It's time to start praying

Walking to the office this morning I went through the usual morning ritual...I become a local rubbish collector.

Some of our roads here have still not been handed over to the town hall (for one reason or another) which means they never get cleaned. I'm not one to walk past a load of rubbish on the street and hope it all goes away. I get to the top of the road with bags of rubbish falling out of my arms.

But who throws their rubbish in the street anyway? Do people like living like pigs? I really can't understand it at all.

I have to say though, the Brits that live around here are very good at cleaning up the streets. They often turn out (me included) with brooms in hand to keep this area clean and tidy. If it wasn't for our efforts this place would be disgusting.

I'll come off my soap box now and get on my knees again....not to clean anything else, just to pray that one day we may have have someone who will clean our street, after all, we all pay our local taxes. It's not a lot to ask for in this day and age is it?

Manilva wine coming soon

On Friday Susan took the car in the morning and I needed to go down to Sabinillas for a couple of things. So instead of being lazy I decided to walk down the hill from Manilva to "Sabi".

It's probably not the safest road to walk down. There is no pavement for most of the road and cars come by quite close and fast at times.

But walking down the hill you see so much more than driving down. What really struck me the other day was the number of grave vines in the area. It's not as big an industry as it used to be but Manilva still produces a lot of wine each year. It's a Moscatel sweet wine.

But why doesn't the local town hall make more out of this? I took these photos on Friday of the grape vines and a shop on the hill that sells the local wine.

I'll take some more photos soon to track the progress of the grapes...

Yummy chorizo

Some friends of mine have just returned from visiting their family in Vera in Almeria and they brought me a little present...

They brought me a selection of their local chorizos. I love chorizo! If you haven't tried it then next time you're in Spain either buy the sliced one you put in a roll or the sausage type ones which you can fry (or grill). All are superb. Look what I got:



Can't you just taste it? Mmmmmm.

Anyway, the weather in Manilva seems to be getting better now after a couple of weeks of wind and rain, typical for April time. There are even some "guiris" in the pool! A bit too cold for me yet!

Drink tap water in Spain....er no thanks

I was reading in the Daily Mail today that new research has shown that there is no benefit in drinking tap water over mineral water. In fact the article was even going as far as to state that tap water can even be better for you than mineral water, as it's very closely monitored.

It seems there is a campaign in the UK to get people out of the habit of drinking bottled water.

Fine, but PLEASE don't apply this to water in Spain.

Our tap water here in Manilva seems to have everything in it apart from H2O. It can blow a water heater apart in 6 months flat. And don't even get me started on the taste. Some of our Spanish friends won't even brush their teeth using the tap water here!

I don't know what the water is like in other areas of Spain but around here if you want to live a long life then don't drink the tap water. UK rules don't apply!

Busy weekend

Last weekend came and went so quickly as there was so much going on!

It was Feria week in Manilva last week so not a lot of work was getting done by anyone. It's only a small feria but the kids love it.

On the Saturday we went to the beach in the morning which was lovely. I love the beach in the morning, it's generally really quite and has a real fresh feeling about it. I even got to read a newspaper whilst the kids played. Bliss!

In the afternoon we went to a birthday party of the daughter's of one of our friends. Managed to stuff my face silly with cakes and crisps....well what other reason is there for going to birthday parties?!

Then in the evening there was a "cavalgata" in Sabinillas which is a parade through the streets of some floats to celebrate feria week. It's was small but great for the kids. Some pics I took:












Later on we sampled the "Restaurant with no name" in Sabinillas which I have to say was very nice and reasonably priced too. This is what I like most about Spain, whilst we sat in the restaurant our kids were playing on the beach having a wonderful time....and this was 10 at night!

Sunday was another busy day and in the early evening we set off for the feria, for which the kids had got themselves dressed for it 2 hours before we left. Yes, they were really escited about going.

