Long tiring day yesterday…………..whatever happened to those days I could shop ’til I dropped….they seem to be long gone.  The very painful aches and pains since I fell Christmas 2009 and broke the hip are quite noticable these days and when I am out shopping and lunching I can tell I am no longer a young woman!!! The screws I have in the put back hip get sore and cold and I suppose that combined with the osteoporisis and the fibromyalgia (both of which are now confirmed as being there) don’t make things easier when I am tired. BUT it is not winning…the motto is ‘Onwards and upwards, anyway but backwards’.  The whole incident and the fact that I couldn’t walk for 12 weeks and had to be in a wheelchair, then on crutches has made me very aware of the difficulties faced by people with disabilities. I am always looking and going on about toilet doors, ramps, height of paying desks in shops…the list is endless.

Beautiful morning here in Torrox even if a little cold.  I have just completed my latest project with my photography. I have produced a photo book….an A5, 8 pages, covered and bound book of a few of my photos of doors and windows here in Andalucia, which I have turned into specialised sketches, with added notes and memories I have collected since coming here in 1992. For someone who is highly self critical, I am very pleased with the final product. I now have to get selling in outlets…..and it is this I find very hard to do…..but I have a couple of ideas.

I also want to produce books not only of here in Andalucia but also in Stoke-on-Trent, where I was born, and in Morocco where I love to visit.

So, what is new? Well, the weekly Craft Market which has been running for the past 3 years has changed its venue and will now be held up at Torrox Park, in the Restaurant of the camping site, so fingers crossed. I am still Mrs. Grumpy and wish Jeremy Clarkson would take a good long look at himself and grow up…I used to think he was sex on legs many years ago and was one mature man who SHOULD wear jeans…but Jeremy please please stop trying to be Jack the Lad! I am now going for the more intellectual man……hello Andrew Marr!!!! I still get angry with the TV and I still argue back with it..and I will be boring you witless with some of my rantings. Just got back from 11 days touring Morocco, so that is another thing that will be written up on here … and many many more. Programmes being watched at the min are ‘ Kidnap and Ransom’ with Trevor Eve and ‘Homeland ‘with Damien Lewis and books on the go are ‘Homage to Andalus’ by Michael Barry and ‘The Last Coyote’ by Michael Connelly. Music on iPod is a right old mix of stuff..from Take That, Texas, Enaudi, Shirley Bassey, Alfie Boe, theme music from The Promise, Jamie Cullen. Star Wars, Love song from Titanic….and on and on and on. In fact, time to put the earphones on, choose a track and use my exercise bike.

which is what I had this morning, coffee not the ferrets. It has become my weekly ritual for the past goodness knows how many weeks that every Friday morning I have a coffee….decaffineated…..round about 11am outside ‘the pink cafe’ which is my name for the cafe painted pink next to the chemist and the Town Hall of Torrox Pueblo.  This is my gift to myself after my visit to the dentist. This mornings visit was the climax of a marathon series of visits entailing the saving of a big tooth….well not really but my fantastic dentist who I call God has saved the stump of the tooth and I now have a rather nice crown.  One of the nasty complications when you fall at my age is that they find you have little calcium in ones body and they put you on a very very strong calcium medication. One tablet to be taken once a week, standing up. Well, I stood up weekly for a year and I don’t any more. I took myself off the medication . Doctor did not like it, but whose body is it? Not hers, it’s mine, so off I came. On researching said tablet I found that it is notorious for damaging your teeth and I have spent around 1000  euros on putting my teeth as right as I can. This latest round of visits to God has not been pleasant but it is compensated by large amounts of hugs and cheek kisses and hand holding…what dentist would do that in the UK?  Two lots of anti-biotics, injections into pulsating nerves and tears. But, for the moment and fingers crossed it is over for the time being.

And now my eldest grandson has been given the push by his girlfriend of many years (since leaving school)…..I worry, but  what can one do? Not a lot.  He is my first of four grandsons and is the first born of my firstborn.

