Friday Smiles 2023 #Week 47

A very short post today. I  have spent much of the day in A&E following a fall down our two front steps. I have broken my arm/shoulder , my right one of course! So I am doing this left-handed with one finger.

Here are the photos I had prepared for today.

Christmas is coming and our angel is back.

Our new furniture has arrived and we love it.

The cats approve too so we had to add some covers.

My latest craft project - a macrame wreath, complete with red and gold beads. Glad I finished it before I hurt my arm.

More new clothes. Lucky me!

We were loading up the car to take two bags of discarded tops and jumpers to a charity shop, when I fell!

A kind Spanish lady who was passing helped us call an abulance and they helped me up and drove me to our medical centre where they cleaned and dressed the cut on my head, gave me painkiller injection and did temporary strapping on my arm. Then Chris drove me to the hospital where I was wheeled between x-rays, consultants and nurses, and sat in the waiting room while a furher painkiller and then a saline drip flowed through me.

Now I am rocking an immobilising sling with strict instructions not try to move my arm at all. I have a good prescription for analgesics which hopefully will see me through some uncomfortable nights, and I return to see the consultant again on 13th December.

Well I made it through the night ..... just, most of it in my reclinrt chair, so now I am linking up with Annie's Friday Smiles.

Friday Smiles 2023 # Week 46

This week starts early because last Friday afternoon Chris drove me over to my friend's house to deliver her birthday card. She lives near my church so it is a good half hour's drive from here and I had intended driving myself over the next day, but Friday afternoon suited me better. Neither of us like driving after dark these days but we reckoned we had just enough time to get there and back. There were some interesting cloud formations as the sun was going down, and I tried to photograph them through the car window.

They got darker and more distinct, and I think these would class as lenticular clouds.

And by the time we had got back home, this is what was left of them.

I have been working on a macrame Christmas decoration and I needed some gold and red beads. I had trouble finding any the right sizes, and in the end I bought an assortment of sizes in plain wood from Amazon. So on Tuesday, when we went to to do some food shopping, we stopped at a hardware store and I bought cans of red and gold spray paint. I was thinking of a way to spray them without getting paint on everything else as well and I remembered my old 'spray cabinet', aka an old cardboard carton with lots of ancient newspapers in it! I used this a lot when I was into mica sprays for my card making, but it has sat unused on top of my high shelves for several years. But dusted off it was the perfect solution. I threaded my beads onto rough string that was hairy enough for them to stay separated, and pegged them across the box, and I soon had the coloured beads I wanted. Maybe by next week I can show you what they were for.

The Town Hall put this photo up on Facebook today showing the progress on a road near us. 

They started digging it up several weeks ago and then dug deep and we thought they were replacing old sewerage pipe. Apparently they have also repaired water pipes and telecommunication lines, and at last they are starting to resurface it. We are hoping there will be a narrow edge for pedestrians too, and it will be so good to have it back in use as it is our main route out of the village. At the minute we have to use a narrow one way road with seating outside a bar taking up half of it, or drive to the top of the village which means taking a very sharp corner with a steep hill round it, that I avoid at all costs! So fingers crossed, we will be back to using our usual road again very soon.

Saturday was little Leo's first birthday. That year has flown by!. He is doing well though is still only gaining weight very slowly. Every few days I persuade him to sit on these scales so I can record his weight, and as you can see, he still hasn't quite hit the 5 Kg mark that I was hoping he would reach by his birthday. But he eats very well, and I buy him the best food I can afford, so hopefully he will continue to make his slow progress.

Meanwhile Tolly has been my shadow this week. Some days we don't see him from breakfast 'til tea time, but this week he has followed me around, sitting on the kitchen chair to watch me, or climbing on me when I sit down in the evening. He is a big boy and heavy to hold, but he is fully grown now, and really Leo should be catching him up, but I am not sure that is ever going to happen.

It is difficult to get a good photo of any of the cats  because as soon as I call them to look up at me, they start walking to wards me!

And finally some more skies that I saw yesterday evening. The wind was blowing the clouds every which way, high up, so we had this interesting formation.

It cast a lovely soft pink glow on the mountains opposte it.

Then later it darkened and got bigger and it made me think of an angel swooping down with an evening blessing for us all. (She even has a faint face!). 

And that is all from me today except for this little meme that caught my eye. A way to teach rhythm and notation to small children. 

It reminded me of an exercise I used in my nursery where the children suggested food stuff and we chanted them faster and faster to the rhythm of a train on the tracks. e.g. Chocolate pudding, chocolate pudding, suasage and mash, sausage and mash,  crackers and cheese, crackers and cheese, SOUP SOUP! (I hope you had a try).

