Friday Smiles 2022; Week 40

My week started with a rather unusual church service. Sunday was the Saint's day for St Francis of Assisi. He is the patron saint of Italy but is probably better known as the patron saint of animals, and the natural environment. Apparently is is quite customary for churches to offer a service of blessing for pets, but it is not something we have done before. However we had six lovely dogs at our service, and pictures of cats and other beloved pets on all the walls. This little girl was with the people sitting next to me and she was so good, not making a sound for the whole hour. 

The lessons, semon and prayers were all related to God's creation, and our responsibitiy to care for the animals etc, and at a relevant point in the service, Father Alan put his hand on each dog and gave it a blessing. As we sat quietly at one point, I felt something wet and cold on the back of my arm, and this lovely old fellow had come to say hello. I gave him a little fuss and he just laid down quietly again.

Needless to say I left my furry friends at home. Kim would never have sat through the service. He just loves people and would have wanted to say hello to everyone, and confining any of the cats to a cat carrier for that long would have resulted in some very vocal protests! But it was a lovely service all the same.

I am happy to say that Kim's foot seems to have responded well to the antibiotics and he is almost walking normally again now. As you can see he is back to his usual self. In this photo you can see how he lays in a very lop-sided position because his left hip is arthritic and just collapses. He also cannot sit any more, but just lies down if you tell him to 'sit'. But he is happy enough and spends most of his time on the patio, just wandering in every now and then to make sure we are still around.

This made me smile. It is the top right hand corner of the above photo, and it looks as though my plant pot is smiling!

I have made a good start on my new crochet project. I bought a ball of this yarn because I wanted to try it out. As you can see from its name band, it is made entirely from recycled plastic bottles. I have seen many ways that people are trying to reuse some of the mountans of used plastic we see everywhere, and I thought this sounded like one of the better ideas. It is surprisingly soft and very strong. It is DK weight and is called Scrumptious! They also make Truly Scrumptious which is Aran weight. It also comes in a huge range of colours. I wanted something light and fairly neutral so I chose this one which has just a hint of green in it. It is called Honeydew melon sorbet. Sounds as though I am going to eat it, not crochet with it.

I needed a neutral colour because I am teaming it up with this very colourful, variegated yarn called Wanderlust - colour Hawii. As you can see, both yarns are worked together, and I love seeing the colour changes appear in the contrast yarn.

The motifs are hexagons and these five completed ones show the range of colours so far. I think the next one which is starting pink, will soon be blue towards the outside. The top two hexagons have been lightly blocked and now lay quite flat. As you can see, when first made, they are a bit scrunched up like the lower three. The next two are on my blocks now. Next week I may be able to show you what I am doing with them.

Next Sunday  will be one of my favourite church services - Thanksgiving for the Harvest. We are invited to bring any dry goods which will be distributed by Zurgena Town Hall as part of our regular 'food bank' help; our way of thanking Zurgena council for allowing us to use one of their buiildings free of charge for our meetings. But Harvest Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without some fresh produce as well, so we also take offerings of fruit which is distributed to the children in Zurgena school.

So I thought it was time I had my own little harvest display at home again. I came home from the market on Tuesday with these. Don't they look lovely? And I am truly thankful that I have access to these fresh vegetables and fruit every week, and living in Andalucia, the 'market province', by buying locally grown produce we are helping a lot of families that rely on agricultural work for their living.

After some sunny and comfortably warm days we now have a few days of possible rain. Today that turned out to be a short, but heavy shower just as we were getting up. The sky is  almost clear now, but up until lunch time it was grey with wet-looking clouds gathering. I was sitting in my recliner chair enjoying my first cup of tea of the day, and immediately Tango jumped on my lap and settled down there, and Kim came in out of the rain. Note he is not using his nice bed, but prefers the stone floor still, but he does lay in it sometimes.

I really like this time of year when I can sit out on the porch most days in a sleeveless dress and not needing a cardigan, and still feel comfortable, but we really need some rain, so if a few wet days lower the temperature a few degrees, so be it.

Now I shall get back to some cards I started to make yesterday, but ended up chatting to my sister for an hour or so instead. Family always comes first!

I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles in the morning.