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I had a dream the other night in which I had to sort out lots of stupid data in the middle of the road after a minor traffic accident. I didn´t mention it to she-who-must-be-obeyed, as she doesn't like stuff like that- especially as it came true this morning. Luckily not in the middle of the road, but the paper-hassle is just enormous, even when someone runs into your parked car. I had nipped into the village to buy some hardware and popped into the chemist / farmacia as I had just renewed all my meds and saw online that one of them was available for collection. The girl who was serving me suddenly went all wide-eyed looking over my shoulder - at the same time as a crunching sound reached my ears. Luckily I had grabbed the reserved parking space for customers (so was in the right), but this lady had decided to park on the pavement next to me - well partly on the pavement and partly into my car.. She said all the usual about never having done this before, but it was maybe it was more a case of never having been seen to do this before as her LandRover of 20 years wasn't exactly pristine. As you can see, it was more than just a scrape on mine - which probably needs a new wing and a load of work on the door. Which leads to the next problem where my insurance company say they don't work with the main Nissan dealer and the dealer says they don't work with Linea Directa. Hopefully that will be unimportant, as her insurance should be paying anyway (but it may mean I have to get another quote to the one I am getting tomorrow morning from Nissan.) Just buggeration really. Back to the paperwork - they give you a form to get all the details and my dream / nightmare was about trying to do this in traffic in the middle of the road (as the spanish police say you shouldn't move the car). In quiet circumstances we spent 15 minutes swapping information - and in the end (afterwards) I realised she had failed to sign the form as I had asked her! My fault not to have checked, but the data required is just crazy.On the phone to Linea Directa immediately afterwards and he was asking for reg number, age and colour - all of which I had to get from photos. I actually filled most of the the form in afterwards based on the pictures I took of her papers on my mobile. Anyway, that should keep me busy for a couple of weeks - especially trying find people who actually work during August - not something the spanish workers enjoy. If nothing else, I have learned that there is only one thing that you really need apart from all the photos, and that is the signature to say it was their fault. Hmmm.

Steeled myself to take a look in the camera box - expecting the worst as I have not seen any fledging bits around at all (actually a good thing as they die very quickly in the heat. The nest is empty and the bird have obviously fledged and flown. I am a very happy "parent", but now I think I have empty-nest-syndrome.

The title says it all in a variety of ways. A couple of weeks ago, I saw one of our regular visitors, a spotted flycatcher, mooching around in the neighbours garden and flying / hunting off their pool patio rail. I was glad to see him / her again, especially as lower neighbour cut down all the accursed fir trees blocking our seaward view - but in doing so, taking out the flycatchers favourite hunting perch (note we didn't see a single nest of any bird in the trees that were cut down). The "neighbours" above finally got around to sorting their garden after they managed to evict the tenant who had done nothing to the house or garden in most of their stay - but at least the birds could use the overgrown bougainvillea as a nesting site. Unfortunately that has been butchered, so nesting sites are at a premium (only a whole mountain to go at really). Anyway, yesterday I was checking the images on one of the security cameras and caught a flash of a bird going past - very closely. I thought little of it until I saw the flycatcher sitting on one of our lamp posts (and another camera!) and put two and two together - so went and had another look at the film clip more closely. As you can just about see (above) the little devil is performing aerobatics for the camera - or, more exactly, to get IN the camera. I went out and had a look, assuming there might be a nest around the aircon units, but nothing until I noticed a few bits of twig poking out above the camera lens. Intrigued I held my phone up to the back of the camera (wall-side) and could see there was something going on inside. Well - imagine my pleasure at finding a nest with three eggs in it. Not only have we got a spotted flycatcher using us as a base, we have a fabulous flier performing stunts on-camera to get into their camera-box nest. The view inside is very pretty as they have covered the camera top with small twigs and moss and set it up as a bijou home complete with eggs. Now we have a 3 week incubation period, followed by another 3 weeks when the young are fed by the parents. We just have to hope they can fly straight from the nest as puss will no doubt become aware of their presence. My book says they are tolerant of humans, nest in open sided boxes if available (!) and make. a noise like a squeaky wheelbarrow. Sums them up perfectly. Now all I have to do is install another camera to take pictures of the camera / nest. A never ending film loop!

