Fiesta

I am so pleased for Rebecca, she has secured a new position, Monday to Friday which works with nursery, although a few Grandma duties needed here and there. It means weekends are relatively free for altogether time and a few adjustments into menu planning etc means it should work out.

Well, a week has passed since the fiesta, where it went I don´t know, the numbers attending were vastly down on previous years, to be honest I didn´t make an appearance for one reason or another, Friday I needed to get some rest ready for Grandma duties the next day, although the band was so loud that was very difficult, then Saturday I was pooped, luckily they band wasn´t so loud enabling me to sleep. They didn´t finish until 3am. Sunday with not so many attending they finished early. The charengito was collected, along with the extra bins, the bar was dismantled, all the bunting removed and you wouldn´t have known anything had occured.

Sunday morning church service where Santa Barbara is paraded around the plaza followed by the congregation 

This is the little church were we had our wedding blessing

I hope you are all finding ways to keep cool in these high temps, we are up again today 38.5 with a hair dryer wind, grey water being used for plants as usual. I´m so pleased that we have our new taps as it´s much easier to turn them off whilst teeth cleaning washing hands etc.

Theo has been doing his potty training, he took to it straight away, very little mishaps, marvelous 

He has gained so much confidence in the water that pool time has been great fun.

Keep cool, enjoy the weekend

take care

xcx

Not a lot

Been keeping our heads down as our temps have been quite high. Several occasions reaching 40c but mostly between 34-36 now. Consequently the temp in the pool is a very pleasing 30c, no cold water shocks, bit of a wimp with cold water. Managed to increase the lengths to equate to 400m, not every day but every little helps. Theo has been enjoying the pool too, he loves to jump off the side and is gaining confidence in the water, with that and the trips to the beach, he is quite the water baby.

Rebecca has been looking for a job, always a difficult search but in the mean time with Theo going to nursery every day for full days she has taken what she could which has mainly been villa cleaning. Not a particularly pleasant job, especially in these temps so I take my hat off to her. I´ve been doing Grandma duty for the times when work and nursery conflict. She had an interview yesterday so we are keeping our fingers crossed for her.

It´s been quite busy in the plaza, they are having the annual fiesta weekend again, first since covid. trimming, strimming, freshening up. They delivered the charengito on Monday, basically a portable lock up bar, although beer is free, or rather comes out of the funds collected,  other beverages help pay towards the bands etc. At the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, I have not missed these weekends as they party on till 2 or 3 in the morning so sleep is out of the question as the plaza is just below us. The furries are not happy either as we have to round them up and keep them in especially during the evenings and the Sunday morning church service. It goes from being sleepy to probably 5-600 people 

I have tackled a few indoor jobs, like clearing out the bodega and shelves, finding little treasures and things like the citronella night lights tucked away. I used cut down 8l water bottles to give storage solutions, cheap and cheerful, but they work. It´s tidy and free from items that we really do not need any more

Started another crochet throw, great to keep fingers busy but not too taxing.

Off to download a book, hiding in the cool in the lounge 

take care

xcx

Little pleasures

At last the plumber arrived, we gaily showed him the new taps we had purchased and left him to it. He fitted the bath/shower taps but found that the taps in the double wash basin had rusted so badly he couldn´t release them. New basin needed! so we trot off to choose one but because designs change we could only have a single basin. Didn´t really mind after all we have never used the dual one in 15 years.

The plumber returned, quicker this time and fitted it, the delight in having a tap you can 1. turn and 2. water comes out has been quite exciting.

Next changing the taps in the clockroom, he found the same problem, rusted in, but after much huffing and puffing and brute force, he managed to free the old ones, I thought we were in for yet another trip and delay. Shiny taps not only look pleasing but ultimately will save water as they are much easier to regulate. It´s the little things that give pleasure

I was sorting out some linen, including some old linen that my Mum had collected, unfortunately some were passed saving, but I came across a couple of crochet cloths that I remember Mum having on her dressing table. There were a couple of age marks on one which I couldn´t remove, but after a careful wash they came up as good as new. The best part - the colours, the same green as I had painted the bathroom mirror and cabinet and the soft pink that goes with the fabric lined walls

Trying to keep in the cool of the house I started the bunting for Theo´s room, so whiled away a couple of hours piecing it together.

