Friday Smiles 2022: Week 52

So; here we are at the end of another year. It is fair to say it has been a bit of a roller-coaster for most of us, but it is good that we are still all here and smiling at the end of it.

We have had a peaceful week as Christmas is traditionally fairly quiet here as our Spanish neighbours gear up for the arrival of the Three Kings on 6th January.

Christmas morning was the start of a warm and sunny day, one of the best we have had, so we went into the yard at the back of the house to take our traditional selfie that I use to send greetings to family and friends near and far.

I made a traditional roast beef dinner which is a real treat for us. Although I do a 'Sunday roast' every week, it is rarely with beef which is in relative short supply here - there is little grazing so we don't see cows in our area. I was quite proud of the Yorkshire puddings I made which tried to grow out of the oven! We were able to eat our meal out in the fly-free porch too which was an added blessing.

We managed to have video chats with all our boys so it was good to see them all enjoying time with their families.

Of course Boxing day is a very British tradition and is not celebrated here so it was back to normal in the village on Monday, though some shops only opened for half a day to compensate for Christmas day being a Sunday. We stayed at home, and with it being another lovely day we sat out on the porch all afternoon. I had sent for a kit online to make three macrame Christmas trees. It is years since I did this craft and I fancied having another go. The kit came with instructions that were little help as the print needed a magnifying glass to read it, and the pictures showed a tree being made in very dark green rope so the stitches couldn't be seen. Luckily I searched on youtube and found a video for making a very similar one, so after a few rocky starts and a lot of untying, my first tree was made. Making the other two was relatively straight forward and now they are hanging by our chimney.

I hope you all had some lovely presents for Christmas. The one I love is this huge red Oodie. It may not be the most flattering garment but it is so soft and warm, and is big enough to slip over whatever I am wearing. You may think that is a bit over the top for someone living in Spain, but no matter what the day is like outside, our house is cold, especially first thing in the morning, and particularly in the kitchen. We have no heating until we put the fire on in the sitting room at night, so now I slip into my oodie and curl up to enjoy my first cuppa and some breakfast feeling cosy and warm. The hardest part is persuading myself to take it off again!

And on the subject of clothing, these socks caused some merriment.  I have quite a lot of diabetic neoropathy in my legs, especially the right one so compression socks are quite helpful. These new ones are the most comfortable I have had, but oooh.. the fun we had getting them on! I needed the help of Chris's hands which while not as strong as they used to be, are a lot stronger than mine. Once on, the socks stayed put all day and then we had another pantomime to get them off! It was worth it though for the relief they gave me.

Last night we went outside to change the gas bottle  for the fire when it ran out.  For safety reasons the bottles are usually housed in a small covered cubby hole outside, and the one for the fire is under the sitting room window. As we passed the little garden area in the front corner of the yard, I could smell a rose. So using the flash on my phone camera I took this picture. I have often quoted a verse from my mum's Patience Strong calendar which says "God gave us our memories that we might have roses in December". Well out here we don't need our memories for that. We have several roses in bloom, and although the flowers are not as big and showy as the summer ones, they are still beautiful and fill the night air with their scent.

We are particularly grateful this week to our insurance agent. He lives a couple of doors up from us and his ofice is a wee bit further on, so he knows us by sight, but apart from taking out car and house policies with him, we have not had much dealings with him. But when we went back and explained that the damage to our car was more than we had at first thought, he followed us to the work shop in Vera, helped us to explain the problem and then drove us home. Yesterday the garage phoned but we had difficulty understanding what they were saying, so again Nicolas telephoned them and translated for us. When it turned out that their 'expert' had seen the car and felt it was safe to drive so we could collect it to use, and he would have it back to repair straight after the Three Kings fiesta, Nocloas drove Chris over again to collect it. He really did go beyond the call of duty and we were very grateful to him. It is good to know there are some really helpful people around us when we need them.

I finally I have something very exciting to share. Tolly is going to have a little playmate. Tolly is big and strong but at two years old he is still a kitten really. He wants to play and poor Tango is old and just wants to be left in peace. So somehow I have persuaded Chris to let me have my final dream of a cat. Meet Leonardo (he will be known as Leo). He is a Maine Coon kitten, and will be joining us at the end of January. I think they could be a well matched pair.

And on that happy note I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and wish you all a Happy and Healthy 2023. Keep Smiling!

Friday Smiles 2022: Week 51

It is Friday again and our penultimate chance to post what has made us smile in 2022. I am starting this week with the little trip we had last Thursday night, after I had finished writing the next day's post. We went to Vera, I guess that is our nearest 'proper' town, to see the lights and the model of Bethlehem that is installed every year.

We parked on the edge of the town and walked up to the market area passing under this fun archway.

It was just dusk as neither of us really choose to drive after dark so we wanted to leave as soon as the lights were switched on.

We came to the big plaza outside the church which we knew would be lit up later, but for a while we just enjoyed being 'tourists' looking in shop windws, and posing between these two Nutcracker characters that guarded the entrance to the Town Hall.

These big bells were fun above the Social Services office.

In the centre of the plaza there was a flower bed absolutely crammed with bright red poinsettias. We think they were each in a pot making them easier to arrange and to remove the odd one that succumbs to the cold wind.

Just around the corner is what used to be a convent, and is now used as a concert hall, art gallery etc. (It is called the Convento). Every Christmas a man from Vera and his son, build a huge model of Bethlehem, or El Belén as it is known. This is the first year we have managed to visit it and we were both very impressed. The detail, and the work that went into it is truly amazing. It stretched the whole width of the room, and was lit from above with lights that gradually changed to denote the passing hours of the day. It also extended quite a way back so you could peer through arches and see the rocks and hills behind. I took so many photos, none of which really do it justice, and I couldn't show them all here, so in the end I used Photoshop to design a scrapbook page of our visit and here it is. (I will add a few embellishments, stars, bells etc before I print it for my album). I hope you can click on it to enlarge it and see some of the detail in each area.

