Rocking Your World 2020: Week 5

Well here we are and its time to look back at the week and find the things that made us smile, and made us feel grateful. It has been a difficult week for some people, especially those in UK who have strong feelings either way about today's Brexit. Here, we have all sorts of questions, to which no-one really has answers. We feel there is nothing we can do to change things now, so we may as well get on with our lives, and just see how things pan out in the coming months and years, so this has been a pretty 'normal' week for us, whatever that means.

We got off to a good start on Sunday evening when we sang at a concert to celebrate the Spanish Day of Peace.  The main concert was music played by the Cariatiz orchestra, which is the only amateur orchestra in the whole of the Almeria area. But the first half was ended by two big choral pieces sung by both my choirs - Incognito singers, and Vera Voces - singing together with the orchestra accompanying us. The first piece was classical - Mascagne's Easter Hymn, (this is the style of Vera Voces), and the second was a medley of songs from MGM films (the style of Incognito singers). It was fun for some choir members to tackle pieces 'outside their comfort zone', but of course, about eight of us sing in both choirs. We were asked to wear our own choir's official stage wear, and those of us in both choirs chose to wear the blue tabards of Vera Voces. I haven't seen any official photos yet but here is one that Chris took. You can see the two colours of clothing in the line up of singers, and just behind us is the orchestra, with the MD at the front trying to hold everyone together.

It has been a better week here than last week, with most days seeing some sunshine, and higher daytime temperatures, though the cold soon comes back at sun-down. Because there has been a light cloud cover most afternoons, we have had some stunning sunsets, so here is a few of the photos I have taken during the week.

Surprisingly these were taken over two or three days, though they could have all been taken on one day.

We were promised some sun all week but sometimes it took a while to arrive. On Wednesday I was driving to Turre for my sewing group and I just had to pull over to take a picture of the Cabrebra mountains. The mist was low and had not cleared in all the valleys. Plus we are in the short season when bonfires are allowed and the agricultural centres burn off their Winter debris before starting the new Spring planting, so their smoke was adding to the mist, and with no wind to disperse it, it too hung in the air.

These mountains display many different atmospheres. Some nights, as the sun sinks low and glows behind them, the layers of mountains remind me of the Mountains of Doom described so clearly in my favourite set of books, "Lord of the Rings". They can look really sinister, though on other days they are clear as a bell.

While I was standing taking a few shots of them, I turned to my left where there is a large area of newly cleared land. Last year the owner decided to change from his salad crop, and instead he planted it with orange trees. I was just struck by how green it looked. They are surrounded by 'real grass', a novel sight for us, and a testament to the change in our weather patterns, and the recent heavy rains.

Yesterday we went to do some necessary shopping. Chris came to help lift the big bags of animal biscuits that I buy for both dogs and cats. It is cheaper to buy in bulk, and it will last at least a month for the dogs, and two or three months for the cats. After the pet supply store, we went on to Lidls and I bought a few little spring plants to make a nice bright spot on our front porch. I love Helibores and had several in my garden in UK. I am hoping this one will do well outside here too, and the primulars are just so pretty. I shall get them planted in a big pot over the weekend.

I surprised myself this morning with a green smoothie for my breakfast that tasted so much nicer than I expected. I used a little, over-ripe pear, a kiwi fruit, a very small avocado, a stick of fennel and  a few sugar snap peas, with a natural yoghurt as a base. It looks pretty disgusting to be honest, but was actually very pleasant.

I hope to make these more often and try to be a bit more adventurous as to what I put in them. I also have a proper juicer now which came as an added attachment with my new food processor. I haven't tried it yet, but it is something else for me to play with soon.

And that is just about it for this week. I have one more set of sky photos to end with. These were all taken last night. I am amazed at how fast the colours and shapes change, so again I took four photos just a few minutes apart, and made them into this collage.

So beautiful!

A Spanish man who lives along the road from us, came to our house this week to bring me two big bags of bitter oranges! He knows I make marmalade with them, but he has never given me any before. I have, of course, already made most of my marmalade for this year, but I do want to do one more batch, and then one or two lots of a darker one with thicker peel. It doesn't sell so well, but I have one or two customers who ask for it.

