Rocking Your World 2018: Week 28

Another busy week has whizzed by. The children have all finished school so the village seems busier, and we are now in full fiesta mode. For the actual village it started last night, though the main events are over the weekend, ending with the big mass and floral display on Monday. But up at Llanos, where my church is, the fiesta was last Sunday. Our church was originally a little catholic chapel for the tiny village of Llanos del Peral, and the surrounding villages. They now only use it for 'funerals and fiestas', and I guess most are now mobile enough to go to the bigger towns around if they was a regular church service, so we now have regular use of the building, which also acts as a village hall and meeting place. But it is understood that that the local people have first use of it, so on the rare occasion that one of their fiestas lands on a Sunday, we do our best to keep out of their way. On Sunday we had been informed that there was a fiesta in the close-by village of Alfoquia and they would be arriving up by us around 1.00, so we made sure to finish our service in good time and had a very quick time of refreshments and chatter afterwards. My friend and I moved our cars a short distance away, and stayed around to take some photos.

The village folk had been in the day before and put beautiful flower arrangements in the church. They are especially nice as we rarely have 'real' flowers as they just don't last in the heat.    It was very hot standing waiting for the parade, but there are a few trees to give some shade. Before long we heard distant music and the first horse riders appeared, closely followed by a van pulling a decorated trailer.

The caballistas, or horsemen, love to dress in their traditional costumes, despite the fact it was around 35º, and it must have been so hot for them.

The trailer was carrying the statue of Virgen del Carmen, the patron saint of Alfoquia. This village is just too far away for the people to walk up to Llanos, so they arrived in a convoy of covered wagons, horse-drawn carriages, or else they came on horse-back. And as the modern meets the traditional, the last few were in cars!

In these more rural areas of Andalucía, horses are very important, and many children learn to sit on a horse as soon as they can sit up, and while still quite young, they are competent horse riders. So, for them, it is traditional to arrive at a fiesta on horses.

There was an air of fun and happiness as the folk called to one another, and the colourful wagons collected on our now empty car-park. 

When everyone had arrived, they again set off, this time to the local fuente - fresh water fountain, a kilometer or so further along the road, where they would enjoy their picnics, and then return to the church for the patronal mass in the afternoon before processing back to their own village, probably for more partying well into the night.

Meanwhile we have watched as lights have been strung across the streets in our home village, fair ground rides have rolled in on big lorries, and been erected on the flat land across the green zone from our back yard. The temporary bars have been set up around the main plaza, and today they will be building the stage on the plaza where the bands and singers perform from 11.30 at night, until around 7.30 the next morning. (It is the only time all year when we sleep with our windows firmly closed. Thank goodness for ceiling fans and air con!).

Following our usual adage of "If you can't beat them, join them", we will be wandering over each evening, to enjoy the dancing displays, and a drink on the plaza surrounded by our neighbours, all in fiesta mood, and when we have had enough, we will go home and sleep through the rest of it.

The worst part of fiestas for us are the loud, loud, rockets that are sent up in volleys at random times throughout the next four days. There have been four lots this morning as I sit writing this, and there is not even much going on yet. The dogs hate them, though I must say, Kim doesn't seem as bothered this year, but Foxy has spent all morning hiding behind the settee, and she will probably stay there all day.

During all this excitement we were again at the airport on Wednesday to pick up our son Jonathan and his wife Ella. It is four years since they were out here last, so it is really nice to have them here again. This is son number four who is a drummer in several heavy metal bands. He has been over in several European countries, including Spain, touring with his main band, but of course, they go to the major cities for their gigs so we have not seen him on those occasions. It is a year since we went to UK for their wedding. How times does fly!

They spent what was left of Wednesday, soaking up some sun and dipping in and out of the pool. Yesterday they walked along the beach in the morning and in the afternoon I drove them up to our municipal swimming pool at the top of the village. It is huge and deep, open air with lovely views of the mountains, and is always sparkling clean. And we were the only ones there!

How lucky are we? Sadly it is only open for July and August, as it is manned by students, and it will get a lost busier after the fiesta, but it is great facility to have, especially as most houses in the village do not have their own pool.

Today Jon and Ella have gone off to find a waterfall and some rock pools to swim in, but the walk down to them is not for the 'less-agile' and I needed to be here as tonight is the last choir practice before we stop for the summer, so I can't afford to miss that. But we will all be going over to the fiesta later tonight.

So next week, no doubt I will be posting fiesta photos again, but for now, that is all. So I am off to look for Rocking Your World, and Annie's Friday Smiles, so I can link up with them.

Rocking Your World 2018; Week 27

Whew! It is hot! Summer is now in full swing, and of course we are moaning about the heat! It is actually lovely to wake up to blue skies every day, and know it will almost certainly stay that way all day. It has been windy again this week, which is not so usual for July, but apart from all the dust and garden debris that gets blown into the pool, the wind is not a problem, and 'moving air' is much more cooling than when everything is static.

