Rocking Your World 2015; Week 17

Those of you who are regular users of Facebook, (I am because it offers the best way for me to keep up with what all my family are doing), will know that they have introduced a feature whereby they will randomly repost whatever you happened to have posted two years ago. 

I don´t know why they do it, and it can be annoying, but this week it made me smile because they reposted my picture from 20th April, 2013. I had attached the caption, "After 34 years I have finally discovered that I married an Irish Piskie!" Yes it was our wedding anniversary, and Chris was patiently waiting for me to finish a meeting with some lady friends, so he made himself comfortable with a glass of wine, and spying him, I took this photo. (I wish I could sit cross-legged like that!). Then I played around in photoshop and added the pixie hat before posting it on Facebook. We both have some Irish blood, but Chris has more than me, and I thought he might be amused to find himself posing as a ´piskie´.

It just so happens that Virginia, who´s blog I link this to each week, also celebrated her wedding anniversary this week, and she posted her wedding photo, so I thought I should post mine too, so here we are, thirty six years ago. 

Chris´dark frames glasses - the Buddy Holly look? - are right back in fashion now. And my word, I had some hair in those days didn´t I? I remember my friend spent all morning getting a bit of curl into the ends. It was too heavy to stay there for long, but it lasted for the afternoon.

Of course it was my second marriage so it was in a registry office, and the two little fellows at the front are my two sons from my first marriage. They had no contact with their own dad, and Chris did a wonderful job of treating them just the same as the three boys we later had, and the fact that they were anything other than his sons was never mentioned. It wasn´t until we had been married for fourteen years, when I sent the boys to bed and told them to be good boys because I was cooking a special anniversary meal for me and daddy, that one of them asked what anniversary it was. So I said it was our fourteenth, and you could almost see them working it out, and then one said "Did you have Jim and Michael before you were married then?" We had to laugh over it, because that photo had sat on our television all their lives, and they had never once thought to ask why their big brothers were there when we got married! But I´m glad to say, that finally knowing the facts, in no way changed the relationship between them, and they are all great friends together still.

It was a very simple wedding, as we already had a family, and very little money to spare, so after the ceremony we had a very happy get-together of friends and family at home, and that night, Chris´mum took the boys away and we went up to London and saw the musical Tommy on the stage, which is the main reason we called our first son Thomas, and we called him Tommy when he was little. 

One other funny little story attached to that time was provided by my younger son Michael who was nearly six at the time, and in the reception class of the local school. On the last day of the Spring term he had written in his news book "Mummy and Chris are getting married." He obviously wasn´t very impressed with the registry office ceremony because, on the first day of the Summer term, he wrote in his book, "Mummy and Daddy got married. It only lasted five minutes"! Well I´m glad to say it has lasted rather longer then five minutes, so I hope you have smiled along with me as I had a little time of reminiscing.

So on to what has rocked my world this week. We actually have never made a fuss about our anniversaries, and some passed almost unnoticed as we had a young family around, and Chris commuted to London every day so he was home late and tired, but maybe we will push the boat out in another four years when it is the ruby one. But this year it just so happened that we were invited out to lunch with a big group of friends, and although that was on Sunday, one day early, we made it our celebration for this year.

We went to a place called El Castillo, which is a bit off the main road and up on top of a hill so there are lovely views of the surrounding countryside. It is quite a big place with seating for a good crowd, and Sunday is probably their busiest day, but they coped well. There is a lovely patio at the front where you can sit and enjoy the sunshine and the view while you have a drink. (This photo is taken from their own website). But on Sunday it was lovely and sunny but rather windy so we went straight inside to our table that was in the conservatory area.

We were a group of sixteen and the restaurant had laid up a big long table for us. We all ordered something different but we were all more or less served together and there was much banter and laughter, and of course, the consuming of wine. I nearly forgot to take the obligatory photo, but just in time I got this one.

