Summer coming to an end...

(Bit of a timelapse from starting to finishing this post - with a change of focus part way through too. )


A couple of hours weeks ago, I rather tearfully waved my lot off to Valladolid. The tears were a bit of a surprise. I usually look forward to a little bit of 'just me' time as I get precious little of it and there are always so many things that I want to do....if only I had some 'me time'!

Anyway, they've gone and the plan was that FR would return in a couple of days, leaving the children with their grandparents for a week or so. We've been planning this all summer, but the weather throughout Spain has been so incredibly hot since the end of June that they were better here where at least we have a pool and a relatively cool house (though even the house has soaked up so much sun and heat that we don't feel that lovely sense of chill when we walk in now.) It has been the most draining summer we've had so far - the early heat waves of June and July have passed, but now we're in the heat of August. Today is the first day the temperatures haven't been in the high 30s (C) and I think we're in for a little respite during the next few days.

I paused a while after the last sentence - dog to walk, chickens to check, feed and water, pool to clean and so on - and got the call to say everyone had safely arrived but that Yayo (Grandfather) has been taken into hospital and not likely to be out for several days. Bladder and kidney problems that sound quite severe....not what we hoped to hear. So, the interim plan changed, and FR would stay a day or so longer to see how things go and then probably return with Ruy and Romy. Mateo will probably stay a bit to help, see his cousin and have a bit of freedom, returning on the bus to Granada, which is a bit of an adventure in itself! Fingers crossed for a good recovery.

And in the meantime, I was rather withdrawn, declining invites to flamenco and fireworks parties...just feeling the need to have a bit of time alone. I am usually outgoing and sociable but I do quite like my own company, sometimes in preference to bigger groups. I've been pottering, walking, sewing and drawing.

I had five days of this rather welcome solitude and made several lovely cushions for my sofas in the lounge, did lots of painting and drawing and tidied the house from top to bottom. Glad to see them back of course - and a strange week we had without Mateo too! How the dynamics of a family change when one of us is missing. Ruy and Romy seemed to squabble and laugh and play and had their moments pretty much as usual but Ruy missed having Mateo around and the house was definitely quieter and lacked its often manic edge. I now know exactly where that comes from!

Mateo had a good week with his cousin, Marco and grandmother, Amelia, and managed to arrived back safely on the bus on Tuesday evening. The rest of us had had a beautiful afternoon on the beach at our new favourite spot near Calahonda in Granada and stopped at the bus station on our way home to meet Mateo. He seemed somehow to have grown and relaxed after a week on his own but said he had only really missed Pippin....

But the news has not been good from the hospital. Yayo, my father-in-law and my godfather, continued to have lots of tests and we now know that he has a cancer. And it's an aggressive one in his oesophagus. His kidneys are not functioning properly still but he has been sent home. FR has just returned to his parents' home on the bus and tomorrow, he will go with them and his brother to speak to the doctors to find out what, if any treatment, is recommended and what decision FR's father will take.

It's a lot to take in and brings the summer holidays to an end in a very sad way. I leave this post with a beautiful photo that Romy took as the sun went down at the beach earlier this week.
Because I don't really know what else to say.