Costa del Sol

Sunday Sevens #55 30.10.16

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Remembering Trafalgar


Last Sunday saw not only the climax of the Gibraltar Literary Festival but also the annual service of remembrance for the Battle of Trafalgar. Each year, on the Sunday nearest to Trafalgar Day (21st October) the Royal Navy hold a service in the Trafalgar Cemetery. Just a few of those who lost their lives are buried here, but wreaths are laid on those graves. The service is quite a spectacle with sailors in ceremonial uniform lining the paths of the cemetery. 

Wildlife

The lovely Shazza at Sunshine & Celandines has been posting some beautiful wildlife photos on her blog throughout October. She lives in Clitheroe in Lancashire, a beautiful market town on the edge of the Trough of Bowland. The area is believed to have inspired JRR Tolkein’s Shire in the Lord of the Rings (his son was at the Stoneyhurst boarding school there and he was a regular visitor). We were lucky enough to live in Clitheroe briefly and I fell in love with the place – it’s truly beautiful.

I fancied having a go at taking some autumn wildlife photos too but circumstances have prevented me from getting out on a walk up to the top of the Rock. This stunning praying mantis was having a rest on the wall outside the Garrison Library this week though, so Shazza, this one’s for you 🙂

Dressmaking class


At last sewing has begun on my princess-line top at my dressmaking class. By the time I’d cut the fabric, made a mistake, had to get some more, and cut out the lining, I only had time for a bit of tacking on the first seam. Slowly but surely… I hope to get there eventually! 

Multi-tasking

You know those weeks when there just aren’t enough hours in the day? I’ve had one of those. The above picture was taken post hospital appointment (nothing serious just a check up) I found myself with half an hour spare so did a quick trip to Morrisons (unexpected hence the crappy plastic bags) and even had time to make some notes for something else while I waited for my lift home. I’d call that a multi-tasking win.

The wheels fell off


After the previous photo the wheels kind of fell off my week. The Littlest Postcard was struck down with the same chesty cough, bad throat, fever etc which Middle Postcard had last week. All plans went out of the window, having my poorly little companion by my side all day meant putting in a few late nights as that was the only time I had child free to concentrate. 

As a consequence, there are no photos for this part of the week. Ironing, hemming long school trousers for post mid-term winter uniform, sewing on yet more name tags and other general monotony aren’t the most inspiring things so here’s a view of Parson’s Lodge and the Bay from our place.

Sixty million trebles blanket heads to the UK


This week, I waved goodbye to my sixty million trebles blanket. My friend Marisa of Mariwish on Instagram took it back to England to be joined with lots and lots of others for a world record attempt yarnbombing in London. The yarnbombing will then be split into blankets to help charities both in the UK and Syria. Each of the sixty million treble stitches represents one of the sixty million displaced people in the world and it’s hoped that the project will help raise awareness about the plight of these people. 

Search for #sixtymilliontrebles on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to find out more about this great awareness raising project.

Hooray it’s a holiday!


And relax… thank goodness it’s mid-term! We’ve run away up the coast to escape for a little while. 

Whatever you’re up to this week, have a good one!

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Nat at Threads & Bobbins.

A day trip to Ronda, Andalusia 

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Ronda is a small city in the mountains just an hour or so inland from the Costa del Sol. On our trip along the coast last week, we decided to take a drive inland and up the steep winding mountain roads to explore this fascinating place. I have visited several times before but it was a first experience for the rest of the Postcard family. We were blessed with clear blue skies and warm sun, and the old town centre was looking it’s best for us.

As you can see, the town centre sits astride a deep river gorge which drops 100 metres below (not a great place for vertigo sufferers) and is dominated by the rather misleadingly named Puente Nuevo (or new  bridge) which was completed in the 1790s.

On each side of the bridge, the buildings line the gorge, holding tightly to the edge. Imagine washing the windows of those! Not for me thank you!

  
Aside from the beautiful old New Bridge, the main tourist attraction, as in many Spanish towns is the bullring. This one is thought to be one of the oldest in Spain and holds a museum dedicated to the ‘sport’ and its history as well as to the Matadors as well.

Not being fans of bull-fighting we chose to sidestep what was on offer here and walked past it onto the gardens beyond and the most impressive view.

A hop, skip and a jump through the small gardens and you open out onto a viewing platform and balcony which isn’t for the faint hearted. But my, the views are stunning.

The buildings down below looked so far way!

