Just a little note

Because I have two blogs, when I make a comment in a Blogger's blog, people won't know if I coming from This Burning Fire or Alfazema.
So, from now, in the end of the comment I will sign always alfazema.
And I hope you, when taken to my profile page, will click in the Alfazema link.

Holidays memories - I

When we went on holiday, we took the train and headed to Luso, a place in the middle of Portugal that is a spa and was very in fashion until some decades ago, until the revolution years.

(Everything is so green in Luso, I took this picture from my room)

Now its importance is going up again. When my older girl was a baby, almost 17 years ago, we went there and we could see his lost splendour. Now is going better and the hotel was full. My girls had a very good time in the pool.
From there we went to Bussaco

and delighted ourselves with the landscape, the gardens,

the convent, the church

and the Palace Hotel .

After some very nice days, we took the train again and went North, to Braga. Ah, wonder of wonders! It's an amazing place. But I will talk about that tomorow.

Here are my little girls in the garden of Bussaco.
Such gardens! See more here:

See you tomorow...

See you tomorow

My computor is being silly and I'm having trouble with my pictures. Because I'm cross, I can't post anything good today so, it will be tomorow.
To say sorry, I leave you with this rose I found in a garden in Braga.

The Autumn is coming

I feel the need of entering "full time" in the Autumn that we can feel already in the air .
It's amazing that, usualy, we have such hot days until October - including it - and this year we feel already the pleasant breeze that Autumn brings and we feel it everyday, all day long.
The air has more oxygen, the light is more beautiful. I seat in my sofa curled with a warm blanket in the evenings. I feel good.
Everybody that reads my blog knows I can't stand summer. The only things about summer that I like are my girls nice dresses and going on holidays. Nothing more.

Talking about holidays. I need to do a closer to summer and holidays so, I will post some three or four times about our wonderful holidays and then jump into my favorite time of the year: Autumn and Winter.
Did you realize that I put two (!!!) Christmas counters already? One in the right side and another in the bottom.
Another thing that I did on the blog was to add new blog links.
I was missing England so I went surfing the blogosphere searching for english blogs. I found in them such inspiration. I feel well reading and looking at the beautiful pictures.
The result of that was that I'm adding new blogs to my growing list, as you can see in the right side of my blog.

I realized know that, for some reason, I can't post a picture now. I'll try sort it later and, God willing, start to post those 3 or 4 posts about our holidays.

See you tomorow, then.

God help them

A couple very in need of our prayers.
Story here, at The Green Greek

Also here and here.

A nice surprise

I found, just now, that Irene, from Happy Turtle and The Green Greek wrote a testimonial for me at Flickr. I was so surprized and happy.
Thank you very much.
See what she wrote:

"Lavender is a kind and gentle soul, a conscious Christian and a loving mother. I very much enjoy visiting her blog home, and I am glad for the newly found Flickr page. A pleasure meeting you."

Here is her place at Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/21391073@N02/

And it's not the only testimonial I have on Flickr, my oldest daughter wrote one too. Here is her place there:http://www.flickr.com/photos/jovem_amelia/

And now my other daughter - one of them - has a Flickr account too:http://www.flickr.com/photos/41212619@N00/

See you there.

A display of beautiful things

One thing I liked in our holidays was the amount of beautiful things I had the oportunity to see: architectures,churches, landscapes, flowers, places...

See this hydrangea in the Monastery of Tibães garden. It rained some time before and we still can see the rain drops falling down the flower and leaves.

Other day, in a garden in Braga, this thisplay of yellow flowers and some other in pink. It was like a drunkeness of beauty.

And there was good things to eat also. Look at that chocolate crepe I ate in Vigo, in a cafe outside in the street, looking at the people passing by.

And this shop in Santiago de Compostela.

More food tomorow.

Our holidays

Sorry for the long absence. I shouldn't.
So I give you this rose from one garden in Braga so you are well with me again.

So, following my report on our holidays.

We were so well in the magnificent city of Braga, with a nice temperature, not hot at all, because it's a town in the Northwest. We had a day of deligtful rain as you can see in this picture. Our room was extremely well located in a corner of the hotel, so we could see in two directions. By this window we could see an abundance of the wonderful and antique Braga architecture and even the Bom Jesus in the distance.
Here we can't see it because it was raining.

After some days in Braga we went to Spain.
Here you can see Vigo by night and my husband and one of my girls.

Lovely place.

More to follow and, because it's weekend, I hope I will post some more pictures tomorow, which ones I don't know yet.
Because I'm working already I have been quite lazy posting but I will try to better now.

The Bom Jesus

Here I am. My holidays ended and I'm back to work. Not that it's a happy thing to me. I quite prefer to be outside my work than inside. But, well, if I don't work outside there's no way of entering money in my bank account so, back to work.

The days here have been quite nice, not hot at all. We had such a hot days in the begining of the summer but looks like we - let's hope - are heading for autumn, and this is good news.

The picture above is from Braga: the Bom Jesus do Monte - the Hill's Good Jesus, badly translated.
It's so full of significance and so beautiful: the stairs, the inumerous chapels, the church, all the park with its green and stong plants and trees, the lake.
One of this days I will post a picture of my people going in a boat in the lake.

Read about it here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bom_Jesus_do_Monte

Buy for now. More news tomorow, about the wonderful time we had .

Good sunday

Just a little rose for my blog friends in this sunday.
I took these pictures in a garden in Braga, Portugal.

Braga: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braga

It's such a wonderful town. History is all over the place, churches in every corner.
It exists since before Portugal and was a roman town. It's connected with the start of Christianity.