Tuesday June 17th - Sunday June 22nd 2008


Beautiful weather. Summer's here, with temperatures in the high 80's°F daily.
We're both well.
Jane's working in Gibraltar and I'm working hard on the new Gibraltar website.

Rosie and Domingo are living behind the house.
I walk them at around lunchtime up to a wild flower meadow a couple of minutes away for them to feed. I bring them back at sunset.
All the cats are having fun with warm nights and plenty to hunt, mainly bugs and (unfortunately) lizards.
The dogs are well too. Ferdy continues to slow up but he's fourteen later this year so it's expected.

On Saturday Jane left me. She's gone back to England. I'm not sure how I'll cope without her. Before she went she bought me a weeks supply of beer so I guess that I'll be alright. Plus there's football and a Grand Prix on ... also I've got all those DVD's to watch. Of course I'll be working most of the time ...
It's Jane's father Bob's 80th Birthday. So this trip has been secretly planned by Jane and her sister Carol for a few months.
It's going to be a surprise when Bob and Esther arrive at Carol's house in Dorset.
Jane will be back next Saturday unless the pleasures of shopping Primark and Matalan seduce her into staying in the cold & windy UK.

Before she left Jane took her camera to Gibraltar (Thursday 19th June 2008).
Street Entertainer.


Main Street looks busy.




















Lots of tourists enjoying the sunshine, fish n' chips, British pub food and a pint of decent beer.









































A quiet corner away from the masses in Casemates.











I got a phone call on Saturday evening from Jane saying she had arrived safely at Carol's house.
Trips to the shops are planned tomorrow.

I plan to work ... with the odd break for football matches & the French Grand Prix.

Thursday 12th - Monday 16th June 2008



Glorious weather. Very hot.
Jane works Thursday and Friday but has a long weekend off as Monday is a Bank Holiday in Gibraltar (Queen's Birthday).
I've been getting stuck into designing the Gibraltar website and good progress is being made.
We met Elaine, Joe and Trevor from Glasgow/Gaucín on Sunday at the Restaurante Kabilas. It was good to see them again. Elaine comes out every summer for a couple of months.
We've watched a few films.
'Definitely, Maybe'. Directed by Adam Brooks. With Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Isla Fisher Elizabeth Banks and Rachel Weisz. A very well written romantic comedy. A really good film for this genre. Well acted, great script with some excellent observations.

'Street Kings'. Directed by David Ayer. With Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitake. L.A. Cops are bending/breaking the law to get busts. Who's the goodies and baddies, action drama.

'Brick Lane'. Directed by Sarah Gavron. With Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik and Christopher Simpson. A Bangladeshi girl is sent to the UK in an arranged marriage. Unusual subject matter for a movie. Good film, not exactly exciting, wait for it to come on TV.
'Charlie Bartlett'.Directed by Jon Poll. With Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr., Hope Davis.
A rich kid is expelled from lots of private scools and ends up in the public schoool system.
Funny, well acted, worth watching.

Special Notice
+++++++++
A message from Jorrian and Alma.
PAD the local Pets protection platform organizes its yearly RASTRO / GARAGE SALE




NOW is the time to clear out your cupboards, bookshelves, wardrobes, attics
and cellars!!


Please bring the things you want to give to PAD to the Sportshall on
Saturday the 21st between 09.00 and 11.00. If you need transport or if you
want to get rid of them before that date, give us a call and we will arrange
a pick up in week 14 - 20 June. Jorrian on 658 612 989 or Alma on 667 380
626.


Last year´s coffeestand was a big success and we´ll have one again this
year. Jamie will make you a nice cup of coffee or tea and there will be a
good selection of delicious cakes. We are looking for volunteers to
bake/donate a cake.

We hope to see you all on the 21st of June !!

Monday 9th - Wednesday 11th June 2008

Perfect days. Hot and sunny.
Jane's back to work in Gibraltar.
So we're up early before dawn.

The dogs, donkeys and cats are well.
I'm working on the Gibraltar website. I've set a target of the end of June to have the structure in place.
It's being written using modules and a database. This means I can write a chunk of HTML and call it using one line of code. This makes designing web pages more like old fashioned computer programming using procedures and functions. It makes publishing articles very simple.

Sorry I can't do individual blogs at the moment but I must get on with designing this site.

Here are a few photos taken on an evening stroll around Benarrabá.

Sunday June 1st - Sunday June 8th 2008



The weathers been fantastic. Blue skies so temperatures are climbing.

