Friday Smiles 2022; Week 21

I find myself wondering whether we actually has a Spring here. There was an exceptionally warm March and an unprecidented amount of rain in April, but we seem to have jumped out of Winter straight into Summer. This week has been really hot, and I had to do a quick turnaround of my wardrobe, hiding all the trousers and warm jumpers, and digging out summer tops and dresses. The duvet has been discarded at night and even with just a sheet on the bed, we have needed the ceiling fan on for a while to help us sleep.

On Tuesday the temperature rose to the upper thirties and I couldn't motivate myself to do anything, so I layed on the bed all afternoon reading. That is something I haven't done for a very long time but it made a nice change.

However we have been quite busy this week. working on the garden. I had a morning off on Wednesday to go to my sewing group. I went last week for the first time in almost two years. It was lovely to see everyone again, and catch up on the news. The group is smaller than it used to be, but still going strong. When I got home at lunch time I suggested to Chris that we go out for some lunch as I had not prepared anything. This week is Los Gallardos Tapas week, when any bar in the area can chose to be involved. They have to create two tapas on a given theme, then we are invited to do a citcuit of all the bars and try at least one of their creations. We get our card stamped to say we have tried one, and at the end of the week, anyone who has a stamp from each bar can vote for their favourite and post their card at the Town Hall, where it will be entered into a draw for a prize. I believe the bar which made the winning tapa also gets a prize.

Some of the participating bars only do the tapas on Friday - Sunday, or only in the evenings, but we found three that we could go to on Wednesday lunch time, and got our first three stamps on our cards. Most years the bars have been asked to make one traditional tapa and one 'inventive' one, but this year it was one savoury tapa and one 'dessert'. This is very interesting as the Spanish on the whole do not make a fuss about dessert, and often only offer fruit, rice pudding, creme caramel or icecream, and it is not seen as an important part of the meal. But they have pulled out the stops for the 'Ruta de Tapas', and I had a slice of a very nice red berry cheescake, and a really delicious piece of chocolate cake. (Not good for my inches or my diabetes, but once in a while it is nice to have a treat). Many of the savoury tapas are based on fish, and I am not much of a fish eater, but I did try one. This is bacaloa (cod) with a topping of alioli, grated apple and honey, with a few slices of fried potatoes. And it was quite nice. You can see our cards by my plate which we have to get stamped, and it tells us which bars are participating, and what they are offering, which saves too many unfortunate surprises.

I hope we get to try a few more tonight and Saturday.

Meanwhile, Chris has painted most of the walls in the garden. The end wall is now a nice clean white, and the long wall that we stripped a few weeks ago, is now a buttery yellow. The pump house, where the motor is that keeps the pool working, has a new coat of green, and the door is yellow so our yellow and green ceramic lantern looks good back in its usual place.

Our first delivery was a set of rattan furniture. This came with plain, off/white cushions, which aren't practical for us at all. So my week has been spent trying to make well fitting covers for them from some material I had in my stash. It is at least 14 years old because I bought it to make cushions for the cane furniture in the conservatory at our last house in UK, but never got around to doing it! It is good, tough cotton, and perfect for the job, but there was only just enough of it for the four cushions, so I couldn't afford to make any mistakes. Sewing does not come naturally to me so there was a lot of muttering, and unpicking before I was happy with the result. I was somewhat hampered by my helper who jumped in every time I turned my back!

I still have to make four covers for the back cushions, but these will not need the depth band around the sides, so I can make pillow/slip type covers which should be a lot easier. They will be in different material, but they will go together well I think. When they are all done I will take a picture of them but here is the furniture sans cushions for now.

Next we took delivery of a small bird-bath/fountain. I really wanted this for the corner where the shed used to be. At first we set it up with a small solar fountain, but it was too sentive to the slightest cover of the solar plate, and as the corner is shaded for quite a lot of the time, it didn't function as I had hoped. But we did at least see it working.

However the fountain did come with a powered pump so we have now connected it up. It took a lot of trial and error to find tubing and fittings so we could attach the fountain head to the outlet, but we got it done in the end. We still need to lower it a bit so that the water isn't all blown away from the bowl by the wind, or we will be filling it up every hour or two, but I am really hoping that some little birds will come down for a shower in it one day.

Along with the fountain we took delivery of three very heavy stone planters which will go on either side of the fountain, and eight bags of compost to fill them with. (Incidently I noticed the bags only have 70lts in them now instead of the 80lts they used to have!!). We had to wait for a new trolly (sack butt) to arrive before we could move them into place as they were too heavy for both of us together to lift. However they are now in place, as you can see here.

So yesterday morning we returned to the garden centre to choose some plants to go in them. Our aim for this year was simply to fill the corner with colour. Later we will think more about the architecture of them, and maybe add some perennials and some taller plants at the back, but here is the first selection.

Aren't they lovely? Hopefully I will get them all planted up over the weekend. The diplodenia (or mandevillia as they are now known), is to stand in front of the fountain between the planters, and the little lotus creeper will sit on the edge of the bowl, but the rest will be spaced out in the planters and hopefully will keep producing colour for some time.

So this sort of shows how it will all come together, and next week I should be able to show it all completed.

And that is how we have kept ourselves busy, so now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles. Hope to see you there.