The election went off fairly smoothly from our point of view, but the Brit councillor (in opposition) for the past 4 years was crapped on from many directions and has gone from sight. The way it works down here is that you vote for a party and each party has a 6" x 2.5" paper slip with all the names of their proposed councillors - all these papers neatly arranged on a table with envelopes. You go in and show I/d which gets checked against the voters register - seemingly by ALL the people in there, as they are all worried about fraud and want to check it for themselves. You then go to the table and pick your slip, put it in the envelope, take it back to the collection box at the table and are allowed to post it - and get your I/d card back in return. The councillors are chosen by the total number of votes cast with "seats" (names in order from the list) awarded for the increments (in Mijas case of about 1000 per seat). For some reason, our expat councillor was put / moved down a few lines from last time to number 13 on the PP list, which meant he would only get in if they got 13000 votes - 13 seats also meaning they would have a simple majority - something which doesn't seem to have happened in living memory. The order of names on the sheet seems to be decided at regional level, so he was shafted by his local party and the regional "management" - and I am yet to be convinced that the region hadn't parachuted in some "carpet-baggers" above him. Anyway, things went as normal with a hung council with no one party having a majority. So let the horse-trading begin. The decisions were made in the region behind locked doors and took nearly two weeks to come to a conclusion. The final result was that the previous government and mayor are back in, but only as they are supported by 3 councillors from a smaller party and a previous councillor who seems to have floated around the parties until this time coming in a a new party named "Por mi Pueblo" (for my village). So a tin-pot jerrymanderer has the final say on the ruling party. Apparently the PP were offered a solution with the same "floaters", but only on the condition that the ditched their party leader from being Mayor - something they cut off their noses and refused to do (only for him to step down from politics altogether after the event!!). Our Brit councillor was thus out - and bitterly disappointed that the expat turn-out was down around the 10% level after all his efforts - (but an equal turnout to the spanish voters would not actually have made any difference as far as I can see). Now we can wait and see what the next level of horse-trading brings in terms of strange ways of spending our money (mainly to attract more tourists of course). Oh, and I forgot to mention, the party-hopping councillor from "Por Mi Pueblo" doesn't live in Mijas Pueblo - he lives in Fuengirola!

We are now into the early days of August - I know it is August as I just took G to Torremollinos and the traffic was unbelievable. August is when all the French have their holidays and all the Madrileños too - all escaping the city heat for, well, the costa heat. July actually wasn't much better as there were far too many tourists and it was also too hot for too long. Normally June, July and August are pretty warm and usually there is a mini heatwave in each of the months - but this July was just hot all the time. Most days it hit 37º (pretty damn close to 100ª in old money) and that was in the shade. Early mornings weren't too bad as 32/90) felt positively cool. Of course there is always the pool to escape to and that is, at least, still below blood heat! Our "new" Danish neighbours were down en famille for most of the month and were a bit put-out by the heat and humidity (which is the real killer). Their not having any aircon in the house proved a challenge (as we used to say in Shell), especially as the mosquitos were all too keen to enter the house by all the open windows needed to try to get some airflow. Apparently the house beyond our German neighbours has been sold to some Danish people - who we now know as the "new Danes" (as against the old Dane who used to own it and the Danes below who are our newish neighbours (get it? - we are an Anglo Saxon outpost amongst a bunch of Vikings and Huns - (I must start asking for reparations for past misdeeds). Not to mention the Spaniards who own the house above. I always prefer not to mention them. They took back control of the house from their (Brit) tenant at the end of June and were pretty unimpressed at what a family with 3 children and 2 very nasty dogs could do in a year - a year of almost all of them never going out of the house except for odd school and work days. We saw a lot of furniture and soft furnishing hitting the rubbish and even someone painting inside. Oh, and it took about 3 weeks to clean the pool to the point where some of them would go in it (garden unusable due to overuse by kids and dogs). All this on top of the tenant not paying anything rent-wise, garden-wise or utility-wise for about the last 6 months in a dispute about dangerous electrical points (owners took him to court for non-payment and he actually won the case, so kept on not-paying). Shouldn't laugh really as the b*****d also absconded with a suitcase and eski-cooler box that G innocently loaned to them as the urchins befriended her and she showed them her usual care and largesse. Thanks for nothing. The gardener we found for the new neighbours below has proved a real gem and they are very happy to have him - he is twice as good as the two guys who used to do it and charges less! We had a problemette with the pool just before they came down here as the water turned green - despite not being in use. (Maybe the mountain goats are using it as we often see a family of them in the garden). We tried everything to clean it and identify the cause - basically it was algae in the pool / water which we eventually had to half-change, then shock with some serious chemicals. The only difference between their pool and ours is the cleaner (me!) and the fact we use "town water" whereas a they were using water from the bore-hole. Apparently not the first time this has happened and I can see that being a running issue for some time. Oh, I forgot to mention the "new Danes" had the squatter kicked out along with his