Friday Smiles 2024# Week 21

Another week has flown by and once again Los Gallardos has been celebrating. Last Sturday was our'secondary' patronal fiesta. (The main one is in July). This was the fiesta od San Isidro, the patron saint of agriculture and fishing. Garrucha also celebrate but they focus on the fishing whereas for us it is agriculture as we are part of 'The Salad Bowl of Spain'. All around here there are fields of lettuce, peppers, beans and melons and acres of netted structures housing tomatoes and cucumbers.

The fiesta starts with the band parading round the village and a special mass up at the church. Then there is a romeria, or countryside walk, with a line of small floats and carriages dressed with flowers, hams, bread etc and families in bright, flowery costumes. The first float holds the statue of San Isidro. At the end come many of the local folk on horseback, and they all end up at the sport and picnic ground just above the village.

Here some families fill long tables with food and light one of the installed barbeques, while others listen to music, join the crowd at the bar by the football ground, or just wait around for the Gran Peaella which is served free to all-comers around 2.00.

We went up for an hour or so. I like to see the floats and the horses,(there was one very cute little girl in a flamenco-style dress, riding a little white pony),  but it was a very hot day and we decided to go back to the cool of our house. As the fiesta is very traditional and changes little from year to year, I have just made a simple collage of some of my photos.

Last week Lisca said her dipladenia (or mandevilla as it is now known) is starting to bud. We are a good bit warmer down here on the coast and I am happy to say that mine has burst into flower. I think this is its third year and seeing it is only in a small pot, I am very pleased with how it is doing. It has actually sent up long tendrils which we trained across the front door in the autumn, and they also have flowers on. We are hoping to bring one strand forward to the front pillar this year.

I go to our little street market most Tuesdays and for the past couple weeks I have been very happy to find one of my favourite fruits for sale. I love fresh apricots, though not many folk seem to agree with me. They are also a good choice for me as they are one of the lowest fruits in sugar but are full of fibre and minerals. They have a very short season, so there may only be one more week of them, and then we start on the cherries. I did treat us to a small bag of them this week but they are still expensive, but hopefully they will come down a bit each week now. Then it will be the peaches, paraguayas and nectarines. There are a few around now but I will wait until they are a little riper, and stick with my apricots while they are still available.

I thought I would share another little project I did with my laser. I am getting to grips with cutting wood, but engraving is proving more tricky. It is a case of lots of trial and error to get the settings right. But a couple of weeks ago it was my nieces birthday. She lives alone with her black labrador Bomber for company, so I took a photo of Bomber from my niece's Facebook page, changed it to black and white, and then converted it to a line drawing. I managed to make a fairly decent engraving from it onto ply wood. I then cut around it to make a little coaster and spray varnished it. I popped it in with her birthday card and she really liked it.

We have had a couple of nice sunsets this week. When I sit down in the sitting room for the evening our window faces easterly and sometimes I see a feint pink refection in the clouds which tells me there is some colour in the sky to the west at the back of the house. One night I decided to try a panoramic picture of it and it didn't turn out too bad. 

I thought I might use as a header for a while but then I took some more pictures. Almost a happy accident was one that shows our purple bougainvillea hedge at the front and a pale setting sun at the back. The clouds above it are like a big white bird swooping over. I liked that one so much more so it will now be my header. I used it on my Facebook too.

Over two nights I watched the sky changing and tooked several photos which I have combined into one collage because I couldn't choose between them!

And that my friends is another week for me. So I will prepare this for Annie's Friday Smilesnull in the morning.

(I have no idea why I cannot link properly to Annie's page this week but the blue word 'null' works, and I cannot aalter it).