Friday Smiles 2023; Week 4

A very quick post today as my son is here with his wife and little girl so I don't want to spend too long down here on my computer. But I have a few photos to share. My little grand-daughter is used to animals and has a big staffie at home, so she wasn't phased by Kim's size, and he is so gentle anyway. But she has really fallen in love with Tango. He is so laid back that he will tolerate a lot of cuddles and stroking, and when he has  had enough, he just takes himself off to hide for a while. A. Hasn't taken any notice of the other cats; just Tango.

Unfortunately their first day with us was rather wet. We did manage to walk around the market, but then the rain started and stayed all day, which doesn't often happen here. So we were happy to see the sun shining and a blue sky the next day but they were a bit surprised at how cold it was, although I had warned them. So on Wednesday it was even colder then usual, and looking from our back railing, we could see snow on the higher slopes of the Cabreras. 

We have only seen snow this far down a couple of times. It was unusual enough for Facebook to be flooded with photos of it, so here is one from a friend who lives  higher  up the mountain. Certainly a novelty for the locals.

The snow has gone now and we have a slightly windy but sunny day. I was up quite early, just in time to catch a lovely sunrise.

Our son Jonathan used to be a tree surgeon, and one of the reasons for his visit, (discounting the obvious family reasons), was to help Chris in the garden. Between our porch and the back railing there is a tiny square of soil where we had a very pretty tree, and also a shrub that I grew from a small cutting when my friend moved back to UK. It took almost too well and grew much too tall, so it towered above the tree. But this year the tree died and Jonathan has cut it down, along with the shrub which we are hoping will now grown more bushy, and not so high. Then between them they chipped the huge pile of debris so we could bag it us and put it in the street bin.

It has made a big difference to the light in our bedroom and in the porch fly-free area. The little path that runs behind this square of earth is where the hedgehog was hiding in a big pile of dead leaves. It looks so much better now it is all cleared up.

I enjoyed some Grandma cuddle time while we watched Grandad and Daddy working outside.

Tonight we are going out together for a while, and tomorrow Jonathan is driving me to Alicante to collect my little Leo (Maine coon kitten), which is very exciting, so that is all I have time for this week. I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and I am sure there will be photos to show you next week.

Friday Smiles 2023: Week 3

My son has been sending me beautiful photos of his garden and local countryside, all with a blanket of snow, and although I love seeing them, I am very gald to be here in the sunshine, even if it does feel a tad chilly to us. But we have not been completely spared some bad weather. On Tuesday and Wednesday it was blowing a hooley here, enough to overturn our large cactus tree in its big heavy pot, to move the garden furniture around and to fill up the pool with leaves and debris. Hopefully it will have settled down enough to have a bit of a tidy up tomorrow. The animals have been quite disturbed and I am not surprised as the wind whistling round the corners is quite an eerie sound.

I walked over to the market on Tuesday to buy fruit and veggies, and most stalls were battling to keep their goods on show. I took this photo of the clouds being whipped up into a wave. (Pity there wasn't something more attractive in the foreground!)

Despite the wind, Kim still prefers to lay on his bed which is tucked into a corner of the porch, behind our chairs to give him some protection, rather than inside on his comfy bed by the fire! We encourage him to stay quiet in the evenings so as not to disturb the neighbours, so when he started barking excitedly on Tuesday evening, and wouldn't stop, we knew he had found something interesting. He was in a dark little corner between a thick shrub and the back railings, so using the torch on my phone, I went to investigate and sure enough, he had found a hedgehog. These are rarely seen in the village; in fact this is only the second one we have seen in the fifteen years we have been here. It was curled up tight and I think it had hibernated and was disturbed when the wind moved the roll of wire fencing that was on the leaves. It looked like there had been a nest of sorts under the leaves. Kim wouldn't be distracted so in the end we carefully moved the hedgehog over the railings to where there is a deep pile of old vegetation, and hopefully he settled down in there. There was no sign of him by the morning. I managed to get quite a good photo of him using the flash feature.

I have some more beautiful roses. The first one lasted almost all week, so I rescued these ones before they were destroyed by the wind. The red one is like velvet and the whole room smells of its perfume when I go in each morning.

The work in the bathroom is progressing, albeit rather slowly. We are hoping it will be finished by tonight. It has been a bit unsettling having the workmen in all week, and there has been so much cardboard packaging blocking the corridor, so I have tended to stay in one place as much as possible. On Tuesday I hid in my craft room all day. I actually managed to make a birthday card for my son ready for the end of February. That is forward planning for you! 