After that we retuened to the plaza where the lights were now on. Huge chandeliers of golden lights hung from wires, and we became tourists again, posing inside a big lighted star and bell.

As we walked back to the car we saw another fun archway and a succession of lights across the road beyond it, and round the corner, a different design of lights were shining.

We even managed to get home before the sky was really dark.

On Friday lunch time we went for our usual Fish and Chip lunch at the local camp-site, and as we got out of the car I spotted this patch of rainbow lights in the clouds. Known as cloud iridescence, it is formed when there are rain drops or ice crystals in the clouds. It was very pretty.

On Saturday I drove down to Mojacar to join a group from my church and our sister church in Mojacar to sing carols in the 'Parque Commercial'. The Parque is one big supermarket and quite a few small lock-up businesses. It is mostly undercover but in the centre there is a large open air plaza with cafés all around it. We go there to sing every year, but this year we went to the front end so for once we didn't have the sun in our eyes. There are always lots of folk having coffee and snacks there and they were very appreciative, and gave generously to our charity collection.

Sunday passed in its usual way. Church in the morning, roast dinner, an afternoon doze, and TV in the evening. Then came Monday.

On Monday I decided to pick the oranges. They grow on trees next door, but the ones that hang right over onto our land, are legally ours to pick. The trees run the length of the pool yard, and soon I had filled two crates. Usually I juice some once or twice a week until they are gone. (I would do it every day but as a diabetic I am suposed to be careful how much juice I drink as it takes about three oranges to make one glass of juice!). 

Anyway, with two full crates I should have been satisfied with my harvest, but No. I had to have the one big one that hung high, just out of my reach. So I placed a brick to stand on and reached for the orange, but I didn't see that it was cracked underneath and it gave way, tipping me straight back onto the tiles, on the back of my head. We do tend to fall a bit hard at my age, so I stayed where I was for a few minutes to collect myself and see what damage I might have done. I soon discovered that my head was bleeding quite a lot, as heads do, but fortunately Chris came out at that moment and helped me up. I was not seriously hurt but because my head was still bleeding he said he would drive me round to the medical centre to have it checked out. The bleeding soon stopped and I have a feeling in UK I would have been given a quick drop of 'super glue' a paracetamol and been told to take it easy for the day. However this is Spain. So I have a small bald spot shaved on the top of my head, then a big pad of gauze was applied, which was held in place with several wraps of wide crepe bandage, and then a tube of stretchy gauze was pulled over it all. I just needed a sprig of holly on the top to look like a Christmas pudding! 

I then had to see the doctor who prescribed paracetamol, in a stronger dose than I can buy  over the counter, and was told I could take my 'hat' off the next day. Needless to say, as soon as I leaned back in a chair, it started to ride up and by the afternoon it was off. The next morning I got under the shower and very gently washed the copious congealed blood out of my hair and, apart from a few aches and bruises,  I am fine again. And yes, I am smiling: smiling and counting my blessings as I could very easily be in a hospital bed with a broken hip. Our tiled floors are very unforgiving. So what are a few aches and pains compared to Christmas in hospital?

What I am not quite so happy about is that while I was being attended to, a lady drove passed the medical centre in a carefree manner and scraped all along the side of our car which was parked there! We thought it was only a scratch but above the wheel it was deep enough to make it worth having it seen to at the body shop, before it rusts. Fortunately the lady uses the same insurers as us, and a nearby shop holder took some photos for us, so it will be dealt with in the new year at her expense. But yesterday, when I went shopping, I stopped on the way home to fill up with diesel, and when the tank was almost full, it started to leak out making a big puddle on the garage floor, so obviously she has also cracked the top of the tank or the pipe that fills it. So now it will be at the workshop for longer but we are hoping to have a courtesy car while the work is being done. Again, there is always a silver lining, and at least no-one was hurt.

On Tuesday we had a little walk around the village to hand deliver a few cards, and called in at the market. As we passed the Town Hall we stopped to look at a new building that is almost finished now, to house the local police headquarters at the front, and a new library behind it. But for this month, the library has our own village Belén display. We have not had one before, but a small group of ladies from the community have built this and it is very fine. It will probably be added to each year. The shops are full of the characters and animals each December, and many people have quite a big display on their own porch. They always do have a stable/Nativity scene somewhere, but also show the life of the community.

I treated myself to an early Christmas present this week. When I stayed with my son back last spring, I was given their main bedroom to sleep in, and next to the bed there was a little box that played the sounds of the sea to lull you to sleep. I had it on every night, and decided to look for one. It turns out they are called white-noise machines and are quite common. Years ago when I was complaining to my doctor about my tinnitus, he told me to go to sleep listening to white-noise but I hadn't realised that they make machines for this. Because I wan't sure it was what I wanted I ordered one of the cheapest and I am pleasantly surprised. It is sold as an aid to train babies to go to sleep at regular times, but suggests it is also suitable for adults, meditating, doing yoga or as a sleep aid. Anyway with a dimmable night-light, a wide choice of noises, including the ocean, a timer and easy to use buttons, I am very pleased with it.

Chris gave me a funny look when I dashed out with my phone on  Wednesday night, so I told him there was a 'very photographable' sunset, which would be gone in minutes. Sure enough it was, but not before I had time to catch these two shots.

Sorry this is such a long post again. I had so many photo to share, and I sure can talk when I get I started. But I promise you my posts will be 'short and sweet' again next year.

Now I shall link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and with this not too good selfie of Chris and I inside the Vera bell, I wish you all a Happy Christmas, and hopefully a New Year that is Healthy and Peaceful.  x