Friday Smiles 2022: Week 1

Having been absent for a couple of weeks, I thought I would show my face again today. You may notice I have changed my post title for the new year. I continue to visit my friend Virginia at Rocking Your World each week, but for personal reasons she has changed her blog to private so I need to use her special link to go to her, and I can no longer link this post publically to hers, so it seemed a sensible thing to do.

I do hope you all enjoyed Christmas and your celebrations were not spoiled by too much ill health. Several of my family in UK have succumbed to Covid over the holiday period, but fortunately none of them have been seriously ill. The number of cases in our village is very high for the size of the place, so we have continued to stay home most of the time. Today is the Three Kings Fiesta, but for the second year running, the main event has been cancelled due to the pandemic. Some Spanish towns have held their's but with some changes, i.e. only using the wider roads, the kings not throwing handfuls of candies into the streets for the children to collect etc. Our Town Hall sent a letter from the Kings to all the children to explain that they wouild receive their gifts in a different way this year. (Normally done en masse in a big marquee). However the Kings did dress up and walk the streets of the village yesterday, accompanied by  loud music from a van, and with a few followers. We went out to the gate to wave at them and one king came over to give us a bag of fruit jellies each. It made me smile and they are doing the best they can in the circumstances.

As an aside to that, I read this morning that the capital of our province, Almería city, went ahead with its parade. (We went to watch this one year and it was quite spectacular). I gather they had toned it down a bit and only used the widest roads instead of their usual route, but the kings distributed 13,000 kilos of candies! (bagged up instead of being thrown loose I expect). I should think the dentists in Almería are kept busy!

We had a rather damp and grey Christmas day but it has picked up considerably since then. The sun has been out and for a few hours each day, it is really warm. Last night we had heavy rain for a couple of hours, but the sun is back today. Most days we have sat outside to eat our lunch, and enjoyed relaxing in the warm, but by four o'clock the sun is going down and it soon gets chilly again, so we make sure we move back indoors before we get cold.

One day I had a visit from a friend who brought me a crate of bitter oranges. I also have a crate in the garage of sweet oranges that we picked from the trees in next doors garden. Usually they come and pick them themselves during Christmas week, but so far they haven't come this year. We only pick the ones that hang right into our garden, but I hope they come and pick the rest soon. I hate to see them just ripen and fall.

I wonder if you can see which are the sweet and which the bitter ones.

Close up they are quite different. The bitter ones have  much rougher, knobbly skins. And of course, when you cut them open, the difference is much more obvious. The bitter ones have thick pith and lots of pips which is what makes the marmalade set so well.

Once picked, they don't keep for too long so on New Year's day I made marmalade, and yesterday I made a second batch. That is enough for this year as I have lost most of my outlets. But I still sell a few jars, and we use some ourselves.

Well done all of you who recognised my nativity set as Willow Tree. That is correct, and as it is quite pricey I have built it up over time. This year I ordered one last piece. It was easy to find places selling the whole set, but not so easy to find individual pieces, but I eventually found the goatherd I wanted. It took a long time to come but it turned up on Monday so I was able to display it with the rest for a few days before it is all packed away again. 

As usual I started taking things down today (Thursday) and tomorrow it will all be put away. I have always kept my decorations up until 'twelfth night' and that seems even more relevant here where Epiphany is celebrated more than Christmas is. The house looks empty when it all comes down, but there will be more light coming through the window with the tree gone, and I can have a proper clean through.

Every year I make a wall calendar to go up above my computer so I can see the whole year's dates when the boys phone me and talk about events, visits etc. I like to incorporate all their pictures so they are always smiling down on me. Chris has a copy on his office wall too. Here is this year's.

I like to include a photo of the animals too and I didn't have a good one of Luna. She is semi-feral and really only comes in for food morning and night. She has some Siamese in her and is very vocal, and can be very demanding for her food. Unfortunately she does not get on with the other cats, especially Tolly and really screams at them if they come near her. This makes it quite difficult to get a decent photo of her but I managed one in the end. As a tiny kitten she was the prettiest tabby I have ever seen. I used to say she was a 'chocolate box kitten', and she is still very handsome with totally symmetrical stripe markings. It is just a pity she is not a bit more friendly.

I also make a page per month calendar to go on my kitchen board. It is not essential but I like making it. I have printed out all the pages now and just have to get them bound together and ready to hang. Each month I use a photo/s taken in that month the previous year, but this year I made April's page a collection taken through the year of our newest grand daughter, who was born on 1st April. Here it is. 

And here are a couple more pages.

We had some exciting news at Christmas that we will have a new great-granchild in early July. We don't know the gender until 22nd of this month, but Isaac and Alfie are very excited to have a new brother or sister.

And finally a picture of a 'shark' that glided across the sky last night.

And with that I will pop over to link up woth Annie on her Friday's Smiles page.