MARCH 2013

keys selected, the tension mounted none more so than with Eddie as the keys were selected then discarded with none of them opening the Cash Box. We were down to the last two keys when the ticket held by Alan Potter was drawn and he correctly picked the right key from the last two to go away with €1,000. As is often the case a story was attached to the winning ticket!!!! Alan had decided against spending any money on buying tickets but a friend at his table talked him into going halves so they put €2.5 each into buying tickets and came away with a re-turn of €500.00 each. The meeting closed well after 9pm, a later night than usual but definitely a good night. Thanks all round for the or-ganisation as usual. Alan Impey

El Gordo, the big one, was due to take place at the Feb-ruary monthly meeting of the El-Valle Asociacion held as usual at the Camping Bar Monday 4th February. The cash box, administered by Eddie Kemp and assisted by Peter Dibden, would be drawn until a winner of the €1,000 was found. The cynics amongst us would suggest that this ac-counted for the 80 plus members that had turned up for the meeting!!!!!!! Lyndsey opened the meeting at 7.40pm welcoming all who were there and making reference to the new Web site with thanks to Sue, Stewart and Terry for their involvement in its compila-tion. Jane went on to out-line forthcoming events which are publicised as usual at the Friday market and website. The only main change concerned the Mid-summer Madness Ball which was now to be a sit-down dinner as opposed to a buf-fet. Committee members then mingled with the members for 30 minutes asking for views/opinions of the way the El-Valle was being run and for suggestions of the

way forward BUT one mem-ber on my table who sug-gested Pole Dancing will I think have to dream on, (thank you Ron) It had been intended that a member of the British Con-sular Staff would attend the meeting to give a presenta-tion of their role and answer any questions arising but with the recent cut-backs with all economies they were unable to attend. Into the breach stepped your committee and at the forefront were Jane and Carol who put together a Free Fun Bingo session This was indeed a milestone in the El-Valle life as it was almost a sacrosanct ideal that BINGO would never feature at El-Valle. Needs must however and judging from the laughter, groans, cries of despair and shouts no one truly objected to the event which was made truly memorable when one of the games took place in Span-ish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was now time for THE BOX, which, as men-

tioned previously, would be drawn until won. As tickets were drawn and

M A R C H 2 0 1 3

V o l u m e 1 I s s u e 2

A R O U N D T H E V A L L E Y

P p

Page

Chairmans Report &

February Meeting Notes

2

Walking Group & 2013

Membership reminder

3

Photographic Club,

Editorial & Newsbites

4

Quad Diary & Recipe 5

Whats on—

Forthcoming Events

6

Beatles Tribute Night 7

Financial Accounts 8

Committee 9

FEBRUARY MEETING REPORT

Firstly, apologies to our members who were looking forward to a talk by the British Consulate at last month’s meeting. They did apologise and said they were short of “resources”. All thanks to Jane and Carol who organized, at short notice, the game of bingo. We have always avoided this game as an agenda for a club night, however judging by the laughter it was enjoyed! I think most of us are aware of the changes due to happen with our TV channels. We are moni-toring this situation and as soon as we are certain of the alternatives we will endeavour to up-date you all. Our Almoner, Christine, has been working particularly hard over the last few months and de-serves a mention and thanks. For those new members, and there are several, Christine Goreham offers support and discretion to members suffering illness or who have had an accident. Should you know anyone in either of these situations please make a member of the committee, or Chris-tine, aware. Our contact details can be found on our website and in the newsletter.

CHAIRMANS REPORT By Lyndsey Padley

F E B R U A R Y W A L K I N G G R O U P B y S t e w a r t C o m m o n

lar with full 360 degree views all round the area covering the Mediterranean, Velez Malaga and many of the white villages in the area. After a short time for all of us to get our breath back, have a chat, drink and to take in the scenery we headed off along the top for a short while before turning back down the hill along a concrete road towards Alamachar. On the way down, our best Spanish speakers (Terry and Ian) had a conversation with a local shepherd tend-ing his sheep. It was nice to walk down after a lot of uphill work and it gave chance for some of us to get back their natural colour (i.e. not bright red as in some cases). On down the track we no-ticed several farmers high up on the hill-sides pruning and weeding their vines, also one farmer had his mule ploughing the hillside. What a hard life they have, it’s good to be retired. After a very nice walk and once back to the cars, we made our way to the Trapichie Restaurant where twenty four of us plus Jeanette and Chris who joined us for “Menu del Dia”, drink and a chat about the day. I think I can speak for everyone and say we really enjoyed the walk and the meal

af-

terwards

Many thanks to both Barbaran and Ian for leading the walk and for arranging the meal afterwards and sorting out all the cash to be paid. Many thanks.