horse, stable , feeding trough, fence, etc, etc. Cheeky b. He obviously didn't know that he could have had better, if not cheaper, facilities at the house above!! Deserved to get booted as G saw him maltreat his dog and he swore at her when she shouted at him for it. (sounds familiar somehow). I haven't dared look in the fly-catcher nest since we saw the eggs, but I (literally) haven't heard a cheap out of them so they may have flown the nest or left the eggs to their own devices. Pretty sure the parent birds have flown, but daren´t look really. The tourist influx has also had an impact of our local hostelry. During July and August they run a Thursday night super-session with tapas, cheap booze and live music (no, we don't go), but the staff are so wrecked by these Thursdays that it has impacted the quality of food and service for the weekends. We have regretfully decided we will have to avoid it until September comes (or Come September for Bobby Darrin / Sandra Dee fans). Age suddenly hit me last month too, when I realised that I struggle to carry things up stairs with two hands as I need one hand to steady myself on the pasamano - or handrail to you - and realising that, also realised there are no pasamanos on the cellar stairs (or any of the outside steps for that matter). I decided to do something about it and went down to San Anton (the local vendor of everything for the builder). Well, everything that is with the exception of steel tubing. He pointed me in the direction of an outside exercise area (cheeky sod I thought), but it turned out there was a steel-working business up behind it. Duly called in and guy came out to the house - and within 48 hours we have galvanised rails on the front and back steps and snazzy stainless steel stuff on the cellar stairs. When I say we have a rail on the back steps, this is not strictly true. We have the rail with 3 mounting points and we have 5 holes drilled - the 6th didn't get drilled as the 5th hit the main cold water pipe. (I had mused on where any pipes might be, but had ruled out any builder putting pipes on an outer wall and close to the surface - what do I know?). Luckily my plumber came out within a couple of hours and fixed the pipe - but now I am waiting for him to cement-up the wall (a minor miracle if he does, due to the spanish restrictive practices as per demarcation in 60s UK). At least I can haul my aged frame up the steps with a bit more ease (well I can at night as the bloody rail is too hot to touch in the daytime). Cést la vie!! Black-vagabond cat Rufus still drops by three times a day for his food, but was totally thrown the other day when we changed his old bowl for a new glass one - the tall type normally used to advertise fancy desserts - mainly as the ants were managing to swim across the underlying saucer of water - anyway it frightened him as it was different so he avoided it, then found a way of getting on the bench at the other end and creeping up on it. What a wuss!

We attended a political rally this week - which although it sounds like a bunch of loonies waving placards in Trafalgar Square, was actually a bunch of "gerries" sitting in the shade at a Mijas restaurant. I (we) have always subscribed to the rule that you should only complain about things where you are prepared to get involved and help to improve - which is why we vote in the local elections down here. I guess it is at the same level as local elections in the UK, whereby the party that gets in is actually beholden to the regional powers for money and authority (who are, in turn, beholden to central government). The only difference down here is that they refer to themselves as "the government"!! (Oh, and they have many hundreds of millions of euros at their disposal.) That was just one of the sore points. There was a surplus of over a hundred million euros in the council coffers only a few weeks ago, but the incumbent councillors, sorry, government, managed to overspend that amount by making €105 million in commitments for some crazy plans (almost like they are trying to shaft the next council, but they wouldn't would they?). They have committed 32 mil for a park in a small flood basin next to the river in Fuengirola - a place noted and named for the animals that drown there during the floods, also committing 6 million a year, for each of 5 years, to a promoter to run the "music festival". There are other idiocies, but you get the picture. Corruption(Incompetence is also in the air, where they gave away a prime plot of land on which they were meant to be building an old-people´s home on the proviso that the developer gave them two rooms in return. It beggars belief. All this from a council who have failed to deliver on any of their promises. No wonder the townspeople are wanting a change. Anyway, we went along and G raised the old-peoples home issue and I had my say about tourism v residents, traffic management, and, specifically, the lack of any plans for improving the infrastructure to cope with all these tourists they are constantly trying to attract. I also asked about whether they had any sort of vision for where they saw the pueblo in (say) 20 years (Like any of us will be around to check on that), but that swiftly became a regional and national level problem. The potential councillors in attendance were all very supportive of the questions, but with the election only a fortnight away, they would be wouldn't they? The actual voting system is a nightmare of bureaucracy, whereby we had to register months ago as we are now resident-aliens since Brexit, but then it turns out that there is a shortcut scam whereby you go into the Post Office / Correos and ask for a postal vote and get it there and then. Hmmm. Postal vote issues, local elections, corruption - where have I heard that before? Amongst the dozen or so attendees, I met the guy who has been taking over most of the restaurants in the pueblo. I don't particularly like that idea, or the restaurants which are firmly aimed at clipping tourists, but he was actually a very pleasant guy who invited me to join in as he told me that he is pulling together a bunch of expats who could then come up with some ideas which would be useful to residents and tourist (businesses) alike. Here we go again - I'd better start dusting-off my minute-writing skills asap.

