Time flies when new adventures beckon. That and sheer laziness has prevailed for a few weeks. Highlights of our last weeks in Spain? Well the Blood Moon was pretty darn amazing - we even lurked about on the roof until 10 pm to see the moon rise and were thoroughly impressed with the other-worldly-ness of it. Apparently Christopher Columbus & crew were stranded on an island at one point on his voyage to the Americas. The local inhabitants were getting a bit over it (you know, houseguests/fish & friends... the 3 day rule). They were there and draining resources for much longer than 3 days. The natives were getting restless... He had his onboard astrologer (presumably) consult the almanac for forthcoming ‘signs’ and warned the natives that his was a vengeful god and if they didn’t toe the line, then his god would smite them - and to prove it, god would turn their moon blood red... And thus life continued peacefully for all concerned. We did not however see the recent Perseid meteor shower - too much light pollution. C’est la vie... one day we’ll be in a dark spot at the right moment.

We’ve continued the walking regimen and now think (almost) nothing of 10-12 kms most days of the week. On one of our many walks, we were down at the Tuesday Fruit & Vege market and saw a hiliarious sign. Three lettuces - €1, 2 lettuces €1, 1 lettuce €1 - suffice to say we were eating lettuce for literally weeks.

Now life meanders on, day by day and that is great (significantly history is just one jolly thing after another... though not the exact words used in the hilarious movie ‘The History Boys’.) We’ve been amusing ourselves with seasons 1-6 of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black and then, just when we figured next stop Ireland... adventures started landing upon us like, well, a shower of meteors.

First off we committed to a 9 week sit in the Vietnamese boonies - 3 hours south of Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City and on the Mekong River. Yee ha! Asian food here we come! And 3 little dogs - and with luck never the twain shall meet. On the subject of Vietnamese food, we must admit to never having eaten Pho - so figure we’ll be experts after more than 2 months. As if that wan’t exciting enough, we decided to do a quick 3 week zoom through South East Asia - you know... ‘while we’re in the vicinity’ - so Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Luang Prabang (Laos), 2 days down down the river via Pak Beng then into Chiangs Rai and Mai (Thaland) and Mandalay & Bagan (Myanmar/Burma) here we come. But wait, there’s more.

We were reading about public baths the other day and came across the sulphur baths of Tbilisi, Georgia. Wow (we said). Really must get to Georgia one day (we said). Then, 3 days later, a housesit came up with a 4 month old kitten and an apartment in Tbilisi’s old town... about a 20 minute walk to the baths district. If that’s not manifesting our destiny, we don’t know what is. We applied, checked flights using our air miles, got the job, booked the flights from Malaga to Tbilisi (via Zurich and Istanbul) and, thankfully, just Tbilisi-Istanbul-Dublin at the end of October and Voila! Packing began. Our bags have well and truly swollen - as they do with too many treasures from the Fuengirola flea market - so there’ll be some serious cutting back once we get to Dublin (and before we fly to Vietnam) - but that’s a while away - will probably wear a few things to shreds in Tbilisi. Fingers crossed.

So that is all the news that’s fit to print. We piled our many baggages at the curb this morning and treated ourselves to an Uber to the airport - first time we’ve ever been driven in a Skoda Superb - and it was. Huge, massive amounts of legroom and a boot big enough to shift 2-3 bodies. Which was lucky - took all our bags with no issue. Made it to Malaga Airport in good time and it was an absolute, high season, zoo. The check in lines were horrendous - we valiantly battled through the hordes and eventually found our empty queue for Swiss Air Business check in - BLISS! Then again into security... via the hordes and right on down the end of security lanes - only a couple of people in front of us in the Rapido lane.. Through the duty free, up to the lounge... it’s just been too long since we’ve flown business - thank heavens for airmiles, purchasing points from Avianca and low redemption taxes & fees - making this whole circus possible and even feasible. Writing this from Zurich (pictured - though a decided lack of mountains), our first time in Switzerland - even bought a post card at the airport - we’ll be off to Istanbul on wonderful Turkish Airlines in an hour or two and there’s a high possibility blog posts will become much more frequent when we arrive in Tbilisi. Very high chance indeed.