I also decided to try my hand at something new. Many years ago I did a little basic macrame, and as I showed in an earlier post, this year I made three little Christmas trees from a kit. That sort of got me interested in it again, and it seems to be having a new lease of popularity, so I was able to find quite a few tutorial videos and e-books online to help me get started. In the end I decided to tackle a wall hanging. It is a fairly ambitious piece for a first effort, but following a very helpful video, I am making some progress. The next part is more complicated but I am ready to try it. I needed it to hang on the wall while I worked so Chris put two hooks on the inside of the wardrobe door in my craft room and it is hanging from there. This is the work so far. I will show it again, if or when it is finished!

My son Tom, who lives in Denmark, phoned us from Lisbon this week. Apparently he was there for a work conference, so he gave us a guided tour of the city. It looked really interesting.

And finally I have a picture of a lovely heart shaped sunset.

And with that I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles. Take care on the ice and stay safe and warm everyone.

Friday Smiles 2023; Week 2

Of course my post this week starts with the Three Kings Fiesta that we enjoyed last weekend. The main event was on Friday and it was a lovely sunny day so the crowds turned out to join in the fun. 

The medieval market stalls were set up early ready for us all to browse.

This couple always make us smile. They are familiar to most of us as they live on the camp site and they love to dress up for any ocasion.

One of my favourite spots is to stand and watch the large birds. The feathers on this raven shone a deep blue as the sun caught his wings.

This is my favourite - the magnificent eagle owl. Isn't he handsome. His name board says he is the owl of good luck.

The scenes at King Herod's palace when the Kings come to enquire about the new baby were acted out as usual. The man who plays King Herod is perfect for the role and manages to look and sound very fierce. 

I think as part of the efforts to raise awareness of the fiesta in a wider reagion, the kings had several sets of new costumes this year, and wore them at various events throughout the fiesta. 

The Roman soldiers looked good too as they lined the road in to the palace, and carried orders from the King.

After the play there was the usual mass, this year led by the Bishop of Almeria, and the kings stood at the front throughout the service.

We don't go to the marquee for the dancing in the evening, but we could hear their music from the house.

Now all is cleared away. The street lights were taken down on Monday, and I managed to get all our decorations down and packed away in one day. It usually takes me ages.

On Monday the men arrived to start work on our little bathroom. It didn't take them long to strip out all the hardware, but it took nearly two days to remove the tiles from the walls and floor. What a noise and the dust.... But it shows how well-built out house is. It is around thirty years old now, and it was built to last! Of course I forgot to take the 'before' photo but here are a few of the work in progress. 

The shower tray is now down and the plumbing has been moved to suit our new design. The walls have been rough-rendeed ready for the new tiles but we are still waiting for them to arrive!

Meanwhile here is something to make you smile. A near perfect rose-bud that appeared this week. 

And just along from  that is this beautiful deep red one. As it has shot up and is now taller than me, I decided to cut it and have it indoors where I could see it. (Sorry the photo is blurred. I was trying to pull it down to my level and take the shot one-handed but I am not that dexerous these days!)

Our house is quite cool until we light the fire at night, so it has lasted well indoors, but now it is a wide open bloom turning darker with a purple hue, and will probably start to drop its petals soon. It actually fills the room with its scent.

I went back to the doctor this week as the ulcer on my hand is still not healing very well, so now I have a stronger antibiotic, to take three times a day for ten days. Hopefully that will do the trick, and it will soon be gone.

We have had to set out alarm this week as the workmen like to get started by 8.00, so I have been up in time to see a couple of lovely sunrises. These two photos were taken on the same day, the first looking out the front door at the sunrise, and the second looking over the green zone at the back of us at the sunset.

And finally I had to include another photo of my gorgeous great-grandson Reuben. This was taken on his "six-month anniversary". Any excuse to make a fuss of him and he is such a happy little chappy, and it always makes me smile to see his photos.

And with that, I will go over to Annie's blog to link up and see all your smiles for this week.

P.S. The bathroom tiles arrived this morning so more smiles from me!

Friday S,iles 2023: Week 1

So I am bounding into 2023 with a photo of the first sunset of 2023. (It's the only one worth photographing this week).

