Rocking Your World 2016; Week 7

Hello everyone. Here is my smile for this week. This is my friend Kris in full Carnival regalia. Kris sings in the same choir as me, and he is  such a friendly, fun person. He lives in the urbanisation at the bottom of our village, and he rallied all his friends from there, to have an entry in the village carnival. It is the first time they have entered. The urbanisation is called Huerta Nueva which means "New orchard", so it was fitting that they chose to dress up as fruit, flowers and vegetables. Kris was the star of the show and he really dressed up for the part. Already quite tall, he added to his height with a fruit laden turban and these incredibly high heels, which, fair play to him, he wore to walk around the village all evening.

He was surprised to find he could buy these online in a size 9, but when they came he couldn't even stand in them, so he had to get advice from some of his female friends, and then practice every night!

This photo shows his full costume,

....and here is the rest of his gang.

What a lovely colourful bunch.

The carnival was last Saturday evening, and as usual it was a great fun time, with a real party atmosphere. As I have described this to you on previous years I will leave it there for this time, but at the end of the post, I will add some more photos for those who just enjoy seeing other folk having fun.

Saturday started off for us with a visit to the big open market near Albox. Chris had some business with a man who runs one of the stalls, so my sister Jean and I went along to browse through the other stalls, and buy some fresh vegetables. It is very cheap compared with our markets nearer home, and everything is so fresh. I stopped to buy some cherry tomatoes that a man was piling into plastic boxes from a big sack. They were only one euro a box so I bought them and also a bag containing four big cucumbers which too were  one euro. But as I was leaving the man added a second box of tomatoes as a gift! 

I wanted to buy vegetables ready to make some more picalilli so we did that, and we were on our way back to the car when I spotted some big plum tomatoes. I love these for cooking so thought I would buy a few. They were 2€ so I said I would have a kilo. Turned out my two euros bought the whole crateful, which were tipped into a carrier bag and handed to me. It's a good thing we like tomatoes! 

So we have had tomato soup and pasta bake, and I have made several small pots of pisto which is what we use to add to all our mince recipes, spread on tostadas before adding cheese or tuna, and line empanadas or pies before adding other fillings. Basically it is chopped up fried tomatoes, peppers, corgettes, onions etc. I used to buy little tins of it, but now I make it with any left-over vegetables I have, before I go shopping for more fresh ones, so there is always some in the freezer when I want it. Now I'm looking on the net for a recipe for red tomato chutney!

My sister was flying back to UK on Wednesday so on Monday we decided to have a nice day out. We drove to Cabo de Gata and first we took her up to the Arricife de Sirenas - Reef of the Sirens - where the waves continually crash over rocky peaks. I love it there.

I then persuaded her to stand by this large tile depicting the marine life in the area. I saw this in many tourist guide books when we first moved to Spain, but it was a couple of years before I discovered where it actually is.

It is quite a dangerous piece of coastline, so ships are warned off by the lighthouse on the cliff that rises above  the reef.

As we drove back along the windswept coastline, we stopped at Las Salinas, the salt lakes renowned for all the water birds that gather there. We sat in the hide but it is quite a distance from the lake edge so we were glad that Chris had remembered to bring his binoculars. These were the first birds we found.

But these were the ones we were really looking for. There were far more flamingos there than when I last visited, and with the zoom lens on my camera, I was able to get some nice photos of them. It is lovely to see them in their natural habitat.

We next moved on to the village of Cabo de Gata and sat in a sea-front restaurant to have some lunch. We sat outside to make the most of the sunshine, but it was a bit windy and we had to eat fast before the food got cold.

Driving back to the motorway we spotted another hide on the other side of the lake, so we stopped to have another look. Again there were lots of birds including flamingos, but I just took this photo to show how far we had come. The ones above were taken over by the little church that you can see in the distance beyond the lake.

We drove halfway home along the motorway and then turned down towards Carboneras and took the coastal road the rest of the way. This is long winding road that climbs up the side of the cliff and then down the other, and it is almost obligatory to stop at the viewpoint at the top and look down on the road you have just travelled.

