The Month of June....

The month of June proved a very busy one for me this year, what with my trip to Barcelona, my birthday and then later in the month my mum and brother John were here for two weeks holiday from the UK.  I don't know where the time went and of course my blog suffered once again from a lack of posts!!!

So I thought I'd do a catch up for the past month and hope it's not too boring for you :)

Now, although I shared masses of photos of the Dolly Day Barcelona, I didn't share any other photos that I took.  Although there aren't a lot of 'non dolly' photos from the weekend away, here are a few:

This is my lovely friend Sue and I in Parc de la Ciutadella, a really attractive and tranquil place, located near the Barcelona zoo:

And Sue with her husband Ben:

And here are some photos from the parc itself:

This memorial bandstand is dedicated to the 'transexual Sonia' who was brutally murdered here for her gender identity.  We three read this independently and all said how it made the hairs on the back of our necks stand on end.  So sad.

The Arc de Triomf....

 

This is the entrance to the Catedral Basilica de Barcelona, apparently this is the most important temple within the Archdioceses of Barcelona.  If you would like to read more about this cathedral, their website can be found here: 
Catedral de Barcelona

 Passeig de Lluís Companys:

Below is the statue of Christopher Columbus...more can be found about this statue, situated at the end of Las Ramblas, here: Columbus Monument, Barcelona

The Time Of The Doves is a 1962 novel written by exiled Catalan writer Mercè Rodoreda.  The book is named after a square in Barcelona's Gràcia district, Placa del Diamant.  As a tribute to the novel, a sculpture of La Colometa by the artist Xavier Medina-Campeny was installed in 1984, depicting the main character with her doves.

There is another very interesting thing about this square.  I quote here from the Barcelona website:  "The symbology of the square took an unexpected turn in 1992, when the air-raid shelter beneath the square was discovered during the execution of road works. Built twelve metres below ground level by the residents of the neighbourhood during the Spanish Civil War, it gave shelter to more than two hundred people during the many air-raid attacks launched on the industrial district of Gràcia of that time, with its many factories that were the main target of the attacking aircraft. This shelter was one of the more than 90 in the neighbourhood, and it is one of the largest of the 1,300 that were built in Barcelona, one of the first cities bombarded systematically from the air in a war. Today, with the objective of recovering the area's historical memory, the History Workshop of Gràcia arranges guided tours to explore the site and it is well worth visiting the shelter and seeing its tunnels which saved the lives of so many people."  

The below design is actually made from coloured sawdust....and is located in Placa de la Virreina....I believe it is a tribute to political prisoners. 

Well you can see that apart from my last post, packed with dolly photos, I didn't take photos of much of the beautiful architecture and city of Barcelona.  A long weekend, with one full day taken with a doll convention and another full day of heavy rain, is really not enough time to spend in this attractive and vibrant place......I think I will have to go again!!

Ahh and here is my seriously depleted money box!!!  Yes I actually save up 2 euro coins and they really did go a long way towards paying for my trip!!!

So that was my trip to Barcelona.  

Well June was also the anniversary of me starting my 'healthy lifestyle' regime.  It's now been a year since I started walking and exercising, as well as cutting out a lot of the 'extras' that I was eating.  I'm really pleased with how the last year has gone and I'm now 32 kilos lighter (that's 70.4 pounds or 5 stone, whichever you prefer!!) and I've lost at least 22cm off my waistline.  I've also gone down a lot of clothes sizes, about 6 to be exact, and I no longer have to take either the high blood pressure tablets or the calcium/vitamin D supplement that I was previously prescribed by my doctor!  And the great thing is, I feel like I've taken years off my age too, I feel that good!!!  

I never liked having my photo taken before, and I'm still not that confident being in front of the lens, but thought I would just share this photo that my husband took a couple of years ago......

And because I felt so ashamed of how I looked in the above photo (with my mum and brother), I got Brian to take another of us now: (please bear in mind that the camera allegedly adds about 10 pounds!!! :D ) 

I think I prefer the second photo ;)

Apart from that, I've now 'upped the ante' on my walking distance and sometimes walk as much as 7 miles with Lucy, our Miniature Pinscher, who incidentally has also lost some weight!!!!  This distance is a big improvement on when I started, I could only manage about a mile previously, and then I almost needed an iron lung to breathe with!!

On the dolly front, I have adopted another Fairyland Mini Fee in the last month or so, a very pretty Ria with custom faceup by the Spanish artist Rakeru Sensei. I decided that she should have a more 'daring' wig than I'd normally go for, so I got her a Monique Gold Fantasy, which is light blond with pastel coloured highlights running through it.  Her gorgeous eyes are from a Greek seller on Etsy....

Whilst my mum and brother were visiting, we went to a garden centre that we've recently discovered.  It is enormous and packed with interesting things, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for some doll photos.  I was going to do a post of those photos separately but at the rate I'm going, I'll never get around to it, so will include a few here:

Teddy wanted to buy this lifesaver ring to use at the pool......

He also quite liked these macaroons until he realised that they were made from hard resin and were fridge magnets!!

It's such a big place that Teddy quite welcomed riding in the shopping trolley, he only has short little legs after all!

He made friends with a couple of very well behaved and friendly Labradors!

And chatted a while with a couple of nice lads who were also shopping there....

Sam (Elfdoll Hana Angel) also came along...Sam is only about 20cm tall so she was dwarfed by the giant toadstools....