We are currently at home waiting for a new dishwasher to be delivered. My old one has been on the way out for a while, and this week it died completely, so we went to the local electrics shop and ordered a new one. He has phoned to say he will deliver it today. So while I wait, I will start cutting up some oranges.

But first I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and pop over to them to see what has made them happy this week.

Rocking Your World 2020; Week 4

I am sure many of you have seen pictures on the TV of the problems Storm Gloria has caused in Spain this week. We are fortunate that we live on the edge of the affected region, but it has still been bad enough for us to 'hibernate' for most of the week, so I don't have too much news today.

Monday was just cold but on Tuesday we needed to venture out for a doctor's appointment and a little bit of food shopping, so we ended up at the big Lidls near Garrucha. We decided to drive home along the coast road as far as Mojacar, and we soon discovered that the wind was already getting up and there were some big waves. I love what I call a 'lively sea', so I persuaded Chris to park up while I tried to take some photos. Trying to catch a good wave at just the right moment is always difficult, especially as I now only use the camera on my phone, but here are are few of what I managed to take. I love the way the wind catches the top of the waves and blows them back like spray.

It was a very cold wind so we didn't stay long and were happy to get home to enjoy the warming casserole I had prepared in my Instant Pot.

It all went a bit downhill from there, and that night the promised rain started and fell fairly persistently all night.

The next morning we were greeted with some distant thunder and soon we were directly in the path of a series of electric storms, with brilliant flashes of lightening and almost instant crashes of thunder that rattled the doors and windows, and killed our internet and TV for most of the day. The rain was torrential and as we have no gutters on most of the older houses here, there were water spouts from every corner which just added to the noise. Then the sound changed and when we looked outside we found it was heavy hail stones that drifted and layed on the ground like snow in the all the corners of the yard, and round the pool.

We have never seen our yard looking like this before.

We stood on the covered part of our porch and watched as the hail slid off the roof onto the fly-free netting, leaving a heap of ice under the corner, and a pattern of little 'v' shaped under the edge of each tile. It took until yesterday afternoon for this to melt, and it has left behind horrid piles of dirt and debris that came down with it, so Chris will need to get the pressure washer out to clean it all off once we are sure the weather has cleared.

So we spent all day Tuesday and most of Wednesday sitting in front of the fire, surrounded by the dogs and cats, who also didn't fancy going out in it.

But as I say, we were the lucky ones, as some parts of Spain were much more badly affected. High winds and waves caused a lot of damage along some sea-fronts, heavy rain caused flooding in towns just down the road from here, and traffic was brought to a standstill on roads that have not had snow on them in some folks living memories. We certainly don't expect to see it down on the coast but this photo was taken just a short way east of here. There is something very odd about palm trees dusted with snow, and a layer of white covering the sand.

So I just count our blessings that we have a house we can warm up in, enough food and clothes to cope when the unexpected hits us, and nothing urgent that means we have to go out in it. But I feel so sorry for the many homeless people who live on the streets in places that are totally unprepared to cater for them, though I am sure many organisations and individuals did provide temporary shelter and food for many. Sadly the death count is 13 for Storm Gloria so far, but it is now moving towards France and losing its intensity, so hopefully that won't rise any further.

I am sure some of you are thinking that this is nothing like as bad as you experience in UK most Winters, but I think we are feeling it so much because it is a very rare occurrence here. Our houses are not designed for it, and our roads do not get cleared as fast, the mountains around us send down more water than the drainage in some villages can cope with so there is flooding, and it takes us all by surprise. But of course, as suddenly as it comes, so it also goes, and I am sure the sun will be as bright as ever quite soon. 

Of course, further inland, and higher up, some snow is expected each year. I am sure Lisca will be telling us about her area where it is quite normal to see the white stuff, and I am sure she got out and enjoyed it.

Chris and I are not lovers of the cold, and one of our reasons for moving to Spain was to escape from the British weather, and we both have arthritic joints which react to cold and wet somewhat negatively, so Spain suits us better.

On a happier note, the sky is clearing and there is a watery sunshine. As I walked across the village to get my hair cut yesterday, I spotted the first almond blossom, and that really lifted my spirit. It is the first sign that Spring is on the way.