We got home in time to have a late siesta, and then we went down to our local for a night-cap. It turned out to be someone´s birthday. They had had a big dinner party too, and then they had a singer and they invited us to stay and listen to him. It was Jake, our favourite of the local entertainers so we stayed longer than intended, and enjoyed listening to him.

I had a lovely surprise too, because we were sitting with our friends while Jake was playing and Tony disappeared for few minutes. When he returned he presented me with a big bunch of lilies. It was a ´Thank you´ for taking his wife to the hospital last week, and translating for her. It was so unexpected, and really took me by surprise. 

When I got home, I took them out to my outside sink to cut them down a bit, because they had very long stems, and arranged them in my largest vase. They looked lovely, even in bud.

But when I came to move them I realised that they were top-heavy and likely to overturn. I had another think, and suddenly remembered my collection of jugs that live on the dresser in the dining room. I fetched the largest one which has a fat base so it held plenty of water and was heavy enough to be stable. They looked very comfortable in that and during the week they have gradually opened, and now look even more beautiful. And there are still enough in bud for them to last for a second week too.

I suggested that Tony´s wife, Eileen might like to come to the new choir I am in, as she is a great singer, so she has been twice now. She came round on Tuesday and I was able to download all the music for her, and print it off, as she does not have a printer. We are all enjoying the new style of the choir, and are even managing to sing a couple of songs without our books - something we never did achieve in Cantante. It is still a bit scary at times. We are a small group so there is nowhere to hide, and we have to make sure we practise at home to keep up with everyone else. Dave has provided us with very good practice files on the computer, to sing along to, which helps a lot.

I have been fitting in a bit of sewing/knitting/crochet this week, depending which mood I am in. It is all for my Africa project.  Several folk at the Wednesday craft group find that they keep making mistakes in their knitting because they are busy chatting to everyone - which is what it is all about really - so they sit and knit squares for me as they don´t need too much concentration. As a result, I come home most weeks with three or four squares to add to my collection. All of a sudden I found I had a whole crate of them in the garage and I thought it was about time I stitched some together. Although we aim to make them all six inches square, they do come to me in assorted sizes, so I picked out 36 that looked around the same size and stitched them together. Then I found some dark green wool and crocheted round the edge. It doesn´t seem to matter what colour they are, and many of them are two or three colours as people use up all their odds and ends of wool, but they always make up into a lovely bright blanket that will be highly prized by an African mum.

I must try to get some more of them put together soon, before I make up my next consignment for transporting to UK. One of my friends had her sister over on holiday for a couple of weeks and she wanted something to do while she was here, so she took 72 squares away and the day before she went home, she gave me two more blankets all stitched up. I just have to go round them with a crocheted border which doesn´t take me long to do. Wasn´t that kind of her?

I have also just finished the main body of the blanket I have been making myself. A few weeks ago I showed

a parcel of wool that had just arrived. I had a pattern for a crocheted blanket that was made all in one piece, and I thought this variegated wool would be just the thing to introduce plenty of colour, without me having loads of ends to sew in when it was finished. I still have a few ends of course, but the blanket only took about three and a half balls so there are not too many of them. I ordered ten balls, so now I will have to think of other things to make with the rest. This is the finished blanket and I am really pleased with the way it turned out.

I bought the ball of dark blue wool when I was out shopping this morning. I thought it was a good colour to go around the edge with to finish it off. 

As you can probably see, this was started in one corner and worked diagonally until the side measured one metre, and then decreased back in until I reached the far corner. I was pleased with how square it stayed. The last time I worked a small diagonal square, it turned out a very odd shape! For anyone interested, this was worked in small blocks of three chain and three trebles, with one extra block being added, or taken away, on each row. I have added a small close-up so those of you who crochet, can probably see what I mean.

I have been so busy finishing this off that I haven´t had much time to play with my newest craft bits, nor to do any more to my scrapbook, but maybe next week...

