Walking with Lucy.....

I'm sorry that there are no dolls in today's post but hope you'll enjoy some photos from my walking over the last few days.  The weather has been beautiful since last Saturday and walking has been a real pleasure...until I developed a really heavy cold, so haven't walked today.  Typical me, I'm fine all through the wet winter and then as soon as the sun finally comes out so I develop a cold!!  Oh well!

Saturday I took this photo of the mountains behind us, you can see snow on the top, so it must have been pretty chilly overnight, but it was gone again by Sunday morning!!

On Sunday I walked quite late in the day and on the final part we walked along the beach, the sunset was really pretty.....

Lucy loves walking on the beach as long as we don't go too close to the sea, she really does not 'do' water!!!  But give her a smelly old dead fish to roll in and she's in her element!!!

"Who? Me?"

Wednesday Lucy and I walked up to the Torre de Jaral which is located above the sea on the edge of the cliff, I've mentioned it several times here on my blog and shared photos.  You can see it here on the cliff in the distance being caught by the setting sun on our previous night's walk....

The Mediterranean was particularly calm and beautiful, and there were lots of fishing boats going about their business....

 

This bush was full to bursting with bumble bees!  There were hundreds of them, and the noise was quite amazing!  

And not far away, high in the campo, there are some hives that have been set up, I have no idea who owns them, but I suspect the honey from these bees will be particularly tasty as there are so many different wild flowers from which they can collect their pollen!

I don't know if you can see this but the water here is so incredibly clear that you can see all the rocks beneath the surface, they really shimmer in the sunlight....I really do need to take my proper camera out walking with me but am always worried that 1) it'll be too much to carry and 2) it might get lost or damaged!  

 Lucy loves to sniff EVERYTHING, here she is amongst the wild flowers.....

Further on I could see what I thought were unusual looking bright red flowers in the distance, they seemed to follow the path that we had to take...however, on closer inspection, I saw that they were in fact tomatoes!  With a few aubergines, courgettes and cucumbers thrown in for good measure!  At first I thought perhaps there'd been an accident and a vehicle carrying them had tipped over or something, but it turns out they're fruits that are 'past their best' and cannot be sold, so they're thrown down for the local goats!!!  I'm sure they enjoy them very much!

Lucy certainly found them interesting......

 

Further along I spotted these beautiful poppies growing around the bottom of a particularly vicious looking cactus!

And these pretty little purple flowers..... 

On the way back along the beach, I spotted this rather large fellow sitting on a rock sunning himself, I have no idea what type of bird he is and this is the best photo I could get with my iPhone on zoom, so not great.....I'm thinking he is a Cormorant from looking him up on Google......

I've not seen him around before but the usual birds are about, we have a lot of Hoopoes, Swallows, blackbirds, masses of our local green parrots (Monks Parakeets and Quakers) and this week I actually saw a very pretty Rosella parrot, which was probably someone's escaped pet.  I tried to catch him but he was obviously not wanting to be caught, but I've not seen him since.  He looked just like this one.....(not my photo)....

And to finish with our final lap of our walk......looking west with Malaga in the very far distance....

And east towards Torre del Mar......

 

Well that's all I have time for as it's quite late and I need my beauty sleep, LOL!!!  So I wish you all a very good night/day, depending on where you are.  Thank you for visiting.

Big hugs, Sharon xx

Book Crossing and More Snow!

I'm afraid that this is another non dolly post today but this morning on my walking, I spotted something that I've not noticed in the past and thought it was such a great idea that I had to share. 

It's called a Book Crossing!  And there are four points along the beaches of Torre del Mar and another in Caleta de Velez.  And what is a Book Crossing?  Well if you've not heard of it before, which I hadn't, it's basically a book swap....there are little perspex fronted 'houses' on poles, at different places along the seafront and you can put books inside for others to borrow, or borrow one for yourself, all free of charge!  It was all explained on the side of the boxes in both Spanish and English....

And it says that you can register on line at www.bookcrossing-spain.com and you can follow your books wherever they may go!  What a great idea, I think I'll be registering soon too!

On another note, we had more snow in the mountains!  They look so pretty with their white 'topping'.....I wonder if it's thick enough to ski?  Nah, I doubt it, but nice to look at from a distance :)

Also, I had a funny experience yesterday morning when walking.  In the distance I spotted a guy sitting on the kerb and was a little bit concerned because it was quite early and the area where I was walking was completely deserted.  As I got slightly closer, keeping my eyes on him all the time, I was a bit worried that he wasn't moving, and hoped that I wasn't going to be coming face to face with some poor homeless person who'd perhaps met his maker overnight in the cold.......however as I got closer, I had to laugh at my over active imagination, as this (almost life-size) poor guy greeted me....with silence!!!!

