Friday Morning: Sunny, light breeze, some clouds on the mountains. I took the litle Tiger Moth down to the flat section of the new road for it's test flight today and was really pleased with it's performance. The road is not the ideal place to fly from and I kept the flight short, but the model took off under it's own power, flew slowly and looked great in the air!

Thursday Night: Clear and sunny today, we reached a comfortable 26C in the courtyard today, I had a day off dolls houses and made up my new Tiger Moth that had arrived from Hong Kong. I was really impressed with the kit and am very pleased with the final result.....

All of the servo's were installed and when the control rods were fitted, everything lined up exacly, very impressive! The cost of the model was just US$75 which is good value for money....... plus postage and battery, even so.....

I am a fan of the Tiger Moth and this is a very nice little replica, it's all foam, not polystyrene, but a similar stronger alternative which can easily be moulded into any shape and is strong and light, it comes with the servo's, motor and electronic speed controller installed, so the really hard bit's were already finished.
I hope to fly it in the morning.......

Wednesday Night: Mostly sunny, it was cooler today, mid 20's. We went to town to get the post and my plane had turned up, I'm really pleased with it, haven't put it together yet though......

Tuesday was clear and sunny, 25C, I slept most of the afternoon as is normal following a gig Saturday. here are some pictures from the gig.....

Monday Afternoon: Clear and sunny, not so hot today, about 27C. yesterday was 30C most of the week it has been up to 29C but slowly the nights are cooling, even so there are still the odd nights when we need the fan, very late for that!

Yesterday (Sunday) Chrissie and I walked down to Maria's for a long liesurly lunch, we had our usual table and as I sat there I glanced around the restaurant at the other customers. It was one of those suriel moments when I thought I recognised most of them, but then I thought it was a trick of the mind. After we had sat there for a while I noticed more than one of the familiar faces paying attention to us, we were all slowly recolectiong, then I realised one of the "strangers" was Helmut from the model flying club, another table were a group of English we had recently met, then they remembered too, so I wasn't going crazy! In fact we had recomended Maria's to the English people, so it was nice to see they followed it up, from what I hear, they will be back soon too.......

Helmt invited me to join a new group of flyers using an indoor stadium near Denia to fly the electric models. Funny thing was that just two weeks ago I had rdered a small tiger moth from Hong Kong, so it will be perfect to fly there when it arrives, I think I like the idea of this!

I have been doing some work on the Spanish project, I am making the bar in it's box. The boxes are the sme size as before, except these have 6" deep useable floor space, so it's a lot easier to make something like a bar, which in itself is quite an intricate piece of furniture. I have built the alcoves and begun work on the bar itself, but had to stop Saturday due to the show.

Saturday I had been asked to sing at a "60's70's80's" night at the private tennis club near Benissa, which as a gig is right up my street. I played for 1 1/2 hours whilst people arrived and ate, then another bracket later on.

Normally I would refuse to play with a disco, but we went to one of these last month and really enjoyed it and basically suggested it would be an idea to try live music too, so I knew it complement me, not upstage me. I was able to do a really raunchy bracket using the system at near maximum capacity, and it sounded amazing so I was really happy with it and then the owner of the club asked about booking me for future BBQ's and events there

The venue was the restaurant, but we were outside in a walled garden area with pagolas. It had all been decorated with multi coloured giant flowers, butterflys and all sorts of flouresant ultra violet art decor which looked absoloutly stunning, so it was a great atmosphere on a lovely calm warm night......

Tuesday Night: It continues to be clear and calm, yesterday and today were both 30C, but it's not so intence now. The pool is still an amazing 27C, which is warm for this time of year and I have been swimming for lengthy periods every day during the last week. Today Chrissie joined me and we swam up and down for ages.....

Later Antony decided he was going to "fix the bikes", not that they needed much "fixing", the tyres needed pumping up a bit, I gave mine a good spray with WD40 and we were ready. He didn't expect that we would go for a ride tonight, but because Beccie has a bike too that she was given last year in Jalon, we have 3 now, so we were all able to go.

We have been planning going for a ride, it's just getting round to it and it's been so warm..... By the time we went the sun was just sinking in the west behind the ridge and it was about 27C. I just had my shorts and my yellow vest, we only saw one other car the whole time. We used the new road both ways, certainly better!

When we got back I had another long swim in the pool, even though the sun had set, it was still 27C and felt warm.

Yesterday I did go to the dolls house meeting, I decided it would be better if I were there. As it was they officialy thanked both me Chrissie for all the work on the street and gave us  both our subs for the next year for free..... I guess that was a good move on their part because both of our subs were due and I don't think either of us were going to pay, so at least this keeps the options open.

They have also given us the green light go ahead with the Calpe Exhibition and seek press coverage, got some reputation to keep up there though havent I!

Also I am doing the next project...... Oh well keeps me busy.

Sunday Morning: Clear and sunny, warm calm and very dry....... heading for 30C again today.

