Victoria Pendleton’s Thighs

After we left Ronda for Casares we stayed in that area until we had to move back South. Discovered an abandoned part built church a few miles away from Casares and had a fab interlude with a shouting goat herder in the mountains. Had a good chat with him although I confess, couldn’t understand much! DuoLingo doesn’t have a section for learning goat herder Spanish!

Spain has a regional system for C19 (in our current situ, Andalucia) but each municipality within can also introduce very localised lockdowns and rules. So we are now down in a quiet coastal area where there’s plenty to occupy us on the bikes and cafes, bars etc are open until 6pm.

We discovered a tiny town called El Valdez that seemed to have a Gaudi apprentice in residence. See photos but amazing what you can find in the quietest of places. Everything that stood still, seemed to have been mosaic’d, even the lamp posts! Its well worth riding high up, says she with the electric bike, as the views are incredible.

We rode into Malaga along the beach path on Saturday, the beach front cafes and restaurants were buzzing as we cycled past. Kite surfers doing their tricks, and lots of runners and riders keeping healthy. As for me, I’m getting thighs like Victoria Pendleton Malaga has a great cycling system, where there are two narrow lanes the inside lane has a lower speed limit for cars, so car drivers use it less, and cyclists and scooters have right of way, none of this kerb lane hindrance we find at home. We spotted an upgrade in the marina but decided it had more space than we needed, see pic of Octopus (Microsoft boat for sale)

Reason we are out on the bikes a lot is the unfortunate discovery of a fab deli/patisserie in the town, currently we are working out miles per bite and it’s not looking good!

In other news, we have a holiday romance to contend with, yes Jigsaw has met a young Irish cat from Limerick and after a few hisses, which perhaps we mistake as cat kisses, she and Harry had their first date night. Both sets of pawrents are supervising at this early stage and Jigsaw has shown a remarkable tolerance for him so far. Odd that for a Limerick cat he’s not that chatty, Jigsaw does all the talking…

Today has been a multicultural musical chairs of sorts. Due to all the trees at the site being trimmed every vehicle had to moved for access, it’s amazing how many nations can actually be very supportive of others’ driving skills and challenges… wish it was more like that generally eh?! We could all take a lesson from the cats! Aside, what has been noticeable today is that some have taken the opportunity of packing up, to move and it does seem that for some reason, it’s not so much of a big deal moving around and between regions if in a MoHo. There’s a group exchanging info on where they’ve got to, whether any police challenges etc and it seems pretty ok. We may well start planning out next steps when we’ve seen the latest update.