Sunny Spain I love you !!

Folks out here are starting to complain about the cold, but we are just enjoying the late autumn sunshine. Yes it is a bit chilly in the evenings, so we make sure the windows and shutters are closed at sun-down. If necessary we change into trousers and socks for the evening, and we've even lit the gas fire for a few hours if we settle down in front of the television, but it's not far off midnight now and I am only wearing a skirt and tee-shirt, and my halogen lamp is providing more than enough warmth in my craft room. We have had a few days of much needed rain, but the days in between have been lovely and sunny. We have both enjoyed relaxing in the garden. We still eat our mid-day meal outside whenever we can, with the back porch providing shelter from the wind. On Thursday I spent all afternoon out there doing my lace, and I only came in when it became too dark to see what I was doing. You can see in this picture that the sun is low and is casting long shadows, but it was lovely to be outside without feeling too hot, or too cold.

The wet days were a good opportunity to get on with making mince pies, and they are all 'done and dusted' now. Here is one mornings work. That's eleven dozen there, but altogether I have made around forty-two dozen. Most are ordered. There were some inevitable breakages which Chris and I have eaten!, I've put some in the larder for us, and the last few will sell at our Christmas get-together for church on Tuesday. We are going to the bar/restaurant where we used to meet for our Sunday services. Eileen, the owner, has organised a small table-top sale around the pool for the first hour, and we have one table to sell items for church funds. Then we are putting that away and singing some carols, and then all having a Christmas dinner together. It should be a good day and I am looking forward to it. Last night I went to a candle-lit carol service at the church in Turre. This is where we meet each Wednesday for our craft group, and we are always invited to the carol service so we like to support them, but I have to say it was very 'ordinary'. There were pretty candles all around the room (no health and safety here!), the words were on a screen at the front, the music was recorded, and it was just carol, reading, carol, reading, with no talking between them, and not even an opening or closing prayer. It was nice to join in with the old favourites, but I didn't come away feeling I had been at a special occasion. I guess that's the way they like it, but I bet ours will be a lot more relaxed and congenial. Our proper carol service is on the morning of the 19th, because we wanted it to be in our own building for our first Christmas here, which is why we are going to the Palms on Tuesday.

I spent a nice afternoon on Monday, putting up my Christmas decorations. I love doing the tree. All the decorations are carefully stored away in tissue paper, and as I unwrap each one, it reminds me of a family member, something I did with the boys, a special occasion, or just something I liked and bought. We have had the same tree for about thirty years! Jim and Michael were quite small boys when they went to South Harrow with me on a bus to buy it, in the days before we had a car. Every year I used to buy one new decoration (sometimes more!) and, of course, sometimes one was broken and had to be thrown away, so now it is fairly laden, but everything is so special to me, and I love having it by my chair to look at for a few weeks each year. We don't have a lot of other decorations apart from candles, but I still get out the nativity set that I made from felt and cardboard, many, many moons ago. It is battered and stained, but I wanted the boys to be very clear about the reason we celebrate Christmas, and the nativity set had pride of place every year. I can't bear to part with it, even though it is well past its best. On our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Chris took me to Arizona. This was partly to visit his brother who lives in Phoenix, but also so we could fulfil my dream of going to the Grand Canyon. While we were there we visited a tiny church, high up in the mountains, near a village called Sedona, and in their shop I bought this Native American nativity. It took my fancy with the angel on a teepee, and the wolf and buffalo standing by, so now that sits on the hall table under my candlesticks that spell out the word Joy. I don't think many of the retired Brits bother much with decorations out here, but I shan't give up on mine until I am too old to go up a ladder to fix them.

Of course, pretty things hanging from the branches of a tree are a big attraction for the cats. Luna simply will not leave them alone, so she is banned from the sitting room unless I am in there with her. Paco is usually outside in the day time, and he hasn't shown much interest in the tree so far. But Baggins and Arwen have started to come out of my room to spend the mornings on a more comfortable chair in the sitting room. They were a bit non-plussed when I moved the furniture to make a space by the window for the tree, and the only place for the foot-stall (Baggins favourite seat) was right next to it. I thought that might be tempting fate so I swapped it around with my mahogany root chair. Arwen sat on it and gazed at the decorations, but she knew I was watching her, and in the end she moved away. Then Baggins sat there, his eyes round with interest and in the end the temptation proved too much, and he had to investigate. He moves slowly but once he has his claws into something he can't retract them and I thought he might pull the whole lot down, so I made him get down. He turned his back on me and sulked then, but soon they were both back in their normal state - asleep, and so far they have left it alone since then!