I am having a bit of ´mare with clocks at present. Not the nice tickey / chimey sort, rather the "make the water run for 10 mins" sort. Two of them. Different models, ages and problems. Kaputski. Accordingly I went online and found a simpler "wind me up" (remember the old oven timers?) type and ordered it from Amazon. Then cancelled it before the wrapping had been completed as I found they had something similar in Lidls for half the price. So I bought two. Well, it made sense to me. In the same timeframe (pun intended) one of G´s multiplicity of little alarm clocks went on the blink. Actually it closed its eyes permanently, as it had been on the blink for a good few weeks and had been "bodged"at least twice. Now it is buggered (and binned with the other timers in the "take to the recycle-truck" basket.) We have cheapo Ikea clocks on the kitchen and pool patios as we are still slaves to the hour - but both of these clocks started to disintegrate as the plastic became brittle (and they are not even in the sunlight). I grabbed a couple of new (but different style ) ones last time I took G on a lunch date there (yeah, really) but one of them immediately threw itself off the wall on a windy night and smashed. Amazingly Lidl had one at a similar price last week (€6 - I am a real big spender), but with barometer and hygrometer functions and dials on the face too. Very cool (until self destruction takes over again). Whilst the horological kit was going west, I had another "minor" issue with a key. Minor only as it was a small key, major in that it broke off in the lock. Worse it was the lock on the metal and glass back door reja. A little barrel lock riveted in place. No screws. No access (and I am not sure I could even take the door off as it preceded the tiling of the utility room and subsequent construction of the back-door casita. Unluckily it is a through-lock which meant the lock didn't work with a key inserted from outside. I was musing on the sort of tools I might have that could help me get the piece of key out - note that I could still put the (bottom half) of the key in and turn it. I then remembered I had bought a lock-picking kit a couple of years ago and it had been gathering dust in my desk. Nice slim flexible little spines of metal - much as you see on tv crime programs. After some fruitless picking from the dodgy side, I managed to furkle one of the picks through from the "wrong" side and then to get the broken bits to move a few millimetres - thence trapped and extracted it with another pick. Oh Joy - mainly as I could now justify the meagre (€7) outlay on the picks as G "occasionally" asked what I intended to do with that wasteful and unused purchase. Today I completed the scenario by getting a new key cut. €2.50. A multiplicity of happy and cost-effective outcomes - especially as the locksmith was charging €75 for a callout when we last had to use him about 18 years ago.

April, that is (in the words of the Paul Simon song). Fantastic weather (up in the high twenties) and clear blue skies. Clear skies in all but one direction, as the longed.for reopening of the Bar Niño has been postponed due to recalcitrant builders.Well, I think it has been postponed, as Juan reportedly told this to Gill when she asked if opening was imminent - and she would not lie to me about something as serious as that. She also reported that the "other" local bar (the Alarcon), shut since covid times as it had no possible outside space, now has a "to let" sign outside. It will probably end up being taken over by the German guy who owns most of the restaurants in the village - and become another high priced tourist trap. I must ask (Fer)´nando what he thinks (waiter of many years at the AlA and who drinks in the Niño (when that is open, that is). Danish neighbours are down here en-famille at the moment so it is more lively than usual - and the kids above are on holiday, so around more than usual too. G took the three of them to the pueblo for a walk last weekend and spent 3 hours about it. Got a very thankful text from the parents(!!). While talking about the neighbours, the German lady has gone back for one of her very irregular visits to see her family in the home country and asked G to "keep an eye out" for her husband. He doesn't drive anymore and can't walk that far, so I don't think he will be straying - especially as she stocks the fridge and freezer to see him through her absence. I seem to remember the two of us hit a couple of bars in the pueblo on her last visit and it ended up costing me nearly a thousand euros (bit of crab shell in a tapa went in between two teeth and sheared off a crown - resulting in a new bridge). I shall not be taking german-Jonah out again! I have been keeping myself busy doing the spring tasks - which means that I have been on teak-oiling for the last few days. I say teak-oiling, but it is more of a Cuprinol-style varnish which I put on my accident a couple of years ago and basically committed myself to eternal perdition - especially as it has some weird fumes which get to my chest and thus necessitate a mask - which means my specs steam up and I can hardly see what the hell I am doing. All I need to do now is fire up the BBQ and the summer season will be upon us. An interesting development a couple of weeks ago was the arrival of a flock of sheep (and some goats) in the parcella next door. We used to see them a on the mountain quite a lot a few years ago, but not for a while. Turns out that they are actually owned by someone we vaguely know and they keep them a few hundred metres down the mountain from us. The shepherd had three very excitable young collie dogs which ran around like lunatics, but personally I rather liked the large lazy white dog (Pyrenean?) which just positioned itself at the far end of the area - " they shall not pass ". I found out that the family keep the flock for meat and milk - and also have a few hives too. I am currently working on trying to get some real artisan mountain honey from them if they will sell it to me. All the Easter processions have just started, so G will be zooming off into the pueblo to watch them next weekend. I found theatre local tv (yes, really) is on our system, so might just observe remotely (been there, seen it, felt the atmosphere before - a bit like the British Open Golf) and know you see more on tv than by being there.

