Rocking your world 2014; Week 32

I bet at some time you have all asked the question; Why did the chicken cross the road? Well.....

Now you are all smiling I hope, let's see what has made me smile this week.

Well, last Sunday I went to my first meeting of the Vera Photo Club. I met a lovely bunch of friendly folk, learned how to do something on my camera that I couldn't do before, and had a tutorial on the basics of using Lightroom, so it was fun and informative, and I am looking forward to next month's meeting.

Just outside the bar where the club meet, there was a row of date palms. There were fallen fruit everywhere that were like green acorns under our feet. Looking up I was amazed to see this. I have never seen palms with so many boughs of fruit on before.

I think it is going to be a good year for fruit again. When there was a bumper crop of citrus fruit last winter, people put it down to the flood the year before, so with such a dry winter this year, we thought the fruit might suffer. But judging by this tree in my neighbour's garden, there will be no shortage of pomegranates next month.

A friend who lives on the urbanisation just across the road from our village, asked Chris if he could help her set up a new tablet so she could send e-mails etc, so this morning we popped over to see her. She has a lovely arched porch on the front of her house, and up in one corner she had what she called her 'summer visitors'. 

There was a house martin nest, and every few minutes a little head popped out squawking for food. Then another and another appeared. She thinks there are six babies altogether. We stood there watching for ages hoping to catch the mother feeding them, but her visits were so fleeting that I kept missing her. But eventually our patience was rewarded and I did get this shot, just as she was about to take off again.

We left her house and drove on down to Mojacar Playa, as we wanted to visit the big ferreteria down there to buy a second garden storage cupboard, like the one we bought a couple of years ago. This one will store all the bags and crates of dog and cat food, and all my plastic containers, which will hopefully ease the congestion in my utility area. I am constantly trying to make more space, but Spanish houses are always very low on storage space, so it usually means buying another cupboard! This one is all in pieces in a box right now, but hopefully by next week I'll be able to show you it all put together and full!

In another bid for space, I have drawn a plan for reorganising my craft room. Again there is limited space to do anything, and I will have to remove a small bookcase that is bolted to the wall. Then I will need to reshuffle the contents of all my drawers and cupboards to accommodate what was on the shelves. So I won't be showing the end result of that next week, nor anytime very soon, but one day...

On the drive down the hill to the sea this morning, I took another photo of my favourite tree. Yes it is a dead tree, a very dead tree! But I love the interwoven branches

silhouetted against a blue sky. Usually I am driving when I pass it, but today I was the passenger so I took the opportunity to photograph it again. A few years ago I took some pictures of it and eventually managed to turn it into a digi stamp which I used on some ATC's. I think this is a better photo so I will see what I can do with it.

On the way home we stopped at a bar on the edge of our village for tostadas and a drink. That's life in Spain, and I love it!!

As the temperature continues to rise, poor Arwen has been getting very uncomfortable, and most days she lays out on our bathroom floor as it is on the cooler side of the house. So on Monday I took her down to the dog groomer to have her hair cut. Because it was not so matted this time, they didn't shave her quite down to the skin, and they left her with furry boots and tail, and this time she still has quite a 'mane' around her face, so instead of the usual poodle-cat, this time she is a little lion-cat.

As part of my making space campaign, I have been sorting out my kitchen. It is very small anyway, and with a big window on wall one, a larder door central on wall two, the main door and fitted cooker on wall three, and the sink and the door to the outside on wall four, there is very little scope for moving it around. But at least until the end of the summer, I have turned the table around, and completely removed the windows (they are on rising hinges). They have integral shutters that open inwards, so it

was always a hazard to sit at the end of the table! Now I can get to the window and reach to raise and lower the blinds. There is, of course, also a fly screen over them, and metal rejas (bars), so we are quite secure. It makes it a lot lighter in there, and first thing in the morning it is the coolest room, so it is a pleasant place to sit for breakfast. It gets very hot after lunch time, but I have the blinds down by then, and I only do essential cooking in July and August.

Yesterday I popped into Lidl's and bought myself a home yoghurt maker. I did have one years ago, when the boys were small, and I used it all the time, but it fell out of use as they got older, and I believe one of my sons had it when we moved. But now I am making a lot of fruit blends, a plain yoghurt can turn these into a lovely fruit yoghurt drink for breakfast, so I thought this would be useful. It has seven little bottles with lovely bright coloured lids. I tried it out last night, and the yoghurts are now resting in the fridge. I can make all seven pots for the price of buying one, and if I use skimmed milk, the yoghurts are very low fat.

I had another very pleasant lunchtime on Wednesday, when the sewing group cleared away and some of them went down to another bar in Turre for tapas. They do this most weeks, but ususally I have my Life Group in the afternoon so I don't stay with them. However, that stops for the summer months, so for a few weeks I can join them for lunch. We always have a good natter and lots of laughs together.

And finally I have another nature photo to show you, that I am quite pleased with. While it is hot we are deafened all day by the continuous noise of the cicadas. They are hard to spot as they fall silent whenever you approach the tree etc where they are. But today I went outside to sort out some cats that were starting a fight in the green zone, and I spotted these two cicadas mating on a grass stem. I rushed back in for my camera and they were still there when I got back. I took several shots, most of which were rubbish, but I kept this one and I think it turned out really well.

So now I will just link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World at Virginia's blog.

