or guessing which is which!
Today we fulfilled our promise and took Jonathan up to the Sierra Nevada to see the snow. It was another beautiful day so the scenery was stunning. It wasn't even that cold and we didn't need our coats. It takes a couple of hours to get up there, and all the way the road is flanked by mountains, some with snow on and some without, but all looking very beautiful. There is only one winter sports resort on the Nevada and the parking was pretty full, but we waited around and in the end we found a slot. The resort was busy and there was a great atmosphere up there. The was a lot of colour and people who had come off the slopes were sitting at the tables all across the square, eating, drinking or ju
st relaxing after their
exercise in the snow. We took loads of photos, so some of them will be on my gallery. On the way down we stopped at a few view points. We came back by a different route, driving straight down to the coast at Motril and driving back all along the motorway which runs right by the sea. It was another new road for us with lovely scenery. I didn't fancy cooking when we got back, so we detoured to San Juan and had a nice meal there. We'll be having a quiet day tomorrow, just a quick trip to check the mail box and pick up a few bits from the supermarket and then we can relax. This will be my last blog for a few days, but I expect I'll be back on Boxing Day. 
Today we experienced a truly Spanish occasion - harvesting the olives. Chris' sister Mary and her husband Bill own a 'cortijo' on the edge of the little mountain village of Velez Blanco. It has a lot of land which is planted with many different kinds of fruit trees and around seventy olive trees, and now is the time to pick the olives. So we went to visit for the day and lend our hands to the picking at the same time. It was a beautiful day and although we were at quite a high altitude, it was still really warm, and we soon shed the extra layers of clothes we had worn. We had thought that the idea was to shake the trees but olives are more tenacious than that, and shaking doesn't shift them. What you do is spread wide nets over all the ground under the trees. Then you have a long pole with a sort of plastic rake on it, and you rake it through the branches. The leaves slide through the tines and the olives are pulled off to collect in the nets. I raked the lower branches and Chris the higher ones. Bill went up a ladder to do the outside branches and Jonathan, who is still at home in a tree, climbed up the middle to clear the centre ones. When the tree was empty we sorted through the olives to remove the twigs and leave
s and then they were put into crates and sacks ready to go to the press. Apparently the olive press opens on the first day of December and accepts olives until the end of January, so it's important to clear your trees quickly. When you take your olives there they go through a sort of wind machine to get rid of any remaining debris and then they are weighed. You get back litres of extra virgin olive oil, according to how many olives you sent. The press keep the olives to press again to make a lower grade of oil which is their 'payment'. Mary and Bill hope to get around 200 litres of oil. Most Spaniards who have land grow olive trees as the oil is part of their staple diet. They drizzle it on their bread instead of butter (I presume this is because butter is unstable in the heat for most of the year), as well as using it freely in their cooking. When it's time to pick the olives they bring in all the family to help and usually finish in a day. We managed four trees between us, so there are a lot more to do!
It seemed strange to go to church this morning on a beautiful, warm, sunny day, to attend a traditional festival of nine lessons and carols, but that's what I did. This is a photo of the little church I go to. We are a small gathering of around thirty people from a wide range of denominations, and I enjoy the fellowship with them. We had our Christmas service today as most of the congregation are going back to England for a few days now, and there are not enough of us left to have a Christmas Day service, nor one on Sunday 28th. We are back on 4th January and we have a visiting speaker from La
nsdowne Baptist Church, where I went as a small child to take part in Christian Endeavour pageants! Today I did one of the readings and it was nice to take an active part in the service. After our services we sit out on the patio and chat together over a cup of tea or coffee, and if we are lucky, a slice of cake. Last week was chilly and we had to cram into the little kitchen, but today we shared some lovely mince pies out in the sun.
Today was the day for Jonathan to arrive here to spend Christmas with us. Gatwick is his closest airport and from there the flights come to Murcia so this morning we set off to collect him. This is a new route and we have not travelled it before. We thought we might not make it in time for his arrival as the first road we followed (as suggested by the sat nav) turned out to be completely closed for road works, with no directions for an alternative route. So we went round in circles for a while until we found ourselves back where 
we started, and were able to branch off in a new direction which soon brought us to the motorway. This is a new toll road running from Aguilas, all the way to the airport. It opened last year and has made it a very easy journey which should take just over an hour; well worth the €8.50 toll, as the old road took much longer. As with all new places that we visit, I went armed with the camera and took a 'few' photos along the way. The scenery was very lovely; layer after layer of green hills, with fields of salad vegetables and orange groves at the base of them. Unlike the Welsh who build their roads around every hill, the Spanish go through them, so there were several stretches of wide, well lit tunnels. Looking at this picture you can be forgiven for thinking 'New road. Where's the traffic?' The answer is, 'There wasn't any' or hardly an
y. Until we reached the outskirts of San Javier, where the airport is, we hardly saw another vehicle. Eventually we arrived, just five minutes before Jonathan appeared through the arrivals gate. It was a beautiful day for him to see our little flat. We had a late lunch up on the roof and then walked along our beach and back, before catching the last of the 'rays' on a lounger up on the roof again. Lets hope the weather holds for a while, so we can show him the best side of our chosen corner of Spain.
