Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 13

Here we are again at week 13, a quarter of the way through the year. Can you believe that! On Sunday the clocks spring forward an hour, and the mornings will be lighter, though we have woken up to bright sun for a couple of days now.

But it hasn't been all sunshaine this week. It has been extremely windy, and still is despite the sun, and we even had one day of rain. It was not enough but still very welcome. I have just read on Facebook that the wind has brought a big tree down on a very busy roundabout in Vera, and we are on yellow alert for high winds and dangerous waves on the coast. Yesterday I came home from my sewing group to find one side of my sheet had lost its pegs and was streaming out over next door's garden like a huge flag. I managed to wrestle it in without dragging it on the ground, and it was at least dry, along with the rest of the washing which was all tangled round the line!

The rain started in the evening and the cats were not a bit impressed, so they all came in and climbed on me. I had little Luna on my lap which is a rare occurance, but she does come in a bit more now we no longer have a dog. Tango sat next me, wondering why there was an interloper on 'his' lap. (He has a black mark on his face because he sat under a car!) Tolly was asleep next to me, quite uninterested in what anyone else was doing, and Leo took his usual spot near the top of his climbing tower, and watched us all with interest. Needless to say I didn't get much crochet nor anything else done that night.

Sunday was Palm Sunday and our little church gathered outside for the Liturgy of the Palms. We were ably led by our locum priest Father Dennis, and my dear friend Margie as his assistant. After the palms were blessed David hurried in to play the organ and we processed back inside while singing "All glory, laud and honour, to Thee Redeemer King". We are only a small gathering but we make a good noise when we sing.

Today there was an Easter Market at the camp site near here, and we went along as I knew the lady I buy clothes from would be there. She had a lot of end of season sale items, so I treated myself to some new tops. The weather is so changeable and I am finding I need some lighter clothes. Usually I go from winter trousers and warm jumpers, straight into summer dresses, but this year I am still in light weight trousers so I needed a few lighter weight tops to go with them. I ended up with a loose knit, short-sleeved blue one, and a very light thin wollen long sleeved blue one, a white thin jumper with gold stars on the front, a cerise thin long sleeved tee-shirt, (I find them so comfortable). And from the new summer stock I bought a very loose, cheese-cloth top that will be great for covering up in the sun, when summer comes. Because of the wind we didn't hang around for long. All the stall keepers were struggling to hold on to their wares, so I think it probably closed early any way.

When I got home I did my traditional Easter bake session to make hot-cross buns. In the end I decided to do something a bit different so I made just two buns for our Friday breakfast, and the rest of the dough made a 'hot-cross bun-loaf'. It will be much easier to toast and that's how we both like it. I also didn't put the ususal sugar glaze on them. It makes them very sticky, and I really don't need any extra sugar. I also made a loaf of bread using white flour with just a little oatmeal and oat bran added.

I am sure you are all aware of the store IKEA so famous for its flat-packed furniture, so I hope you will be amused as I was by this picture I saw earlier in the  week.

And now I wish you all every blessing for Easter time. I hope you all enjoy the weekend with family or friends, or just doing what whatever makes you happy. 

So now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles over on her blog.

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.