One advantage of forced hibernation is that I got a few things done. My friend gave me another big bag of bitter oranges so yesterday I made a further 35 jars of marmalade, I completed a set of eight Christmas cards made from recycled elements saved from cards I received this year, (these are for a blog challenge tomorrow so I can't post a picture here), and I have also done some more of my crochet. My hands are getting worse, so I can only do an hour or so at a time, but I am no good at just sitting idle so I find myself reaching for hook and yarn quite frequently. I have made good progress and here is my latest project so far.

The design is based on the idea of a rose window in a church, and I chose the colours to represent the Aurora Borealis. I love how they are working out. There are a few more rounds to do and then it has square corners added and a further design worked across the lower edge. I think it will just about be a single bed size when it is done.

And that is it for this week, so I will now link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 3

Hi everyone. I had a lovely week last week with my eldest son Jim and his wife Jo. I even managed to get a nice photo of them together which is a rare event as they are both camera shy. Jim is a vicar and likes to keep a low profile so he doesn't use social media but doesn't mind me adding him on this post.

At the same time he also took a fairly decent one of Chris and I which also doesn't happen very often as it is usually me who is behind the camera.

They have only visited us twice before and came in January so Jim could see how important the Three Kings Fiesta (or Epiphany) is in Spain. So on the evening of 5th January we took them down to Garrucha where there were lots of people crowded along the promenade, waiting for the kings to arrive on a fishing boat. Garrucha is a fishing village (town now really), so the harbour is a focal point for them. We managed to find a spot along the rail on the upper level, and eventually a little boat made its way across the harbour mouth to anchor below us. 

Amid cheering, and the usual loud music, each king disembarked and transferred onto a well-decorated float, along with an entourage of children and adults all in bright costumes. We watched each one come up the slip road from the port to start the parade around the main streets of Garrucha. Here comes the first float featuring a large camel.

In this picture you can see a stack of white sacks all around the King's throne. They are all filled with small boiled sweets and wrapped jellies, which the king, and the children throw as they travel round the parade route. Some families stand with upside-down umbrellas to catch as many as they can and I have seen them carrying shopping bags filled with them.

Jo has fibromyalgia and cannot walk too far at a time, so we decided to leave the crowded streets of Garrucha and head back to our village. On the way I caught Jo having a silly moment with a lit up snowman. I am sure half the population of Garrucha have never seen real snow, but it still features in many of their Christmas decorations.

We got back to Los Gallardos just in time to see the last of the children receive their gifts from the Three Kings in the big marque in the centre of the village.

The medieval market around the central plaza was having a trial run before the big event the next day, so we wandered around there for a bit and stopped to watch some 'exotic dancers'.

The next day was bright and sunny, as it so often is for this Fiesta. We made sure we were out in good time to see the arrival of the kings from three directions, when they meet up and decide to go to King Herod to inquire about the new baby. I passed the time waiting, by taking photos of our long shadows!

They were joined by a group of children all in bright costumes, and the ladies of the village choir, also in costume.

Then we went down to the plaza where Herod's 'Palace' was built, and watched the reenactment of the story there. 

On the car park, opposite the plaza there was already a log fire lit under the huge pan where free food is prepared for anyone who wants it. It is usually migas which is not our favourite, so we decided to buy other food for our lunch from one of the stalls. (Migas is basically flour and salt added to boiling water and oil so it clumps together and is then chopped up into rough crumble. Then garlic cloves, small sausages, choritzo etc are added and it is served with bread and usually raw broad beans though this year it was cherry tomatoes instead).

We stopped to watch another, or maybe the same, dancer, and the yellow silky cloth she was waving around shone like gold in the sun, and was very effective.

When we felt it was time for lunch, the two men chose the wraps of doner kebab meat from the Morroccan stall, while Jo and I queued up for 'patata completo', and it certainly was complete. Apart from being the biggest jacket potato I have ever seen, it came with no less than ten toppings - tomato sauce, a lot of mayonnaise, chopped ham, grated carrot, grated beetroot, tuna, sweet corn, sliced olives, grated Parmesan cheese, and a fistful of totally unnecessary bread rings! And all that for just 5€. It was very good, but Jo and I could easily have shared one.

