Rocking Your World 2014: Week 23

Here we go with the high spots of another week. Come over to Virginia's blog at Celtic House, and share your happy moments too. It is a good way to lift your spirits.

I am starting with my Friday Smile which this week is a sort of  'Shaggy Dog' tale. Meet Miki.

Definitely a shaggy dog! One of Miki's parents was a full breed German Shepherd, but I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to what the other one was. Just look at that soppy grin!

She is perpetually untidy, very friendly, and peace-loving, lazy with a tendency towards being overweight and no inclination to do exercise to help with that. (I could be describing me instead of the dog!!). We love her to bits, but you have to wonder what is really inside all that hair?

Well now you know.

Yes. This week Miki went for her annual haircut. Doesn't she look different? The poor thing was on the grooming table for four and a half hours, but they did a really good job on her, and she finished off with a bath and blow-dry, so she smells better too! Her body is firm and smooth, but not as fat as we had expected. I have to admit that really I like the shaggy mop-head look, but this will be so much better and more comfortable for her during the summer. She looked quite happy with it when she settled down for her siesta this afternoon.

I shall link this up over at Annie's Friday Smiles. Do come over and share a smile with us.

Well the week has flown past. We had another very successful Cantante concert last night. There was a good audience who all said how much they enjoyed it.

I managed to find a day to make a big pan of Picalili.

It is quite a long task to actually prepare and chop all the vegetables, which is done the evening before, so they can be covered with salt and left to marinate overnight. But the next day it is quite quick to mix up the sugar, spices and vinegar, and cook the rinsed vegetables. I think it looks lovely in the pan, with all the colours. I made sixteen jars but I expect they will soon be sold.

Tango is continuing to find his place in the family. I have been keeping him indoors as we live right on the main road into the village, and I don't know how street-wise he is. Also I didn't want the other cats to chase him away before he is familiar with his surroundings. But they are all getting along quite well. Paco and Luna mainly ignore him, but there have still been no fights, and this week I had a real surprise when I went down to my craft room and found this!

Feisty Arwen doesn't even like sharing 'her window-seat' with me, and it is my craft table! Tango didn't stay there for long, but it is a sign of his temperament that he was prepared to risk it, and he got away with it. Arwen would never have allowed the other cats up there. Fur would have flown!

So now I am leaving the back door open some of the time and I am delighted to find that Tango is happy to go out for a while, often sitting within sight of the others, and then he comes back in without me calling him. In fact he looks quite at home out there doesn't he?

He'll never be able to 'smile for the camera', but he purrs a lot.

I was pleased when I went for my monthly diabetic blood test recently and my sugar count was just one point inside the 'normal' range. Once you are on the register for diabetes you cannot get off it again, but this was my best result in the five years we have been out here, and it shows that all my fruit and vegetable blends are doing me more good than harm. I was a bit worried about the amount of sugar in the fruit, but I seem to be processing it correctly. Next week when I get my annual in-depth analysis results, I will find out whether it has done the same for my cholesterol levels too.

It is getting quite warm out here now, but we have had a few showers that are really needed, so we are not complaining about them. But it has also been very windy in the afternoons, and the wind is so strong that we have had to close some windows, and stay indoors. But today was calm and this afternoon I sat out on the porch to do some of my rather neglected cross-stitch. It is a good, bright light for sewing, but shady so I don't get too hot. I rarely sit right out in the sun, and if it is too bright, I can't see to sew. 

The dogs like it when we sit out with them, but today

Kim wasn't keen to let me sew. He kept coming up and putting a paw on my work to stop me. I had to give him a bit of fuss and then he settled down again for while. In the end the heat got to him and he joined Miki in having a siesta. I actually got quite a bit of sewing done too. But it isn't going to be finished any time soon!

And finally here is a piece of wall art for our room that I finished yesterday. It has been 'in the process' for quite a while, but I shelved it so that I could finish similar pieces to take to my sons in UK, but I am glad it is now finished. The background was made in Adobe Photoshop, and the words are cut from vinyl using my silhouette cameo machine. If you are interested in knowing more, you can read the process on my other blog by clicking on This Link.

Right, now it is link up time with Annie and Virginia. Have a great week everyone.

Rocking your World; Week 22, and a Saturday Smile

Well here I am, a day late this week, but I made it!

