It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The MOON rising over Calpe – viewed from Albir - December 6th 2014

I didn’t take this actual picture, but I did see the moon rising and I did take some pics, they just weren’t as good as this one.  The sun was setting behind me and this gave a fantastic pink glow to the sky.  I’ve never seen anything quite like this before.

So Christmas is approaching and we hear that Scotland had –7C last night – we’re really suffering here (not), it is dropping a little below 10C some nights, but once the sun is up in the morning it soon warms up.  The air is feeling cooler during the day but temperatures still reach the high teens. In the sun it’s still very warm and we can still wear shorts and sandals when in the sunshine.  Looking forward to Meerke and Nol arriving from The Netherlands in a few days and then we’ve Iain’s dad and younger brother arriving on 22nd, just in time for Christmas.

We had a bit of rain last weekend, but the weather is great again.  But rain or not, work has to go on and at this time of year the biggest job on the campsite is clearing up leaves.  Of course we only have to worry about our pitch but the sweepers are doing a great job.

Javier improvising on a raincoat, it was hilarious when we saw him walking up to us.  Like some smurf on acid.

Javier then told us about a Smurf village near Marbella, where the Smurf 3d movie was filmed.  It was one of those pretty white villages which was painted blue for the movie.  Sony were supposed to come back and re-paint all the houses white again, but the villagers voted to leave them blue as their visitor numbers increased dramatically (from 300 a year to 80,000 a year) and this has brought so much success to the economy that they very sensibly kept their new colour.  Everyone has jobs now, which is very important in Spain.  Click the Daily Mail Article link below to find out more.

Juzcar – Smurf Village Daily Mail Article

Javier always keeps us amused, as I said before he’s a happy-go-lucky bloke who choses to live in a tent on the campsite, doing whatever work he can find, but he’s obviously no idiot.  The other day he came around sweeping, pulling the leaf cart behind him shouting “Ice Cream, Ice Cream”.  We do meet all sorts of people here.

We haven’t been doing much, I’ve joined some Flamenco dancing lessons.  Unfortunately there’s only a couple of us doing them at the moment, the word has not got round, so I don’t know how long the campsite will put them on for.  I love it!!!!!!  I’ve also joined a crafting class but a lot of the women just do knitting and unlike in the ‘60’s advert Wendy is not a great knit – anyone remember that advert for Wendy’s wools – what happened to them? Nearly everyone is Dutch, but having been a few weeks now they are starting to talk to me.  There is one other English woman who goes and a couple of Dutch who speak very good English so I am able to converse with them.  But I just love making things and learning something new so I’ll persevere.

I said in my last post that I had Christmas decorations to make.  We were on the road last year at Christmas so I had very little in the way of decorations and that has made me go rather over the top this year.  I wanted to decorate our pitch and van outside, rather than inside as the etiquette of small space living is that you don’t really invite people into your “small space”.  There is very little in the way of outside decorations to be bought so I had to make my own.

Can you guess what it is yet?

 
My first bit of great inspiration was to make a Christmas tree from recycled plastic bottles.  I have to admit it didn’t get very far and was soon consigned to the bin.  I realised that although there was a copious amount of plastic bottles available, it was going to take far too much time, so I had to think again.

Inspired I “acquired” a used pallet from the “free bricolage” on site and set to.   Everyone kept asking what the hell I wanted an old pallet for – all will be revealed:-

“Free” wooden pallet.  Borrowed Saw – what was I up to?

Now can I be trusted to play with sharp objects?

Stars made from recycled beer cans	Bauble made from foam ball wrapped in garden string (lots of messy glue) and decorated with a few twigs and pods then some red beads added. Along with some fir cones, dried fruit and some leaves and more twigs and hey presto:-

The result – my rustic Christmas tree.  Spray painted green, add a few recycled and home-made decorations and hey it can be thrown away after Christmas.	What I hadn’t bargained for was that by cutting the pallet carefully, you can actually make two trees.

Now I think these would make a great outdoor decoration for any home although if it was more permanent we would have gone to the trouble of sanding and priming it first before painting.

Of course that wasn’t to be enough was it?

The van next – glitter foam rules!	More glitter foam – pointsettia (in case you couldn’t guess)

Even more glitter foam – cut out letters this time

Add a home-made wreath	And some lights – voila – looks great when the sun is shining

Of course nothing was stuck directly onto the precious paintwork of the van – all using suction pads.

Now, onwards and upwards – the inside – but that will have to wait until another day.

I move on – to Dave.  Now Dave is a fairly prickly character but once you get to know him he’s a real softie.  He lives on site with his boxer dog and hates everyone. Actually he doesn’t, but it’s just safer to be like that – I told you we meet all sorts.  Dave is an avid Chelsea fan and you may remember that we call him Chelsea F**king Dave as the F word is used very frequently in his vocabulary and we decorated an egg for him last Easter.

Dave lives on the campsite and is almost directly opposite us – yes we chose this pitch!!!!  But seriously he’s actually a pretty good bloke and keeps us amused.  Of course he sets himself up for ridicule and he likes nothing better than a bit of banter.  The other day in Wyndham’s Dave walked in and Iain said “Pull up a chair Dave, or you can go and sit over there with your mates!” 

When Dave looks out of his caravan – he sees our beautiful motorhome, but when we look out of our motorhome we see his tatty trailer.  So we decided that we’d brighten it up for him.  Dave is a character of habit and takes his dog out for a walk every morning at 10 am on the dot.  That’s gives us a full hour before he comes back.

One day we washed his trailer and then stuck this on the back – note it says Dave not Club!!!!

Then a couple of days later – this appeared - making stickers - yet another of my many talents - lol

It’s been nearly a week now and he still hasn’t said a thing. We don’t know if he’s seen the side yet, but he’s definitely seen the Chelsea sticker.

I told you the other week, it’s a bit like the “Last of the Summer Wine” here.  Bored? We don’t get time to be bored.

Quick update - Jo and James still have the duck - be careful what you wish for James.  Jo's ankle is getting better at last and the "Madge" has gone back.

Be back soon with the inside decorations!!!!!!