Some of the colourful sights of Andalucia:

Here's Tom in the same cafe in Frigiliana. We had to wait for the bus to return to Nerja so we had another glass of wine and enjoyed the sunshine. Frigiliana is just up in the mountains behind Nerja and it's considered to be one of the most picturesque villages in Andalusia. The cobblestoned streets are steep and there are flowers and vines everywhere. Thursdays the gypsy market comes to town so the place was packed with shoppers and sightseers. Just in the five years since we've been here, the village has become much more commercialized. The bar where the old lads used to gather in the morning is now a poncy British pub!!

One of my favorite activities is simply sitting in a cafe in the village square watching the activity around us. I've also made time to do some serious window shopping culminating in several purchases of deeply discounted shoes (would you believe leather shoes for 15.00) The money I saved on shoes I was able to spend wisely on an amazing pair of Euro-trash designer jeans which I absolutely love. It's all utterly shallow but entirely enjoyable.

The weather here has been glorious and we've been making a point of going out and about in the village several times a day. Last week we took the bus to Frigiliana which is the nearby "pueblo blanca" where we stayed on our first visit to Spain about five years ago. The place is getting more touristy but is still picturesque and we had a tasty meal in a classically Spanish restaurant overlooking the mountains and the sea. Here's Tom enjoying a 'salada Andalucia" with manchego cheese and serrano ham and various vegetables. He also enjoyed two glasses of excellent red wine at less than 2.50 per glass. Aside from going out for lunch and browsing in shop windows, we've been reading and sitting out on the roof terrace just enjoying the sunshine. It's above average in temperature here this February according to those who know...seems like climate change is also coming to the Costa.

This is Deborah...gracious hostess, gaming maven and mother of Sam and Jake...it's always a good time at their house...good food, good wine, good music, a blazing fire, a comfortable bed, good conversation and lots of strong coffee in the morning. We don't see each other much...usually once a year when Al and the boys come up en route to their canoe trip and sometimes in late summer when we go to Toronto for the tradeshow...or when we are flying out of Pearson as we are this time.

Before we left for Spain we spent a delightful evening with Tom's old friend Al...who possesses a fine wine cellar...here he is checking out a great bottle of red...one of several consumed through the evening...along with some fabulous Stilton and Brie and olives and other tasty snacks. I was sensible and went to bed early...others did not and the evening ended, so I hear, with ice-wine and such. A lovely send off for our holiday...and Al even chauffeured us to the airport!!

the beautiful mediterranean at about eleven in the morning. We live about a five minute walk from this paseo along the beach.

Giant cactus on the beach just below the cliffs. Although I am wearing a jacket, the sand was littered with German sunbathers...some of them topless and a few brave souls were paddling about in the water. Being from Canada, we have a hearty respect for cold...and it always takes a few days to get over the dread of going outside without enough warm clothing. We've been being thoroughly lazy...going out to get food and books and wine, and Tom is very happy that the sound on Eurosport is fixed although it is all auf Deutsch...he'll return fluently bilingual in German.

Tom is dressed in black too but at least he had the good sense to wear short sleeves. Behind him you can see the Sierra Tejeda mountains which come down to the sea just to the east of Nerja...the road that winds through those mountains is considered one of the most dangerous in Spain. We drove it several times last year, and it is indeed a fairly hair-raising event what with lorries and sports cars and old guys on scooters and the occassional goatherd...all barrelling along at top speed. (the goat herd is pretty slow).

February 6 in Nerja. We want out for a walk with me dressed in my customary black and of course, it's way too hot for this sort of attire. We walked over to the famed Burriana beach to see if there was a restaurant where we could have the ever-popular "British breakfast"...a greasy repast of sausages, bacon, beans, fried tomatoes, eggs, and toasties...usually washed down with coffee and brandy. We like to partake once during our holiday...the rest of the time it's Danish oatmeal at the apartment.

A small room for a dinner party for twelve people but we do the best we can...after running a restaurant all year, it's such a pleasure to just make some food and serve it to people in an informal atmosphere...everyone else brought appetizers and lots of wine and we really enjoyed the evening...hope our guests did also.

Ritsuko putting on her socks preparatory to heading home with Petey on a very chilly Wilno evening. Leslie and Carl are engrossed in each other's company.

