Friday Smiles 2023: Week 10

I am feeling happy this week because we have had a small taste of summer. This is one of my favourite times of year, when we shed some of the Winter layers of clothes and we can spend time sitting out on the porch, listening to the birds, reading, relaxing etc, and all that before it gets too hot, and we retreat inside again to find some shade. Some days temperatures  have reached into the upper twenties mid-afternoon, as we sit reading on Facebook etc about the snow back in our home town. What a strange world we live in. Everything seems so jumbled up. It is still chilly at night so the fire goes on after tea and we have even put an extra blanket on the bed! but daytimes have been lovely.

In an effort to get more control over my health issues I am trying to take a walk every day. One day I walked for over an hour around the village and through some of the back streets that I rarely visit. Today I was standing in the kitchen making one last lot of marmalade all morning, so I just did a "round the block" sort of walk. While out, one thing I did notice was that the Town Hall has had a lick of paint and is looking very smart. I smiled at the heart shaped STOP sign by the door which I think is there from International Women's Day earlier, and is saying 'put a stop to violence against women'.

The new building just to the left of the Town hall is the new Local Police station in the front, and a Library at  the back. This building was officially opened just a few weeks ago.

On Monday we both did a somewhat longer walk. We were up early to take our car to the garage in Vera for its repairs. We did the paper work and left there around 9.30, but unfortunately the only available bus was not until 1.00. (There are just two or three buses a day between Los Gallardos and the coast, and they are not at the most convenient times). Also we could drive to Vera in fifteen minutes but the bus takes forty-five minutes because it does a somewhat circuitous route. We could have forked out for a taxi but they are expensive here and as it was a nice day we decided to wander through the town, and see parts we would not normally see.  Vera is a very sprawling town. There is no departmental store, (only the larger cities have one of these), so it is mostly small independent shops which can be pricey, and we would not normally go to them as we wouldn't know where to find anything specific. But it was nice to browse. I found a very good wholefood/health shop where I got a couple of items that have been on my list for a while.

We stopped for a drink at a nice Hotel Café, and when we left there we turned a corner and found two things that caught my eye. It was a small triangle between streets with a strange mix of ancient and modern buildings around it, and in the centre  was this fairly ornate fountain which surprised me as it was in a place that didn't get much passing trafiic or foot-fall, but it would be a refreshing oasis on a hot day.

And secondly I spotted this little tree in a pot and the whole surface below it was covered in bright coloured petunias. Even for Spain it is very early in the year for such flowers, but they seemed very happy there and made a lovely splash of colour.

We walked further on and came to a wide space between rows of modern apartments. There was a brightly coloured children's play area, that looked as though it was being refurbished ready for the summer months. Next to that was a long clean fountain. Nothing ancient about this one, but I like to hear the sound of moving water. The trees around it all had brightly coloured bases and there were several seats so I can imaging folk come out of the flats in the warm evenings and sitting there to chat with frinds while their children play. 

But what really caught my eye was several wall paintings, very tastefully done, and they had a feeling of tranquility about them. The place was called Los Lavenderas, which means The Washerwomen, and that is what the paintings depict. The women would fill their pitchers from the fountain and wash their clothes there.

Immediately across the road was the fountain in question. Every town has a fuente, and at one time it was the main source of water for the inhabitants. Many still have drinking water and are used regularly, though I am not sure how clean the water from this one is. Our mains water is not recommended for drinking so a big steel tanker lorry comes round several times a week to fill up the water bottles folk leave by their gates. I find the water bottles very difficult to handle so I am grateful that we had the opportunity to fit a special filter in the kitchen so I have one tap that provides drinking water.

In Vera the fountain is four small pipes coming from low down on a wall. It then travels through a channel across the front of the building (Now the museum of water), and all around a small semicircular patio, and on under ground.

On the front of this building is this rather handsome stone plaque. The inscription below it reads, "The cattle market of La Chica towards the end of the nineteeth century: Current four spout fountain".

A bit further on we saw one more wall painting that I liked. It very clearly is depicting the danger to wild life of dropping cigarette ends and broken glass, or leaving bags of rubbish piled up.

We got to the bus station with just half an hour to wait, so a cup of coffee filled the time, and soon we were trundling home, a bit weary but having passed a very pleasant day.

The warm weather is bringing out all the spring wild flowers and our next door garden is again covered in the bright yellow oxalis that sprout up everywhere there is a patch of unturned earth. They are not my favourite shade of yellow but they do brighten up the hedgerows and verges.