Jane's has got a really bad chest infectuion and cough. Once she starts coughing she can't stop until she gets a drink. We've got antibiotics so hopefully they'll kick in and we'll be okay.

I've got a head cold but I can still get out to walk the dogs and see the donkeys. Thinking and web design are trickier. (What's new?)

We've had a week in the house. I've tried to get Jane out into the sunshine once or twice but as soon as she starts moving she starts to cough.

We have watched a few films.

'Grace is Gone'. Directed by James C. Strouse. With John Cusack, Emily Churchill, Rebecca Spence. Grace is a U.S. soldier in Iraq. Cusack is home with their two young girls. Emotional drama.

'Semi-Pro'. Directed by Kent Alterman. With Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, André Benjamin. Silly comedy about a basket ball team. Funny at times.

'The Eye'. Directed by David Moreau, Xavier Palud. With Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey. Remake of a Hong Kong film. A blind woman has corneal implants and regains her sight but can see the future and dead people.

'Jumper'. Directed by Doug Liman. With Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane. This is more like it! Sci-Fi film about a young man who can teleport himself aroung the planet just by thinking about his destination.

'The Machine Girl' aka 'Kataude mashin gâru' A Japanese girl's brother is killed, she loses her hand. She wants revenge ... She has a prosthetic machine gun attached to her arm. The geysers of blood which squirt from her victims like a Monty Python sketch make it unbelievable and unwatchable. Really poor film.


'The Shepherd Border Patrol'. Directed by Isaac Florentine. With Jean-Claude Van Damme, Scott Adkins, Stephen Lord. Set on the Texas-Mexico border. Drug barons and corrupt police have a good thing going until Van Damme turns up. Typical action movie.

'Boot Camp'. Directed by Christian Duguay. With Mila Kunis, Gregory Smith, Peter Stormare. Tearaway teens are sent to Boot Camp by their parents. A better film than it sounds.

'Fool's Gold'. Directed by Andy Tennant. With Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Donald Sutherland. Treasure hunt in the waters of the Carribean. Light hearted adventure. Good family film.


'Blood Diamond'. Directed by Edward Zwick. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly. Set in war torn Sierra Leone. Brilliant film. Good story. Great acting. Amazing scenery and sets. One to watch.

'Mama's Boy'. Directed by Tim Hamilton. With Diane Keaton, Jon Heder, Jeff Daniels. 29yr old guy still at home with is mum, until she finds a guy. Quite funny comedy. Predictable.

'The Onion Movie'. Directed by Tom Kuntz, Mike Maguire. With Ahmed Ahmed, Ahmed B. Badran, Kathie Barnes. About the Onion News Network. A series of (satirical?) sketches about current events and strange human behaviour. More like a long TV show than a movie.


'The Breach'. Directed by Billy Ray. With Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Laura Linney. A true story about an FBI mole. Well made movie. I've seen it before and enjoyed it again the second time.

'The Bucket List'. Directed by Rob Reiner. With Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes. Two terminally ill men write a list of things they want to do before they die.
Funny film, with two of my favourite actors.


'Blood Diamond' is easily the best film on the list.

A sad note. All of Tash's kittens have died. We think it's a viral herpes that most cats carry but only flares up if they are weak or stressed.
L-Lysine an essential amino acid is supposed to control an episode but the kittens were too young to be treated. It can be bought in health food shops.
Early signs are red eyes and discharge. We're treating all our adult cats with crushed L-Lysine tablets in their food for a few days. They need 500mg a day. It's cheaper buying it for humans. It's the same stuff.

Saturday May 31st 2008

A lovely day.

Our guest's Leni and Michael left early. Later they e-mailed to say that they'd arrived home safely.  We hope to see them again later in the year. (I think they really like Benarrabá)

Jane's off today but has a terrible cold. I can feel my throat becoming sore, so I'm drinking fresh lemon juice and honey.

Of course the animals still need looking after, so I took a walk up the track behind the house.
The dogs love it. Most of our cats came with me too!
Here are a few photo's of the dogs, cats and campo.















Mota de Oro.





Sophie our female Siamese. Sally with her son Jake as backup.



Dogs win! Makes a change.











Sam our male Siamese.



Charlie.



Sophie.



Charlie and Sam.



Charlie



Sam.



Mota de Oro.





A good walk. The campo is beautiful.

By the end of the day we're both full of cold and not very well.

Friday May 30th 2008

A hot day.

