Friday Smiles 2024# Week 18

I am a bit late to the party this week. I usually prepare my blog on Thursday afternoon, but yesterday we did the monthly food shop in the morning, and after lunch I sat outside where it was hazy but warm, and read my book all afternoon. It was only at bedtime that I realised I should have been writing my blog. But I am ready to go now.

On Saturday it was a damp, slightly chilly morning but Chris went over to the plaza to watch the start of the Vuelta Almeria 2024. This is a big cycle race with lots of teams taking part, and that day the course started and ended in our village. At lunch time we walked over again and were in time to watch the presentations. There were coloured vests for the first man and first woman home, lots of medals, and each winner was also given a plaque and a big box of local vegetables. It was a good atmosphere and they all seemed to have enjoyed it. There were plenty of police to direct traffic while the road was closed, and ambulances standing by but as far as I know there were no accidents. The next leg of the competition was in Albox the next day. I did not get many good photos so I have made a 'dump collage' of some that the Town Hall posted on Facebook. 

That afternoon I was able to share in the funeral of a much loved sister-in-law via a live link.It was good to be involved even though I was unable to travel over to Wales to attend in person.

On Sunday I went to church as usual and when I got home I continued to make our traditional Sunday roast dinner, including some Yorkshire puddings. Chris called me to say they looked done but I said "No. They haven't finished rising yet". A short while later I went to check again and they had taken on a life of their own and looked as though they were trying to escape from the oven.  They tasted good too. (Apologies to those who have already seen this on my facebook page).

While at church a friend brought me a bag of bitter oranges to make marmalade. He had offered them the week before and I said I would have a look at them but it is way to late in the year. Normally I make marmalade in January or February. It turned out they were lovely looking fruit with good clean skin, but they were over-ripe, with the flesh drying away from the pith inside the skin. But as I had not been given any oranges earlier in the year, and my broken arm would have made cutting them up difficult anyway, I had not managed to make any marmalade this year, so I decided to use these and see how it turned out. I pressure cooked the skins as usual making them easy to cut, and I was surprised how much juice was in them. I enjoy stirring this pot of golden loveliness. It smells wonderful. 

Soon I had eighteen jars of marmalade which set well and tastes fine. It hasn't quite got the tang it usually has , and is darker because I had to boil it a bit longer to reach the setting point, but on the whole it was a sucess and, in my opinion at least, it is still tastier than any I can buy in the shops!

On Monday night we had been promised storms and were hoping for some more rain at last. The sky was dark but no storms seemed imminent, but around 9.00 it suddenly started. The lightening flashes were amazing and came every few seconds for almost an hour. But the thunder was distant and the rain, though heavy, didn't last for as long as we had hoped. I tried to take a photo of some of the lightening flashes but I don't have the sophisticated equippment needed for this so again I have made a collage of the photos shown on our local radio station's page. It was quite dramatic. (photo credit to Carli Tolman).

The rest of the week has ticked along rapidly and here we are at another weekend. I had a chat with son Tom in Denmark, but other than that it has been quite quiet.

This is my great-grandson Alfie, now aged 9. He took part in his schools cross-country event which involved four races over the past few months, and he won all four of them! Here he is with his overall winner's medal.

And here he is again with his two brothers Isaac and Reuben. They are a very sporty family, with both boys playing in the local boys club football teams where thier dad is one of the coaches, plus Isaac sometimes playing for Shrewsbury reserves and Alfie training with a Welsh league boys team. Little Reuben will be two in July and he is their biggest fan, watching all their games and shouting from the side line. It won't be long before he is joining a club too. He already has a good kick and loves having a ball to play with. This week Isaac's team won the Charity Cup, so they have both had a good week.

And now I must hurry over to Annie's Friday Smiles to link up with you all and see what has kept you smiling this week.

Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 17

It was a lovely morning on Tuesday so I walked the long way round to get to the market. This means I went down our road to the bottom of the village, along the slip road that borders the village, and then up towards the market. The slip road is lined on the left side by tall conifers, and on the right there are several jacaranda trees. At a distance these all look very dead, with bare branches and last years seed pods.

On closer inspection I realised that what I thought was shrivelled leaves was in fact new flower buds forming, so in another week or two we will have a row of beautiful pale blue blooms. (The big brown 'pennies' are last year's seed pods). They are one of the prettiest trees out here. Even when the flowers have faded, new green fern-like leaves appear, and they are still very pretty.

I can't resist showing my poinsettia again. It has continued to turn more and more of its bracts red, and the whole plant is so bright now. The tiny yellow flowers can now be seen in the centre of each rosette. It has done so well this year.

The sun and little rain we had, have woken up the chumba, (prickly pear) that tumbles down the bank at the end of next-door's garden. 

It is an ornamental one and does not seem to produce edible fruit, but it's flowers are stunning. Each one only lasts for a day but there are plenty more waiting to open. And the bees love them. I tried to catch them flyng around these flowers, but I think they dived into the centre and hid behind the petals. I have to lean over the back railings and zoom in to get these pictures, and I can't hold that position for long!

I did a little bit of baking this week and made some blueberry muffins. They are a bit untidy but tasted so good!

It was our 45th anniversary on Saturday. Our boys asked whether we did anything special, so I said, "Well we spent most of the day assembling my new laser cutter!" Not the most romantic exercise, but a very special present all the same. This machine is much more powerful than the one I borrowed, and I can't wait to put it through it's paces. I haven't had much time this week to really get to grips with it, but I am excited to find out what it can do.

As this blog started as a diary for my family and friends, I do not usually add funnies at the end as some of you do, but these two really caught my eye this week, and made me smile.

One for the young ones, ...

...and one for us oldies.

So true, but at least I have health, can take care of myself, and move around unaided, so there is still plenty to be grateful for.

So now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles.

Friday Smiles 2024 #Week 16

Summer is on the way, and the village is waking up after it's Winter quiet season. This week we have enjoyed temperatures in the low thirties, and I have started to wear my summer dresses.

There are more folk around on the street, stopping to chat to friends instead of hurrying back to a warm house. It is still breezy but the strong winds have passed, for now anyway. At the end of last week the circus rolled into town. It pitched up on the area at the back of our house, on the far side of the 'green zone'. It is amazing how quickly they can put the Big Top up. They did performances on three nights, Friday-Sunday. Although they were so close to us we didn't hear much noise from them. I don't know how many people attended. It is an expensive evening if you have a family to take. I don't think they have any live animals these days, but their poster advertised a large gorrilla, described as a King Cong animatron. This was taken from my back yard.

By Monday night all sign of them had gone. I guess they had another place to be for this weekend.

I was hanging out my washing this week and to do this I look over next door's garden. It used to be a lush orange grove, but now the house is empty, and workers only come in occasionally to do essential tasks. Many of the trees have died, and some have been replaced by other fruits such a pomegranet,  jujus, and figs. But mostly it is just brown earth and a lot of stones where much of the soil has blown away. But the few remaining orange trees are still watered and under them, the weeds grow strong and tall. Everywhere has changed so much since we came out here. I have photos of this garden covered in lush grass and full of wild flowers after the winter/spring rains, but not any more.

This morning I went into our bathroom and saw this little cutie on the wall. We welcome the geckos both in the house and outside, as they eat mosquitoes and other bugs. But this little chap had been in the wars and lost most of his tail and injured his back, right leg. Fortunately for him, his tail will grow back. If any predator tries to catch a gecko by the tail, they will just shed it and grow a new one in a few weeks. I am not sure whether the leg will regenerate too. But it didn't stop him from moving around. I was able to catch him and I carried him outside and carefully placed him on a potted plant. He was better camouflaged than he looks in the photo, and I thought he would be less vunerable to our cats outside.

