That's 2019 done (now can I remember where I put it?!)

Christmas lights in Malaga

I rarely struggle with words, much less with vocalizing them but for days I have sat staring at a cursor flashing on an empty page, mirroring the emptiness that seems to have crept in between my ears!  The cause of this recent impasse betwixt poised keyboard finger and brain has an obvious culprit. I went "off piste" to talk about it before and it's also why I opened the fridge door the other morning to reach for my porridge after the microwave 'pinged' to let me know the piping hot contents were ready!  Oh, if only that had been the only act of forgetfulness in 2019!  Any confidence I had in the belief I was getting an easy ride through this menopause thingy is vanishing faster than the sight of my toes beneath my expanding waistline! I'm not entirely sure if one is meant to encounter all 40 (apparently there's that many!) symptoms before reaching the promised "light at the end of the tunnel" but my deteriorating hormones are giving it a bloody good go, as if they think there's some kind of gold medal award at the end of it?  My GP peered over my blood test results and uttered that I'm "arriving" at it. I conjured up an image of a donkey, a stick and a dangling carrot as I pondered over his latest dateless diagnosis.  Ah, but so what if I'm suffering the afflictions of women of a certain age?  It happens and its coming is unavoidable.  I've got a small army of social media acquaintances to compare notes with and together we're helping each other muddle through, at times with chortling amusement. 

All things considered, I have nothing to complain about because things are otherwise good.  That said, sadly in October one of our dogs (Alfie) escaped.  His disappearance couldn't have come at a worse time.  I'd returned from the UK without Scott who'd stayed behind to be at his father's bedside.  All seemed fine when I returned late in the evening.  Reports from our house sitter were good and I made a fuss of all three dogs and gave them a biscuit before retiring to bed. By morning, when I prepared the morning feeds Alfie was gone.  Despite appeals on social media and endless searches, his disappearance will forever remain a mystery and we must assume he has met his end.  We are not the first people to lose dogs in this manner, regrettably it's quite a regular occurrence as others can testify.  Carelessness is seldom involved; dogs simply escape through boundary fences that cannot be dog-proofed in spite of all efforts to make them so.

Alfie

With Alfie gone but not forgotten, life on our little corner of paradise continues.  Scott was finally able to plant the winter veg at the end of October.  We have broccoli, cauliflower, red and white cabbage, peas, broad beans, onions and garlic that have all taken root and growing nicely under his watchful care.  We'll have to be patient for a few more weeks at least before we can start to enjoy a steady harvest and then, just like before, we'll have fresh organic vegetables to last us well into late Spring. 

Vegetables coming along nicely

The weather has been a little crazy and the warm days of autumn have blended into unseasonably warm days of winter.  Most of our fruit trees produced their blossom in November when, in fact, it should come in March/April. We have to pray that winter doesn't arrive late to kill the Seville oranges, mandarins, lime and lemons that are now growing.  Our Navel oranges, on the other hand, are safe. Grown from the last Spring blossom, this variety comes in to its best in early winter and we're juicing these almost daily.  I'm trying not to mow over the windfall as they're just too good to mince under the blades.  Mowing season has been a little slow to start due to the lack of rain but now that we've had a little, we're underway and the meadow and orchard once again resembles a well manicured lawn, at least from a reasonable distance!

If we didn't have enough to plant, weed, mow and ultimately sculpt to a landscaped haven, we decided to tackle the steep bank to one side of the Finca which until now has been left to wild abandon.  It all started with a conversation about where would be a better place to re-site our beehive.  Maybe it was just bad luck, but our hive didn't attract a swarm this year which was disappointing to say the least, and thinking that maybe its previous siting in the orchard was a little too close to humans and animals, we set about planning where we might have better success.  The bank seemed a likely candidate, suitably tucked away from unwanted attention, but we'd need to level it in one or two places first.  Following a phone call to a friend with a digger, in just a few hours on one crisp December morning the overgrown unusable steep slope was transformed in to terraces with steps down and is now a new blank canvas ready for planting.  We're planning on bee friendly wild herbs and grasses which should be easy to maintain.

