Friday Smiles 2024 #Week 41

This week I will start with some lovely skies and end with some, with maybe a bit if news in the middle! We have had quite a few clouds this week as well as lots of sunshine, and mercifully slightly lower temperatures, so Tom and I were both on the look out for lovely sunsets. On Saturday we were rewarded with this one.

It turned all the surrounding campo a dusky pink and I was facinated to see the green zone was swarming with little brown bats. I tried to catch some on camera but they move so very fast. But if you look closely at the photo below, you will see two of them centrally at the top of the picture. There are always one or two around but I have never seen them in such quantity before.

On Sunday we set out at lunch time to go on a little trip. It was the Lubrin annual food festival, and I knew Tom would enjoy that. Lubrin is a tiny village of mostly white and grey stone houses set on steep hills, with narrow roads, some of which are not wide enough to take cars. A policeman directed us up a very steep incline to a provisional car parking area and we walked in from there. We bought a strip of tickets, each one designated to a set numbered stall, and each stall specialised in a local dish. There was everything from goat's cheese to paella, and my favourite, little kid goat cutlets cooked over a barbecue. There were longish queques for most stalls so we each took all three tickets and queued for one item for each of us. The longest wait was for the wafer thin Iberian ham, because we waited while it was cut for each of us. It is a real art to carve ham this thin and they practise for many years to get really good at it. Because it was so freshly cut it tasted amazing. Our final queue was for much needed cold drinks. 

Lubrin is famous for its olive oil. We visited the olive press there once and it was very interesting. I nearly always buy Lubrin oil but I didn't want a new big bottle so I bought a very small tin of "oil pressed from superior olives with a minimum of mechanisation", and I must say it is quite special.

One thing I loved was that most streets had lovley crocheted mandalas and squares, strung together to provide shade, and they were surprisingly effective. We sat on some steps to enjoy our food, but as the afternoon wore on, it got very crowded and finding a spot to sit was hard, so we made our way back to the car to drive home. Here are a few of the pictures I took.

The road was long and winding and sometimes we were down in a valley, and then up on top of a mountain again. In this photo you can just see a yellow line at the top and that is the road we were aiming for. I think we wound round the hill twice on the way, but we got there in the end. 

As we decended again, down toward home, we had lovely views of the surrounding villages and campo and then down to the sea. Almost hidden behind a twiggy tree in the lower right corner, you can just glimpse the little white village of Mojacar Pueblo.

Apart from that I haven't done a lot except read and do my usual puzzles on my tablet. I did have a long chat with our son Ben who is writing a piece of relaxing music for me to play when I go to sleep.

Monday was cloudy and windy which resulted in this pretty sky.

Then last night we watched this fiery beauty develop.

Today was Tom's last day here so we got up in good time so we could get him to the bus station for 10.00. He was travelling by bus to Murcia and then high-speed train to Madrid where he will stay for the weekend, flying back home to Denmark from there on Sunday night. With half an hour before we had to leave he decided he needed one last dip in the pool! The water is quite cool now but he said it woud get him ready for the cold water in Denmark. He dips in the sea there almost all year!

Then he took a photo of Chris and I outside our house, and one of all three of us together.

Our house is on the market now. You can find it here if any of you are interested in seeing where we have lived for the past almost sixteen years. Now the waiting game begins.

So now its over to Annie's Friday Smiles here, to link up and visit you all tomorrow.