A wet week in 'not so sunny Spain'!

Yes we have had a whole week of grey and often wet days, which is unusual for us, even in November. It has been so wet that I even bought myself a light-weight raincoat, and folks who know me well, will know that I don't do coats!

It has been the kind of week when you don't go out unless you need to, but fortunately we have had sufficient necessary journeys to stop us turning into couch potatoes.

I spent most evenings in the sitting room, with either Paco or Luna, or both, keeping my knees warm, so I decided to find something new to make, to stop me nodding off. (There is very little on the television that is guaranteed to keep me awake!) The man who delivers our "Fish and Chip" baby knits to Africa, wrote to tell us that he now has sufficient of these in his store, and he asked us to turn our hands to making blankets and more standard small children's garments instead, so I sorted out my wool and have embarked on making blankets. I have two on the go as I get bored with a big project, and instead of knitting I am doing different styles of crochet.

The first is Tunisian crochet which I did many years ago when mum bought a Tunisian hook from somewhere. As a child it appealed to me because it was relatively easy and it grew very quickly! I am now using a much smaller gauge hook, and a slightly different stitch called Tunisian afghan stitch. It makes up to an even, firm fabric that will make a good blanket. I am making strips rather than squares as it cuts out much of the sewing up at the end.

The second one is Bavarian crochet which I have not done before. I saw something made in it on the internet and I liked the look of it, so I bought, and downloaded the instructions, and this is how it makes up. Pretty isn't it?

This week we had to go to the hospital at Huercal-Overa for Chris to have a special blood test that apparently couldn't be done at our local clinic. It is to do with an ongoing problem with arthritis in his knees and wrists. Our doctor had told us to just turn up and no appointment was necessary, but although we got there just as they opened up, we were number 56 on the list! Fortunately I had taken my crochet with me, so I got quite a length of it done. When he had finally had his turn, we went to our optician which is just down the road from the hospital, and I had my eyes tested, as it is now six weeks since my cataract operation. So I am now looking forward to having new glasses in a week or so.

Despite the poor weather there is still plenty to see in the garden and along the road side. Here are a few photos I have taken in between the showers.

It is amazing how everything has grown since the storm last month. The ground is covered in tiny plants pushing up through what was barren land. Many are even in flower as though they think it is Spring. Certainly our 'green zone' at the back of our house is truly very green right now.

Yesterday I spotted this spider suspended between two branches of the bougainvillea. he looks too fat and heavy for his fine web to hold him. He was busy wrapping up a wasp to go in his store cupboard. We occasionally get some nasty big black spiders, and lots of tiny grey ones which jump, and can give a very unpleasant bite that itches worse than any mosquito bite, but ones like this, that I used to think of as common garden spiders in England, are not seen very often. He was quite a handsome fellow, but I wouldn't care to walk into his web on a dark night!

Another thing I have noticed  this week is huge collections of birds. I stopped to watch these ones on my way home from Turre on Wednesday. They were in the tops of all the trees and packed tightly along all the overhead cables. They are definitely members of the starling family, and are very like the starlings in UK. The noise they were making was amazing. You can quite see why the collective name for them is a "murmuration of starlings". 

When something startled them they all took off and the sky was black with them, but I was disappointed to find that they didn't make any of the wonderful formations of flight that I used to watch when they all came to Oswestry.

The exceptional amount of rain we have had, including some very heavy showers, and some that have lasted all night, has hampered the workmen's efforts to clear and repair roads damaged in the flooding. 

I stopped by the rambla in Turre which is usually a dry river bed, and this week it is still a fast flowing river. I did find a tiny trickle of water down there one spring when I walked along it, but it was hidden by bushes and trees that were taller than me. All that has washed away now, and there is just water , a lot of debris, and a few struggling plants. No doubt it will all recover in its own time. Nature is quite remarkable in its ability to heal, but it won't start to happen until it is dry enough for the water to subside.

There is one good thing about this weather. We rarely see a really good sunset because most days the sky is clear when the sun goes down, but this week there has been a lot of clouds which reflect the last rays of the sun, and set the sky on fire. One day last week, the sun had managed to come out for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and I was just in time to catch this beautiful sight. Ten minutes later and it was all gone, so I am glad I looked up when I did.

And finally, this is for family members who I know don't usually visit my other blog, so apologies to those who do, because this paragraph is a direct copy from my post on there last Wednesday.

