I think I blinked and missed it!

March seems to have almost passed me by unnoticed. Quite a lot has happened but I find it hard to believe that we are now in April. It has not been a very healthy month for us with both Chris and I having a bad bout of the virus that seems to be affecting folk almost world-wide. Happily we have come out the other side of that now, but with the mimosa in full bloom I am now plagued with my allergic cough-sneeze routine! Also my lovely cat Baggins was really poorly, starting with trouble keeping his food down, and ending up with him not even being able to drink, and he usually drinks water almost excessively. He had to spend three nights at the vet's on a drip because he was so dehydrated that they couldn't get a cannula in, so they had to inject fluid under his skin and wait for him to absorb it, and keep doing that every few hours. He had several blood tests which fortunately proved that his kidneys are functioning normally, and he is not diabetic. There does seem to be some rather hight thyroid readings so we are waiting for one more blood test result before deciding how to treat him. But he is obviously feeling much better, (at one point the vet thought we were going to lose him), and he is eating and drinking normally. He is a bit dopey - even more than usual - and spends a lot of his time lying in the sun. Why not - so do we!

We had a lovely week while Jean was out here. The forecast was not too good but we actually only had one cloudy day and we spent that doing some craft. We also had a long walk along the playa at Mojacar, and spent a lot of time just chatting in the sun. On Friday night we went to a new restaurant near Turre where we had a lovely meal and were entertained by a good singer and two girls doing Flamenco dancing. It was a good evening out. It seemed like no time at all before we were driving Jean back to Murcia for her flight home. In the next couple of days I managed to get all the bed linen and towels laundered so I could get the spare room ready again. Jonathan and Ella are arriving a week on Wednesday. We are supposed to be having rain over the Easter weekend but hopefully it will have all gone before they arrive.

Although tomatoes are very plentiful here, for some unknown reason, tinned ones are quite expensive. But last week I spotted in our local supermarket, a huge tin which was much, much cheaper than the same quantity bought in the standard size tins. So I bought one as it is ideal as the base for my hot chilli and ginger jam. This is hugely popular with my Wednesday group friends, and my customers down at the village bar. I had several orders for some next time I made it, so I also bought some more garlic and fresh root ginger. Then someone at the bar gave me a jar full of hot red peppers, so I had no excuse, and yesterday I brewed it up, so the house is 'pungent'! The peppers were fresh but beginning to dry so I thought the best thing to do with the ones I wasn't using straight away, was to dry them completely. So I spread them on some kitchen paper on a tray and put them out in the sunniest spot I could find. They need several days in the hot sun to dry properly, otherwise they go mouldy when you store them. I left them and got on on with my jam making, and when I went to fetch them in for the night, it was raining! I had been too busy to notice. The oven was warm from where I had sterilized my jars, so I put them in there to dry them again, and hopefully they will get some more sun this week so I can get them packed away before they get dusty!

This afternoon I have put the finishing touches to my March photo-board so here it is.These three months are now glued to scrapbook paper with a page opposite them giving numbered captions so I can look back and see what they are, and they are stored in a proper album. Hopefully that will give me the incentive to keep going for the rest of the year.