I am starting to side with the people who leave here for a few months in winter and go somewhere warmer (think Thailand or South Africa). All this garbage you hear on tv about "indoor / outdoor lifestyle" is just that - garbage. When the sun is shining, there is always a warm spot in some corner of the garden, but as soon as the sun disappears, it is cold. Our newish neighbours may have been seduced by the sales pitch, but in the last couple of weeks have had to face the reality of cold evenings and nights. They have almost completed installing the underfloor heating, but not finished, so actually went out and bought a wood-burning stove as it was so cold. That remains to be installed, so their visitors are finding out that the Costs del Sol does not mean Costs de WARM Sol (and of course we have the same problems here with the general European costs of electricity with the times when you want / need to use the power to warm the place up being the most expensive). I am actually writing this while waiting for the sun to get through the clouds so that I can clean the pool. A pleasant task when the sun is shining, but not when your hands stick to the metal pole which is like ice (mild hyperbole). I have actually spent a large part of the last 10 days in my bed, as I managed to bring on a spot of bronchitis (I think caused by all the dust I was inhaling as I chopped down some bouganvilleas). It was "only" a chest infection, but I realised it mirrored something I had back in the 90s when we first went from the Far East to Holland. On the second day I walked out of the hotel and round a corner - and inhaled a freezing blast of wind from the North Sea which just shut down my warm-air-attuned lungs and gave me acute bronchitis for a week. Same again this time - lungs just suddenly felt frozen and went into aargh mode. Of course it was called man´-flu by some (!), but I at least know what it was. We actually dug out the Covid test I had bought as precaution a couple of years ago, but of course it had timed out (by one week) and dried up (by a few months). G got me a fresh one, which was supposed to identify a multiplicity of ailments, but it just returned a blank screen with only the test line. Good news I suppose. Just before the plague hit me, I noticed that my meds had run out and tried to get them renewed. Jesus, what a shambles of a system. They tell you to book a telephone appointment, whereupon your doctor will call you and your meds will be renewed. All well and good, but the doctor doesn't actually call - you just have to assume all will be sorted - and when it isn´t, the reception and general system just goes into meltdown. I have had 3 (non) telephone appointments and still no med renewal - with the main problem being that the appoints are usually 3 weeks ahead, so you wait for the time of the non-call before you find out it was a non non-call. Receptionist useless as ever and just to compound it, they have switched us from a series of locums replacing our previous doctor to a female doctor who (apparently doesn't / won't speak English) and never has available appointments in person. Next week I am going down to La Cala to see if we can switch doctors and go there. We have private health care (as do half the civil servants down here), but the meds are on the national health system so require a doctors note. Bizarre. We had one interesting visitor recently which I believe to be a spotless starling. similar to a blackbird or largish starling, but plain black (hence spotless), scruffy neck feathers and a beak designed to open tuna-cans. Apparently they are N African / Iberian only and would appear to change their beak / leg colour due to age and season. I noticed the scruffy neck feathers and thought it was just a moulting stage, but it turns out to be diagnostic. That and the beak which is more raven-like than blackbird. Photo is not the best, but trying to get a photo of a bird on a chimney at 30 metres is not that simple - especially as it keeps on naffing-off to catch a bit of trough (and being replaced on the perch by a succession of black redstarts that also appreciate the good (Will?) hunting spot). My life is also in abeyance at the moment as the bar Niño is shut (CALAMITY!). Juan postponed his usual holiday from January due to non-availability of builders and has now shut for 6 weeks to put a better front and roof on the upstairs area. When the Niño is shut, there is literally nowhere this side of the village centre. My social life is a wasteland. Anis and coffee at my home bar is not the same as paying for it. Roll on April.

