Friday Smiles 2022: Week 46

Now I can officially say "Christmas is coming". Some of the magic leaves Christmas when there are no longer young folk at home, but, maybe because I believe so strongly in the real meaning of Christmas, I still find it an exciting time, and do my best to instil some of that into our home. It would be very easy for us two to think it is just another day, but I won't let that happen, so my much loved tree will come out on 1st December, along with a couple of nativity sets and a few other decorations.

But today, two things happened to bring that tingle of anticipation closer. Firstly the postman brought me a small package and inside was a gift and my first Christmas card of the year.

Then the men arrived outside with their bucket lifter and installed an angel and star light on the telegraph pole at our gate. It won't be lit for a while yet, but its nice to see the lights are going up as usual this year.

Also this week we went down to Mojacar to the main post office so I could post a parcel to my sister with most of my UK Christmas cards in it. She will put UK second class stamps on them and post them at the start of next month, and even with the cost of sending the parcel, this system saves me a lot of money, so I am very grateful to her for doing it.

After the Post office we had a ramble through the Parque Commercial, a small retail centre with a supermarket, several café-bars, and a range of small lock-up businesses which sometimes carry more interesting items than we usually see in our local shops. One company has two shops, one of which is a ladies outfitters and another is for men. They tend to be rather out of our price range, but both happened to have a good sale rail outside and I found a lovely top for me, and for Chris we bought two pairs of real quality trousers, reduced to less than half price, so we were very pleased. I could do with Annie's expertise now as I have to shorten both pairs of trousers, one of my least favourite jobs, but I will get them done I am sure.

We had a special service at my church on Sunday which was, of course, Remembrance Sunday for us. In the days leading up to it, a few folk had gone in to decorate the church with poppies and pictures, and it all looked lovely.

We had a very special service singing many of the traditional hymns, and one of our congregation played the Last Post and the Reveille on his trumpet, which was very moving.

We had some surprise visitors when five of the Andalucian Knights Templar arrived in full regalia.They brought a lovely arrangement of flowers with them to go in front of the altar, and they did their best to follow the service. Only two of them spoke English but we all got on well, chatting and sharing refreshments after the service. I don't know a lot about the organisation, but all are welcome at our church and it was nice to see them there. Here they are with Tony, one of our licensed Lay Readers who was leading worship that day.

We had some good news at the end of last week when our rather elderly car again passed its ITV, (MOT in UK), though we have agreed to take it back to our mechanic to have a new clutch installed on 21st. It is not really urgent but the last thing we want is to be stranded somewhere on the motorway because it has packed up completely, so we decided to get it fixed now.

A couple of things have made me smile in the garden. My tall succulent has opened its flowers a little showing small red trumpets with yellow centres. Having looked on google I think this is as far as it will open, and it is really very pretty. Even the stems have turned pink to match the flowers.

After last Christmas two of the poinsettias that we always put on our tri-stand in the front porch, slowly dropped all their leaves and died. We expect this as my friend in UK who owned a chain of garden centres, told me they are specially bred to last one Christmas and are not really suitable to try to keep alive for the next year as they need very controlled spans of light and darkness. But out here, and when I lived in Cyprus for a while, I did see them growing naturally and returning year after year. So when our third plant from last year, held on to its leaves, although they did all turn green, it looked so healthy that we decided to plant it in the garden and see what happened. Well in the last couple of weeks, some of its leaves are turning red, and it still looks to be in good health. I don't know how much of it will turn but we will certainly leave it there and see if it continues to survive.

We have had some heavy, thundery storms this week but fortunately most of the rain has fallen during the evenings and at night, and most days have been warm and sunny. But even on sunny days the dark clouds gather by teatime. One evning the sky was getting very dark and we though another storm was on its way, but suddenly there was a break in the clouds and a lovely patch of blue sky could be seen behind them. (It was much bluer than it looks in my photo).  It was lovely, like opening a window on a different world.

I have been seeing faces in the clouds again this week so here are a few that I spotted. Can you see them too?

And now it is time to link up with Annie. See you all over at her blog