Friday Smiles 2023: Week 23

I am sitting at my computer on a rather grey, damp Thursday, and Tolly is my companion for today. He doesn't like it when  everywhere is too wet to lay down outside, (it did rain quite a bit in the night), so as soon as he saw me come down to my craft room he crept in beside me and made himself comfortable on my desk. (Excuse the mess. When I am having a run of craft projects, I tend to leave the clearing up until I am all done).

Yesterday evening was warm despite the rain, so we didn't close the window or shutters, and I noticed a flashing blue light reflecting on the white shutter. Of course I got up to investigate and there was a lot of activity around the big house across the road from us. The lady who lives there is very private, and her house has high solid walls and gates, so we rarely see her, though she does say 'Good-morning' if we see her leaving to go shopping etc. The blue lights were on a big fire engine, and there were a lot of firemen standing around, talking and going in and out of the house, but there was no sense of urgency about them, so if there was a fire, we presumed it had been put out. But as there were no hoses in evidence we wondered whether they had been needed to move something heavy instead. There was  a small crowd of local folk at the gate, and then the Guadia Civil arrived and they also went into the house and then stood around chatting with the people at the gate.

After a while an ambulance arrived and eventually they wheeled out a stretcher with an elderly lady on it. I think it was the home owner. The medics worked on her for ages inside the ambulance before driving away.

I observed all this, and took the photos, through the window in Chris' office so as not to be intrusive, but I didn't feel I knew the lady well enough to go out and speak to anyone. But this morning I saw a friend who does some gardening work for her, and I asked him, and he simply said  "Caerse (fell down)", and indicated injury to the side of the face and shoulder. So I hope she is OK. Pepe does not speak any English so that is all he told me.

It has been a rather wet week but still very warm. I even had my big floor fan on its lowest setting while I was card-making yesterday. But we have had some lovely spells of sunshine too, and the plants are loving the humidity. My old hydrangea has opened its first heads of flowers.

Also I was delighted to see flowers opening on the silk tree. It didn't flower at all last year, but we pruned it really hard in the Autumn and it seems to have done it good. In the second picture you can see how the branches are lined with buds.

The other plant that is doing really well is the deep pink Mandevilla that we bought to go in the corner of the front porch. It sent out loads of flowers and also some long thin stems that fell over because they didn't know where to go. So this week I put up some fine wires from a hook at the top of the door frame, and in a couple of days it had spiralled round them and almost reached the top. They are beautiful flowers, and as they are fairly sheltered in that corner, they last well.

A few weeks ago I saw the house martins gathering wet mud from the waste ground, to repair their nests. I knew where these are because a house just up the road from us has a row of them under their eves. These birds are protected and you are not allowed to remove their nests, which could be a bit annoying if they chose your house to build on. The damp weather has meant there are a lot of storm flies and other bugs for them to feed on, and they are constantly swooping in with food for their babies. I can here some have hatched now, but although I stood there for ages this morning, I didn't manage to catch one popping its head out, and the parents swoop in and out again so fast, it is almost impossible to get a photo of them.

I have just turned around and found I have two more cats with me now. Tango is sleeping on a little cupboard under my desk, and Leo is on my spare office chair, (kept for visitors, but taken over by feline ones!). I guess none of them are tempted to go out side today!

Leo continues to entertain us. He is more settled since his 'operation', and often sleeps for most of the evening, but he still has his 'mad half-hour' before I put him in his room for the night. Last night this included racing round the room and up to the top platform of the tower, and down and round again. He likes the top level, and it is by a mirror so he plays with his reflection, but last night there were some little midges around, so small I couldn't see them, but he could, or he heard them, and he kept leaping up to catch them. Once again I wasn't quick enough to get a picture but you can see he has spotted another one.

But when he was tired of this he did sit and pose for me. I think he knows how handsome he is!

I am hoping he, and all the others, behave them selves tomorrow because we have a lady coming to meet them, who hopefully will be able to look after them for a week when we both go to UK in August.

I seem to have rambled on through a long story about a very 'ordinary' week, but now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and see what has been happening in your worlds.