Our new home in the Orba Valley, Alicante

Summer is definitely - and finally! - on the way, with the temperatures on the up and plenty of blue skies and sunshine.  Ironically, today is warm but very wet....ah well, the garden is benefitting.  And best of all, as of midnight on Saturday the state of alarm here in Spain ended 🥳🍾🎈💃  Of course regional restrictions remain in place but it feels a little like the beginning of the end so to speak.  Here in the Valencia region they have opened the border and restaurant/bar can operate at 100% occupancy on terraces and 50% inside and stay open until 11.30pm.  The curfew has moved from 10pm to midnight (until 6am) and groups of people in public spaces can now number 10.  The vaccination effort is going well although sadly, despite now being registered at the local health centre, we (or rather Ian who is a little older) haven't heard anything yet which is very frustrating as everyone we know of who is in their early sixties seems to have been vaccinated here.  

We are getting nearer to the finish line for the first phase of work on the house and my goodness will I be pleased to see an end to all the dust and dirt that seems to re-cover everything about 2 hours after I've wiped things down.  Ian has finished my side of the walk-through wardrobe area and is close to finished on his side.  The toilet has finally been relocated from the wardrobe area(!) into the new, smaller bathroom and then we'll put up with the sky-blue suite until the autumn.  So it looks as though we'll be able to move into the master bedroom next week once we've filled the holes in the walls, put a light fitting in (we inherited the wires hanging out the ceiling) and painted it, so not much really 😳  The big news of the week is that the builders put in our lovely new front doors which Ian wisely decided might be a step too far for us to tackle.  Given the size and weight of them and the time it took the builders (estimated about 4-5 hours, actual time 8 hours!) due to issues with the wall and fixing points for the weight, I'd say that was a wise move!  Here is the before, during and after:

Naturally once they'd finished you could practically sculpt, never mind write, your name in the brick dust.  We need to stain the doors so they'll soon be a little darker but we've had lots of compliments and feel it was well worth doing.

We have managed to enjoy ourselves this week though 🥳 We had a wonderful afternoon tea in the sunshine on Thursday afternoon.  Now, we love tapas with a passion but to have a proper afternoon tea with cucumber sandwiches, cake and the rest, it was totally delicious. 

The last time I had a proper afternoon tea was in the UK about two years ago so it was a great treat.  We then attended a music quiz evening which was huge fun.  We were paired up with another couple and got on so well we'll be meeting up again soon and are definitely repeating our team for the next music quiz.  We didn't win - I for one haven't got much to offer by way of knowledge of 1950s artistes if I'm honest and that was the final round - but were 1 point from 3rd and some wine prizes so we'd best get swotting for the next time 😂 

In doggy news, Tally and Alfie had a professional haircut this week.  I've been doing them since last year's lockdown and have done quite well all things considered but I really wanted them to have a factory reset as it were.  And it's much cheaper here than in Mallorca so they may be going again in due course.......  And whilst we're on the subject of pets, there's a house just up the hill that I walk past quite often where there is a pet goat.  Yep, that's right, a pet goat, and here she is:

Her name, from the little shelter, appears to be Kira and she's a really cutie.  She's definitely well fed although she'd been rummaging through a bag of rubbish on the premises but for a goat that's par for the course!  The house is on a very steep part of the hill so she certainly uses her goaty climbing abilities and must be finding or being given plenty of food as there are lots of droppings everywhere.  I've never seen anyone living there but clearly someone comes to do things at the house.  In any event, Tally and Alfie have achieved their lifelong ambition to meet a goat so they're winning at life right now!  

Yesterday we decided to celebrate the end of the state of alarm with something happy, cheerful and cheesy - and you don't get much happier, more cheerful or cheesier than a Spanish Elvis tribute act 😂 His English was relatively rudimentary but my goodness he sounded like Elvis, clearly loves the music and gave it his all for over three hours and you can't say fairer than that!  

Yep, I was expecting the white catsuit too, but he went for the 'early Elvis' look and I can't say I blame him.  Mind you, one of the audience came in a catsuit so all was not lost.  On a very hot day I can't say that wearing tight lycra holds much appeal but....each to their own.

Finally, this weekend was a local fiesta culminating yesterday (Sunday) with the Day of Our Blessed Lady of the Forsaken and last night we had a great firework display.  The actual firework event was by ticket only due to Covid restrictions but we still saw them, luckily not too loudly as Tally is not a fan!  And on Saturday we watched from a bar as the local town band made their way to the Plaza to set up for a concert later that evening and it would seem that, where drums are concerned, size really does matter 😳😂

Stay safe and hasta la próxima semana!