A promise fulfilled

Some time ago, although I don't actually remember when, I promised Romy that we could go to a funfair one day. For the day, not just a couple of rides when the fair comes to town. To a proper place.

The Easter holiday seemed to be the time to fulfill that promise. I have to say I am not a fan. FR is even less of a fan. Mateo has never really been a fan. But a promise is a promise.

So, yesterday, Romy, Ruy (who is quite a fan) and I set off in the morning to make the trek to the coast and Tivoli World. It's not a huge place and has no outlandish rides but it is the nearest permanent fairground to us and for fair-deprived children, like mine, it pretty much hit the spot.

Blue skies, palm trees and just the right temperature

Apart from having to submit to the incredibly inefficient ticket system, which, despite having bought our tickets online, meant we had to join three different queues and wait for a total of 45 minutes before the required wristbands were applied. These bands provided access to all but a couple of the attractions in unlimited repeated turns.

There was a little moment of being underwhelmed as we set off to explore but the park is cleverly laid out to appear much bigger than it is and many of the attractions are not immediately visible.

I won't describe all the rides...(phew, I hear you say) but despite trailing around after my children for about five hours, carrying rather more than I had intended, we had a great day and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Ruy reckons he had probably around 100e-worth of rides on the Dodgems....



Here's a selection of fairground photos - always colourful but especially nice when the sun is shining!

A nice gentle Jurassic tour to start the day...

Following a spin on the Roller Coaster.

Probably Ruy's favourite - dodgems!

Clearly here, it's called the Techno Jump..but since we've lived in Spain, we know it as 'La Rana' or the Frog. 

Not sure if I took this before or during Romy's spin on it...

A rather uninspiring photo of what was the best ride - the Aqua falls - this was just after the infamous soaking!

And yes, they went on several times! Dried off quickly in the sun though. 

And another treat - a kebab...both still soaking wet but unbothered!

And having driven all the way to the coast, we had to visit the sea. Benalmadena was too busy and difficult to stop in so we drove along the coast to Torremolinos. It's really rather a lovely place despite its reputation. I always like this long, clean beach where you can mooch along and find lovely shells.




I wasn't remotely tempted but my children did their usual strip and waded in without hesitation. They confessed it was VERY COLD!!

How Ruy is chunking out...his voice is on the verge of breaking and he spends his time shouting 'Harry!' in a brilliant copy of Ron Weasely's voice in the early Happy Potter films....(And of course, Mateo used to look exactly like Harry Potter so it makes us all laugh.)

Do you see anyone else in the water? Nope...not one. 

This was around 7pm and after stopping at Riofrio to buy fresh and still wriggling rainbow trout, we arrived home in the dark just after 9.30pm. We'd watched the full moon rising over the Sierra Nevada as we drove and noticed that the mountains already looked to have much less snow than they had earlier in the week.

Delicious fresh fish just visible on our makeshift barbecue.

I admit to feeling a rather smug good mother and wife. FR was waiting with a fire in the garden to cook the trout, the children were full of their day and I was quite knackered from all the driving, safe too in the knowledge that I've prepared a rather good set of clues for this year's Easter Treasure Hunt that my children love to do on Easter Sunday morning.  I even made some chocolates for them on Friday morning....in secret!
I went to bed feeling good.

The full moon from my garden

And just so you know, Barney is still happily sunbathing in the garden as I write ...he won't be dinner this Easter!

Happy Easter. Hope you're all having good holidays.

On the crest

I have always thought of my blog as a sort of diary and in my blog list, some of my very favourite bloggers have a similar approach. It means that how I feel or what is happening to me and where I go and what I do forms the focus of my posts. Sometimes things aren't always so good. Sometimes when things are not so good, I don't post. Sometimes when life is really busy, I don't have time to post. I haven't posted very much recently. And I haven't been overly busy....

But fortunately, the bad things pass and we often grown stronger as a result. 

And then not just good things happen, but really great things happen!

This week has been a great week...and I would like to share a few highlights.

Monday, FR, Ruy, Romy and I (leaving teenage son at home) set off for a day on the beach - the first this year!

We found a beautiful, uncrowded bay near Almuñecar, on the Granada coast. It was a hot but not too hot day and the sea looked incredibly inviting. But there were few people in the sea....we so hoped it wasn't a jellyfish invasion. Ruy was the first in and he didn't stay long. He reported that it was cold. Very cold. So Romy went...and she also came back and reported the same but then she and Ruy returned and went in again together. 

