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Autumn
Sept 23, 2022 8:15:45 GMT
Post by onlyMark on Sept 23, 2022 8:15:45 GMT
Superb. The row of tool sheds look good too.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 23, 2022 5:07:24 GMT
I have a relative who has a birthday on Christmas Day. Always pissed him off he only gets one set of presents. I hope Cheery you get a birthday and an anniversary gift. Good today - the Iranian descended CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour has refused to wear a headscarf in order to interview the increasingly radical Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi who then cancelled the interview because of that - bear in mind, this was to be done in New York, not Iran. www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63000854
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Autumn
Sept 22, 2022 18:39:35 GMT
Post by onlyMark on Sept 22, 2022 18:39:35 GMT
You've got a big back garden. What happened to all the cacti? Making a more authentic environment for them with all the sand?
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 22, 2022 17:30:10 GMT
We will reserve several of the different ones for us, maybe freeze them as we are away to Croatia and Slovenia next week, but the rest will be taken to Mrs M's work where I'm sure they will be appreciated with gusto.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 22, 2022 15:32:11 GMT
A daughter wanted a muffin. Any sort she said. I may have made a few too many -
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 22, 2022 10:00:04 GMT
Yes. You would know that.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 22, 2022 5:54:58 GMT
One thing I find striking about the town is the excellent, very attractive brickwork. (also love the wavy wall behind your house) I tend to climb high things so those would have been taken from the top of whichever was the highest tower. I think in the towns around my area there are quite a number of buildings with a bit of fancy brickwork here and there added as decoration, but I often wouldn't notice them. I'll keep my eye out now. Wavy wall - Bit of a story with that. Being built around the pool - Finished. A daughter took this from her bedroom window - The wall to the right is the front of what you can see the back photo of. The one in the being built photo was blown over by a localised tornado thing. It swept one day from the local town to the local village and unfortunately came straight past our house. Luckily we suffered little but some houses had roof damage. We replaced the blown over wall with a shorter version which suits us now as we actually have a more open view - Cheery, Charlton Heston would be good but for some reason in my mind's eye I have Yul Brynner up there.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 21, 2022 16:59:15 GMT
fumo, the photos were taken 23rd August. I think you'd still have good weather then. These and others are just left over from the summer. K2, if I'd just seen some photos of the town I really couldn't place where it was, never mind the town, more which country. It could fit quite a few, as you say.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 21, 2022 4:50:36 GMT
You can still use whatsapp on your tablet but you may have to rescan the QR code to link the devices.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 20, 2022 16:36:36 GMT
bjd, last thing, this is the back of my house in July or August where the builder's rubble was always deposited and we've cleared up the dead weeds - Even there, in May, it grows greener. Yes, weeds, but at least it's green - And around my area, in fact a lot of places, end April, early May, it's often like this. Not a good photo, but gives you the idea -
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 20, 2022 11:18:51 GMT
bjd, same area, March or April 2009. Still not yet to full greenness -
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 20, 2022 10:52:11 GMT
I think the Romans brought olive trees because of the ideal climate for them, so at least since then there has been little change in the hot climate. In the dim and distant past then yes, it was milder. But go there in May and apart from the rocky bits, it is mostly green. Not so in winter because it is winter. In the first photo of the last set you can make out all the fields, which would now be growing wheat and other cereal crops. Now meaning 2022 but everything is harvested in June and the fields then left until the next year. Sunflowers abound and are best seen before they leave them to go to seed, so early summer, June(ish). May brings out all the poppies.
The olive farmers keep their fields cleared so all you would see are the trees and bare earth, not so attractive as farmer's fields, but at least there is some green. In late Spring you can't guarantee the weather, but if the area is visited, most everything is green and/or being cultivated. There is a (small) native oak tree that still can be seen in isolated patches but over the centuries have been used for their wood so I think it was Franco who decided it'd be nice to have more trees again but just brought in a lot of pine trees. It is hot in the summer, but it depends on what you get used to. Hot meaning mid-thirties as a normal temperature, but will go higher in July and August, as expected.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 20, 2022 4:52:40 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 19, 2022 18:48:38 GMT
Cheery, did you read my post three back?