When they first arrived, Paco quickly found he had a new friend. Neither Jim nor Jo are really 'dog people', and Kim soon understood that he needed to come to me if he wanted any fuss, but they have four cats at the vicarage, and Jim straightway found Paco's love of cuddles suited him just fine. This photo amused me, because although I know the slogan on the back of his shirt is the name of a band he likes, it seemed totally at odds with the little cat sitting on his shoulder!

One day Jo and I were out at the back railings trying to video all the little birds that constantly fly over the green zone behind our house. I looked across at the tall pine trees in the next road and I saw one starling perched on the tip of each branch, just like candles on a Christmas tree. In fact the whole tree was full of them, and every now and then they all took off together, flew round a few times and landed back in the tree. I hope you can see them in the picture. Try clicking on it for a larger view.

We had several nice little outings while they were with us, including a morning at Mojacar Pueblo and  walks along the marina, as well as visiting our local watering holes, but mostly we sat out on the porch, enjoying the warm sunshine, chatting and relaxing.  Jo brought her crochet with her, so we sat together working on our projects, while the men talked computers etc. Life as a vicar can be very demanding, and you don't get a lot of personal time, so it was good for them to have no phone calls etc. The week soon passed and on Saturday we drove them back to the airport.

So Sunday was a bit flat for us and I suggested we had a little trip out as it was yet another sunny day. So we drove along the coast to a little fishing village called Villaricos. It is close to where we rented a flat when we first came out here, and we used to go to it quite often then, but it is many years since our last visit. On Sundays there is a very popular street market which was much bigger than I remember, and was heaving with people.

We each treated ourselves to something from the clothing stalls, and then we walked out the other side of the market to the water front. The beach itself is not special, being mostly grey shale, but it is all quite pituresque, ending at a small marina of private yatchs, and views along the coast towards Garrucha, and behind us, the entrance to a small fishing harbour.

We sat outside a bar on the marina for a drink and then set off back to the car. But it was such a nice day that we decided to stop on the way home for a menu del día, and found a place with a big, sunny patio where we enjoyed a very pleasant meal.

The rest of the week has been mostly spent getting the extra bedding and towels washed and dried before the weather changes, and doing the tidying up that didn't really get done when the Christmas decorations came down on 8th. But I did spend one afternoon chopping vegetables.

You have probably guessed I was preparing to make piccalilli. So many folk have requested it, so I thought I would start the new year with something useful. It is this preparation that takes the time. I make a piccalilli that is designed to be spread in a sandwich as well as eaten with meat and cheese, so the vegetables have to be chopped more finely than for the traditional style pickle. Then it is salted and left over night. The next day it is thoroughly rinsed and left to drain (as above), while I mix up a potent brew of flour and spices - mustard, ginger, turmeric and curry powder. It is quite a bowlful which is mixed with spirit vinegar and boiled together in a big pan until it is thick.

It is not an unpleasant smell but it does waft through the house, and the steam from it makes my eyes water. Next the drained vegetables are added and it is all cooked up together for just two minutes before it is bottled and sealed.

It looks quite pretty in the pan, but I have no photos of the bottles as half of them were sold at my sewing group the next day. The rest will go up to my sales table in the church hall on Sunday.

I must admit I prefer the smell coming from my preserving pan yesterday. This time I was using it to make the new season's marmalade. 

The bitter oranges are only available in January and early February, and a friend from sewing, who has a tree of them in her garden, brought me a big bag full on Wednesday. There was enough to make two of my double batches, and they need using once they are picked so I worked at it all day and by evening I had 39 jars of pure gold ready to sell on Sunday and on through the year. She has promised me another bag of them next Wednesday so I hope I will get the same amount made again, and then I will need enough for one batch of my darker recipe with thick cut peel.

And that is my week, so I am finishing with a picture that caught my eye when my friend Margie posted it on our church's Facebook page. I thought it was so unusual.

Who or what do you think it is?

Margie's caption read "The truth of what and who we are is always there, it just depends how you look at something! Sometimes we have to look again."

While you are pondering that one, I will link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles. Thank you to those who popped over last week. I am sorry I did not return the favour, but this week I have more time and will definitely get to everyone.

P.S. For those who couldn't see it, try looking at the picture from this perspective.