I was next....and oh my! It was as cold a water as I have ever been in!! This is the Mediterranean, remember, and it was as cold as the waters that come directly from the mountains. It was impossible. I managed up to waist high but couldn't, absolutely could NOT dip any further and the thought of getting my shoulders in was too much of a risk, so I retreated. FR managed up to his calves. 

The sea to himself....Ruy the brave

Apparently, the wind had changed a couple of days earlier and had brought the currents through the straits of Gibraltar and with it the cold, cold waters of the Atlantic. It made our last beach day at Scarborough seem like swimming in a warm bath....(which wasn't how we described it at the time!)

But gorgeous, it was. And Ruy and Romy had a happy hour in a hired canoe, which they enjoyed. 

Next highlight of this bright week...Sam and Dave back from Scotland!! Yes, three months have passed and they've embarked on and embraced their new lives, new jobs, new schools in what has been a sunny Scotland...but were so very glad to be back in Alcala - especially Sam. We met on Wednesday evening in the park, where Alcala had thoughtfully provided some great live music outside the beautiful library and every one was out and about and just happened to be passing to say hello. We had a lovely evening.

Then the next day, they came to us. As with all good friends, it was just as if they'd never been away and we had one of FR's memorable and initially spectacular barbecues. 

We had a naming ceremony for a small, unusual dog whose eyes light up when the sun goes down - a gift sent to me by Sam from Scotland. We weren't sure why at the time as he is, to say the least, a tad unusual, bordering on tacky but as Sam said, we think of her every evening as he lights up the garden! And she was right. His chosen name...by democratic election - managed excellently by Isobel - is Rocker. (Though for the life of me, I can't think why!)

We ate well, drank well, talked and talked and laughed a lot...(and cried a bit) and had a wonderful evening together. (And took some pretty rubbishy photos....but never mind!)

Looks like we weren't eating much - but believe me, we got through quite a lot!

And the fun didn't stop there. Last night, there was a Flamenco evening at the beautiful little square right at the top of Alcala la Real, overlooking the town and La Mota. So of course we were going! 

Amazing....

View from San Marcos ...

And yes, we met Sam, family and friends there...

A wonderful setting for a fantastic set of performances...

And the highlight of the evening for me was the performance of these two.....I cannot begin to describe the emotion and sensation they created - it's not that sort of blog....! Needless to say, they were very much appreciated by the audience and there was a lot of 'Olé's as they performed...a sign that a phrase, a sentiment and a musical delivery has really hit the spot. I even spontaneously 'Olé´d myself a couple of times...it just seemed to pop out of me!

My photo was a bit blurred so I used an app on my new tablet to give it some character....I like it!

SO, we end our week on a real crest. And I can cope with the downs in a realistic manner when the ups are so high. And I can also really enjoy the blogging bit too. And will be reading and catching up on all my lovely blogging friends' posts again very soon.....

A perfectly lovely week

On a beautiful evening last Tuesday, I drove down to Malaga airport to collect my mum. Having been looking forward to her coming all summer and hot on the heels of Janice and Mark's visit, when she came through the gates at Arrivals, it suddenly didn't seem two minutes since she was here last time, in May. We had a lovely time then and had no intention of doing anything else this time either.

The weather, which had been miserable just a few days before, perked up beautifully. Mum enjoys gardening - she didn't always and never needed to garden when I lived at home (not because I did it!) because my grandparents lived next door and my grandpa was an avid gardener. She now does most of her own garden and it's a credit to her.

She started on mine and has done a bit almost every day, clearing weeds, pruning roses and clipping the juniper bush.


It all looks much better now and I shall have to make a concerted effort to keep up to it...

We had a little adventure on Friday, when we went to a nearby village up in the mountains - it was market day there but when we got there, the town was preparing for their fiesta and there was no market... It's an impressive village up a steep mountainside but guess who had forgotten her camera.

In lieu of my own photos, I will share this image from todopueblos.com which shows the dramatic position of the place which we drive past on our way home from Granada.








On our way back home, we stopped off for a drink and tapas. (I'm glad to say we did rather a lot of this during the week.) The intention was then to do some shopping and come home. But when we emerged from the bar, the car wouldn't start. No way, no how. I had to call FR. Who didn't believe it wasn't something I had done wrong. But who eventually had to call the insurance company, who eventually came and, finding the car wouldn't start, (see, not my fault) loaded it onto the truck and brought it and us back to Alcala to one of the mechanics there - but one that was away at lunch. Fortunately for us, we have Sergio - our magical neighbour - who solves all our problems and makes us laugh too. When the mechanic eventually had a look at the car, turns out it was the distributor belt or something like that. Something Rather Expensive. Not me. Phew!