I am slowly working on my Floral Blooms blanket. It is a bit different from anything I have done before. I have finished all the flowers which were the most straightforward part, as well as a few of the leaves and a strange shaped joining piece. The leaves have to have some surface crochet and top stitching to finish them, and although there is a pattern for each joining piece, there is still an element of free-crochet to fill any spaces, which is something I haven't tried before. I have to be in the right mood to tackle each piece, and really concentrate on it, so I have the odd night off when I really want to watch something on TV. But there is no rush for it at all, so I can take my time and enjoy the process.

So now it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles.

P.S. Wewoke up this morning to RAIN. And it is still raining. Yay!!

Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 15

Well our week didn't start off so good as storm Kathleen, (not sure I like having a storm named after me!), arrived bringing with her a cloud of desert dust known as Calima. By tea-time on Saturday the sky had a yellowish hue and the hills below the village were barely vivsible from our gate. By Sunday morning there was a layer of red sand on everything. We are not supposed to wash down with the hose while the water ban is in place, but we did have to wash the car windows before we could drive.

But Sunday was a good day all the same. I knew our friend Lisca was on holiday with her daughter, down on our stretch of coast, staying in a hostel in Garrucha. We were both set on going to church in the morning so I phoned her after lunch and we arranged to meet up. It was lovely to be able to actually see one of our regular 'blogland friends' face to face, so of course we got Chris to take a photo of us together.

It was also nice to meet Lisca's daughter Tracey, especially when we discovered that she lives in the same little town as my son Ben. (A small world isn't it!). I did take a photo of her with her mum but I caught her just as she took off her sunglasses so she had closed her eyes against the glare. But Chris took another one of me with Lisca this time with the palm trees and boats in the marina as a backdrop.

Then we decided to drive them round to Vera Laguna, but we were surprised to find that there had been enough rain to flood the area where there is a boardwalk at the back of the lake durng the summer, so we couldn't walk along the side of the lake and down on to the beach as we often do. Also there were fewer birds there than usual. Sometimes the water is heaving with all sorts of wild-fowl, but there were a few ducks and moorhens, and one or two others. The first one that caught my eye was a white one and I thought it might be an egret, but I had never seen one with a plume of feathers on its head before. However, I took a photo and googled it when I got home and sure enough it was a Little Egret. Maybe the plume is part of its mating finery.

Further away I saw a pair that I didn't recognise. My photo is a bit 'odd' because I had to zoom in a long way to take it, but again I was able to identify them on google as Black-winged Stilts. I like to know what I am looking at.

We drove back to Garrucha promenade and sat outside a little shop to enjoy a lovely icecream before we took Lisca and Tracey back to their hostel.

On Monday we had to go to the hospital for Chris second eye treatment, which means were out for most of the afternoon so not much else was achieved.

Tuesday was our church AGM which was well-attended  and interesting. It was followed by a lunch, so I was out for most of the day again. 

Wednesday was my sewing group and then we visited my friend Steve to discuss more about the laser cutter, so the week has flown by.

Today I needed to make two sympathy cards which I managed to finish in time to get them in the post. Our office is only open for an hour between 1.00 and 2.00, but starting next week it is changing to 9.00 - 10.00 which will be more convenient.

While trying to tidy my craft room a bit, I came across a box labelled "Christmas. W.I.P." Inside I found a sheet of printed digistamps, some very old Christmas cards that I obviously saw as being suitable for recycling and then never used, and oddments of ribbon etc. So I set to and made half a dozen cards to add to my stash. Now I really must try to get some birthday cards made.

We have a cat-flap in our back door so the cats are free to come and go at any time. (Except for Leo who is still shut in at night though I do let him go out during the evening now it is warmer). I have no idea what Tolly gets up to in the hours of darkness, but he is in the kitchen ready for his breakfast when I get up, and then he goes to sleep on the settee. And he doesn't just have a nap. He usually stays there until mid-afternoon, and sometimes until it is time for tea, and he is 'dead to the world'. He doesn't flinch when we move him along so we can sit down, and didn't even twitch a whisker when I took this photo. I wish I could sleep as deeply as that.