I have a busy week this week, with the Christmas Fayre on Tuesday, our craft group annual outing on Wednesday, and on Thursday I go back to the hospital for an eye test and hopefully a prescription for new glasses. Our outing this year is to Granada. I don't particularly want to browse the shops for anything, but I am looking forward to seeing how the city is decorated for Christmas. It is a long ride in the coach, so I have to be at the pick-up point for eight in the morning, and we won't back until between ten and eleven at night, so I'm glad my hospital appointment the next day isn't too early. I expect I had better go and get some beauty sleep now, so I'll bid you all Good-night.

In the Bake House.

The great mince pie bake is going well, with about twenty-two dozen done so far, and more pastry in the fridge ready for the next session. Last week we had our meter changed so we are now on the 'cheaper rate at night' tariff for electricity. The hours are more generous that they were when we were on it in UK. The cheap rate runs from 11.00p.m. til twelve noon the next day. We put the washing machine, dish washer and pool pump on when we go to bed now, but the cooker is our most power-hungry appliance, so I am trying to get most of my baking done in the mornings. I don't know whether any of you watch the programme Nigel Slater's suppers. It's not something that I make an effort to see, but I quite often pick it up almost by accident, and some of his dishes are quite interesting, though some are rather strange. This week he did an interesting meal of beef cooked in beer with onions and mustard, served with a big dollop of apple sauce, so I gave it a go on Friday and it was really nice. He also made a cake with raisins and mixed seeds in, and the extra ingredient was a fair amount of grated raw beetroot. Well, I have always enjoyed carrot cake, and we are both fans of beetroot so I decided to have a go today. It was a sloppy, very pink mixture, as you can see from the empty bowl, and it took a long time to cook. It said to let it stand for at least twenty minutes before turning it out; then as soon as it had cooled enough I just had to cut across it. I was expecting a deep rich red cake, so I was very disappointed to find that it didn't look any different from an ordinary fruit cake - just a nice golden brown! Where did all that colour go? When it was properly cold I added the lemon icing that was a part of the recipe, and I must say, the piece we had for tea was very nice so I'm glad I gave it a try. You can see a few of my mince pies behind the cake. I didn't do a proper session today as we had to go shopping first for animal food, so I was late starting. But I wanted some pastry to make an 'apple' pie for tomorrow, and I used the rest up on mince pies. It isn't really an apple pie because it is made with quince from my friend's tree. We don't get cooking apples out here, but the quince are quite 'tart' and they make a better pie than eating apples do. Apple pies were a favourite back in UK and with that lovely big bramley tree in the garden, I made them quite regularly. I was so sad when, almost the first thing our buyer did, was cut the tree down. We were grateful for its shade as well as its fruit, so its her loss.

We have had a chilly, wet week here, but it seems mean-spirited to complain while all the folks back in UK are struggling with arctic conditions. Some of our days have been lovely and sunny, but as soon as the sun sets, the temperature drops, and it is that time of year when it is often warmer outside than in the house. I walked up to the post office yesterday and the wind was freezing, but our back porch was really sheltered and both yesterday, and today, we have been able to sit out there to eat our lunch. The thermometer, which is on the porch wall but not in direct sunlight, was showing 18º around midday. We have learned that the secret is not to allow ourselves to get cold, so before tea, we close all the shutters, and light the calor-gas fire in the main room, and I change into trousers, socks and slippers. That way we keep quite comfortable all evening. The nights have been down to 6 or 7º this week but the forecast says it will only drop to around 14º next week, with 21º in the day time, so that will be good. Of course you can't beat having a couple of cats curled up on your lap for warmth. I have just upset Luna and Baggins by turfing them off so I could come down to my room to do this!

I have featured my two fluffy cats, Arwen and Baggins, quite a lot just lately so I thought I'd give Paco and Luna a bit of space today. As it gets cooler, they choose to stay indoors more and this week I found them curled up together on a chair. They looked so comfortable together. Luna is pretty easy with all the others and the dogs don't bother her too much, but Baggins and Paco don't hit it off at all well. It's probably because they are both males, and males are notoriosly teritorial. Sometimes they will each curl up on a chair in the same room and be fine, but if one walks too near to the other, then they growl and when they fight there is fur flying everywhere. I usually shut them in separate rooms to cool off. Anyway, here are my two campo cats. Luna is just six months old so she is still quite a baby, and she just likes to be close to someone, and if she can resist the temptation to play with their tails, all the others put up with her, but she gets on with Paco the best.