Tuesday was Jean's last day so we left Chris at home and drove up to Mojacar Pueblo to browse the shops and enjoy the views. We found a lovely patio in the centre of the village, with stone arches all around it, and we sat at a sunny table to enjoy a cup of coffee.

The high wall behind us was the back of a very old church, which has its entrance on the next layer up. The village is a maze of narrow streets that dip down and then rise up again, often with a flight of steps as the only way to reach the next level. I am glad I don't have to carry my shopping through there every week! You can see Jean still sitting at our table but she is dwarfed by the huge wall of rock that towered above us.

Her flight home left Alicante airport at 7.00 on Wednesday morning which meant she needed to be there around 5.00, and Alicante is a good two hours drive from here, so we didn't bother going to bed on Tuesday night. Chris was doing all the driving so he wisely went off for a sleep, but we sat knitting and chatting and listening to music, until it was time to leave. We saw her through to the departure lounge before we left, so she was somewhere up in the 'way blue yonder' by the time we got home. We got back to our village at 8.00, just in time to enjoy a lovely sunrise. I only had my phone with me so this is a not very good photo taken through a rather dusty windscreen.

After an hour's rest I decided to go to my sewing group as usual, and I am glad I did because my friend brought her new puppy in to see us. There was a litter of them on the land next to her daughter's house, and the land-owner was going to destroy them, so she decided to keep one. Her name is Sasha, and she is so cute. I had a cuddle of course, and when she had been passed around like a little parcel, she fell asleep on her owner's lap and was placed in a little bed Joan had made for her in the shopper under the seat of her mobility frame. She slept there as good as gold until it was time to go home. 

When I got home I made us a quick meal and then finally managed a couple of hours sleep before going to my choir practice. I didn't want to miss it because it was our first birthday as a choir. We are going to have a bit of a party together tomorrow, but on Wednesday we stayed behind after the practice to have a glass of cava and a slice of cake, that had been made specially for us. Very nice it was too.

I seem to have caught up with myself now, despite the lack of sleep, and I have managed to make forty jars of marmalade and twenty jars of picalilli, ready for a church coffee morning next week. 

But I will end for this time with four lovely sky photos that I have taken during the week. All very different but all equally beautiful.

I hope you will now understand why I only managed to get around to visiting you all yesterday, but hopefully I will do better this week.

I will now link up to Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking your World at Virginia's blog, and then I will add the rest of my carnival photos, which really need very little explanation.

First some little people.

A couple that will either make you laugh or cringe!

 And a few more, imaginative and fun groups.

The carnival band.

 I loved these jellyfish.

 See you all next week.

Rocking your week 2016; Week 6

Wow. It feels as though I have been away for ages, though I've only actually missed two weeks. I have had a busy time but I will try to keep this fairly short as it is getting late and my bed is calling to me. First here is my smile for the week.

It was actually taken a couple of weeks ago and it is the official photo for a pantomime that was on stage in Wolverhampton, and it depicts my son Ben as Baron Hardup (father of Cinderella), and my grandson Marcus as Buttons. They were on stage with Marcus' mum, and his sister and brother, and the show was excellent.

I have missed a couple of weeks on here as I went to UK 'undercover', so I was unable to use Facebook etc as the family would have know I was there. Only Ben and one other person were 'in the know', as I wanted to surprise the rest when I turned up at the pantomime. I knew that my other sons, including the one who lives in Denmark, would be in the audience on the Friday night, and I had a seat right next to theirs', and the look on their faces when they came in and saw me, was worth the few days of hiding. Then the show began and I saw the ones on stage suddenly register that I was there. It was great fun. After the show we all met up in the bar before moving on to our son James' house for a party.

The next night was Marcus' 21st birthday so it was the start of a long weekend of partying!

It was lovely to just sit and chat, and catch up on everyone's news. 