We had a great time at the feria, it's only a small one but perfect for the kids. They went on most of the rides as they don't seem to be scared of any of them at all any more! They are growing up very quickly!




We rounded off the evening eating some churros con chocoate there before heading back home.

A busy but fun weekend.....now we just need to have a little break!

Corruption in Manilva continues

I just posted the following on the Eye on Spain forum:

Has anyone read the article in El Mundo newspaper on 18th of May about Zotano (the current Mayor of Manilva) and the contracts he has passed onto HIS company for electrical installations??

Someone has printed it off on bright green paper and is all around Manilva today.

It seems he has passed contracts up to the value of 753,538 Euros to his company Rafalux and the contracts were never put out to tender.

It seems corruption is still rife. Most people know my opinion of Zotano and personally I really hope he doesn't get in again.

And what a nerve too. We STILL have no street lighting where we are, which after 2 years is dispcable...and all the money he's passed onto his company....it just shows he really doesn't care about anyone apart from himself.

Roll on the elections on Sunday....I really hope people vote with their heads.

1 rose = 1 vote .... surely not

I took the kids to school this morning and was horrified to find none other than the Mayor stood at the school gates handing out roses to all the mothers! Was this a sign of desparation on his part? It certainly smelt that way (overpowered the roses!).

Come on, surely women aren't THAT easily bought....are they?? The elections are on Sunday and it seems the mayor is desperately trying to claw in those remaining "confused" voters. But can a rose really buy a woman's vote?

Please, any ladies out there, please tell me it doesn't work and that eveyone will have seen through him today??

If that's all it takes then I'm going to be buying Susan a lot more roses from now on!!

Salvador Zotano for Mayor....no thanks!

The elections in Spain will be held on 27 May 2007. You can see all the billboards, posters, flyers, etc eveywhere for all the different candidates for Mayor wherever you go.

Here in Manilva I still can't decide who's going to get my vote but I do know one thing for sure, it won't be going to the current mayor Salvador Zotano who is the PSOE candidate.

Many of you will probably remember this and how badly we were treated when we spoke to him about the problems we were having around our new urbanisaion. As most of the residents on our urb are either foriegn or Spanish (but not from Manilva) then he didn't care and told me straight....he wasn't going to do anything to help us.

I believe back then he probably didn't think he would be standing for mayor again as he was being investigated as part of all the town hall corruption. But now he wants our votes?

He must think we're stupid. One month before the election he starts tarmacing all the roads around the town (not ours though), starts trying to make things look nice, planting flowers, etc. It's just not good enough. Manilva theses days looks very shoddy and in all his time in power did nothing to improve things.

In fact, Zotano's campaign is about "vote for these projects" which are for parks and new facilities. Hold on....you haven't even sorted out the current mess! You think we're just going to vote for new facilities when the exisiting ones haven't been sorted and the place looks awful in so many places. Come on. At least the PP party are planning to set up a department to look after urbanustic issues, a step in the right direction me thinks.

I am actually really annoyed with him, you cannot treat people like he does. His decisions affect many people's lives and I don't think he understands that.

Roll on the elections....although I'm still not sure who to vote for. Sorry Zotano, it won't be you.

Boxing in Manilva

The town hall's department for youth (yes I still feel young) and sport put on a boxing even in Manilva last night. I belive it's the first time it's been done. So I went with Andrew and Shaman from Hamilton Homes after a couple of beers and some tapas, that is, after I managed to drag them out of their office (they work too hard!).

The event start a little slow, I think they were some of the younger ones demonstrating full contact boxing, but then it really started picking up when the "serious" boys came on.

It's the first time I've ever watched any boxing live but although I enjoyed it it felt a bit odd jeeing on people to beat eachother up! It was like being in a school playground again.

Mind you, I think most of the lads there were more interested in the Go Go Girls than the actual boxing ;)

It's really good that the town hall has someone decent overlooking that department, they really are doing a lot to promote sport in the area and put on events for "young" people....yes, I'm still young too...honest!