Before we left for Espagne, we had a delightful round of entertaining and being entertained. We had our friends and neighbours in the "hood, over for pizza and lots of wine...with fabulous appetizer contributions from Tomasz with great garlicy hummous and guacomole, Ritzuko's marvellous suishi, a wonderful salad from Joyce and various other tasty nibbles from the others. Petey, in fine form as usual, contributed to the life of the mind, with a handful of printouts about Estonians in honor of Carl...a new part of all our lives...and a most charming and delightful gentleman who has taken up with Leslie...as for the rest...Tom was loquascious, Mike, curmudgeonly as usual, Henning philosophical and Tomasz and Dan, quiet as they usually are. In the company of men, the women are quieter than we usually would be. The next night, we had another fabulous dinner at Linda Sorensen's delightful atelier in the hills.Melt in your mouth tandoori chicken and wonderful sidedishes and Patrice Walsh's incredible chocolate cake for desert. Linda is our most popular artist at the Wilno Station Inn and this was my first visit to her home/studio. Seeing her in her working environment was a real asset....her home is incredibly warm and inviting and full of tropical and sunshiney vigor...seeing the photographs that inspire her paintings and the beautiful environement she has created for herself really helps us market her art. Dinner was delicious and Terry Walsh was in his usual funny ascerbic mode and our neighbour Petey arrived wearing a tinfoil helmet to ward off the gama rays...it's been a long festive season for some of us.....made me realize how lucky we are to live in such a vibrant communtiy....madmen and lunatics and creative geniuses and deranged visionaries...but never boring!!!

Slightly befuddled by jet lag, a bottle of $4.00 spanish cava, a pasta dinner with our landlord's garden grown courgette coupled with four cloves of roasted garlic, some Iberian sausage and a bit of herbes de provence, we sail into the second evening of our life on the Costa del Sol. A great deal of the stress of travel is averted by simply knowing what you are getting yourselves into. And so it was for us returning to Nerja for the third time...we know the airport, we know the taxis, we know the steets and the supermercado and the way it all works in this part of Espagne. So we've been supremely relaxed since the moment we arrived. Our landlady, Lola Jiminez, owns this building and they live downstairs. They also own a glorious villa nearby and several other apartamentos in downtown Nerja. Our wrought iron doors on calle Augustias lead into a superbly marbled foyer where the child Jimenez's Vespa is neatly parked on a bit of carpeting. Our stairway (also marbled) and with a somewhat over the top gold embossed tiling leads to the second floor and to our apartment. It's utterly brand new, with none of the gloomy dark wood and smoke-stained stucco which can be part of the Iberian housing experience. Ikea is a big part of home decor here and we have all the classic pieces...the high-end pine dinette, the best couch-hideabed, simple yet tasteful tab curtains and a comfortable bed. The kitchen, as almost all these kitchens are, is small but really tasteful...and very functional...solid granite countertops, a small fridge (north americanos need big fridges but spaniards don't) a gas cooktop, stainless steel sink and moulded drainboard and swedish hi-gloss blue cupboards with all sorts of stark white Mikasa tableware and cheerful red-handled cutlery.There's a big glass door that leads to a small indoor courtyard tiled in blue and a spiral staircase to the roof terrace which looks over Nerja and a somewhat obscured view of the Med. The only drawback to this place is the comparison to our place in Capistrano last year which had the most fabulous balcony facing south over the picturesque red roofs to the sparkling sea...and below us...flowers and vines and whitewashed walls and cypress trees everywhere. Downtown Nerja is more a vista of tv aerials and solar panels and some Spaniards freshly washed underwear flapping gaily on the line...however, the apartment itself is vastly superior so one weighs one against the other...anyhow...it's all very enjoyable and Tom says I must tell you that HE made the supper....as though anyone would assume otherwise...tomorrow we will go to the bookstore and find more things to read and supply ourselves with kitchen staples...I hear it's very cold in the valley....having my hi-speed wireless and my own laptop brings home so near...I feel I could step out the door and drive to Barry's Bay in fiive minutes. It is reassuring in a way, but one loses the delightful sense of being entirely removed from one's prosaic homey self.