Rocking Your World 2015; Week 37

Hi everyone. No jokes from me, but a happy picture because it always makes me smile when one of our boys comes to visit. I often forget to get their photo taken with me, as I am usually the one holding the camera, but on Tom´s last day, I remembered, and Chris took this one. He has gone home with a tan as good as mine, if not better, but I am a 'stay in the shade' sort of person most of the time. He made the most of his week, and sat out in the sun for a while each day.

Unfortunately his last weekend was disappointing weatherwise. In fact we had some very dramatic storms which caused a lot of flash floods, danger and even loss of life in Adra and Almeria to the West of us, Benidorm to the East, and Granada to the North, all within a few hours drive from us, but this time we were spared. We took the brunt of it in 2012, so I am really grateful that our friends and neighbours didn´t have to suffer again. There were distant storms rumbling around last week, and we heard that on Thursday, the flamingos at Salinas, that we had visited the day before, were killed by golf-ball size hail stones. I was really sad to hear that, but after a few days of heavy rain, I am told that more have arrived.

It really started for us on Saturday night, when the sky-grumbling at tea-time intensified, the TV went off, but fortunately not the power, and we knew we wouldn´t be going out anywhere for the evening. So Tom and I made a big jug of Sangria, that lifted our spirits while we chatted and listened to music, and enjoyed the amazing lightening show outside.

Because we rarely have heavy rain, most houses out here do not have any gutters, so when it does come down, it pours off the roof and makes a water spout at every corner. One such corner is above our fly-free porch, so we watched it coming down from the relatively dry bit at the end, which is under the porch.

Then Tom made a dash outside to turn on the pool light, so we could see the raining falling on the fly screen. At least it was 'clean rain' this time, so it washed all the dust off the screens for us!

By the next morning, the storms had played themselves out, and as we looked at videos of the flooding elsewhere, we realised how lucky we were. The sunrise on Sunday morning wasn't too promising, and Chris wasn't sure I should do the half-hour drive to church, but I decided to try it and promised to turn back if there was any sign of danger.

In fact it was clearing up as I drove, and I arrived safely. I didn't hang around for long after the service, because I could see the clouds gathering again on the hills above Albox. I stopped to take a quick photo, and one of the road I had to drive along to get home.

As you can see, the church is situated in fairly open campo land, where many of the roads are not properly surfaced, so I got home as quickly as I could. By the time we had finished our lunch, the thunder was back, and we had heavier storms, that were much closer to us. The dogs don't like thunder so they were happy to curl up inside with us, but we kept popping out to watch the lightening which was amazing. Such heavy rain is also quite exciting to watch, especially when you can watch it from a safe, dry position. It stayed quite warm, though not as hot as last month, and just before bedtime, Tom decided to take a shower under the water spout in the porch. He said he had never seen weather quite like that before!

Unfortunately for him, it lasted, with less intensity, through most of Monday as well, and Tuesday was his last day - half day really as he had to leave for the airport at mid-day. But on Tuesday I woke up to see a much more promising sunrise, so I got up to take this photo.

Isn´t that pretty? We are not particularly early risers, unless we have to get up for something special, so the dogs are used to being shut in until later, but that morning they got up as I went out to take the photo. They followed me into the yard, but I think they were still half asleep. they just flopped down at my feet and looked reproachfully at me, as much as to say, 'Why have you disturbed us at this hour?'

I thought the cloud was broken up enough to indicate a clear morning in an hour or so, and we wanted to make Tom´s last morning a bit special, so we took him down to his favourite sea-front restaurant in Mojacar, for breakfast. We parked the car on the edge of the sea and everything looked clean and sparkling.

The restaurant , Dolce Vita, has a big shaded patio at the side, and a few tables on a narrow strip of decking right on the beach. 

Of course we chose to sit there, even though the waitress warned us we might get too hot. It was hot, but we enjoyed the sun shine after all the rain. We also enjoyed a lovely breakfast - toasted seeded roll with tomato, avocado and white cheese for me. The others didn't consider that to be a man's breakfast, so they had egg and bacon etc!

Some little tame sparrows joined us to collect my crumbs.

After breakfast, Tom wanted one last dip in the sea. It was 'lively' with big waves and the currents are strong along there, so we warned him not to go too far. But he had a lovely time playing in the waves.

It looked fun and I'd have loved to join him, but I am not strong enough to swim in the sea when it is like that, so I just had a paddle at the edge. Once again the water was amazingly warm.

I did laugh at Chris. He had sat himself down on a rock to take a photo of Tom in the sea, when a big wave came from nowhere and soaked his shoes.

A few minutes later the sea had receeded again, and he sat there like King Canute, just daring it to come up again!

Time was getting on so we drove home, and by the time I had got in from the car and sorted myself out, Tom was back in our pool - 'Just one last dip mum!'.

This was taken just fifteen minutes before he had to leave for the airport! So he had a quick shower while I made a cup of tea, and then we had to say 'Good-bye'. But I know he had a good time, and we had enjoyed being with him.

Not a lot has happened for the rest of the week. I have done a bit of crafting, including making a set of eight Christmas cards, but I am saving them for the next Rudolph day Challenge on 25th.

