Rocking Your World 2020; Week 20

I am glad to say there are still things to make us smile in these strange times, so here are a few of mine.

My timing may not have been the best, but as I have been at home all the time, I had managed to accumulate a small savings account, so I went ahead and ordered a much needed colour printer. I wanted something similar to my old one, capable of photo copying, scanning, and printing up to a 12" square scrapbook page. These are hard to find, but eventually, with help from Chris, we tracked one down in Amazon.es. My order went through but the machine did not arrive on the designated date. Then we got a message to say it was delayed, and then one to say if it did not come the next day I could request my money back. I didn't want to do that as I had projects on hold until I could print again, so we contacted Amazon and they apologised and said the courier had either lost it or sent it to the wrong destination and they would send out a replacement straight away. Sure enough, the next day this arrived.

We let it stand as recommended, and the next day we opened it all and together we managed to hoist it up onto the shelf Chris made me for my last one. The printer is a bit of a beast, much larger than the previous one. My A4 black and white laser printer below it looks really small by comparison. There is even space for my cutting machine next to it.

I am pleased with the service from Amazon who have always done well by us, and I am quite pleased with the printer. The scanner, is amazing; so fast and almost silent, but I am not too impressed by the colour printing, though it is the best I am going to get with all the other features I wanted. So now I can get back to my paper-crafting.

In the meantime I revisited a crochet project started over a year ago. It is made in 4ply cotton, not a yarn I use much, so to keep it separate I put all the yarn and the worked piece in one of my organza bags. Unfortunately, one of the cats decided to do a wee on it, so it all had to be washed! I spent ages winding all the balls of yarn into skeins, washed them and hung them out to dry. By then I had lost interest and put it all away. So last week I found it again, and the first thing I had to do was to wind all the skeins back into balls! Then I got stuck in, and soon had it finished. Last night I added the final touch, i.e. the fringe around the lower edge. So here it is, my Gipsy Queen shawl.

It is a good size, and fairly heavy, and may be useful on a chilly evening. What next I wonder?

On Tuesday our street market opened for the first time, with only six stalls (25% of the normal number). It was well policed with a one out, one in, policy and police at the entrance to the car park handing out masks and spraying hands with sanitizer. There was only one fruit and veg stall and that is where the main queue was, so I had to be patient, and the range was limited - with few of the current seasonal fruits such as strawberries and apricots, though I did buy a bag of fat cherries that we are enjoying. It wasn't like our usual market at all.

Yesterday I ventured out to the supermarket in Turre. It is relatively small, and independent of all the big chains, but it has a fairly comprehensive range of food items, and I managed to get all the things missing from the village shops. They even had two small boxes of strawberries, so I asked if I could buy them both, and she was pleased. I felt a bit mean taking them all, but they were quite ripe so maybe she just didn't want them left at the end of the day. 

I wanted them to make a small run of jam. It is the only thing I make that Chris really likes, so I always have a jar on the go for him. (I like it too and I love the marmalade, but as a diabetic, I have to ration it more than he does!).  Anyway, I weighed them out today, and I was able to make half my usual mix, and still set aside just enough fruit to make the strawberry cheesecake I had promised Chris for the weekend. I made eight jars of jam, which will be fine for us until next year's crop, but it won't leave me with any to sell, but I have lost so many opportunities to sell over the past months, so I will be focusing on selling marmalade when we get back together.

As you can see I also made some bread rolls. I have been unable to buy yeast in the village, though there is sufficient flour available, but I found some cubes of fresh yeast in Turre, so I thought we might as well have fresh bread to try out the jam on!

With a mixed week of sunshine and showers, and a fair amount of cloud, I have been seizing any opportunity to wander around the garden. One day I noticed that the lovely chumba (prickly pear cactus), was coming into flower. It runs all down the bank to the green zone behind our neighbours' house. I can't get a very good angle on it for a photo but I managed this one. 

The flowers are so pretty, starting a deep pink and gradually changing to orange and yellow. They only last for a day but there are always many more to come.

In my own garden I am so pleased at the way my hydrangea is progressing. It will look beautiful soon when all those flowers open.   The pinks are doing well too. They are very old plants so they are a bit straggly, but see how many buds are on them.

This one is called Crown of thorns, and with good reason. The stems are covered in spines making it very hard to keep clear of dead flowers etc. I was given this by a friend when she moved back to UK several years ago, but it hasn't looked as good as this for a long time.

Again it is worth having a closer look at the flowers, dotted with fresh raindrops this morning

My Bird of Paradise tree is in full bloom too. Such unusual and exotic flowers!

And finally the elephant foot palm I showed in bud has had its week of small, rather insignificant white flowers, and now it is covered in dark red seed pods. After this it will die and so will the leaves around it. Normally when that happens a new baby plant pops out of the trunk, but there is no sign of one yet. I hope it does though.

And that's it for this week. I am late posting but as you can see I have been busy elsewhere today. So I will quickly link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles, and I'll see you all next week.