A Lovely Life

People often ask me why we chose this area of Spain to live in, and I usually say it's because we love being sandwiched between the mountains and the sea. Here is what I mean. Yesterday, Chris and I decided to drive down to Mojacar beach, just ten minutes by car from our village, for a stroll along the water's edge and a cup of coffee (or tea in my case) at our favourite cafe where they give free sugared dough balls and savoury pastries with every drink. We had our drinks and then decided it was so pleasant there that we might as well stay for our lunch as well. This was mine; several slices of pork lomo with fresh lettuce and tomato, all in a gorgeously soft yet crispy baguette, with a few chips on the side, and that set me back all of €3 with another one and a half for a pot of English style tea. Chris had an omlette plus slices of ham and cheese in his baguette but that is one step too far for me!

Having eaten all that we decided we had better walk it off so we set off along the beach. I was standing near the main roundabout and on one side of me this was the view; a blue, blue sky over the blue, blue sea. When I turned around and looked the other way my view was of tall palm trees silhouetted against the Cabrera mountains. Isn't it beautiful?

I should know by now that trying to get a photograph of a wave just as it breaks over rocks is nigh on imposssible, but I still tried and this is the best of a bad lot. But it was lovely watching it while I tried.

I love this time of year when the sun still feels quite warm on my body without it scorching my skin. This morning the market stalls had their new stock of furry slippers, but I hope we have a few more weeks of this lovely sunshine before we start needing any of those!

Anticipation and the new beastie in my kitchen

First of all the beastie in the kitchen - Chris and I are both on a mission to eat healthily and lose weight, and at our age, we are aware of the danger of rising cholesterol levels. Our diet is already better than it was in England as we eat very little processed food, and there is a wonderful range of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables available locally. But we do like chips, and other fried foods, so when I saw my son's gadget for frying without, or with a minimal amount of, oil, I was very interested. Back in Spain, we visited our village 'electodomesticos' and the man knew instantly what we wanted and soon had one in the shop for us. He said he had one in his home and it was very good! So here it is. It seems to me bigger than the one my son had, but there was no choice of size when we bought it, so maybe it is just that my little kitchen would fit into one corner of his huge one, so the appliances seem larger by comparison. Anyway, yesterday I made lovely chips from fresh, raw potatoes and half a tablespoon of oil. Not bad at all. I hope it cooks other things just as well so that it justifies the space it is taking up.

And now to the anticipation - around November of last year I showed you a cactus in my garden with a single flower bud on it. I had to wait for a couple of weeks as it slowly swelled up and eventually 'popped' and an amazing flower appeared. You can see the flower on my blog if you click here. Thanks to my friend Jane's blog, I now know that it is called 'Stapelia gigantia', a very fitting name as compared with most flowers in my garden, it was fairly gigantic! Jane's was in flower a few weeks back, but mine didn't open until mid-November last year. (She lives higher up the mountains than me so maybe that has something to do with it). Anyway it looks as though mine will be out a couple of weeks earlier this year, and here is what I am anticipating - a truly amazing display of flowers! The plant has spread out onto the path, and has several buds at each end of it, but very few in the centre. I can't wait to see it when some of those buds have opened. Watch this space...