Friday Smiles 2024# Week 12

It is the end of another lovely week with a feel of a mild summer to it. I would be happy for weather like this all year round. I have even shed some of my winter clothes and am only wearing a tee-shirt over thin trousers this week. (That doesn't leave much to take off when the real summer arrives!!) We have had a few drops of rain this week but are hoping for more next week. The time for rain will soon be gone and everywhere is so dry.

But we took advantage of the sun to go for a walk. I had to miss my sewing group again this week as Chris had a doctor's appointment and I go with him to translate. But we were only there for a few minutes so I suggested we should go for a short drive to the coast for some exercise. We decided to go to Villaricos, a few miles along the coast towards Murcia. We lived near there when we first arrived in Spain and used to like walking along the sea-front there. It has been massively modernised since then, and now has a long brick-paved promenade, with plenty of stone benches for resting and admiring the view. There are a lot of rocks emerging from the water which means there is a gentle background nose of waves breaking around them, which I really love. This is the view as we walked down the steep path from the main road where we parked the car.

It is always quite peaceful there, and yesterday there was hardly a soul about. We stopped at one of the benches to take selfie.

On one side of us was a rocky bay...

...and on the other were the newer built apartments with the mountains as a backdrop.

The wild flowers are beginning to open everywhere like these pretty pink trumpets, like a small ground-cover convolvulous, (the large white trumpet flower that is the bane of English gardeners life). Soon these will cover wide areas of campo land. 

Then there is the oxalis. Although this is a rather hard, acidic yellow, it grows so profusely, and makes such large areas of vivid colour, that you can't help liking it. And the individual flowers are so pretty.

We also saw this enormous cacti 'tree'. Its top had been full of flowers which were now small baby plants that usually fall and die, though some will stay and make even more branches for next year. They always amaze me as the 'trunk' is often a fairly slender single stem, and you wonder how it can hold when the high winds come.

We eventually turned inland and wandered up through the little village, which again was very quiet with many of the shops closed. This used to be a mining town for tin but the mine buildings are all in ruins now. A few years ago I was told that many of the inhabitants have small, simple dwellings near the agricultural sites where  they work, and only return to Villaricos for the weekends, which may explain why so many shops were closed. It does have a big, street market every Sunday, and is a busy little place during the summer months.

At the top of the village we passed the church which had attractive tile inserts on either side of the door. It was a pleasant walk and I doubled my usual step count for the day, so that was good too.

This is the strawberry season in Spain and there are plenty to be bought in the market. They are around 4.50€ per kilo at the minute which is quite good, and about the same as they were last year. But this week I saw one stall that had a separate tray of them marked at 3.50€ per kilo and 3€ for 2 kilo. I thought they were just trying to get shot of last week's supply but they weren't over-ripe, just fairly small and some were a bit misshapen, so I bought 2 kilos and that afternoon I prepared them all. There was no waste at all.

I removed all the flower tops and weighed the fruit as I went, keeping back a few of the best ones for us to eat. Then I set about making jam with the rest, using lemons picked straight from our tree to help it gel.

Soon I had eight jars of ruby red jam. It set way better than my strawberry jam usually does, and this is more than enough for us to use throughout the year. I no longer make jam to sell, but this is the one that we both like and I do use it regularly. Mainly for Chris of course because of my diabetes, though I do allow myself a little bit occasionally.

Apart from that I have been busy making more Christmas cards, and planning other papercraft project.

I have spent a long time on the internet chatting with Ben. We always find plenty to talk about.

I have also tried several cooking experiments with my new Ninja and I am very pleased with the results so far. I have ordered a recipe book that is supposed to take you step by step through some basic ideas so I have high hopes for that. The book which came with it has several recipes for fancy meals but little information on how to cook the simple every day things, so it has been a bit of trial and error, but there have been no major failures.

So now it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and see your happy moments from the past week.

Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 11

Well here we are again at the end of another week. We have enjoyed some lovely sunny days so I am starting with another photo of the garden flowers. The little winter violas that I planted months ago, are still flowering and looking so sweet, and they have a surprisingly strong perfume. Of course the fresias in the pot next to them also smell lovely so I have a fragrant garden. The jasmine is over on the front wall and these two sit near the front door, so I can enjoy their lovely perfumes  every time I go out, or open the window.

Chris gave each pot a gentle water using a can this morning. They are used to me waving a hose around out there, but we cannot be seen to be so wasteful right now, so we give them just enough to stay alive. We did have a very little bit of rain here this week. Saturday was quite wet, but there was more just up in the hills which has helped to raise the level in the reservoirs a little, and they are hoping that when the snow melts at the top of the mountains, more will flow down to us. But in the meantime, we have to be careful.

I am very lucky to have a new 'toy' to play with in the kitchen. I know I am a sucker for kitchen gadgets. I buy anything that I think will make life easier for me and assist my weak hands, but I found I had far too many appliances taking up space, so I have replaced them with one that should do everything that they do, and some more. So here is my Ninja. 

It has a lot of accessories, but I needed them to be the right size to fit in the pot comfortably. I can now use it as an electric pressure cooker, an airfryer, a steamer, a dehydrater and yoghurt maker. It will prove and bake bread, make cakes and roast a whole chicken, and although the timing for each is much the same as the main oven, (except for the pressure cooker of course), it takes far less power, and does not make my kitchen so hot.

There is a lot to learn before I can realise its full potential, but I have started practising. Yesterday I cooked individual meat pies in it, and today I made a chicken satay for dinner, and then made a batch of cupcakes, and a loaf of bread. My cupcake tray has small, deep holes, so the cakes are a bit oddly shaped, but they will have some lemon curd put in the middle and I am sure they will taste fine. Hopefully the next batch will turn out more even.

I had fun one afternoon when I went to put away a little pot of glitter glue. I pulled the drawer just too far and the whole lot spilled all over the floor. I hadn't realised how many glitter glues and pearl drops I had accumulated! So I spent a couple of hours collecting them all up, sorting them into colours, and trying each one out. I threw away any that had dried up and now have a neatly arranged selection that I know are working and a test sheet to show how they look. Now to keep it that way...!

We have had a busy time with hospital appointments this week. On Monday Chris had his first treatment for macula degeneration, which went smoothly and wasn't too traumatic for him.  And yesterday I had a follow-up to my hand biopsy, and they have decided to remove some of the troublesome tissue from around the scar. I have to wait for them to ring me with an appointment now, but it will only be a quick trip to the day surgery unit. It will be good to get it sorted.

Yesterday I walked up to the farmacia to collect my prescription and I saw two swallow-tail butterfies having a great time flitting from flower to flower on a lantana shrub. Needless to say they weren't stopping to pose for me so I grabbed what I could and managed these two. It was like being out on a summer's day in England.

I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Ben last night, helping make a few tweaks to his webpage, and it is now up and running. He has worked hard on it so I hope it generates some work for him.

And with that, I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and do my best to visit you all.