Rocking Your World 2015; Week 17

Those of you who are regular users of Facebook, (I am because it offers the best way for me to keep up with what all my family are doing), will know that they have introduced a feature whereby they will randomly repost whatever you happened to have posted two years ago. 

I don´t know why they do it, and it can be annoying, but this week it made me smile because they reposted my picture from 20th April, 2013. I had attached the caption, "After 34 years I have finally discovered that I married an Irish Piskie!" Yes it was our wedding anniversary, and Chris was patiently waiting for me to finish a meeting with some lady friends, so he made himself comfortable with a glass of wine, and spying him, I took this photo. (I wish I could sit cross-legged like that!). Then I played around in photoshop and added the pixie hat before posting it on Facebook. We both have some Irish blood, but Chris has more than me, and I thought he might be amused to find himself posing as a ´piskie´.

It just so happens that Virginia, who´s blog I link this to each week, also celebrated her wedding anniversary this week, and she posted her wedding photo, so I thought I should post mine too, so here we are, thirty six years ago. 

Chris´dark frames glasses - the Buddy Holly look? - are right back in fashion now. And my word, I had some hair in those days didn´t I? I remember my friend spent all morning getting a bit of curl into the ends. It was too heavy to stay there for long, but it lasted for the afternoon.

Of course it was my second marriage so it was in a registry office, and the two little fellows at the front are my two sons from my first marriage. They had no contact with their own dad, and Chris did a wonderful job of treating them just the same as the three boys we later had, and the fact that they were anything other than his sons was never mentioned. It wasn´t until we had been married for fourteen years, when I sent the boys to bed and told them to be good boys because I was cooking a special anniversary meal for me and daddy, that one of them asked what anniversary it was. So I said it was our fourteenth, and you could almost see them working it out, and then one said "Did you have Jim and Michael before you were married then?" We had to laugh over it, because that photo had sat on our television all their lives, and they had never once thought to ask why their big brothers were there when we got married! But I´m glad to say, that finally knowing the facts, in no way changed the relationship between them, and they are all great friends together still.

It was a very simple wedding, as we already had a family, and very little money to spare, so after the ceremony we had a very happy get-together of friends and family at home, and that night, Chris´mum took the boys away and we went up to London and saw the musical Tommy on the stage, which is the main reason we called our first son Thomas, and we called him Tommy when he was little. 

One other funny little story attached to that time was provided by my younger son Michael who was nearly six at the time, and in the reception class of the local school. On the last day of the Spring term he had written in his news book "Mummy and Chris are getting married." He obviously wasn´t very impressed with the registry office ceremony because, on the first day of the Summer term, he wrote in his book, "Mummy and Daddy got married. It only lasted five minutes"! Well I´m glad to say it has lasted rather longer then five minutes, so I hope you have smiled along with me as I had a little time of reminiscing.

So on to what has rocked my world this week. We actually have never made a fuss about our anniversaries, and some passed almost unnoticed as we had a young family around, and Chris commuted to London every day so he was home late and tired, but maybe we will push the boat out in another four years when it is the ruby one. But this year it just so happened that we were invited out to lunch with a big group of friends, and although that was on Sunday, one day early, we made it our celebration for this year.

We went to a place called El Castillo, which is a bit off the main road and up on top of a hill so there are lovely views of the surrounding countryside. It is quite a big place with seating for a good crowd, and Sunday is probably their busiest day, but they coped well. There is a lovely patio at the front where you can sit and enjoy the sunshine and the view while you have a drink. (This photo is taken from their own website). But on Sunday it was lovely and sunny but rather windy so we went straight inside to our table that was in the conservatory area.

We were a group of sixteen and the restaurant had laid up a big long table for us. We all ordered something different but we were all more or less served together and there was much banter and laughter, and of course, the consuming of wine. I nearly forgot to take the obligatory photo, but just in time I got this one.

We got home in time to have a late siesta, and then we went down to our local for a night-cap. It turned out to be someone´s birthday. They had had a big dinner party too, and then they had a singer and they invited us to stay and listen to him. It was Jake, our favourite of the local entertainers so we stayed longer than intended, and enjoyed listening to him.

