To the coast

Friday fish and chips as usual, thought you had seen enough pictures of plates of food
 so here is Chris waiting for the guy in the kitchen to cook his cod and chips!

Saturday was really chilly, there has been a lot of cold winds, so we went for a ride to the beach and stopped to walk along the broadwalk. Dressed in  jackets we set off and soon realised we had found a very nice sheltered area and sat admiring the view, and loving the heat. I managed to walkover 3000steps, a real record for me.

Punta Prima broadwalk, just look at that lovely blue sky and sea

Sunday woke to a lovely sky, my little camera does not do it justice.
We were up early to enjoy our English breakfast and some shopping at the large Sunday market.
Played cards in the evening with Pauline and Brian.

Hyacinths

The wonderful aroma that treated me this morning meant I had to find a new way of holding up the hyacinths as they had flopped over. Of course there are limited items in a rental villa, but the kitchen roll holder and ribbon that decorated my candles means they are fairly upright now.
Two of them are twins, so my one Euro buy will have a total of five flowers.
Together with a cup of hot chocolate what better start to the day.

Friday means......

Friday means....The next release of colour order for the Attic24 CAL (crochet along)
I can't wait to see which of the Stylecraft Special DK colours will be used from the original selection that has not been used already.

Nine different colours will e used this week, only one, Wisteria, has not be used before.

Friday also mean Fish and Chips. A walk involving over 2750 steps should counteract the calories!

Mata-Torrevieja

La Mata-Torrevieja lagoons to the south of Alicante are the source of tons of salt daily.
The two lagoons are divided by "El Chaparrel" with the Mata lagoon providing the heat and the Torrivieja lagoon the salt production.

The tourist information centre for the Nature Park Reserve
surrounding the lagoons

Until recently only crops were grown in the park,
but now the farmers have been allowed to plant vines for the production of wine

Chris found a friend, must be all the salt makes them grow so tall!

There is a 1.6 mile walk around the park, ideal for bird watching
as the lagoons attract many species 

The history of the Vineyards

On the Torrevieja lagoon site the salt is piled high,
looks like snow covered mountains

The lagoon is very picturesque 

The conveyor belt loaded with salt travels to the sea
passing under the main town to waiting ships

Crochet update

My Heathland crochet blanket based by Attic24 on the heathland of Yorkshire looks just as much at home here in sunny Spain.
I have been really enjoying working on it and each colour change spurs me on to keep going.

This is the life, sunshine and crochet project

Time for some sunshine

I thought it was time for some sunshine so changed the picture on my heading.
It was a lovely sunny day yesterday so we set off for Las Salinas de Torrevieja just a few miles along the coast. Torrevieja is a large town/city and we struggled to find the area we were looking for, but once we did it was well worth it.
A tall wall with a walk way on the top surrounds the harbour and for 2 euros you can park all day. Only slight drawback were the steps to reach it, lots of steps made of planks of wood, not my thing at all but I managed to make it to the top. The views were wonderful out to sea, the town and the harbour. In fact I managed to walk over 1500 steps according to my FitBit which considering my poor old knees was quite an achievement !

The view from the car parking area.

High on the walk way, lovely blue sky

View of Torrevieja

Sculpture by Carmen Fraile Escultora called
La Bella Lola represents a woman waiting for her lover.

The view of the harbour behind La Bella Lola

oops where did the last week go?

Suddenly its a week since I blogged, so here is a catch up if I can remember what we have been doing! Most of the time we just laze about and enjoy the rest, The weather has not been good, some rain and howling wind not at all the usual for this part of Spain.I'll let the photos I have taken tell the story...

I love these beautiful tiles

La Plaza Villa Martin

Golf golf and more golf all around us
These tiles are on the walls of the Plaza

The wild sea

A cold windy day

But the sun is trying to break through

Chris trying to tell the time with the giant sun dial, pity the sun is not out!

I love this coast line

I've had a word with these hyacinths, they have to come out before we leave.
They were only 3 for a euro and I could not resist them.
Wonder what colour they will be.