I am starting with a little Saturday Smile – some pretty pansies that I bought a while back and almost lost because I didn’t get around to planting them up, or watering them. But they made a good recovery and now sit on my front step. Yesterday they were all holding up their faces to the sun, and smiling at me, so I just had to smile back. I hope you do too.

Which leads me into a fairly garden orientated post today. This time of year prompts us, and many others I am sure, to think about tidying up the yard, so we decided to tackle a tatty bit of fencing at the back of us. 

It used to be covered with a roll of bamboo but this has a limited life, and when the dogs were pups, they enjoyed chewing all the broken poles, and then putting their heads through the railings to look down into the green zone below. They are mostly too big to do this now anyway. 

The fence has an elderly stephanotis plant climbing up it, so between us we cut out a panel of the old fence and gently moved it to prop against the house while we were working. While Chris put up the new fencing, I trimmed the plant to within an inch of its life, and it is now back in place. It looks a bit sparse but I expect it will grow again. It smells heavenly when it is in full bloom.

I am really happy to see this rather strange flower blooming again this year. It is a strelizia nicolai, and I have to admit, it is not one of my favourites. I much prefer its cousin, the purple and orange 'bird of paradise' plant. But it is quite exotic. It has multiple flowers on each stem, and as the buds open they drip sticky goo. But then the big white flower appears with a pale blue tongue. 

Last year, when Kim was a pup, he stirpped it to the ground (or pot, as we have very little plantable land, so most of our plants are in large pots). It has big leaves with string fibres in, and he just couldn't resist pulling these and shredding them. So I repotted it, and tucked it behind another plant for the winter, and this year it is back, looking stronger than ever.

While out there with my camera, I spotted this beautiful carpenter bee, dipping deep within the flowers for his breakfast. I have shown these bees on here before, but I rarely manage to capture their beautiful blue sheen like I have this time. They are non agressive, and I like to see them enjoying my flowers as much as I do.

Yesterday I went to the garden centre and bought some lovely geraniums and kalanchoes, and replaced our red hibiscus which is straggly and has few flowers on it. I was surprised at the price of some of the cacti they had there. Makes me think I had better tidy mine up a bit. I need a strong pair of leather gloves for that job!

Little Tango is settling in well. The other cats are not keen to have him in the house, and are tending to stay out in the garden for most of the day, but I call them all in at night, as they do not have a lot sense on the road. At first I shut Tango in a separate room but now I leave all the doors open. When I got up one morning, I found Paco, Luna and Tango all in one room. They were each on their own chair, and were keeping a wary eye on each other, but they did all go to kitchen and eat breakfast together before Paco and Luna shot out through the back door. But that's progress. I think they are getting used to the idea of having a 'new brother'.

The reason I couldn't write this post last night as I usually do, was that it was our first Cantante choir concert. It was on 'home ground' the room where we practice, so it was a good one to start with. It went really well and the audience were very appreciative. We have another one next Thursday and then four more before the end of June!

When we lived in England we always had a lot of mail, most of it 'junk-mail' or bills, but there always seemed to be something coming though the door each day. Out here we hardly get any. Most of the bills are dealt with on-line anyway, and advertising leaflets are more likely to be left under the car window washers than put though the door. So 'real mail' is always a treat. So I was doubly blessed yesterday when I got back from my monthly food-shop, to find not one, but two envelopes waiting for me. They were both cards and gifts from friends I have made though my craft blog. People are so kind, and I am really touched they they took the time to send to me. Thank you both so much.

An anticipated blessing is that this week we have accepted an estimate to replace the netting on our 'fly-free room' that covers the back porch and part of the patio. We are having a slightly stronger net on the top half and a, hopefully animal proof one on the lower sections. We are also having a dog-flap put in on the panel beside the door, so the dogs can get onto the porch when we are out, without tearing their way though. (The man doing the work called it a 'horse-flap' because it has to be big enough for Miki and Kim to get though easily!). So in a week or two's time, we will be able to eat out there without the flies and wasps for company, and I will be able to resume my afternoons sewing there, when the house makes it a welcome area of shade.

I will leave you with a sky photo as we haven't had one of those for a while. I have been hoping for a nice sunset so I could try out the settings on my new camera, but the season for those has passed. But one evening this week, there was just enough cloud to make a lovely golden glow and this is how I recorded it.

Isn't that grand?!

Have a Blessed week everyone. I will just link this up to Celtic House and Annie's Friday Smiles, and then I must get up the road to meet my Spanish friend Isa for our hour of conversation.