2do Encuentro Nacional Scooters Classico

Last weekend was the 2do Encuentra nacional scooters classico (classic scooter rally).

We Went down to the bike shop on friday night to arrange what time we were leaving for Puerto santa maria near Cadiz on the saterday. After 2 hours of spanish fannying around we got our Fuengirola vespa club t shirts (s and m both the same size after much trying on and disscussing from the men) and arranged to meet at 1 the next day.

There was one other couple ready at 1 so we had some beers and waited , and waited ,and waited in true spanish style for 2 hours for everyone else to arrive (they were having lunch!)

Loaded the vespa precariously in the back of a fruit and veg van and set off.

In the evening we all went out for a ride on the bikes, untill we ran out of petrol. someone wizzed off and got us some but still she wouldnt start, so that was it for michaels scooter! We borrowed a pink one (to my delight and michaels dismay) for the rest of the weekend.

We ate lots of tasty tapas, gambas, sardines, fried fish, little octopus things, yum, then moved on to a Harley Davidson bar and admired more scooters. I acctually managed to have a few conversations in spanish by this time and learnt nearly everyones names and what they did, and said, 'Lo siento me Espanol no es muy bueno', a fair few times!

Sunday started with a drive around santa maria on the vespas, there were about 100 maybe more , its was a really good feeling being in the middle of all those bikes, even though they don't go very fast and there were bits falling off them and smoke everwhere.

We all got back intact and stood around for another hour or two looking at more bikes. We paid 20 euros to participate and got free oil, a t shirt, a badge, loads of free drinks and then a free meal! It started with tapas, lots of tapas, in fact so much tapas we assumed that was it, untill they bought out the main course, which looked so disgusting i just couldn't eat any. It was processed kebab with fatty bacon on top, surrounded with tinned vegetables and potatoes swimming in oil and grease. How can they get some food so right and some so wrong?!

Our club won an award for most bikes or something (couldn't really undesrtand) and one of our members won for best presented bike!

We loaded michaels vespa back into the fruit and veg van with the manic speeding driver and headed off home, only to unload her and mourn the damage, (michael says he will put a sticker over the scratches).

We had fun, it was probrably the first time we have done something compleatly spanish, with only spanish people. We're getting there, after 3 years!

We should be off to another rally in Marbela this weekend if the bike is fixed so ill take some more photies for you and tell you all about it when im back.

And another

Portugal

August 2007

Pictures, at last!

San Juan

June 2007

Cookies and curry

Yesterday i was mostly eating cookies and curry.

The reason for this was it was mine and Michaels 5 year goingoutiversary. We had planned to go out to eat but in the end we could be bothered and to anywhere good would have been too expencive so we have put a hold on the meal till we are richer and went for an indian take away instead. It was good.

As for the cookies, i had planned to make some yummy chocolaty cookies( i think i have mentioned how good they are before) but idecided to cut out a few tonnes of chocolate from the recipe in an attempt to make them a little less fattening. This lead to the mixture being a bit to runny and the cookies spreading out into pancakes. They still taste good, but don't look to good. Michael kept asking for lemon, and when i asked why he said that what he usually puts on his pankakes!

Then we finished the evening with a romantic film, farenheit 9/11! It was pretty good, there was alot in there i din't know and its unbelievable what oges on in politics. If you want to get wound up its a good film to whatch.

I have abloslutly nothing planned for this week but we are off to cadiz for a Vespa weekend with lots of Spanish people, promises to be interesting!

Ps. I disn't make or eat the cookies or the curry in the picture. They look disgusting and mine were both quite tasty!

Last week we went on holiday to portugal. The plan was to drive up in michaels car on saterday, meet up with his parents who we were going to stay with , then come back on thursday.
So friday night we take take the car to the car wash, and hoover it out and everything, and michael puts in the new part he has bought for it. Of course packing gets left till saterday morning but we are on time so no worries. Traffic is pretty bad on the autovia so we stop and start all the way to the areport turn off just before Malaga when someone a few cars in fron decide to break hard. The car 2 in front breaks, the car in front breaks, we break, the car behind doesn't.
All the people involved Happened to know eachother and be from somewhere in morocco or africa. Luckily thaey did have insurance but our car is still a write off. I had to call Spanish 999, after someone finally remembered the number!
So we drove home, stopping on the way to let some steam out from under the bonet, and started again on sunday with a hire car.
We got to Portugal in the afternoon, have a llok at the beach and ate bbq. (This is what we did for most of the holiday)
We Swam in the sea, went up into the mountains and ate piri piri chicken, walked along the beautifull coast, all jagged cliffs and smooth sand. We spent a day in Lagos too and ate fish soup i a very Portugese cafe where they give you bread and a tin off sardine paste among other things for a starter. So fun was had by everyone!
Driving home was fine exept for the speeding fine we got, 70€, 146 in a 120 limit. oops.
Jane from keycamp arrived in the evening and we spent the weekend looking pottering aroung, went to Mijas, ate a chocolate brownie ice cream, relaxed around the pool.