The March walk is on Thursday 14th and this month it is being led by Douglas and Jane Johnston and will staring from the lower car park (next to the park area) in the bottom of the Vinuela village. The start time will be at the winter timing of 11.00am in the morning.

Glad you all enjoyed the walk.

A reminder about your 2013 Membership

As hopefully all of you know by now our membership year now runs from January 1st to December 31st. If you have not yet renewed your membership for 2013 then now is the time to do it.

We will as we have done in the past, keep our 2012 membership circulation list running until the end of April. At this point we will move over fully to the 2013 mem-bership circulation list, therefore if you have not renewed your mem-bership by the end of April you will be removed from the El-Valle circu-lation, so now is your chance to renew. Hope this is clear.

Memberships can be renewed ei-ther at any of the club meetings (first Monday of the month at the Camping Bar on the A356) or at the Friday Market in Puente Don Manuel (we are now at/in Billy´s Bar in the corner of the market area between 11.00-12.30am). Membership is still a bargain at €10 for the year.

Stewart Common, Membership Secretary

This month’s walk was an unusual walk!! as it was a bright, sunny and a warm day. For the past two years the walks led by Barbaran Newman and Ian Taylor have been wet and even very wet.

Twenty eight of us met today in the lower car park at the entrance to Almachar. We then made up full cars for the short drive to the walk start point, as the parking was restricted, which was at the back side of the Almachar village.

Our first instruction from Barbaran was as it was a Valentine’s Day walk we should walk hand in hand with our loved ones throughout the walk. (I personally only noticed one couple doing this and they were the young-est ones in the group).

Our start height at the bridge was 243 meters above sea level and our highest point was 498 meters above sea level, so as you can imagine there was a lot of uphill walking to start with. We went up a very steep, rough and rocky old mule trail for a short while, joining the vehicle main track part way up, and then on up through the vine fields to the top of the high-est hill in the area. With a few stops on the way up and a lot of puffing we

all made it to the top.

The views at the top were spectacu-

Page 3 A R O U N D T H E V A L L E Y

January’s challenge of Mono-chrome was well supported with 39 entries; the photo of the boys in the dodgem is one from the Picasa album. link- http://tinyurl.com/a47uoxw We held a day long photoshoot to the Atarazanas (market) and Auto museum in Málaga on the 15th February, the auto museum was a second time around for some of us as some members missed out on our first visit. On the 21st February we hosted the annual interclub competition at Chiringuito Antonio’s. Our guests were Nerja’s Costa Camera Club, Benalmadena’s Costa del Sol Photographic Society and newcomers Shutterbug Photo-graphic Society from the Guadal-horce Valley. This year’s winners were the Costa Camera Club, our thanks to Jo Inkle for her time in

judging and critiquing the entries in a fair and unbiased way. The February challenge is “The Street”, see our latest efforts in the March edition of the newsletter. www.lvphotoclub.com

EDITORIAL By Sue Jones

Welcome to the March Edition of the

new look Newsletter, I do hope you are

enjoying the new format. The new web-

site is up and running and we would

welcome any feedback from you as to

what other content you would like to

see being included.

As I have said previously, if any of you

are budding authors and have a short

story you would like to have included,

send it along, it can be a work of fiction

or somewhere you have been or some-

thing you have done that you would like

to share with members. Perhaps you

have been somewhere you think others

would enjoy—don’t be shy, tell us of

your experiences.

Next month is the AGM so please give

some thought to becoming a committee

member, you would be very welcome.

Forms can be downloaded from the

website.

Lake Viñuela Photographic Club

Newsbites By Jenny Wright

Our recent cold and windy spells have not deterred my freesias from blooming and it is a very welcome show of spring. When we first came to live here I re-member hearing people say that they could often use their swim-ming pools by March but it seems an impossible thought in these temperatures. I remember someone telling me that they had, however, been swimming in the sea in early January and how warm it was! Certainly we are having very mixed weather and it’s a question of making the most of every day.

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The next meeting of the FHT Axar-quia Therapist’s Support Group will be held on

Wednesday March 27th at 7.30pm in the Camping Bar Restaurant, Vinuela when Anne Zipse will pre-sent a talk on Tuning Forks and Sound Healing.