I had some happy mail this week. I ordered an oversized mug. It holds 600ml and I love it for breakfast and tea-time, though I do use a smaller one during the day. It was described as a coffee mug but as I don't drink coffee, mine will only be filled with tea. It is good for me to drink a lot and as I don't have it too strong, I don't think it will do me any harm. We also both have a little heat pad to keep our drinks warm and it is ideal for this mug.

And that is it for this week. I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and hopefully get to visit you all later.

Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 14

We have had another windy week. I was nearly knocked off my feet when I went outside on Saturday, but the sun is shining so life is pretty good. 

The weather was at its worst over the Easter weekend which is a shame as there are amazing processions planned for every town in Spain from Thurday through to Sunday. Fortunately the clouds held on to their rain for Sunday morning when the main processions take place. But it wasn't a day for standing around to watch so I went to our own more modest service. We have enjoyed the ministry of a lovely locum priest for nearly three months, and Monday was his last day so on Easter Sunday he wanted all three of the little churches in the chaplaincy to meet together in one place, and the place he found for us was the Tanatorio in Mojacar. A Tanatorio is a funeral chapel so at first it seemed an odd choice, but it was a nice little chapel and it comfortably held the 50 folk who were there. And as Father Denis pointed out, it is the place where hope of the ressurection is most felt.

He was asissted by all three of our lay-readers, and at the end of the service he brought out a bowl of Easter eggs. Stating that they were not a part of the true Easter story, but none the less they are a symbol of 'New Life', and he hoped we would move forward with new life in our churches. He blessed the eggs and then they were distributed among the congregation. Afterwards we had a time of social chat with hot-cross buns and glasses of cava, (sparkling wine). My friends husband walked around taking photos of the people there, including one of me with some friends. I am wearing one of my favourite dresses that I bought when I was in UK last year.

I have spent a lot of time making cards this week, but because I make most of my cards with a specific person in mind, I cannot show them on here.

Today we decided to spend the morning working in the garden. There is a small garden centre attatched to the camp site where we go for fish and chips most Fridays, and last week I bought two red geraniums. They are not ususally in flower yet but these are a glorious bright red, and really make a splash of colour.

This little area is full of colour too, with a deep pink kalenchoe that I thought was dead last year!, and my cute little pansies.

And summer is certainly on the way as the first roses are in bloom and very beautiful they are too. (We saw our first swallow this week as well. Another sign of summer).

I did a lot of weeding and cutting back of dead stems, and Chris cut the tougher branches and swept up all the debris that the wind and weather had built into piles in every corner. It all looks a lot better now. 

We finally had one day of rain, and although it is no where near enough, the plants responded. These two were as good as dead, and as we are very limited in how much watering we can do, we had decided to write them off and replace them next autumn. But after that bit of rain, we noticed small green leaves appearing among the dead brown ones. So I have cut out most of the brown bits and watered them a little more and maybe they will survive after all.

This is my tall cactus. When we moved in fifteen years ago, it was about the size of the small ones around its base, and it used to annoy me when it caught on my skirt as I walked by. But it has grown and grown. I always hoped it would produce a lovely flower at the top, but that seems unlikely now. Look at how narrow it is at the base, and it waves around if you touch it, but as you can see in the photo, it is a fair bit taller than me now.

We had a worry this week when Tolly refused to eat on Monday night, and then he went outside and didn't come back. There was no sign of him all day Tuesday, and we walked all around the area calling him but with no success. Then on Wednesday morning he came back limping badly on his front foot. I have felt it all over and cannot find any thorns or grit between his toes, so I think he must have sprained it. I gave him a dose of painkillers for cats, and some more today, and he has started to eat a little food again. He is spending a lot of time curled up on the settee and was quite happy to share it with Chris today. He was able to jump up there unaided and is walking around when he needs to, so I think a couple of days of rest and he will be right as rain again.

