Rocking Your World 2015: Week 32

Well I guess week thirty-two of this year will go down as one of the most uneventful weeks since I came out here! The main reason is this continuous heat which makes the idea of doing anything, seem like one too many mountains to climb. Of course if I had something that I needed to do, or an event I committed to a while ago, then I would find the energy to do it, but right now I have no commitments so I am making the most of some time to relax, and being very grateful for that.

I have to say that this week has been reminiscent of my holiday in Thailand, because it is so very humid, but I much prefer the usual dry heat we have in Spain.

This week although there have been periods of sunshine, most days have been partially overcast, and several times I have looked forward to a refreshing storm, only for it to rumble around the mountains in the distance, but never quite reach us.

According to a local weather station this was the hottest July since they started keeping records thirty years ago, and especially the hottest nights.

So I am truly grateful that I am able to sleep at night despite the heat. Many of our friends struggle with it, but as long as I cool the bedroom down for half an hour before bedtime, and have a late night dip in the pool, then, as long as I drop off to sleep quickly, I usually sleep right through until the morning.

Once again I have done a lot of reading. I am right into a trilogy about a family of Irish immigrants living in post-war Liverpool, and I love following all their lives through the years. I am just coming to the end of the second book and I know I will go straight into book three. I just have to make sure I have done any urgent chores before I pick it up each day, because once I start reading, nothing else gets done. I spotted a little poem about this on the internet this week, and it certainly struck a chord with me, and I daresay you can relate to it too.

But I haven´t only been reading. I have started to sort through all the new craft stash that I have accumulated, I made a birthday card for later this month, and today I made two Christmas cards. How bizarre is that when it is the middle of a heat-wave?!

I also made some of my now-famous piccalilli. Thanks to my blogland friend Di who provided the original recipe, though I have ´doctored´ it a bit. My kitchen faces west, so by the afternoon, the sun is streaming in, and even with the blinds down and the shutters closed, it is too hot in there to consider cooking. So we have our main meal at lunch-time, and I knew I would need to get up early one morning to boil up the pickle. We don´t actually eat a lot of pickles ourselves, especially not piccalilli, but it has proved one of my best sellers, second only to bitter orange marmalade, and several people had ordered it in advance, so I thought I should really make the effort, and get it done. The vegetables need to be prepared the night before, and sprinkled with salt until the next day, so on Tuesday evening I loaded up a tray with knives, cutting mats, bowls, and a damp cloth for sticky fingers, plus a bag of veggies and one for the rubbish, and I took myself out into the fly-free porch. I had my swimsuit on so I could dip in  and out of the pool every time I needed a break, and a glass of tinto verano for refreshment, and so around midnight, my piccalilli was prepared. The next morning it was soon rinsed and cooked, and bottled up and quite a lot of it has sold already.

I had to smile as the dogs prowled around me hoping I´d drop a little morsel for them, but when I only dropped some raw onion, they went away in disgust!

I thought I had lost my beautiful friend Tango this

week. He is nearly always somewhere around the house, or on a bench just outside, and he always comes in at night, but one evening he failed to come when I called him in for his supper. I kept trying, but in the end I had to go to bed, confident that he would be there next morning, but he wasn´t. Altogether he was missing for thirty-six hours, then suddenly he just turned up again, and I was so happy to see him. He is so laid back, and has such a gentle nature, and I would be so very sad to lose him.

One other thing to be very grateful for this week was a trip to the doctor for the results of my annual blood test. She was very pleased with me and said my blood-sugar control was much better than last year, so I can stay on just half a tablet twice a day, and I am off the statins altogether which I am very happy about. My aim is to get completely off the diabetic tablets too, but little steps....

I am afraid I don´t even have a pretty sky for you this week. Overcast skies each day don´t lend themselves to lovely sunsets.

So that is it from me this week. Do join in with your happy pictures/events, at Annie´s Friday Smiles, or pop over to Virginia´s blog and tell us what you are grateful for this week. Share the love!