Back to full hours this week at work but me and Michael are off to Cadiz next weekend for a Vespa Meeting.

Hi!
We have been keeping fairly busy the last few weekends, and seems we will be for the next few to come too.
We have been out for a few meals, went to a medievil festival at the castle which was mainly crafts and food (you could have a go on a diabolo so i just smuggly laughted at everyone doing it really badly)We have been dropping people off at the airport, watering plants for people on holiday, played Spanish bowles (patank), watched the bourne ultimatum at the cinema, broken my scooter and taken it to be fixed, had a spanish lesson, eaten icecream and yesterday we went to the pub and michael played pool and i went to the beach with my camera and took some photies. And i made mushroom, tomatoe and chorizo omlette for dinner.And some flapjack.

We should be going on holiday on saterday to Portugal. Then when we get back on thursday Jane from keycamp is coming to stay for a bit.

So busy busy, Good job i have a few free afternoons this week!

Chillies and chicken

So im getting over the buzz of Harry Potter but i might still go and watchthe film again if its still on.
I had a pretty busy weekend last week, I got up early on saterday because some idiots wereshouting really loudly at about 8.30, so we went shopping similar mundane saterday type things. Then i made michael take me to a garden center up in the mountains near alhurin. All the hillsides look brown and dry, i think we could do with some english rain to stop the fires. Anyways i got all exited because i acctually got one of those garden center trolly things and filled it with plants and soil and pots and a tomato and a chillie plant (Michael later discovered that the chillies are really hot!) Oh and we had a Cana (beer) in the cafe (Spains alternative to campachino i guess)
Then i spent ages potting and pottering with the plants. Even michale goes and waters my plants in the evening. My basil and mint is taking over the balcony, its huge!

In the evening we went to the tapas festival but it was a bit of a let down, but we had some beer and a big german sausage which made everything alright. (oh and some of those really good almondy morrocan sweets)

For some unknown reason i decided to get up early yet again on sunday and go to the driving range with michael. He went on the practice court and i spent some quality time with nature. Other that walking up a mountain the golf course is about the closest you get around here. It made me want to go for a walk in the woods (i am Lagolas of the woodland realm!)
I did have ago at hitting a ball with a stick but i was really crap. Its obvously because im left handed and they were right handed sticks!

Sunday evening was spent watching Borat (?!?) and eating a yummy roast dinner ( i made the stuffing and peeled the carrots!).
I have therfore eaten cold roast chicken for the last 2 days.

Ok ok, im writing a blog. Im sorry guys, i have been very preocupied with Hary Potter. First the film came out, Order of the pheonix,then the new book came out! I got the book about 2 mins after it was released at a harry potter party in the bookshop. It was extreamley geeky!
Thank god the book was better than the film! I ended up with a major headache after i finishe dit as i was concentrating so hard.
So now thats all over im not sure what to do with myself. Work is boring so i have no motivation there, and in not working afternoons in the summer(yay) but now Harry potter is over im not sure what to do. I would re read them all but i did that last year and i don't want to wear them out. Maybe i will re watch the films.

I might start re reading His Dark Materials again as the film is out at christmas, or maybe i should grow up and do something adult? Nah

Well, not a spectacularly good week. We have been pretty quiet at work which has its good and bad points. I have been able to do a few things around the clinic, me and junaly gave it a bit of womans touch and rearanged a few things so it doesn't look quite so out of date! Cleaned the cupboards out etc. Managed to piddle about on the net quite a bit, got in touch with an old friend from primary school, Jyotsna, who moved to India and is now in Canada (i think that was the highlight of this week).Bought Michael some presents.
Unfortionatly some of it has been really boring and i have had to spend hours at work on my own thinking that i could be doing something far more exiting.
Yesterday was the worst day though. The morning was very boring, 4 hours on my own, pottered a bit and read some book. Then Dr Bill came in for some patients in the afternoon and i was a bit rude to him (didn't really mean to be it just sort of came out like that) so we got stressed at eachother and i spent the rest of the day feeling really bad about it. I tried to appologise and ended up making it worse by giving some crap excuse but it wasn't really exepted. Oh well, there is not much more i can do.
Anyways got home finally at just gone 8 and went out to the restaurante near our house to eat with michaels family coz his sister is over for a few days. Its a really basic spaish restaurant with freshly cooked food so even when its quiet you have to wait a little while. Anyways we waited about 2 hours for our meal but we didn't mind coz we know the guys there,but some other people were singing 'why are we waiting' and clapped when food was bought out. I guess its pretty bad for a long wait but that is so rude.(bear in mind there is 1 waiter and 1 chef and about 40 customers) Anyway because they were rushed by the idiot customers when my food came out it was very uncooked. They gave us 2 of the after dinner drinks free but unfortionatly i didn't order one so michael and his dad got theirs free.
Allround things didn't really go my way yesterday.