My daughter-in-law Jo had saved another great surprise. She had made The Snowman. Many years ago I had bought small gifts for everyone intending to make crackers to put them in, but the crackers didn't get made, so in a last minute rush, I put all the tiny parcels into a cylinder box and made a snowman around it. The first time that everyone was together at our house after Christmas, I opened up the snowman and distributed the gifts. It became a tradition, and every year there was great excitement when it was Snowman time. Then, when I packed up to move to Spain, I handed my snowman on to Jo and her family have continued to enjoy it. Sadly his life came to an end, but Jo made a replacement and I was delighted to see him make an appearance at our party.

There were fourteen of us altogether, and when we had drunk and talked ourselves into the ground, we all found a space somewhere to get our heads down for a short while. The next morning I had to be on a train at 11.00 and they all got up to see me off. That's when we realised we hadn't taken the obligatory group photo, so dressed in an assortment of PJs, slippers, jumpers etc, we stumbled out into the sunshine where we persuaded an innocent passer-by to take this photo.

It is a bit 'morning after the night before', but a great momento of a great night. I also got this photo of our five boys. I love them all to bits!

I had actually arrived in Birmingham on the previous Monday, and stayed at Ben's house, so I could have my eyes tested and some new glasses made. The health care out here is great but I have not been happy with the eye tests I have had, and my poor eyes need all the help they can get! So the test out of the way, I then took the opportunity to do some shopping. Ben had the week off work because he had a pantomime performance every night, so in the mornings we did a tour of the Bullring shops, and one day we went to Hobbycraft in Coventry. I  love the look of New Street station now it is more or less finished, especially the undulating panels of shiny metal that distort the scens they are reflecting.

And beside them, up high, is the red eye, carrying a welcome, and a serious of changing adverts.

It is all really impressive. I did a quick walk through part of the new John Lewis' store, but I didn't have time to really look around in there, but there will be other visits, and I am sure I will see it properly another time.

The real purpose of this visit was to see all my sisters who live down on the south coast, but as there are no flights from here to Bournemouth during the winter, I had to fly to the Midlands and go down by train, so I was really pleased to fit in a trip to the optician, and then to the pantomime as well.

So on the Saturday I just made it to my train and was met at the other end by sister Jean (Jean Straw of MyCrafty Corner).

I only had a few days with her, but she had organised visits to each of our other sisters, plus our usual trip to the Range and Lakeland. So on the Sunday we started off with lunch down on the sea front, and we decided to have a walk along the prom before we ate. It was a grey, misty day but there were loads of folk walking dogs, teaching children to use new bikes and skateboards, or just out for some fresh air like we were. We ended up walking further than we had intended because we could see a new structure on the end of Bournemouth pier, and wanted to find out what it was. It turned out to be a tower from which a zip wire stretched across the water to a platform on the beach. We walked along the pier and stood watching people who had spent (a lot of) money to ride down this wire. Rather them than me!

I made Jean stand with me to take a selfie.

As you can see, we were enjoying seeing one another again, and we had worked up a good appetite for a very enjoyable lunch.

When we had eaten, we drove to my sister Brenda's house. She is well into her eighties, but despite having had a very nasty fall just before Christmas, she was looking really well, as was her husband. Their daughter was also visiting them so I was able to see her and it is many years since we last met. This is Brenda with Jean and I.

She suffers with the same drooping left eye as I do, so we are a pair well matched. 

She showed us this lovely blanket that she has crocheted. Mum taught us all to knit and crochet when we were very young, though both Jean and Brenda were really good at sewing too, but I didn't inherit that part.

The next day Jean's husband was off to his bowling club so we visited our sister Dorothy who only lives a short walk away. She was also looking very well, and she had her daughter visiting her, so I was having a really good family catch-up week.

Jo always brings her black labrador, Bomber with her when she visits, so it was nice to meet her as I have known her on facebook since she was a tiny puppy.

Then it was Wednesday, and we drove over to Weymouth to see our oldest living sister Evelyn. She and her husband are both nearly eighty-eight, and they are managing very well in their lovely flat that overlooks Weymouth Bay. We had a lovely chat and shared lunch together. Before we left, she gave me some gorgeous teddies she had knitted, for my Africa project.

