Rocking Your World 2019: Week 20

Well it has been a busy week here as we collected our son Jonathan and his wife Ella from the airport on Sunday, and took them back last night. It was a short break so we spent as much time with them as possible. 

Unfortunately I did have to go out on Monday morning at it was my first PCC meeting since being elected to the church council, but it was an interesting meeting, and I knew Jon and Ella wanted to do a bit of exploring on their own, so they went out too, and then we all spent a late afternoon/evening together.

They were very lucky with the weather, and both looked sun-kissed after the first day. Jonathan is fair skinned and I had to be very careful with him at the beach etc when he was little, but they both used plenty of sun cream for the rest of the week, and went home with a healthy'glow'.

They spent a lot of their time here, sitting in the fly free porch, or out by the pool when the shade caught up with us in there. Jonathan had one dip, but the water is still on the cool side. We had some leisurely meals and a fair few bottles of wine and beers - at least the men folk did. Neither Ella nor I are drinkers, and we tended to stick to tea and water most of the time. It was lovely to be warm enough sitting outside until bedtime, with a couple of wall lights and a big candle to light our way. Jonathan had plenty to share with us about the recent tour he did with his newest band, and the songs they are booked to record very soon. He is a drummer in a heavy metal band - actually he is involved with five bands, but this is the one that he favours right now. They live in Manchester so they get quite a few opportunities for gigs. Ella is an occupational therapist, so most of her work is confidential, but she shared her hopes for the future.

We were too busy chatting to think about taking photos, but I did like this one of Ella. She just loves all the animals, especially the dogs, and she would never move one off a chair in order to sit on it herself, so here she is perching on the footrest of a lounger, while Paco lays out on the seat!

On Wednesday night we all went for a lovely meal down on Mojacar Playa. There are plenty of people around now, but it isn't yet crowded with summer visitors. Ella is a vegetarian and that just isn't a part of Spanish culture, so we are short on choices of places to go, but that morning I dropped them on the beach, and worked my way along the street, checking the menus outside each eatery, and eventually I found somewhere that actually offered a choice of veggie dishes rather than the one obligatory pasta dish that is the norm. And we all had a lovely meal while the sun set behind us and the sky we could see, gradually turned a lovely pastel shade of pink and purple, before turning dark.

Yesterday was their last day, but they didn't need to be at Almeria airport until 7.00pm, so we decided to leave early and stop off at Nijar Cactus Garden. I am so glad we did. It was really lovely there, with extensive grounds planted with a wide range of cacti and trees, and of course, an area at the end where you could buy them. Here are just a few of the photos I took.

I called Chris and Jon to turn round just as they reached a large prickly plant...

... and at the same time, Ella was on the lower path, busy taking photos too.

The views were amazing with a range of mountains all around us standing out against a deep blue sky.

In the centre of the garden there was a small amphitheatre and I know the garden has been used as a venue for concerts, so I guess that's where they are held.

Much of the land was covered with a succulent that was a mass of small lilac daisies. It was like a carpet and looked so pretty. This area was particularly dense and it smelled a bit like almond essence.

This tree caught my eye. It was covered in big seed pods that had lots of white 'fluff' about to burst out. I asked the man in charge what it was and he said it was a kapok tree. I remember when soft toys and cushions were stuffed with kapok, before polyester fibres were so readily available.

A few more plants that I liked...

As we got to the end of our walk we came to a round raised bed with a very big cactus 'tree' in the centre.

It was rather splendid so we tried to all get into a selfie together in front of it. It doesn't do anyone any favours, (especially me), but at least we got a photo of us all together.

Of course we stopped to peruse the rows of plants on sale and came away with a few small ones. I bought one pot of the little lilac ground cover succulent. I was considering a second one, but the man told me one would cover a square metre of ground in a year, so I thought that was enough for now.

We bought two others that were rather special. This one has a long Latin name but is generally known as the dessert rose. This morning I went to the garden centre and bought a pretty hanging pot to plant it in.

This one has the fancy name Tilansia Cyanea, but is sometimes referred to as the Pink Quill plant. It is part of the family of 'Air plants', that need very little, if any, soil, but it is planted in a little soil and the care instructions apparently need to be followed quite carefully to keep it going. But it is such a striking colour, and something a bit different for the garden.

After that we continued to the airport and still had enough time to sit and have a drink with the youngsters before seeing them go through to their flight.

I have little other news this week, and I haven't had time to sort though the last section of my Ronda photos. But I will try to get them done and up in a post in the next few days, and I'll give a link to it next week.

So now I will leave you with another lovely smiley photo of our 7 year old great-grandson Isaac. It is the end of the season for the three football clubs he trains with, and he was awarded the "Best boy on the Block" trophy. He looks so very pleased with it.

Now its over to A Stitch in time and Celtic House to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World. Have a lovely week everyone.