Rocking Your World 2020: Week 13

Note item number 8. That is the purpose of these weekly posts. We are looking for the good things that have happened this week. I am sure for some of you that is not easy right now, but even in these sad days there is always something, and that is what we need to focus on.

My big smile this week was when we heard our postman shouting from the gate to come out and collect a parcel. He left two grey squishy bags on my gatepost, and they were my order from Wool Warehouse in UK. I had got my order in just in time before they decided they could not accept any more orders from outside UK. I knew it had been dispatched but I wasn't sure how long it would take to arrive. In the end it was nine days, just two more than usual. One bag contained enough dark blue wool to finish my current project, and the other was lots of smaller balls of lovely coloured cotton yarn for my next project, so I am well set up to be locked down for a while yet.

I am very grateful for this as it is still not the weather we would like, so sitting outside is not an option right now, and evenings in front of the TV pass slowly for me unless I have something to occupy my hands. We do often get the odd day of rain in March but it is really unusual for it to go on for so long. This is our second week of grey skies, on and off rain, and much colder temperatures, and it is not set to change much in the coming week. We are back to where we were in the winter, with the fire on, lap blankets wrapped around our legs, and all the animals choosing to curl up inside with us. Here is everyone trying to keep snug. I am there next to Chris of course (sorry the stem of my crocheting lamp was in the way), but for once Tango joined Paco and Luna on the second settee instead of my lap.

It hasn't been all bad, and some days the sun has managed to break through for an hour or two, so yesterday I was pleased to get a load of washing dry outside, with only one T-shirt getting blown away. I managed to rescue it without it getting grubby again.

I also took the opportunity to walk around the front garden. The day before we had had heavy rain continuously all day and I wanted to check that everything had survived.

Some plants really enjoyed the water and I was amazed to see the 'potato tree', that has struggled to thrive in a pot by our front door, had suddenly become covered in its lovely purple flowers. I have never seen it looking so good. Both my hydrangeas are looking really good. They are water loving plants so they were enjoying a good soak. I love the yellow gerbera. It is a little common daisy that self seeded in one of my pots, and every year it shines out for me. The pink Kalanchoe is one that I had discarded because I thought it had died, but it has suddenly come to life again with abundant flowers. The top layer has some rain damage but the rest is fine. And finally, I am intrigues by two little seedlings that have appeared. I have no idea what they are, but I shall enjoy watching them grow.

I am trying to keep some variety in my days, so in the afternoons I come to my craft room. Sometimes I just spend the time trawling through the internet, and there are some very interesting things when you have time to search. Other days I make cards, mainly Christmas ones, as I don't think I'll be posting many birthday ones for a while. One day this week I used my cutting machine to make a piece of wall art. It is a mandala made from seven layers of coloured card. It was a bit frustrating until I found the best settings for my machine to cut the various thicknesses of card cleanly, but I am pleased with how it turned out. I made it to fit into an 8" shadow box frame that I knew I had hidden away in one of my cupboards. One day I'd like to make a bigger version. I can cut up to 12" square with my machine. But that will have to wait until I can send away for a larger frame.

It has been lovely to have lots of video calls with my boys this week. They have been taking it in turns to check up on us. They have also set up a family group on WhatsApp as not all of them use Facebook or Messenger, so on there we can all chat together. It is good that we are all looking out for each other.

One day, after a very damp morning, the clouds started to break up. the higher, dark clouds cleared, leaving thinner white ones really low so the Cabrera mountains showed above them. But in the opposite direction, the setting sun was fighting to shine through more dark clouds, and sure enough, the next day dawned wet again. But they still made for a lovely, dramatic sky.

Now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles. Virginia hasn't posted yet this week, so I hope she is well. If she posts later I will link up with her as well.

Now I'll leave you with a little picture that is not connected with the virus, and it made me smile. I hope you are managing to keep smiling too.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 12

I guess this has been a difficult week for most people, but that doesn't stop us finding things to smile about. Like Annie, I have seen countless humorous Facebook posts about corona-virus; some have made me smile more than others, but here is one that did raise a chuckle.

But there have been other happy moments too. First I did manage to finish my Rozeta afghan, so here it is.

The designer, Lilla Björn, took her idea from a rose window in a church. Mine is far from perfect. I made some careless mistakes with the tension so the border is a bit wavy, but I love it anyway. Since taking this photo I have washed and blocked it, so it is in better shape now, but it is too dark to take a better photo today.

Fortunately I have other projects I can be working on while we are all confined to our houses, but the one I would like to finish next is at a standstill because I have run out of the main colour wool. I have ordered more and it was dispatched from UK on Monday, so just maybe, it will arrive next week. Here's hoping...

