Rocking our World 2020; Week 40

I think we are all doing pretty well to find things to write about that have lifted our spirits in these unprecedented times. Here is a quick run though my week.

Last week I showed some flowers we had bought at the garden centre, so this week we had a morning working outside and I got many of them planted up. This geranium is still waiting for its new home so I left it in the box to give it protection from the wind, and when I went out side next, this is what I found.

I thought cats didn't like geraniums! I used to plant them in my window boxes to keep the cats off them. But Paco is an old man now. He is only just coming up to 12 years old, but he seems to be almost deaf, and his eyesight is not so good, so maybe he has lost his sense of smell as well. He looked so comfy there, I just left him to it.

While at the market I again bought some lovely purple plums, and this time I bought just enough to make a small run of plum jam. I have little opportunity to sell any jams etc right now, but we are running out of strawberry jam - the only one we really eat ourselves except for marmalade which I love, so as there are no strawberries around now, I thought I'd make some plum. It turned out quite well, and we have enjoyed it on scones this week. I need to print off some labels so it can be stored away in the garage until it is needed.

We have had some kitchen drama this week, as my new (2 year old) fridge freezer stopped working. Fortunately I realised it was not cold enough and was able to transfer the contents to the old fridge and freezer that we keep in the garage. Both were already quite full so it was a bit of a squeeze, but I saved all the main items. I thought it was bad that the new one had packed up, just two months out of guarantee of course, but we arranged for the man to come and look at it, but I have to say, we weren't prepared for what he found. Apparently we have a resident mouse (mice?) that had chewed through the condenser cable. He replaced it for us and I am glad to say it is now working again.

So the next thing was to locate the mouse and get rid of it, but he has so far proved quite elusive. We had to remove the foot-plate that runs all along the bottom of the cupboard units, but we found it had only been in the first section, next to the fridge/freezer, where there was the makings of a nest and some droppings, so we set a trap in there. (Last night the trap had been triggered, some of the peanut butter had been taken, but the little critter had escaped!).

Meanwhile, earlier in the week I noticed that a pear in the fruit bowl had been nibbled. As we cannot pick our own fruit at the market right now, my first thought was that the stall-holder had given me a bad one. But I cut it off, and put the good part back in the bowl, and the next night there were new teeth marks in it, and quite a bit had been eaten. There were some dried up pieces of pear skin there but no droppings, and the tissue I had left by it to see if it would be taken as bedding, had not been touched. So I thought this had been the work of a gecko, as they need some fruit in their diet along with the bugs they eat. But after the fridge episode I began to think this was also our mouse so we set another trap in the fruit bowl. This too was triggered over-night and moved, but had failed to trap a mouse.

Now that his space under the cupboards was no longer safe he seems to have investigated the space behind the washing machine and dishwasher, but a trap left near there was untouched, as was a new one in the fruit bowl. So now we are at a bit of a loss as to how to proceed. You would think with four cats in the house, mice would not be a problem, but none of them have shown any interest in the places it has been! Usually the cats have the run of the kitchen at night coming and going through a cat flap, but we have had to shut them out for a couple of nights as the traps are exposed and they could get hurt.

So we will persevere, and as a last resort we will lay poison under the cupboards, but not anywhere else because of our animals. Any suggestions would be welcome.

So on to the gardening. We did manage to pot up the new hibiscus, and plant out some of the pansies. We disposed of a bottle brush shrub that had outgrown itself and no longer produces any 'brushes', and we re-potted a big succulent tree that was originally in half a barrel but the wood had rotted and split.

Over by the garage gate we have my elephant foot palm which produced two spires of flowers this year. It is nice to see this though they are not particularly spectacular flowers. When they die, the rings of leaves around each spire gradually dry up until they fall off, and then if we are lucky, new shoots appear. This year, the leaves don't seem to want to die, and I was disappointed to see no new shoots coming to take their place. But a little while ago we suddenly saw new growth pushing up through the old leaves, around the base of each flower. There are three or four around this one.

So this week I carefully cut through the dead flowers to expose the new plants and they look much better.

There are three strong ones on this branch and three more on this one.

As I pushed aside the leaves to do this, I was surprised to see a further four new shoots in the 'elbow' of the plant and another three at the base of the trunk!

So actually our palm is doing very well indeed. Whether all of these will survive and grow remains to be seen, but we could have quite a few flower spires next season.

I also showed our big round cactus the other week which is flourishing since we started watering that bed regularly for the silk tree. Well this week some brown buds appeared on it and yesterday I spotted this flower. It is the first time it has flowered in the eleven years we have lived here. It is a bit disappointing as sometimes cacti have big white flowers, but I was just happy to see a flower on it.

On the big tall cactus that grows next to it I caught sight of this little fellow. She is a praying mantis though not a bit like the long, slim green ones we usually see. According to Google this is a European dwarf mantis. Just look at the huge spines surrounding her. I don't know how she can move around without getting pierced!

So pottering around in the garden and kitchen have kept me feeling happy this week. Even the little mouse has given us something else to think about and any distraction is better than none! Afternoons spent sitting in the sunny porch is another plus, as is long video calls with my sons.

We have finally received the estimate for our bathroom makeover and we are happy with it and have agreed for the work to begin at the end of October. So yesterday we went to the builders to choose tiles for the floor and walls. Most bathrooms are tiled floor to ceiling out here. We chose off white non slip ones for the floor, and glossy white with grey/blue lines for the walls with a band of mainly blue decorative pattern to go round half way up. Fortunately we have a second bathroom to use while the work is being done and it will be lovely to have the new shower and other appliances. So that is something to look forward to.

Now I will close with a love sky photo I took at sun-down one evening this week. Isn't it beautiful. And then I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World.