Last week someone commented that there were no sunsets again. This is because there has been very little sun, and the days it has come out to play, it has clouded over before sunset time. Today it has been lovely and warm, and quite sunny all day, but I have just been out to feed the dogs and it is really misty now. The lovely hills below the village are completely hidden. You wouldn´t know they were there. So there is no sunset again today. However, when  I came out from choir practice on Wednesday there were some streaks of colour in the sky. Of course I didn´t have my camera with me, so I had to use my phone, and I am not all that pleased with the picture, but as it is the best I have managed for weeks now, I will post it to end with for this week.

Now I will link up with Virginia at Celtic House, and Annie at A Stitch in Time, and then I will have to think about feeding us.

Rocking Your World 2015: Week 16

Hello friends. I´ve not much to tell you this week, but here is my Friday Smile.

The first rose of summer has bloomed in my garden. We could be forgiven for thinking that Summer is cancelled this year as the weather we have been having is just not what we expect for mid-April. In fact this is the second rose for us. The first one opened beautifully on Tuesday but it was battered by the rain on Wednesday and no longer looks it´s best, but as it fades, this one is ready to take its place.

Wednesday being my day to rush around from one place to another, it would have been nice to have had some sunshine. Instead it was the wettest day of the year (so far!) with torrential rain all day, and just as I moved on from my sewing group to my house group, there was a cloud burst and I couldn´t risk driving through it, so I parked at the side of the road and ate my sandwich, until it had settled down again. But I am grateful that I arrived at my destination safely with no puddles too deep to cross. And although it was still cloudy and damp when I came out of choir practice some hours later, and I expected it to be quite dark, it stayed just light until I got home. I really don´t like driving after dark these days but my choir practice doesn´t end until 8.30-9.00 and I am just grateful if I can do the first complicated bit of driving, and get down to the autovia before the dark sets in. But every week it is a little bit lighter. Another sign that summer really is on the way.

Yesterday and today have been better, with some sun shine from late morning until tea time. And when it does show it´s face, it is really warm. Yesterday we were sitting out at the back of the house, drinking our tea. The patio at the back is a real suntrap, and later in the year it will be too hot to sit there, but right now it is perfect. Under the benches we have two rolls of wire mesh that used to run along the fence when the dogs were smaller and could get between the railings, but it is no longer needed for that, and we just rolled it up to store it. Between the layers of mesh I saw that we had a little visitor.

He is known as a humbug lizard, presumabley because of the stripes that run down his body. He is actually bigger than the ones we usually see. Luna is good at catching them and brings them in to me. How kind!!

But when I scroll back, look who is sleeping underneath him.

Paco is enjoying the warmth and is snoozing in the sun, quite oblivious to the little friend above him. I wasn´t sure whether the lizard was caught on the wire so I decided to release him - warily I might add because these can bite, and if they get their teeth into your finger, they don´t let go very willingly. The voice of experience! But as soon as I parted the layers of wire, he shot off too fast for me to keep tracks on him.

I had to smile when I looked in the second roll of wire at the other end of the bench, because there was Luna, just waking up from her siesta.

The lizard would have had to move even faster if she had seen him. She doesn´t let much escape from her.

Today I took my friend to the hospital for some lazer treatment to her eye. I was happy to be able to help her. I didn´t really need to do much translating for her, but she did need me to be the driver on the way home.

Because the weather was so poor earlier in the week, I spent a bit more time than usual in my craft room, and I actually made a start on a scrapbook about our holiday in Ireland - October 2012!! Every time I see the photo files on my computer, I think I must do it before I forget what it was all about. It was a significant holiday for us for several reasons. It was our first holiday when we weren´t seeking the sun. We get our share of that now so we can afford to go somewhere cooler, and wetter, for our holiday. We were searching for family though we had no idea whether we would find any, but we did, and quite a few of them too. We also wanted to see some of the landmarks that are so familiar to us through the words of the Irish songs we both like to listen to, and we saw lots of them too. Fortunately I nearly always keep a diary when we are away, partly so that I can make sense of the photos when I get back home, and I do have one for these two weeks, so I think our Irish journey of discovery really deserves its own scrapbook. So here is page one.