Aren't they beautifully made? She had made several more but they were for her daughter who is making regular visits to Calais to help the refugees.

Jean had arranged to come back to Spain with me for a visit, and we were due to get the train back up to Birmingham on Thursday, so we were a bit anxious when we saw on the news that no trains had left Bournemouth on Wednesday due to severe flooding at Brockenhurst. They showed film of the water flowing right over the rails. But fortunately the rain stopped that night, and by the next morning they were able to use a diesel train, though the electric ones still couldn't pass through. So we got our train just fine, and the water had receded in most places though the ground looked very soggy. I took this through the train window as we sped through the end of the New Forest.

The rest of my stay was uneventful. I was able to collect my new glasses on Friday morning, and in the afternoon Ben took us to the airport for our flight home. 

Jean is supposed to be having a relaxing time to recouperate from a bad bout of flu over Christmas, but I have had a very busy week, and seem to have lurched from one project to the next, sometimes carrying her with me, and sometimes leaving her to soak up the sun and read her book. She must think I have a crazy life-style! I am grateful that the sun has been kind and has shone on us most days.

I did have one event on our first day back that I had tickets ready for both of us for, and you won't be surprised to know that it involved food! It was another fund raiser for our church, held by one of our members at her house. It was an A-Z of tapas, so there was a small taster of twenty-six different dishes! It was another lovely sunny afternoon so when we arrived we sat outside and 'mingled' while sipping glasses of sangria.

Then we moved indoors where the tables were laid out for fifty guests. There was a list of all the dishes on the table, and a small group of helpers waited on us, bringing one delight after another. 

As I knew I would not be back in time to do any cooking for it, I opted to provide the Q for queso course. Queso is cheese so it was an easy one to do. It was a wonderful afternoon, with lots to eat, and plenty of time to enjoy it while chatting to old and new friends. As we left the sun was just setting behind the misty mountains.

In between all my meetings, choir practices etc, Jean and I did manage to get down to the sea front and walk all along the prom. It was quite sunny when we left home, but by the end of our walk, the clouds had gathered and it was looking like it might rain. But it held off, and we managed to stop for some lunch, and then get home in the dry.

There seems to be a shortage of oranges, both bitter and sweet, this year, and I was beginning to think I wouldn't be making any marmalade. But on the way home from the beach, we stopped in Turre where there are some orange trees growing along a walkway. Trees like these that are planted just to provide some greenery and shade, are nearly always bitter oranges, and I have often been told to pick those if I need them. So we took a big bag and picked enough fruit to fill it. A Spanish man across the road called out to tell us that they were not nice, and no good, and I tried to explain that I wanted them bitter to make marmalade. They don't use them themselves, and always say they are no good, but when I insisted they were what I wanted, he gave a typical Gallic shrug, and went back indoors. So today I have made the first batch and have nineteen jars to start off my stash. I need around two hundred if I have as many customers as last year, so I may have to go scrumping again!

Also yesterday, Jean helped me to get out all my wool and knitted items for Africa. We counted it and took photos, and then bagged it up ready to go to UK. We found there were twenty completed blankets, and a few more that just need some finishing touches.

Then we spread all the little jumpers and cardigans on the table and had a count up, and there were a hundred and thirty of them. People are so amazing and generous. I am so proud of my team of knitters, and grateful for all their hard work.

I think I had worn Jean out by last  night, so we sat down in front of the fire with our knitting, and before long Paco and Tango both jumped up onto her lap. She doesn't fidget like me, so they like sitting on her. Tango is so relaxed, and he just sort of spreads out when he lays down. It makes him look huge.

Well that's about it for this week. Jean is here until early Wednesday morning, but it should be a bit quieter this week, and maybe we will manage to have some craft time together, though if the sun shines we will more likely be outside, making the most of it.

Now I had better get this linked to Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking Your World, and then get some much needed sleep.