I took G out on a date this week - ok, I didn´ ttake her anywhere and she actually was in the lead, but we went together to a cafe. A Death Cafe. Morbid? Me? Not one bit of it. Death Cafes were started a few years ago by a Brit guy named Jon Underwood and I came across the concept during some research when I was helping Cudeca with the Spanish "Do Not Resuscitate" shambles. Anyway, a death Cafe is somewhere where people can meet and take about death and associated topics over a "cup of tea and some cake" (Underwood´s reasoning being that Brits would be a lot happy in a surrounding where there was tea and cake. The concept is that someone facilitates and organises the meeting (home, cafe, or wherever) with a number of people being invited, or signing themselves up. Introdiutions of the usual kind (who I am, what my interest is in this meeting, etc), then a split into interested groups for a period of discussion - followed by feedback and further plans. In this case, the meeting was on zoom and initiated by Cudeca and run by a Brit lady from Mallorca (very interesting person who is a celebrant , doula and death cafe "hostess"). Glynis gave an introduction by explaining about the history of Death Cafes and the proliferation over the last few years. there were actually only a few attendees (6) with me perched on G´s shoulder as it seemed a bit weird having two people on different systems in one meeting. As ever it is interesting to find that other people have totally different reasons for attending such an event, with old age, friends and family being very sick, Spiritual path, the requirement for death doulas - and of course Cudeca. The rules are no agenda, no charges and no guest speakers. Sounds a bit like it should collapse in a general embarrassed silence with minutes, but it actually ran for about an hour and a half. Topics covered were euthanasia, living will, Spanish attitudes to death and dying (certainly different to UK), religious mores, family v patient wishes (at end of life and which can be very much one versus the other) and availability of background material (articles, books and films). It was very interesting and everyone went away with the wish for something more, but no one knowing exactly what. I pointed out that it seemed a bit difficult for a hospice to append it's name to a Death Cafe, so we probably needed to take it out of that umbrella). There are instructions online for how to run a cafe, but I am not sure I am in a position to run one just yet. The good thing is that as a topic of conversation, it does start to identify other interested parties - but the majority probably think it is just a very strange subject and not one they wish to approach or consider (or is that just me?!)

The lack of data posted so far this year was not due to lack of content, rather due to requirements to be involved in other things, Now a brief moment of tranquility, so will attempt an update. Just before Christmas, I got the new iMac and it was all I could do to get it running and using all the features I wanted. Well, now it is the main system and seems to be pretty good. The operating system I (inadvertently) chose is the absolute latest and named Ventura, which is Mac's way of merging the iPhone operating system with the desktop one - basically by making the desktop more like a ´phone. Not sure it is the way forward, but what do I know? Some features are very clever (minimising a window or application moves it into a half-hidden limbo just off the screen), which makes for easy and fast access to stuff when you want to get back to it. The major downside is that initial startup of any app seems to be very slow. It could be due to the way I have things set up, but difficult to tell - and I have always been a "if it works, don't mess with it" sort of guy (see Steele´s Law re increasing complexity of addressing non-essential tasks). Anyway, it is good - and using the old keyboard means easy to use. The old iMac is now on a side unit and not really in use, but had I had been thinking of having a high/low setup whereby I could stand at one machine and sit at the other. Of course the logical solution would be a desk which goes up and down - of which Ikea has a few. So the new Mac was leading me towards an office renewal - something which G has been requesting for some time. I went through a few iterations before I came up with the solution of ditching the oak writing desk (with its 8 drawers full of absolutely essential stuff) and replacing it with a pair of Ikea drawer units (with 6 HUGE drawers which would take everything and more). We accordingly went scouting in Ikea and I spotted a proper PC desk with a pull-out side section which took my fancy too (decided raise and lower stuff is quite costly for what is basically a table). Anyway, I was in the middle of redrawing the office plans, when the new neighbour got in touch and asked if I could get her a couple of chairs which she had been coveting for months but never found in stock - but had just seen available in the online Malaga store . As her husband and son were here for a few days, I ran up a quick order for my office and her chairs and threw in a couple (ok, 3) stackable units on which I thought I could place the PC. Hmmm. (Note to self, never try to cut out the planning and do quick and dirty orders from Ikea). ) The good thing about having two strapping lads next door was that they helped me move the old desk downstairs (and, even better, commandeered it for their mother as a work station!). The good thing about Ikea deliveries is that they carry everything to the room of your choice . so everything went in and out without any real effort from me. (Bad thing about Ikea deliveries is that they charge 10% of the total price, seemingly irrespective of size etc,). Sooo - half empty office furniture-wise, but over-stuffed office with delivery boxes. Luckily, I quite enjoy assembling Ikea stuff, so it was more or less therapy. Effect