Hopefully I will be able to show you others in the coming weeks. It will be a hybrid book which means that most of it will be done on the computer, but I will be adding other elements and bits of memorabilia to some of the pages. I have sorted the photos and made a plan - I actually like to be quite methodical when I scrap - and there will be around 42 pages. That´s for now anyway. There could be more. I always have such trouble deciding which pictures to leave out. I want to use them all.

Since the holiday I have bought several digi scrapbook kits with an Irish theme, often released around Saint Patrick´s Day. I visit several digi sites regularly and am often tempted by the pretty kits I see. Yesterday I bought a couple of Christmas kits and I used one of them to make a Christmas card. You can see the details of how it was done on my other blog.

I was pleased to receive the second part of my order from America this week, and I didn´t get charged any import tax on either part. I have been stung a couple of times which is why I don´t order from USA very often, but this time I was lucky.

So now I am off to play with my new purchases, or to start the next scrapbook page. I´m not sure which it will be.

But first I will pop over to link up at Virginia´s blog, Celtic House, and at Annie´s Friday Smiles on A Stitch in Time.

Rocking Your World 2015: Week 15

We have sparrows nesting all around us and every day now the air is filled with the sound of their chattering, and the babies screaming for food! 

Further up in the village they have hundreds of house martins. You can see their little mud nests in all the porches and under the eaves, and if you walk up early in the morning, the newly fledged babies are all strung out along the wires. Most of the village cables are still strung overhead, so there is no shortage of perching space. A couple of years back I took this photo of them. They look so sweet all lined up.

I was reminded of this picture this week, when I saw this on the internet. It did make me smile, so I hope it does the same for you too.

After such a busy and exciting week last week, it is no surprise that this week has seemed very quiet. But we all need some catch-up time now and then so I am not complaining.

I haven´t done anything particularly new or different this week, but there have still been plenty of happy moments, and lots to be grateful for.

While friends and family in UK have been enjoying some lovely weather, well timed as the children were still off school for their Easter break, we have sunk back into cold and sometimes wet days. Our friends with log burners to warm their houses are all complaining that they have come to the end of their log stacks, and they don´t want to buy more this year, so they are struggling to keep warm. When I went out to see why the dogs were barking yesterday, I found two young folk picking up dead-wood from the green zone behind us. I was quite glad because it looks a lot tidier now, and at least they will have had a fire to sit around last night. And our gas fire has been on a couple of evening this week, so I am thankful that we are able to be comfortably warm too. 

I was very grateful when the sun came back today! It was warm all day and I was able to do three loads of washing and get it all dry on the line outside. I had a lot of extra things to wash, like bed linen and towels, after our visitors, and I have no-where indoors to hang large items, so I had to wait for a fine day to get it all done.

The weather has helped the garden and now it is warmer there are lots of plants starting to grow again. We have a potato tree in a pot in front of the house, and although it is a rather weak looking plant with thin spindley branches, it is again covered in purple flowers. They are only tiny but very pretty.

I also have just one flower on my Easter lily, and it is only one week late too. It has not flowered for a couple of years and I suspect it is becoming pot-bound so maybe I will separate it this year and see if it does better next year. But one flower is better than none at all isn´t it?

You can see, on the steps, just along side of it, my pansies are still looking lovely. They have been flowering for months now. I need a dead- heading session. I remember, when I grew these in my little patch of garden as a child, my dad telling me to take off the dead heads every day and then they would keep producing more flowers, instead of putting all their efforts into making seeds. I got my love of the garden from him I am sure, and he taught me lots about looking after them.

You will know by now that when the council dug up

our road, and all the trees that grew alongside it, they then relaid it with bricks, and put trees in big planters at intervals all the way up through the village. At Christmas they planted poinsettias all around them, but they are very exposed to the cold winds, and they were all dead a while ago. Well this week they have been replaced with small chrysanthemums, and they look very pretty.

They are all linked into a central watering system, so hopefully they will continue to look pretty for quite some time.

