T is for Travelling again

 Hello Ladies,

It's been a long time since I joined the T Party but Elizabeth was kind enough to invite me to join the Ten Year Anniversary so I thought I would try and catch up with you all, I hope you are all well and enjoying life.

We finally travelled to San Francisco in January, it's been two years since we last went over due to Lockdown and worrying about catching covid whilst traveling, we didn't intend to go until this Autumn but our eldest son in England invited us to join them for Christmas so I suggested we book flights while we were half way there!!

As usual we drove up to the North of Spain to Santander stopping enroute. We left home at 8am and drove for two hours to Albacete where we stopped for breakfast at the Restaurant of the five brothers, Beicon Bocadillo and coffee, always a welcome break.

This was the Nativity Scene in the Restaurant window, these are typical in  most towns in Spain.

The second half of the Nativity Scene

Our journey through Spain took us around Madrid and on to Lerma where we stayed the night within walking distance of the town, the Plaza Mayor is up through the cobbled streets and quite a climb but it is well worth the walk as it has bars and restaurants and the Palacio Ducal De Lerma, it is a Parador nowadays and quite expensive!!

The Puerta de la Cárcel leading to the Plaza Mayor.

Lovely cobbled Streets, we didn't realise we could drive up there but I think we needed the exercise after six hours of driving.

The Palacio  Ducal de Lerma from our hotel

 After a quick breakfast we started on the final leg of our journey, we couldn't belive our car was covered in ice!

As always we had the spot the bull competition, I lost as usual!

We are heading to Burgos and on to Santander. As you can see there's hardly any traffic, most of the journey is like this apart from near and around Madrid.

Only a couple of hours to go and the temperature was still only -1, something we never see at home.

Our hotel, Hotel Bahia on the seafront and opposite the Ferry terminal

Beautiful Hotel, right on the edge of the town.

The parking is below ground and has lift for the car, quite terrifying for me as I hate lifts!!

View of the Cathedral from our hotel room, floor to ceiling window, scared me to even walk past it.

A beautiful room, it even had a hallway!

The bathroom was really big and luxurious too

This was the Cathedral from the other side.

Having a coffee and croissant in the hotel cafe the next morning we could see the ferry had docked.

Our cabin was on deck 8, one of the small windows at the top, below are the restaurants and the shop.

My ticket to the T party, Onboard we had meals included, three course which we good but the same on every sailing, this was our afters, very tasty.

Apparently there was too much wastage so theyve stopped providing inclusive breakfast and evening meals but I'm not sure they've reduced the prices!

This is the ferry arriving in Portsmouth which is a naval port hence the Spinnaker Tower, it's the first time we've seen it lit up, it changes colour as you pass.

You can actually go up the tower to see the views.

We still had two hours drive to our sons but luckily we were off the boat in record time on on our way.

Sorry for the long post and if it's something I've shared before, I've kind of lost track after all this time.

Jan x

T is for Tea, But not as I know it!

 Hello Ladies, I haven’t had time to join the T Party the last few weeks as we had our family over, just for five days, it seems to take me a while to get back into normal life after the family leave, I always feel a little downhearted.

We had fun, our GS and son swam although the pool although was only 21c, sounds warm but not when the water touches your body, too cold for me although I did end up getting drenched having a water fight with GS.

GS had his chopitos, even ordered them himself, he even asked for the bill and the waiter gave it too him, the waiter was laughing as GS said he didn’t have any money,  he’s having Spanish lessons after school now and can already count to ten and say hello how are you, of course the Spanish people we know are more than happy to chat to him, he’s only five so I think he’s doing really well.

Our meal out on the Sunday was a birthday celebration for me, Halloween!! we didn’t realise it would be so busy so we didn’t book a table! We had decided to go for a Moroccan meal only to be told they didn’t serve until 2pm, too late for us as they were leaving for the airport at 5 pm, back to our favourite restaurant on the marina.

My husband ordered this Pizza Calzone, he actually thought it was a meat Pasty until a friend told us it was a Pizza, since then he's been wanting to try it, he said it was delicious.

Tuna, hard boiled egg and cheese.

I had lamb cutlets , GS had chopitos as usual.

My ticket to the T party this week, as many of you will know I only drink black breakfast tea with milk but my GSs sent this so I gave it a go, I will let you know my verdict when I’ve tried it!

