Los Tres Reyes Magos

Epiphany is the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Mathew 2:1-12). The festival is commemorated on January 6th.

Los Gallardos traditionally celebrates the three King’s visit to Jesus; with a medieval market and re-enactment of the meeting of those wise men of the East with King Herod.
When we arrived an extremely large tortilla was already being prepared, on the food stalls meats and sausages were already sizzling on grills, delicious aromas were filling the air.

Loud fireworks, which are compulsory at all fiestas in Spain, were let off intermittently. On the stalls, handmade craft items for sale, the atmosphere was friendly, with a mix of locals and families.

Merry Christmas 2012

Gaudete Sunday, third Sunday before Christmas, gaudete means rejoice and reminds me of the Steeleye Span carol. As we look back at the first Christmas, when Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, we can also rejoice.

olivetree151212With a daytime temperature of over 20°C,  we continue to pick olives, the trees really do need pruning well and this hampers our ability to pick them efficiently. This tree has been pruned back to the old trunk as so many of the shoots were growing upwards, it needed a ladder to pick the olives and this year there were few on it. This rather drastic cutting made me wonder, how the tree would recover and grow again.

 

The Christmas cards are all made and mostly sent, I now have a cuttlebug, a machine which embosses and cut shapes with a die, I used it on some of the cards and found it very good.

 

 

Olive Picking

olives3011112We spent two and a half hours for three days picking olives from our old tree in the garden.

 

 

 

We took these olives to the olive press on the industrial estate Arboleas.olives4301112

 

 

 

 

 

olives5301112Lorries packed full were queueing to discharge the green/black globes into the hopper, which by a series of conveyor belts takes the fruit into the press. Controlled by computer, they are weighed and the lady gave us a receipt for 90 kilos.

 

 

We could have exchanged the amount for oil, but we have 4 smaller trees to pick so we will  wait until we have had those weighed and added to the tally.