Do we look like a happy couple? We should do. We are drinking a toast to our future, after signing the contract to buy a lovely house here in Spain. We went to our solicitor in Mojacar this morning to sign the document and then returned home to spend a warm sunny afternoon on the roof terrace with a good book and a bottle of wine. I don't need to add anything further here as all the family should have received a private message with more details. So now we can sit back and enjoy Christmas, and then it will be time to start packing up here and moving on. I can't wait to have all my own things around me again. 
relax all afternoon. As you will have read in my blog, I often use this time to sit up on the roof terrace and do some sewing, and my perseverance has paid off, because today I finished my picture! It had been hanging around for so long that it was very grubby so I washed it and it has come up fine. I shall wait until I get home to have it framed as I know a lady near Oswestry who does them so well. She framed that nice piece of sewing that we brought back from Thailand.
eling really happy for two of our boys this week.
Further to my previous blog regarding the ruins along the coast near here, I thought you might be interested to know that they are the remnant of buildings from the time of an iron and silver mining boom, in the 19th century. A gentleman, whose computer alerts him to any reference to Villaricos, came upon my blog and sent me the following link with information about the area. You might like to read about it too.
Ever since we explored the first part of our coastline, I have been waiting to 'do' the rest of it. Today was a bright, sunny day with a clear blue sky, but it was fairly cool. Just perfect conditions for walking, so I suggested we went back to our explorations. We drove as far as a sign pointing down to Playa de la Invencible, named I suspect, after the many fortifications around there, though now only ruins remain. We drive this route most days and I have always wanted to look closer at the ruins. The first part, perhaps because of the historical nature of the area, has benefitted from investment, and has a good pathway right down to the beach, with viewpoints along the way. From there we struck out along dirt tracks, some leading down to the water's adge, and others taking us to the top of the cliffs where the wind suddenly caught us so strongly it was hard to walk into. Down between the ridges it was sheltered. We took our jackets but left them in the car because we didn't need them. I erred on the cautious side and added an extra layer of woollies, but I wished I hadn't. I didn't need it but I didn't want to carry it so I kept it on, but it was quite warm in the sun. The ruins were interesting. One small one looked like a chapel, but we're not sure. I am using the net to try to find out more about them. There were lots of wild flowers along the paths. I picked a small bunch of wild lavendar which was everywhere, along with rosemary and oregano. As we brushed against them, the air was full of their scents. We thought the green factory on the edge of Villaricos
, which although it is a bit of an eyesore, actually blends in quite well so it doesn't spoil the view too much, was possibly a desalination plant, but we have been told it is a factory making antibiotics for export. We walked as far as Villaricos, and were out for about an hour and a half. With our lovely round hills on one side, a sparkling ocean on the other, and really interesting scenery all around, it was a lovely morning out, and I'm sure you can see why we love this stretch of coastline. There is a folder of photos (Playa de la Invencible) on my gallery.
clearly denoted the division between them, i.e. the horizon. Then I looked again where Chris was pointing, and above the aforementioned horizon there was a ship, apparently floating in the clouds! I took a photo, and when I downloaded it to the computer I could just see a feint second line beyond the ship which must be the actual horizon, but this hadn't been visible to our eyes. So here's my photo of a floating ship. Not very exciting, but my only offering for today!
I really must stop using song titles to label my blog entries. This is one of my favourites by Foster and Allen. Still, there's propbably not many of you who listen to quite the same electic mix of music as me, so maybe you wouldn't have known if I hadn't told you! Anyway, I woke up in time to watch the sunrise this morning, though it didn't really quite manage it! But the sky was a lovely pink, a real rival to some of our sunsets. I didn't want to bother you with yet more sky photos, but I had to include this one.; I was quite pleased with it. The sun was already up in the sky but obscured by clouds, when at around 8.15 it managed to break through a gap and made a lovely line of reflected light in the sea. And caught in the beam, was a 'lonesome boatman', no doubt hoping to catch a fish for his breakfast. You'll probably need to click on my picture to enlarge it, to even see him. How vast the sea must have seemed to him, out there in his tiny boat. I'm glad I was the one on terra firma!
