Rocking Your World 2019: Week 2

I seem to have been busy all week without achieving a great deal, but all the groups I attend are back in force, so I have been to my house group, sewing group and tonight my choir, and they keep me busy. 

Of course, this is a very special week here in Spain, as Epiphany or Three Kings Day, on January 6th, is a huge celebration which far exceeds Christmas. And in my village, that means that Sunday was a fiesta, starting with the arrival of the three Kings down the main street, riding three handsome horses.

They had already "arrived" the previous nights, driving round the streets on a float, and ending at the marquee on the car park to hand out gifts to the local children (provided by their parents!). But Sunday is the real fiesta.

The Kings arrive at the palace of King Herod to inquire where the newborn king was.

An angry Herod dispatches his soldiers to hunt for the baby, and demands the death of all male babies under the age of two.

The pattern of this little play is very much the same each year though they did introduce a few small changes this year, including having one soldier who was English!

After the play our lovely local priest, Father Miguel, held an open air mass on the plaza.

Then the medieval market was officially open.

This included lovely, old-fashioned rides for the children...

..... plenty of food of course, which this time included a huge vat of migas, a mixture of flour added to oil and water and chopped up, with sweet peppers, choritzo, garlic and other sausages added at the end.

This is dolled out free of charge to anyone who is willing to queue up for it.

Migas is not one of our favourites, so we chose, instead, to sit in the peaceful setting of the Moroccan tent, to eat delicious wraps, so well filled we had trouble handling them!

One area I love to visit is the display of owls and other birds of prey. This year he didn't bring the snakes that are usually there too, but he had some beautiful birds. I chose to get up close and comfortable with this gorgeous Siberian owl. She was the size of the Eagle owl but white instead of brown, though she doesn't look very white in this photo.

She was very used to being handled and let me stroke her breast feathers that were so soft and downy. (I had my compression gloves on because my arthritis was bad that day, but I wished I had thought to remove them before holding the owl.).

At various times throughout the day, the handler took his falcon around the market and let it fly freely through the crowds. It often chose to sit up on the wires above us, but then it swooped down, giving some folk a bit of a scare!

In the evening, many stalls were packing up, ready to move on to a new venue the next day, but a street entertainer stood in the road juggling with fire.

He only had a small audience as it was getting chilly, and most people had had a long day and were ready for their warm houses or a local bar. But he was quite skilled and showed good composure and balance when he managed to keep a glass sphere on his head while juggling.

In other news, the starlings came back on Monday, this time flying below me in the green zone, and all coming in to land in the trees.

They were so noisy, and Arwen sat at my craft room window trying to follow them, looking utterly bemused. They kept taking off, forming a 'cloud' and settling again throughout the day, which is quite unusual. I have normally only seen them at dusk, and occasionally early in the morning. We had some workmen in that afternoon, and they couldn't get over them flying around us. I think we need to get the power washer out for the patio now. They disappeared that evening and we haven't seen them since. But the temperature at night has dropped really low this week, so they have probably set off for their winter home somewhere a bit warmer.

Yesterday we took Kim to the vet, to visit the groomer who has a room at the surgery. Knowing how difficult this was last time, the vet started off by giving him a sedative to calm him, but I sat with him for half an hour and it didn't seem to have a lot of effect. We only wanted him stripped out a bit, not too much while it is cold, the knots behind his legs removed, his tail combed through, and a closer shave up to his tail. He is such a gentle giant who loves people, including children, and is good with other animals. He demands attention, and pesters all the time to have his head and shoulders rubbed, but go more than halfway down his back, and that's a 'no-no'.  So fair play to the two girls grooming him, who managed to do all I asked. They kept him for four and a half hours, as every time he got too agitated, they stopped and dealt with a different dog, and then came back and did a bit more. He sulked for the rest of the day. He tends to chose to stay outside, but we did coax him in to lay on the settee in the evening, but he hadn't forgiven us by then.

The face says it all really!

Between driving to and from the vets, and getting the last of my Christmas decorations stowed away in the proper place in the garage, I did manage to make my first seventeen jars of marmalade. The kitchen smelled wonderful. A big improvement on the smell when I am making pickles! These will soon sell at church and my sewing group, so I hope I get given some more bitter oranges before the end of their season.

I had a good day yesterday, managing to get two loads of washing done and dried outside, and completed most things on my 'to do' list, but at the last minute I remembered I needed to empty my recycling bins. I have three big bins outside the kitchen door, for plastic and cans, paper and cardboard, and glass. They fill up alarmingly fast, so when they are starting to overflow, I take them to the big recycling bins at the edge of the village. I decided I just had time to get them done before it got dark, and on the way I stopped to take a photo of this sky. The pale pink mass was streaming out from some low dark clouds, and it looked so pretty.

And now it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and then get ready for choir practice.