It’s only when we were a short distance away and looked back to see where we’d been standing that we realised what we were standing on…. very little! Holy moly I wouldn’t have been so keen to lean on those railings and poke my camera lens through had I seen this first – probably for the best!

Then we headed across the bridge…

… which was thronged with tourists (apparently Easter is a very popular time to visit Ronda)…

…and pootled along the road taking in the beautiful architecture.


I hope I’m not boring you here, but those who are familiar with my blog will know I’m rather partial to old buildings!

Just get a load of these gorgeous old windows and doors with their wonky shapes and well worn appearance. Check out this pair of door knockers!

We ended up in a beautiful square with more than its fair share of churches. It so happened that we arrived dead on midday and all the bells in the various steeples started chiming. Each one was louder than the next as they fought to out do one another! It sent the roosting swifts flying out of the eaves of the old church roofs in panic. It was quite a thing to experience.

  
 

It was so pretty – and noisy!

  
  

Our return to the bridge and our carpark in the more modern part of Ronda took us up some lovely alleyways. Presuming they were too narrow for traffic, imagine our surprise as we were forced to jump out of the way for a horse and carriage which was coming towards us carrying tourists! I didn’t catch that moment on camera as I was too busy grabbing children and hauling them out of the way!

  

This building caught my eye, it’s a hotel – isn’t it beautiful?

  
I had been really looking forward to visiting Ronda again, and it didn’t disappoint. We spent a few hours there wandering about and getting a bite to eat. Ideally it would be a perfect grown-ups only weekend away destination as not only are there many interesting museums to explore, the countless shops we walked past on our way from and back to the car park looked really worth investigating. Little legs were feeling the strain though, so we though it best to make a move back to our home for the Easter holidays before the complaints got out of hand. Perhaps one day…

  

I would highly recommend a visit – there’s so much to see. My only advice if you aren’t a fan of heights – don’t look down!

  

 

Sunday Sevens #25 3.4.16

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Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie at Threads & Bobbins. It features seven photos from the past seven days, if you fancy joining in pop over to her blog to find out more.

The joys of a kids club 

And relaxxxxx! This week, we took advantage of the school holidays and drove along the Costa del Sol to just beyond Marbella for a fantastic week. We stayed close to the resort for most of our stay as it had many of the things we needed, a park, an indoor family pool, peace & quiet, easy access to the beach for walks – and best of all, a kids club. 

Most days, one or two of the little postcards decided to partake in the entertainment it had to offer for an hour or so, and twice, yes, twice all three spent an hour there AT THE SAME TIME! That mean time off for Mum & Dad – hurrah for holiday!
 

Nocturnal chess 

Also on the resort is this giant chess set, it really captured the imagination of our youngest and we had regular chess matches under the tutelage of our eldest (I haven’t got much of a clue about chess I’m afraid). The nocturnal one we played on our second evening was the most exciting for the littlest grand master.

Beach walk

 

We were blessed with beautiful weather – what better thing to do than have a leisurely stroll along the beach. It was so nice. Only one child fell into the sea (fully clothed) so I see that as a victory.

Dragon blossoms

 
Very close to where we were staying there was a beautiful tree covered in a blossom which looked like little dragons. I have never seen anything like it before – it was just beautiful and against the deep blue of the March sky, it was stunning.

A trip into the mountains   
We didn’t stay put completely at our holiday base for the whole duration of our stay. We ventured out to the shops at Marbella and on Wednesday took a drive up into the mountains to visit the beautiful town of Ronda (more on that coming soon).  It was so nice to escape to a place so totally different to what we’re used to. Long winding roads climbing up through forested areas and past rock falls, the valleys stretching out below us and huge birds of prey circling in the skies above. It reminded me a lot of holidays to the Highlands of Scotland (apart from the weather – sorry Scotland).

Crochet on the beach 

  

Ooh get me with my holiday nail polish! Well, as you can see, so far this week I have filled my cosy stripe blanket sized hole with two new projects. A rainbow coloured scarf and a magenta amigurumi dinosaur. The latter began life on the beach this week after the happy news that a friend of mine delivered her healthy baby girl this week. Will I get it done in time to give to the new arrival before she takes her driving test? Watch this space!! 🙂

Sunset on our last night…  

 
We are safely back home in Gibraltar now after our lovely Easter break away from home. We didn’t really stray that far, you can actually see Gibraltar in the picture above (which was taken from our resort). If you follow the horizon from the left of the shot, the first ‘lump’ (apologies Gibraltar) is the Rock and our home. We did give her a wave regularly to remind her we would be returning soon. And here we are, another week done, another family holiday to look back on and it’s back to school tomorrow. 

