All of a sudden it is mid-May and I realise that I have failed to post for over a month. Boring April - well, yes I suppose it was. G has, as ever, been very busy, while I have idled my time away - usually waiting for Friday - as I continue with my 4-day diet form Monday to Thursday, then go daft on Friday through Sunday. I am absolutely sure it is worse for me than no-diet-at-all, but the sense of achievement on a Friday morning when I weigh myself leads me to celebrate (and negate any weight loss)!
It was, of course, Easter on the middle of the month, so the Pueblo was full of tourists (I believe) as we didn´t go in.
A couple of pieces of lunacy from the council and council in exile. The current council are having a huge mural painted on the concrete wall (10m high) on the left between us and the Niño. An "artist´s impression" as they have pulled most of Mijas´s features into one place. The painter is getting pissed off with me as every time I go to the bins, I shout "Donde estan las cabras" (where are the goats) and he tells me they will be in "the next panel along". I have started to vary it now by telling him I want a small black cat too.
Where are my bloody cabras (and the cat)??
With great foresight, and while Michaelangelo is at it, they banned parking over the whole 80m stretch of wall since late April, so the already minimal parking has been reduced to Lilliputian proportions. (the car in pic is the painter´s - the bins just add to the effect). I will lay money it will be vandalised / graffitiised within a few days of completion. Noticeable that the wall looked like it had been covered in graffit before he even started, as it was covered in apparently random scribbles, but he obviously photo´d that and painted the scene on top on a PC, so now is "painting by squiggles". If they ban parking in front of it, I might add a few comments / squiggles myself.
In an online Q&A, the former lead-councillor was asked about lack of parking in the village, whereupon he ignored the issue but boasted that he had been the one to lower the car park fees to 1€ "to bring in tourists" (which explains why no-one else can get in after 1015am). He went on to say that there was no need for parking in the village as "all the pueblo people were old" and simply "walked to the local shop for their meagre needs for the day". What a total pratt. So we have idiots in charge and bigger idiots as an alternative. I am going green (or anyone else who stands).
This photo has absolutely no connection with anything in the post, except that a calima tinted wall is the backdrop. It is a passion flower, on the "vine" that looked to be a gonner last year and which the gardener told me to dig up and burn.
The passion flower was sprayed a couple of times, pruned back, and has returned to its former glory.
The gardener was also pruned from the payroll.
Mentioning the calima, I managed to source a painter for this year!!
I was in the Niño at the weekend (no surprise there then) and asked Juan if he knew of any house painters that might have some spare time this year (as it is probably the most in-demand trade in spain at the moment). He whizzed outside and re-entered a couple of minutes later accompanied by a guy in white overalls who he introduced as Miguel - (who was working on Juan´s mother´s place I think). He promised to come and give me a quote - and even turned up on the bank holiday Monday to see what was required. It turned out that he lived in the Pueblo and had a couple of other guys working for him. Hourly rate very acceptable and happy to do "bits and pieces" rather than the whole house (which, even I , baulked at). He is fully booked may and June, but promised early July. Now that is a result!
All the garden walls and pillars, a couple of metres up most walls and all the odd places that are stained by the "run-off", also the arbour and the east and south side rejas.
I guess I should mention the covid situation. I have mentioned that I record the data they (Junta de Andalucia) release daily, working on the principle that data is fixed (relatively, anyway) whereas interpretations are totally subjective. What they can´t do is hide the trends that their own data show. But they stuffed my anyway, as once again they have changed the method of reporting, and even the days they bother to do it. Now we only get 2 reports per week, with only data relating to cases in the over-sixties age group.
What this shows is that cases rose over Easter (crowds, tourists, surprise, surprise) and are still rising slowly. Shops no longer demand masks, but hospitals, pharmacies, public transport do - and lost of people still use them (with the exception of any / all tourists of course).
I still maintain that alcohol is the best preventative - preferably delivered in a glass.
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