I have decided not to attend the Dolls House Club meeting tomorrow, just the thought of it is making me queezy, so definitly don't want to feel lke that. What I do feel is robbed. Robbed of the enjoyment of one of the greatest successes of my life....... No doubt in time to come I will enjoy it again, but it can't be the same as those first estatic moments that were so quickly taken away again........

Yes I expect we will still do the exhibition in Calpe, I could even do the publicity, based on what has happened, I rekon I could get us another front page here, but then why would I bother........?

Saturday Afternoon: Hot and clear, it continues to be over 30C every day, the nights are starting to coll a little now though, so that in turn cools the pool, which is peaking somewhere between 26C and 27C depending when you put the filter on to distribute the suns warmth to the deeper bits.

We have seen the Dolls House World Magazine article in PDF and were amazed that we have been featured on 6 pages with the centrefold spread. The article was atributed to me as it was word for word what I had sent in, so now we have an opportunity to capitalise on this.

Yesterday I was really excited, nothing wrtitten had been changed so the information was all correct. I sent the PDF to the other members, Debra is over the moon, Jan said it was amazing..... The President worte a terse email not even mentioning the article, just informing me that things would have to be discussed at the next meeting....

Now I don't know why, but for some reason she has become exceedingly anti. I really don't need to feel guilty about achieving what is nothing short of amazing with this street and without which, or for that matter my high quality pictures, this wouldn't have happened...... So whilst some of the members bask in the glory, others are snipping and bitching behind the scenes. it's a shame really, because this has been stopping me wanting to do the miniatures even though it's not for the club this time..... Yesterday I was so pleased and proud, but with a single puff, she has blown away my enthusiasm completely.

When I look back through the pictures of the last 18 months or so, it is alsmost nothing but me doing projects and things for the club, so perhaps my enthusiasm has been seen in some other way, I don't know, yet this is going to be thier loss..... I can't let this block what we want to do here, so if it is doing just that, then it's time to move on from them, street included.

Wednesday Morning: Clear and sunny, yesterday was supposed to rain, but it was sunny all day and 29C, Monday was also warm and sunny.

We have just seen the internet advert for the Dolls House World Magazine and we have made the FRONT PAGE!!  I am so pleased after all the crap that happened last month with me being accused of "taking over the club" ..  but this is the result of my persistance in heading the project!

We're still in two minds as to whether we will continue with the club, but we are going ahead with the next exhbition..... which can only be an anticlimax really, I already got us on the front page of the press here and the Spanish TV so this make a very nice hat trick They had better be serving some "humble pie" at the next meeting!

Sunday Night: Clear and sunny, we reached 29C although it is a little cooler later on now, we dropped to 23C last night, positivly cold!

Chrissie and I went for lunch at the new Bernia restaurant today which is run by our neighbours. We had a lovley salad, there are two courses of tapas and bread with alioli , by the time the Paella came out we were almost full! Then I had blackcurrent cheese cake to finish off, yummy, it's all included so is wine and water, all for 12 bucks.......... They have covered their terrace with heavy duty shade cloths, so it's really nice to sit there now, and fabulous views.....

View toward the mountain from the restaurant.....

Looking West inland .......

On the way back down the mountain, you can just see the village marked by the squiggle of the new road in the bottom left side of this picture. The coast view is of Moriara left and the outskirts of Calpe right....

Saturday Afternoon: Cooler, 25C, cloudy now with possible rain drops and now I hear thunder too, but it should clear up later. The previous two weeks have been continusoulsy hot, over 30C clear and sunny evey day and not below 26C at night, sleeping has been difficult. The poole reached it's high of 29C for the year this week, but a couple of cooler cloudier days would have dropped it back to the mid 20's now.

It's a year tomorrow since the big Canterbury Earthquake, the 7.1 that has spawned over 8000 aftershocks including the 6.3 which devestated Christchurch city six months later.......

I haven't done anything on the miniatures for a month, not since the episode with the club, shame how something like that can kill inspiration, I have been trying to gt it back, but it's been too hot.

I have been working on the ancestory with the dicovery of grandfather Georges birth records.... But the mystery has deepened because it turns out Lorrenzo my GG grandfather was born in Gibralter in Southern Spain and his mother may have been Spanish...... In a way I hope this turns out to be the truth, somehow this information has made me feel more comfortable being here in Spain, just the thought that part of me may well be from here, I always felt there was some connection. Lorenzo's father was called John Leech Bell and now having traced the Bell family to the midlands in the 1911,  I have found a birth record for a John Leech Bell in the correct time and place to be uncle "Jack" which would seem very plausable as the name seems unique to this family. George and Jack also had an older brother called Lorenzo, hence the mysterious "lorrie" link whereby the first born is supposed to be "Lorrie" (That should have been me too) so I thought George must have had an older brother called Lorrie and now I have found him too. My GG grandmother was called Pauline Louise Bohm, father Otto from the Hackney area of London in the 1860's.....

I have been going down the mountain on the scooter to get small items and post, I have noticed suddenly that the tourists have gone.... There are car parking spaces again and no traffic jam through town. We went to Calpe yesterday and even managed to park there!