The donkeys, dogs and cats are all doing well.

I worked all day.

Our guest's Michael and Leni invited me for a drink as it's their last night.
Jane's doing some shopping so isn't home yet.

We went to Café Bar Guayácan.

Here's Leni & Michael.










Next we went to Dami's Bar. This is me wearing Paco's hat.



Paco & I.





The boys.



Paco's mother Ana.



A good night. Leni & Michael had an early flight and we're leaving at around 06:00h. We hope they had a safe and pleasant journey home. They were good company.

Thursday May 29th 2008

The usual routine.
Up early. Jane's off to Gibraltar.
I work.

No need to walk to the donkeys now as they are just behind the house.
They are happily munching through the jungle of undergrowth.

Jane took her camera to Gibraltar.




























Jane's still got cold.

We watched 'St Trinians'. Directed by Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson. With Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Jodie Whittaker and Stephen Fry. I've always liked St Trinian's films. This one's good, great cast.

Wednesday May 28th 2008

Jane's off today, but she's full of cold and she's losing her voice.
She still gets up and helps with the dogs, cats and donkeys.

As promised here are photo's of Tash's second kitten, the 'Bat Cat', it's just been washed because of it's eye infection. Making it look stranger than usual..












I try not to work on Jane's days off. So we watched a few films.


First up, 'The Air I Breathe'. Directed by Jieho Lee. With Kevin Bacon, Julie Delpy, Sara Michelle-Gellar and Brendan Fraser.
A gangster's violent, underworld effects a number of lives, the best film we've seen for a while.

Next was 'Million Dollar Baby'. Directed by Clint Eastwood. With Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. Three of the best actors around make this an outstanding film. Won four Oscars in 2005. Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actress (Swank), Best Supporting Actor (Freeman), Best Movie. Brilliant The best film we've seen since the last one we watched ... if you haven't seen this ...

Finally ... 'Fast Track No Limits'. Directed by Axel Sand. With Erin Cahill, Andrew W. Walker and Joseph Beattie.
Set in Berlin, a movie about illegal street car racing. Almost like a TV show pilot. Not in the same league as the previous movie. Some good racing, nice cars and a fair occasionally funny story.

Tuesday May 27th 2008

We're up early.
Jane's off to work in Gibraltar after a long weekend off. I continue with the websites and catch up on the weekend's blog. Lots of photographs to process. I'm losing count now we have two cameras on the go, but we've taken around 50,000 photographs in four years. Only a small percentage 10-15% make it onto the blog or our other pages.

We haven't mentioned the kittens for a while. Tash has lost two more from natural causes. The two smallest were found dead on consecutive days. She gave birth to six and now has two plus one found in the street too young to survive which she's adopted. All the kittens have eye infections which were trying to treat. It's highly infectious and difficult to stop spreading. We're giving their faces salt water washes and cleaning the bedding at regular intervals.

This is the 'adopted' kitten that mysteriously turned up outside our house one day. It was too young to walk far, we'll probably never know where it originally came from. It's really beautifully marked.





This is Tash's black/grey kitten, they're a couple of weeks behind the adopted one. It doesn't usually look this sad, it's just been washed and cleaned up.





Jane gets home full of cold. She's off tomorrow as she's working Saturday. Hopefully she'll feel better very soon.
We've lived isolated in a small village and we've only had a few colds in four years. Working with the public from all over the world means she's going to pick up more bugs ...
I cooked mince, onions and mash in thick gravy. Then I squeezed some fresh oranges and added honey for my 'infectious' little wifey.

We watched 'The Oxford Murders'. Directed by Álex de la Iglesia. With Elijah Wood, John Hurt and Leonor Watling. Adapted from an award-winning novel of the same name by the Argentine mathematician and writer Guillermo Martínez.
After ten minutes I thought it was going to be brilliant. It was good but turned out to be a 'Da Vinci Code' like chase solving mathematical puzzles.


Photographs of Tash's other kitten tommorrow - The 'Bat Cat'

Monday May 26th 2008

We're up and out shopping. Mainly two large sacks of donkey seed.
We're taking a picnic into the campo and walking the donkeys very slowly back to the village.

Here are some photographs from the day.

































In the evening we watched most of 'Living Hell'. Directed by Richard Jefferies. With Johnathon Schaech, Erica Leerhsen and James McDaniel. A cold-war military experiment sealed and hidden in a military base is let loose ... if it sounds like complete rubbish, you're not far wrong. You just missed out 'and utter'.