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 19, 2022 18:44:32 GMT
Well, what a coincidence. Never thought of the origin of where you are.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 19, 2022 11:37:32 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 19, 2022 11:35:55 GMT
We had a friend of our daughter come to stay with us in Spain and on her last day she had a quite late flight from Malaga. We decided to have a few hours somewhere so as the day wasn’t wasted. One of our favourite places is a town called Antequera. This is because of its proximity to a number of other places like the lakes/reservoirs (you can swim in which is unusual for reservoirs in Spain) of El Chorro, the stone landscape of El Torcal, the town itself because of the big castle and nearby, the ancient Dolmens (a UNESCO World Heritage site). Again, it is a place few tourists visit and those you do see tend to be the Spanish holidaying on the coast who want a day out. The town was called ‘the crossroads of Andalusia’, as it is more or less central point between Seville, Cordoba, Granada and Malaga. Antequera was conquered around 716 by the Arabs and fell to the Christians in 1410 after a prolonged four month siege. There are over 30 churches and convents resulting in more per head of population than anywhere in Spain and several palaces built during the 16th to 18th Centuries. We though tend to like to have a walk around the Alcazabar, the castle, built by the Moors on the site of a Roman fortress and then added to after the Christian reconquest. Worth having an audio guide if you go for a wander round. In Andalucía it is known for its comprehensive Tapas Route (Ruta) which happens for a couple of weeks in February whereby virtually all the bars and restaurants make their own home made tapa and with a small glass of beer you attempt to visit them all. Each place you visit stamps your card to prove you’ve been there. There is no prize, just bragging rights. Across the river, the Guadalhorce is Peña de los Enamorados, ("The Lovers' Rock"), named after the legend of two young Moorish lovers from rival clans who threw themselves from the rock while being pursued by the girl's father and his men. This romantic legend was adapted by an English poet (Robert Southey) where it was a Muslim girl and a Christian slave. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pe%C3%B1a_de_los_Enamorados
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 19, 2022 5:01:41 GMT
What's terrible is that some people are really being pressured into doing things like that. In France, television commercials are actually pushing the term "flexitarian" to promote meat eating so that people feel less embarrassed about eating meat. I remember a spate of vegan bloggers who were caught out eating meat to improve their health and other reasons. I've just watched about a married couple cycling through South America who profess to be vegan but slip in they eat meat for health reasons and "if there is anything we want to try".
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 19, 2022 4:57:07 GMT
I've had an Android phone for a few years and now bought from my daughter her old iPhone 8plus. I've spent ages and ages sorting it out even though I think I'm quite savvy with this sort of thing. I've got quite a few practical apps that I needed to transfer plus signing back in an authorising a couple of banking apps. Other info needed to be sorted out and various settings for security and otherwise. The very last thing I came to do was Whatsapp and guess what..... absolute shit and bollocks.
The only way to transfer all the chats, and I mean with living abroad there are many and lengthy, is to factory reset the phone, so wipe off all the data, settings, apps etc, and do it then. I should have done that first and not last. Now I'm missing tons and tons of conversations going back about three years.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 18, 2022 6:26:40 GMT
Our son is 43. His adopted daughter is 32. I understand now how he looks too young to be a grandfather.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 17, 2022 12:40:09 GMT
Does that translate as your son and your son's grandchild? Which makes you a great grand mother?
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 15, 2022 9:24:57 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 14, 2022 17:25:28 GMT
Does anyone know yet what she died of? The official cause of death?
There would have been a long and exhaustive plan drawn up years ago, probably centuries ago, and updated regularly. No doubt the person who takes care of it would have retrieved it from a filing cabinet somewhere in a store room and had it on his desk the last couple of months.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 10, 2022 20:13:09 GMT
I'm sure you're right.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 9, 2022 8:58:38 GMT
He has a strong sense of duty, that's good enough for me.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 9, 2022 8:58:03 GMT
No idea Cheery. Indian five spice is what I know it as.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 9, 2022 8:57:12 GMT
RIKITAaaaaaaa!!! Guess where I was for an hour an a half this morning..... Sunny and warm. If I get back for longer.............
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 9, 2022 6:49:03 GMT
Brings back memories of my time in England. Lots of places taken over and changed purpose. Everywhere looking clean, neat and tidy for a town centre, good stuff. Mowgli's menu - "Tomatoes tangled with panch phoron" - they like the work tangled in their menu and I very much doubt the average person there knows what panch phoron is. At least they've not gone overboard with the flowery dish descriptions. I'd like to try their food.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 9, 2022 6:33:37 GMT
I want Princess Anne to be Queen. No hope of that though. Or Charles to abdicate and make William the King.
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Post by onlyMark on Sept 7, 2022 19:54:01 GMT
The evening before leaving Spain. With the volume up you can hear the cicadas -
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