sunday and Monday both, I felt like I was having a migraine without an actual migraine, spinning head, vision blurred, dyslexic writing, and overall, weirdness!!!

But to other matters..... hold on, this will be a rough ride amigos! WARNING!!!!

Last night I had no sleep... Well it seemed that way most of the night!  Franco had been in bed all day with his cold, and lots of hot lemon medicine drinks, you know the ones!!  So he got up about 9pm, and after Mrs B's Boys I went up! Pippa came with me to keep my feet warm!  A cup of tea, my kindle fire, music on, while playing games... and I did so for the next two hours!  The wind was howling, rattling the mail box and hurtling things down the street[?].

And I thought, just after midnight....'well better get to sleep, early alarm for early hospital visit'... so kindle off, on charge, mobile phone on charge.... could I sleep??? No way Jose!

First there was the light from the kindle charger... it is a small green light on the charger itself, but it made a bright white light on the ceiling, a light that filled the whole ceiling in that corner of the room, big, 6 foot from edge to edge at least... it had what looked like circles in its interior going in what looked like a vortex!  Therefore, for me, tired, and all gamed out, it looked like the tunnel of bright white light those near death experience people talk off, 3D, and seemed to be turning, what an imagination I have, [I hear ya!].  Luckily I couldn't see anyone at the end of the tunnel waving at me, or telling me to go back!  And yes, yes, I did look!!!  I even in my tiredness started making shadow puppets on the ceiling, massive birds, dogs and the funny looking gnarled man face thing I can do with my hands!!

Then... there was that blooming mail box still flapping, it sounded like there was a visitor knocking who didn't really want to come in... just knock and run, but too late for kids, so I guess it was ghouls???

And the walk in the garden with Pippa before all this started, up we went with the torch, the battery only just giving off  the light of an old yellowed candle... Pip and I went up the stairs from the back yard, through the gate with the broken bolt, [note to self, must fix it today!], made it up the dodgy flag stones, up the next flight of stairs to the top patio, now level almost, with the apex of the roof of the house, so steep the garden... and up there the wind was at its best! The dark sky, skittish clouds revealing beautiful bright stars in the blackness beyond... hint of moon light... and noises!  The forest AKA jungle, full of creaking, the palm tree making disturbing creepy palm tree noises! Pippa was just fixated... she was up on her hind legs and staring into the forest, ears primed, eyes wide, I strained to see what she thought might be there!!! A fox? a squirrel? a monster!!! I said "come on Pip - in" and she was past me and down the two flights of stairs!  I had to hold onto the washing line, so I wouldn't fall over [again], at the top of stairs I paused, just long enough for my imagination to almost land  a Stephen King type characters' icy cold hand on my shoulder, or to whisper in my ear! Pippa must have been proper frit, because she was actually clawing at the back door to get in!

At about 2am I decided if I didn't go to the loo, that cup of tea!!! I would never sleep, so I had to run the gauntlet, down the stairs, past that rattling front door... [who was there???], and the back door.... ARH!  But once back in bed, I felt so much better, especially as I also unplugged the kindle, no tunnel of light to fall into by mistake! And even the mail box gave up the ghost!

I changed the alarm on my phone, the old one just doesn't make me want to get up anymore, if that can make sense, up by 7am and out of the house by 8am... down to the hospital, there were already about a dozen people ahead of me, before the phlebotomist's started business! So not out until nearly 9am... then at last I could eat and drink, it being what 'they' call a fasting blood test and I  call a starvation blood test!

TTFN
Marian