Mijas!

We got to spend our first morning wandering around the hotel and the small beachside resort of Benalmadena - basically checking out the beach and the dozens of restaurants and shops within a short walking distance. After lunch we were joined by our very pregnant guide for the short trip to Mijas, which is a small village situated at 460 metres above sea level. I learned quite some years ago that the homes in these villages are not actually painted with white paint, but are treated with limewash as it is both a natural disinfectant and insect repellant. The down side of using limewash, though, is that it has to be renewed fairly frequently but either way, it paints a very pretty picture!

The famous donkey taxis!

It was a very pretty little village and our guide told us that if we intended to do any shopping, this was the place to do it (turns out she was right, of course). The little backstreet stores were bursting with decorative items and beautiful leather bags at very reasonable prices. Since I wanted to buy myself a new bag, I clocked the place I intended to go back to once our guided tour was over. The guide told us that there were very few steps but if we wanted to go see the 17th century chapel of the Virgen de la Pena (can't find the Spanish accents for this right now - sorry), then it would involve a little walking and that anyone who didn't feel up to it might prefer to sit on the main square with a drink before wandering around the stores for a little shopping!

The chapel of the Virgen de la Pena!

After our guided visit we had about an hour's free time so I sat with a couple of ladies to have a drink before heading off on my shopping spree - and that was when Marie-Claire came running over to say that Anne-Marie had lost her sun glasses and would I mind going back to the stores with her to try to find them! Sod it! Here we go again! So I went with her to a couple of stores and sure enough one of them had her sunglasses. As I was starting back up the hill to check out the bags I heard someone yelling that Anne-Marie had now lost her reading glasses but I dipped into the nearest store and stayed there until it was quite obvious I wasn't coming back. Lady, put a chain on your bloody glasses or superglue them to your forehead - I don't care but do whatever it takes to not keep losing stuff. In the end she couldn't find them and was mighty annoyed because she'd only just gotten them. All this pissing around meant that I didn't get to go back to the store I'd picked out to look for a bag, so I was in no mood to hear it when someone pointed out that Anne-Marie was really struggling to make it back to the bus. When I heard her say "I know I'm a bit tubby" I almost fell over 'cos that "tub" probably weighed somewhere between 70 and 80 lbs, so I asked our guide if we could take a minute for her to rest, but when her friend said she was still struggling I asked her what she expected anyone to do - have me push from behind while our pregnant guide pulled from the front? The honest truth is she's about 70 years old and a good 70 lbs overweight but she made the decision to take that tour, despite our guide's warning and ultimately it had to be her problem to solve!

Then I had Monique chasing after me all morning like a lost puppy. She suggested it might be a nice gesture to send a postcard back to the new lady Mayor who allows the club to use their clubhouse free of charge. I told her I thought that was a good idea but that she should just sign it herself rather than have all of us on the trip sign it because then she'd end up running round trying to make sure she'd gotten all the signatures. She wasn't best pleased with my answer so I told her to go ahead and do what she wanted, but it seemed to me that she wanted me to go with her while she bought the postcard - eh, no thank you, I've had enough of hand-holding already on this trip and it was only our first day!

I'd gotten sick just before we travelled so was still nursing a bit of a cough and when I coughed she started up with the "can I get you a Tylenol, do you want me to go to the pharmacy for you, can I get you a hot tea, shall I carry your bag for you"? I told her no thank you as I was perfectly fine but by this time I really wanted to shout "for god's sake just back off will you" (I didn't, but how I held it in all week I don't know)! With the drama of the previous day, in the evening, when people were having an apéro, Monique had gone from table to table rehashing the story over and over again. At first people were sympathetic but eventually they just wanted to sit by the pool and chat about their new grandbaby, their knee replacement or just enjoy the view, but no, Monique constantly interrupted everyone regurgitating the same old, same old, until someone asked me what we could do to make her shut up. In the end I suggested it might be a good idea to take the microphone on the bus and set out the facts exactly as they had happened so that everyone would have the correct story and we could be done with it once and for all. Ha, if only - she did indeed tell the story over the microphone but oh foolish me if I thought that was the end of it. She obviously rambles through things constantly in her mind and by the time she gets to sit down she's already rehashed a whole new story to regale everyone with!

The saving grace of the day was that it was my birthday and Jen sent me a voicemail of Charlie singing happy birthday to me in English. Then Elynn had a go and since she and I often play wolves, her song sounded like "aawwwooooo to you, aawwwooo to you" - but it was so lovely I wanted to cry!

It made up for what already seemed to be becoming a pattern of being pulled all over the place by people who, if they can't assume responsibility for themselves at this point, well then I'm sorry, but maybe they should stick closer to home in the future! Ha, and to think I even toyed with the idea of becoming a tour guide after I retired. Shoot me now if I ever mention that again!

A former monastery in Mijas!