The steep bank gets leveled  and Scott sets about setting in sleepers to hold the newly created steps in place

The remainder of December was of course dedicated to the usual build up to Christmas.  As I wrap up my last blog of 2019, Christmas Day has come and gone, as has our New Year's Eve celebration.  Both occasions were held at home surrounded by family and close friends.  There is something rather satisfying about preparing a celebratory feast at home and Scott and I have the sharing of the kitchen down to a fine art.  It's something we love to do and I can't imagine either of us being happy to spend Christmas doing anything else (I know for a fact that he wouldn't).  Now that the festive excesses are over, I'll be picking up where I left off in November with my personal trainer to work on regaining the "body beautiful" but since I struggled to find one of those in my 20's that ideal might just remain wishful thinking! 

A pre-Christmas night at the ballet in Malaga for me, Julie and Karen

'The A-Team scrub up well for a Christmas Charity Dinner

Home made Christmas Cake : Mr Forbes wins another Jamon Serano in a raffle : and, my first Christmas Pudding

The table is set and is soon demolished and the girls must have all got dressed telepathically on Christmas morning!

With No. 1 son, walking off some Christmas excess!

Reflecting on 2019, the passing of Scott's father Duncan and the disappearance of Alfie has taken some of the shine off of what has otherwise been another great year. Scott and I are both looking forward to what 2020 may bring.  Be it planning a trip abroad or a weekend of catching up on the weeding, you can guarantee we'll be equally enthusiastic for both.  It's proof enough we have all we need and happiness in abundance is top of the list. 

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2020!

                                         

The right way to start a New Year: A New Year's Day walk up a mountain. We're so lucky to have this on our doorstep

Letter to a Legend

Dear Duncan,

I wish I’d got to know you better, before that terrible disease stole you from us.  I wish I could have sat with you under our beautiful Andalucian sky, laughing as you recounted stories of Scott’s childhood that I’d have cheekily pressed you to tell.  I wish I could have watched, with love in my eyes, father and son shout loudly from the terraces of your beloved Norwich City and his beloved Malaga.  I so wish you had been proudly by Janette’s side at our wedding to witness Scott and I exchange our vows.  I’d have told you on that most beautiful of days that if I could be half the devoted wife to him that Janette has been to you, our happiness would still be guaranteed.  

Whilst I wish I’d had the chance to get to know you better, is it possible I do know a little of the man you were?  When I look at Scott do I somehow know you?  Is it true that I see much of you remains alive in him? 

Did your eyebrows twitch skywards when you said something funny or cheeky, and did your eyes screw up cutely when you laughed?  Did you always show concern for others before you thought about yourself?  Had a windfall lottery come your way would you have sought to improve the fortunes of others before taking anything for yourself?  Did your mood always shine like the sun and never turn grey like the rain?  Did you bring life, soul and laughter to every room you walked into? Could you not pass a stranger by without showing them your warm smile and greeting them with a kind word?  Could your friends play a joke on you because you'd take it on those broad shoulders and with a smile?  Did you always see the good in people and never the bad?  

Tell me, dear Duncan, was this you?  It must be so, because all of this I see in the husband I adore.  I look at pictures of you and see your characterful expressions mirrored on his face too.  I hear him quote your rules on life almost daily.  I don’t need him to tell me that you were his hero, and the one person by whom he measures himself.   Somehow, when I look at him, I feel that I've not been entirely robbed of knowing you.

A voice so loud, they’d swear you could be heard in the next County. I know someone else whose voice booms just as yours did. 

I do know Scott would be humbled to be compared to the father he loved so much, just as I suspect you would be humbled by all the tributes you so richly deserve. That self-effacing quality is part of him, as it must have been part of you.