 They also sent me a book, a photo frame with the eldest GSs latest photos in it,  our eldest son bought me perfume and craft magazines that had free dies and craft papers.

I had so many birthday cards from my crafty friends, this gorgeous one was from Sharon, my favourite colour too, a beautiful background.

This one was from a friend in England who also is a crafter, very apt to show for the T party, a lovely  fancy fold too.

We haven’t been walking for the last couple of weeks as my husbands heel is painful, again, it’s given me time to go back to my craft room, to tidy up, my son bought over two die sets I had bought last year but they arrived after we had left, so I’ve been having a play with them.

 I was so impatient to use them,  they were fixed together and  I couldn’t get them apart and didn’t want to go back down the stairs to get my husband to break them apart so I cut them stuck together, I think they are quite good, this is together and apart, I’ve also been obsessed with the glittery foam! Not sure what I will do with all the die cuts though!

We also decided to try Amazon.es,  my husband wears sketchers and needed some new ones, they cushion his heel more than other makes, we were very very impressed as they arrived within three days, I think my husband is already regretting it though as I also ordered a 3D embossing folder,  two inks and a background die, ha,ha,

My husband had his booster vaccine and his flu vaccine at the same time last Wednesday, it was quite funny as we arrived there first as usual, his appointment was 9.30 but they didn’t start until 9.45, the Spanish people started arriving and crowded around the door, as usual, trying to push in, my husband was called first, he had to sit on a chair that was propping the door open, everyone was still crowded around the door watching ! He couldn’t even get out of the door when he had finished, quite bad seeing as they tell us to stand two metres apart! Anyway he had no after effects at all, he’s trying to book my appointment, they told me I was too young last week, first time I’ve been told that for a while!!

Happy T Day, I hope you are all keeping well and Safe

Jan x

T is for Tuesday, already!!

 Another week of going through our photos, I did get distracted as I found a CD with photos from our time living in Germany, my husband was in the Army, it was lovely to look back, then I found a disc with family photos so as you can imagine I didn’t get much done, ha,ha, I’m still plodding on !

This week we had an Indian meal but we decided to try a different one, highly recommended by quite a few people, well not impressed! Funnily enough as we came out we bumped into a friend who was collecting a take away and he was raving about it, good job we all have different tastes.

Inside the restaurant, very clean, we chose to go early to avoid being there when or if it gets busy.

As you can see a good price and a few choices

Poppadoms and dips were extra, normally free while you have a look at  the menu, not sure why this has gone sideways, not sure how to change it on here!!!

Well just awful, dry and no sign of any veg in there!! 

Just tasted like breadcrumbs.

Lamb Rogan Josh, this was delicious, spicy but really tender, it did arrive in dishes but I had put it on my plate before I remembered to take the photo.

My DH had Fish curry, he said it was delicious.

Our drinks, empty,  I realised I hadn't shown them in the other photos!!

I don't think I will ever be employed as an official photographer do you! ha,ha

This was on the wall, it's very glittery made with material and gold threads, I used to do a similar thing in my Art Class for my exams, not so intricate but made with materials.

I bought a pair of slippers and they gave me this bag, free of charge which surprised me as they charge for plastic bags nowadays, I thought it was cute, ha,ha

Unfortunately I can’t wear the slippers as they started the pain in the ball of my foot off again!

Not much to report here, I’m waiting for another memory stick so until it arrives I have gone back to making my photo album, for our youngest son this time, I wanted to get both albums to the same point just in case this is as far as I manage to finish!!

Happy T Day dear Ladies, Stay safe!

Jan x

T is for too much Noise

 The last week in my mind hasn’t been busy but the days seem to have gone with no spare time.  The weather is a lovely now, cool mornings but by ten am it’s warm enough to enjoy being in the sun unlike a few weeks ago where we dodged from one shady area to another.

Thursday morning started off cloudy and driving to the beach the sun was just peaking through, looked like something shining beams down through the clouds, beam me up scotty! Sorry, weird sense of humour but it just struck me as funny.

The sky on the horizon looked beautiful.

My husband bought me a memory stick to save all my photos on,  it’s 256GBs, plenty of memory, it’s so small I’m scared of losing it! at one end has the flash drive to plug into my new iPad, the connection is different to my other devices of course! the other end is to plug into my Pc, I also have a stick that goes from my iPhone to Pc,   I’ve downloaded all my photos from my iPad and iPhone on to my PC but with so many duplicates I’ve been going through them all before saving them, a bigger job than I thought!