I have no idea where he came from, but he seemed happy enough to continue sitting there in the campo, so I left him to his own devices!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Big hugs, Sharon x

This 'n' that....

Traditionally, the 7th January is the start of the sales here in Spain.  The Three Kings bring their presents on the night of the 5th, then the 6th is a fiesta when all the stores are closed, and then the shops get into full swing with their sales today!

I got a couple of great bargains, a pair of boots and some black jeans....I've been looking for a nice pair of black jeans for ages and finally found some that I liked at C&A....I really like C&A, I used to like them when they were in the UK, and we're fortunate that they're still going strong here.

So having been to the sales this morning I haven't got any new dolly photos for you but did take a few the other day so will share those instead.

Here is Nuria, my redhead Sasha Ballet from 1968.  I can hardly believe she is 50 years old this year, she has much less wrinkles than me, I wish I knew her secret!!!

Outfit by Petrana, boots by The Sleeping Elf.  Plants by Brian!!

And now just one photo from this morning's walk.  We have SNOW!!  Well there seems to be a dusting on the mountains behind us!!  But it is snow nonetheless :D  Sorry about the terrible photo but I used my phone and had to zoom right in to see it so it's incredibly grainy!!

I hope you're all having a good weekend and have a great week ahead too!

Big hugs
Sharon xxx

Summer's end.....

I won't apologise again for my blog being neglected, that's getting a little 'old' now, but thought I'd do a 'Summer's End....' post and share some of what I've been doing over the last couple of months or so.

In my last post, Summertime and my poor neglected blog  I wrote about my 'new' healthy regime, well I have continued with that, and am now 26.4 pounds or 12 kilos lighter!!!  I have continued to walk every morning with Lucy my Miniature Pinscher, and we now walk approx 8.5km (just over 5 miles) most mornings.  I have also joined a local municipal swimming pool where I attend two one hourly Aquagym classes every week, and I really love it!!!  It's hard work but definitely good fun!  I've ridden my bike a bit, but I honestly think I'd like to replace it with a mountain bike as mine doesn't have any gears and is really suited more to shopping in a town rather than riding out in the countryside!

I've taken lots of photos during my walks, and will share some here, but please forgive the lesser quality, they are taken on my iPhone.

We've seen some lovely sunrises....

Some beautiful empty beaches, now that the children have returned to school....

Views from the hills above where we live, and towards the mountains.....

We have also seen lots of flora and fauna!  Donkeys, horses and asses.....

Goats and sheep......

Herons....(or could be an egret!)

Chili peppers....

Female peacocks....peahens? 

Lovely flowers!

I also decided to have all my long hair cut off about six weeks ago too, it was down to mid back in length but I never did much with it apart from put it in a ponytail, so I went really short, and I feel like a new woman!!!  (Apologies for the 'bathroom selfie', I don't take photos of myself very often!!!)

 It's almost the same as I had for my wedding back in December 2005....

Hope those weren't too scary for you!!!!


On the dolly front I have been relatively quiet because my interest waned, probably due to the very hot weather.  My doll/sewing room here on the coast is small and gets very very hot despite having the window open and the fan going full time....plus I really don't like spending time inside when the weather is so lovely.  So as a result I've done very little sewing or playing!  But I have done some ordering!!!!  I have two little BJDs on order and hopefully they will arrived from South Korea some time before Christmas :)

However, I am currently customising a Blythe doll for a friend of mine, and am just waiting on the eyechips arriving.  Once the doll is all completed and put back together I will share photos on here.

I have done a few wig changes with my bjds and today took some photos of my Fairyland Little Fee Antes.  Fiona, the normal skin Ante, is one of the new wig recipients.  I bought this Monique Gold Bubbles wig for her in Honey Blond but I thought it was too pale and made her look 'washed out', so yesterday I dyed it with tea and the colour has turned out perfect for her!

Both of my Antes, Tyrone (left) and Fiona, are playing with their new little baby cousin....under adult supervision of course ;) 

Well that's about it for today, I don't want to bore anyone too much!  I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of my photos and also hope that you've all had an enjoyable summer. 

Here's to the autumn!!!

Hugs Sharon x