I had a lovely surprise too, because we were sitting with our friends while Jake was playing and Tony disappeared for few minutes. When he returned he presented me with a big bunch of lilies. It was a ´Thank you´ for taking his wife to the hospital last week, and translating for her. It was so unexpected, and really took me by surprise. 

When I got home, I took them out to my outside sink to cut them down a bit, because they had very long stems, and arranged them in my largest vase. They looked lovely, even in bud.

But when I came to move them I realised that they were top-heavy and likely to overturn. I had another think, and suddenly remembered my collection of jugs that live on the dresser in the dining room. I fetched the largest one which has a fat base so it held plenty of water and was heavy enough to be stable. They looked very comfortable in that and during the week they have gradually opened, and now look even more beautiful. And there are still enough in bud for them to last for a second week too.

I suggested that Tony´s wife, Eileen might like to come to the new choir I am in, as she is a great singer, so she has been twice now. She came round on Tuesday and I was able to download all the music for her, and print it off, as she does not have a printer. We are all enjoying the new style of the choir, and are even managing to sing a couple of songs without our books - something we never did achieve in Cantante. It is still a bit scary at times. We are a small group so there is nowhere to hide, and we have to make sure we practise at home to keep up with everyone else. Dave has provided us with very good practice files on the computer, to sing along to, which helps a lot.

I have been fitting in a bit of sewing/knitting/crochet this week, depending which mood I am in. It is all for my Africa project.  Several folk at the Wednesday craft group find that they keep making mistakes in their knitting because they are busy chatting to everyone - which is what it is all about really - so they sit and knit squares for me as they don´t need too much concentration. As a result, I come home most weeks with three or four squares to add to my collection. All of a sudden I found I had a whole crate of them in the garage and I thought it was about time I stitched some together. Although we aim to make them all six inches square, they do come to me in assorted sizes, so I picked out 36 that looked around the same size and stitched them together. Then I found some dark green wool and crocheted round the edge. It doesn´t seem to matter what colour they are, and many of them are two or three colours as people use up all their odds and ends of wool, but they always make up into a lovely bright blanket that will be highly prized by an African mum.

I must try to get some more of them put together soon, before I make up my next consignment for transporting to UK. One of my friends had her sister over on holiday for a couple of weeks and she wanted something to do while she was here, so she took 72 squares away and the day before she went home, she gave me two more blankets all stitched up. I just have to go round them with a crocheted border which doesn´t take me long to do. Wasn´t that kind of her?

I have also just finished the main body of the blanket I have been making myself. A few weeks ago I showed

a parcel of wool that had just arrived. I had a pattern for a crocheted blanket that was made all in one piece, and I thought this variegated wool would be just the thing to introduce plenty of colour, without me having loads of ends to sew in when it was finished. I still have a few ends of course, but the blanket only took about three and a half balls so there are not too many of them. I ordered ten balls, so now I will have to think of other things to make with the rest. This is the finished blanket and I am really pleased with the way it turned out.

I bought the ball of dark blue wool when I was out shopping this morning. I thought it was a good colour to go around the edge with to finish it off. 

As you can probably see, this was started in one corner and worked diagonally until the side measured one metre, and then decreased back in until I reached the far corner. I was pleased with how square it stayed. The last time I worked a small diagonal square, it turned out a very odd shape! For anyone interested, this was worked in small blocks of three chain and three trebles, with one extra block being added, or taken away, on each row. I have added a small close-up so those of you who crochet, can probably see what I mean.

I have been so busy finishing this off that I haven´t had much time to play with my newest craft bits, nor to do any more to my scrapbook, but maybe next week...

Last week someone commented that there were no sunsets again. This is because there has been very little sun, and the days it has come out to play, it has clouded over before sunset time. Today it has been lovely and warm, and quite sunny all day, but I have just been out to feed the dogs and it is really misty now. The lovely hills below the village are completely hidden. You wouldn´t know they were there. So there is no sunset again today. However, when  I came out from choir practice on Wednesday there were some streaks of colour in the sky. Of course I didn´t have my camera with me, so I had to use my phone, and I am not all that pleased with the picture, but as it is the best I have managed for weeks now, I will post it to end with for this week.

Now I will link up with Virginia at Celtic House, and Annie at A Stitch in Time, and then I will have to think about feeding us.