Rocking Your World 2015: Week 46

My animals are always making me smile. Arwen is growing her winter coat now which makes her look huge. She has been fed up with me lately because I actually want to use my craft room to do some craft in, and she thinks it is all hers'! But today it is reasonably tidy, so she perched on a box of envelopes so she could look out of the window.

But she hates having her photo taken and knows the little sound my camera makes when I turn it on. I spent ages calling her, trying to make her turn round and look at me. When she finally did, 'If looks could kill.....!'

As usual for the week or two following my Christmas market, this has been a quieter week, with not too much going on. We have had some beautiful days, with blue skies to lift our spirits, and as long as you are in a sheltered spot, out of any wind, it is still quite warm. So we have been able to sit outside to eat our lunch every day, and when I have had nothing more pressing to do, I have stayed out on the porch to do some of my crochet, until the shadows come creeping up on me and drive me indoors. As a result I have managed to make the first two of my squares for my 'Log cabin style' blanket. Lucy, from Attic 24, gave us the pattern for the sunny granny square centres last week, and on Sunday she gave us the stitches for all the other squares with the colour arrangement of the first two. She will give us the order of the stripes for two more squares each Sunday until the New Year. I would love to think I can keep up with her, but I know some weeks there will not be enough time. But at least I am off to a good start.

Together with next Sunday's squares these will form the centre of the blanket, with twelve more squares to go around them. I love the way the colours all mix together. Even when two touching colours would normally clash, they look right. You can see how the warmer colours are forming the outside of the centre piece, while the cooler colours are forming a cross in the middle. The two little tags of wool are colour coded telling me the number of the square and its orientation, which will make it much easier to set the blanket when all the squares are finished.

I had a happy surprise this week when the postman brought me a card from one of my 'blogland' friends. It was one of her lovely zentangle drawings. I love RAKs and half their fun is the element of surprise. We get very little mail here, and most of what we do get is bills, so a surprise card was a real lift.

Another nice surprise appeared in my e-mail inbox this week. When I write up about something I have made, especially on my other blog, I always try to give credit to the designer of a file, or the maker of the stamp I have used, and this week I used some cutting files from a new designer. A friend of hers had spotted my blog where I had mentioned her name, and told her about it, so she came to read it, and she sent me a free cutting file as a Thank You. It is for a wreath of poinsettias, and has a lot of pieces, but I shall definitely be trying it out very soon. Isn't it pretty?

A few years ago, when I was visiting in UK, I bought a black dress with an all-over pattern of poppies. It is not a style I usually wear, so it doesn't get used a lot, but I always put it on for the Remembrance Day service at church, and again on Armistice Day. I showed you the dress in my week 46 post last year. This year I decided I would like to make a crochet poppy to wear on it, so I dug out a book of crocheted flowers, bought many years ago, and sure enough there was a poppy pattern in it. It was for an oriental poppy, so it came up a bit bigger than I had intended, but I rather like it, and it got lots of appreciative comments from my friends.

I am always warmed by the generosity of folk, and I had another example of this when I received a call from a lady at the Lions club, asking me to contact another lady who lives on a nearby camp site, who holds various charity events and wants to donate some money to ASADIS. I didn't know her at all, but I phoned her and we arranged to meet in a bar in the village when she came in for the market on Tuesday. She was a bubbly, Irish lady, who was impressed because I could spell her name - Siobhan. (The only reason I knew this was because it was the name of a little girl in my nursery and I spent many months teaching her to write it before she moved on to 'big school'. Phonetics don't work with that one!!) Anyway, Siobhan is holding a carols by candlelight, to include lighting candles for people whose names are in her book of remembrance, and the proceeds will be passed on to ASADIS. So kind from someone who knew very little about the organisation, but who just wanted to help.

Yesterday, Chris suggested we should go out to lunch, and we decided to try a restaurant that was new to us, but had been highly recommended by various friends. And we were not disappointed. The room was nice and had a lovely view, and the food and service were excellent. The standard was well above many 'menu del días' that we have had. It was another lovely sunny day with a bright blue sky. We opted to eat inside in case it was windy out on the patio, but after our meal we took a drink outside and sat in the sun for a while.

Chris has started wearing a light jumper but he feels the cold more than I do. I am still in summer dresses, which is pretty good for the middle of November. But I have slipped a cardigan on when I first get up some mornings, because as usual, it is often colder indoors than it is outside.

As you can see, there was a huge terrace out at the back of the hotel, and I walked all around it taking photos of the amazing view. It is fairly flat around Vera, so you can see for a long way. This was the view at the back, and right in the distance, I could just glimpse the sea.

Over to the side I could see the Cabrera mountains that are clearly seen from our front gate, and they slope gently down to Mojacar.

The campo is fairly green after all the rain, but as the sun was going down it cast a lovely pearly glow over the hills, and showed up the rusty brown that is still there in between all the new growth.

Ad that just leaves me with a couple of sunset photos taken at around 6 o'clock tonight. I took this one because I thought it looked like a giant hand reaching out of the clouds. It wasn't until I put it on the computer, that I saw the birds flying across to find their resting place for the night.

The shape shifters were around up there, and my hand soon became a big pair of pincers, or maybe a dolphin playing in the waves. I think I preferred the hand!

Right, I'm off to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles now, and Rocking my world at Celtic House. Do join me and share some positivity from others that link there.