We seem to have spent the week eating, chatting and going for little walks - often to take a coffee and a little something at a cafe - and time has flown past. We have, however, played lots of Charades...Mum does Charades!

On her last full day here, Mum said she'd like to see the sea. What a good idea, I thought! So today, we went to Salobreña and had a really glorious day out. But I forgot my camera again...these are the best my phone could do.

A sand scuplture we found along the promenade - I think from a fiesta from earlier in the month...

Enjoying a delicious lunch at a chiringuito on the beach..

My plate of incredibly fresh fish.

And today, the pleasure doesn't end when the taxi comes - with my neighbour, Bev's mum and sister, who have conveniently been visiting at the same time and have a flight just before ours from Malaga - because I am returning to Manchester with Mum! That was the big surprise and it was a question of how long I could keep it secret - would I actually get on the plane with her before she realised??? It was a possibility but in the end, because of the broken car and arrangements that had to be made, I told her - and it was a good thing to do as it delighted her and added an even better end to her holiday.

It has been a really lovely week. I shall endeavour to pack my camera when I set off. It's good timing...possibly...as my sister moves house next week so I'll get to see her old house, where we've had some great time and also to see her new place!

Oooh, can't wait!!

Body and mind bending

I know I've said it before, I never said I didn't repeat myself. I do. But here I go again...

Isn't the internet amazing!!

I logged onto my blog yesterday and as usual, had a look at my twirling globe to see where my visitors might be coming from...who was I virtually connected to. And someone was visiting from Woking. (Hello, if it's you from Woking reading this post!) It set my mind back to my University days when my circle of friends included a trombone player from Woking.

A thumbnail sketch...many weekends spent drinking, playing music, going out and more drinking often led to this friend sleeping on the sofa, floor or just against the wall of the house we shared then with four others. He was long-haired, bespectacled and bearded at the time and one of the most laconic and taciturn creatures who would suddenly burst into spontaneous and infection laughter. He drove a red 2 CV and we once met him and his girlfriend whilst on holiday in the north of Spain - by complete accident - and when he got out of the car to greet us, it was just as if we'd met in the local supermarket.

One of my overriding memories of him is going to Bognor Regis one summer's day. He and my ex had taken their euphoniums with them...as you do...and the pair of them waded out to sea, with their instruments and proceeded to amuse the promenaders with various renditions.They drew quite a crowd. I remember 'Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside' went down very well, but probably not everyone appreciated 'For those in peril on the sea' quite as much. I laughed until I cried. And am laughing now as I remember.

I didn't find many links when I googled him - as you do - (oh, don't you? I do!) but came across quite a lot of 'Upcott' references... his rather unusual surname. And then I found a photo of an Upcott family - and there was a clean-shaven, smiling friend! And a few of his sons and daughters...two of whom are WORLD CHAMPION ACROBATS!! Not just good acrobats, not just British Champions but both Edward and Alice are or have been World Champions. And both were in the group, Spelbound, that I now know won 'Britain's Got Talent' in 2010. Just take a look at this amazing young man - I can't believe half of what he does is physically possible!





I was able to contact his father and he wrote back very quickly - he has five children and lives just half a dozen miles away from where I used to live. I do vaguely remember that his shoulder used to dislocate very easily - I wonder whether this loose-jointedness in his children comes from him? I have never seen body control like Edward's before though. Do watch and be wowed.

This post is called body and mind bending. Well, I certainly can't and don't body bend very much these days but I've been bending my mind with a new thing I found (guess where...on the internet) called 'Zentangle' which takes doodling to another place entirely. I have always been a doodler and always done quite complicated patterns. But I haven't been doing it properly....not until this week. Now my head is full of wild and wonderful repeating patterns and no piece of paper is safe...in fact, I've even doodled on some nice flat stones I found in one of my collections and I gave Ruy a wonderful temporary doodled tattoo the other day.

So, what does serious doodling look like?

This...

I started top right and there are nine squares, which I completed from right to left, top to bottom and I think my last square, bottom left, is my favourite...

Well, I've finished bottling fruit and making jam. I had to do SOMETHING!!

How do you doodle?

Braving the cold...

OK - it might not seem brave to you but believe me, this water was very chilly. Exceedingly.

Going under

But my children - two of my children - are made of resilient stuff and spend the day on Saturday, defying the cold, braving the waves and having an absolutely whale of a time.

Breaking waves

The less daring faction of the family...