Now I am off to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles ready to publish in the morning.

Friday Smiles 2023 # Week 45

Another fun week has gone by in a flash so here are some of my highlights.

Starting with Sunday when I suggested we make the most of a beautiful morning and take a stroll along Mojacar sea-front. The sun was out, making the sea sparkle, and it was just the right temperature to feel comfortable in  summer clothes still.

We never remember to take a selfie together, but I did catch this one of Chris.

We walked along about two-thirds of the coast, and then stopped for some refreshment at a lovely bar. I ordered "Té ingles" and was brought a pot of hot water and a box of PG tips tea-bags, plus a small jug of cold milk and a huge tea cup. Much better service than I usually get, and just perfect for me.

Refreshed, we walked back to the car and I found I had done over 8,000 steps. My daily target is 5,000 so I was very pleased with that.

Some areas around here experienced dangerously high winds and a fair amount of rain early on in the week, but we escaped most of it with just a few showers in the evenings. Though I did need to double peg the sheets on the washing line so that they didn't end up in our neighbours garden.

So, with the evenings drawing in, I find myself making our tea earlier and settling down to watch TV sooner, and the cats are happy with this. Leo has taken to jumping on me as soon as I sit down. He has a 'wise' little face, quite different from the other cats, and a way of looking at me that demands my full attention for head rubs, and cuddles. He objects to me doing my crochet, and either puts a paw on my hook to stop me, or chews my yarn!

Sometimes Tango joins him, though he is not as agile as he used to be for jumping up, and often choses to creep off into a quiet corner to sleep. 

Two cats are my limit and Tolly is not one to share, but occasionally he gets there first, which is equally overwhelming because he insists on sitting right up high in my chest. He is a big boy so I cannot see round him, and he is too heavy, but he never stays for long.

One day when I realised I had only managed about four stitches all evening, I went to the garage and found Foxy's old bed. (I only kept it because it will fit in the washing machine. Kim's was too big so we threw it out). I put Leo on it and he immediately settled down and didn't move all evening. Now it is his go-to bed.

At the start of October I wrote about us ordering some new furniture and we are hoping it will be ready in another week or so, so we needed to make some space for it. When the new ones are delivered, they will take the old ones away, but they will only be discarded and I thought my big recliner was too good for this. So I contacted my friend who works with the Lions Charity in Vera and asked if they could use it. They were very pleased to accept it and on Monday two strong men pulled up in the Lions van and loaded it on. So for now there is a big space in the sitting room which is an ideal spot for Leo's bed...for now anyway. The slogan on the side of the van says "In collaboration with the Lions of Vera and district, and their Platinum supporters." It is used mainly for the Vera food bank but occasionally it does furniture collection too.

And I have managed to get some crochet done. For one I have finished the shawl I was making before I went on holiday. It was a 'stash buster' using only wool I had in my store. It is done in Tunisian entrelac crochet, meaning each little block is worked individually but is worked into the previous one from the row below, so there are not loads of ends to weave in. There is one strand at the end of each row, but these are hidden inside a double border. The pattern was called Landscapes and the colours represent the sea and sky, the green hills on the campo, and the lilac and purple for the wild flowers.

I also had a bit of fun making this tiny Pooh Bear. These little critters are very fiddly to do, but I saw the pattern and wanted to have a go. 

I have donated him to a lady at our sewing group who is co-ordinating carrier bags of small gifts for all the children of the families who use the food bank we support. There are over a hundred of them, with ages ranging from a few months to around fifteen. We have collected items throughout the year with several of us knitting or crocheting soft toys, hats and gloves, while the sewers have made wash bags and filled them with flannel, soap, toothbrush and tooth paste, and cases filled with crayons and pencils. We have added hair accessories and small stocking-filler type toys that we have bought, and we also bought new paper carriers which one lady has brightened up with cut out characters cut from cheap wrapping paper. It is good to be able support these children who otherwise might not have anything to open on Christmas day.

My fruitbowl sits on the kitchen table and I go to it for my snacks during the day. It changes at this time of year, and now citrus fruits are the most readily available. But I did get one more lot of plums which I love to eat raw, and there are still a few grapes around. Pears and bananas ripen very quickly so they have to be eaten first, and I also bought one pomegranate, or granada as they are known here.