of quick order became apparent as box units were too big to allow PC on top, so even considered returning unopened ones. Good news was that the desk actually had a wiring tray built in, thus eliminating at a stroke one of G´s major dislikes of my office (ok, all the wires are still there, it is just a just hidden tangle). The reason the neighbours were down here was that he had decided at a couple of days notice to come and cut the trees - and expected me to organise skips, lorries, cranes, etc at the same short notice. Not easy, but the advantage to us of the "pruning" was huge, so on with it. Eventually I had to use the local guy who used to help at the house below, reasoning that he had a small plant hire business and knew the difficulties of getting equipment in and out of there. He had actually quoted for the whole of the work about 9 months ago, but Peter thought it too dear and decided to do it himself. Turned out that the guys were only down here for 3 working days and I honestly thought it would take more than a week to get the trees done. I was just hoping they would start by taking all the tops off, so that we didn't need such a large cherry-picker for any follow up. (Sourcing a 18-20m picker at short notice had proved beyond me, hence Danny). As it transpired, the picker was almost a day late arriving, so we only had two days to get at the trees, but in the meantime the lads had used my ladders, ropes and other tools to make inroads into the lower branches. And when we actually got the picker - well, they cut the whole lot down in one day! .......... and this is the result. A fantastic view uninterrupted by pine trees. Danny did his stuff and came and went with skips full of branches and trunk and I helped where I could (but had all but destroyed my knees by the amount of running up and down the road coupled with hanging onto ropes as large sections of tree were cut adrift - oh and humping Ikea stuff around the office). We have only waited twenty three years for this - all it needed was a new neighbour who wasn't a total ass. As for the desk - well that is perfect. The drawer units took everything from the old desk (ad much more) and the cubes units ended up being mounted on the wall (thanks for that idea G) and actually look and work well. New view, new office, new PC (and the raise lower issue will be solved by getting a small scissor unit for the desk top - which seems a far more elegant solution than an electric table top) Now a new iPhone, but setting that up that is another matter and for another post)

So what of the year 2022? Today is the shortest day of the year, and, after months of drought and all the inevitable cries of "necesitamos lluvia" ( we need rain), we finally got it this month. Got it in abundance, as we had more than 6" of rain in a week - (160 litres in Spanish parlance). Now necesitamos un poco d sol. We had taken an early delivery of firewood, just to be prepared, but actually used it all up in the wet spell and are now on our second helpings (where the price has already increased by 20% in the elapsed month).There is no doubt that a wood fire blazing in the hearth (OK, glass and iron chiminea) not only looks the dogs, but also warms the whole house (eventually). G is a right little firebug and I am only allowed to add logs under supervision. When I see her wandering around with the poker in her hand, I assume she is adjusting the logs, but it could be she is intending to use it on me! Today the skies have brightened again, and, whilst it is still a little chilly, things always look better when the sun is shining (especially when you are drinking wine, eating tapas and sitting at a table outside the Bar Niño). Life can be tough, but I am the man to take it on, especially now I have a neighbour with a similar interest in the grape. (An ex-golfing pal who has an apartment near us and who has started over-wintering here as the German weather and covid was starting to get to him). Seems we (Spain, that is) have decided that covid is pretty much over (unless you are on public transport, in hospitals or medical facilities or pharmacies) the tourists have also returned. How can I complain about tourists when I live in the Disneyworld of southern Europe you might ask? - well, it wasn't like this when we came and no one had invented Airbnb, so living here has become a bit tiresome with the constant stream of cars and people over-running the pueblo - and the lunatics in the council are constantly trying to attract more, but without improving any facilities (well, I guess the expenses-paid trips to tourist fairs across Europe might be an incentive). Upshot is that we are finally talking about moving on, but somehow have to find somewhere where the weather is reasonable, there is little of interest to tourists (maybe no airport for a few hundred miles would be a start) and access to reasonable medical facilities. Funnily enough I ruled out the Solway coast back in the early nineties for failing two of those hurdles! A colleague who was in Oman back in the last century has just succumbed and sold up and moved back to blighty to live with is son - and this was the guy who, twenty years ago, was telling me how he would prefer to die abroad and never even let his ashes go back to the UK. They say time changes everything - no, it is just age that does that! Healthwise, we have had a bit of hassle this year as G had problems with her leg which the local doctors proved incapable / unwilling to resolve. Daily visits for dressing and fortnightly referrals to hospitals only led to vague offers of an appointment with a specialist, but weeks in the future. Eventually I insisted we seek the (proverbial) second opinion at a different health provider - with an appointment then appearing within two days and an operation within the week. Four weeks later and we hope it is all sorted - with the post-op visit to the specialist this week. G is much chirpier and today even managed