But said she'd love a play house made from one, like this one!!

Sam was besotted by this beautiful foal and wanted to bring him home, but sadly we don't have the room for a horse!!!

Sam loved this colourful Macaw and enjoyed feeding him some peanuts ;)

Well I guess that's all we have time for now, so I will wind up by saying I hope you're all having a great summer (or if you're in the southern hemisphere, your winter isn't too bad).  I hope the month of July is a great one for you!!!

Thanks for visiting, and have a great weekend!

Big hugs Sharon x

Summertime and my poor neglected blog!!

I cannot believe that we are now halfway through July, where does the time go!  I also cannot believe how neglected my poor blog is, I really do need to pull my finger out and get blogging properly again.  But we have actually had a very busy few months so I feel that I have a good excuse ;) 

Summer starts very early here and with it comes the intense heat and, here on the coast, very high humidity.  This years June seemed particularly hot and sticky but I admit that I love the heat....have I mentioned that before? :D  And I would take the summer months over the winter any day, despite how short our winter is!  But it does make me feel particularly lazy sometimes so I have spent my spare time just relaxing and reading, I've read loads of books.....but as a result my dolls have been seriously neglected too, poor things.

I had to buy a new eReader last month as my Kindle decided that it was going to stop working.  It wasn't particularly old but of course it was out of guarantee.  I looked around and finally decided on a Kobo Aura One with a nice 7.8 inch screen, and so far I'm very pleased with it.  In fact I've struggled to put it down sometimes!

My mum and brother came over for two weeks from the 23rd June and it was lovely to see them as I'd not seen them since Christmas.  We did a lot of eating out and more relaxing.....well in this heat you really can't do too much, can you!  On their first night it was the fiesta of San Juan which is celebrated in a big way here and denotes the beginning of summer.  In Torre del Mar, our nearest town, there was a large and colourful evening craft market which went on for several days, as well as musical performances, tastings of sardines, competitions, games on the beaches, in addition to the traditional bonfires that are lit at night on the beaches.  

I did a little bit of shopping at the market, well it would be rude not to, wouldn't it!  And having seen this stall, I had to buy my girls a guitar as they were the perfect scale for the MSD sized BJDs.  And at only 8 euros each, I couldn't pass one up!!

I was seriously tempted by the Beatles drum set and the violins too, and now I regret that I didn't buy anything other than one guitar from this stall!  Oh well, there is always next year!

Brian and John enjoyed the things that were put in place for the children!!!

Later, we ate in a nice restaurant called the Safari Lounge.  The food was lovely, but the portions were so big!!  Here's my mum and brother waiting for their supper.

We went to Nerja for a day and ate in a very nice Japanese restaurant.  I didn't take any photos in the restaurant but took a few on the Balcon de Europa which was busy with holiday makers.  I do like Nerja, but have to say it's much better in winter when it's not so busy.

 We also went into the church located at the Balcon de Europa, called El Salvador.  The interior was so lovely and cool and peaceful, after the heat of the street! 

Afterwards, a welcome drink in a bar...

We did lots of other things and ate many more meals in restaurants, but I didn't take my camera out with me at all, I have no idea why!!

As well as my family visiting, I have been working on my fitness because over the years I've got lazy about exercising.  After a whole bunch of tests over the last 3 months, I've finally been told that I have bone degeneration, so thankfully nothing too serious.  Anyway, I decided to start walking as I love to walk but had been putting it off and putting it off using the excuse that I wanted someone to walk with.  So for the last 6 weeks, Lucy our Miniature Pinscher and I, have been getting out of bed at 6.30am and walking from 7am for a minimum of an hour.  We head out into the campo and just walk!  It is a wonderful time of day, the sun is only just rising and there is a real freshness before the intense heat of the day.

We just climb higher and higher until we are able to look back down towards the sea, it feels like being on top of the world!!!!  

We've met some lovely people, Pepe and Maria, who, along with their little Yorkshire Terrier, are walking in the opposite direction to us and always stop for a quick chat about life as we pass, as well as a farmer who gave me nine of the most delicious freshly picked tomatoes that I've ever tasted!!! 

We've spotted quite a bit of wildlife too, including Hoopoe birds, which I've tried to get photos of as they are so pretty.  Unfortunately my iPhone doesn't zoom in far enough to get them but I plan on taking my proper camera out with me soon.

We also discovered a snake!  Unfortunately for the snake, but perhaps fortunately for us, it was dead, having been flattened by something.  But it was a biggie!  I have put my foot in the photo to show you the scale....I would put it at about 5 foot long including it's tail which was separate!!! (That's the snake, NOT my foot!!!)  Lucy was very interested!

Finally this morning, on our walk back along the beach, I spotted some dolphins swimming not that far out from the beach!!!  I rarely see them because they are quite 'elusive' but today there were at least three of them....oh to have had that camera with me....but you can just see the fin coming out of the water in the blurry photos below:

 As for the walking, well it is starting to pay off as over the last four weeks I have lost 11 pounds in weight, I'm walking between 5 and 8 kilometres per morning and am actually getting quite addicted to it!  And next week I'm starting Yoga classes!!!!

Finally a photo of the beach at 8pm on Thursday...and yes, the water was lovely!!

Well I hope you all are having a lovely summer and that the weather is good where you are.  I hope to post more often now and hopefully will remember to lug my camera with me (which will mean that all the local wildlife will take their summer vacations!!!)

Big hugs, Sharon xx