Tuesday January 2nd 2013....
The outside temperature early this morning is a mild 12 degrees and the sky blue apart from a few hazy looking clouds.
The kitchen is a complete tip, after yesterday's lunch gusts finally departed at 11.30 pm.
Looking forward to a trip to Malaga this morning, to collect number one son who is flying in to spend the last few days of the holidays with us.
Later.... we set off with the acrid smell of bonfires in our nostrils; looking around there were at least four to be seen, filling the valley with with smoke billowing upwards and outwards. Hopefully there will be a warm sea breeze later to blow the smoke away. We definitely do not want a northerly wind blowing down from the snowy slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
It is traditional at this time of year for the farmers to prune and burn off the branches and leaves from the Chirimoyo trees. Left to themselves, the trees would not shed their leaves until April, just before they burst back into life with the new year's growth but, for whatever reason, the cleaning up is usually done in January and we are left with just the gnarled bare branches above the bare earth for the next three months.
Up in the hills behind us, the Almond Blossom has been making an appearance, far too early, at least 3 weeks before time, probably because the weather has been so mild and we have had no rain now for well over a month to cool the earth.
The drive to the airport takes around 75 minutes along a very pleasant and interesting stretch of the coastal motorway, offering views of the ocean every now again among the vistas of hills, villages and mountain ranges and we reach the arrivals hall more or less as the plane we are expecting is announced as having landed. This spectacular good timing must be the result of the many, many such journeys over the past fourteen years but...never, ever in all that time have we seen this new arrivals hall or indeed the old arrivals hall so amazingly empty.
Just after midday and Malaga airport is empty. How on earth has that happened?
Back home it's lunch and then siesta time.
This evening, a visit to a favourite bar down at the Port where they serve good tapas.
Just another Day!