My ticket to the T party,

I saw these mugs in the Ale-hop store, love the lids although close up they look plastic so I’m not sure what will happen with hot tea beneath .

This is a statue on the Paseo depicting the Fishermen, someone likes to have a joke!!

We had the National Jet Ski competition on our beach all over the weekend, not the place for a quiet breakfast, what with the thud, thud of the music and the revving up of the jet skis, even the Barman from the next restaurant said it was getting on his nerves listening to it all day but it was good for business apparently.

They were much bigger than the ones you or I would be nipping around on, we felt for the poor fish, I wonder how many were scared to death as at the far end you see fish swimming around near the waters edge.

They clean the beach most mornings but at this end it stays in ridges, it feels like builders sand, I hate to walk on it as it's not soft under your feet, this end was obviously a man made area.

All back to normal this morning, thankfully a peaceful breakfast and walk. 

Take Care, 

Jan x

 Good morning ladies, another week has gone, time to join the T party over at Elizabeth and Bluebeards,  the weeks seem to fly by and I often wonder when I look back what we actually did.

I finally managed to buy an iPad,   Last week they were still out of stock but we could order one and it would be sent to our post office, well after having two items go missing via our PO there is no way we are risking that and I want to trade my old iPad in so needed to be in-store, anyway at  lunchtime yesterday my husband rang the store and they had two, in purple, the colour I wanted, I was in my craft room so I quickly changed and we drove to Murcia, an hour each way but I managed to buy the last one.

Took an hour to download everything to my pad, set up the finger print ID etc so now I’m all set, just couldn’t  get it to recognise my finger print when we arrived home but then I realised that I just need to lay my finger on the button not press  ha,ha, luckily I can still sign in with my password.

I should get our five year old GS to show me as he deleted his minecraft app to make room for something else, when he reinstalled it he’d lost some pods or something ,  his cousin aged eight showed him how to fix it, honestly I was amazed he knew how to delete and reinstall an app! He was trying to do a deal with his dad when they rang Saturday as he has restricted time on his iPad and has to do  his reading etc before using it, makes me laugh as he held his hand out and said , is that a deal dad! He’s obviously a fast learner, ha,ha

Our  eldest  GS will be Thirteen in a couple of weeks so I decided to make a  number card, it didn’t quite work out as I’d planned so I had to make alterations, when I’d finished I felt it was too plain but being a boy and a teenager I’m not sure he will notice!  He’s growing fast and already 5’6” wearing size nine shoes, already two inches taller than I am! Hopefully we will see them all next year, he will most likely be taller than Grandad by then, his dad is 6’4” and his Mum is tall so we aren’t surprised he is getting tall. He’s already had to have new school trousers since starting back in August!

Our Second GS is 9 on November 2nd, I found the candles paper so thought I would buy some card to match it. I used my cricut to cut the numbers.

The last time I used my cricut is kept telling me to check the mat, it seems to have cured itself over the summer so worked perfectly, thankfully!

I’ve been busy changing the photos in the frames as the ones in the conservatory have faded and the ones in the villa are now out of date, took me ages to find some as many in the last year or so of the older two have them wearing masks, today I have to find five more for another frame, I like to make sure I have equal numbers of each, LOL 

My coffee this week is another from the cafes collection. A cute Melon.

Smile, Live, Dream

This morning I bought a memory stick so I can save all my photos and get them off my ipad and iphone as I have hundreds, that should keep me quiet for the rest of the week!!

Happy T Day Ladies, Keep Safe

Jan x

T is for Tuesday

 Hello ladies, thank you to those of you who came  over to visit last week, it was so lovely to see you and read your comments.

Our weather has cooled quite a bit, the days are now comfortable, lovely to sit in the garden, cool evenings too so no air con or even the fan, the pool is getting cooler too which isn’t quite so good as I’m very nesh as we say, we are trying to swim as much as possible before it gets too cool, the pool temperature has been 30c through August!

We see this cow every morning on our walk along the Paseo, usually being pushed out of the shop, always makes us smile as when we had to wear a mask  it had a mask on, sometimes sunglasses, over the weekend a sun hat.

