Spring has arrived and with the bedroom window open, yes I really can smell the jasmine. Its beautiful fragrance fills the whole house.

It is a very sunny but rather cool and breezy day here in Torrox today, good for drying the washing though. One of those days when loads of pegs have to be used as when the wind blows down the valley the washing could very easily go flying over the village. It did that once, just after we came to live here and I knew nothing about the winds……….pegged jeans out, next thing they were off over the roof tops just like Mary Poppins. Someone, somewhere had a pair of new jeans land in their lap. Learned my lesson!

Spent a couple of days in Malaga the other week, staying at the IBIS Centro hotel just across from the old part of town. I had cut out from The Olive Press, which is one of the freebie papers here, an advert for a restaurant named Pomelo (grapefruit), so after a drink sitting outside the Cervantes Theatre, that’s where we went for lunch. What a find!! It is fantastic. Sits about 50 covers and owned by a Belgium couple, the decor I would describe as boutique. The food is superb and rather different….you choose three dishes plus a dessert from the menu of the day sheet, dishes like pate of wild boar (delicious) or pastry triangles filled with three cheeses. You think it won ‘t fill you up, by my word it does.

It is one of very few restaurants we say we would go back to and in fact we have been back 3 tiimes as we have found ourselves in Malaga for one reason or another these last few days.

The area Pomelo is situated in is a rather up and coming part of the old city of Malaga. The frontages of the old houses are being kept and it is still retaining its lovely atmosphere. Anyone who used to read Torrox Diaries will know that I simply adore Malaga, it is high on the list of my favourite cities. Before I broke my hip, I was often to be found roaming the back streets, camera in hand (see www.etsy.com/shop/abizzyb for examples of my photography ..not only of Andaluca but also Stoke-on-Trent and Morocco. All for sale). Now the old hip is better, then I will restart my roaming!!!!

If you are ever in the area, then the guide ‘Footsteps through the city of Malaga’ is a very handy addition to your handbag or pocket, it takes you at a very leisurely pace through the old city and tells you all about the old buildings. If interested, contact me on abizzyb@hotmail.com as I sell them for the author at the really reasonable price of 5 euros.

Yes, it’s raining again, same as yesterday and the day before and last week!! So, it a day at the computer, with earphones on, listening to the theme from The Promise (the Channel 4 drama broadcast about middle February 2011 about the British in Palestine).If you have read my diaries in the past, you will know how I feel about that part of the world and this music just brings it out and relives my thoughts and memories. I went to Israel about 3 years ago and while my partner wanted to re visit the Holy sights, I wanted to go to Gaza, the Gollen (can never remember how this is spelt) Heights. We did both (though NOT INTO Gaza, but toured the wall, horrendous). I want to go back but this time I want to stay in Jaffa NOT Tel Aviv…believe it or not they are so close together and I want to see more of the wall, around the West Bank and back again into the Zouk in Jerusalem. Plus time has come to read again ‘Exidos’ and ‘The Haj”. I have an American Lawyer friend who actually goes on the boats when they try to get into Gaza…..so brave, I so admire her, what she does and believes in.

Through the earphones is a right mixture of music..as I say The Promise theme, the background music to the current Volvo S60 advert known as LiberTango, Take That’s latest album, a couple from Texas, Alfie Boe’s ‘Bring him home”, Gary Moore’s ‘Still got the blues for you’.

I am also trying to figure out how to display and photography my sets of postcards depicting the secrets of Andalucia (which I sell at the Wednesday morning market down on Torrox Costa in El Ancla Del Cirilo Bar) as I want to list them on my Etsy shop i.e. www.Etsy.com/shop/abizzyb. I also have in my shop on Etsy a collection of my photographic images……check it out. I am starting another shop there www.Etsy.com/shop/broadberry in which I am going to list all my knitted scarves. I use rather unusual yarns for these.

For those of you wondering about the broken and pinned back hip to leg which happened 14 months ago. I would say I am 95% better, taken a long time, but got there. The remaining 5% is what I will have to put up with I think and is more in the muscles now as I have fibromyalgia alongside the osteoporiasis (!!)……otherwise known as getting old! Still want to go photographing and reporting from a war zone………dream on as my kids would say!

Right, off now, things to do and people to see.