Hi everyone. Sorry there is no blog today. There is just too much going on. But I am thinking of you all and hope you all have something to keep you smiling. I will try to visit you all later.
Linking up with Annie's Friday Smiles.Annie's Friday Smiles
Once again I have been getting to grips with a kitchen that has very few ingredients in its cupboards and none of my 'gadgets' to help me out. We do not normally have desserts now (apart from Chris' icecream which he loves), as it is me who enjoys them the most and they are not good for me. But this weekend, as it was Easter Sunday and also our 46th wedding anniversary, I thought I would treat us to a lemon meingue pie. I found a small ball of pastry in the bottom of the freezer, but with no rolling pin, I used an almost empty rum bottle! For the pan I used a salvaged tin foil dish. Then I peeled the lemons picked straight from our tree, with a potato peeler and added the zest plus the fruit inside the pith to my blender which fortunately hadn't quite reached a packing box. I strained it into the pan and the next challenge was to make the meringue. My hands and wrists are not really strong enough for whisking but, slowly but surely I did get something that just about stood up in peaks. I had no caster sugar so I tried grinding some granulated in the blender and it ended up more like icing sugar, but I used it anyway. I am pleased to say that although the meringue did sink rather after cooking, it all tasted fine and we enjoyed it. You don't realise how much you have come to rely on the machines until you no longer have them!
On Tuesday we had to rise early for an appointment with our solicitor. We were to visit the Notary to sign papers giving our solicitor power of attorney to tidy up any loose ends after we have moved. The original appointment was for 10.30 but she rang and asked whether we could be there for 8.55. So we were, and together with another couple, we walked around to the notary office and then sat outside for an hour until she was ready to see us! Fortunately it was a sunny day and her office was on the upper floor of a building so we had a lovely view out over Mojacar playa.
When I got up that morning the sun was just rising and I got this photo over our garden wall.
Looking behind me the sky was already blue and dotted with little fluffy clouds. Our little statue of a bull sits on top of the pump house and he stands out well against the blue sky.
On the drive down to Mojacar the sun broke through the clouds and I managed to take this through the windscreen of a moving car. I love it when you an see the sun rays pouring through the clouds onto the hills and villages below.
Meanwhile, back at home, my desert daisy has broken into flower. I bought one tiny pot of this a few years ago, and the man at the centre told me it would cover a square meter in a year, and so it did. And it has continued to spread, and flourishes wherever I break off a little piece and replant it. This pot is covered in flowers, and a small piece I put into one of my boxes hanging from the railings, has grown so long and now touches the floor, and it too is covered in flowers.
In the next pot along my bright pink succulent is flowering. This covers banks and creeps across paths every where it takes root. It makes a lovely splash of colour.
And in the end pot a red hibiscus has bent over to kiss the gerbera. Two vivid colours but they don't clash at all. I think they look lovely together.
I went to my penultimate sewing group on Wednesday and they gave me a lovely card, signed by everyone there, all wishing me well in our new home. That was really nice.
And on that note I will get ready to link this with Annie's Friday Smiles when I publish it tomorrow.
My oh my, How fast these last few weeks are going. I really have nothing to write about and no photographs except for a few I have taken through the car window as we drive from one appointment to the next. As you know, I have the condition called paradolia which is basically seeing faces in everything. I just can't help it and I am sure poor Chris thinks I am 'losing the plot' when I point out yet another face that he can't see. But this week we really have been busy driving to and fro from one appointment to the next, and I couldn't help noticing that wherever we were, there was almost always a face, or just two eyes looking down on us from the clouds. Maybe it is just me being fanciful, but I will share a few of them with you. The quality is not good as they were all taken from a moving car. And the ever present over-head cables don't help!
Two weeks today (Thursday), all our belongings will be loaded onto a van and taken away, to eventually land in the container we have booked near Shrewsbury. So it is a good thing our packing is almost done. Just a few days before they are collected I shall pack the final boxes for my Ninja foodi which I use most days, and the vacuum cleaner that is also in frquent use. All the sealed and labelled boxes are in our dining room and it is now so full I can't close the door. This is just some of them. So a few of the bigger boxes are now on shelves in the garage.