We had a lovely Menu Del Dia last Wednesday but unfortunately I couldn’t take any photos, the place was full and it’s a massive restaurant on the Marina so I felt uncomfortable getting my phone out, shame as it was delicious, I had salad and gazpacho, (cold tomatoe soup),   I actually ordered the pork but when it came it had sauce on it so my husband swapped me for his  meluza(hake) the couple on the next table were  laughing at us, my husband had guiso (stew) it looked delicious but it’s too filling for me, the Spanish really make delicious stews but always for a starter which is usually bigger than the main course.

My drink for this week is this cute mug, they all have quotes on the other side.

They are usually in Spanish but this one is in English.

The cafe where we have breakfast has a selection of big mugs, Alvaro says he knows the English enjoy a large coffee and hot but he was telling us that the Spanish prefer their coffee in  glasses as they prefer their coffee lukewarm .

We finally managed to meet our friends for breakfast yesterday, they go home on Sunday and every time we arrange a day something comes up, we had time to catch up a little bit but we noticed a piece of metal sticking our of our car tyre when we parked so we had to leave to get it fixed, luckily it hadn’t damaged the tyre! 

This is a notepad my GS chose for me from the school Fayre, it's actually quite realistic.

I actually have quite a few notebooks, For some reason I love them and I have quite a few, but never use them! I used to write my shopping list in them but now I use the notes on my iPhone.

I received this lovely card from a crafty friend who lives in Canada,  the background behind the trees of the Northern lights is so beautiful,  I have met so many friends through crafting and the T blog, the lady at the post office even commented when I had a pile of cards to post as I only had one to the UK, the rest were going to Canada and the US.

Tomorrow we are off to Murcia again to try and buy my mini iPad, again, wish me luck as I feel I may need it!!

Jan x

Long Time no T

 I'm back, it’s taken a while to get back into the swing of things. We had Lots of fun with the family but because of the heat we’ve had to get back to normal slowly, I’m not sure why it takes me so long to get back into normal life after visitors.

We had so many lovely meals out, we decided it would be cooler to eat out than cook in the heat, our GS at five years old has eaten so many things, he’s really amazing.

The first evening we went to the Italian restaurant on the Marina which is their favourite place, our GS wanted Octopus, when it arrived it was a whole leg, we thought he would freak him out but no, he tucked in to it and managed to eat three quarters of it, of course his Dad and Grandad finished it off,  as a family we never waste food!

The Cuttle Fish my Husband ordered.

I was boring and had Hake and DIL had Bolonese Pizza.

My Sons fried Fish platter, notice his holiday shirt, they are always left here for his holidays. Also his Tankard of beer!

Second night we had an Indian meal, our GS had poppadoms with mango sauce, some prawn cocktail, we ordered him a prawn korma but he fell asleep, his dad carried him home, totally forgot to take photos . Same at the Chinese restaurant, no photos, GS had spring rolls, duck pancakes that he rolled himself and prawns. 

The last night they chose to go back to the Italian restaurant, our GS had Chopitos, I wish I could show the whole photo of him as he was concentrating on eating with such a serious face!

My husband ordered Ribs, another holiday shirt of course!!

We didn't actually eat out for quite a few weeks after they left, you can see why!

We had a fun trip to Murcia last week, we tried to order a new mini iPad for me, it has to be done online and my DH tried but was a bit worried so we drove over to the apple store, an hours drive, so two young ladies were helping us,I picked the colour, purple of course, all good until we tried to pay, our Spanish debit card wouldn’t bring up the pop up to accept the payment, tried twice, then tried DHs card, same, tried the credit card it, it said NO! We offered cash ,not allowed, asked if they had the card machine, no had to be online for pre orders.

I realised on the way home that they had used our Spanish address with the credit card and it’s a British card, ha,ha, well after that we gave up, we did have lunch on the way home but we both felt physically drained, my DH isn’t good at not being in charge as he likes to take his time and read every part when it involves his money! whereas the girls were zipping through it all LOL.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks they will have some spare stock and we can just buy one with cash!

I received this card from my friend in Australia, it was a while ago, to congratulate me on being the Feature Stamper on SCS, we had made BGs using the Bokeh method for a challenge and you can see how beautiful my friends turned out. It's also very glittery around the circles which doesn't show on the photo.

It was such a lovely surprise to find it in the mailbox.

I hope everyone is keeping healthy, I’m looking forward to checking out what you’ve all been up to, keep safe.

Jan x