And I have also been busy down in my craft room in the afternoons. As well as colouring a set of digi images ready to make some Christmas cards, I also used my Silhouette Cameo cutting machine to make this cute little 'Pot of gold' for my husband Chris on St Patrick's Day. I had trouble finding any sweets in plain gold wrappers, so I used a little gold organza bag to hold some Smarties, (one of Chris' favourites) and covered them over with some butter mints. It provided a light moment on Tuesday morning.

It is a great shame that just as we went into complete lockdown six days ago, the weather took a turn for the worse and we have had grey skies and light showers every day so we have not been able to sit on the porch and enjoy the sun. It is set to stay the same until at least next Wednesday, and temperatures have dropped significantly too. But there have been a few sunny break-through moments so I had a wander around the garden. I call this photo "Where there's life there's hope. A week or two ago, Chris cut down our big bougainvillea that covers the fence between our back door and next-door's garden. It is old and knotted and he managed to cut it right back to the main trunk. But this week I spotted signs of new growth. Isn't nature wonderful!

Just around the corner the back railings has our other bougainvillea plant which I just love. It was a failing baby stem when we bought it for a song, some years ago. It is now well established but does not yet need such a ruthless pruning. Right now it is covered in flowers and I just love it.

Of course, this is not really their flowers, just colourful bracts that protect and help to spread the seeds when the flowers are done. The actual flowers are like tiny white stars, popping up between the bracts and they are a delight to see.

The back patio is narrow but there is just room for a couple of benches along the wall, and it is a really warm spot when the main yard is in shade. We had a roll of old garden wire under one bench but it kept blowing away so we moved it up on to the seat and Paco has decided it is a good place to lay. It looks most uncomfortable to me, but he likes it.

Today it is decidedly chilly and even the animals are feeling it. It is not often Paco and Luna curl up together like this, but that how they stayed all evening yesterday.

Normally they would be out for most of the day, but they are back on the settee together again today.

And over on the other side of the room, the dogs are curled together on the other settee.  They know they are allowed on that one, but Kim manages to screw up the protective cover every day! They don't like the camera and looked away as soon as I tried to get a photo!

Of course Tango was in with us as well,but he always climbs onto my lap if I sit down and then he is too close to get a photo.

I am old fashioned enough to prefer loose tea leaves to a tea-bag and I have a lovely glass infuser pot to brew it in. Unfortunately I cannot buy loose tea out here at any sensible price so we order it online through Amazon, and it comes from Ireland. I am diabetic so I don't drink any sodas, and strictly limit fruit juice or squash, and I don't even like wine or beer! Hence tea is a very important part of my daily fluid intake. We had a couple of packs left from our last order but I asked Chris to order some more (it comes in a bundle of four bags), in case deliveries of all but essentials stops. He ordered it on Wednesday afternoon and it has just arrived! Well done Amazon. Now that's something I am really grateful for.

We had a notice on Tuesday to say our post office service in the village is dropping to one hour on two days a week. I had made some Easter cards for family in UK so I decided to go up and post them straight away while I still could. The post office is only a few hundred meters up  the road from our house, so I felt OK about walking up there, but on the way home I was stopped by a patrolling police car. I was able to show them my receipt from the post office and they just told me to hurry straight home. It seems a bit draconian, especially compared with the measures being taken so far in UK, but it does instill a feeling of confidence that everything possible is being done to stop the spread of the virus. We all know where we stand, and everyone is really doing their best to abide by the new rulings.

I don't know whether our mail delivery is down to twice a week too, but I did get a letter this mornig which was a lovely surprise. We rarely get anything in our box except bills! Without thinking I opened it straight away and it was a Mothering Sunday card from my eldest son and his wife. (Truth to tell all the days are pretty much the same right now and I had forgotten that this Sunday was a special one, or I might have saved it until then). As you may remember, son number one is a vicar and as such he has a 'second family' making demands on his time so I am aware that although I always get a card from them on birthdays and other special days, it has usually been chosen by my daughter-in-law Jo, though she does make sure he signs it and sometimes makes him responsible for posting it, so I am not surprised if it arrives a few days late! This was a lovely card with a beautiful, colourful owl on it, but there was also a second card and inside Jo had written, I saw this and immediately thought of you, so I just had to send it as well. This was what was on the front.

The owl was lovely, but this is the one that made me 'hoot'. It is spot on. So Thanks to Jo for the smile of the week.

So here we are, day six of lockdown, and as you can see, there are still plenty of things to make us smile.

So I will go over to Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World to link this post up. Keep smiling everyone and stay safe.