After that we will have our settee and beds, plus three knives, forks and spoon, plates and dishes. (Three because our son Tom arrives on the Friday for the last few days). It is only until the Tuesday morning so I am sure we will manage, and there are plenty of nice restaurants and bars around, so we won't die of hunger!
So now we can enjoy some of the Easter parades over the weekend. Spain does them so well. And then we can have a real sort through our clothes to decide what comes to London with us and what goes into storage, and in the blink of an eye it will all be over.
I will now link up with Annie's Friday Smiles.
I wish you all a Happy, Peaceful and Blessed Easter.
This week it is all about the flowers and they really make me smile.
This week, when I had a wander around the garden, these little self-seeded gerbera reminded me of the sunshine. Originally there was one little flower from a seed dropped by a bird. Now I have a whole pot of them.
I have even transplanted a few like these in one of the troughs hanging from the front railings. The little yellow flower on the right is a plant that I can't name but it is from last summer and should have died over the winter, but it is still going anf now it is trying to flower again.
Just looks at the buds on my little red carnation. This plant grew from a cutting I took some while ago and now it is also flourishing.
Round in the back yard, one of my troughs is looking particulary bright and colourful, and I can see this from where I sit on the porch, so that is nice. The yellow daisies are osteospermum, again one that has lasted the winter, and all the purple ones are the perennial versian that always gives a good show of flowers at this time of year. The flash of red at the end is of course, a geranium and between them is a succulent I put there when it was looking a bit bare, and it turns from dark green in the winter to orange, yellow and a touch of red all summer.
The trough around the corner also has an osteospermum with one little flower on. I thought it had died but I am glad to see it is struggling on. It reminds me of a marigold.
But my biggest surprise was when I spotted this. It is on my very tall cactus, (much taller than me now), which started as a little spike mid-calf height when we arrived. I have watched it growing, swaying a little in the wind, and wandered whether it would live to out grow me, and I always hoped it would eventually produce a flower, but every year I have been disappointed. I half expected one white one right at the top, so you can imaging my surprise when this week I spotted these little red buds bursting out of the higher seams.
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I have done some research and now know the cactus goes by the rather splendid name 'Pachycerus pecten-aboriginium', and it is native to Mexico, (commonly know as the Indian comb). Apparently the brown scabs that are all over mine, (I assumed insect activity), are most likely caused by overwatering!, but that is not something I do very often. I am of course hoping that the buds will develop and open before we leave but again, thanks to Google, I find they have to go through this stage...
... before getting to this one. But I live in hope.
Yesterday I had a dental appointment and when I came out I decided to have a little walk to the top of the village, as I don't walk half enough right now. I stood looking over the top railings and found there was a lot of activity below me. The area that used to be used for social gatherings by the Equadorians from our village and the surrounding communities, is now planted all over with trees. (I hope they have been given an alternative meeting place). Last week I said how the orange blossom stirred up my hayfever, and this week I found another irritant. Everywhere you look there is a mimosia tree in flower.
I mentioned a while ago how sad I was that the crysamthemums don't grow wild all over the campo like they used to, but just below the railings I saw this patch, all raising their little faces up to the sun, and that made me smile too.
And still, sort of on the flower theme, I have finished my cross-stitch sewing! I love to see the poppies and daisies growing together in the wild, so I am really pleased with this picture. I am packing it carefully as it is, and one day, when I finally unpack all the boxes, I will get it stretched and framed.
I hope some of you really like flowers as I seem to have rambled on a bit today, but now I will stop and get this ready to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and be published in the morning.
Yay! We have just this minute booked our flight back to UK for Tuesday May 6th! That's something to smile about, but now back to the beginning of the week.
It has been warm and mostly sunny this week and after all that rain the garden is thriving and all the trees around us are bursting out in orange blossom. There seems to be a lot of it this year.
It is really a very pretty flower, but its perfume can be a bit over-powering. I can smell it as soon as I open the windows each morning, and it is one of my hayfever triggers so I have been coughing and sneezing all week. Many of my friends are in the same state, but it is still lovely to see, and smell really.
