¡Viva San Isidro!

Romeria San Isidro Labrador, 2012 Virgen del Camino

Leaving the Church

The 15th of May is the day of San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of peasants and field workers. He is also the Patron of my village.  Here they celebrate him on the Saturday closest to the 15th, which was the 12th this year.  So bright and early on Saturday morning San Isidro was taken from the church to the Hermita of Santa Filomena at Casa Colora.

San Isidro

Another Interpretation of San Isidro

This year the procession had to take a different route, as the Guardia Civil weren't very happy about the previous route.  So off went San Isidro to bless the local fields.  I cheated this year and went to the Casa Colora by car, as I'd forgotten to put sun cream on and still hadn't fed the animals.  I arrived there before the procession, and was able to see them arrive - all in good spirits and some more spirited than others!!






Meanwhile they had prepared the fires to cook the sausages, chorizo and morcilla that was to be handed out to all the participants

Hermita Santa Filomena

The band carried on playing

the people carried on dancing ...

the Jota

So, after the mass the Almuerzo was served, more wine and beer drunk and the procession returned to the village where the paella was being prepared

After lunch there was a few cubatas, games of football, dancing, karaoke and I took the oppourtunity to sneak (or not) a few pics of some of the participants 

There are also a lot more photos on my Flickr page if you are interested.


So, for another year


¡Viva San Isidro!  


¡Viva La Virgen del Camino!

Silent Sunday

My Ruffle Beach Bag

Well, its not often that I blog twice in one day.   But as I've just finished this, I need to show you.  It started life out as a cloth Lidl bag - a bit ugly and only for emergency use.  You know, when there are no bags in the car boot because they are all in the kitchen drawer.  


The girlies came back from their dad's with some new 3/4 trousers (from the market - so cheapies) that their Aunty had bought them.  There was no way they were EVER going to wear them, so into the charity box they went.  Then, I came across this tutorial and had a lightbulb moment.


The bright summer colours put me in mind of a beach bag, and as I find it really hard to source material here - and it is so expensive to order from overseas.  I decided to have a go.  Resulting in....

As this is my first ever real effort at sewing anything, I am really pleased with how it's turned out.  Especially as I also taught myself to plait with four strands.  Google it - there'll be a tute that works for you.

Girlie #1 hates it obviously -sighs.

So, it WILL be accompanying us on every single trip to the beach.  Especially when we go with friends!!

And here it is again loaded up with two big beach towels and plenty of room to spare.


Next sewing project is going to be some quilting, if I can just pluck up the courage to make the first cut into the material - oops.

Have they made a Booboo?

Source: timethemoment.files.wordpress.com via Mary on Pinterest

This weeks Time magazine front cover - have they got it so right or so wrong?

For sure it will bring out the cover your tits in public creeps right out of the woodwork.

As for me - well if it works for you, carry right on.  Personally I gave up at about 1 year old with both of mine. No saintly mother of the year award here!

Blue Drawers

So, here I am back and as I said before I have been very busy.  I don't know if you remember this

Well, I finaly finnished painting it, and not the rainbow stripes or off white as I had first thought.  But this lovely blue

I have to say that the selection of paint available over here is somewhat under whelming to say the least.  This paint is by Luxens and is sold as an enamel for furniture, doors and radiators.  It's called Grecian Blue, and unfortunately I didn't notice that it was in fact a Matt finish.  I have a feeling I may have to either wax or polyurethane over the top of it, as it tends to show a lot of marks.

Luxens is the only range of water based gloss paint that I've managed to find here, and it does have quite a good range of colours too.

This past weekend, Girly #1 and I made our crocheted twiggy vase, which is here on location, but will actually live on my reclaimed wood shelf in the sitting room.

So, that's two of the projects I've been up to recently, off to check out my photo files, to remind me what else I got up to in my long absence.

AWOL again and Testing

Yet again I've not updated for some time, but l have been very, very busy. Loads of things to report and pictures to show. 

This is also my first post from my phone, just to see how it goes. 

Have hopefully included a gratuitous girly shot as well 

Tempus fugit...

And it's another whole month since I've blogged again! You would've thought that with having the girlies away at their dad's it would give me more time.  It appears that the opposite is true though.

I have however been a very busy bee, tackling jobs that I wouldn't usually have the time for whilst they are here.  All the hunreds of books I removed my book case - they were double and triple stacked have been sorted and I have kept those that I would definitely read again.  The excess are all going to be car booted when we've finishd clearing out the toy room.  So, not only did I get rid of the detritus, I also arranged the keepers into rainbow order!  Look how pretty.

I also made myself a headboard, from some old picket fence posts and painted it.

And a close up, really pleased with how it turned out, and I'll be able to change the colour as I please.

I just need to get some paint now for the bedroom walls, I'm thinking of a nice light bluey grey, something along these lines

Going for a bit of a beachy theme I think.  Shame the wardrobe and chests of drawers are all to new and nice to paint up.  What do you think?

Next up was this old chest of drawers, that has lived many years in the shed, mostly use for keeping tools and crap junk in

 

 
 They don't look too bad from this pic, but up close they are quite scratched and a bit ropey
 

So far these have been rubbed down and undercoated and are awaiting their top coat, of which I am in two minds - eek.  My first thought was white surround and rainbow drawers, but the girlies aren't too impressed with this idea - they think it's babyish :(  And I will probably go with a dark (Grecian) blue instead.

On top of all this, I started my spring cleaning and going aginst the norm I started in my bedroom.  Well, the sitting room has just been repainted so it's really only washing the sofa covers there, and I decided to put myself first for once.  The kitchen has been done too - just the infernal windows to clean and next up are the girls bedrooms - once I pluck up the courage to get in there!!!

So, I have beeen very busy, just not blogging.