I leave my cat in the house when I go down the square. But when drinking my coffee in the square this morning, on a couple of tables to my right someone had brought their pet with them for coffee and tapas, because there on the table was…………………a rabbit! Merrily eating away at some salad.  I was in Malaga once, taking a walk along the promanade…the one by the sugar chimney with the war protest written on it, you know the one I mean, and there taking a little walk on a lead was a ferret……….and bless my soul if a couple of weeks after seeing this one, I was walking down the street where I live and there was another one………..being bathed!!!  Ages and ages ago when my son was a teenager, one of his mates knocked on my back door and said he had something precious to show me….me being the love of his life (in his dreams) at the time…….I did wonder… but out of his trouser pockets he took his father’s  two ferrets!  It cannot be said that the men of Stoke-on-Trent are not romantic!!  What woman would rather have perfume or roses if she has the chance of being introduced to ferrets.

Wonder what tomorrow will bring? Could go and do the monthly shop, who knows?

I am a compulsive list maker……..it does work  if you put it on a list then it does tend to get done…….well sometimes!! I have a daily reminder on my Blackberry that everyday I do something off my lists at 11.45. Do I? Not always! but it gives me a guilty conscience every time it bleeps! Making a list at the min….A4 separated lengthwise, down one side are jobs around the house, the other side are my things to do. Plus thought this morning that there are things to catch up on on this blog…….

Calcium……said in the last entry that I had taken myself of the very strong stuff I was put on when I broke the hip. True, but I am still on the calcium they put me on when I broke the arm…..5 years ago! This is no problem, sachet to drink every morning and a squirt up alternative nostrils each morning.  Been told it looks as if I am squirting drugs, and I could be arrested if I do it in public!!!!  I also have what I call ‘my sleep tea’….a cup each night lets me have a lovely sleep as apparently with the fibromyalgia it is important that these muscles of mine relax. Now, that is more likely to get me arrested as when I travel I take it with me plus an infuser…because even I must admit that it looks like some strange concoction..it is a mixture of all sorts of herbs and flowers and I BUY it from a German Health shop..people also tell me that it smeels rather like horse dung!! But it does the trick and I wake up rested and usuall refreshed!

Www.Spanish-hols.com…….this is a holiday rental site, so I trust you will be having a look. Torrox is a lovely place to holiday and relax in and the village needs tourists desperately.  Most of the smaller village houses are priced at £175 per week..for the property not per person (and they sleep at least a couple) and there is a larger house which sleeps four with an very big terrace, which will of course come priced a bit higher.

Check out also Www.Barewall.com which is an art site based in Stoke-on-Trent and I have my photographic work on it…under my maiden name of Alex Berry.  My work is also on facebook under ‘Eye with a Camera’

Readers of my previous blog entries will remember the intrepid travellers Bert and Ethel……they are coming back again this year…..they hire a car (God bless them) BUT never go anywhere because of the locals and also they don’t know where they are going unless someone takes them first and then they MIGHT venture forth.  Also people ask me about Pepe…well he is still around but seems to spend more time up the campo. His daughters appear now and then to clean the house up, and then all the family turn up and life starts again. The other day one of the daughters boyfriends came knocking on our door, telling us that he thought she should have been in the house and that he could see somdethings of hers through an open window but he had  knocked and knocked but couldn’t get any answer so could he borrow our ladder, but he couldn’t go up it as he has a bad back! So, of course, our ladder came off the back wall and got hauled over our front wall and carried up the street and, yes of course, ‘im in doors went up the ladder’cause he hasn’t a bad back, got a gammy knee, but the back’s ok, pulled himself through a small window and looked through the house, no sign of said daughter.  But there wouldn’t be, would there? As 10 mins later she was seen walking up from the square!!

Want to find some more stories both for here and for the photo book I have done about this village….like the soap making article for a couple of years ago….the lady who showed me how to make the soap has since died but her daughter and family are still in the village.

I have a friend who has just told me that she and her family are thinking of trying to open a honey shop in Rabat, Morocco, so that will be interesting. She makes THE most fantastic jewellery see www.unique-handmade-jewellery.com.  She has also started making rather fetching bags using silks brought back from Morocco.  I am hoping to visit her hopefully within a couple of months..she lives near Waterford in Ireland…but if I don’t get there, then she will be in Spain in October and we will be meeting up in the ETAP hotel in Malaga, same as last year for a good old matter and trips around the art galleries and museums!

