An angel to watch over me.

Yes, the village has put up it's Christmas lights which switched on for the first time last Tuesday. They stay on from around 6.00 in the evening until 8.00 the next morning! For such a little place, they are really very good. There is a big 'Feliz Navidad' (Happy Christmas) across the bottom of our road where most people enter the village, and then there is a lovely blue angel on each lamp-post. They stop at the post before our gate because the workmen are just installing our new lights. The rest of our road has star banners across it with tiny flashing lights that make them sparkle. I've included this picture of them although the quality is not very good, because it shows our road as it is now, with just a layer of concrete right across, and odd bits of pipes and cables sticking up around it. Yesterday they did start laying the brick paving at the top but I don't think they will get down to us by Christmas. Still, we can see it will look very nice when it is done. Over on the other side of the village there are banners across the street showing a little church and trees, with sparkling chaser lights that make it look like it is snowing. They are very bright, and we can just glimpse the first of these from the back of our house.

In my last post I showed you my little nativity sets and mentioned that the Spanish have a much more elaborate scene. Well, when I was out walking with Miki the other day, I came across this Nativity all set up on a little table on someone's front porch. The photo is so 'busy' that you can hardy see it so I have also split it into two halves so you can see some of the figures more clearly. I love the little pink pigs, and the children playing in the street. You could tell a whole story just from looking at it.

To finish off our decorations, Chris helped me to buy this lovely poinsettia. Isn't it beautiful? We have put it on our front porch and it should last for months if last year's is anything to go by. If the nights get any colder we may have to bring it indoors at bedtime, but it is fairly sheltered out there so it should be alright. It has gold glitter on it's flowers and a collar of red foil. I walked around the village yesterday and I found small poinsettias planted in every patch of ground, all the planters around the village, all around the plazza, and on many people's window sills as well. They looked lovely and colourful, on what was a rather grey afternoon.

Because it was a cloudy day we had a more interesting sunrise yesterday. In fact it turned into a quite spectacular one. It almost looks more like a sunset doesn't it, but I can confirm that it was definitely taken at around 8.00 am.

By last night the clouds had turned to rain and we had steady, heavy rainfall all night. It has filled our pool up again! It was so cold and wet today that we took pity on the dogs and let them indoors, so I have Miki curled up on a rug in my room this afternoon. Considering they aren't used to being indoors, they have been very good, and they soon settled down, but they like to be with one of us. In an empty room they just prowl around and I don't trust them not to eat the decorations - or the furniture - or even the cats!