We have now had a few very windy days and the petals have been carpeting the ground in white confetti. As we are trying to keep the garden tidy for the new owners, Chris has been out each day sweeping it all up.
It has a slightly later season than the oranges, but our little grapefruit tree has loads of buds too, and there are few coming now on the lemon tree.
We have been busy signing contracts, making lists of things to do, and choosing flights, but I have still managed to pack a couple of boxes each day.
I also did a bit of baking, making our family favourite 'cup of cold tea' cake, (bara brith, fruitloaf, bam brak or whatever you like to call it) . For us it has always been Irish tea loaf, and my dad loved it. This time it was a good way to finish up all the dried fruit in the cupboard as well as most of the flour.
I then made enough of my special muesli, (very nutty but not very fruity this time) to last until we go. I have it for breakfast most days, with milk, and a handful of blueberries, banana or yoghurt on it.
And finally another family favourite 'peanut and lemon slices'. These are a bit of a sugar hit for me so I will have to pace myself eating them. They are basically crushed digestives, mixed with syrup, butter and a lot of crunchy peanut butter, and when it is set hard it is iced with lemon butter icing. Very yummy, but best kept for a treat.
My first husband was in the RAF and we lived in Cyprus for three years. On the day we arrived we were all warned to keep at least three days supply of food in the house; advice which proved its worth when the war broke out and we were confined to our homes until NATO organised a cease-fire so all the families could be bussed up to the camp. (Scary times but that's another story). But the habit of keeping a well stocked store cupboard has never left me, and I usually have more like three months of food in store, and I can usually find ingredients for anything I want to make. So it is really strange now to find all my cupboards are empty. There are just a few meals worth of meat etc in the freezer, a few tins of beans, and whatever I buy on a weekly basis from the shop or market. I expect I will gradually build up a small store again at home, but now there are only two of us, and our needs are simple, it will certainly be a scaled down version.
On Wednesday Chris suggested we have a break and walk along the sea front for some fresh air, so we drove down to Garrucha. On the way down I said to Chris I liked Garrucha because the cry of the gulls gives it a real 'sea-side' feel. They are there of course because it is a fishing port, and I am sure they are well fed when the boats come in each day. That day they were flying high up, and although there were loads of them wheeling around above the palm trees, they don't stay still while you photograph them, so this was the best I could do. (Click on each photo for a closer look).
Instead of our usual walk around the marina, we strolled along the harbour this time. The men were washing out the auction depot where the fishermen bring their catch each day to be auctioned to local shops and restaurants. The fishing boats were moored along the water front and the men were checking their nets, and mending them where needed, or standing around chatting.The boats are real 'work-horses', but I wouldn't choose to be out on the sea in one in all weathers.
I had a nice surprise this morning when I opened the front windows and saw that one of the roses that Chris cut back hard just a short while ago, now has our first rose of summer in bloom. And what a beauty. It even smells good too.
Well another week has rushed by with very little to write about. However I am grateful that everything is moving along as we hoped, and I have managed to finish the main packing. There is still tools etc in the garage, but they have been sorted so it shouldn't be hard to pack them up. I just need small boxes as they are very heavy.
I had an unexpected call from my dermatologist clinic Tuesday lunch time, to say they had a free appointment that afternoon, so we drove to Vera for one last time. Dr Ana was lovely and she has given me medication to last through 'til June, and some useful information for a dermatologist in UK when I find one.
It was nice when Chris brought me in a card which the mail man had left today. I wasn't expecting anything so I opened it. It was a Mothering Sunday card from my son. I have been so busy that I hadn't even registered that it was this Sunday, so that was a a really great surprise. It is a pretty card and I will enjoy having it on display now.
This week we said "Goodbye" to our last furry friend, little Luna. I took her as a rescue kitten from the vet when a litter was dumped on her door step over sixteen years ago. She has been mostly an outdoor cat, only coming in for food, and shelter when the weather is bad. But she is not unfriendly and since rehoming Tolly and Leo, she has stayed in the house for longer, even curling up on Chris' lap occasionally, though not for long. (I can't have her on mine). A man came to collect her on Tuesday and I also gave him all the food, dishes etc that I had left. I was sad to see her go but I know she was disturbed by all the boxes, wandering around and in between them and meowing, so hopefully she is more settled now.