Today there was a small artisan market at the local camp site that I wanted to go to. Unfortunately it was the only day our mechanic could service our car and take it for its ITV (MOT) test.  The camp site is just too far for us to walk so in the end I booked a taxi. It is the first time I have used one since we came here fifteen years ago. But it was worth it as the lady I have bought clothes from before, had a stall there and I was able to buy the brown trousers I wanted. I have never been able to find any that are a comfortable fit before but these feel just right. I also bought a soft wool and viscose mix tiered dress in teal. (It is a much prettier colour than it looks in the picture and is a good style for me). Then I was tempted by a couple of very reasonably priced tops and bought a soft knitted purple one, and a cotton orange one, both of which go well with the brown trousers. Take no notice of the trouser legs. One has been pinned up to where I need to shorten them. So it was good morning's outing. I am almost hoping to need warmer clothes soon!

After I finished writing this last night, our mechanic friend rang to say our car had passed its test which was a relief. It is showing signs of age but hopefully it will see us through our last few years of driving.

Then I went outside to gaze at the 'Tiger stripes' in the sky while they lasted.

Now I will finish with two memes I saw this week. It would be cruel to call the first one a funny, but I did give a rueful smile when I saw it, though I am sure the car owner is not smiling! 

The other one caught my eye because I am busy making Christmas decorations, and my cards are all done.

So now I will publish this at Annie's Friday Smiles, and I hope you will join me there.

Friday Smiles 2023 # Week 44

Lets look back at the week and remember what made us smile. This was a trip back to my childhood. As a child I had a few dolls and I loved them all, and often knitted or occasionally crocheted clothes and blankets for them. A Spanish friend of mine called Cati, collects dolls and still makes extensive sets of clothes for them, and this week she had a exhibition of them on the ground floor of the new library, so I wandered up to have a look. On the left were rows of dolls dressed in various national costumes.

On the right many dolls, mostly of one kind which I understand was the most poplular one for little girls in Spain back in the day, were dressed to show the changes in fashion over the year.

Through the centre there were a selection of dolls with a disability. You can see one with a hearing device, one that is blind, one in a wheel chair and one with Downes Syndrome. These reflect the work Cati had done for many years through her charity to support 'special' children, including her own, now adult daughter who has Downe's Syndrome.

There was so much work on show here and I am glad I found time to go up and see it.

I spent one morning making a small start on my efforts to declutter. I chose the garage as my starting point as it is a depository for anything that needs a home, and once it goes in there, much of it is never used again. All my friends save their glass jars for me and I had accumulated far too many of them. I have decided to cut right back on jam making as I do not have the markets for it that I used to have, though I have promised to continue making picalilli for my sewing group friends who buy as much as I can make. So my jars are now sorted into bags of ten, along with their correct lids, and I kept around fifty of them. All the rest went to the glass recycling bin. I then sorted out the cat food bins, the pool towels and a few other boxes, and it is amazing what a difference it has made already. There is a long way to go, but with me it is slowly, slowly, and I will get there in the end.

We had some pretty rough weather mid-week and I spent the day in my craft room, making this light-up decoration for Christmas. It was a bought cutting file that I cut on my Cameo machine, and then assembled with sticky foam between each layer. A string of tiny LED lights were fixed around inside the base layer with glue dots, and when they are turned on it really shows the layers of shadows.

As a family we have never celebrated Halloween, though now it is almost as popular in UK as it is in America. Here the children have a communal celebration on the plaza, with a Haunted house and some games, and the adults man stalls selling snacks and drinks. After that, some of the children do go around the village 'Trick or Treating' but we only had three knocks on the door this year.

But the next day (Nov 1st) is All Saints Day and that is very special out here. The street outside each village cemetery is full of flower sellers, and from early morning folk come to buy flowers and take them in to decorated their loved ones graves. (Here the coffins are 'buried' in tiers of stone shelves, as the ground is too hard to dig graves). The marble pathways are swept clean, and candles are lit, and some families even gather to eat a brief meal as they visit each grave, which is intended to keep memories of their loved ones alive. Here is a photo, (it is not mine as I did not walk over there this year), of our village cemetery on the evening of All Saints Day.

I was late starting to prepare this because I had a video call with my son Ben that lasted for over two hours! We were joking about which one of us did the most talking and decided it was fairly even this time. He always makes me smile, and we enjoy our weekly catch-up.

We had another gorgeous fiery sunset last night, and I caught these doves resting on a TV aeriel, before flying home to their roost for the night. 

Once again the colours moved swiftly through the orange and red and faded to pink and purple, and because I couldn't choose which ones to include here, I made another collage so I could use more of them.

Now I am all prepared to publish this in the morning and link up with Annie's Friday Smiles.