We saw the New Year in quietly at home, and enjoyed the fireworks from both Madrid and London on TV, though I am sure I am not the only one who wondered about the ethics of 'burning so much money' for a few minutes of entertainment, when the countries finances are at breaking point.

The rest of the week has flown by. We made sure to do a food shop, while we still have a car to use, as we have no idea when the garage will ring to say bring it in for repairs.

While we were in Lidls I bought us a treat that we do not usually bother with. This is a Roscon, and it is to the Spanish what mince pies and Christmas cake are to us in UK. It represents a Kings crown, with large pieces of chrytallised fruit decorating it as the jewels. The cake itself is much lighter than we expected, being similar in texture to a doughnut. Often it is sliced through the centre and generously filled with fresh cream, but as Chris does not like cream, I settled for an unfilled one. Each roscon has two little 'treasures' wrapped up and hidden inside it, a tiny figurine of a king, and a dried broad bean. If you are lucky enough to find the king you can wear the gold crown found inside the cake box, and you will be rich for a year (maybe!). If you get the bean, you have to commit to buying the family roscon the next year.

This is, of course, all part of the Three Kings celebration which officially starts tonight when the Kings arrive either by boat or lorry, depending on your location, and they are paraded through the street throwing sweets to the crowds. Then later they go to an assigned place, sometimes a Town Hall, in our village it is a large marquee on the parking area, and give out gifts to the children (previously provided by the parents).

Our village is famous for its Three Kings fiesta and in 2021 we were awarded the medal of Culture by the Diputacíon de Almería for it. The programme for tomorrow will start with the arrival of the Kings in the street and a re-enactment of their visit to King Herod's Palace to find the new baby. This is followed by an open air Mass on the plaza, and this year the Bishop of Almería is coming to lead it. 

Throughout the day there will be a medieval market in the side streets around the plaza, and a free lunch for anyone who wants to queue up for it. Sometimes this is migas which we are not keen on, but sometimes it is a giant tortilla which is great. We shall have to wait and see. 

The day ends with dancing in the marquee.

We have been asked to get as many people as possible to the town  square for the morning's events as there will be an independent agent there taking a head count, to help the fiesta get wider recognition. We shall be there of course.

However, this year we had an added bonus. Last night the three Kings appeared at one of the smaller plazas in the village. Here they are outside the Town Hall, preparing to come down to the plaza. As you can see, there is no political correctness here, and one King and his servant have blacked their faces.

At the plaza there was a post box where children could post a letter of their 'wish list' to the Kings -  I hope there is a fast delivery service as the gifts are given out tonight. The children could then go and talk to the Kings and receive a fist full of sweets while their photos were taken. (I am sure you can all see the parallels between this tradition and the more usual ones related to Father Christmas, but Christmas Day is a low key event here and many children get one small gift from Santa then. Tomorrow is the main event for them).

To add to the atmosphere, there was a snow machine up on the verandah of a flat that over-looked the plaza. It gave a very realistic effect as tiny drops of foam fell gently all around us. 

It settled in our hair and on our clothes, and was really rather fun.

The other main event of the evening was a completely new tradition of a giant 50 metre long roscon, that was laid out on trestle tables in the street alongside the plaza.

It was quite sometihing to see. As you can see, it was liberally filled with fresh cream, so Chris declined a slice, but I had one and it was delicious.

This is Noe (Noelle) and her husband who run the village bakery we use, and I think they were responsible for baking the roscon. They cut it all into slices and then handed them out to the waiting crowd. 

Every one enjoyed the evening so I hope it is a new tradition that will be repeated each year.

(Because they were able to get to a better viewing position than I was, I have used some photos from a local man who posts official pictures of village events on Facebook. I have left his watermark in place so you can see which are his).

We had long New Year chats with each of our boys this week which was good.

Just in time, I made my one page calendar for 2023 with all the family photos on it. I print this out in large format (A3) so I can see it easily, and have it on the wall just above my computer. Chris also has a copy on his office wall. I love to see all their smiling faces whenever I look up.

Today I made one more batch of three dozen mince pies, so I can give some to our insurance man who was so helpful with our car problems, and have some in the box still when our son and his wife and little girl visit us at the end of the month.

We had some good news yesterday. A lady rang to say the men will be arriving on Monday morning to start work on the remodelling of our guest bathroom. So hopefully that will be finished and ready to use when our son arrives.

And on that happy note I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles ready to publish in the morning. As you can tell, we will be pretty busy all day, so I may not get to visit you until Saturday, but I will do my best.