Still keeping up with the swimming, but we seem to be sharing the pool with the swifts, they build their nests in the roof of the naya then come swooping down to drink the water. It´s usually between 5 and 6 we go out there, obviously cooler for them too at that time. Then a couple of days ago I noticed a black splodge on the inside of the pool and discovered a very bedraggled bat, probably a piperstrelle , we carefully scooped it up and left it to dry off safely, a couple of hours later it was no where to be seen, so hopefully it returned to its colony. 

Right, off to play with pentagons

take care 

xcx

Mish mash

I found some photos from the Moors and Christians festival 

 

This wolf gently came toward Theo and touched him, let just say that Theo was not the slighted  bit impressed.

We have hit 38 a couple of times already, but have learnt (the hard way) how to manage the heat. lower expectations, jobs early in the day, etc etc, seems the Uk are making heaps over the expected heat wave, as that slogan says you just adjust and carry on.!

Rebecca has been building up clients for a villa clean etc, hard, hot sweaty work but bless her, she is game to crack on and make something in the season. She leaves the boys at the beach of a Saturday morning where they have great fun, then joins in with them to share fun too, except she was very badly stung by a sea anemone, the red cross patrol said it was not as bad as a jellyfish sting, bet they were glad not to be on the end of it cos it hurt like billyo. Having been stung by jellyfish in my youth I can feel for her, it hurts like 100 x nettles being wrapped round you, go to the chemist for some cream. Luckily its gone down, but then working today she was stung by a wasp, poor love not her week at all.

Just done 40 lengths of the pool, equates to 304m, quite chuffed, we are earlier this season for the pool with the higher temps quite early. Surprising how much evaporation from winds and heat occurs, so we need a top up for the pool and one for the house, hopefully he will come tomorrow.

Need to start dinner,

take care

xcx

 

A finish

 We went along to the fiesta parade in Benissa on Saturday, this was the Moors and Christians festival. There were bands marching and various groups in very different costumes, they must have taken an age to make, very rich colours. We didn´t go along to the actual siege on Sunday, but apparently it was very good.

We have been in the pool most days and I am trying to build up the number of lengths as a good form of exercise. I´m up to 34 at the moment, although our pool is 10m in length, 2 m of that are shallow steps which are brilliant for Theo to play on, although he enjoys splashing around with us too.

I haven´t a clue what they are called, but these succulents by our little pond have been flowering, they remind me of little fairy hats.

Sashie and Sonia seem to be settling down more now, they venture out into the courtyard, but we have blocked up the escape routes until they are calmer. They have been trying to make friends with ours, but there is plenty of room for all of them to do their own thing.

Amber, on the chair, is rather feisty, she is a don´t pick me up kind of cat but does enjoy a smoothing on her terms, I think Sashie and her had had words.

Been a bit lacking in the crafting scene, but I have finished two beaded butterflies for my wall hanging, which is going rather slowly. Now I have to think of what to put in some of the other squares.

I have got a finish though, the crochet blanket, very simple, something you can do while watching the telly. There wasn´t any real thought in the design, I was just using up yarns from other projects.

Time for a swim I think

take care

xcx

At last

We seem to have skipped Spring and landed straight into Summer. We had temps of 37C on Thursday and 35C yesterday, thank goodness for the pool.

We went into town on Thursday as we needed to choose new taps for the en-suite, we have been putting up with them for ages, they are so old and clogged with limescale they hardly work. We went to the showroom first then on to the warehouse to collect. They had everything in stock and we were given a 35% discount which was very nice. Just have to wait for the plumber to come and fit them, that is usually manana, manana.