This weekend should be pretty good though, its San Juan, so partys on the beach all night saterday, and there is a huge Harley davidson convention here with about 8000bikes. They are all going to drive aroung fuengirola tomorow so im going to go down with some ear plugs!

Happy birthday to me...

Thankyou everyone for cards and presents, i have a very normal sort of birthday. I had a bad cold so decided not to go anywhere in particular, so me and michael just pottered around do the usually saterday sort of things, like going to the market and driving around on the vespa. I bought some new shoes and some new jeans which was nice.Then michaels mum and dad came round for a bbq and we ate lots and drank lots.
I got a necalace, some nail varnish, some sweets, an ipod and a smoothie maker. Michael keeps making really unhealthy smoothies with ice cream and stuff in. Tonight we are going to try chocolate bar smoothies.Apparently milky bar ones are pretty good!

Apart from a bit of cleaning on sunday i did absolult nothing. I spent from about 4 till 8 on the bed (watching whats eating guilbert grape, the sleeping) when we draged our hangovers to michales mum and dads for yet more bbq. They had invited theses really wierd irish people over, and had we known i think we would have just stayed at home and watched the final of Britain hasn't got talent. Acctually the guy who won was a pretty good singer but i was for the bottle trizzlers all along. If you havn't been watching it was yet another talent show with simon cowell, but the winners get to perform at the royal variety show for the queen. There were two little kids doing west end stuff and singing, they were so iccy i just wanted to puke on them, and i think the queen would have too, so im glad some amature opera singer won.

So this week is going to be the most boring of my life, Paul is away and bill only comes in when we have patients, and so far we have 3 for the rest of the week! Good job there is a new good houskeeping magazine out!

Hello strangers!

Its been ages, sorry guys, i have finally managed to get back into my blog, i recon a was putting the wrong password in or something equally as daft!
Last time i wrote i had just come back form doing my mack exams, this time i have jsut come back from doing the real exams! They went ok, i think, but thats enough abut exams untill July when i get my results (and might have to start all over again, but hopefully not fingers crossed!)
My holiday in england was pretty good exept for getting ill through most of it. It was cool seeing people again, allthough i didn't see many. We went to Devon for a very tafferish weekend and saw birds and boats and ate fish and chips by the sea. unfortionatly we didn't get a cream tea.
Anyways now im back in Espana, its bloody boiling, i have opted for staying in the clinic with the air con this lunchbreak, but i will venture outside for a walk in a bit.
On tuesday i came home from work (grrr, work) put my bikini on and read by the pool, then i swam for a bit, then we ate bbq. Sorry guys because i know its raining in England. I going to try fpr a nice subtle tan this year. The first year i was white, last year i got really burnt all in one go, so this year im planning on getting it right, so i think it will be a lazy weekend of sunbathing without feeling guilty about not revising!
Oh no, ive got Spanish homework to do by monday!

Dali Lama

Last weekend was very hectic! I Flew to england on thursday, spent all weekend travelling around, up and down to bristol for mock exams and things and queing for ages at Gatwick airport.
I did fairly well in my mocks and i did get to chill out with mum and dad and will if only for a few evenings. We ate yum food at the italian in twyford.

Anyway, back to a very rainy spain, although its brightening up now.
Paul was in a foul mood today,he shouted at me and and Janice for something that was totally his fault, especially as me and janice weren't even at work when it happened. In the end i just nodded my head and said 'yes Paul'.
It is his birthday tomorow so last night i made a lemon drizzle cake. It was bloody scruptious! Funny because i just picked a recipe of the net in the afternoon, grbbed some ingredients and voila! Sometimes those quick cakes are the best.

But, the funniest thing that happened this week...Bill, the other doctor told me yesteday that apparently the Dali Lama lives just up the road, on the mijas road! He has a very nice villa.
I will keep my eyes open, maybe ill see him shopping in the market at the weekend!

