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.

Sunshine in Salobreña

This weekend, it has been very cold - not just here in Alcala la Real - but in all Andalucia and Spain in general. The weather reports have been for snow and we've seen frozen fountains in Valladolid on the news. And as we were sitting in our heated piso, still thinking it would be nice to have a fireplace and a glowing fire - we saw flakes of snow floating past our windows.

Last weekend, however, was warm and sunny and we set off to visit the Mediterranean coast - out of interest and in the name of research, you understand! Here are a few pictures of our findings.

Plenty beach for having a picnic in January

Lots of tiny pebbles that will just about make a castle when using the salad container

Perfect for recreating a stone age village and troglodite homes

A joint venture - Ruy was off finding bigger stones for building purposes

Worth staying to see the sun go down

How wonderful the sea is and how I love to be beside it. How lucky we feel - not just for this lovely day but for everything that we've done and seen in the past few months. And still excited about what is yet to come.

Remember when..

Remember when the days were long and sunny and the nights were balmy - last week, I mean.  On my list of 'things to do before you leave England' (not a long list) was one more trip to the seaside. We took the children out of school for the day and went to Bridlington where the tide was in, the sand was clean and the sea was... well, chilly!


But that didn't deter Ruy and Romy -

How brave they were and how they laughed!

 They also made these lovely pebble people.

We spent all day on the beach and the kids did all the right things, like played ball, made sandcastles, dug tunnels and made little sand cities.
And the sun shone but there were just enough clouds around to keep us from burning. And we took a picnic and ate it without too much extra sand in the sandwiches.

A real day to remember!!