I said last week that I had a couple of photos from the garden that I would save for this week, so here they are. Earlier this year we bought a baby bottle brush tree, and we were pleased when it recently produced some small brushes. Apparently the bees were pleased too, because we had several of these around it last week. They are not the usual honey bees, but ones with longer orange bodies, and blue-tipped wings.

Also, one day last week I saw what I thought was a leaf floating in the pool, so I fished it out with the net and found it was a praying mantis that had managed to drown itself, the silly thing. It has its wings open and they were so pretty. I don't think I have ever seen their wings before.

And just this morning, while I was writing this, Chris came to tell me we had some visitors at the pool, so I went out to see. And there, under the water, was a tiny frog! We don´t usually get these in the garden, and I was afraid that the pump would drag it into the drainage system and it would drown. So, of course, I had to rescue him, and he happily hopped away. I hope he got right away before the cats saw him. 

Then resting on the side of the pool, I saw this pretty red dragonfly. We get red and blue ones visiting us quite often at this time of year. They are smaller than the regular dragon flies. I think people call them darters. I think they are really lovely, and I am happy to see them darting around over the pool.

Before I went to UK I made all the cards I would need during the hottest months, when I don´t get much crafting done. One was a box card for my grandson who was nine today. His dad, our second son Mike, posted this photo of him holding it on facebook this morning. We always say that Finlay is proof that not only bad things happened on 9/11; there were some good things too, and his arrival was one of them.

Well that's it for this week. I'll leave you with a couple of scrapbook layouts that I made this week for my digi scrapbook of Ireland. One of the places we went to was a beach called Inchydoney, where Chris was taken as a child when he spent holidays with his grandmother in Clonakilty. It is a small beach at the end of a peninsula, which has Muckross Strand along one side of it, and Ring harbour on the other. So these pages are about the lovely time we spent there.

Now I just need to link up with Annie´s Friday Smiles. She won´t expect to see me yet as it is usually nearly midnight when I post, but we are going out this evening, so I have done it earlier.

I will also link with Rocking your World over at Virginia's blog. Come and join us and pick up on some more happy, positive vibes.

Rocking Your World 21015: Week 36

I am hoping this will be a fairly short post, but a photo heavy one. First here is my smile. I smiled when I walked into my sitting room and found these two little monkeys (Paco and Luna), curled up together on our glass-topped table. They don´t often cuddle up, so it was nice to see, even though they are not supposed to be on the table!

As you may remember, when I wrote my post last week, our son Tom had just arrived for a twelve day stay. So this post is mostly the things we have done.

Friday night we went down to Garrucha harbour, and strolled the length of the promenade to the port. The summer night market was still running, so there was plenty to look at. It was a 'soft', warm night and when we got to the port we were in need of a cold drink. It was busy but we managed to find a table. I love the lights in the bar behind us.

For the first few days, Tom mostly wanted to soak up some sun, and dip in and out of the pool to cool down, but sometimes he also took himself off in his hire car to explore. On Tuesday night he drove us to Almeria airport for my husband, Chris, to get his late flight to Dublin, and then on to UK. He went over for his mate's funeral the next day.

I was also busy on Tuesday because I took my Spanish friend Cati to a hostal/restaurant near Turre to meet the members of an English group who meet there weekly to play boules. They pay a subscription each week and from this they gave Cati a generous donation for ASADIS, her charity to support disabled children in our village and surrounding area. Cati does not speak any English, and the group did not have a fluent Spanish speaker, so I was asked to go along to help with translation, and between us, we managed very well. In this photo, Myra, on the left, is the lady who contacted me and asked me to arrange to bring Cati, who is seated between us. As you can see she was very happy and grateful for the donation.

On Wednesday morning we had to stay in because we were having a sofa-bed delivered and assembled in what used to be our dining room. We never use it for that purpose so we decided to have an extra bed, ready for the few occasions when we have two lots of visitors at the same time. (We do have a nice spare bedroom for most of our visitors). The bed arrived on time, and it fitted nicely into the space we had made for it. 

So then Tom and I went down to the beach at Mojacar. It was the first time I have been in the sea this year. It was lovely, and rather surprisingly it was considerably warmer than our pool! We were eating out that night so we just wanted a snack at lunchtime, so we sat in Tom´s favourite bar, right on the beach. I had cheese-stuffed jalopeños with chili dip, and they were yummy. (I had to cut them open because the cheese was so hot it burnt my mouth).

In the evening it was our first choir practice since the summer break so Tom came with me and waited in the bar while we sang. Then we went to the Chinese restaurant next-door for a lovely meal.

Yesterday we decided to have a proper day out, and we both fancied going to Cabo de Gata, which is the national park that covers all the bottom 'corner' of Andalucia, from just outside Mojacar and as far as Almeria city.We took the motorway and drove to the furthest point first, which is the little town of Cabo de Gata. We stopped to look at the sea which was wild and noisy, just  how we like it, with stripes of blue from turquoise through to navy.

From there we took the road out towards Las Salinas salt lakes which are surrounded by fairly barren campo land. We stopped to take in the view both ways. It was  sunny but very windy, and the long dusty road was nearly deserted, though there were a few parked cars, and brave souls walking along the wild and rugged coast.