Hi everyone. It's been one of those inbetween days; neither sunny nor wet nor anything else remarkable. It was overcast most of the day but quite warm, (19º all day), but much too windy to sit outside. So I did a bit of ironing and a few other mundane things, and the day soon went. Then just as I was about to close the shutters and 'shut up shop' for the day, I glimpsed this amazing sky, so of course I found my camera. We both went up on the roof where the view is less interrupted by buildings and there were three distinct areas of sky. To the front on the left there was a hug
e funnel of pink cloud that grad
ually turned dark grey. To the right there were stripes of gold and orange which darkened and melted into one another. But out at the back there was what looked like a pot of boiling oil, swirls of a sulphurous yellow churning around. This changed to pink and then orange, and within half an hour it was a firey red and then it was gone. You have to be quick or you miss these lovely scenes, and I was 
just lucky enough to see it today, so I'm sharing it with you. Of course I took more photos than this, and tomorrow I will put some of them in my 'sea and sky' folder in my gallery. Unfortunately, non of them really do it justice, but it's the best I can do. Our neighbour was up on his roof photographing it too. I wonder what his are like?
I know that we are now into December, and Christmas is only three week away, but it is hard to feel Christmassy here, especially on a day like today. As you can see, we had a beautiful morning and we sat out on the verandah with our cups of tea, soaking up the sunshine. The thermometer, tucked away in the shade, was registering 14º but it felt warmer than that and we soon shed our woollies. It cooled down a bit after lunch, but I changed into trousers and a jumper and I was still comfortable sitting outside to do some more of my sewing. Of course it was still cool in the flat and I'm glad to have my socks back 
on this evening!
a bunch of grapes that I have hung from the curtain rail. Then I found two tubes of lights that I bought in Thailand, cut off their plugs and wired on some Spanish ones, and hung them either side of the window It's very minimilist for me. I love the decorations and usually I still deck the house out like I did when the boys were small, but it's better than nothing and now I really do feel that Christmas is on its way.
What a contrast this picture shows to the dark and angry seas we had yesterday. This was taken along Mojacar coast this lunchtime. The sun shone all day and the wind changed direction and blew from the west so the temperature was much milder than yesterday, though we have the heating back on this evening. But it was a lovely day to be out and about. We stopped at Mojacar on our way up to Albox to view a house. It was a lovely property though not what we want. It was in a very isolated location with too much land, but there were stunning views. Albox is nestled in the foothills of Los Filabres mountain range. Today the tops were covered in snow, and the scene was stunning. The highest point is Tetica d
e Bacares, casually referred to by the locals as the 'witches tit', bu
t put more elegantly in travel books as 'so called because its shape resembles a woman's breast'! Whatever it's called, it is very lovely. The western reach of this mountain range joins the beginning of the Sierra Nevada. We hope to take Jonathan up to the snow on the Sierra when he is here for Christmas. It is easily done in a day trip.
Many, many moons ago, an English teacher read us a poem that ended with a stanza about the waves being an angry sea-hound hurling intself on the rocks and eventually lying exhausted on the sand. Although I was not exactly 'in to' poetry at the time, I loved the imagery then, and it was the first thing that came to mind when I opened the shutters today. Our hound was growling all night. Even at home we sleep with our bedroom window ajar all year, so it is open here too, and whenever we stirred we could hear the wind and the waves. This morning I went up on the roof and watched huge brown and grey waves breaking far out to sea, building again and crashing on the rocks below me. The wind whipped the tops off them as they broke, and the rocks just below the surface made the final break an uneven line of white foam. It was exciting, so I put on my jacket and went to walk along the beach, revelling in the noise and motion of it all. I think exhilarating is the word I want, and in its own way, it was just as beautiful as the sparkling blue of a sunny day. When I reached the far end of the bay I was surprised to find that every bit of the old, dry weed had disappeared. It's usually ankle deep all along the water edge, but today there was just a shelf with a two foot drop to the sea. No doubt it will get washed in again soon. While I was on the beach I spoke to the man from the flat in front of us. He has been here for f
ive years and he said he has never seen the water come so far up the beac
h. It was above the line where the residents often park their cars. I'm posting a couple of photos here and some more on my gallery. Unfortunately our signal is not strong enough to add a video. You really need the wind and the noise to properly appreciate it all. According to the forecast, there is more to come before it perks up again on Monday.
