Party, Party, Party

Summer’s here and its just that, a fiesta or feria somewhere!

The end of May, beginning of June saw the Spring Fair in Antequera. This is still very much an agricultural show with a huge fun fair!

Goats and horses on display in their various competitions for the best looking goat/horse!

There was also a food fair for local produce, and the evening finished off with a live rock concert!

The best part was the equestrian display, absolutely fabulous, a two hour show of horsemen in traditional Andalucian dress, with their girls in flamenco dresses riding with them, how they managed to stay on! Then there were picadors, dressage, et al.

In between visitors we’ve managed to get a bit more done, a few new doors – the shower doors were put up with some help from a friend in the next village and a local carpenter fitted new doors to our kitchen and downstairs bathroom. We’re still waiting on the door for the en suite.

La Roda hosted a bike race, and the whole village (including us!) was treated to free beer and lunch and free t shirts; we met the oldest cyclist, at 79, in the event- and he didn’t arrive last!

While we were enjoying our town’s hospitality our neighbours were out on a mission on our behalf. The Bevan family were due shortly and we needed a car seat for Josie. Sylvie came up trumps with a car seat from the Sunday market in Torremolinos!

Next we received an email from Bryan and Ruth, they had just picked up a last minute deal for a week in Calahonda (about an hour and a half from here) so we arranged to pop down to see them – we brought them up to La Roda to show off the house and a bit of the local scenery and took them back to their apartment. Fortunately we had arranged to stop over with them as Mick was a little the worse for wear - so much so Ruth had to drive in the morning!

Ruth had been looking around for a jug and bowl for the third bedroom (the one without a bathroom) and spotted just the thing in an art workshop in Estepa. When we attempted to buy it, the shop assistant (who turned out to be the artist) warned us that the bowl was cracked, but she could make us another.

So 10 days later we picked it up.

Paul and Ali arrived to spend a few days with us.
We spent one day in Estepa waiting for new brakes to be put on the Focus, a job we expected to take a couple of hours at most, ended up taking all day because the wrong part arrived, and they had to get the right one delivered that afternoon, so having got up early to get the car to the garage for 9.00am, we ended up hanging around until 7.00pm!

Estepa is a nice little town, but it was difficult to occupy ourselves for 10 hours!

Having learnt our lesson taking Bern, Al and Al to the Alhambra in Granada,
we pre booked our tickets this time, and just sailed through – hardly any queuing!

And then Seville, the Golden Tower, Columbus’ tomb in the cathedral and tapas.

And we finished up their week with us with a trip to the lakes and a flamenco concert in the bull ring in Antequera.

We took Paul & Ali back to Malaga airport on Saturday (picked up a speeding ticket in the process!)..........

.........and collected Jus, Ash & Josie on Sunday.

A trip to the Wolf Park (Lobo Park) just outside Antequera, the Donkey Sanctuary in Fuente de Piedra and lots of paddling!

We came back to England on the same flight as Jus, Ash & Josie for Mick’s sister’s birthday party and visiting Ruth’s parents for a few days.

Then back to Spain for La Roda’s Feria, another big party.

There’s a fun fair, dancing, live concerts, discos, ‘cinta ‘ for motor bikes one day, and horses the next. This is where the competitor, either on a motorbike or on horseback has to charge headlong at a wire strung across the track and collect a ribbon wound round the wire.
The partying goes on from 10pm till 7.00am, for 6 days!! So whilst it’s all enormous fun,
it’s quite nice when it stops!

The feria finished on Monday and on Wednesday Katie, and her friend Holly, arrived. Fortunately, having spent the previous week at Glastonbury, they were more than happy to chill! (in 37 degrees of sunshine!)

The Donkey sanctuary in Fuente de Piedra celebrated its fifth anniversary, with a bit of open air line dancing – much to our disappointment it was not the donkeys doing the line dancing, but a local class putting on a display. There was also a display of sevillana (flamenco dancing) and a bit of live music. All laid on outside the town hall, beer, wine and tapas available and it turned out to be a really pleasant evening.

Another trip up to the lakes at Guadalhorce, one of our favourite places so we take all our visitors there, at least once! This time we all went swimming in the one of the lakes – it was superb having the whole place to ourselves!

Katie and Holly had a late flight back to England on Tuesday so we spent the day in Malaga (Bars and paddling), and after we saw them off at the airport we spent the night in Malaga (no pictures of that!) as our own flight back to the UK was on Wednesday afternoon!

Our visit to England incorporated the annual Wilton House classic concert and fireworks and the opportunity to catch up with old friends again

We are now back home full of plans to get on with the painting, repairs to doors and windows and order the new kitchen, but quite frankly its too hot!