Boxing Day - not here...

Christmas is more focussed around Christmas Eve and Christmas Day itself appeared to be a normal 'day after'. The Spanish have a big family feast on Christmas Eve which seemed to involve eating most parts of a pig and platters of sea food.

Christmas Day itself was such a non-entity that pavement washing duties were carried out as per most normal Mondays. We enjoyed our Lentil Wellington however, safe in the knowledge that we were probably not only the only people celebrating on Monday in the village, but also certainly we were the only ones with a lentil feast!

Boxing Day started with the electric man coming to read the meter! Truly business as normal!!

Ian to the rescue

A game of playing on top of the well post resulted in Ian having to rescue the kittens as they were unable to clamber down.

I don't know if you can zoom in on these pics however take a look at Tib's face in the pic below as Ian manhandles him/her down in a rather undignified upside down manner!

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PLUS

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Christmas elf

Orange tree

Pre-broken ankle I was taking pictures of our orange tree monthly to see how the oranges developed. Good job I was looking at oranges and not lemons as we only have three lemons. Anyway - here is our orange tree with our almost-orange oranges. We have tried one and they are Seville oranges - and very bitter too! I've been experimenting and have made some pickle which is the same as lime pickle but with bitter oranges. It is still salting away so it will be interesting (perhaps) to see what that is like.

Feliz Navidad

Well Christmas is nearly upon us and the fridge is full of Dia 3 for 2 cava. Excellent!

One challenge that we are facing is how to cook our traditional Xmas day lunch of Lentil Wellington and all the trimmings. We only have two gas rings and a paella pan. Ian has cooked a roast before successfully however not a Lentil Wellington. What a festive challenge!

We were looking forward to having our Xmas lunch outside however the weather yesterday was horrible - cold and cloudy. So far today there is frost outside but perhaps I can see the start of a blue sky which will hopefully mean that sun is on it's way.

Ankle update - I'm now on one crutch which is a big step forward (boom boom), although still having problems with my fingers, but as ankle is improving I should put less weight on hands so perhaps it will ease up a bit.

Anyway - Feliz Navidad!

My husband and other animals....

Fibs saying hello to Bob, that black blob top right by the plant is Davy and Ian getting bitten by Tibs!

Dookems teaching Fibs how to climb the wall

New olympic event

Should charades ever become an Olympic event then the British Olympic Committee need look no further than the British abroad. Well let’s put a caveat on that – I obviously don’t mean those at either end of the language spectrum; those with good language skills – or those monolinguists without the slightest inclination to speak another language or indeed make any form of recognition that they are in a foreign country.

My Olympic charades team would be formed of people like me – lot’s of enthusiasm, limited volcab and a great deal of arm waving.

Today I had to mime ‘being still’ and this was jolly difficult. I am still attending physio (I can put limited weight on ankle now) and I wanted to raise the problem I am currently having with my fingers – my four fingers on both hands now are ‘locking’ in the morning and my left hand fingers lock during the day after periods of staying still. Unfortunately I had left my dictionary at home, so therefore to mime ‘being still’ I needed to mime activity first. It therefore appeared that my fingers locked after frantic activity which alternated between some form of break dancing and a nasty fit. After rather startling the doctor and several nursing staff someone eventually put me out of my misery – inmóvil… of course.

So, whilst I note that the moral of the story is to continue with the Spanish lessons and never go anywhere without my dictionary, in the meantime I will await my call up to the Olympic charade team.

Jumble Sale

We went to a jumble sale yesterday - I was so excited the night before I could hardly sleep!

It was in Elvas in Portugal and in aid of the British cemetery there. More info here http://british-cemetery.com/index.html . We had a lovely day - well morning really. It started at 11, Portugal is on UK time so that meant 11 for us and 10 for them. Elvas is west of Badajoz, and a very pretty town. It is completely walled - aerial pic here http://www.walledtowns.com/wtfc/towninfo/portugal/elvas.html

Unfortunately it wasn't up to uk jumble sale standards, shame really as I had sharpened the ends of my crutches, however we did manage to come back with some junk - ooops, treasures. And I won a bottle of cream liqueur.

We liked Elvas a lot, although we didn't have a really good look around. That will be on our list of places to go with visitors next year.

I've turned a bit Spanish and have bought an electric brasero to put under the table. It is lovely from the knees down. We are going to start to look for woodburners as we do need something to take the chill off the house. The weather is lovely and clear at the moment and warm enough to have lunch outside, however my workshop doesn't get any sun so it certainly feels cold. I think that we were getting close to a frost at nights though, the lovely starry nights mean that there is no cloud cover for insulation!

Immaculate Conception Day and pigs

Yesterday was a holiday to celebrate the immaculate conception. It also appeared to be the day when pigs are slaughtered for Christmas. We went out for a quick walk around the village and were aware of a lot of chattering and voices coming from garages and the back of houses. We saw the butcher in his full garb too coming out of a barn which we thought was strange. Anyway, we saw Aderlardo later who said that his family had a big get together to kill their pig and prepare the meat. Families get together for the occassion and they start early and continue until all the pig has been made into meat products. Two legs get salted for Jamon, and the other two legs get turned into meat. They also make different types of sausages and other different things. I am not sure if they are doing this for this year, or if it is to replace what is eaten at Christmas.

We went to Carrefour last week and were amazed at the huge section of hanging jamon. A massive part of the store was made over to all these hanging pig legs which seemed to start at 40euros and went up to 100's of euros!

Constitution Day

Today is a holiday in Spain to celebrate the forming of the constitution in 1978. Friday is a holiday too, so tomorrow is opted by most people as a holiday. Except for the physio people who naturally will take out on me out their frustration at being made to work when everyone else is holidaying.

Physio is going well and I saw the consultant who has given me the ok to start to walk again. To start I have to use both crutches and not full weight. I then work to full weight on both crutches and then to one crutch. It is a little frustrating, as I am still finding it as hard as ever to actually move around or carry things - but I knew I wouldn't be running and jumping around just yet! A step in the right direction though (great pun).

We've been busy working on 10000greatideas.com and started to put in our own Great Ideas whilst we wait for ideas to be submitted from families and friends (hint hint) and the wider public.

I'm still stork watching and I noticed that the stork that we saw on the way to Llerena the other day now has a friend. They were both stood up in the nest with their backs to each other so I imagined that either stork number one had nipped off for some food when stork number two took a fancy to the nest, or that stork number one had left their summer grounds early to get away from stork number two who eventually caught up with him. Anyway, they don't look happy together!

I've noted storks in the nests on the church but no where else in the village yet. I did see a field of storks when we went to Merida the other day (still trying to get our NIE identity cards). We've started paying social security so this means that hopefully all my further medical treatment will be within the Spanish system. Hopefully there won't be much call on it.

Dookems has fully recovered from his operation and the two new ones are now fully integrated. I noticed that Doomems appeared to be taking Fibs out and showing him/her how to climb the wall onto the barn. At the same time Bob was showing Tibs the finer points of the art of sleeping. They were snuggled in the cage together (again).