Back in the car we drove on to El Faro - the lighthouse which is at the point closest to Africa. I am told you can just see Africa on a clear day, but not yesterday. The road to the lighthouse is steep and fairly narrow. We stopped at a viewpoint on the way up and took turns to pose next to the rocks. The view from up there was amazing.

The lighthouse is at the top of a cliff, and down below is a group of pointed, dangerous rocks known as Arrecife de las Sirenas or The Sirens Reef. I could stand and listen to the waves and watch them break over the rocks for hours.

Half way up the steps to the view-point, I stopped and sat on a bowl of stones, to look back at the bay we had driven round to get here.

It was time to move on, but as we drove back towards Cabo de Gata, to find the turning to San José, we stopped at the observatory next to Las Salinas, the salt lake that is known for the variety of water fowl that visit it, and in particular for the flamingos. I have never seen any of these there and was keen to spot some. So we sat in the hide and watched the water, and soon a few came walking into view. The birds were too far away to see clearly, but using the zoom on my camera, I did manage to see them.

As we left Las Salinas we spotted these flowers growing up out of hot gravel and sand. I have googled them, and the nearest thing I have found is narcissus cantabricus. Apparently they are quite common in Southern Spain, but they have bright yellow stamens, and these are white. So if any of you folk out there have a better idea, please do tell me. They looked much too delicate for such a barrn stretch of land.

Next we drove on to San José which is one of the prettiest villages and beaches around there. The main town and beach is almost a ghost town during the Winter, but in Summer it is a hive of activity. Although the main holiday period, at least for the Spanish folk, ended last weekend, there were still a lot of people around, and before we hunted for an empty parking space, we decided to drive back over the hill to a well known beach called Los Genoveres. This was new territory for both of us. The beach was a cove of golden sand surrounded by sand dunes dotted with the tall 'trees' that are the flowers of the agave or century cacti. The beach was approached via a private road that was really only a dirt track, and there were no facilities there at all, so if you were going for the day you would need to take food and drinks. At the entrance to the road we were stopped by a Spanish man who warned us that the beach has dangerous currents and strong waves, especially on such a windy day, but despite that, there were plenty of people there, enjoying it.

We had a swim and the water was lovely. Again we were surprised at how warm it was. We were getting hungry by then so we moved on to the actual town of San José. Here we walked along the beach until we found a restaurant we liked and had a lovely late dinner, and then sat on the beach, had another swim, and relaxed for a while. To our left we could see the rows of white flats that are built up the side of the hills, and a small stone harbour wall where several fishing boats were moored. To our left the little white houses spilled down almost to the water´s edge. Again there were plenty of people, enjoying the sun, sea and lovely surroundings.

All too soon it was time to  head for home, but we still had one or two places to see, so we took the scenic route that followed the coastline, and stopped briefly at another beach called Las Negras. This was a tiny hamlet the first time I went there, but it has more than tripled in size now, but it is still a jumble of small houses, some flats and a fair few holiday lets. We walked along the beach and Tom took this photo to show me how my back had caught the sun. In just a week he is browner than I am though, because I normally stay in the shade. One of the things I like about the beach at Las Negras, is the line of cliffs to the right of the bay. You guessed it - I can see two clear faces in the rocks. can you?

By this time, the battery in my good camera had run out, so I was down to using my phone. I am not always happy with the photos I take with it, but in good daylight, they are not too bad. Tom has a different phone from me, and I think he takes better photos, so some of these are his.

We didn´t linger at this beach, and were soon back in the car, but we did make one more stop at Agua Amarga (Bitter water). This is another bay with cliffs all around it, and it is a lively place with football and volleyball nets set up on the beach, boats for hire, and little cafés right on the sand. By the time we got here the light was fading. We watched the sun set behind the cliffs, which cast a lovely pearly colour over the sea, and was reflected in the little wavelets breaking on the sand. It was very pretty.

From there, we drove through Carboneras, over the high cliff road, and down into Mojacar. Then there was just the short run to home. We got back to three anxious dogs who were beginning to think they weren't going to get fed - though that has never happened so far, they know they are safe really. Once I had sorted them out, we jumped in the pool to wash away the salt and sand, and although we were both tired after our excursion, we ended up sitting in the garden until 4.00 in the morning, just chatting, and reminiscing about childhood events. We hadn't realised how late it was, so we were both a bit 'zombiefied' this morning, but we soon recovered. It is not something we can do very often so it was good to just relax and chat together. It is catching up with me now though, so I think I ought to go to bed!

I had a couple of garden photos  for you but I think I'll save those for next week.

Tonight Chris flew home, this time to Murcia airport, so Tom and I drove over to collect him. As we were going there , we saw a beautiful sunset, and we took this photo from the car.

How lovely is that! Now I will link up with Annie´s Friday Smiles and Rocking your World at Celtic House. Thanks for sticking with me through all my ramblings. I do appreciate it when you take time to leave me comments. Tom is with us until Tuesday, so it may be a few days before I get back to you all, but I´ll do my best.