Somewhere over the mountains

 

Hugs to you all for helping me promote my daughter's new teaching venture.

 

A friend suggested to my daughter that as she lives so near to the airport and to the International Trade Fair Centre she should rent out her spare room to travellers. She was a bit dubious about doing this but she finally decided it could be a way of earning some extra cash so she advertised it at the end of March on Airbnb.com. What a surprise when the very next day a Dutch couple contacted her about renting the room for one night on 2nd April as their flight was leaving at 6 in the morning. We all did our bit to help to get the room ready and it all went perfectly well and all Covid precautions were respected. The lady left a very nice review on the Airbnb.com page. This could be the start of a neat little business, perhaps.

 WARNING  photo overload!

 

Last week we finally got up into the mountains and my main objective was to look for almond blossom and this is what we found:

 

 

 So.....a bit too late, there was no blossom left. I really suspected as much but was still hopeful. We do normally go almond blossom trekking in February,that is the right time, but as I wasn't feeling so great it all got postponed. Nevertheless it was good to see all the millions or thousands of almond trees across the fields on their way to producing delicious almonds and we will go back to our usual haunt (see here) in September to have a nibble on the windfalls like we do every year.   We then decided to go on to Biar a town further up into the mountains where Sr P's Aunty had a villa. Years back we used to spend a few days there every summer to get away from the hot exhausting heat down in the city.   

Although it was chilly up there it was a perfectly lovely day. We went straight to the town centre for a walk around our favourite spots and to see what had changed there which wasn't much.  I still have difficulty speaking the local language which is Valenciano but the people are very considerate here and slip back into Spanish once they see you don't understand. Actually thanks to my MIL I do understand quite a lot of Valenciano as it was her first language and in her last years she slipped back to her childhood and would only speak in that language so it was a matter of having to understand it when I was alone with her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Church Our Lady of the Ascension

 

 Mass was underway so I couldn't go in to view the church. Lovely to hear a guitar being played and children singing. 

The Town Hall opposite the church.

 

A door that caught my eye 

 

Another door! I just love those door knockers!

Neat...eh?   A dragon! 

After a little refreshment we sat on the terrace of a local bar and afterwards decided to face the climb up to the castle

A lot of huffing and puffing later we finally got to the castle walls.

 

 Which meant we were nearly there.

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We didn't go up into the castle itself as we have been there several times and more than anything I wanted to capture this view

 

 

It was breathtaking!   

Tia Pilar's villa was situated on those mountain slopes behind the church tower.

 

We decided to take another route to get back down to the town centre and the car park by following the castle wall around to the top of another street.

 which took us back down

to the car park.   

 

 

I haven't any RAOCKs to show you this week as I am making something for a friend and I can't show you what it is as yet. 

 

BOOKS

I have just started reading Dissolution by C.J. Sansom that Liz at Shortbread and Ginger  recommended. I must say although I haven't read much as yet I am impressed with the author's power of description which sends me back to Harry Tudor's times during the suppression of the monasteries.  It feels like a good book because I am eager to pick it up again and read on.

 

 

 

I would like to wish "safe journey" to Betsy on  The Simple Life of a Queen who is travelling  to her new home in Omaha USA.   "Wishing you the very best in your new home Betsy"

 Happy days dear bloggers

Keep well

Amanda :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it lost!

 

 

It is over 5 weeks since I sent my parcel to my niece in Australia , which I wrote about here. She still hasn't received it!  I just hope it isn't lost. I cannot recall any of the parcels I have sent in the past ever taking so long. 

I am going to give it another week and then I will have to go back to the Post Office here and see what they can do about it... tch!   

 🔔🔔Whoopee! The parcel has arrived...that's about 6 weeks to get there but at least I don't have to worry now!! (added 25th March) !

 Sunday morning

 After a rainy,chilly and windy week with snow falling on the mountain peaks it cleared up  just right for our Sunday outing. The outing still wasn't up in the mountains as we had previously planned but instead we went for a walk along Urbanova beach 10 minutes drive outside of the city. 

There was a chilly wind at the beach but the sun was shining and the skies were blue again and quite a few people were flying kites on the beach which was good to watch.

 

 

 

 

 It was such a pleasant stroll along the promenade watching the children in the sand and youngsters playing ball or just sitting on a bench curled up reading a book.  I saw the police patrolling checking that people were wearing their masks and also wearing them correctly and not under their chins.There was a really pleasant ambience,people enjoying the walk and chatting with family members and children happily running around playing as children do. An enjoyable sight which impressed me because it was so normal and frankly it was just so good to feel the normality of it all.

Can you see the snow on the mountain tops in the background?

 

 

 RAOCKS

 Big Red Rose RAOCK , the size of my hand, all ready to go in my stash to be left out this week.. Such a shame the camera hasn't picked up the little sparkly red gems I left under some petals.

RAOCKs are great for using up bits of yarn.  Hook  4, Mixed yarn, No Pattern

 

Books

My sister sent me this book last week from the UK.

 

She knows how much I like to find out the origin of idioms.  The English language is packed full of popular phrases and sayings(idioms) that we use frequently in our daily life. I often find myself wondering where certain phrases or expressions come from. I am finding this book is clarifying for me that question I constantly ask myself.

Let me just give you an example I found out about this curious idiom quite some time ago :

e.g "There is no room to swing a cat in here.   no room to swing a cat is the idiom

This actually originated from Navy jargon around about 16th century. When they referred to a cat in the Navy they were talking about a whip, a rather horrendous instrument called "cat' o nine tails" which was used to punish any unruly sailor.  The whip itself had nine long tails studded with spikes and to be able to strike the poor sailor in question ample space was required so they had to do so on the deck of the ship were there was plenty of space. Today we use this phrase when we want to indicate that a certain space is excessively small because there is no room to swing a cat. 

 Fascinating,isn't it? 😊

 

 Hope you are having a good week

 

Keep well

 

Amanda :-)