Rocking Your World 2020: Week 7

Don't these Fridays come around kind of fast?! So here we are again. I hope you have all had things this week that have made you smile and feel grateful for life.  Even though it has been one of those 'ordinary' weeks again, I still have plenty to be grateful for.

My first smile was an unexpected one when, on Saturday afternoon, we heard very loud music in our street. We opened the front door to investigate and found a small procession of folk, mainly parents with children, but some of us oldies as well, all following a troupe of street entertainers. Street entertainment is much loved in the local villages, and we see it happening whenever there is an event on. This weekend it was 1º Jornada Comercial do Invierno 2020, which basically means the first commercial day of Winter 2020. These days happen about four times a year with the purpose of promoting local shops and businesses. For the first ones, local shops put up market stalls on the plaza, but more recently they have involved the shops who are interested in joining it, signing up at the Town Hall. On the day they have a white balloon flying by their door and we can get a sketch map of where they are. You are invited to visit some or all of them, and if you make a purchase you are given a raffle ticket. The draw takes place the following week. Prizes have been things like a weekend break for two, and at Christmas it was a large TV. The afternoon of the event, there is now always some form of street entertainers who visit each shop in turn, led there by the village band. They stop to do their 'show' outside the shop, often encouraging the shop owners to join in. It is all good fun and good for trade too. 

We have a small shoe shop in a house at the bottom of our road, hence the parade passing our house. It was just getting dark by the time they came by us, but I followed them anyway and found their leader was this man in his snazzy pink jacket, driving  a sort of motorised truck, pulling a cart with huge, very loud speakers blaring out their music.

In front of the shop there were four young men on very high stilts, who danced and juggled with boxes of childrens shoes from the shop. 

I have to say I admired their agility on the stilts. They danced and pirouetted on one while waving the other in the air, and seemed to have no trouble staying upright.

After their little performance, they took a bow and moved on to the next shop.

I do enjoy these little quirky things that happen from time to time. I feel they would not be as appreciated in modern Britain, and of course, we do have the advantage of far less traffic, so it is not a problem to perform in the street.

I have been continuing to work on my blanket but I hit a wall early in the week with a section of the pattern that I just couldn't get right. I had completed my circular part and it was time to add four corners to turn it into a square. I counted the stitches and made sure I started in the right place, but when I had finished I still had three or four stitches left at one end and around ten the other end. So I pulled it all out and tried again. After my third failed attempt I was ready to bin it, but I would not be defeated. So I got pencil and paper and made a chart of exactly which stitches I should be working into for each row. I was so grateful that Amazon sent me these little colourful pin-style stitch holders so quickly. I used them in pairs to pin each stitch that I needed along the edge, and voila!, my first corner was complete. I have now done the second one and the third one is pinned up ready to go. Hopefully by next week they will all be done and I'll be able to move on to the bottom panel, which should plain sailing after this.

While driving home last week end I was caught in a heavy shower, and when I switched on the wiper blades, the one on the driver side fell off! Again Amazon came to our rescue and two days later we had the correct ones for our car model and Chris was able to fit them. They actually work better and more smoothly than any I have had before, which I suspect were locally sourced and not quite right for our car. My only complaint  is that one pair of wipers arrived in a  box that was over a metre long, and about 8cm square! They rattled around inside despite a load of crumpled paper padding. Amazon have a way to go to sort out their packaging.

Although some days have been a little overcast this week, it has been warmer and there is a definite feel of Spring in the air. Everywhere I go I see the campo coming to life with wild flowers. One of my favourites that is starting to flower now is the wild chrysanthemum. It makes patches of bright yellow in every field, along the road side and wherever it can find a space. It actually makes a good cut flower too.

The little flowers all around them are also very pretty though the hairs on their leaves can be an irritant. It opens out as a pink flower and gradually changes to violet and then deep blue, and it is common to see all three colours on a plant at the same time.

Another smile is this pot of tulips. I spotted them when I was out shopping and bought a bunch. I doubt they are Spanish. I have tried several times to grow them but conditions are not right for them here. But maybe there are nurseries that can control temperature and water for them. I don't know, but I shall enjoy these for a few days anyway.

I came home from shopping today to find Chris clearing the little square of garden at the front of the house, and that makes me really happy.  It had got very overgrown, but my hands are not able to manage the loppers any more; even secateurs are a struggle, so I was glad he has had a go at it. It is our only piece of plantable land, and there is little space left in it, even when all the weeds etc are taken down. Along one edge is a wall covered in our lovely pink jasmine which is already in bud, so that couldn't be cut back much, but it does catch onto my Bird of Paradise tree and smother it a bit. The whole area had also been invaded by a lantana plant. It is very pretty when in flower, but its berries are poisonous for the animals, and it is a very strong grower, so it needed to be cut right down.

And around the edge we have half a dozen roses which did not do so well this year as they did not get enough light or water, but they have now been pruned back hard, and I am sure they will do better again this year. We left one tall stem because it has this beautiful flower at the top.

We couldn't bear to cut that off so we will let it have its moment of glory, and then cut it down to match the others.

I have promised to help Chris collect up all the rubbish and bag it up after lunch, so we can put it in the bin. There is rather a lot of it!

And that's about it for this week, so I shall link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles, and then, before I go, I shall add one more success story.

I am sure we all like a success story. Well, some of you may remember that around nine years ago I started a group to knit tiny jumpers and beanie hats for what were known as 'Fish and Chip babies'. Family member, and friends from my church and sewing group, all contributed yarn or knitted garment. When this charity folded and I was desperately trying to find an outlet for my remaining stash of knitting, I was finally introduced to Brian and Barbara Hatton who started a charity called Greenfields Africa. For several years we continued to knit for them sending sack after sack of clothes and blankets to their warehouse in UK. More recently the cost of shipping these items to Kenya became untenable and we had to stop, but the charity continued to work with the people of the Kakamega rain-forest area of Kenya, building up the hospital they had founded, using local workers and resouces to make sanitary protection for girls so they could attend school, setting up workshops and providing reconditioned tools to teach local young people useful trades, and their most important work of treating children affected by Jiggers, (the larva of sand flies that burrow into hands and feet causing pain, deformity and sometimes amputation). This year, Brian and Barbara, who are both well into their eighties, have decided that it is time to stop. They have spent the passed couple of years making sure each of their projects are self-sustaining, and they have now achieved this.

Because I have continued to support them after the knitting project ended, they sent me a copy of their final report which was so uplifting - a real success story. My church have also supported them over the years so I prepared a copy of the report for their notice boards and added this page of photos highlighting some of their achievements, so I thought I would share it here. This is mainly for my family who have helped me over time, but I hope you all are happy to see what a wonderful legacy these two lovely people are leaving.