There was a cleaning party in the plaza on Tuesday, cleaning the church and strimming around the area. We were surprised as it was far too early for the fiesta in August. It turned out it was used for a christening yesterday. In the meantime Sunny hadn´t been home since the clean and our neighbour was also away. We managed to get the keys to the church etc but no Sunny. We really thought he had gone, maybe in a car or something. Then yesterday after the church was opened and the neighbour returned, there was Sunny waiting patiently outside the courtyard gate. Obviously hungry and thirsty, but other than that he was fine. We asked him where he had been but he was too busy filling his tummy lol

I have been using the pool and gradually building up the exercise, yesterday I managed up to 30 lengths, which with the size of the pool equates to 240m. It was suggested walking up to 45 minutes a day, but in this heat, no way, so this is the best alternative.

I received a call saying that my sewing machine was ready for collection. At last, it was the week before Easter it went in, but it needed a new inside panel that regulates the speed, 3 lugs were broken, how this could be I don´t know as it never goes anywhere. It was dispatched from Switzerland, hence the delay. The service engineer got it running to make sure I was happy and he showed me a couple of things that I didn´t know it could do. In his halting Spanglish he insisted I had a very good machine and that I should get to know its capabilities. Bit cheeky really, but true,  Although I don´t make clothes so don´t need the buttonhole foot, Patchwork is usually straight sewing apart from free machine quilting so its usage has been pretty straightforward easy sewing. I would like to explore the embroidery side a bit more so You tube and manual will hopefully get me going. Just have to be brave

take care

xcx

A little trip

Hi all, been a bit quiet as I didn´t have much to say, ticking along, a little reading, a little knitting and not much else.

Saturday was Rebecca´s birthday , her hubby had organised a little surprise for her and kindly invited us to join in. 

We had quite a long journey, along a route that had long gradients taking you up to 3000 ft, so we decided to go in 2 cars to save over taxing them, traveling at a reasonable speed, we managed to keep the fuel consumption steady, it was mainly duel carriageway but we traveled through areas that were quite diverse, pretty and interesting.

Our destination was Teruel, up in the north, Chris has been several times visiting the ski slopes up there.

It was a long way but the reason it was chosen was because it had adult spa facilities and a childrens Dinospa, so Theo could enjoy the fun too. While they took Theo into his area we had an hour in the spa, a main pool large enough to swim and several small multi spas, even a cold water dip which I chickened out of but was apparently very refreshing.

We then swapped over and had Yaya duties so they could enjoy free time too. After showers and changing we took a taxi into the town. Very different to around here, it was buzzing and very busy with lots of walkside cafes. 

We found a restaurant where one wall was actually part of this tower

There were some very ornate buildings and most of the signage for shops, banks etc were all in gold lettering. The square was very busy and noisy. We enjoyed our meal, although the owner was rather pofaced, and didn´t take kindly to being asked for bread and allioli, obviously  not the done thing up there.

It was rather late and Theo, who had been very good, was flagging, so we called up for the taxi, to be told there wasn´t one. After a lot of being pushed from pillar to post we were told to ring the police. Thank goodness for Antoni speaking Spanish, apparently the taxi´s could be fined up to 600e as one taxi had to be available at all times. Phew we got one. Bit of a worry for a while there.

Our room was quite basic but adequate and clean all we wanted really as we were ready for sleep. Breakfast was quite varied and comprehensive catering for most tastes. We left not long after, we headed for home but the others were going to divert to Valencia, promising Theo a soft play park, unfortunately the world and his wife were there and they had closed it to avoid overcrowding. Such a shame. To add insult to injury, when we left their apartment they had left the key on the inside of the door so consequently couldn´t get in. They had already inquired about a locksmith and he came out to rescue them, he used a very simple method with no damage or requiring new locks in record time but with a charge of 75e for the privilege.  

At last our pool is ready to use, Chris has worked hard trying to get it up to scratch, all the rain we had weeks ago ruined the ph etc and he removed so much leaves, twigs and general debris, its all sparkling now and R, A, and T came up yesterday late afternoon for a swim and stayed for dinner. Waited a long time to be able to do that, I´m sure they will be up regularly to enjoy a dip and get Theo more confident in the water. 

I´m melting at the moment, its about 31C so off for a cool drink

take care

xcx