March 16th 2008
Written by Geoff Forster
Sunday March 16th 2008
I'm up at 08:00h, I was hoping to get some work done but the ADSL Telefonica connection is down again.
I do the blog. I can write it offline and post it later if the connection resumes.
Jane and I go to see the donkeys. It's a beautiful day. Here are a selection of photographs. 
This is a striking architectual shrub. These are last years seeds, they look like bunches of grapes. The leaves turn a bright red and orange in Autumn.
This flower is minute.
Wild Lupin
Scorpion Vetch. It's not spiky as you'd expect from the name. It gets its name from the brown seed pods which resemble a Scorpion's body.
A Pine tree flower, touch it and you see clouds of pollen.
This is an Early Flowering Orchid. It should be a Spotted Orchid or a Leopard Orchid. It does flower early but it deserves a better name. A beautiful plant.
A Rock Rose. The larger white Rock Roses (Gum Cistus) have had one or two flowers per plant for a few weeks.
Lots of Bees were visiting these flowers
These hovering insects look like bees with a long nectar tube proboscis. They were mating and flying around at the same time, clever stuff. 
Back in Benarrabá, the internet returns long enough to post the blog before going again. It was off until around 21:00h. Thanks Telefonica. We never get money off the bill for 'down time'. At the moment it's down more than it's up.
I watch a repeat of the Australian Grand Prix. A good win for Lewis Hamilton. I think he'll do it this time.
Bolton get beaten but a surprise Fulham win wasn't good news. Newcastle United play a big game against Birmingham City tomorrow evening. Lots of 'six pointers' coming up. The next few games are vital. A six or nine point cushion would make me sleep easier.
We watched 'Love in the Time of Cholera'. Directed by Mike Newell. With Javier Bardem ( Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - No Country For Old Men - Oscar 2008), Benjamin Bratt, Gina Bernard Forbes, Giovanna Mezzogiorno.
Not a title to make you want to watch it really. The words, 'Love' putting of most of the male sex and 'Cholera' putting off the females.
It's a top quality film translated and adapted from a novel written in Spanish. Beautifully filmed and a quality cast make this a film to see. My only criticism would be the makeup. The aging of the cast just didn't look right. I'm sure it's a difficult thing to do, but the seventy year old female lead looked thirty with a grey wig.
The book by Gabriel García Márquez is a classic, the film has had mixed reviews. Strangely as is often the case the DVD is for sale in Gibraltar, but has not been released yet in the UK. (I'll have to start selling DVD's). The book however is offered by Amazon at a discount price.