Our week got off to a good start with a big party on

Saturday. It was my friend Eileen's 75th birthday, and her and her husband's thirtieth wedding anniversary. They decided to have a pool party. They have plenty of space around their pool for tables and sunshades, and a lovely little 'kitchen area' in the pool house, which served as a bar.

To start with we sat around chatting over a glass of our favourite tipple, and then several of us got changed and had fun in the pool. It was lovely and cooling, and we stood in the water dancing around to an excellent singer they had hired for the afternoon.

Of course there was masses of delicious food to choose from, and we all had a lovely afternoon. By early evening, some of the guests had gone, but we sat on, enjoying fun with all their children who had come over for the celebrations. One of them had bought strings of LED lights that were attached to a rubber bottle cork, that had a switch on it. So as the wine bottles were emptied, they added lights to them, and they looked so pretty on the tables. It was a clever idea.

Despite the heat, we have managed to keep busy in a laid-back kind of way. Chris undertook to clean the windows! We have fairly old-fashioned slatted blinds on our windows, which are a godsend when the sun is shining in, but over the year, they collect dust and bugs and can be pretty aweful the first time we unroll them each summer. They hang from hooks in the window frame, outside of the fly nets, so he took them all down and hung them along the fence to hose them down.

Then he managed to get the hose inside for most rooms, and sprayed through the fly nets to get rid of several months of red dust and sand. When they were all back in place, he gave the actual windows a good clean, so everywhere is sparkling now and it looks so nice. I am very grateful to have someone to  do this task!

Meanwhile I went to the market and bought bags of cherries and peaches. Don't they look wonderful?!

We ate a lot of them, but one morning I stood at the sink and pitted over a kilo of them, and packed them into preserving jars, I covered them with brandy and added a minimal amount of sugar, and then sealed them. I skinned, sliced and lightly poached the peaches, and packed them in sweetened brandy too, in some larger jars. I gave them a gentle shake each time I passed, until I was sure all the sugar had dissolved, and now they are packed away at the back of the fridge, to possibly be used at Christmas.

I have had plenty of craft time this week, and I have now made all the birthday cards I need until mid-September, when most of our visitors will have gone, and I will have time to make some more. Now I need to make two Christmas cards for the Rudolph Day Challenge on 25th of July and August, and I will be all done! I can't show the cards until all the birthdays have passed, but Eileen was very happy with the felt and the paper hearts I showed last week, which I gave her at her party.

Last week I showed a photo of my grandson, who had been selected as a finalist in the Wolverhampton Young Citizen of 2018. It was the presentation at the big Rotary club last night, so he was there along with some of his family. Sadly he didn't win, but it was an amazing experience for him to be a part of it all, and huge kudos to him for making into the final eight. We are all very proud of him.

And finally a couple of photos of flowers. Many of the little annual flowers in the garden have succumbed to the heat, but the 'weeds' still thrive. One day I noticed that, because our neighbour had returned for a while in June, and given her land some TLC, including lots of water, the wild flowers had sprung up all around each of her fruit trees. Much of the ground is covered with these little white trumpets, a smaller version of the bindweed that can be so invasive and is a big nuisance to gardeners in UK. Here it flowers for a short season and then disappears again. It looked so pretty with the flower heads bouncing around in the breeze, and white butterflies were flitting around them. You may be able to see one on a flower, in the bottom right corner of my photo.

Over on the edge of her land, there were several of these. I wonder if you know what they are?

Well, they are the caper plant. They are  a low spreading, ground-cover plant and they grow profusely on any waste land. The flower buds are picked when they are still tightly closed and are pickled - that's the capers that are often used in cooking. Then when they die, the seed pods are picked on stems and also pickled. I have had these served in an 'ensalada mixta' when eating out. I think the flowers are so pretty, and I am glad many are left to bloom undisturbed.

I have had several video chats via Skype and Messenger this week, to my sister Jean, and three of our sons. It is lovely to be able to see them while we talk.

When our son Ben gets home from his holidays, the first thing he always does, is play his piano. And last week was no exception. Within a couple of hours of getting home, he had put two new songs on Facebook. They are not his, so he was singing to backing tracks, but I really liked both of them. They are both from a little known musical called Dear Evan Hansen. They were new to me, and I particularly liked the one called 'Forever'. Unfortunately he only put them on Facebook so I am not sure I can share them, but if you are a Facebook user, you could try this link. I'd be interested to know whether this works for any of you.

And now, as usual I am rushing off to choir practice. There is only one more week before we stop for the summer, so I am hoping I can remember all those words this week. I will link up with Rocking Your World, and Annie's Friday Smiles, and I'll be back later to see everyone else's happy moments.