It is more than forty years since I had no cats at all, and it is really strange not to be greeted when I get up each day.
I had a long catch-up chat with my sister on Monday, which was nice.
It has been sunnier with intermittant grey clouds this week, and I have sat out on the porch to sew a thread or two of my cross-stitch whenever I need a break from packing. My back soon complains if I try to do too many boxes in one go.
And that is the week that was. Only a few more to go!!
So I am off to share this on Annie's Friday Smiles. see you there.
Hooray, today the sun is shining. There is still more rain forecast but it was lovely to sit out on the porch after lunch and do a couple of strands of my sewing before coming in to prepare this.
It has been another very busy week with most of my time being taken sorting and packing. The stack of full and sealed boxes is growing, and I am keeping a careful list of what is in each one. When they are all done I will type up a tidy list for the removal men to show customs at the border.
Yesterday I took the morning off packing to attend my sewing group, but when we pulled up outside the hall, everyone was standing outside on the street. It seemed the metal grill that is the safety cover for the entrance, had stuck, and couldn't be unlocked, so they were waiting for a locksmith to come and sort it out. So our leader contacted the bar where some members go after each week's meeting for a drink and light lunch, and he agreed to set up some tables for us there. So we all trouped off; the bar is only a few minutes drive from the hall. We were made welcome, and soon we had put several tables together and all sat around to do our sewing, knitting etc. We ordered a complicated list of coffees and teas, which he coped with well considering there were twenty or so of us.
Halfway through the morning we got a message that the doors had been unlocked, but we decided to stay where we were. Back to the hall next week.
I had a lovely long video chat with Ben last night. We hadn't managed to call for a while so we had plenty to talk about.
Other than that, my main problem has been trying to fill big boxes without making them too heavy. I wouldn't want to lift any of them, but the removal man promised there wasn't much he can't handle with his set of wheels, so I hope that is so. I am good at puzzles so I can usually fit things in to fit closely and not move about, and we have bought a variety of boxes to accommodate most things, but one item has been a major headache, and that is my laser cutter/engraver. It doesn't look very big but it has taken us two full days trawling through Amazon to find a box that it will fit in. I think we finally have one but it is not arriving until the end of next week, so I am getting on with other things while I wait.
We have continued to have rain most days, but fortunately we don't get snow down here like poor Lisca had in her village. Most days the sun does try to put in an appearance by the evening and one day I caught this rather lovely scene which shows both the blue sky on the right and the storm clouds rolling in on the left, with the sun going down between them.
And that's it for this week so I will go and link this up with Annie's Friday Smiles ready for tomorrow.
Yes I am still smiling, but maybe not quite as much, because Yes, it is still raining! It is on and off showers now with some of them quite heavy. Twice I have had to dry my washing indoors, which is a shame because I love to see it blowing on the line outside. But it was so windy on Tuesday that half of it lost some pegs, and was twisted round and round the line, srangling anything that had managed to hang on, so once again I moved indoors. Fortunately I now have a good size drying rack, and with it still being cold enough to light the fire in evenings, everything soon dries.
Between the showers we have had some lovely sunshine, and in places out of the wind, it has been warmer too. The wild flowers are loving the rain and sun, and are blooming everywhere. The oxalis is now a carpet of sharp yellow over the ground next door,and sometimes we pass whole fields of it, that shine out amid the campo's drab colours.
Next door it is covered in flowers, which close up at night but open up as soon as the sun touches them in the morning. Peeping out between the flowers are little pink stars of Erodium.
Also we are now seeing Echium plantagineum which has flowers that start deep pink and slowly change through pale pink, mauve, purple and then deep blue. Because it flowers continuously for weeks and they are all at different stages, you often see all the colours on one plant and it is so pretty. But it is a 'touch-me-not plant as the leaves and stems carry hairs that are extremely irritating to our skin.