I have a fairly steady week now except for Wednesdays when I go out to my sewing group in the morning, straight on to my home group in the afternoon, and then straight on to choir practice in the evenings. This doesn´t give me much opportunity for food, and being a diabetic it is important that I eat something mid-day when I take my medication, so I take a packed lunch with me and stop somewhere on the way to my house group to eat it. This week it was a grey and windy day but I stopped off for a my ten minute break at Palomares beach. And I am so glad I did. The sea was wild with big waves churning up the sand, and crashing on the shore. I only had my phone with me but I wanted to take a photo, and the wind was so strong I needed two hands to open the car door! But I got my photo and I just stood there for a few minutes marveling at the power of nature. Then a flock of little birds swooped past me, staying near the ground, but heading straight into the wind. They are so small, yet so strong. 

One of the questions we considered at our house group was "When do we feel closest to God?". My answer was when I am alone with nature and I am filled with wonder at His creation. On the beach was one such moment.

My friend Eileen has been away on holiday and she came back yesterday, so today I went to visit her and we had a lovely afternoon together, just chatting and enjoying one another´s company. All the time I could hear a noise outside that I couldn´t quite identify so I asked her what it was and she  said, "Come and see". She took me out to her swimming pool which is a bit green and murky right now. (Many folk do not do anything to their pool over the winter, as it is quite expensive and time-consuming to maintain it when it not is use). And there, in her pool, were at least a dozen toads! They were busy doing what all creature tend to do at this time of year, and making a lot of noise and fuss about it too. 

These two were hanging onto the hoover tubing, but others were on the steps, under the water, and everywhere else I looked too. I would have been less surprised had they been frogs, but they were definitely toads - warts and all! There is an agricultural reservoir just outside their grounds and apparently they hop over from there to mate, and then they just disappear again. Because they rent their property, their land-lord will be coming in soon to clean their pool ready for the summer, so Tony is going to go out with a net and fish all the toads out and put them back over the wall before he comes.

This made me smile. It is a photo that my grand-daughter posted of her baby Alfie with his big brother Isaac. She captioned it with "These two really are the best of friends already", It is such a lovely photo of them, and I am really looking forward to meeting them in July.

I am grateful that my sister´s new computer is up and running so we were able to have a long chat on Skype, and catch up on all the family news. We had such a good connection, it was just like we were sitting in a room together.

With a bit more time at home I have managed to do some crafting this week. I was very excited when  a parcel arrived with some new stamps and dies that I had ordered from a sale. They were very real bargains with each set being marked down from 26.69€ to 6.67€. So I had to try them out and I made two birthday cards and then a set of seven Christmas cards. That´s a very productive week for me!

Today I had another parcel with a set of stamps in that I ordered from America. They have been a long time getting here, but now they are, I am eager to try them out, so I am going to have a little play with them now before I go to bed.

But first I will link up with Annie´s Friday Smiles and Rocking your world at Celtic House, and I´ll see you all again next week.

Rocking Your World 2015: Week 14

A very Happy Easter to any of my followers who celebrate it, and here is an Easter picture to make you smile.

This is just some of the Easter cupcakes I made this morning, ready for our village Gallarte Arts and Crafts show. I used to make these every year for my boys, and with the children in my nursery. They are something a bit different for the Spanish folk. Being a catholic country, they put the emphasis on the real story of Easter throughout Semana Santa (Holy week), and give little fuss to the signs of Spring. We hardly get any of those anyway, as we seem to jump from Winter straight into Summer most years. But last year, when I was visiting UK, I picked up a couple of boxes of the fluffy chicks, so I thought I might as well use them. They make me smile because they bring back many happy memories. I shall link this up with Annie´s Friday Smiles in a minute. Do visit Annie if you have a few minutes to spare. This week she also gave me some happy memories to smile about, because she showed some photos (especially for me) of the roads lined with nodding daffodils. I used to live very near where she is, so this is something I remember and it always gave me joy to see them. 

