I am spending the first week of my holidays in Nerja with Roma, Vicki, and her friend Aoife. We arrived here on Sunday 28th June after a pleasant Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Malaga. Aer Lingus provide free movies on this route – there was a selection of 13 to choose from on small screens on the back of the seat in front. There is a credit card slot, but it was not necessary – what would Ryanair have done? I mention the movies because even though they were free to view they were all switched off with about 20 minutes of the flight remaining. I was watching Clint Eastwood in “Gran Torino” and it was cut short with I’d guess about 10-15 minutes to go – I’m still wondering did old Clint kill all the bad guys.
Nerja is a peaceful place, though there are a lot of noisy scooters around. We were here before in 2004 – the villa (right in the middle of the Google Map above) we stayed in that time backs onto the garden of Villa Los Leones where I am now. We have our own (small) pool and the villa is nice and comfortable. So far I have been taking it very easy. I have been working on my tan despite using mostly factor 30 sun protection. I have also read Wilbur Smith’s “Assegai” (I’ll review this separately later) and have started Peter de Rosa’s “Rebels”.
We have had our evening meals out – a mix of Spanish, Caribbean, and Italian food so far. Despite the Recession there are a lot of Irish people here, and Nerja seems relatively immune from recession. Most things are relatively cheap here with meals out being good value compared to Ireland. (As I write this I just got a text message from Joe telling me about flooding in Dublin last night and that it is still raining.)
Roma and I took the laptop to a WiFi spot yesterday to check out on the latest Pharmacy news from Ireland. She took the decision to terminate her contract with the HSE over the recent changes in drugs payment schemes – already over 850 pharmacies have done the same. There is trouble ahead. Health Minister Mary Harney has been very stupid in bringing in these changes now – she should have waited for “An Bord Snip” to report and bury these cuts along with all the other ones that are certain to come down the line for everyone else. Instead she has called the Pharmacists’ bluff and they are responding by resigning en masse. What’s Plan B Minister?
I have this laptop with me to spend some time on working on my book – so far I have not done this. I will today as I am way behind where I expected to be – every little will help, so I’m determined to get at least a little done. This morning I got up at 8.00, but dodged getting down to work to write this post which I’ll publish later in a WiFi enabled café of which there are loads around here.
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