to put on one of her favourite pairs of shoes, so thing are definitely looking up. I know she misses the interaction with the patients in the day centre at the hospice, but it seems they only ever talk about the day centre when they want to get money out of people. She still keeps in touch with many of the people who she met there and has become a "dial-a-friend" for quite a few of the english-speaking community. Since covid, and with the demise of the hospice day centre, my driving duties have totally ceased, so the need for the Qashqai had gone. I decided to change both cars for a new, preferably mid-sized, one - but the salesman was trying to get me to pay 10k on top of both cars just to get a semi-electric Qashqai. I decided a smaller car was a better bet, so we just changed to a Micra - same expenditure, but we still have the (almost unused) Juke and I have a road rocket (not as fast as the name "turbo sprint" implies, but a quick little beast for all that). I manage my health (mainly weight) with a 4 and 3 regime, whereby I diet from Monday to Thursday, then go crazy over the 3-day weekend. A sort of weekly balanc of austerity / lunacy. I have read that this sort of dieting is not a good methodology, but it works for me as I lose a little wight each week and am managing to reduce my pills. It is not all total guesswork though, as I monitor my weight, blood pressure and sugar on a weekly basis and get a full blood screen every 12 months (albeit I check the results myself rather than with one of the ever-changing doctors in the local clinic). As we realised in our work with the patients at the hospice, it is all about quality of life rather than quantity - you just have to stay alive to enjoy the quality!. A special bonus this year has been our new neighbours. A danish family bought the house below (no one even knew the old owner was moving, but no surprise as he didn't speak to anyone anyway) and they have now owned it for a year. Owned, rather than lived in as they use it as a holiday home (and luckily don't seem inclined to let it out). They are a very pleasant family of five (3 late-teenage kids), speak good English, enjoy their food and wine and seem grateful for the help we can give them when they are here or when it is empty. We also have a brit family on a long term rental in the house above, so it really has improved the whole atmosphere in our little group of houses. A regular visitor has been the stray black cat who comes three or four times a day for a mouthful of biscuits. He has been neutered (ear snipped if nothing else!) and we assume he is homeless from the amount he eats, but seems to be in "pretty good nick". We can't really tell, as he will not come within 10 feet of us, and even after a year runs off if he is startled in any (trivial) way- We have never heard him utter a sound, which is pretty strange - and he doesn't respond to any puss, puss whispers or friendly overtures - but overall it is quite a good symbiotic relationship where we see and care for a cat, but don't actually have to take full ownership-stye responsibility. He has been named Rufus the Silent - Rufus (as he likes to climb on the Danes' roof) and silent for obvious reasons. We finally cracked and had the house painted in the summer. Late spring there was what they call a "calima", which is the saharan sand taken to extremes and half the buildings in Andalucia have orange streaks to show for it. As you might imagine, house painters were at a premium, but Juan at the Niño came up trumps with a local group of guys who came and did the necessary , despite the summer heat. The delay in their being available also gave me a chance to get some cement work done in advance (painters only do bits of trivial filler) with the result that the old homestead look pretty chipper. Brexit has pretty much passed over us now (except for those who hadn't sorted all their paperwork beforehand), but one major impact has been on the Brits who had holiday homes, who now find themselves caught in the 90-day rule. There is supposed to be an exception for homeowners, but we haven't found anyone who has managed to overcome that hurdle. Oh, and the parcel post. Nothing now passes between here and the UK without all sorts of forms and exorbitant duty charges - aggravation to the extent that it is just not worthwhile (especially as there is a final option to "return to sender" which can be used when reciprocal buggeration has been exhausted with the Spanish "Correos") This photo was just too good to miss - new car, fresh painted rejas, sunny path and Rufus the silent - an image that is worth the previous thousand words!! (If I had had the time, I could have added some tinsel, either in reality or with a photo filter, but time is of the essence)! Talking of brexit buggeration, the boys at Barclays managed to really hack me off with their stunt this year when they kicked out all account holders who live in the EU. Their "helpdesk" tried to imply it was a Brexit / EU / UK issue, but the reality was that it was a financially motivated business decision. "luckily" we already had an account in the Isle of Man (something the Barclays UK staff totally failed to comprehend) so it ended up simply being a case of moving the loot from one hyperspace place to another. I only had a couple of pensions going in to Barclays, so moving them was not too stressful either. What was a real pain was trying to get the app working as the UK mob deleted it (or me from them) and it took an age to get it reinstated (cos, let's face it, who uses anything but electronic transfers these days?) - Well, actually I know one, as the SM&BP pensioners association only accept cheques. Guess we will not be joining as they doesn't seem to read their email either. Anyway, that is a quick recap of some of 2022. We hope to toast in 2023 with a bottle of bubbly on the top balcony - and will raise a glass to "absent friends". All the best for Christmas and the New Year