Monday was our grand-daughter's third birthday, so I had a video call with her and her parents yesterday. She had a trampoline for her birthday which she loves as she is a bundle of energy and needs to be on the move all the time. This is a not very good photo taken as a screenshot from a little video they sent me. 

Then I rang our son out in Denmark and had a catch-up with him, and Jim, our eldest son,  being a vicar, was too busy over Easter to call, but he rang us last night for a long chat. Ben and I had had our usual weekly call of two hours or so the night before, so I have had a good family chat time which always makes me happy.

So now I will link up with Annie's Smiles and see what has kept you smiling this week.

Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 13

Here we are again at week 13, a quarter of the way through the year. Can you believe that! On Sunday the clocks spring forward an hour, and the mornings will be lighter, though we have woken up to bright sun for a couple of days now.

But it hasn't been all sunshaine this week. It has been extremely windy, and still is despite the sun, and we even had one day of rain. It was not enough but still very welcome. I have just read on Facebook that the wind has brought a big tree down on a very busy roundabout in Vera, and we are on yellow alert for high winds and dangerous waves on the coast. Yesterday I came home from my sewing group to find one side of my sheet had lost its pegs and was streaming out over next door's garden like a huge flag. I managed to wrestle it in without dragging it on the ground, and it was at least dry, along with the rest of the washing which was all tangled round the line!

The rain started in the evening and the cats were not a bit impressed, so they all came in and climbed on me. I had little Luna on my lap which is a rare occurance, but she does come in a bit more now we no longer have a dog. Tango sat next me, wondering why there was an interloper on 'his' lap. (He has a black mark on his face because he sat under a car!) Tolly was asleep next to me, quite uninterested in what anyone else was doing, and Leo took his usual spot near the top of his climbing tower, and watched us all with interest. Needless to say I didn't get much crochet nor anything else done that night.

Sunday was Palm Sunday and our little church gathered outside for the Liturgy of the Palms. We were ably led by our locum priest Father Dennis, and my dear friend Margie as his assistant. After the palms were blessed David hurried in to play the organ and we processed back inside while singing "All glory, laud and honour, to Thee Redeemer King". We are only a small gathering but we make a good noise when we sing.

Today there was an Easter Market at the camp site near here, and we went along as I knew the lady I buy clothes from would be there. She had a lot of end of season sale items, so I treated myself to some new tops. The weather is so changeable and I am finding I need some lighter clothes. Usually I go from winter trousers and warm jumpers, straight into summer dresses, but this year I am still in light weight trousers so I needed a few lighter weight tops to go with them. I ended up with a loose knit, short-sleeved blue one, and a very light thin wollen long sleeved blue one, a white thin jumper with gold stars on the front, a cerise thin long sleeved tee-shirt, (I find them so comfortable). And from the new summer stock I bought a very loose, cheese-cloth top that will be great for covering up in the sun, when summer comes. Because of the wind we didn't hang around for long. All the stall keepers were struggling to hold on to their wares, so I think it probably closed early any way.

When I got home I did my traditional Easter bake session to make hot-cross buns. In the end I decided to do something a bit different so I made just two buns for our Friday breakfast, and the rest of the dough made a 'hot-cross bun-loaf'. It will be much easier to toast and that's how we both like it. I also didn't put the ususal sugar glaze on them. It makes them very sticky, and I really don't need any extra sugar. I also made a loaf of bread using white flour with just a little oatmeal and oat bran added.

I am sure you are all aware of the store IKEA so famous for its flat-packed furniture, so I hope you will be amused as I was by this picture I saw earlier in the  week.

And now I wish you all every blessing for Easter time. I hope you all enjoy the weekend with family or friends, or just doing what whatever makes you happy. 