We didn't build these ourselves

but we wish we had

Our first summer day on the beach this year. We visited two beaches, both in Almuñecar. The first one was  busy and wide, with the town at our backs. We were surrounded by incredibly noisy, boisterous and uninhibited local Spanish people - it is their beach, after all.  The other, which we found later in the day,  was at the furthest end of the town and we hadn't been there before but we loved it. There were three little bays backed by high cliffs. Designated a nudist beach, it seemed as though most of the town's people shunned it and it was wonderfully peaceful. There were a few naked bodies, which is fine by me, some quieter and more peaceful families and a few foreigners, reading books or just chilling - not yelling into mobile phones, having Fanta fights or shouting at their children... 

I hope by the next time we go, the water will have warmed up just a tad...I went in but my, was it cold! 

How are your summer plans shaping up - water, pool or somewhere else?

Frozen waves

I had just posted birthday wishes to my friend and fellow blogger, Janice, on her Facebook page and she told me how joli cold it is in France too at the moment - and her next comment really made me think,.... and then google, as we do these days.

She said there were frozen waves in Narbonne.

Did you get that... frozen waves! And so that's what I googled.

And I found these amazing photographs which I just had to share.

And whilst these next two pictures aren't strickly the waves that you get on the sea they are truly wonderful images.

Originally uploaded onto the internet falsely claiming to be waves frozen in midair at Lake Huron, there are many websites showing a full selection of these fantastic formations, together with more details explanation. I got mine from here.

Thank you Janice - and thanks to the internet for instant gratification of my curiosity. I feel I've learned a little more about this world we live in.

Long shadows and Halloween

Halloween has been a funny old occasion this year. I've spent the whole week talking about it to my students, from the history going back to the pagan celebration of Samhain to playing Hangman with only spooky words allowed. Romy's class dressed up at school on Friday because Monday 31st is a school holiday and they didn't want to miss the opportunity to make masks and go around making loud noises.

But then, we couldn't find a pumpkin to carve - nowhere, no how. I can't say quite how disappointed we all were by this as we are rather fond of pumpkin lanterns.



By way of consolation, I decided to make a graveyard Halloween cake even though I had limited access to decorations - our local supermarket being good but basic. It tastes, rather surprisingly, out of this world!

(But somewhere in 'tidying up' the computer, we've lost our photo editing programme, so apologies that this one really is warts and all!)

As Monday and Tuesday (All Saint's Day) are holidays from school, we decided to go to the coast today. We had really wanted to go the the Sierra Nevada before the snow comes again, but the weather forecast was poor and there was no point in going if it rained or was cloudy. And as we headed south, we could see the clouds hanging over the mountain ridge in an ominous sort of way. The path we chose took us through the Sierra del Chaparral - a stunning, (probably best walked!) track that wound through some wonderful pine forests (and how we love our pine forests) where we stopped for our picnic and clambered up a dry river bed and walked several kilometers without meeting a soul.

And the long shadows? Well, our journey through the forest was made more exciting when the car engine suddenly started vibrating erratically, a previously unseen warning light came on and then the engine stopped completely and suddenly - leaving FR and I looking at each other in shock, wondering how we would get out of the woods before nightfall. However, after a brief poke under the bonnet, we were fortunate enough to discover the trusty Volvo had not let us down and it growled back into life. It seems that our slow and sandy drive over the bumpy forest track had temporarily clogged something up. Let's not dwell on it - we made it safely out and down the winding road to the coast.

Where we enjoyed a late autumn afternoon's sunshine on the beach at Salobreña and where the sea was still warm enough for the children - well, the brave ones - to venture in.

In fact, it was when FR also stripped off and waded in that I realised I'd left the camera in the car but it took me too long to get there and back to catch him.




And the sun had just gone down a bit too far to capture those long shadows too but I did get the moon! (That tiny crescent high up in the sky - see it?)












When we came home - in the dark - Romy was absolutely amazed to discover it was still only 8pm and there would be time to go out in her witch's costume. Which she did, and Ruy with her in a scary tunic with his heart beating on the outside. We were surprised to see several children out and about in Halloween costume - not a lot but enough for my own children to feel it was OK to knock on some doors. They were pleased to come home a short while later with a reasonable haul of goodies. Halloween is not exactly a traditional Spanish celebration....the power of advertising.


We've had a full and lovely day but one with time to sit and listen to the birds and the silence of the mountains and forests; one to feel the sand between my toes and the sea on my feet.

Time can go as slow as it likes when there are days like this to enjoy.