Thanks for stopping by. I love reading your comments.

Rocking your world 2014; Week 31

Well not only has another week flown by, but another month has too, and here we are in August already.

My smile for this week is a group of our friends whom we spent last Saturday evening with. 

We were at the home of our friends John and Eileen and we were celebrating John's 80th birthday (not that we need an excuse to get together!). His actual birthday was a few weeks ago but they were in UK at the time. 

John and Eileen are probably the longest standing British residents in our village so they had to learn to communicate with the Spanish when they first came, and are now fluent. Their parties always have a good cross-section of Spanish and English guests and I really enjoy chatting to them. We have a few misunderstandings along the way, but we manage.

While we were there, Cati's husband Pepe asked me if I would meet with his niece, on holiday from Barcelona, who needed some help with English, so on Monday I went to her grandmother's house. I couldn't have been given a warmer welcome. I spent a pleasant hour or so chatting with the niece, who is already a kindergarten teacher, but she is learning English just using some very formal Cambridge study books. Folk from Barcelona mostly speak Catalan at home, but use standard Spanish in schools and business, and they are much easier to understand than the folk from the village who speak with a deep Andalucian accent. We do have a number of Spanish acquaintances in the village now, but I always consider it a privilege to be welcomed into their home.

The weather is consistently 'HOT' now, to the extent that it is not even pleasant sitting out in the shade, because the breeze is so warm, so most afternoons we have sat indoors with the fan on, watching some of the Commonwealth games, (and the racing from Goodwood for Chris), and usually nodding off for a siesta along the way. But I am thankful for this time to rest, and not feel obliged to be rushing around, doing things all the time.

I have been equally grateful for early evenings when I can sit outside, and I have managed to have a significant impact on my cross-stitch picture. There is still a long way to go, but I think I am passed the half-way mark.

I am thankful for the chance to catch up with some reading. Mostly I only do this in bed, and I tend to read the same page three times because I haven't taken it in, and then drop the book as I fall asleep! So during the afternoons this week I have read two whole books and have really enjoyed doing so.

I am extremely grateful for our newly repaired fly screen around the porch. This year there have been relatively few flies and wasps, but now the fields have been stripped of melons which are at the height of their season, and any that were damaged, too small etc, were left lying on the ground. These ripen and burst open and the flies feed on the sugar and breed, so there will likely be more around now. 

We have also had a plague of tiny white flies, or possibly moths. We have not had these before and they are a great nuisance. They are attracted to lights so I have my window closed this evening while I work here, as they are small enough to come through the fly-nets, and my computer screen get dotted with them. The good thing about them is that they don't bite, but they are irritating all the same. They  may be tiny but you can still feel them when they land on you. I thought at first they did bite because if you squash one with your finger they leave a red stain, (blood?!), but after a  bit of investigation via google, I now know they contain a die much like cochineal. Hence the pink lines all over my computer screen! They are the moth that decimated the chumba (prickly pears) all over this region last autumn, so I guess they will be doing the same again this year. 

They are impervious to all the main fly sprays, but although some are small enough to get in through the nets, many others are not, and in the morning our screens are covered with them, until they die in the heat and fall off. It's like a snow storm. So without the nets we would be going barmy with them by now. It wasn't easy to photograph them, but you can see some.

I love the way our garden continues to grow in this

heat. The oleander at the back of our fence is still hanging bunches of pink blossom over our side. It is a double flower and reminds me of small pink camellias.

We inherited some lovely plants with the house, including a beautiful palm out the front. I have seen some of a similar size in the garden centres, selling for upward of 100€. It is only in a smallish pot but it seems to like it there. All through the winter and spring it got regulalrly blown over by the high winds, and apart from being heavy, it has some wicked spines under its leaves, and it takes both of us to right it again. So it is a wonder it is still alive. But every year or so it produces a new crown of leaves, and these grow so fast that you can almost miss them. When the lads were visiting us just two weeks ago, I pointed out to them a circle of little bumps around the centre of the palm, that I knew would be a new set of leaves. Now just a fortnight later, they are more or less fully grown. They shoot out almost while you watch them, and then they uncurl and look like someone who has has a too tight perm! This time it was almost a double circle of new growth, and in a few weeks we will have to get down under it and trim off the outer circle of dying leaves. That is how the stem is formed. If we live long enough we will have a palm tree!

A few other 'Thankfuls' - 

A long chat with my sister on skype. We make video calls, and if the connection is good, it is almost like sitting in the same room and chatting together.

The vast choice of beautiful ripe fruit in the market. I just love the black cherries, melons and peaches.

The fact that this morning I did the whole month's supermarket shopping in one trip, so I will only have to go for bread and milk, and to the market for fruit and veg, until September! I am not a fan of food shopping, and while it is so hot, the last thing I want to do is keep driving to the supermarket. It was a bit of a marathon, and I hate unpacking it and persuading my fridge and freezer to have elastic sides for a week or two, but at least it is done and dusted for this month.

Messages from our Grandsons, thanking me for a lovely holiday, and for letting them bring their girlfriends with them this time. We loved having them here anyway.

The pool, which Chris keeps sparkling clean so it is always inviting. It is only small but it is so refreshing to have a dip after our siesta, or to cool down before we go to bed.

Well that's about it for this week. So I'm off to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Virginia's Rocking your World blog. See you next week.