Sound affects us deeply because it is one of our body’s own mechanisms for regulating biological processes. Sound therapy works on the princi-ple of ‘sympathetic resonance’ – one vibrating object producing sponta-neous movement in another. Every-thing in Nature vibrates, in the hu-man being every bone, every organ and every tissue has a resonant fre-quency. When an organ or body part no longer vibrates in the ‘right’ fre-quency, a blockage may be present whether on the physical, mental, emotional or energetic level. The

blockage is eased or dissolved by ‘re-attuning’ this area and re-establishing the natural frequency. This re-attunement is a gentle and highly effective deep healing process, which affects all levels of being, be-cause the frequencies produced by the tuning forks reach the physical as well as the subtle bodies. Tuning forks have been in use for the past 30 years now as a healing modality. If you would like further details contact me on 633 75998 or email :jennywright04@gmail.com

A R O U N D T H E V A L L E Y

V o l u m e 1 I s s u e 2

Quad Report by Chris Pegman

The unsettled weather contin-ued to curtail our exploits this month. I am writing this with numb fingers after venturing out to feed the animals and being subjected to horizontal hail, not the conditions for fair-weather quaddies!!

We have, however, managed a few enjoyable excursions. One went up past the Stupa and along the ridge above the lake (see photos).

We then dropped down the almost vertical track to Salto

del Negro, (a ‘steep hill’ sign has been put up, the under-statement of the century!!) then turning right along the

instead. Cooking Method. Soak the beans in cold water for 3 hours & then drain. Put them in a large pan, cover with cold water & bring to the boil. Once it is boiling drain the beans again. Now put them in another pan full of cold water & put on a medium to high heat. Add the onion, gar-lic, the oil & the cheap pork. Add the paprika & stir well then add the ham hock & the chorizo but leave the black puddings till later if they are soft ones as they may break up if you add them too early. The water should the just covering

Fabada Asturiana is a hearty stew from the mountains of Asturias in Northern Spain. Ingredients: Serves 6 500g butter beans (fabes) 2 black puddings (morcillas) 1 100g ham hock (punta de jamon) 2 spicy sausages (chorizos) 1/2 glass of oil 1 lge onion—peeled & cut into quarters 2 Cloves of garlic—peeled but whole 1 Teaspoon of spicy paprika Olive Oil Saffron Salt Note: In Asturias they would nor-mally add about 100g of lard, a bit of pig’s ear & a bit of pig’s tail for added flavor, but you could add about 200g of a cheap cut of pork

F A B A D A A S T U R I A N A

Rio Benamargosa.

We skirted Pena de Hierro and ended up at Miguel’s for an excel-lent menu del dia!

Another adventure took in Alma-yate and we then explored the ridge that ends up in Iznate. We stopped for a coffee and when we returned to our quads there were at least twelve locals crowding round them. I can only assume that not much hap-pens in Iznate...!! We had to be careful not to reverse into anything (or anyone!) with such an attentive audience!

Many of our members are away in even colder climes and some are awaiting delivery of their new ma-chines so we are looking forward to the warmer weather when we can again go out in a large convoy, 10/4!!

the fabada. Once it is boiling re-duce the heat, put on a lid & cook slowly for 2 to 3 hours— this will depend on the beans. About half an hour before it is ready add the black puddings. At the last minute add a little saffron or yellow food colouring dissolved in some of the liquid from the fabada. If you have used pigs ear & tail do not serve them. Serve in a bowl with a chunk of crusty bread. Hint: You may want to take out a few of the beans, puree them & add them back to the fabada to make the broth thicker. Enjoy!!

Page 5

ALL MEETINGS START PROMPTLY AT 7:30 pm

MONDAY 4th MARCH, A MUSICAL INTERLUDE WITH KEITH JACQUES

MONDAY 1ST APRIL, AGM & POSSIBLE MEMBERS TRIVIA NIGHT.

MONDAY 6TH MAY, PHOTO CHALLENGE BY SUE (Where am I?)

MARCH 21st WALKING TOUR OF MALAGA

AT THIS TIME THE EVENT IS FULLY BOOKED

4 DAY TRIP TO DOÑANA 15th to 18th APRIL 2013

4* HOTEL BARCELO PUNTA UMBRIA MAR - with Half Board

Trip includes visits to: Rábida Monastery, and replica ships of Columbus Doñana National Park, in off road vehicles El Rocio, village built on sand, famous for pilgrimagE Aracena, Rio Tinto Mine Park, with small railway Gruta de las Maravillas, cave system

Return via Seville with time for lunch Members: €245 Non-Members €255

**All above visits included in this price**

MAY 24TH SKITTLES

AT ATILA BAR

15:00 for skittles; approx 19:00 for food

€8 Members: €10 Non Members

MIDSUMMER MADNESS DANCE @ THE HOTEL VINUELA

THURSDAY, 20TH JUNE 2013 19:00

3 Course meal in the beautiful Hotel Gardens, includes wine, cava,

Beer and soft drinks during the meal.

