Friday Smiles 2023: Week 9

As promissed last week, I have made a collage of some of the carnival photos. In fact I have made them into a scrapbook layout. It is quite 'busy' but so was the event, and it reflects the fun that was had by all despite the cold and rain.

I have had another busy week despite not knowing that I have done anything very special. On Tuesday it was Día de Andalucía, which is a very special day for the Spanish folk in the village. It is a Red day, which is a national Bank Holiday so all the shops were shut and it was cold enough to be a stay-at-home day for us. The celebrations have a very set routine here and as we have seen it several times, we decided it was better for our arthritic bones to stay in the warm, rather than stand on a chilly plaza outside the theatre for a couple of hours. There is a long speech by the mayor which we cannot understand much of, and then the ceremonial raising of the Andalucian flag while the band plays the "Hymn of Andalucía". Although we did not go over to the plaza to watch this, we could hear the music quite plainly from our porch. You can see in the photo (from the Town Hall web site) that the sky was bright blue but it was very windy and that wind could cut through whatever clothes you were wearing!

A friend at church gave me some lovely pink grapefruit. Most of them went into some marmalade. I love the flavour of grapefruit marmalade but it doesn't set quite as well as the orange one does. Of course, being pink inside, they made a lovely colour marmalade.

I took Leo to the vet mainly to get his chip reregistered in our province, but he had a good check-up while we were there. I was telling the vet that his only vice was his insitance on suckling on my clothes and I am trying to teach him that this isn't OK. It makes the material very stiff and worn, so she suggested giving him a teddy bear. I had a little one at  home so every time he tried to suck on me I put the teddy in the way and he soon took to it. It is now a very 'soggy' bear but my clothes are a lot better!

We have had the plumber here today fitting a new water pipe from our gate up to the kitchen. It is a good job done. We have had emergency repairs done under our insurance, three times now in as many years, but it was old and needed to be replaced, so hopefully there will be no more leaks now.

I have been very careful about what I eat this week as my sugar levels were much too high. So I have been testing before and after every meal. It is a bit better but not low enough, so I will try for a few more days and after that I will have to go to the doctor and I know he will put me on insulin which I had been hoping to avoid. I know I need to walk more so this morning I did a little walk around the village. I stopped at the slip road along the front to see what the workmen were doing. It is not very clear in these photos but they have removed some very broken, tatty looking kerb stones between the slip road and the main highway, and have built a long narrow walled  barrier instead. It was built around the tall pine trees that were already there, and eventually I think it will have some lights and more plants. 

They have also  built a mini roundabout at the bottom of our road which will make entering and leaving the village much safer. And now they have prepared the bottom section of road ready for tarmac. It is all looking very nice and a huge improvement on what we had before.

Again it was a lovely sunny day but I wrapped up well for my walk as the wind was bitingly cold.  I had to stop and take a photo of the clouds. They looked so pretty today.

While talking to my sister last night I learned that our sister-in-law has been very poorly in hospital since Christmas and is now in a nursing home. I keep in touch with her a few times a year but she is in her late eighties so she doesn't check for messages or post on Facebook like she used to. So this morning I made her a Springtime card with daffodils on it, and finished just in time to pop it in the post. Our PO only opens from 1.00 - 2.00 on weekdays, so it pays not to miss it if you want something to travel fast.

While we were shopping I bought this little pot of violas. Just look at those dear little faces. I couldn't resist. Hopefully I will get around to planting them in the garage wndowboxes, (on our front porch) over the weekend.

Tomorrow we have to go to do food shopping. Our car is finally going in to be repaired after a lady hit it while we were parked outside the medical centre just after Christmas. It needs a new wing and a new petrol tank or a repair to the existing one. So with no public transport in our village we will be stuck for however long the garage takes to do the repair, so we are stocking up tomorrow.

And now I am ready to link up with Annies Smiles before I go shopping tomorrow.