We have now agreed that our boxes etc will be collected on May 1st, and will be delivered to a container site in Shropshire on 5th. Our son Mike will be there to supervise the unloading. As we are not taking the furniture with us, we will be able to remain in the house for a few days, and maybe go to hotel for a couple of nights, and we will travel to UK the following week when everythng is signed off.
By the evening I am ready to sit and relax so some nights I do a bit more of my cross stitch picture. I can only do two or three threads before my sight gets blurred, but it is coming along quite nicely.
And that's really all my news this week, so I will get ready to post this tomorrow and link up with Annie's Friday Smiles.
Yes I am smiling this week - because we have had rain. We needed some rain so desperately in this, the agricultural area of Spain. On Friday the man on the local radio announced that for the first time in his memory, rain was forcast for seven days 'on the bounce'. And this time they got it right. It started Friday night and boy! did it rain!. It poured steadily right through to Sunday. Every one was warned to stay at home if possible on Saturday as the ramblas were filling up and there was localised flooding. And it has rained on and off ever since. This is a Facebook picture of the rambla at Sorbas, just a few metres up the motorway from here. And I guess ours is much the same. There is no point for viewing our rambla from the village except from a bridge out on the main road, and I didn't want to paddle that far to see, but they showed a picture of the road into the rambla being closed off by the local police. Ramblas are dry river beds and they are useful for carrying excess water from the mountains out to the sea, so it was good to see them fulfilling this function and leaving the village unscathed.
The sea was churning and breaking from way out, and crashing on the rocks along the sea front. Unfortunately I find it difficult to take a photo that captures the power behind this.
Today the rain has held off for a short while though heavy grey clouds are rolling down from the mountains, ready to drench us again. But I decided to grab the break in the rain to stretch my legs as I have been sitting around far too much this week. I walked up to the top of the village where there is a look-out bay out across the fields betreen us and the rambla. Just look at how green they are. They were just brown mud areas a week ago.
Now I have to get ready for two visitors this afternoon. The first is from a removal company to assess what we have to move, and give some advice of packing and labelling each box for customs. And the second is a girl from the estate agency to make an inventory of what we are leaving behind. So it will be all go from now on. First I will take this over to link with Annie's Friday Smiles in the morning.
It has been a good week here starting with last Saturday which was Carnival day here in the village. After a week of lovely sunshine, it decided to rain on Saturday! and boy did it rain. We had a real downpour and I wasn't sure the carnival would go ahead, but the rain stopped at 5.45, and shortly after 6.00 the parade started almost on time.
Fortunately non of the participants were too skimpily dressed this year, as with the rain there was quite a drop in the temperature too. We usually go down to the slip road below us where the parade musters, but it was damp and chilly this year so we stayed in our garden as the parade passes up our street, so we didn't miss anything. Here is a collage of the few photos I took. It is a fun occasion and everyone was smiling despite the weather.
Other than that I have finished two little projects. One is this Japonese flower pot stand. It is crochet rings, interlocked as you work it, and I have to admit there was some frustrated unpicking and re-doing as I struggled to get them interlocked the right way round, but I got there in the end.
The second project was this owl dream-catcher, cut with my laser cutter. I used three different woods - maple, birch and walnut - and added a little paint to a few pieces. Then it was glued together and spray varnished. It was something that had sat on my 'to-do' list for a while, but I had to order the sheets of different wood. I am pleased with it now that it is done.
Last Saturday was my son Ben's birthday and we had a lovely chat on the computer. Then on Sunday it was my sister Dorothy's birthday and she was 90 years young! Here she is with the photo book her daughter made for her with photographs collected from all of our extended family.
The big news this week is that we have provisionally sold our house. I say provisionally because the buyers have paid the deposit to remove it from the site, and we have all signed a preliminary agreement, but nothing is for sure until the contract is signed, and the full price paid, and that is some way off yet. We are hoping to be back in UK by mid-May, as long as there are no hitches on the way.
So all in all it has been a good week. So now I will get ready to post this tomorrow and link up with Annie's Friday Smiles.