Rocking Your World 2014; Week 6.

Here I am at last, somewhat later than usual. We were up with the larks this morning as hubby had another appointment at the hospital to check his eyes following his cataract operation. They were very pleased with it so he hasn't got to go back again. They were also very efficient and we were back home by 10.30. I had expected to be away all morning. 

So I made the most of the extra time by stripping the bed and getting the sheets washed and out on the line. I put about five pegs in each one as earlier this week my washing had blown all down the path in the wind, but today it stayed on the line and it was dry and back on the bed in little over an hour.(Mum would turn in her grave if she saw me putting sheets on the bed straight from the line, without airing them!). I also did some baking, and this afternoon I added another twenty plus jars of marmalade to the store.

Here is a photo of Kim from when I took him for  a

long walk earlier in the week. He hates that muzzle/halter, but because of his size he is supposed to be muzzled when we take him out, and it does give me much more control over him. Usually he fights it all the way, trying to pull it off, but this time, after a few minutes he forgot all about it and just enjoyed the walk. The patient look on his face is because I've made him stop again while I take some photos! He is so big and strong now that I hesitate to take him out on my own, but he was so good that day that it was a real pleasure to be with him.

We walked across the main road from the village to an urbanisation called Huerta Nuevo. The views are lovely over there.   To the right is this lovely range of mountains called the Cabreras.          

Over to the left of these you can just get a glimpse of the sea, down at Mojacar Player.   It is a ten to fifteen minute drive from us, and we are too low to see it from our house.   

As Kim was behaving so well I decided to risk walking him around the little lake in the centre of the urbanisation. It was a part of the original plans but it was never properly developed, so the residents have taken it upon themselves to look after it. They have landscaped around it a bit and, last year they got permission to buy a few ducks and geese. I half expected them to have gone, but they are still there, and very tame.  

They swam straight over to us and obviously are used

to being well fed. They weren't at all put off by the dog and he wasn't very interested in them, though he soon backed off when the geese waddled over to the fence. They are really big now, and in beautiful condition.   

Another afternoon I sat out on the back porch enjoying an afternoon cuppa in the sun, and I heard a loud buzzing as something whizzed passed my ear. I soon spotted a big carpenter bee, and then I saw two more up high on the netting.    It is very early for them, so the warm weather must have brought them out of their burrows. I didn't want the dogs to start chasing them, although the male bees don't sting, and though the females can, it is very unusual for them to do so, but I wasn't taking any chances.   So armed with a big glass and cork-backed place mat, I climbed on a step stall and coaxed the first one down. It turned out it wasn't really warm enough for them, and they were quite dozy, but I set him over the other side of the yard in the sun, and eventually he flew away. I then did the same with the second one. They are really very beautiful, with a deep blue iridescent sheen on their abdomen and wings. I think these were very young as they were almost brown, instead of the shiny black that I have seen in the summer.

The third one continued to fly around but Chris used the pool net to encourage it to settle, and I caught him in my glass too. But having been caught he was very reluctant to fly away again outside, so in the end I pushed him onto a flowering tree where he immediately attacked the nectar at the base of the flowers. They can be a bit destructive, burrowing holes into wooden structures to lay their eggs, but we have little wood around our house so we are not too concerned about that, and they are very important pollinators.

One flower that needs their help right now is the almond blossom, which, as I predicted when I showed my early blossoming tree a few weeks back, is now frothing with pink and white flowers everywhere you look. Isn't it pretty?  

Well that is most of my news for this week. I have had some nice long phone chats with my sons, organising our time when we come to UK in May. Our middle son, Tom, announced that he is moving out to Denmark permanently, probably in April.   His company merged with a Danish company last year and he has been commuting most weeks, so it makes sense to live there for a bit. We were expecting it, but it will seem strange not to have him at our family get-togethers. He can still fly out to see us of course, and I'm sure he will. 

I'll leave you will another sky photo. Yes another one. Sorry! But I do love them and this was so pretty. The clouds are well and truly broken up. It has been so windy here.

Now I shall link this up with Virginia at Celtic House, and with Annie's Friday Smiles. There is no particular smile this week, but my whole life out here makes me smile (most of the time anyway). I hope you are all keeping safe in the wind and rain over in UK. We watch it each night on TV, so we really appreciate how lucky we are to be here.