Week 11

Well the world is getting a bit worrying now with the coronavirus pandemic, but at least we can still find some things to smile about. I saw this on Facebook today and I had to smile. Anyone from my generation who remembers the Corona man doing the rounds each week, will also be smiling I'm sure.

I have very little news this week as Spain seems to now be affected more than UK by the virus. Not all areas have reacted quickly but Andalucía are taking it very seriously and are proactive in trying to slow down its progress. With immediate effect in some places, and from Monday in others, all schools and colleges are closed, all municipal venues are closed and there are no street markets etc. Every few minutes today, the local news station has posted cancellation of another concert, or class. We have no church services, no choir practices, and only Farmacías and food shops will be open. So next week will be even quieter.

On the positive side, I have done my main shop for the month and managed to top up with a few extras yesterday, so food will not be a problem. Chris has new inhalers for his CPOD and I have a full month's prescription for my diabetes etc, so we will keep ourselves to ourselves quite happily for now. I was quite surprised at how busy the shops were. I guess I hadn't realised how much the 'panic' is taking hold. I am really quite perplexed by the rush on toilet rolls. Surely there are other things available if necessary. Here nearly every bathroom has a bidet so it is not a problem, but the shelf was still empty in the shops. The strange thing is that apart from hand-sanitizer, which I can understand up to a point, there didn't seem to be a rush on anything else. I am sure there are lots of things I would worry about more than toilet paper, but as I say, I think we have enough of most things to see us through, so I hope I will not have to go to the supermarket again for a while.

Think of all the paper-crafting and crochet I will be able to do, and maybe even sort a few jobs around the house too!

I am hoping I might have my blanket finished to show you next week. I am working on the border now.

A few weeks ago I showed some new alcohol pens I had ordered online, which I am quite pleased with but they didn't quite fill the gaps in my colour range I was hoping for. So I searched again and found the site in UK that sells individual copic markers, so when my new pension came in I ordered a few more. I had to smile when they arrived. This was my package.

One, extremely well taped up, very full, padded envelope.

Inside, the pens were neatly packed in threes, in small boxes which exactly fitted in the envelop. I bet if they had come from Amazon they would at least have been in a shoe-box size parcel with loads of plastic balloon padding to stop them moving!

I am delighted with the pens and my colour range is now complete. Although most of my pens are copic ciao markers, I also have some from four different makes, so finding a colour match can be a challenge. So I spent most of yesterday and today, starting with my copic colour chart and inserting any others where they fitted best, then printing out the new chart and adding all the colour samples. It will now be much easier to select the pens I want, and I can't explain it, but I get an enormous amount of satisfaction from having done this!

I belong to a Facebook group called Wild-life in Southern Spain, where people post photos of all sorts of bugs, animals and plants  for other members to identify, and this week someone posted this picture.

From those who responded I learned that they are Barbary beetles, quite common here, and they eat flowers, and more specifically pollen, so it is advisable to keep them off the citrus blossom just appearing now. One person said they love arum lilies and as my plant has just had its first flower, I went out to have a look, and sure enough there was not just one, but six of the little critters feasting on its stamen. They flew off when I tried to get a closer look. I hope they are not doing any lasting damage.

Now I am linking up with Anne's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and hopefully I will be back next week. Stay safe everyone.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 10

The weeks seem to be rolling by at an alarming speed, so here we are at Friday again, and time to post our happy moments.

After I wrote my post last week, Chris and I went over to the marquee on the village car park because it was time for the celebration of Día de Andalucía. When we arrived everything was set up ready to go. The roof of the tent was swathed in bunting of the Andalucian flag, and the trestle tables were laden with cold meats, bread and cheese, all protected by paper tablecloths until after the show.

You can just spot some crates at intervals under the tables. These contain broad beans which are eaten raw, a great favourite in this locality, and much nicer than I had expected them to be.

Soon the choir had organised themselves and they treated us to some exuberant singing along with castanets, clapping and guitars.

The first dance group to perform were the fusion dancers, and you could see these young girls really loved their sequined costumes.

After these, the two local flamenco dance groups did their acts, but Friday is a very busy day for me, so we did not stay to see them all.

We know Spring is really here now because our whole house is filled with the scent of jasmine. Our front wall is again smothered in bloom, with not room to put a pin between the flowers, and their heady scent can be noticed half way down the street.

We often sit by open window and hear passers by commenting on it. And the flowers are so pretty too. They start as tight dark pink buds, but the flowers fade almost to white. It is an annual treat.

Another flower that is everywhere right now is the oxalis. It covers fields and road-sides, and carries masses of flowers. It is quite a harsh 'acid' yellow, which is not my favourite shade, but it flowers on delicate stems and bobs around in the breeze, and certainly brings some colour on a grey day. I must admit I prefer the pale pink oxalis we used to grow on our rockery in UK.