Is that better?

Rocking Your World 2020: Week2

Hi everyone. As this is the last day that our son Jim and his wife Jo are with us, I am doing an extremely brief post with a taster of what's to come next week.

This was of course the Fiesta of the Three Kings, and this photo shows the whole cast of the re-enactment of the kings visit to King Herod, which is performed each year.

By next week I will have sorted through my photos and have some better ones to show you. But for now, I can just say we have had a week of sunshine and smiles, for which we are all very grateful.

I hope it has been as good for everyone else.

I will Link this up with Rocking Your World, and Annie's Friday Smiles, and normal service will resume next week.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 1

Hi everyone, and a Happy new Year to you all. 

As expected, I didn't post last week so I really wanted to just draw together the last few days of 2019 before launching into the new year. So I am having a quick trawl through my photos and writing this on Thursday night as tomorrow I shall be up with the dawn chorus to get to Murcia airport to collect our eldest son Jim and his wife Jo. They are coming for a week to celebrate the Three Kings festival with us.

Earlier in the month we had a 'Red Day', one of our national holidays, this time a religious one for 'The Immaculate Conception'. Apart from a special mass in the church, the local folk don't seem to celebrate this in any special way, though of course, they are happy to have a day off work. But we have quite a large South American (mainly Ecuadorian) population around here, and for them it is a very special festival. They dress up in the most bizarre costumes, some beautiful and some verging on very ugly or scary, and gather for a big mass in the village church, when some kind of presentation was given to quite a few folk, and then they dance and play music as they parade down to a recreational area in the rambla at the top of the village, which is set aside for their use every weekend. There they party into the night. So I am just showing a couple of their costumes, as these  photos were overlooked at the time. And then I will move on to our Christmas.

First we will go back to the night before Mike came over for his (very) short break, when he played his usual role of Santa on the Round Table float that tours the villages in and around my home town of Oswestry. He always does it on the night it is in his old village, and was still asked to play the part again even though it is almost a year since he moved away.

He makes a very good Santa, partly because he enjoys it so much. The thing that struck me when I first saw this was, if I didn't know it was him, and I was asked who it was, I would immediately have said it was his brother Jim. I have never thought of them as being that alike, but it must be all in the eyes!

Anyway, the next day he was on the plane to us, sadly on his own, as his partner's father was very ill and she did not feel she could come away. But he made the most of his two days.

On the Sunday we had our Christmas dinner together. While Mike was having a drive along the sea front, I prepared the food and got the table ready.

Then early afternoon we sat down to pull crackers, raise a glass or two, and enjoy a good feast.

The next day he had some shopping to do, so while he was out doing that, Chris and I went for a walk along the sea-front at Garrucha, and on to the marina. It was a beautiful day. The beach was empty except for the sea gulls, but there were plenty of others enjoying a stroll in the sunshine.

While we were sitting watching the boats bobbing around in the marina we took a selfie, and you can tell from how dark our glasses had turned, just how bright the sun was.

Then, a couple of days later, it was Christmas Day, but as we had had our special time three days earlier, we had a quiet day at home together. It was another bright sunny day and we spent much of our time sitting outside on the porch. I did not want to cook turkey again, so I had bought us two extra nice steaks, and we ate outside, something we haven't managed on Christmas Day for a long time.

Both the dogs had a bone for their Christmas treat and that kept them occupied so we got to eat in peace.

We had ordered a new bed for each of them, but they did not arrive until a couple of days after Christmas. They are very soft and fluffy and they love them. Foxy's is dark grey and Kim's much bigger one is dark red - you can just see a bit at the left hand edge of this photo.

They actually spend a lot of time curled up in them , but Foxy does not look very relaxed in this picture because she hates the camera and didn't want to pose for me. I couldn't get Kim on his as he walked away every time I approached him. But needless to say I am forever catching them in the wrong bed. Kim hasn't got the sense to see that if he lays on Foxy's his rear end is on the cold floor, and Foxy is happy with either of them!

The rain we had a couple of weeks ago, followed by some very warm days has made all the weeds grow at a rapid pace. Next door's orange grove looks like a jungle. And there are now lots of buds forming so soon it will be covered in yellow flowers and then lots more seeds will be scattered.