I'm afaid today was 'one you lose' It started well enough. I got up to a very bright but very chilly morning. I went outside to open the kitchen shutters and stood for ages watching the little house martins. They had discovered the warmth of the brickwork on the apartments across the road from us, and they were dipping and diving after tiny bugs in the air and then returning to the ledge of shutters and fancy stonework on the flats. They looked so cute strung out along there. Of course I took a photo but you'll have to enlarge it to even see them!
. My noisy bell will definitely be back on the next purse I use. It left me feeling quite shaken, so Chris drove to San Juan to buy some milk so we could have that all important cup of tea, and tomorrow we will go together to restock the cupboards.
....And right now the season out here is a time for Harvest. The trees are dripping with ripe oranges and lemons, and this week we saw the arrival of stacks of yellow crates at the end of each row of trees, ready for fruit picking to start. I believe it goes on all through December and January. But unlike at home, when harvesting and planting have very distinct seasons, out here this is also the season for planting. First it is a time for clearing, and for the past week there has been a faint scent of bonfires as the farm land is cleared and all the dead plant matter is burned. In every direction the smoke hung in the air like a low brown cloud, that very slowly drifted away, but it wasn't unpleasant because the smell was reminiscent of real bonfires, burning resinous wood, dried herb branches, and other natural plants with nothing synthetic thrown on to spoil it. As we have been driving around here we have s
een mile afte
r mile of neat ploughed fields, where the machinery used leaves long, straight flat-topped ridges with furrows between them for the irrigation pipes. As I went to the supermarket in San Juan the other day I saw one such field with about twenty workers spread along the rows, each with a box of seedlings. By the time I had done my shopping and was returning home, the field was completely planted with baby lettuces, which will no doubt flourish in the damper and cooler, though still warm, weather. The Spanish may be a nation of very laid-back folk, but when they do work, they don't waste any time. We have seen the same thing all over the area this week. I suspect lettuces will grow very fast, and then we can watch them being
picked, and the next field being planted again.
ome with me. He would have preferred to tackle the hill at the back of us, but I know I wouldn't get far if all the way was an incline, so we agreed to try the coast. To begin with it was
easy. We walked through sand and gravel and sank into a foot deep layer of dried weed, but then we were climbing over rocks, and every headland we rounded, led to more. Chris gallantly went ahead and tried to find a route that he thought I might manage, and so we kept going until we came to a rock face that there was no getting around. So we had to climb up to the road running just above us, and from there we went back down into one more cove before turning for home. Each of the little bays has a name but I don't know them all. I know the final one was Cala Cristal; (The sign at the top of the footpath was a bit of a giveaway!). It was the only one we got to this morning that had some sort of a walkway down the cliff. The rest were just dirt tracks. Anyway we had a short rest at Cala Crystal and I spotted a large flat rock, just out in the water. Being me, I had to climb on it to pose, so I handed the camera to Chris and started to climb. Unbeknown to me, he was busy photographing my less appealing side! Once on the rock I posed for him and then dangled my legs over the side. I thought it wise to remove my shoes, but yes - you've guessed - I dropped one into the water. This was on the seaward side of the rock where the water was quite deep, and I was too high to reach it. So I scrambled back to the beach, hoping a wave would bring it in for me. Unfortunately they seemed to be taking it further out! Chris said I had to let it go and he would walk back for the car to take me home, but I like those shoes. They are so comfy. So I tucked my dress into my knickers and waded in to get it. And I did! It had taken us an hour to walk there so I was then faced with an hour's walking home in a wet 
shoe, wet dress, and sundry other wet things too! We decided to go the easy way home so we walked along the road, which gave us quite a different perspective from when we are driving along it. Of course, I continued to take photos, including one of our special 'little mountain' that tells us we are on the last bend before home, and the fantastic view we get as we climb the last hill and see our little hamlet of El Calón in the foreground, then the sea, and the coastline of San Juan stretching away beyond it. My shoe survived, and my dress was nearly dry by the time we got in. It was a lovely walk. The air was filled with the scent of wild rosemary and oregano, grasshoppers were leaping everywhere, (they get as big as three inches long here), and I spotted a couple of lizards but they don't stay around to introduce themselves. I have inserted a couple of pictures in this but you can see the rest of our little adventure on my gallery. (www.picasaweb.com/kayempea1947)