"And finally I must share something very special for me. As you are aware, our five sons came out together to help us celebrate both our birthdays a couple of weeks ago. Our youngest son, Ben, is very musical, writing songs, singing and playing the piano, saxophone and guitar. He only does it for pleasure but he often puts a video on you-tube, so I can see what he is doing. I was expecting to him to come over that week, so I had borrowed a piano so he could entertain us all at our party. But he then surprised us by singing a little song he had written especially for us. Many of our party guests  were, like us, older ex-pats, and we all miss our families back home, and our friends were very taken with the way we have stuck together as a family, and when Ben sang, "there wasn't a dry eye in the house". This week Ben has sent me what he called a "rough, live recording" of our song, so I am sharing it with you here. After all, it is not every week that you get a song written especially for you is it? Click on this link to hear it."

A tour around Ireland; Week two.

Hello again. I thought I might as well go for it and post about the rest of our holiday before it is too 'old news'. I think the photos for this week are even better than those from the first week. See if you agree.

We left Cork on the Monday morning and drove straight across the country and on to the Dingle Peninsular. It was a very wet morning so our first view of Inch beach was less than inspiring. However, this area is known for its beauty so we remained hopeful, and gradually the weather did improve. There is a designated "Tourist route" around the peninsular that takes in many of the places of particular historical interest, and some superb views. 

We decided that we didn't have time to do it all but we would try to get around most of it, but first we called in to meet another cousin - Joe's sister Philomena and her husband. They have a working farm and also run a small bakery attached to the house where they make bread and scones to sell locally. They made us very welcome and we had a great time catching up on news of the family. We then did our drive around the peninsular and returned to their house for a lovely meal. They then took us to their son's house where they had arranged for us sleep.

The next morning we were off again, this time driving through Tralee and Listowel to board the Tarbert ferry. This cut quite a bit off our journey and we were soon arriving in our next stop - Galway. Here we had booked into a bar near the town centre, so we dropped off our bags and set out on foot to explore. It was a pretty town with a fast flowing river and a canal running through it. We walked to the Spanish Arch which led on to an open area spread on both sides of the River Carrib. It was very fast running water, but several folk were sitting on the wall and danging their feet over as they took in some gentle autumn sunshine. 

We walked around the mouth of the river and on to the Claddagh; a wide expanse of grass used partly as a practice field for a local school football club. We watched them play for a while. Irish football is quite different from Soccer. We then kept walking across the Claddagh, which ran along the coast for a long way, and when we got to the end, as in the words of the song, "We watched the sun go down on Galway Bay". It was a long walk but we enjoyed the sun and there was no rush to get back.

After a very nice meal where we were staying, we went back down the road to Taffes bar to listen to some traditional music. Before we left the next morning, Chris bought me a necklace that I had seen the previous evening. It is a celtic cross with a piece of Connamara marble in the centre.

From Galway we headed up towards Sligo, but I wanted to stop just before there to visit a waterfall I had seen in one of the Tourist leaflets we collected everywhere we went. While we were looking out for it, we saw a sign for Knock Sanctuary and Chris said he would like to go there, so we did another detour  but it wasn't far out of our way. Although I am not very interested in all things catholic, this was a lovely place and it was very interesting to read all the signs around the place. It was built to commemorate a Vision of Mary with St Joseph and St John, seen there in 1879, and apparently witnessed by fifteen people. It is now a place of pilgrimage, and in 1979 the Pope visited it 'as part of his pilgrim journey to Ireland'.

We were soon on the road again and we found the village of Collooney and parked up, and then we set off to ask the way to the falls. It was cold and we decided to have a cup of tea first but we couldn't see a cafe, so we went into a bar. There was a nice fire burning in there and several men drinking Guiness at the bar. But Chris asked if we could have tea and the barman told us to go and get comfy and soon he appeared with a big pot full of tea and profuse apologies that he had no biscuits to offer us. We managed to squeeze nearly three mug-fulls each out of the pot and when we got up to leave, the barman gave us directions to the falls and refused to take any payment for the tea! That doesn't happen very often.

The falls were lovely with a backdrop of grey stone buildings that were the old mill, and bright trees in their autumn attire all around it. I love the sound of falling water, and this was fed by a fast flowing river. Just above the falls there was a rock with big heron perched on it. I crept closer and it stayed so still that I wasn't sure whether it was real. But then it suddenly took to its wings and disappeared.