So now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles over on her blog.

Friday Smiles 2024# Week 12

It is the end of another lovely week with a feel of a mild summer to it. I would be happy for weather like this all year round. I have even shed some of my winter clothes and am only wearing a tee-shirt over thin trousers this week. (That doesn't leave much to take off when the real summer arrives!!) We have had a few drops of rain this week but are hoping for more next week. The time for rain will soon be gone and everywhere is so dry.

But we took advantage of the sun to go for a walk. I had to miss my sewing group again this week as Chris had a doctor's appointment and I go with him to translate. But we were only there for a few minutes so I suggested we should go for a short drive to the coast for some exercise. We decided to go to Villaricos, a few miles along the coast towards Murcia. We lived near there when we first arrived in Spain and used to like walking along the sea-front there. It has been massively modernised since then, and now has a long brick-paved promenade, with plenty of stone benches for resting and admiring the view. There are a lot of rocks emerging from the water which means there is a gentle background nose of waves breaking around them, which I really love. This is the view as we walked down the steep path from the main road where we parked the car.

It is always quite peaceful there, and yesterday there was hardly a soul about. We stopped at one of the benches to take selfie.

On one side of us was a rocky bay...

...and on the other were the newer built apartments with the mountains as a backdrop.

The wild flowers are beginning to open everywhere like these pretty pink trumpets, like a small ground-cover convolvulous, (the large white trumpet flower that is the bane of English gardeners life). Soon these will cover wide areas of campo land. 

Then there is the oxalis. Although this is a rather hard, acidic yellow, it grows so profusely, and makes such large areas of vivid colour, that you can't help liking it. And the individual flowers are so pretty.

We also saw this enormous cacti 'tree'. Its top had been full of flowers which were now small baby plants that usually fall and die, though some will stay and make even more branches for next year. They always amaze me as the 'trunk' is often a fairly slender single stem, and you wonder how it can hold when the high winds come.

We eventually turned inland and wandered up through the little village, which again was very quiet with many of the shops closed. This used to be a mining town for tin but the mine buildings are all in ruins now. A few years ago I was told that many of the inhabitants have small, simple dwellings near the agricultural sites where  they work, and only return to Villaricos for the weekends, which may explain why so many shops were closed. It does have a big, street market every Sunday, and is a busy little place during the summer months.

At the top of the village we passed the church which had attractive tile inserts on either side of the door. It was a pleasant walk and I doubled my usual step count for the day, so that was good too.

This is the strawberry season in Spain and there are plenty to be bought in the market. They are around 4.50€ per kilo at the minute which is quite good, and about the same as they were last year. But this week I saw one stall that had a separate tray of them marked at 3.50€ per kilo and 3€ for 2 kilo. I thought they were just trying to get shot of last week's supply but they weren't over-ripe, just fairly small and some were a bit misshapen, so I bought 2 kilos and that afternoon I prepared them all. There was no waste at all.

I removed all the flower tops and weighed the fruit as I went, keeping back a few of the best ones for us to eat. Then I set about making jam with the rest, using lemons picked straight from our tree to help it gel.

Soon I had eight jars of ruby red jam. It set way better than my strawberry jam usually does, and this is more than enough for us to use throughout the year. I no longer make jam to sell, but this is the one that we both like and I do use it regularly. Mainly for Chris of course because of my diabetes, though I do allow myself a little bit occasionally.

Apart from that I have been busy making more Christmas cards, and planning other papercraft project.

I have spent a long time on the internet chatting with Ben. We always find plenty to talk about.

I have also tried several cooking experiments with my new Ninja and I am very pleased with the results so far. I have ordered a recipe book that is supposed to take you step by step through some basic ideas so I have high hopes for that. The book which came with it has several recipes for fancy meals but little information on how to cook the simple every day things, so it has been a bit of trial and error, but there have been no major failures.

So now it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and see your happy moments from the past week.