Sunday May 25th 2008

We're out early to walk the donkeys. A lovely morning.

In the afternoon we went to Café Bar Guayácan to watch the Monaco Grand Prix.

Later we went to Bar Andrés Sánchez and Pub Bar Dami.

Here are a few photos.

Jane and our good friend Sebastián.



The boys in Bar Andrés Sánchez.



Andrés Ramos



Dami's Bar











Dami



Dami's father, Rafael.









Maca.



Dami's mother Ana. With Almudena and Raul's baby also called Ana.





Susanna



Antonia, Maria and Antonia's mother Antonia.



Ainara.



Our neighbours Anabel, Juan Jesúsmwith Ainara and Juan Jesús.



Paco.



José Marie and his father Sebastián. Who kindly invited us to their house for tapas. Freshly made goat's cheese ... beautiful stuff.




We only went out to watch the Grand Prix ...

Saturday May 24th 2008

A lovely morning after overnight rain.
We clean the apartment for guests arriving at lunchtime.

After meeting and showing them the apartment we go to see Rosie and Domingo.
They look well. Our neighbour has said we can keep the donkeys on land behind the house so we can keep a close check on Rosie. It's very overgrown (good news!) and she wants us to move them soon.

Grass seeds.



Oak trees. The tracks are quite shaded in places which is great for walkers.





Our house is the top one.



Jenny with her Alsation and her daughter's new pup.



Part of the front of our house. Oleander and Bougainvillea +++



Later we go out to Cafe Bar Guayácan for tapas.

We watched the end of Cassandra's Dream directed by Woody Allen. It's okay but nothing fantastic when you consider the actors involved.

Friday May 23rd 2008



Jane's working but has an early finish and a long weekend.


I work on our websites.



Jane does some shopping on the way home before we go to see the donkeys.

We walked them for an hour up the track. It's good to spend time with them and watch them enjoy the grass seeds and lush growth.

We called in to see Yolanda and had some of Café Bar Guayácan's fantastic tapas.
Rain is forecast during the night.

Thursday May 22nd 2008

A lovely day. I'm getting stuck into designing the Gibraltar website.
Jane's actually down there toiling away. Instead of letting her have a lunch hour yesterday she was under orders to take photo's.
Main Street is bustling with shoppers. It's a lovely street. When we first visited Gibraltar we weren't too keen on the place. We enjoyed visiting the Barbary Macaques and St Michael's caves but weren't exactly overwhelmed by the overall appearance. One evening we were sitting in Main Street people watching. We saw so many people of different races and religions all strolling leisurely along happily co-existing that we suddenly realised what a special place Gibraltar is. Now we can see passed the ugly blocks of apartments with washing hanging out of the windows and the scruffy back streets. They don't really matter. Gibraltar is special because of the people who live there and the people who visit there daily either as tourists or frontier workers.















Hibiscus























Last night I enjoyed watching the Champions League final.
Manchester United beat Chelsea in Moscow. A great game.

I saw this today which made me laugh.



You do have to feel for poor John Terry, so near ... Anelka looked like he couldn't care less. Time for another transfer? His brother (his agent) and Mr Anelka are very clever. He's had lots transfers for tens of millions a time. I just hope Newcastle don't sign him. He's a talent if you can motivate him but what a mercenary.

Jane got back and we went to feed the donkeys. I'd cooked a corned beef hash. I'm not exactly sure what you do to beef to turn it into 'corned' beef, I'll have to 'Google' it when I have time. Anyway it tastes good especially with onions, tomatoes and slices of potato casseroled in an oven.

Tuesday May 21st 2008


Another day that sees Jane working in Gibraltar and me hobbling around the house.
My toe is getting better and on the flat it's not too painful. Going downhill is a different story.

Jane's been taking her camera to Gibraltar and I'd forgotten that she had some photographs of Rosie on her card taken on Sunday.

Here's Rosie our lovely little donkey. She's a beautiful animal. We think she's pregnant again. In fact we're pretty certain. She's becoming heavier and a little plumper than usual.





This is a sequence of Rosie pulling a Southern Vetchling (a wild Sweet Pea) out of a bush that it's entwined through













There's a Great Spotted Woodpecker's nest in the lower hole. Jane spotted a 'face in the wood'. I'll have to collect all her faces in the wood photo's together for a special page.



Jane gets back late and we drive to the donkeys. It's dark when we come home. A quick meal and then bed ready for tomorrows early start.