I will miss the moments that I shall never get to share with you, the things I shall never get to tell you, and I regret not being given the chance to be the daughter-in-law I hope you’d have come to love.

You were so many things to so many people: “Big Dunc”, a class act, a legend, a footballing icon, a larger-than-life character, a friend.  But most importantly you were a much-loved Husband, Father and Grandfather to the family you prized above any trophy you held aloft.  

With a heart so big, a presence so felt, we know that you will never be far away.  May your spirit always be with us, your words of advice always be heeded, and your laughter always heard.

God bless.

From your daughter-in-law with love

Fried Eggs and Garlic

We've discovered a new way to enjoy breakfast here in sunny Andalucia: a loaded plate of fried eggs, swimming in extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled with a copious amount of garlic and served with a slab of fresh bread for dipping in your yolk and mopping up leftovers. It beats the healthy fruit-loaded muesli that we caution ourselves with from Monday to Friday and it's just the ticket for fueling up in preparation for a weekend of pottering around the finca. We introduced our summer guests to a plate of this new favourite and also took it across 'the pond' where we holidayed with our American friends in September. The responses ranged from lukewarm, or "I'd rather just have toast!" to fully adopted with a few spicy embellishments.

Summer has been a long hard slog. Half way through October and we're only just beginning to see the temperatures drop from the low 30s (degrees C).  During the worst of the onslaught of the sun's rays we managed to pack quite a bit in before lethargy sent us shuffling to the bedroom to snooze away the hottest hours under the ceiling fan.  In between times, the veggie plot was toiled and weeded. The heat made for very hard work especially when temperatures at one point 'maxed out' at a merciless 47 degrees in the shade for seven days. Our tomato plants took quite a roasting but still managed to produce a relatively handsome crop under the nurturing care of the green-fingered Mr Forbes. Our onions also fared well and we're still working our way through a bumper crop of those. At the other end of the scale, we enjoyed just one floret of late season broccoli before the rest of the plants surrendered and withered to a dehydrated heap. The gradual changing climate has brought with it a certain amount of head scratching over when to plant our autumn seedlings. We can no longer rely entirely on what it says on the little packets but must watch the weather forecast for predictions on when it will warm up or cool down.  Summer crops over, our beds lie in wait for their winter planting once again. With a bit of luck, we can start the cycle again at the end of October.

Sadly, we didn't attract any bees to our new hive this year, despite all our efforts.  We'll need to rethink and perhaps re-site the hive to a more secluded spot and hope for better success next Spring. With the bee population in such decline, we want to do our bit to preserve this precious species.

Apricots from Brian's memorial tree cropped heavily this year.
They gave us a cupboard full of jam as well as a freezer full of crumbles.

Let's make some onion marmalade!

Who knew onion flowers could be so pretty?

The first of many tomatoes at end May

The ongoing garden decluttering should have meant consigning the endless pile of leftovers from plumbing jobs to the local dump. But instead these piles of rubbish, that Mr Forbes would prefer to call valuable scrap and useful spares 😏, must take precedence over, say, the storage of bikes for instance and why not?!  And, so, we bought another shiny new shed so that the bikes would have a cozy place to live while their neighbours moved in across the garden!  Despite the feeling that I'm helping to facilitate the migration of scrap metal and old boilers from garden to shed, I'm encouraged that we're making some headway with the tidying and all our sheds are beginning to look a lot more organised. Small victory but you have to start somewhere when you're married to a plumber who's been set in his ways for so many years!

The new bike shed, locally crafted. I'm sure there's plenty of space
for another one somewhere.

While the battle to convert "Steptoe's Yard" to a garden continues,
another battle is won and the van gets a tidy up (only because it needed 
emptying for its first MOT!)