In my current bid to walk a bit more, on Sunday I decided to walk across the road to the urbanisation called Huerta Nueva (New Orchard?), where there is an ornamental lake. It is not very big but it is quite a novelty around here, and the Spanish people like to walk there to see the ducks and geese introduced by the local residents. They seem to thrive there, and I was pleased to see quite a few resting on the shore line. I think they may have inter-bred a bit as their colours are patchy.

They are very used to spectators and don't hide, but neither do they rush up for food. They are fed properly by the residents so visitors are discouraged from throwing bread etc, which they don't need. They all seem to get on together too.

I spotted this one, resting in a tiny patch of shade, and took its photo because it had such gorgeous colours in its feathers.

The lake itself is fenced all round, but people have tried to keep the area outside it as tidy as possible, and have planted some areas with cacti. These aloe-vera plants were full of fat buds, I must go over again soon and see them when they are in flower.

This one really made me smile. It looks like a cartoon duck. I guess the 'beak' is also a flower for a short while anyway. Cacti are such interesting plants and they come in a wide range of shapes. Their flowers are usually quite showy, but often only last for a day.  On my walk back home I passed a small area of campo or common land, and sitting under a tree was this old goat herd, with his loyal dog. He lives nearby and is always happy to pass the time of day with you.

In front of him, his herd of mixed goats were happily cropping the weeds and scrub, and it was such a peaceful scene. Looking at this, you could imagine you were in the English countryside, on a summer day.

Another thing that really made me happy this week was when I spotted a bird in a tree next door. When we first came here I read about some of the birds and flowers that are found here, and the two birds that really took my fancy were the bee-eaters and the hoopoe, and I was determined to see them both. Well a few years ago I found a nesting place for the bee-eaters and managed to get several photos of them, but in the eleven years we have been here, I have never seen a hoopoe. I knew my friends further inland have them in their garden in the early morning, but I think our village is a little busier than they like. However, when I was giving the dogs their breakfast this week, I saw a bird fly onto a tree in our neighbours garden, and when I looked closer I saw it was hoopoe. I rushed indoors to grab my phone, and fortunately he was still sitting there when I got back. It was a fair distance away so my photograph is not good, but there is no disputing that shape.

He is such a handsome bird. For clarification here is a google image of what he really looks like. When he gets excited he can raise that crest on his head like an Indian chief's headress. Isn't he lovely? I am told they do come to places in Southern England too, but I have never seen one there either. They are migratory birds and will move on once it gets too hot here.

Although the days are getting warmer now, in fact it is very pleasant in the day time, it is still cool enough in the evenings for me to work on my crochet blanket. I really want to get it done before the hot weather gets here, so I don't have to put it away unfinished. But I have a little helper every evening which slows my progress down!

Well, would you ask him to move so you could turn your work around? He is actually like having a second blanket on and sometimes makes me too hot so I have to move him, but most evenings he sleeps there until I go to bed, and sometimes just opens one eye as if to say 'I dare you to move!'

I am getting to grips with my new cutting machine and have tried to use it with different materials to see how it copes. This week a lady at church asked me to make a decal to put on the side of a candle for a baby's baptism. I made small decorative crosses for the altar candles last year, so she knew about my machine. So this week I worked on a design which she has approved of, and tomorrow I shall be cutting it from gold vinyl. I'll take it to church on Sunday and apply it for her, because it can be a bit fiddly if you are not used to working with vinyl. I am sure my machine will cut it well.

I have also been busy in the kitchen again. The piccalilli I made a couple of weeks ago, has all sold, so I made some more today. And yesterday I made some hot chili and ginger jam. I haven't made that for ages, and sometimes folk do ask if I am going to make more. We don't actually use the piccalilli much ourselves, but we do like the chilli jam. It is very hot and spicey but it does wonderful things to a cheese sandwich, and heats up a too mild curry. So the kitchen smell was pungent today and even managed to mask the jasmine, but I have a good extractor fan, so it will soon clear.

And that just leaves me with a couple of sky pictures. I saw this cloud from my craft-room window, like a little tornado spiraling down to the hills.

We haven't had many really nice skies lately so I thought I'd take a picture of it, even though it didn't have much colour in it.

Then ten minutes later the colour came in rush and suddenly the sky was ablaze. I just love the way it changes so quickly, and then it's gone, and you feel lucky to have been there at just the right moment to enjoy it.

I am afraid I have rambled on a bit again this week so I had better stop and go over to Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World at Celtic House, and link up before we go off for our usual fish and chip lunch.