It has been a good week weather-wise and has indeed felt like summer most days. It even went up to the mid-thirties around lunch time. My son Jonathan and his partner Ella, were very happy that the rain soon went and they had some lovely sunny days. One day they went down to the beach and came back´cooked´despite raiding my store of sun-cream before they went out.

On Thursday evening we sat out on the porch, with drinks and nibbles, and just chatted all evening and it was the first time I have stayed outside until bed-time without needing to put on a cardigan. (Probably the two ´lobsters´were radiating enough heat to keep me warm!). I like this time of year best of all, because it is summer dress weather but not so hot that you can´t get motivated to do anything.

Kim has had rather a lot of fuss and attention from our visitors. They love all the dogs but this was their first time here since we have had Kim, and they loved his softy nature which is at odds with his size! So that night we tried to make extra fuss of the other two. We gave them a good brush which also means treats, as I have always given them a few special biscuits if they have let me groom them. Then they posed to have their photos taken. So here is Foxy, the smallest of the three. She obviously has some husky in her genes, but goodness knows what else she is. She does have very startling blue eyes.

And here is Miki, our loveable clown. She is looking quite tidy after the hair brushing session, but it will only last for about ten minutes. She is a dopey dog but you can´t help loving her. She will be going to the groomer for an all-over shave soon, but I will try to make her wait until next month so it stays shorter for the hottest months of the summer.

Ella is a vegetarian, which is a very foreign idea to the Spanish, so it is not easy to find anything on a menu for her, and we tend to eat at home most days, but on Friday they wanted to take us out for a meal and Jonathan, who is happy to eat vegetarian when he is at home, decided he wanted a steak. I asked around and was recommended to try a restaurant in Turre that we have never been to before, so we gave it a try, and we had an excellent meal. And even better, instead of offering Ella a plain omelette, which is what usually happens, they actually had a vegetarian menu so she was able to choose what she would have.

Monday was their last day, so we said we would take them out for a menu del día at one of our favourite haunts - La Frontera, the little restaurant on the sea front near San Juan, that I have shown on here many times before. We had a lovely lunch and although it was a bit windy, it was still nice and warm. On the way back to the car I took this photo of them. It is the only time I caught them on camera together all week. It would have been better without the sun glasses, but it was so bright, he just squinted at me when he took them off. (By the way, this is the son who had an operation to repair his damaged nose in January, and it is looking so much straighter now).

Jonathan then took one of Chris and I, which would have been quite a good photo for once, but again it is rather spoiled because our reactolites went so dark, and we are both blind as bats without them!

Each day Jonathan had tested the pool and decided it was too cold, but as it was his last day, and one of the warmest we had had, he was determined to have a dip when we got home from the restaurant. The only way to get in when you know it is going to be cold, is with a quick bomb - And he made it!!

Once in  he said it was really quite nice, and he didn´t look too cold. The water thermometer was only showing 19º and I like it to reach around 22º before I get in, but I did manage to get my feet, (and the back of my dress) wet, just to show willing.

The dogs are all a bit scared of the water though we don´t know why. Most dogs love it. But as soon as Jonathan went near the pool, they retreated as far away as they could, and sat with Ella, in the hope she would protect them.

But as soon as Jonathan got out, Kim went over for some more fuss. As I said last week, he knows a kindred spirit when he meets one.

It was nice to have some young company for a week, but sadly we had to take them to the airport early on Tuesday morning. Their plane was delayed for three hours because of 50 mile an hour cross-winds at Manchester, but they eventually got home, after what Jonathan described as the ´worst landing I have ever known´! I am glad I wasn´t travelling with them!

We spent the rest of Tuesday clearing up, getting the first load of washing done, and catching up on the sleep we lost to get them to the airport so early! Then on Wednesday I went to my usual sewing group in the morning, my house group in the afternoon, and in the evening I went to try out at a new choir. I really enjoyed my time with Cantante, but that has almost come to an end now, and with my change to a new church I did not want to continue visiting the old one where the choir met for practices. So a friend asked me to go to the new one and I really enjoyed it. It is quite different from what I am used to, but that is a good thing really, and they are learning some lovely pieces. The leader says he is going to do a one:one vocal test with each of us soon and that thought terrifies me, but I am one of only three altos, so we would have to be really bad to be asked to leave! I´m counting on that anyway!