But all the greenery hasn't spoiled the orange crop. The trees are full of fruit which really needs to be picked, but the house owner doesn't always come to get them. Eventually the lady who comes each week to water her plants, will pick some of them. I know, if I asked, she would happily give some to me too, but I have already picked the ones from our other neighbour's trees which hang into our garden, and have as many as we can use, and our own little tree has eight really big fruit on it which will not be ready until late February, when the others are passed their best, so we will enjoy those then.

We had a quiet new Year's Eve at home. The whole village is quite quiet as it is a night to spend with families here, though there are a few fireworks and people on the street at midnight. As we usually do, we turned onto Spanish TV at our midnight (that's 11.00 for our friends in UK), and then back on to UK TV at 1.00am for midnight in London. We like to watch the fireworks over the Thames, though this year they were partly hidden by smoke. There can't have been any wind to keep it moving. But I do wonder how much good might have been done with all the money that burned in those few minutes. Still, it does have a 'feel good' factor, and at this rather uncertain time, that is what folks need. We managed to talk to all our boys at some time during the day, so we happily took ourselves off to bed, still full of questions as to what 2020 may have in store for us. It is probably a good thing that we can't see into the future, so we take each day as it comes, and keep looking for those silver linings as we go.

New Year's Day was forecast to be cloudy and much colder, but it turned out to be rather better than that, so mid-morning we drove down to the Playa again, this time to the Mojacar end, and had a lovely walk along the promenade. There were lots of people about, walking off a night of partying, or just wanting to enjoy the sea air. Like us, they mostly stayed up on the prom, so the beach was very tranquil in the sunshine.

There is something about that wide stretch of blue sea, and gentle waves breaking on the rocks, that is very good for the soul!

However, when we reached a man-made bay, constructed to make a safer area as the currents can be quite dangerous at times, we came across a small group of folk who were brave enough to go for a New Year's Day swim. There is a much bigger organised group for this who take to the sea much further along the coast, but this was just a group of hardy friends who were having a great time, and were enjoying the attention they got from a large crowd of on-lookers.

As we walked further along I noticed some colour among the trees that lined the promenade, and on closer inspection I found they were little wild galardias, all opening up to enjoy the sun. I have a few of these in a pot in my garden. I didn't plant them so they must have been seeded by the birds, but I don't expect to see them in flower until the summer.

We hadn't planned on staying out for lunch, but it was so lovely that when we came to nice bar that we have visited before, we sat at a table on their front courtyard and enjoyed a very nice meal, before driving home to check on my line of washing, which I am pleased to say, was all dry.

Now we are preparing for our son Jim's visit. He and Jo have only been out a couple of times before, and never in the Winter, so we are looking forward to spending time with them.

I was pleased to see that the poinsettias in our front porch have weathered the highs and lows over Christmas, and still look good. I love their bright splash of colour. All our other decorations are still up too of course, as Christmas isn't over here until after twelfth night, 6th January.

I haven't been down in my craft room much over the holiday but I did want to get my new large calendar for the wall made. It shows the whole year with just the dates, no spaces for writing on. I have it on the wall just above my computer and it is very useful when the boys ring me up to discuss holidays, or things they will be doing, and I also print one off for Chris to have in his 'office' den. I like it to be something to make me smile when I glance up at it, so I wanted to include photos of all the family and the animals. The boys were easy to get sorted, but the animals!! None of them like the camera, so I decided to try to get new photos of them, and it took me forever to get each of them looking at the camera. But in the end I managed to get something I could edit to fit into the little spaces I had allotted them, and eventually I got my calendar made. I use Photoshop for something like this, and have put one of my lovely sunset photos behind us to make the background interesting. Now they are printed in a large A5 format, and are both in place on our walls. 

Now I must think about making a page per month calendar for writing our events on, as I did not get a new one this year. I like having a personalised one but it always takes me ages to decide which photos to use for each month.

And finally here is a not very dramatic, but very pretty sky to lead us gently into the new year.

Tomorrow, when I get back from the airport, I shall link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World. Why not start a new project this year, and add your happy moments in a post too.

P.S. Visitors arrived safely, first round of tea drunk, and the world put to rights. Hopefully I¡ll be back next week.