Welcome to a little boy.

We had a new little boy to welcome into the family this weekend. Chris' sister Mary already has three grandsons, and this Sunday, her daughter Victoria had her first baby, which is also a boy. She was always a little slip of a girl and I gather she had quite a difficult labour, but he arrived a bonny eight pounds plus. Unfortunately I don't know what name they have chosen yet, but I am looking forward to hearing soon, and to seeing his first photos via his Aunty and Uncle on facebook. Doesn't the social network make things easy for us sometimes? Of course I wanted to make a card to welcome him into the world so I set to, and here is what I made. I shall get it in the post first thing tomorrow morning, and hopefully they will get it by the weekend.

My last post was called "Just chillin'", but today the heat was definitely turned up. At around 11.00 this morning we set off with a picnic and some fold away chairs, to meet with a group of church friends on Carolina beach, about a half hour drive from here. The route took us near where we lived for our first six months out here, and we couldn't believe how much it has changed. There is a huge new urbanisation of flats with extensive car parking, and new roundabouts and roads. We weren't even sure where we were at one stage. I must say, once the Spanish decide to do something, they get on with it, and it all looked really smart. There is still quite a lot of work going on so it will be interesting to go back again at the end of the summer and see what else they have done.

The weather has been very up and down of late, very muggy which we don't get very often, with quite a bit of cloud and occasional rain. Yesterday we started off with a terrific thunderstorm, right above us. The poor dogs nearly clawed the door down when the thunder came, but we quickly let them in, just before the heavens opened. But the rain didn't last long and the rest of the day wasn't too bad. So we didn't make a final decision about today's picnic until a couple of hours before we were due to leave. I had to do a quick scout round the larder and try to find something to take. (It is the day before I do my monthly shop so the cupboard is a bit bare!) Anyway it turned out to be a real scorcher of a day. As you can see from this photo, the beach was scantily populated, and the sea was inviting. It was warm, once you got in, and crystal clear, with shoals of fish clearly visible. It is a nice beach, with interesting arms of rocks enclosing a small bay. Much prettier than the long straight stretches of sand at our more local beaches of Garrucha and Mojacar. We all enjoyed a swim and then chatted together while we ate our lunch. We packed up to go home around 3.30 and after a much needed cup of tea I had a shower to get rid of the sand and I realised that I had caught the sun on my shoulders and front, and so has Chris. But we really enjoyed ourselves. it was lovely to spend some relaxing time with friends, and in such a beautiful setting too.