It’s a milestone for me, because our littlest postcard begins 5 days of full-time school tomorrow. So for the first time in almost 12 years, I will have five full days per week, child-free. Imagine that? I guess I’ll have to do a bit more crafting then… Until next week, have a great one! 

New Year in Andalusia

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I hope you have had a good start to 2016. We headed a few kilometres along the coast from Gibraltar into Andalusia for New Year. We were blessed with beautiful weather as you can see from the pictures, and it is a really beautiful place. The above photo was taken at Nueva Andalucía on New Year’s Eve.    The two big (and rather obvious) differences between Gibraltar and it’s closest neighbour are space and greenery. When 30,000 people live in such a confined strip of land it can get quite intense sometimes. I do love Gibraltar but having grown up a few miles from rolling countryside and with a front and (small) back garden, I find I need to get away every now and then.  

 
We stayed in an apartment in the hills above the bustling town of Puerto Banús. The seaside town is famous for being a millionaires’ playground with it’s marina full of posh boats and posh cars. Apart from a meal at the Hard Rock Café and a quick look at the shops we stayed away from the razzmatazz though and did our own thing. We woke on New Year’s Day to the most glorious weather and decided to get a bit of fresh air and walk along the coastal path towards Marbella.  

 We weren’t the only ones who chose to stretch our legs that afternoon. There were people walking, scootering, roller-skating, cycling and Segway-ing along the wide promenade.  

 I was happy on foot but our two youngest sped off on their scooters to burn off a bit of energy. Their destination was this bridge across the Rio Verde. The summit in the background wearing a cloudy hat is Sierra Blanca. 

It’s a great bridge, perfect for scootering. It’s wide and smooth so you can go fast, is made of wooden planks so it makes a great noise as you fly across it and has a great slope to zoom on giving your Mum palpitations as there’s a flight of stairs at the end! 

 It’s set in great surroundings, the Rio Verde on one side. Where sea birds were enjoying the calm waters. 
 And the sea on the other side. 

 Beyond the river the beach stretches on towards Marbella. Even though it was the first of January there were some people basking in the winter sunshine.

 Our walk ended here as hungry children demanded food so we turned around and headed back towards town. We have promised ourselves we will return and walk further next time. 

  

January 2nd brought with it rain and cloud – we were so glad we’d made the effort to have our walk in the sunshine when we did. We explored a market which appears in the streets around here each Saturday.  We have managed to get caught up in the market by accident a few times in the past when trying to drive through these roads. This time though, we were on foot and ready for a mooch about.  

 Apart from some nice plant stalls and a few artisan craft stalls in the grounds of the bullring we were a bit disappointed with what was on offer. 

 There were thousands of fake designer handbags and sunglasses to choose from as well as cheap toys and a few electronics. I’m afraid it wasn’t at all what we had hoped for. 

 After the anti-climax of the street market we decided to regroup and try an alternative outing so we hopped into the car and headed east along the coast to Benalmádena and the Butterfly Park there.    Standing high on a hill and in the shadow of a stunning Buddhist Temple, we found the Butterfly Park. It didn’t disappoint.  

 From the moment we arrived we spotted them. Bigger than the palm of your hand and in every colour of the rainbow. I’ll let the photos tell the story here…    

      We listened to a talk by a member of staff who told us about the life cycle of the butterflies and moths there and showed us the most amazing array of cocoons and newly hatched butterflies.       Then came the fun part… Firstly our littlest got to feel a cocoon (and it’s metamorphosising inhabitant moving). Then he got to have a sleeping moth on his hand…  …then we all did. That was a big step for me as,although I love the beauty of these creatures, the idea of having one on my skin was erm not really my cup of tea. But I couldn’t leave being the only one not brave enough to try it – so I did. Yay me!  

 There were other creatures there too, this big lizard and a wallaby, both of which wander freely about inside with the visitors. We really enjoyed our trip and would recommend it, although for a family of five it cost €42 so it wasn’t cheap. It was a lovely tranquil place. 

 Once our visit was over we couldn’t help but go across the road to admire the amazing view west over Fuengirola.  Today we packed up and headed home, we were given a pretty send off with a rainbow by the side of the motorway.  And we were soon home… Ah there she is! Our lovely Rock.  Until next time, thanks for stopping by 😊. Thanks also for all the likes and lovely comments, it’s great to hear from you.