Roll on the next fight. I think we should do an Eye on Spain sponsered event where we get different developers in the ring.....now there's an idea!

My meeting with the Mayor

As many of you will know by now, we have many problems with our development. The developer says the problems are down to the town hall and the town hall says the problems are down to the developer.

So this week we decided to take these issues (and there are quite a few) to the top and we made an appointment to see the mayor. The appointment was this morning and I was accompanied by Lola who is our "feisty" administrator.

I've never actually met the mayor before in person. I've seen him around and said "hola" but that's about it. He's always looked like quite a nice guy, friendly, and dare I say it, sometimes a bit camp (not that that's a problem in any way).

So we arrive at his office and accompanying him is the lady from the town planning department who let's say, we haven't seen eye to eye with before. It all starts off well, the mayor tells us we're going to be getting proper electricity and water in a couple of weeks (not bad after 18 months waiting for it) but then it starts going downhill when he tells us that phones are still going to be a luxury because Telefonica can't pull their finger out. I didn't feel the phone excuse was good enough but we moved on....and that's when things started to get nasty!

The mayor had a good laugh at the name that he gave our road..."Calle Utopia"...yes, it's the same word in Spanish. He thought it was quite amusing that this poor excuse for a road should be given this name...which he gave it himself!! I wasn't impressed to say the least. Moving on....

Things start getting animated when he tells me that the town hall will not spend a single Euro to solve ANY of the problems we are facing. He says it's the developer's fault and the fact that all the other developers in the area haven't coughed up their share. Seeing as three of the actual 5 developments here are actually stopped I don't think the developers are going to be shelling out any money for roads and infrastructure that they don't yet need.

So I told him I could not accept the fact that they would not take any responsibility for this mess which they helped to create. He started to get quite angry after I demanded some sort of resolution. I didn't get it. He just kept stating that they wouldn't pay any money at all.

I won't mention some of the things he said due to the sensitive nature of his comments towards the people living here but he is most definitely not who I thought he was. My whole impression of the mayor has changed totally. He lost his cool too quickly and as a citizen of HIS town he should at least be seen to be trying his hardest to make Manilva a place to be proud of....and he's not, he's just taking the p*ss. If that is his attitude then I can now understand why everyone's attitude in the town hall is the same. He certainly won't be getting my vote next year.

So we're back to where we started. It's such a shame because just 3 years ago Manilva was such a nice town and it's been totally ruined. I really (maybe naively so) thought the mayor would be genuinely interested in sorting out the problems that we've got but he's not. I didn't come to Spain for all this crap, I think in the New Year it's time to go house hunting again.

Now, where are those houses I saw where the roads have been finished???

English votes count

Last Friday night there was an evening arranged by the Town Hall for the local foreign community to attend. I'm not one for these get-togethers so I never had any intention of going, but my partner Susanna went along with some friends to see what it was all about and sip some free wine.

It turned out to be a bit odd really, from the feedback I got. There was one of the local politicans there who made his speech in Spanish, which was then translated, and it was basically about making sure that everyone is registered on the padron and also registered to vote. The elections are in May 2006 you see.

Now to me this seems a bit like "you English, register now as we need your votes!". Considering that the foreign community here must now make up nearly 50% of the local population, the English votes could obviously count for a lot.

But why would they be doing this?

Well, talking to the Spanish it seems that there is a lot of bad feeling towards the current members of the local town hall. I think it's all related to the recent arrest of the ex-mayor on corruption charges. It seems no one trusts the town hall very much any more. Mind you, I haven't exactly had the best experience with them myself!

So the English vote could count for a lot really, but what are we going to be voting for? Most of us don't even know who's in the town hall now and who's proposing to stand or what. Everyone really needs to spend some time and really understand what each party's policies are before making any decision whether or not to vote and for whom.

I don't think it should be based on a glass of wine or two.