Visited the hairdresser at the Plaza for a cut and blow dry,
my first visit to a hairdresser in two years.
She was very good and spoke good English.
While I was there I booked an appointment for a massage the following day.
I have been suffering bad back ache.
The guy was great and spent an hour giving me heat treatment and massage

Back to the restaurant at San Miguel but this time we are with the Whites
I had the cheese starter, this would have been a full lunch back home.
My main course was sole and so good I forgot to take a photo

Me with new haircut, Pauline, Brian, Paula and Julian
Chris behind the camera

Almond dessert, yummy
All these three courses plus a salad starter and bottle of wine
or in my case an apple juice all for Nine Euros, which is about £8.50

Lunch with the Whites

Meson El Prado at San Miguel de Salinas was our choice of venue for lunch with Pauline and Brian.
The snow has gone but we have had torrential rain for the past twenty four hours, complete with a lot of thunder and lightening.
The town of San Miguel is not far but the flooded roads and concealed pot holes made for some interesting driving. We managed to park outside the restaurant but stepping out of the car meant stepping into a river of water.
Once inside we were lucky Pauline had booked a table as half the restaurant, which is under an opening roof, was out of bounds because of the rain pouring in.
We arrived at 1pm, opening time and by 1.30pm people were having to wait at the bar for a table it was so popular.

Yummy desserts

Salad and three courses for 9 euros, brilliant.

Arboleas and the Heathland blanket

The continuing saga of the Heathland blanket from Attic24.
On a previous post I voiced my thoughts about the fact I was told I would only need the five green wools for our six week holiday, they lasted a day and I could go no further with the pattern.
Eventually Elaine's Wools came to rescue, she had nine of the ten colours I had left at home, but she was 100 miles away from where we staying.
Three cheers for a great husband who did not blink an eye when I said I wanted to go there.
Aguilas, see previous post, was on the way so made for a nice break in the journey.

Elaine was in England when I emailed but sent me instructions to find her shop for when she was back.  Off the motorway, a few more directions then down a road until you see mail boxes and bins, next is a long white wall with a daisy on it. Hola you have arrived.
But where is the shop, we are in a residential area, after looking around I ring the door bell by the big iron gate and hope the owner speaks English, out comes a smiling person saying my name, I have found Elaine.
The shop is a large wooden shed in the garden (Chris commenting "its bigger than mine!") with the walls lined with hanks of wool. She has my order ready and I decide to buy the Stylecraft  multi coloured wool that has some of the missing ball colour in it, hoping I can use it.
It was a great visit with lovely samples of her work and lots of interesting items for sale.

Meeting Elaine

Shelves packed with wool

The gate to the house

Not only bought the wool I wanted but a few extras sneaked into the shopping
Cream wool to crochet sheep, blue and white sock wool
a couple of shawl pins

The substitute for the missing Plum colour.
Every time I 'hit green or white I wind it off and only use the
purple shades... it is the best I can do this far from home.

Aguilas

Tuesday we took a trip to Aguilas, about 70 miles south of the villa.

Beautiful blue skies and the temperature reached 19C
The fields are covered in plastic structures with a variety of trees growing under them.

A trip to the railway museum was not what we expected
instead of details of the local railways it was  a model railway.

Trains and memorabilia

This structure [more about it later] was fascinating

A trip to the loo in the local shopping mall.
Senoras mosaic

Cabelleros [Gents]

Even the ceiling of the mall had wonderful mosaics on it.

This is what I had come to see, the Hermitage made of recycled mosaic
tiles. It was in the middle of a pretty park.

Ave Maria

So many tiny pieces cemented together

Last year in September we visited the steps and seating made by
Juan Martinez [ see blog posting ] but did not know about the Hermitage

Chris enjoying the sun shine

There are structures everywhere made by this remarkable man
The eagle is the symbol for this area.

The Hornillo landing stage is an old mineral loading facility
built by the British at the end of the 19c
Iron ore arrived by train and was loaded onto ships
from both sides constantly. It was a very busy area.

Our next stop on this trip was Arboleas, but that's another story for another blog post.