Rocking Your World 2015; Week 48

This could be my shortest post all year. I am super busy for the next three days so it is now or never, so here goes. 

Here is my smile for this week.

Yes, last night, when I was at the end of a day of baking for the church Christmas Fayre tomorrow, I had this spectacular failure. I was making one of our favourites, lemon drizzle cake, and decided to double up the ingredients and make two. But I did something very wrong! I still don't know what it was, but when I got them out of the oven, I called Chris out to see them and we both just burst out laughing. After all, there was no point in crying, and if we can't laugh at our own mistakes, we will never be able to move on from them. So share a smile at my expense.

And just to prove I don't usually mess up in the kitchen to quite this extent, this morning I had another go, just making one, and it turned out fine.

I have salvaged most of the others. I know they are full of good ingredients which it seems a shame to waste, so some of them will be appearing under a blanket of custard for us to enjoy this week. 

And the moral of this story is, stop baking before you are too tired to know what you are doing!!

I have very little to show you this week as I have been busy preparing for all the events over this weekend, and the next couple of weeks, so no doubt there will be more to tell next week.

Yesterday, as the cooker had been in action for mincepies and cakes all morning, Chris suggested we went out for lunch and first we drove up to Bédar, the little white village in the hills just behind us. The scenery is lovely up there. It was sunny and the sky was bright blue, setting off the green of the hills, so I took this one quick photo on my phone.

Unfortunately the restaurant we were heading for was closed, so we turned around and went to another one in Turre and had a very nice lunch.

Again, I have managed to sit out on the porch with our dogs, and do a little of my crochet most afternoons. It is quite sheltered there, and even on windy days it is usually nice for sitting for a few hours. I need that little break from whatever I am doing and I am enjoying seeing my pile of completed squares growing. I have done one and a half this week, and I doubt whether the second one will be finished before Sunday, but I am not too far behind, so hopefully I will catch up again soon.

So now it is just some sky photos. We have had a lot of strange shapes in the sky this week.

Yesterday we started off with some smoke signals.

Then some little golden whisps came drifting across.

Then they joned forces to make this glowing mass.

But the best sky was on Wednesday, and once again I was driving to choir practice and couldn't take any photos. By the time I had left the motor way it was receding behind the hills, and I knew it would be gone before I arrived at our practice room, so I pulled into a garage forecourt and used my phone to catch the last few dying moments.

Right at the very last minute the whole sky turned red, and then it was gone.

It was quite dark when I arrived at my destination a few minutes later.

So now I am off link this to Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking your world at Celtic House, and then I must go and change into my black and purple for our first proper public appearance with the choir this evening. I have a singing practice at church this afternoon though, but as they are both a fair drive away, I will stay over there and find some tea somewhere, so I expect it weill be quite late when I get back. But I will be visiting you all sometime over the weekend.

Rocking your world 2015: Week 47

My smile today is actually a photo of me. I don't do that very often as I don't often like what the camera shows me!

Anyway, here I am around 9.00 this morning, enjoying a cup of tea on a beautiful sunny day, and look out over a really green, green zone. 

It is really hard to believe that it is mid-November. We have had a lovely week weather-wise and today is the warmest with a temperature of 26º, so we are making the most of it as it is due to drop around 10º on Monday, and send some rain our way as well. But it is lovely to still be comfortable in a summer dress when my home town in UK is expecting snow this weekend!

In keeping with enjoying the last few days of sunshine, I have sat out on the porch to eat lunch and then done some of my crochet most days, so I just have one more round to do on my second blanket square for this week. Hopefully I will get that done tomorrow, ready for when Lucy posts the colour order for the next two squares on Sunday.

Apart from that it has been a funny old week because we have the painters in now, so we had to get the main room, and the hall and passageway, cleared ready for them. Anyone who has visited me will appreciate that that is no small task. I have far too many ornaments etc and out here, where everything is so dusty, it is not a good idea. So for now, everything is in boxes in the garage and spare room, or piled under dust sheets in the main room. Even the ceiling fan is wrapped in plastic.

The poor man's first job was to fill all the holes where the hooks were removed, (including at least thirty six right up at ceiling level where I had my collectors plates hung!) When the painting is done I shall select just a few pieces to go back on the walls and shelves. That's the theory anyway!