We travelled on through Sligo and before long we reached our Guest House in Donegal. It was a lovely place run by a very kind and helpful couple. Chris was looking forward to coming here as his dad, Sam, came from Donegal. He knows Sam took him there once but he was very small and doesn't remember anything about the visit. He knew our guest house was in the right area so he asked the proprietor if she knew anyone in the region called Perry and she did. Her neighbour and friend was a John Perry. She rang him up and he came down to see us, and he turned out to be a cousin, the son of one Sam's brothers. He also brought his brother Ozzie, and later John's son David arrived. He was keen to meet us as he, like Chris, is trying to trace the family history. He had our names on his list but didn't expect to be meeting us. He exchanged information with Chris, and showed us some old family photos.

After their visit we set off to see a nearby lake called Lake Eske. It was raining lightly, but we could still see that it was very beautiful. At one end there was a castle and we wandered in to look at it, but then we discovered we were in the grounds of a luxury, 5 star hotel, built to incorporate the old castle. No-one seemed to mind us being there and we wandered freely through the grounds looking at a large collection of black sculptures that were dotted around.

Then we drove around the coast to Slieve League Cliffs, some of the highest in Ireland. The last bit was a steep, narrow road so we were glad we were able to drive up it. The wind at the top was so strong we could hardly stand against it, and I had difficulty holding the camera still, but the views were amazing. The steep red rock cliffs dropped straight into the sea, and the Atlantic ocean beat tirelessly at their feet.

On the way back down we stopped to take more photos at a pretty little river. We stood on a bridge looking at it, but when we turned around, the other side of the river was a rushing, churning bowl of white water.

On the way home we stopped off at Donegal Craft village, which was a group of small studio shops where we could both see things being made, and buy them if we wanted to. There was an artist studio, a jewelry maker, a baker/tea shop, a weaver, but the one that caught our eye was a sculptor who took pieces of bog wood, that had been preserved in a peat bog for up to 2000 years, and carved them into whatever the wood suggested to him. Of course, they were rather expensive, but having walked round stroking all of them, we decided to buy a piece between us as a memento of our holiday, and this is what we chose. It is made of bog-pine and mounted onto a piece of rock so it is quite heavy, but I wrapped it up well and put it in my hand luggage, and it survived the journey. I love the smooth feel of it, and will probably go on stroking it every time I pass it!

That evening some more members of the family came to visit us. Aunty Mary was in her eighties and she was the widow of one of Sam's brothers. Later her son Tom joined us. She also brought cousin Muriel with her, who was married to the son of another of Sam's brothers! Both Peggy and Sam came from such huge families,and they tend to have names that are used in each generation, so it is no wonder Chris has had such trouble sorting them all out. Muriel is also very interested in family history and she had an album of old photos which were facinating to look at.

Our final main destination was just over the border into Northern Ireland. This was the Giant's Causeway, which I have often seen on television, and was keen to see for myself. It lived up to our expectation being both interestingly different, and rather beautiful. We spent a long time there, but I think the photos in my gallery speak for themselves, so I won't say any more about it here.

Just beyond the Causeway there is a little place called Carrick-a-rede, famous for its hanging rope bridge that the not so faint-hearted can cross to a small island. We were not up for that, but we stopped off there to meet one more cousin. John and Ozzie have an older brother called Ron who works for the national trust at the site. He was very surprised to see us, but we had a cup of tea with him in the cafe there, before heading off south down around Belfast to Downpatrick where we had booked in for our final night. We drove the long way round on the road that hugged the coast most of the way. It was a bit bendy for me but I just about survived.

We were up and packed early the next morning and set off for our last day of driving. We had plenty of time to get to Dublin as our flight wasn't until tea time, so we headed first for a town called Newcastle. This is famous as it is the place where "The mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea." Another favourite Irish song of ours. Along the promenade we saw a large sheet of metal engraved with the words of the song, and with a picture of the poet who wrote it, lazer cut in the centre so that you could see the mountains through and around him. We had to drive through the mountains which took us through some lovely countryside, but we realised that we were still a bit early for the airport so we stopped off at a little village called Swords. We found a nice tea shop, and then wandered down the high street. Then we filled up the hired car and returned it to the depot, and headed into the departure lounge. We were relieved when the case went through as we knew it might be over weight, but we were just under by a few grams!

Well I am sorry this is such a long post. There is so much more I could tell you, so believe me, this is greatly edited. There are some lovely photos in my new folder, "Touring Ireland; Week two" so do click on it and have a quick look if you can.