Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 10

Today is known in this area as Día de Vieja, or Day of the Old, when families go to somewhere out in the fresh air for a family picnic. Some say this originated from the time when all villagers worked for the monastry and the monks realised that fasting for the whole of Lent meant that they could not work well, so they designated this day (Lent break) when everyone could eat what they wanted and renew their strength to work until Easter. It is also the day when the children make or buy 'puppets' of old women, and occasionally men, built around a wooden cross with tissue paper clothes, and a head like a piñata which contains sweets or small toys. After their picnic, the puppets are stood in the ground and the children throw stones at them or use sticks to beat them until they break and their treasures can be retrieved. Here are some children about to have some fun!

There has been a big building project ongoing in Mojacar for the past year. It includes a new bus station with seating and shaded waiting areas, and also a new medical centre which is much more accessible than the old one, and convenient for those who travel to it by bus. It is built adjacent to the main road between Mojacar Playa and pueblo, and on the road side it presents as a very large plain concrete wall. As the work is nearing completion, the Town Council employed an artist called Nicolas Rodriguez, who together with his wife, a photographer called María Angeles "Maki" Fernández, created a huge mural to disguise the wall. They collaborate together under the name Makinico. 

We drove passed to see it today but because the road is very busy it was not possible to park to take photos, so these came from articles about it on the internet. The mural is in setions, the first one depicting  two Mojaquares (or woman of Mojacar) as they would have been many years ago when they fetched water from the town fuente in pitchers which they carried on their heads.

This moves into a stylized picture of the pueblo, famous for all its white buildings, and then a more realistic picture of it. The town council wanted this as they felt the full view of the village was hidden by the mountains for people approaching it from the beach.

Slightly set back from this some more white buidings lead onto a stretch of the beach, and the final piece has the town name in large white letters, with the 'O' carrying the symbol of Mojacar, 'the Indalo Man'.

I hope these show you how they each run into the next one to form a huge display. It is a very impressive piece of work, and a vast improvement on a plain concrete wall.

We have been warned of a sharp drop in temperature from this afternoon, and possibly a little of the much needed rain, but this week has been mainly warm and sunny during the day and my garden is loving it. It is mostly red and pink right now, with the poinsettia continuing to turn colour, a geranium that has had head after head of flowers, a kalenchoe that was almost dead, and is now full of flowers, and my first fresias opening up today.

Over on the wall our jasmin continues to thrive. There are still some buds though it is hard to see where any more flowers can fit in. It has been in danger of collapsing with the high winds we have had, but so far it has survived, and once the flowers die off, we will prune it back hard for next year. Everyone who passes by, comments on its lovely perfume. It is particularly strong in the evenings.

And I am really pleased with this little suculent plant. I bought it last year when the flowering plants were almost over, and it has lasted through the winter and now has its new spring colours. It is as pretty as any flowering plant. It was quite large when I bought it so I split it in half. The other piece is also doing well but is less colourful, and I have just read on the internet that it like full sun as long as it is not hot enough to scortch it, so I think it is too shady where I planted the second half. Its name is Crassula Ovata but is also know as the Jade plant, and sometimes the Money plant. It is a good one for the garden now as it only requires a drop of water when the soil is dried out.

I have been busy in my craft room making a run of Christmas cards. I started by making a stencil of a starry background with mylar film that I cut with my Silhouette Cameo machine,and then I used sections of it to add some colour to the corners of my cards. Next I cut out elements using vinyl and weeded out all the unwanted bits. I am good at losing these when I cut a lot so I have them all safely in a tin until I find the time to get them all assembled. I can't show the finished card yet as it will used for my monthly Christmas card challenge on 25th.

Apart from that, I have spent the evenings crocheting or chatting to one or other of my boys and my sister on the internet, and the week seems to have flow by. So now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles.

Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 9

Well the forecasters were right and we did have a significant drop in temperature this week, but in sheltered areas the sun still meant it was often warmer outside than in the house.  But the main downside has been the wind, so fierce that some days it was safer to stay indoors. The garden is full of dead bracts from the bougainvillea, even though Chris has been out several times to sweep them up, and the covers blew off the barbeque and cane furniture. But there has been no major damage for us.

We had to go down to Garruchs on Tuesday. It was a lovely sunny morning but only a few folk had ventured out. I took these photos looking across the main road at the barge moored at the port for loading, while I waited for Chris to come along to collect me, but looking at these tranquil scenes you would never know that it was blowing so hard I could hardly stay on my feet. Only the swaying palm trees give any indication of how rough it was.

On Tuesday night I put the sheets in the washing machine over night so I could peg them out on the line before I went to sewing group. I put several extra pegs in each piece and they did hold, but the sheets were billowing out like giant sails. Of course they dried well and by lunch time I was able to take them in again. I have nowhere indoors to dry washing exctept on an airer by the fire in the evening, so I am always happy to get it dry outside.

The wierd weather has given us some stormy skies but the dark clouds brought little rainfall that had no impact on the water shortage here. This was the sky at teatime on Tuesday.

Wednesday was Día de Andalucía which is a very important celebration for the local folk.  It does involve sitting in a marquee listening to several long speeches by the mayor and other officials, so we decided to give it a miss this year. It is followed by a communal lunch of cold meats, cheeses, bread and raw broad beans! Then there is music and dancing that continues through the evening until midnight. 

I went to my usual sewing group in the morning but when I heard the music in the afternoon I decided to walk across to the marquee to stretch my legs. Sadly most of the green and white bunting had blown down and was tangled around lamp posts etc. 

But they did manage to raise the Andalucian flag on the plazza and that was fluttering somewhat madly. 

The marquee was full of people chatting and enjoying the music, and out on the car park they managed to secure a large bouncy castle securely as well as having several 'fair-ground' style stalls selling sweets and toys for the children. It was too windy to make walking around very pleasant, so I soon returned home.

Our little tree is dripping with lemons and the new blossom is starting to appear on it, so I thought I should use some of them. So on Saturday I had a baking session making a lemon meringue pie, some little lemon shortbread bites, and two jars of lemon curd.

Today I had another session in the kitchen and was quite pleased with my multi-tasking. By lunch time I had cooked chicken thighs in the instant pot, made puff pastry chicken slices with half of it, and frozen the rest for another day. I also made a loaf of bread, a lemon curd and raisin slice, a lemon drizzle cake, (it is dark because my recipe uses dark brown sugar), and several jars of lemon marmalade.

I did promise to show the project I was working on with the laser cutter my friend has loaned me, so here it is. I have said in a previous post that my son Ben has started his own business and has organised a new studio at home for playing and recording his music, so I made him this wall plaque. His new biusiness is called 'Totally sound', and this is the font he has used on his information cards etc.

For the photo I used one he had sent me a few weeks ago which I made into a black and white sketch in gimp, and then engraved onto the base wood. If you are interested is knowing more about how it was done, there is a detailed write up on my craft blog which you can find HERE. (Apologies to those who have already seen this on Facebook). 

I only posted this to Ben last Friday so I was really surprised to hear it had arrive on Tuesday! Of course Ben loves it as I knew he would.

We are supposed to only take rubbish out to the big bins on the street after 7.00 but last night I went just before that as the sun was setting. The light was catching some of the mountain peaks at the bottom of the village making lovely light and shadow patterns. So I hurried back to grab my phone but by the time I got out again it had faded, but I still managed to take this shot. 

Back at home, out the other side of the house this rather dramatic sky was rapidly fading too.

So now it is time to link up with Annie at her blog, here.