Bye bye Ben

We had a lovely few days with Ben and Dave this week. They arrived on Tuesday and stayed until Sunday morning, and it was so good to see them again. I was a bit worried about the weather. This was their first visit to Los Gallardos and I wanted them to see it at its best, but the forecast was for clouds and rain all week. However, although we did get our fair share of both, we also had some lovely sunshine and they both went home with a bit of a tan. I managed to get Ben in the pool a couple of times. The first time I had to take the plunge myself first to convince him that it wasn't too cold, but he didn't need persuading after that. He had to prove that he can still do handstands, hence this picture, but our pool isn't deep enough for him to handstand into the water. Dave sat outside a lot, reading, but he had to cover his legs with a towel to stop his knees from burning. They both liked our swing seat for siesta time, but I can only sit on it. If I lay down I feel sick!

They came to relax after a week of partying in Benedorm, so we didn't go out a lot, but we did venture into Turre for the Good Friday procession. This was a rather low key affair with nothing like the crowds on the street that there was the first year we went. It was actually a hot morning and we had to move into the shade to stand and watch, but bad weather all over Spain caused many processions to be cancelled. We saw a video of the Maundy Thursday night procession of penitents in Malaga. They were all dressed up ready to go, but it was raining hard and it made the pavements just too dangerous for carrying the heavy 'thrones'. All the young men, probably for some of them it was their first big parade, were crying, as were some of the spectators. It is a very important event for them, and apparently it is the first time since 1847 that it has had to be cancelled.

We took Ben and Dave up to Albox for an excellent menu del dia on one day, and we also had a good evening at El Naranjo when a DJ was playing music from the 60's, 70's and 80's. There was a good crowd there so the atmosphere was lively, and we knew most of the songs, even Ben although it is not his era! They have a new chef there who has a reputation for making the best fish and chips, and they were going down a storm with the punters.

We took the boys back to the station early on Sunday morning. Ben hates flying and as a railway worker, he gets free train tickets for himself and very reduced ones for Dave, so they decided to travel all the way by train. They caught the Eurostar from London to Paris, had a night sleeper to a little place called Cebere on the French/Spanish border, and then took a slow train along the coast to Cartagena where we met them. Going home they got on at Lorca which is very close to us, but unfortunately there was only one train a day so they couldn't arrive there, but Cartagena isn't that far either. Personally I would find that a bit too long on a train, but they seemed to quite enjoy it. Unfortunately they had a problem on the way home when their train got to Calais and they were sent back to Lille to wait for another one, with a delay of several hours, but they made it home yesterday afternoon, so all was well.