It is quite fun in a way because the painter, who came highly recommended by a friend, is Moroccan, though he has lived here for a long time and is fluent in Spanish. His name is Racheed and he has brought a friend to help him who is French, but who has worked in Algiers for many years. So he talks to Racheed in Arabic while I talk to him in Spanish, and my husband Chris talks to the friend in English! Somehow we are all understanding what is going on, and we are impressed with their work so far. 

As most of the house is out of action, I have spent my mornings in the kitchen and my evenings in my craft room, so I have made my Christmas cake and today I mixed up the puddings. 

In the Anglican church, the collect for this coming Sunday, starts with the words "Stir up we beseech Thee, O Lord,.....", and this has led to it being known as "Stir-up" Sunday, and is traditionally the day for stirring up the Christmas puddings. So I am a couple of days early, but here is Chris having his turn with the spoon.

I had to smile because when I turned Facebook on this  morning, it reminded me that  I posted this photo today-two years ago.

Same place, same bowl, but at least he is wearing something different! I guess I am a bit of a traditionalist, especially when it comes to Christmas.

I have also managed to get most of my 'overseas' Christmas cards written and addressed. Some are left open ready to have a news letter added when I have written it. Maybe that will get done while the hall and passageway are being painted, especially of the rain comes. Normally I am rushing to do this at the last minute. We have two bank holidays here just at the beginning of December, and they throw the postal service into disarray, so I like to get my cards posted before this if I can, and I might just achieve it this year.

One other thing that pleased me this week is to do with our choir. We are hoping to do a concert of our own next summer, but this Christmas we have been invited to sing at a few local events, so we needed to sort some stagewear so that we all look more or less the same. The choir colour is purple which is very hard to find this year, so the men are wearing black trousers and white shirts, hopefully with a purple bow tie. The ladies have opted for black trousers and a black top and we were hoping to have something purple to lift it. Well I was up at a big open market near Albox two Saturdays ago and one stall had one purple scarf. It was glittery and just the right shde of purple, so I asked if she had any more as I needed twenty of them. She agreed to travel to her supplier in Murcia to try and get some and a few days later she phoned to say she had them. So this Saturday I went over to collect them and took them to choir practice on Wednesday. I was happy because everyone loved them. 

They are lacy and sparkley and very pretty, so I am

glad they met with everyone's approval. Here is Chris acting as a scarf-hanger for the purpose of the photo. It doesn't show the sparkle, but you get the idea. As we are singing outside at some of the events, we have also ordered a purple fleece for everyone to wear, with our logo on the left side. Hopefully they will be ready for our first singing session on 27th.

Apart from that there have been some nice long chats with some of the boys on Skype, which always make me happy, and a little parcel of some new craft materials in the post. I also received a prize from one of the blog challenges I entered, so I have some nice new dies and stamps to try out soon.

Now I have just got three lots of sky photos to show you. This one was taken on Sunday morning on my way to church. It was a bit overcast at first although sun was forecast for later, and suddenly the bank of cloud in front of me opened , and rays of light shone down. It was so lovely I had to stop to take a photo.

The next two were taken earlier this week. I love it when the sun's rays can be see quite distinct from the clouds and sky.

It gets dark soon after 5.30 now, but when I had taken the photo above, I turned around and behind me the sky was still almost blue, and there was pile up of little fluffy clouds, catching some of those dying rays.

 

And this last set were taken this evening. At first the sky was particularly clear and so pretty. Then the light and colour deepened, and gradually the low cloud started to turn pink. Eventually there was just a bright light low down and above it a line of red with wind-whipped grey lashes all along it. I just had to stand and watch until it had all faded away. The Master Painter sure has a way with colours!

Now I will be off to link this up at Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking Your World at Virginia's blog. Then I shall have an early night, as Spanish workers are used to an early start, so we need to be up before they arrive. I'll be back tomorrow to do some visiting. 

Thank you to all the lovely people who have continued to visit me regularly and leave lovely comments. I really do appreciate them all. I feel I am back in circulation again now, so I will make sure I return the compliments, and visit you all too.