Rocking Your World 2020: Week 9

Well I hope something has 'Rocked your world' this week. It has been a mixed week for us as yesterday we lost a dear friend. She was an English lady, who, with her husband, was the first English resident in our village, so she has a huge number of Spanish friends as well as English. She was a lovely lady and we will really miss her.

That aside it has been a lovely week here, starting with last Saturday which was Carnival Day. it was a sunny afternoon though not the warmest as the parade doesn't start until 5.00pm. As you can see, the streets were buzzing.

Our little village carnival is such fun because all the families get involved. Those not in the parade, all turn out to cheer on those who are. Some groups hire elaborate costumes while others are all hand made.  Here are just a few of this year's entries.

This group had adults and children dressed alike and a lot of work had gone into making their costumes.

This family always build their set around the youngest member who is confined to an electric wheelchair. This year he was riding an elephant.

 

Some groups were slightly more bizarre.

One of our friends is inside a dinasaur. They were very difficult to walk in!

Music was provided by two bands. The one above was very colourful in wigs and skirts. In the group below the two girls had more 'clothes' on their heads than their bodies, but they enjoyed dancing down the street and their drummers were very good.

That evening everyone had the chance to vote for their favourite group on the Town Hall website and three prizes were awarded.

First prize went to Mary Poppins with their smartly dresses nannies and little sweeps (even down to the wee one in a pushchair).

Second prize went to this group called Keeping Los Gallardos Safe, with lots of little 'cops' and the adults were the 'robbers'.

And in third place was this group called Popcorn. They were my favourites and I know they made all their own costumes, so well done to them.

We went down to the slip road at the front of the village to see them set off and then they went all around the villlage, stopping to dance, blow bubbles and throw around giant inflatable balls every few yards along the way. This year they came up our road so we hurried ahead of them back home and watched from our front gate as they went passed. A Spanish lady I know came out of the parade to paint red cheeks on me! It was, as usual, a good fun day.

Chris decided to do some more gardening one day and he attacked the bougainvillia that grows all along the fence at the side of our house. It is a very robust grower and as the space is not very wide, (it is outside our kitchen door and houses the water softener, recycling bins, and is also where we feed the dogs), so it needs to be kept in check. But it is a big job so doesn't get done very often. Anyway, this time it is cut right back to the bare trunk. Just look at how much debris there is to clear away.

And here is what is left. It looks a bit brutal but we know it will all be back in a month or two. In places the woody stems have grown through the wire fence to such an extent that we can't remove them.

It has opened up the view from the kitchen window and made it much lighter. The groundsmen have since been in and strimmed the high weeds next door, so it is even lighter now.

Yesterday, after the sad news about our friend, I told Chris I wanted to go down to the Playa and walk along the sea-front so he came with me. It was a really warm day and we both went in T-shirts and left out 'woollies' at home. I am glad we did. I noticed this morning that I have pink line at the bottom of my sleeves and the back of my neck. We walked a long way along the promenade at Mojacar, and back again. I actually hit my target for steps on my fitbit and that doesn't happen as often as it should. I like that bit of coastline. In places you can't get down to the beach, but it is rocky, the sea is very clear, and there is a constant noise of gentle waved breaking on the rocks.

I stopped to watch the cormorants on the little rocky island. They all congregate there to warm their wings, and chatter to each other. They always amuse me.

We noticed that all along the prom, the mimosa was starting to bloom. That explains why my hay-fever has started up again!. (Some call this acacia and it is wattle to our Australian friends, but I still think of it as mimosa). It is not the pretty pale yellow one that used to be popular for wedding bouquets in UK, but a rather harsher yellow, and absolutely laden with little pom-pom flowers. it is prolific around here in March.

I also saw these very pretty flowering grasses. They were moving gently in the breeze.

And finally I spotted this tree. I thought it was dead but Chris said it was only in Winter mode and hadn't woken up yet. Either way I loved the shape, so when I got home I had a play with it.

I like to have the chance to practice using my photo editing programs and this photo was perfect for that. First, after several attempts I managed to isolate it from the background and make it into a black silhouette. Then I used adobe photoshop and some digital scrapbook files to turn it into a blossom tree. It is not a brilliant result but I had a fun afternoon trying!

Now it is time to link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles.