Friday Smiles 2023; Week 13

 We are a quarter of the way through the year! I don't have too much to show this week, but at the risk of making most of you jealous, we have had a really lovely week weatherwise. It has been warm and sunny, and as long as we sat sheltered from any breeze, we were able to spend most of our days outside. The cats had the same idea. We uncovered our garden furniture last week. The cushions were a bit damp but most of them survived. The first day we had put them back on the chairs, we took our morning cuppa out to sit there, only to find Tolly and Tango had made the settee theirs. I don't think Tango moved all day!

We were also spurred on to visit a garden centre to pick up a few plants. We like to use this window of time to make the garden look colourful and pretty, before it gets too hot for most of the flowers. These are what we bought.

Two verbenas and two miniature carnations (pinks), went into the two small troughs that sit on Chris' office window ledge. The rest have filled the gaps in the mini back yard garden we made last year, that have appeared when we have pulled out annuals that have died off through the winter. It looks lovely again now. I do love the yellow and bronze osteospermens even though they fold up and go to sleep at night. Hopefully the bees will enjoy them all too.

I also spent some time in my carft room. I used the same technique as I used for Aisling's birthday card last week, but instead of using a photo of Leo, I used digi stamps from one of my favourite designers.  I already had them in my library so I printed them out three times each and coloured them with alcohol ink markers. Then I scanned them into my computer, printed them again, masked them and added them to backing papers from my computer folder and ended up with a set of ten cards (one got printed four times instead of three). Details of how they were made are on my craft blog HERE.

Leo had his first big mishap this week; one broken table lamp. He didn't deliberately knock it down. He doesn't do that half as much as Tolly did as a kitten. But he has no spacial awareness and just runs wherever he wants to, with no idea whether or not a space is big enough for him. It wasn't! It is actually the second time he has knocked this lamp down so he didn't learn the first time. Then I was able to patchwork it together with super glue, enough to keep using it, but this time it was beyond repair.

As Chris and I have both reached a point where we need good strong lighting for anything we want to do in the evenings, we decided it had to be replaced, so on our way to the garden centre, we stopped off at a ferrateria, (literally an iron monger, that sells, kitchen ware, garden tools, electrical, DIY, paint etc. A bit like Wilkinson's in UK), and found this one. This time it has a metal stand instead of a ceramic one, so it stands a better chance of survival, I hope.

(It has my favourite photo of my mum under it, plus our middle son, Tom, on his graduation day).

Yesterday we had to go to Almeria to sort out some admin papers at the 'foreigners office', and I persuaded Chris to leave home early so we could browse a couple of the shops in the mall where we park our car. I was disappointed that we were too early for them to have their summer dress stock in, but I did manage to buy two tee-shirts, and Chris found a nice pair of shorts and also some tee-shirts, so it wasn't a wasted visit. We have to return in six weeks to complete the admin work, so maybe by mid-May they will have some nice dresses to choose from.

Once again I have had a long video chat with Ben, and also with my sister Jean and that is always good. We chat for a couple of hours sometimes and have a really good catch up.

We get through quite a lot of eggs because Chris would eat them every day if I felt like cooking them. He loves them fried but I poach or scramble mine. So when I saw this, it did make me smile. I hope it makes you smile too.

Now it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and have a good catch up with you my lovely blog-land friends. If you are reading this, do feel free to join us.

Friday Smiles 2023; Week 12

Well Spring has sprung in our part of Spain. It has been warm and sunny this week and we have enjoyed sitting outside to eat our lunch and relax in the afternoons. But I have also been busy in the mornings. 

I have done quite a lot in my craft room this week, starting with a bit of a tidy up. I came across a box of large rubber stamps on wood blocks which haven't been used for simply ages. This is partly because they are very difficult to get a good even impression with. So I took them off their wood blocks and used my stamping platform to print each one. Then I scanned these into my computer and used a photo editing programme to tidy them up. Lastly I used a programe called Gimp to turn each one from a jpeg file to a png file (one with a transparent background). I haven't learned how to do this with a coloured image but black and white ones are relatively straight forward. I now have a folder of digital stamps which I can resize and print for any card I want to make. And also I shall offer the large stamps to my craft group friends and any that are not wanted can be disposed of, so I now have an empty drawer to take some of the 'homeless' items laying around.

Next I wanted a birthday card for my grand daughter who is two at the start of April. She was here on holiday the day that little Leo arrived and she loved him, so I thought I would use his photo on her card. Although I have loads of photos of him, there was not one with him looking straight at the camers, so I told him to sit still and look at me, and amazingly he did. So I got this cute picture of him.

I did another lot of messing around on the computer and ended up with a card that has him centre stage. I hope she remembers him. I arrived in UK last year, the day before her first birthday. It was the first time I had seen her. It doesn't seem possible that was a whole year ago.

Her daddy is a heavy metal drummer, playing with several bands. I can't keep up with them all, but one of his first bands was called Blackstorm. They came to an end almost ten years ago when one member moved to America. But he is back and they are playing again. This was their Facebook promotion. Jonathan is the one on the right. If you can read what it says it may sound a bit like 'double dutch'. I don't begin to understand his genre and don't really like listening to them, but I do like to watch him playing. His poor drums certainly take a beating.

I guess it goes with his chosen style of music, but he does tend to wear a lot of black. So does his wife, so it is no surprise that little Aisling has quite a few black items as well. I have given her a couple of red dresses and other colourful things to help reset the balance. Ella, (her mum), sent me this photo yesterday saying I thought you would like the colours of this cardigan. Her other Grandma knitted it for her. I love it, and she looks so cute in it.

If I show you this picture from my kitchen this morning, you will know what I have been doing. 

Yes, it is more picalilli. I like to see all the colours in the pot. I spent yesterday evening chopping vegetables and I made double quantity this time, so it was a big task. I left it covered in salt all night, and today I rinsed it well and got cooking. So I have twenty two jars of pickle sitting on my shelf and I shall take most of it to my sewing group next Wednesday. Last time I took ten jars and sold them almost before they got set on the table. My sewing friends all seem to have husbands who love my picalilli. I am happy to make it for them because all the money I raise is donated to a charity, usually the food bank supported by my church. But I am going to tell them that it is probably the last lot I am going to make until after the summer ... maybe.

Of course last Sunday was Mothering Sunday in UK. (It was also Father's day over here). So I had lovely long video chats with each of my boys. The oldest one, Jim, is the vicar at St Bartholomew's church in Sydenham, and each Mothering Sunday they have a vase where anyone from the congregation can add a tulip for their mothers that they cannot see that day, either due to death or distance. So one of these tulips was placed for me. I think that is a really nice idea.

As we approach Easter, people here are practising, and getting ready for all the parades etc that take place throughout Holy week. One lady from our village has made a display showing some of these, and it is set up in the new library next to the Town Hall. She has put a lot of work into it. She is the shorter lady in black in this photo, and she is with our mayor, and other staff from the Town Hall.

 

And here are a couple more of her display. The people in the pointed hats and cloaks are not members of the Klu Klax Klan! They are the penetents who sometimes walk the parade with bare feet, who want to humble themselves and remain incognito.

And that is about it for this week. Now it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and see what is lifting your spirits this week.

Friday Smiles 2023: Week 11

The church I belong to has its own Facebook page administered by my dear friend Margie. This is one of the pictures she posted this week. So true.

My response was to post these two little treasures that appeared in unlikely places in my garden last year.

We have had a lovely week with bright sunshine most days and very pleasant upper twenties temperatures. (I even shed my trousers today in favour of a skirt, though I suspect the trousers may be back on this evening).

On Tuesday we returned to Vera to collect our now very smart car, which meant catching the early bus. While we sat waiting for it, (actually waiting for the driver to pop in the bar for a quick coffee!), I took this photo of a tree. I just think it looks so beautiful standing tall with a backdrop of blue sky and the distant Cabrera mountains.

We drove straight home after collecting the car so that I could pop across to the weekly market. I wasn't intending to buy strawberries but these looked so inviting, I couldn't resist. And they actually taste as good as they look which isn't always true for the over-sized spanish strawberries. These were an exception, and as they have a very low GI I didn't feel too guilty enjoying some of them.

As you can see from the photo I also bought a rather beautiful sweet red pepper. We don't eat a lot of them but I probably buy one every couple of weeks, but I won't need another one for a while. This was the smallest one on the stall and it weighs over 500 gms (that's around a pound in UK).

Last night I decided I would go off for my walk just as the evening was drawing in, and in a mad moment I decided to walk the rambla - dry river bed, that runs round one side of the village. To get to it I have to cross the main road at the village entrance and follow a track around some houses to the place where there is no 'river bank'. It wasn't the best route for walking as the rambla track is uneven and covered in loose stones. On each side there are high banks of bamboo. There was no one else around but surprisingly I have no fear walking around the village on my own, but it was getting a bit dark so I hurried along because it is quite a long track and no other way of getting off it until the end.

As I came round the bend the view changed and ahead of me was a high stone hill side that shone with the setting sun and completely transformed the atmosphere.

I went under the old acequia bridge, and couldn't help wondering how safe it is. It has crumbled a good bit more than when I was last there. Most agricultural land includes a reservoir which is filled from rain and mountain streams, and it is used to water the crops. Once every three weeks or month, the land owner has a time slot when he can open his valve and let the natural water refil his reservoir. This is called acequia water, and most open land has a gully to carry it to the next property. But sometimes it has to cross a gap so you see these old bridges with culvets for the water. When we first moved here our neighbour used acequia water for her orange grove, but not many folk use it now near the villages where the infrastructure has improved so much. But out in more rural places I think it is still an important commodity.

At the end of my walk I came to the where the horses and donkeys are kept. These ore owned, or managed, by a Spanish man called Manuel whe we have got to know. He welcomed us and invited us in to see the animals. (He tried to sell me a baby donkey as a pet!). They were lovely and as I left I took this photo of one donkey with the rays of the sun shining on his head.

Today is "Old Woman Day". This is not a national holiday but it is celebrated in all the towns and villages around here.Some say it was started by the Fransican monks to provide people with the chance to party and eat well before returning to the hard days of Lent fasting. But other say it is a pagan festival dating from much earlier and the 'old woman' is the old year that is ending, as the Spring heralds in a new year. It is seen now as a day to meet up with friends and family for a picnic 'feast'. The children bring their own '0ld woman', usually a hand made muneca which means doll, on a broom handle, with a hand drawn face or a mask, and simple clothes made from paper or plastic bags. The head is like a pinata and is filled with sweets and after their picnic, the children throw stones or beat their muneca to release the treats inside.

Many families meet for this up at the sports pavilion where there is a lovely picnic area. There are several well built barbeques, and anyone can take their own charcoal and food and cook there. Some families send one member up early to 'book' a table, and others set up a pergola for shade, and pile their table with boxes and baskets of food for all their group to share. Some even take up a loud speaker and music and have a party. It was such a lovely day this year, so we went up with a light picnic and sat on the wall to eat it while we watched the families around us.

I decided to walk up to the pavillion which took me half an hour, and I arranged to sit on a wall to wait for Chris, who drove up a bit later and brought our lunch up. I found a shady spot to sit and then realised I was sitting under a mimosa tree in full bloom. This was not my wisest choice as mimosa pollen is one of my main allergens at this time of year, but doesn't it look pretty!

I  did quickly move away and find somewhere more suitable to sit. It was a pleasant way to pass a few hours. Here is a very tradicional muneca...

... and here is a whole family of them.

Some went to great lengths to make more elaborate ones, with masks and some of the children's own clothes on them, but all awaited the same fate!

The sunshine is bringing the garden to life. When I open the sitting room windows in the morning, the scent of jasmine wafts in. It was cut down almost to nothing in the autumn, but already it is covering half the wall again.

My peruvian squills are opening too. They are a deep true blue and the flowers are very pretty.

This is the hydrangea that I thought might be dead when we transferred it from a pot to the corner of the front garden. But as you can see, it isn't dead at all and it is sprouting lots of new shoots.

Last night we had an entertaining evening when Leo decided to risk trying to play with Tolly. Tolly has had nothing to do with him so far, but he did play for a while. They ran all over the room, hiding under the chair and patting out at one another from under the blanket that covers it, jumping on the table and swatting the other one on a chair under them. They played for quite a while, but in the end I thought Tolly might be getting a bit annoyed so I put little Leo to bed. Then Tolly jumped onto my lap, which doesn't happen very often, and almost squashed poor Tango who was already there. They ended up one on each side of me with Tolly's tail wrapped around Tango's neck. He doesn't look very impressed but then he doesn't often look impressed. The grumpy face is just his natural look.

Now I think it is time to get this ready to link up with Annie's Firday Smiles in the morning.

Friday Smiles 2023: Week 10

I am feeling happy this week because we have had a small taste of summer. This is one of my favourite times of year, when we shed some of the Winter layers of clothes and we can spend time sitting out on the porch, listening to the birds, reading, relaxing etc, and all that before it gets too hot, and we retreat inside again to find some shade. Some days temperatures  have reached into the upper twenties mid-afternoon, as we sit reading on Facebook etc about the snow back in our home town. What a strange world we live in. Everything seems so jumbled up. It is still chilly at night so the fire goes on after tea and we have even put an extra blanket on the bed! but daytimes have been lovely.

In an effort to get more control over my health issues I am trying to take a walk every day. One day I walked for over an hour around the village and through some of the back streets that I rarely visit. Today I was standing in the kitchen making one last lot of marmalade all morning, so I just did a "round the block" sort of walk. While out, one thing I did notice was that the Town Hall has had a lick of paint and is looking very smart. I smiled at the heart shaped STOP sign by the door which I think is there from International Women's Day earlier, and is saying 'put a stop to violence against women'.

The new building just to the left of the Town hall is the new Local Police station in the front, and a Library at  the back. This building was officially opened just a few weeks ago.

On Monday we both did a somewhat longer walk. We were up early to take our car to the garage in Vera for its repairs. We did the paper work and left there around 9.30, but unfortunately the only available bus was not until 1.00. (There are just two or three buses a day between Los Gallardos and the coast, and they are not at the most convenient times). Also we could drive to Vera in fifteen minutes but the bus takes forty-five minutes because it does a somewhat circuitous route. We could have forked out for a taxi but they are expensive here and as it was a nice day we decided to wander through the town, and see parts we would not normally see.  Vera is a very sprawling town. There is no departmental store, (only the larger cities have one of these), so it is mostly small independent shops which can be pricey, and we would not normally go to them as we wouldn't know where to find anything specific. But it was nice to browse. I found a very good wholefood/health shop where I got a couple of items that have been on my list for a while.

We stopped for a drink at a nice Hotel Café, and when we left there we turned a corner and found two things that caught my eye. It was a small triangle between streets with a strange mix of ancient and modern buildings around it, and in the centre  was this fairly ornate fountain which surprised me as it was in a place that didn't get much passing trafiic or foot-fall, but it would be a refreshing oasis on a hot day.

And secondly I spotted this little tree in a pot and the whole surface below it was covered in bright coloured petunias. Even for Spain it is very early in the year for such flowers, but they seemed very happy there and made a lovely splash of colour.

We walked further on and came to a wide space between rows of modern apartments. There was a brightly coloured children's play area, that looked as though it was being refurbished ready for the summer months. Next to that was a long clean fountain. Nothing ancient about this one, but I like to hear the sound of moving water. The trees around it all had brightly coloured bases and there were several seats so I can imaging folk come out of the flats in the warm evenings and sitting there to chat with frinds while their children play. 

But what really caught my eye was several wall paintings, very tastefully done, and they had a feeling of tranquility about them. The place was called Los Lavenderas, which means The Washerwomen, and that is what the paintings depict. The women would fill their pitchers from the fountain and wash their clothes there.

Immediately across the road was the fountain in question. Every town has a fuente, and at one time it was the main source of water for the inhabitants. Many still have drinking water and are used regularly, though I am not sure how clean the water from this one is. Our mains water is not recommended for drinking so a big steel tanker lorry comes round several times a week to fill up the water bottles folk leave by their gates. I find the water bottles very difficult to handle so I am grateful that we had the opportunity to fit a special filter in the kitchen so I have one tap that provides drinking water.

In Vera the fountain is four small pipes coming from low down on a wall. It then travels through a channel across the front of the building (Now the museum of water), and all around a small semicircular patio, and on under ground.

On the front of this building is this rather handsome stone plaque. The inscription below it reads, "The cattle market of La Chica towards the end of the nineteeth century: Current four spout fountain".

A bit further on we saw one more wall painting that I liked. It very clearly is depicting the danger to wild life of dropping cigarette ends and broken glass, or leaving bags of rubbish piled up.

We got to the bus station with just half an hour to wait, so a cup of coffee filled the time, and soon we were trundling home, a bit weary but having passed a very pleasant day.

The warm weather is bringing out all the spring wild flowers and our next door garden is again covered in the bright yellow oxalis that sprout up everywhere there is a patch of unturned earth. They are not my favourite shade of yellow but they do brighten up the hedgerows and verges.

And finally, even in the colder months, Kim drinks a lot of water, so we are constantly filling up his bowl. But one day we forgot to do this. I caught him looking rather mournfully at me, so I realised he was thirsty but when I went to collect his bowl, I found it had a new tenant!

Needless to say he didn't stay to get a soaking. He'll learn!

You may remeber some while back I bought a 'flapping fish for Tolly to play with, but he was scared of it and wouldn't touch it. Well I found it this week and charged up its batteries and Leo loves it! It kept him happy for ages. I guess cats are as different from one another as we are. I don't think Leo will be afraid of very much at all!

And on that note I will get ready to pubish this on Annie's blog in the morning.

Friday Smiles 2023: Week 9

As promissed last week, I have made a collage of some of the carnival photos. In fact I have made them into a scrapbook layout. It is quite 'busy' but so was the event, and it reflects the fun that was had by all despite the cold and rain.

I have had another busy week despite not knowing that I have done anything very special. On Tuesday it was Día de Andalucía, which is a very special day for the Spanish folk in the village. It is a Red day, which is a national Bank Holiday so all the shops were shut and it was cold enough to be a stay-at-home day for us. The celebrations have a very set routine here and as we have seen it several times, we decided it was better for our arthritic bones to stay in the warm, rather than stand on a chilly plaza outside the theatre for a couple of hours. There is a long speech by the mayor which we cannot understand much of, and then the ceremonial raising of the Andalucian flag while the band plays the "Hymn of Andalucía". Although we did not go over to the plaza to watch this, we could hear the music quite plainly from our porch. You can see in the photo (from the Town Hall web site) that the sky was bright blue but it was very windy and that wind could cut through whatever clothes you were wearing!

A friend at church gave me some lovely pink grapefruit. Most of them went into some marmalade. I love the flavour of grapefruit marmalade but it doesn't set quite as well as the orange one does. Of course, being pink inside, they made a lovely colour marmalade.

I took Leo to the vet mainly to get his chip reregistered in our province, but he had a good check-up while we were there. I was telling the vet that his only vice was his insitance on suckling on my clothes and I am trying to teach him that this isn't OK. It makes the material very stiff and worn, so she suggested giving him a teddy bear. I had a little one at  home so every time he tried to suck on me I put the teddy in the way and he soon took to it. It is now a very 'soggy' bear but my clothes are a lot better!

We have had the plumber here today fitting a new water pipe from our gate up to the kitchen. It is a good job done. We have had emergency repairs done under our insurance, three times now in as many years, but it was old and needed to be replaced, so hopefully there will be no more leaks now.

I have been very careful about what I eat this week as my sugar levels were much too high. So I have been testing before and after every meal. It is a bit better but not low enough, so I will try for a few more days and after that I will have to go to the doctor and I know he will put me on insulin which I had been hoping to avoid. I know I need to walk more so this morning I did a little walk around the village. I stopped at the slip road along the front to see what the workmen were doing. It is not very clear in these photos but they have removed some very broken, tatty looking kerb stones between the slip road and the main highway, and have built a long narrow walled  barrier instead. It was built around the tall pine trees that were already there, and eventually I think it will have some lights and more plants. 

They have also  built a mini roundabout at the bottom of our road which will make entering and leaving the village much safer. And now they have prepared the bottom section of road ready for tarmac. It is all looking very nice and a huge improvement on what we had before.

Again it was a lovely sunny day but I wrapped up well for my walk as the wind was bitingly cold.  I had to stop and take a photo of the clouds. They looked so pretty today.

While talking to my sister last night I learned that our sister-in-law has been very poorly in hospital since Christmas and is now in a nursing home. I keep in touch with her a few times a year but she is in her late eighties so she doesn't check for messages or post on Facebook like she used to. So this morning I made her a Springtime card with daffodils on it, and finished just in time to pop it in the post. Our PO only opens from 1.00 - 2.00 on weekdays, so it pays not to miss it if you want something to travel fast.

While we were shopping I bought this little pot of violas. Just look at those dear little faces. I couldn't resist. Hopefully I will get around to planting them in the garage wndowboxes, (on our front porch) over the weekend.

Tomorrow we have to go to do food shopping. Our car is finally going in to be repaired after a lady hit it while we were parked outside the medical centre just after Christmas. It needs a new wing and a new petrol tank or a repair to the existing one. So with no public transport in our village we will be stuck for however long the garage takes to do the repair, so we are stocking up tomorrow.

And now I am ready to link up with Annies Smiles before I go shopping tomorrow.