Just as I had got the pattern of producing my photo books, the blasted binder has gone and broke and guess what, the local electronic newsletter Digame has  now changed rules again and says one cannot put adverts on it if you want to sell things like pictures or chutney or books you have produced. Why? because the editor says you will be making money and if you want to advertise, then you have to make a donation to guess who? Digame!! Wonder if the bars and people holding painting exhibitions pay………have to keep ones ears open!!! Back to the binder…..working fine til last night, cracking on with putting my books together….this morning, doesn’t work, had it to pieces, no, still doesn’t work. Now means a trip to Eroski to buy another,  hopefully it will come with 40 binding strips and 40 sorts of binding paper. Right p….d off.

It’s about 7 days since I last wrote, been busy what with this photobook, which YES I have had accepted by the owner of  Ww.Costacupcakes.com to be sold in her gorgeous cake shop in Caleta…..very tempting shop this, it  tempts you to buy and to eat cakes. |It’s extremely naughty.  Another thing that has taken up time this week is that my other half has had a night in hospital….not the local one, but one right in the middle of Malaga..with no parking….so could put off driving no longer and took him him, came home, fetched him home the next day but he can’t drive for 14 days as law here covering that is very strict, so I have been doing the driving. Tell you what, it hasn’t half pulled this hip of mine. Be doing a bit more of it in a min, as this binder has got to be fetched, so I can get on with these books, so I can then get them sold and then I can repay me for the cost of the binder!!!

Later……. shop had run out of binders hadn’t they so not my lucky day! So I will go ahead and make more book packs up and leave labels on them telling myself what needs doing, and turn my attention to something else! Not written that letter yet to my friend in America’s Bible Belt and I have now yet another friend in the Western Desert of America…not sure where that is, but where ever it is, it’s where the Cownoys and Indians played out their time in history. I love Red Indians, but not the old movies, can’t watch them any more, so dated, but the few modern films about them. They frighten the life out of me, rather like my kids watching the Daleks when they were younger.

Top Gear been on TV again, Jeremy you really must take a good long look at yourself and grow up. Such a shame because years ago, you were the only jean wearing man for me. But you have now really lost out to Andrew Marr and Count Franscisco de Mosto (the Venetian who presents an Italian history programme) and Andrew Graham-Dixon, the Art Historian.

Right, off now to cut some paper into strips with a very sharp gillotine (wish I could spell it!).

That’s what its been, a pottering time, doing a bit of this and that. Bought a new binder but trying to link up the difference in using the cutting lines from the old machine to the new one has been a nightmare!  Have made a few of my ‘Eye with a camera, Andalucias secrets’ photo books….need a stock for when the rush starts and I become famous!  Have found a shop in Malaga which sells the perspect (!) covers I was after, so that’s a blessing but no luck with the paper/card I want or the mounts and cellophane sleeves for photos. So as I am in the UK from 6th to 14th April, I will be bringing those back. Can’t believe how hard it is to find these sorts of things here, there must be photographers and card makers who need them.

I am back driving!! ‘Bout time to, it’s been two years since my accident and I have been putting it off and off, but I have had to do these last two weeks…my other half has been in hospital, more or less situated in the centre of Malaga, so I had to get myself back from there, then as he couldn’t drive for two weeks, I had to collect him and get him home.  Realised how much I had missed driving and the lack of independence.  Must say though, since the accident we have been out and about, even 2000 miles through Morocco, and he has just taken it for granted that my confidence had gone.

The clocks went back  today….how strange to see it light at this time of night. Before we know it, it will be the height of summer with really long light nights and we will be complaining about the heat which goes along with it.

The jasmine is smelling lovely, especially if I type this up during the day with the bedroom window open, the scent wafts all through the house. I intend getting one for  downstairs on Casa Sandra, as its terrace is just outside my kitchen window and then I would get a double dose of its wonderful smell.

Going to the theatre tomorrow night, the Cervantes Theatre in Malaga, our third visit this year. This time it is to a concert by the pianist Ludovico Einaudi….I have his latest on my iPad i.e. The Islands. Fantastic. You will know of his music as it is used in many TV ads and in film scores.