Rocking Your World 2021:Week 12

I seem to have had a busier week though I haven't actually done all that much, but I have quite a few photos so here goes.

Last week Virginia, on her Rocking Your World blog, told us about an App she had found that adds colour to black and white photos, so I asked her for the details. I couldn't get it for my PC where my only B&W photos are, but I managed to upload one to my phone. So here is a picture of me at around six months old, as the original and after the app had coloured it. It does work quite well and the colour is fairly natural. I might have to take a few photos in black and white mode so I have something to play with.

Another smile came from Tolly again. He seems to blend in with his surroundings and the other evening I couldn't find him, and then spotted him laying up on quite a high shelf among my photos and other knick-knacks. He can move very quickly and almost silently, and illustrates well the meaning of 'pussy-footing'. He can be really careful and get himself into a position like this without moving anything around him. However if  there is something on the table etc that catches his eye, he will pat at it until it falls on the floor, and then just walks off with a satisfied air!

Sunday was, of course, Mothering Sunday in UK. We celebrate on a different day in Spain, but I still heard from all my boys with video calls and messages which was lovely. I cooked a special lunch for us which we ate out on a sunny patio, and as it was such a nice day, we decided to walk it off along the sea front in Mojacar.

It was actually much quieter there than I expected, but we were a bit too early for the Spanish walkers who tend to have a long slow meal before walking. There were only one or two people actually sitting on the beach, and a few other exercising their dogs, which is allowed on the sands during the off-peak season. We sat and watched them for a while. They were enjoying their freedom and having fun together.

We walked quite a long way on the promenade and passed a few other folk doing the same. Then we sat down and had an ice-cream and walked back to the car. It was lovely and warm and very pleasant.

This is the season for mimosa blossom which grows everywhere here. One roundabout on the main Mojacar road is surrounded by it, and every branch is smothered with flowers. I still call it mimosa, as that is what it is usually called in UK, but out here it has its family name acacia, and in Australia where it also grows abundantly, it is known as wattle.

When I got home I made a batch of Welsh cakes for tea. Back during the war, my mum went with her two youngest children when they were evacuated to Wales. They stayed with a smithy and he made mum a griddle, which she used for the rest of her life. The smithy's wife taught mum to make Welsh cakes on it, and she would make them for our Sunday tea, and we loved them. Later she bought me my griddle and I used her recipe to make Welsh cakes for Sunday tea for my family. When mum came to live with us for the last ten years of her life, I made them for her Sunday tea, and she still loved them too. So what better way to end a lovely Mothering Sunday, than to have Welsh cakes for tea, in memory of my lovely mum .

Monday morning brought me a nice surprise - a parcel from my daughter-in-law. It contained a Mother's day card and a gorgeous crocheted gnome. Anyone who does any crafting will know that gnomes are in favour right now, so there are lots of patterns for them, but she had personalised mine by making it a sunflower gnome. The family still tease me about my sunflower dress and know how much I like them, so this was a perfect gift. Isn't she cute?

On Tuesday I went to the market to check the price of strawberries with a view to making some jam. It is the one thing I make that we both eat, though I have to ration my intake because of diabetes. They were still a bit too expensive on most stalls but I found one that had cheaper ones, so I bought 3kg. Last year I waited for the price to go down and almost left it too late, so I didn't want to do the same this year. They were beautiful fruit, almost too good to make into jam, but I bought a few extras for us to eat, and the rest I washed and removed all the green tops.

I put all the top halves that were still a bit white into my food processor and chopped them well, and the red parts I cut into large chunks. Soon I had around twenty jars of lovely jam. Jam jars used to be a standard size but now they come in all shapes and sizes so I have rather a mixture of them but the jam inside is still the same!

After a beautiful weekend the weather has gone downhill a bit again. We have had a lot of grey, colder days and a fair bit of rain. Yesterday started well but the forecast was not good so I decided to go for a walk around the village in the morning before it turned wet again. It was warm enough for walking in a short sleeve shirt but as I passed the Town Hall there was a lot of noise, and I realised it was the wind rattling the 'hands' on the tall palm trees that tower above the buildings

At the top of the village you can look over the railings down into the rambla (dry river bed) that runs around the village. That area is divided into small personal agricultural plots and some stables that the men use for their horses. They used to be very rough and ready spaces with just bare earth, and we often felt sad to see them herded together in  a small space with no shade etc. But the whole space has been reorganised and there is now a lot more horses there, but they have proper stable blocks, tarpaulin shelters for shade, plenty of fresh straw and a source of water, as well as more space to move around. Occasionally the men will ride some of the horses through the village in the evening, and they sit very proudly on them, so it was good to see them so well cared for now.

Then I walked down the slope into the rambla, and round the corner I found another paddock that wasn't there last time I went. It was properly fenced off and there were a lot more horses, ponies and mules, all well catered for and looking fit and healthy.

The little fenced off area bottom right, had a mother and her foal in it.

I walked on around the rambla and I came across a beautiful mimosa tree. It was a lovely shape instead of the usual straggly mass of branches, and it had the prettier, brighter yellow flowers rather than the ones on the sea-front.

of course, so many flowers means a lot of pollen, and usually it really irritates me, but perhaps because I had a mask on, I seem to have been unaffected by it this time.

As I walked back to the road down into the village again, I had to cross a small area of campo that was carpeted with these tiny daisies. They are a common wild flower and look like a miniature version of the daisies I picked last week (which still look lovely on my kitchen table). In between them there were a few blue speedwells. So pretty!

The track through the ramble has a high sloping bank up to the road at the top of the village and this had several big patches of wild lavender on it.

As I walked back towards home black clouds were gathering and it was clear the promised rain was closing in. So I hurried back and sure enough, a few minutes later the first drops started to fall. So I was glad I had decided to walk early instead of in the afternoon as I usually do.

And I think we have more of that to come. Today i read that Spring is taking a step backwards, and most of Spain will experience another bout of Winter weather over the next few days, with a steep drop in temperature, rain and even snow in some areas. It has certainly been chilly in the evenings and this is the nearest we have had to a sunset all week.

But not everything is bad news. Our virus cases in the village have dropped further, and seem to have stabilised throughout the province. We are now down to level two which means there is more freedom of movement, longer opening hours for shops and bars, and larger groups allowed in homes as well as bars and restaurants. So that is all good. Some parts of Europe do seem to be in trouble again, and our vaccination roll-out is slower than I would like, so I am hoping folk are sensible over the Easter week and keep observing the rules so we don't go backwards next month.

Sorry this has been rather a long post this week. For once I had plenty of photos and chat to share. Thank you for following me and adding your comments each week. I really do enjoy hearing form you.  I will now link up with Rocking Your World, and Annie's Friday Smiles, and after lunch I will do the rounds to see how you have spent your week.