Our first summer visitors (and lukewarm recipients of the fried eggs and garlic) were my mum and my eldest sister at end June/early July. Luckily, they escaped the worst of the summer temperature took hold and it remained in the low 30s pretty much the whole two weeks of their visit. We spent the majority of the time sitting by the pool or on the terrace and eating plenty of good food and (of course!) chatting endlessly!  Daniel also flew over for a long weekend to attend a friend's wedding, so we had a house full for a while.
 

                  

All dressed up and ready for a little BBQ gathering for Helen's upcoming 60th birthday.

The gang come over to help with the celebration.

Scott's mum was the second visitor to be offered the egg breakfast, but she politely declined in favour of toast!

The delightful and original Mrs Forbes with her lovely son!

Shortly after mum (Janette) returned home, we packed and headed off for our big holiday of the year; to the USA. Our trip was essentially about visiting my friends of more than 20 years, John and Nancy, and to join them at their holiday beach house rental in Ocean City New Jersey. John and Nancy made it to our wedding last year with much difficulty due to health problems so it was on the cards for us to return the visit and this one was several months in the planning.  First on the itinerary was a stop over in New York's Manhattan. A great deal has changed in the 21 years since I was last there, the events of  9/11 being perhaps the most significant. I wanted Scott to experience more than Manhattan's main sights though so my search for a sporting event resulted in an unforgettable evening in Queens' Citifield Stadium to watch the New York METs take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in a thrilling game of baseball. At the end of our holiday, we returned to New York to see Wicked on Broadway and take a ride up to the Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Building) to gaze upon Manhattan's city lights at night. A surprise for Scott's birthday was a luxury chauffeur-driven SUV from JFK to our hotel and then back at the end of our stay.

A Cadillac "Black Escalade": We arrive and depart Manhattan in chauffeur driven celebrity style!

One of the memorial fountains at the 9/11 Memorial Site. A calm and serene place in the middle of Manhattan's noise and chaos.  In the underground museum below, the outer walls of the fountain memorials are exposed and shaped to reveal the actual foundations of the original twin towers. An incredibly moving experience.

The Chrysler Building and The Empire State, two of Manhattan's most famous landmarks

Two views of NYC: Street level and from the top of the Empire State

No trip to New York should be without a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty

A New Yorker's view (If you're a METs fan that is!)

Does the NYPD fleet really look this small from the top of the city's skycrapers? 
Nope, they really are this small!

Top of the Rock: The Rockefeller Building, an Art Deco masterpiece 

"Romancing the City" at Top of the Rock

Times Square at Night

Our time in New Jersey was a very welcome break from Manhattan and we spent it simply unwinding, soaking up the glorious autumn sun on one of America's best beaches, biking, and enjoying John and Nancy's hospitality and great company. As always with these things those 10 days simply flew by and we were heading back to New York all too soon ahead of our long trip home. 

Our beach house for 10 days. Luxury "New England" style living

The boys bond over a game of American Football.
As well as becoming a firm New York METs fan, Scott is now also a
confirmed Philadelphia Eagles fan. (He might just be the only person
who can spread his allegiance over two states?!)

My buddy Nancy and me. I bloody love her!

Ocean City Living: These beachfront houses will set you back a few million USD!

Ocean City Beach Bums!

Photo call on the boardwalk

The boys wait patiently while Nancy and I shop

Biking on the boardwalk: Our daily exercise

Out for the best Mexican meal we've eaten since Mexico!
(I love this photo of us)

Scott gets a real treat for his birthday: A trip out on the restored oyster schooner "A.J. Meerwald"

followed by a night out at the casinos in Atlantic City 

We take a ride out to John and Nancy's beautiful home in Hammonton

Too soon our holiday is over and we say our farewells for now
See you both in Marrakech in March 2020!

Back to reality now and so is our routine. As the weather cools, we can turn our attention to all the autumn jobs that need doing around the house and garden. We love this time of year and there's plenty to do, as always.  Bye for now!

I like this pool thermometer a lot! I think I'll keep him! 😍 💋