We’ve not had any rain for months, it seems we have suddenly missed a season and gone from Winter to Summer! In last month’s blog we had been to Toledo where it was very cold and then the UK where we nearly got snowed in, this month we haven’t been away yet but we have had VIP visitors and are wearing tee shirts and shorts and leaving all the doors open!
If you zoom in you will see the three amigos running round the pool edge!
We had intended to go away again briefly before our visitors arrived but best laid plans and all that. This time we were hampered by our gates becoming difficult and then almost impossible to open fully, indeed the hinge on one sheared off so they needed to be taken away to be welded and repainted. The metalworker who agreed to come and collect them was very busy so we had to wait for him to be able to fit our job in. This meant it was not possible to get the camper out but they have now been fixed and look much smarter….well, they did till Poco went for a nosey down the lane!
Meanwhile the VIPs that came, namely our elder son Richard and his lovely partner Aoife, have been for a 9 day stay have now gone on to Portugal for a week’s surf school.
They arrived from a week’s skiing and walking in Chatel in the French Alps, a place we know well from family holidays together when the boys were much younger. They were laden with goodies for us, beer, wine, cheese, saucisson, sirop de grenadine (can’t buy decent squash in Spain), even some shampoo that Ric remembered I always used to buy in France and the smell is so evocative! They also brought us thermal coffee mugs to complement the wine coolers they sent us last year after our trip to Stockholm, we had admired theirs on the picnics we went on with them!
We really enjoyed their company and were thrilled that they stayed longer than initially planned. They loved the weather, the pool, the area and the food and drink.
We did a mixture of things together on days out and then they took our car and went off exploring on their own some days giving us time to have a breather. and give our legs a rest. On a couple of mornings, Nigel and Ric went for a cycle ride together.
then we saw another one in our garden later the same day,
Ric’s first sighting of a real live Chameleon!
Most late afternoons and evenings were spent around or in the pool which is lovely and warm now (30deg!), chatting, reading, listening to podcasts and nibbling snacks and supping! Our evening meals were often joint effort affairs and eaten in the sun room just as dusk was falling.
Aoife, Richard and I had a day trip to Alicante, the following few phone snaps are from our day there.
We also had days out together and we dragged those pooches (just Ditto and Poco) back up to the Cienzas guns again!! Belle is still happy pottering about and coming on the occasional road or beach walk but she is not fit enough for a walk like this where the surface is uneven. She is on weekly medication now to ease her arthritis and she is quite happy to stay in bed when we go a bit further afield.
On their last morning just before they left they made us breakfast pancakes which were a delicious treat with strawberries from Andalusia that they bought the day before, we both said they are the nicest strawberries we’ve ever had and I shall be back to Mercadona for some more!
A thoroughly pleasant visit, enjoyed by all. Sad to see them go of course but they will be back!
Our plan now is to go away towards the Pyrenees for the month of May where we hope to find some cooler weather. We plan to get away on Tuesday. It’s still forecast to be very warm. We will have to dig out the cool coats for the pooches.
And around the garden?????? Nigel is busy setting up automatic irrigation for the plants we have in the courtyard as they need watering every day and we don’t want them all to die.
Very pleased with it.
“Crown of Thorns” allegedly
!Adiós por ahora, hasta finales de mayo¡