Live Music by the Honky Tonk Cats, Dancing till Late

Members: €35 Non Members: €45

THIS EVENT IS BEING HEAVILY SUBSIDISED BY THE EL VALLE.

WHAT’S ON—FORTHCOMING MEETINGS & EVENTS

Page 6 A R O U N D T H E V A L L E Y

Beatles Tribute Night, Thursday 21st Feb-ruary 2013. The El-Valle Asociacion latest event was dinner and entertainment fea-turing the The Flying Dolphins duo, Mike and Geof, appearing for this event as The Essex Beatles. The evening was adver-tised as A Beatles Tribute Night and was intended to portray all that was good about The Beatles music. When first advertised the take up on tick-ets was very slow and the event was in danger of being cancelled. Thankfully for

the 62 people who did attend this did not happen. For those who had reservations about buying tickets YOU MISSED A TREAT. The evening started at 7.30pm when a mixed salad was served followed by the pre-ordered chicken fillet or rosada with chips. Everyone at my table was satisfied with their meal and I heard of no com-plaints from anyone else. A slight hiccup occurred when the wine waiter was un-der the impression that a bottle of wine was sufficient to serve 8 people!!! A word

with Stewart and Elaine quickly resolved this and extra bottles appeared with an apology.

After the meal the entertainment began the The Essex Beatles, Mike and Geof, singing many of the Beatles famous hits and Mike even played guitar left handed, a la Paul McCartney. In no time at all many of the audience were up and danc-ing and throughout the night there were often more people dancing than sitting. Rumours abounded that our very own Lynz and Kim may be making an appear-ance and we not disappointed!!!!!!!!!!! There were times when their face to face performance with the castanets bordered on Triple X rated!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not to be outdone there were fine examples of "Daddy" danc-ing and I am sure our children and grandchildren would have been proud of us, or should that be highly embar-rassed!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never mind, I think everyone there had a great time and Mike and Geof hit the spot with their choice of music as they interspersed the Beatles songs with other 60's and 70's music. It goes without saying that thanks are due to your commit-tee and those of you who may have doubted the wisdom of "A Beatles Tribute Night" should have been there.

BEATLES TRIBUTE NIGHT By Alan Impey

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It gives me pleasure to present the 2012 accounts of the Asociacion. We again made a significant profit even though there were several subsidised events during the year. The balance of income and expenditure has shifted in the past few years and the budget allows for events during 2013 to be subsidised.

Terry Frost - Treasurer

ASSOCIACION EL VALLE DEL EMBALSE

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS 2012

2012 2011

INCOME

Subscriptions 1750 1711

Social Events – surplus 256

Newsletter – advertising 70 235

Cash Box 726 795

Return from Bowling Group 30

Bank Interest 2

Total Income 2546 3028

EXPENDITURE

Newsletter and Web Site 271 65

Members Meetings 573 229

Social Events – subsidy 565 403

Stationery and Telephone 420 804

Telephone 105 120

Presentation Gifts 91 67

Almoners Expenses 51 77

Bank Charges 55 40

Total Expenditure 2130 1805

Excess Income over Expenditure 416 1223

Balance at 31 December 2011 6086 4863

Excess Income 416 1223

Balance at 31 December 2012 6502 6086

Represented by:-

Bank Balance 6118 5233

Cash in Hand 384 853

Total 6502 6086

ASOCIACIÓN EL VALLE DEL EMBALSE COMMITTEE 2012-13

Chair: Lyndsey Padley - 628655801 Vice Chair: Jane Harris - 633615154 Treasurer: Terry Frost - 697569141 Secretary: Stewart Common - 647076177 MEMBERS

Linda Kemp: - 951167088 Elaine Edwards: - 647076177 Anne Dibden: - 605826358 Carol Jackson: - 635291532 Kim Rogerson: - 696126204

Editor: Susan Jones - 680407894 Almoner: Christine Goreham – 635361233 INFORMATION.

NEWSLETTER EDITOR newslettereditor2012@gmail.com WEBSITE - www.el-valle-asociacion.com

A representative of the committee is usually on duty between 11am – 12.30pm at Mis Tapas (“BILLY’S BAR”) during Friday Market - Chiringuito Antonio

Asociación El Valle del Embalse normally meet at 7pm on the first MONDAY of each month with the exception of August, at the “Camping Bar Restaurante” by Lake Viñuela (km 31/32 A356).

Email: idiomas-marich@gmail.com Periana Crossing, Next to Vet

Puente Don Manuel— Alcaucin.

Telephone 633780687

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