And finally, even in the colder months, Kim drinks a lot of water, so we are constantly filling up his bowl. But one day we forgot to do this. I caught him looking rather mournfully at me, so I realised he was thirsty but when I went to collect his bowl, I found it had a new tenant!

Needless to say he didn't stay to get a soaking. He'll learn!

You may remeber some while back I bought a 'flapping fish for Tolly to play with, but he was scared of it and wouldn't touch it. Well I found it this week and charged up its batteries and Leo loves it! It kept him happy for ages. I guess cats are as different from one another as we are. I don't think Leo will be afraid of very much at all!

And on that note I will get ready to pubish this on Annie's blog in the morning.

Friday Smiles 2023: Week 9

As promissed last week, I have made a collage of some of the carnival photos. In fact I have made them into a scrapbook layout. It is quite 'busy' but so was the event, and it reflects the fun that was had by all despite the cold and rain.

I have had another busy week despite not knowing that I have done anything very special. On Tuesday it was Día de Andalucía, which is a very special day for the Spanish folk in the village. It is a Red day, which is a national Bank Holiday so all the shops were shut and it was cold enough to be a stay-at-home day for us. The celebrations have a very set routine here and as we have seen it several times, we decided it was better for our arthritic bones to stay in the warm, rather than stand on a chilly plaza outside the theatre for a couple of hours. There is a long speech by the mayor which we cannot understand much of, and then the ceremonial raising of the Andalucian flag while the band plays the "Hymn of Andalucía". Although we did not go over to the plaza to watch this, we could hear the music quite plainly from our porch. You can see in the photo (from the Town Hall web site) that the sky was bright blue but it was very windy and that wind could cut through whatever clothes you were wearing!

A friend at church gave me some lovely pink grapefruit. Most of them went into some marmalade. I love the flavour of grapefruit marmalade but it doesn't set quite as well as the orange one does. Of course, being pink inside, they made a lovely colour marmalade.

I took Leo to the vet mainly to get his chip reregistered in our province, but he had a good check-up while we were there. I was telling the vet that his only vice was his insitance on suckling on my clothes and I am trying to teach him that this isn't OK. It makes the material very stiff and worn, so she suggested giving him a teddy bear. I had a little one at  home so every time he tried to suck on me I put the teddy in the way and he soon took to it. It is now a very 'soggy' bear but my clothes are a lot better!

We have had the plumber here today fitting a new water pipe from our gate up to the kitchen. It is a good job done. We have had emergency repairs done under our insurance, three times now in as many years, but it was old and needed to be replaced, so hopefully there will be no more leaks now.

I have been very careful about what I eat this week as my sugar levels were much too high. So I have been testing before and after every meal. It is a bit better but not low enough, so I will try for a few more days and after that I will have to go to the doctor and I know he will put me on insulin which I had been hoping to avoid. I know I need to walk more so this morning I did a little walk around the village. I stopped at the slip road along the front to see what the workmen were doing. It is not very clear in these photos but they have removed some very broken, tatty looking kerb stones between the slip road and the main highway, and have built a long narrow walled  barrier instead. It was built around the tall pine trees that were already there, and eventually I think it will have some lights and more plants. 

They have also  built a mini roundabout at the bottom of our road which will make entering and leaving the village much safer. And now they have prepared the bottom section of road ready for tarmac. It is all looking very nice and a huge improvement on what we had before.

Again it was a lovely sunny day but I wrapped up well for my walk as the wind was bitingly cold.  I had to stop and take a photo of the clouds. They looked so pretty today.

While talking to my sister last night I learned that our sister-in-law has been very poorly in hospital since Christmas and is now in a nursing home. I keep in touch with her a few times a year but she is in her late eighties so she doesn't check for messages or post on Facebook like she used to. So this morning I made her a Springtime card with daffodils on it, and finished just in time to pop it in the post. Our PO only opens from 1.00 - 2.00 on weekdays, so it pays not to miss it if you want something to travel fast.

While we were shopping I bought this little pot of violas. Just look at those dear little faces. I couldn't resist. Hopefully I will get around to planting them in the garage wndowboxes, (on our front porch) over the weekend.

Tomorrow we have to go to do food shopping. Our car is finally going in to be repaired after a lady hit it while we were parked outside the medical centre just after Christmas. It needs a new wing and a new petrol tank or a repair to the existing one. So with no public transport in our village we will be stuck for however long the garage takes to do the repair, so we are stocking up tomorrow.

And now I am ready to link up with Annies Smiles before I go shopping tomorrow.