Friday Smiles 2022; Week 34

Hi all. I am starting this week with a photo that made me smile. This is my son Mike, modelling my newest apron which he 'borrowed' to cook another barbecue this week.

The week has gone so quickly. The family went out each day, though Chris and I generally opted to stay at home, as it was too hot for us to sit on the beach for hours, and we could still enjoy long evenings chatting together, having a drink together, and watching the boys having fun in the pool.

They made a rough plan of what they wanted to do each day, and managed to cover most of it, including paddle boarding in the warm sea .... 

... using Mike's waterproof camera phone to take funny under water photos ...

... and a favourite for them all - jumping off scarily high cliffs into  the sea!

I did go up to our lovely municipal pool with them a couple of times. The two younger boys were in the water before we had even found a spot to settle down.

The pool is kept so beautifully clean and the site has been improved this year with almost all the open spaces beng covered with artificial grass, and several new covered areas to provide shade. The pool is big and the water is very deep, (I am out of my depth even at the shallowest point), but also very warm and relaxing.

Just before the pandemic they finished some very well done dry stone walling on the terraces, and then they built some small circular 'huts' just at the end of the pool. This year, this opened as a small bar which was surprisingly well stocked, and also a double toilet block (we used to have leave the pool area and walk around to the sports stadium to use the services so this was a big improvement). Here you can just see the bar through the red pepper trees that abound in the area.

One morning Mike and his partner with her two boys, all got up at 6.30 and went down to the beach to swim as the sun rose. (The teen chose to stay in bed!). The forecast for that morning was cloudy for the first hour or two, so I decided I wouldn't join them this year - I did go last time they were here. This ticked off another thing on their 'to do' list, and when I saw their photos I wished I had got myself up and gone too!

Mike and I were usually the first two up each morning so we took our first cuppas out to my new little garden corner and had a little peaceful half hour before the chidren all emerged. So one day I decided to take a selfie of us. I did two and I looked aweful on one of them, and Mike was not at his best on the other one, so I had a play in my photo-editing apps and managed to combine the best of each one to make one I was quite happy with.

Mike loves Spain and has brought his family out to us each year during the summer holidays, with the exception of the pandemic years. Each visit ends with us all going out for a meal and taking a group photo of course. The restaurant we have alsways gone to decided not to reopen after the pandemic, so last night we went to a bar in the village. We had a lovely meal and enjoyed being all together. We almost forgot the photo, but just before we left we asked Ana, the proprietor - to take one, and she actually managed to get us all looking at her at the same time!

Just before we left Ana offered the four adults a shot 'on the house'. This used to be fairly common but it doesn't happen very often these days. So here we are raising a glass to happy memories and many more to come.

And my final smile was when we got back home and there were two little geckos running around the top of our front porch. It is a good time to see them because the porch light attracts insects and the geckos come out to catch them. Mike's partner Lucy was so excited, because she had just told me that she hadn't seen one out here. So I zoomed in and took a couple of photos for her. This one has lost one of his back toes and it looks as though he also lost his tail recently and it is just growing again.

This morning we waved them off and they are sitting in Almeria departure lounge as I write this. So it will seem very quiet here now. I have plenty of bedding and beach and pool towels to get washed, but happily the temperature has dropped a couple of degrees and it already feels a bit more comfortable, so I will be getting those done, and then maybe I will get some crafting done again.

Meanwhile I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles. I hope you all have something to smile about too.