Goats and guacamoli

So, saterday was fairly hectic this weekend, Michael went to work and i made a carrot and apple cake for my friend, some guacamole and some biscuits. (i was going to make home made cookies but i was running out of time so i found a packet mix which you just add water too. (to be fair they were probrably better than what i was going to make). Carrot cake was good.
Then we went to the butchers, the bakers and the candle stick makers.
After craming food in my cakehole i met my friend Goga and we went to check out this buddhist stupa in benalmadena. It was small. There was a little gallery with tibetan paintings and statues in which was pretty interesting. I was really suprised that you can find something like that around here.It made me want to be a buddhist but i have a slight problem with reicarnation.
The views were amazing too had it been a bit clearer.
Goga took me to this big park too, there was a big pond with turtles in and we saw wierd plants and cactusses and lots of animals. Goats, peacocks, ostriches, rabbits...
So, rushed back home because we were invited to a bbq at the peoples house who live below us (hence the guacamole and cookies). Its was good, we chatted and ate. We sat outside and it was bloody freezing. My feet went numb so i had to warm them up before we dashed off to a bar in fuenirola to watch a spanish Guns and Roses cover band. I was funny, they all dressed up to look like GnR and the singer (Axle rose espanol) was only wearing boxer shorts for most of it. he had a good voice even if the other band members weren't quite as good. Michael got very drunk.
So as you can imagine he spent most of sunday sleeping so i sat about watching fortunes of war. I managed to drag him out for a 10 min walk but that was about as energetic as it got on sunday. We got roast chickend and chips from the pollos asados and i ate loads till i couldn't move off the sofa.
Next weekend ill be taking mock exams!

Una leccion de Espanol

Yesterday i had my first spanish lesson. it was good and i understood everything even though she did her whole lesson in spanish. We did regular and irregular verbs with verb endings. Now i just have tot go learn it!
I might join the gym tomorow too. Time to get off my lasy ass and do stuff. But tonight im going to concentrate on my revision so i don't make a tit of myself in my mock exams. Oh and watch fat people on you are what you eat.

Me and my new friend Goga went to Malaga on Saterday. We went to the new shopping center and i bought a top. It takes ages to get there on the train but it was good to get out of Fuengirola for a bit. We ate bbq (prawns on the bbq) at Michaels mum and dads on sunday. The weather was lush, i sat on the balcony in my bikini top! Its cloudy today though.
I going to iceland after work to but a double decker! yum!

Miracle

A few weeks ago i started platning my seeds for my balcony veggies im going to grow, so i put them in yogurt pots in the bathroom, and this morning they poped thier little green heads up out if the soil! I havent been so exited in ages!
Soon they are going to grow big abd strong and have lots off chillies on them, and when the weather gets better we can have carrots and courgettes and preppers and spinich!

Ague

Me and Michael have both been pretty ill for the last week with mega bad flu. It was really horrible and i was all sweaty for ages and then i couldnt breath through my nose but now im feeling a bit better and so is michael.

Costa del Viento

The weather had been crazy this weekend, its been really windy, you can hardly walk in it and the waves are huge. Branches have come off trees and huge metal signs have just bent right over. Now its just raining but it acctually hailed on saterday!. Apparently its going to be stormy for the next week and we already had a power cut this morning, but not at work unfortionatly.
So there, we can have bad weather too!

We had our long overdue christmas dinner last night, it was yum! i also made some scones but they were crap.
There has been a bit of scandel at work but it all comes down to the receptionist leaving (on good terms) and me having to do more work! oh well only 43 more years till retirement!

Zoo Tomorow

Me and will went to the zoo yesterday, it was cool, we saw the tigers having sex and chipanzee's clapping and kingfishers eating and stuff. We got to go in with the lemurs and they jumped on us and one of the pood on me!
We went to the pub and played pool and i beat will, and we watched wik choppin films and evangelion and we ate cake as well.
It was good

Hey Peeps

Hey Peeps
Back to normal hours at work. I forgot how irritating paul can be, oh well give a few more days and things will be back to normal.
Last weekend was pretty good, went out! for the first time in ages and played pool and stuff in the pub, then on sunday i went round to annoy Holly so we got some lunch and a moo shake ( on of those places where they put any chocolate bar into a milkshake, but i chose healthy friut one, Yum))then went and played some more pool in the pub.

Michael got a new synema system but it will only play dodgy lookie lookie man dvd's not regular ones. Back to watching dvds on the play station!

Will is coming out this weekend so we can watch wik films and stuff

Better go becaus ei have to buy Paul a baguette for his lunch. Slave or nurse? Hehe

Christmas is over although not for the spanish, its the three kings tomoro, so lots of parades and preasents. Ive just taken down the decorations at work. It was a strange christmas but good. I did miss having a proper christmas dinner but if michael doesnt make me one ill get mum to do one when i next go home!
New year we went to michaels mum and dads for dinner, it was tasty but the main course was purple chicken (i guess it had soaked up those 2 bottles of wine that was in the sauce!). I made bavorois for pudding and it was yum yum. We also did the spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes, one on each chime of 12 o'clock. I managed 6 amd michaels mum nearly choked but she did get all 12 down.
There is no doctor at work this week and next week will be really quite too but it gives me a chance to catch up on my homework. I have mock exams im march so i will be home for them, scarey.
Hope you all had good chrimbo festivities!