Discovering a new life in Costa Almeria

Christmas Carols in Terreros
Friday, December 19, 2008

The Ladies of Terreros Group was initially formed by 3 of the current ladies who started it off as a slimming club. As others joined the emphasis moved away from the slimming and more to being a social and supportive group. The initial ladies Ann, Carol & Sandra found it a good way to share information about living here and dealing with the problems that occured. As more ladies joined them, this became a huge source of support and knowledge and there are now regularly more than 20 ladies at the weekly meetings.

One of Ann's ideas was to introduce Christmas Carol's to the area in a way of keeping a little of her own english traditions to help her through a Christmas away from her family. Again, over the years this has grown into the fantastic evening that we had on Wednesday night.

It was held at a local bar, The Montesol, who were totally caught on the hop by the numbers that turned up. So our first job was to bring more tables and chairs outside. All the ladies had brought food to hand round in the interval, (yes, there would be enough songs to need an interval) there was everything from sausage rolls and sandwiches to mince pies and cakes. There were also lots of raffle prizes, some donated by the ladies and others by local businesses who were very generous in supporting us.

As the crowd were settling it was time for the ladies to assemble at the front, Santa hats in place. As is the tradition is Spain, many of us were wearing red. I have to say for poor Sandra trying to get us all settled, it would have been easier to sort a group of 5 year olds! But eventually we were all gathered, song sheets in hand.

For the full report go to http://relocatetospain.blogspot.com where there is also a link to a spanish carol Villancicos which we sang.

0 Like Published at 10:48 AM Comments (3)

Home made Kumquat Jam - Success or Failure?
Thursday, December 18, 2008

Now, by any stretch of the imagination I am no cook. I can scramble eggs for the pups, I can put together a sandwich and I can make a dinner by opening cans, packets or defrosting - but baking? jam making?.............it's all a mystery to me.

So, what ever possessed me to decide to make Kumquat Jam?

Well, it seemed a shame to waste this home grown crop of fruit after I have nurtured it through the summer months and the recipe I downloaded from Google only required Kumquats, Sugar and a microwave, so even I should be capable of putting those 3 elements together and getting something from it.

OK, so for those of you new to a Kumquat, allow me to introduce the little fruit.

It's about an inch in size and in Spanish it's called a 'naranjita' which is quite literally 'little orange'.

Click on http://relocatetospain.blogspot.com to see whether I managed a successful jam session.

0 Like Published at 12:43 PM Comments (2)

What a crop of Kumquats
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Back on the 27th August I wrote about a little Kumquat tree that the Terreros ladies had bought me for my birthday and was so proud that I had managed to keep it alive long enough for it to grow fruit and to start to ripen.

It was watered lovingly every day through the intense summer heat and then when the temperatures fell I realised that it was necessary to reduce the amount of water I was giving it as all the fruits were growing so rapidly they were splitting their skins and the fruit inside was turning mouldy.

We then had the rains of October and the strong winds meant the tree was moved to a sheltered spot to protect it - oh, how this tree has been nurtured.

However, moving it to a sheltered spot meant out of site out of mind and it hasn't had the tender loving care over the last few weeks that it deserves

UNTIL YESTERDAY .....

when I remembered it. In the past couple of weeks when it has been ignored save for a couple of hours of sunshine warmth each day and the odd downpour of rain.

Such treatment obviously suits it, the fruits have been able to grow at a pace which didn't split the skins, the sunshine has turned them a proper orange and the little tree has delivered a sizeable crop of perfect orange fruits.

Not bad for a beginner, eh? And no, we haven't tried eating one yet - maybe we should!

Read more about our life here in Almeria at http://relocatetospain.blogspot.com

0 Like Published at 2:58 PM Comments (3)

Christmas has started!
Thursday, December 11, 2008

Today was the 'Ladies of Terreros' Christmas Dinner. There were about 30 of us and we all met at our local Bistro who had kindly arranged to do an english christmas dinner. We had Champagne on arrival and started with Prawn Cocktail, and believe me - the local prawns are fabulous. Annika, who is Belgian, had asked a number of the ladies what a traditional dinner would be and duly served up turkey and sprouts - the only thing missing were the stuffing balls! Not to worry, I have sorted that for Christmas Day - Neil, we need 40 stuffing balls please!

Dessert was a selection of chocolate treats and a few glasses of wine gifts made sure everyone had a good afternoon.

Secret Santa gifts had been bought and wrapped to the value of €10 and were all labelled up with raffle tickets and after dinner we all drew out a number to see what gift we were taking home. Only a couple of people drew their own numbers and needed to exchange and most people opened theirs at the dinner although I and a few others are being good girls and keeping them to open on Christmas Day.

At the moment our Christmas decorations are still in storage and we are not due to get them until early January so this Christmas our pressies will be under the Pointsettia, as traditional a plant in Spain as it is in the UK and providing I can keep the pups away from eating it, it will look nice with the pressies around it on Christmas morning.

Sometime soon we will see the christmas lights turned on in the local villages and in the nearest town, Aguilas - no, the lights are not on yet - it's still too early here. We are going into Aguilas on Friday evening so we will see whether they are on then.

There will be local christmas markets over the next couple of weekends. The ladies group will be having a stall at the market in Pulpi on the 20th December when we have lots of different foods from the countries where the various lady members are from including England, Wales and Scotland along with Belgium and Holland.This is to give the locals a taste of our foods that they don't normaly have such as short bread, english sausages etc. It will be my first trip to the christmas market so I am really looking forward to seeing what it's like.

Next Wednesday there is a carol concert in the Montesol Bar and any funds raised will be donated to a local charity.

And then, on the 21st December - my brother arrives!

0 Like Published at 9:08 PM Comments (0)