To Mojacar and back

Mouthwatering lemons from the tree!

We had property to view! It was going to take us 3 hours to drive to see it so a visit to the seaside was a necessary inclusion in the journey. Looking on the map and reading up what guides had to say, Mojacar was the obvious beach location to head for.
As well as the property, we wanted the chance to see the countryside on the far east of Granada province moving across the border into Almeria. A rather nice looking road (on the map, it looked nice...it meandered a bit, it had mountains to the south of it, there was green around it and little villages dotted either side... it looked nice - as an avid map-gazer I know what I mean -) which I persuaded Cesar we should take rather than the autovia. Now we have no GPS, I am back to official map reader and navigator again - hurray!!
This was roughly our route if you like that sort of thing:

I say roughly because I checked it out on ViaMichelin then decided that we wouldn't do steps 1-4 as suggested, which took us on the now familiar road towards Granada - instead, we cut across country eastwards to the motorway (A44-E902), south to the next junction, then took the little orange road towards step 5. It was better, I think.
Views along the way would have been stunning - of the Sierra Nevada - except it was very misty and damp and we couldn't see much at all.
Not until we got to Guadix (5) when the clouds disappeared and we got a good view of this gorgeous town - all red stone against the snowy backdrop - and I had a pang of remorse that we didn't pursue this as our base...until Cesar reminded me that there were no school places for the children and no places to rent at the time we were looking...ah, that was why!

We felt 'at home' between steps 5 and 6 as this is where we spent our wonderful week in the cave at Bacor Oliver. We waved at Mount Jabalcon and at the house that we didn't buy - 'Cortijo Zorro' - well, at the land that is visible from the motorway.

For the first one third, the road from 6 (Baza) to 10 (Albox) (- I guess 7, 8 and 9 are somewhere behind 10) was absolutely gorgeous! We loved it and saw lots of villages that we want to explore in the future. From then on, we were increasingly less impressed and then we hit Albox and from there to 12 and the motorway that leads down to Almeria, we didn't like. We continued on to a little place high up in the mountains to view the house that in the pictures looked perfect but which in reality was totally unsuitable, However, it had some fantastic land to explore and the owners were a remarkable old English couple who were most entertaining. We had a very pleasant visit - politely making it clear that their house wasn't what we were looking for; I would hate to have raised their hopes of a sale unnecessarily.




Although we could see the sea from the mountain, we were told it would take us around 40 minutes to get there and we were ravenously hungry for our picnic, so we stopped in a strange but wonderful spot to eat.












 
We were overlooking a quarry, with the sea just visible, surrounded by herbs - thyme, rosemary, sage and lavender - and the smell was totally sense-tingling!

After we'd eaten, we gathered a few fallen fruits from nearby trees and which also gave off a scent that was almost 100 times stronger than we were used to - the lemons in particular were sensational! Scoffing mandarin oranges, we headed off for the coast and found a deserted beach in the currently empty seaside town of Garrucha, just north of Mojacar, where the Mediterranean was producing gently crashing waves.

As the sun began to sink behind the mountains, we headed off to see what Mojacar was like. I had imagined it - not sure why - to be a moorish red stone town so was surprised to see a totally white hill village - gobsmackingly white, gobsmackingly hilly! This is a photograph taken from the www.kasbah.es because I didn't manage to take a photograph myself as we arrived - too gobsmacked!

Inside, Mateo and I pondered at what point a hill becomes a village? Although from a distance, the hill was the most obvious feature, once we were 'inside' we were obviously in a village...







Mateo thought this was what Lindworm Castle must have been like. (Lindworm Castle is a place in 'The City of Dreaming Books' by Walter Moer - if you like odd, you will like this!)

This image is from the book - illustrated by the author - and I see what he means but perhaps Mojacar wasn't quite so 'pointy'...

View from the top of the village











Comparing this to Salobreña, where we went a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by how much more of a tourist area this part of Spain seemed. This was Saturday, it was a beautiful sunny day and there was hardly anyone around. In Salobreña, families were out and about, the bars were full and people were clearly living in the area. In and around Garrucha and Mojacar, the few people we saw were English (of the retired type) or French and Dutch in big motorhomes parked up near the sea. There were very few Spanish families out walking and many of the bars and shops were closed up - not just for Saturday afternoon - presumably until the tourists arrive in their droves. This is quite rare - Spanish people like walking about and do it a lot!

The journey gave us a lot of food for thought as we drove back - into the sunset as it happens - and at risk of appearing too self-satisfied, have to admit we had yet another really lovely day here in Southern Spain.