And that brings us to yesterday. My, how the weeks fly by. Yesterday was special as some friends had invited us to go on a coach trip with them to a village called Cuevas del Campo, which is on the far side of the beautiful Lake Negratin near Baza. There they re-enact a Passion Play on Good Friday, and on Thursday there is a full dress rehersal which we went to. 

The lady who organised it, used to live in that village, and she said that on the Friday it is so crowded that

you can´t move, or see anything properly, so it was better to go on the Thursday. It was very impressive, and emotional to watch. It didn´t matter that it was all in Spanish because we knew what was happening anyway. Even if you were not a Christian you could not help but be moved as the acting was so believable, and as I am a Christian and do believe in the Crucifixion and Resurrection, I found it a very moving experience. The photo I have used here shows Jesus releasing a dove of Peace to symbolise His  return to life, which is how they ended their play. Because I know it will not interest all of you, but some, and especially some of my family who follow this blog, will want to see more, I will post the rest of the photos at the end of this blog. But before I move on, I will just show you these. Two, newly fledged swallow babies, sat on the wires above us and watched the scene unfolding up on the hill. They were probably wondering where all the extra people had come from.

We have taken visitors to see Lake Negratin several times, but only to the near side of it where there are hot water springs to bathe in, and a small man-made beach. We have never been round to the other side before, so I tried to take some photos as we drove over the dam at the end of the lake. There are some reflections in the sky because I was taking them through the window of a moving coach, but I was still quite pleased with them. It is such a beautiful, serene place.

As soon as the play had finished we went back to our coach and drove down and across the end of the lake again to a lovely restaurant where there was a meal waiting for us. It was such a nice place. The staff were so friendly and helpful, and the food was excellent.

I tried to take some photos looking away from the Lake as we crossed the dam on our way home, but the lighting was all wrong and I got too many window reflections, but I did manage to get this one shot. I just love the layers of misty mountains in sharp contrast to the green of fields near us. Again there is some movement in the foreground, but I still thinks it works.

We didn´t get home until half past midnight so there were no sunset photos that night, but I do have just one from earlier in the week, when the sky was a bright flaming orange, and it looked lovely.

Now I will just load all the rest of the photos from the play and then go and link up with Virginia at Celtic House and Annie at a Stitch in Time.

I´ll end as I began, by wishing you all a very Happy and Blessed Easter, and I´ll see you all again next week.

El Misterio (Passion Play) at Cuevas del Campo.

City gates marked each side of the plaza, guarded by Roman soldiers.

The surprisingly modern village church had a balcony at the front where the trial of Jesus took place.

The first thief to be crucified with Jesus was marched through the streets. 

Pilate, the Roman governer,  and other Roman officials.

 The High Priest and Jewish religious leaders.

 Jesus is led to the place of his trial.

The trial as Pilate tells the Jewish leaders to do what they will  with Jesus, and releases Barabbas in his place.

Jesus is taken out by the Roman soldiers and flogged.

The next two photos show a family that caught my eye. I love the little tot riding on the donkey, and the two baby goats staying close to their mother.

At various corners of the road, villagers formed scenes of everyday life in Bible times. These are spinning and taking husks from corn.

 Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cross.

More workers winding yarn. I´m not sure they did knitting in those days but we will allow them a little poetic license here.

This man is weaving grasses (esparto work), which would have made their sandals. 

Jesus falls the second time and a woman runs out to help Him. She is openly crying as  were many of us onlookers too. 

Jesus falls the third time, and his mother tries to help Him.

 The Crucifixion.

Joseph of Arimathea, claims the body of Jesus for burial. 

Jesus releases a dove as a sign that although He died, three days later He rose again. 

Hallelulia!