Greetings to you all at the start of a new year. I hope you have all enjoyed the Christmas season and are now ready to get back into 'normal' routines, what ever they are for you. Of course the holiday is not over yet for us as the big celebration comes next Monday with the Three Kings Fiesta.
We had a quiet, peaceful Christmas and enjoyed it like that. The sun has shone for us most of the time with just a few grey, damp days, so we have made the most of it knowing next Christmas we should be back in a cold, wet UK!
On Christmas day I made our dinner fairly early so that we could sit out on a sunny porch to eat it. It is lovely out there while the sun is on it, but by mid-afternoon it dips behind the corner of the house and leaves us in a cool shade. And once it was all cleared away we had a good video chat with most of the boys, and then settled down n front of the TV for some Christmas 'Specials'.
The sun has finished ripening the oranges which are hanging low on all the trees, heavy with juice. The trees in our neighbours garden are rather neglected as the owners family only visit for odd weeks during the year, As you can see, some fruit has already fallen to rot on the floor.
Rather than let that happen to all of them, we pick the ones that hang over into our garden. There are quite a few but I only picked the ones in easy reach this year and still have a crate half full.
To make the most of these I usually juice them but my good juicer was a part of my much too big mixer which I have donated to the charity shop, and as it is no good without the main machine, the juicer went too. But my arthritic hands struggle with the hand juicer even for one lemon or orange, so today I have ordered a small, free standing electric juicer, otherwise we could never use all these oranges before they go off.
My beautiful rose bloomed for Christmas day again. Once again I remember the text my mum kept pinned to her desk, taken from a calender, that read "God gave us our memories that we might have roses in December". here we have the real thing, It only lasted for a few days but there are several pink ones out now.
We have both decided to try and walk a bit more this year and mostly we do a turn around the village or part of it, which is fine though not very exciting. So yesterday I decided to go a bit further and I walked over to the urbanisation across the road from us. It is called Huerta Nueva (New Orchard), and is a part of the village really. The campo was covered in wild flowers, notably this yellow oxalis which is a spring flower and seems to have been fooled by the winter sunshine.
In the centre there is a large pond, (small lake!) which used to have lots of ducks, geese and moorhens on it. I managed to walk to it and could only see six geese and two moorhens. I hope the others were hiding in the greenery around it.
One lovely white goose kept lifting itself up to stretch its wingsand I tried to get a photo of it with wings spread wide. But I was just too late and got this instead! It looks likes its saying its prayers.
The round trip took me exactly an hour which is about my limit these days.This morning we decided to take a walk along the sea front as it was a bright sunny day. The wind meant we were glad of our thick jumpers but it was a lovely bit of fresh air. The sea was almost calm and the sun relecting off it was dazzling.
We passed a few other walkers and one or two were exercising their dogs on the wet sand, but the prom was almost deserted.
On one empty beach I saw this array of rather old straw parasols and from a distance they looked like a flock of ostritches.
Our son Michael and his partner went over to Denmark to spend New Year's Eve with his brother Tom. Tom has lived in Denmark for ten years and is used to jumping in and out of the sea at all times of the year, so he challenged Mike and Lucy to join him for a New Year's dip. Afterwards Mike posted this not very flattering photo on Facebook with the caption "Well that was bracing! NYD dip in the sea. Never felt so alive and so close to death at the same time!"
He was also amazed at the way they set off fireworks for the celebrations with little organisation or safety control. People let them off from crowded streets, buildings, and parkland in a crazy haphazard way, but they don't seem to have accidents with them. Our sons generation are so used to most firework displays in England being organised, that it took them by surprise, but I guess each country has its own way of doing things.
And that's it for this week. I look forward to sharing another year of highs, and a few lows, with you. But for now I will link this up with Annie's Friday Smiles and publish it in the morning.