Rocking my World 2016: Week 19

Right. So hopefully you are all smiling now! Just a little gem I spotted on Facebook this week, and it made me smile, partly because I knew who had posted it.

And now for one, also from facebook, that will at least make you all say Aaa..hh! Isn't it just so cute?

And now for those happy moments from my week which got off to a really good start on Sunday with a special service at church. A very good friend of ours, William, was licensed as a new worship leader, and our lovely vicar Rev. Pauline took the service.

And what better reason, (if we needed one) to go out for a celebratory lunch with William and his wife Sylvia. We were a party of twenty and they had laid up a long table for us so we could all sit together. We were lucky to get a booking as it was Mother's Day in Spain, so lots of families were eating out together, but despite being busy, the service was good and the food excellent.

We went to a place called La Castilla, up on a hill at the back of Arboleas. I was uncertain about going because I have only been there once before and I was not impressed with the food. But I didn't want to miss out on William's special day, so we went along anyway, and I need not have worried because this time the food was among the best meals we have had out here.  We sat and chatted while we waited for our starters to arrive, but once the food had arrived, everyone was too busy eating to stop and smile for the camera!

I was looking forward to Tuesday because it was the day for the third part of my Crochet-along to be published. It goes online around 9.30 but I am out at my house group on Tuesday mornings so I have to wait until later to download mine. But once I was home and we had eaten a late lunch, I printed out the pattern, gathered my bag of wool and some hooks, and took myself out to sit on the porch and work on it. It look complicated, but it was not as difficult as I had expected to follow the pattern, and an hour or so later my first "Bird of paradise" motif was made.

I really like it. I have made another one and I need just two more before part 4 is released a week next Tuesday. We don't really need a fortnight to make these in, but the pattern parts are getting progressively harder, so we may need the time for the later ones. And of course, many of the participants are running a busy home and family, or are at work all day, and it must be difficult for them to get it done. The little pins in mine are marking the six corners which makes the joining up easier, and it will look tidier when I have blocked it, but I am waiting until the end to do that, or they may all curl up again.

It was lovely this week to see the jacaranda trees coming into bloom. They are such a lovely colour. We have a long row of them in the slip road that runs along the front of our village.

They hold on to the big brown seed pods from last year, and flower first. As the flowers die, they sprout green fern-like leaves, and continue to look pretty through the summer.

As I was walking to my 'intercambio' group on Tuesday evening, I stopped to watch some little house martins, busily catching the bugs that swarm around late afternoon, to feed their very demanding babies. We get a lot of house martins in the village and they make their neat little nests in the eaves of all the houses, where they are sheltered from the wind and direct sun. They were diving in and out of the row of nests and every now and then I glimpsed a little head and open beak popping out of the entrance holes. I lost count of how many there were, but it was fun to watch them for a while, and I had to admire their industry.

We have had a rather unsettled week weather-wise. Not at all what we expect by the beginning of May, but there has been plenty of sunshine between the showers. Most evenings the sky has been too empty of clouds for a good sunset, or else it has been too cloudy for any sun to break through, but one evening the wind was breaking up the clouds and they were continually changing shape. Every time I looked they were different, but every time I could see another face in them - and not always a pleasant one either. I wonder whether you can see them too.

We ended the week on a good note too when we went to a concert last night, to listen to a visiting Welsh choir. They are from the same village in Wales as a man who has lived out here for some years now, and every couple of years or so they come over to help Robert at one of his charity fund raisers. Sadly Robert passed away early this year, but they kept to their commitment to come, and supported his wife and family at a memorial concert in the Mojacar church. The church was full and the singing was lovely. It was mostly in English but they did sing a couple in Welsh too, and the highlight was a solo performance of Oh Danny Boy, which I love. They were asked to sing Canon Lan a second time as an encore, and our vicar, who is also from that part of S. Wales, got up and joined in.

The church is quite small and is just the one room with a small vestry at the side, but they had said there would be a buffet supper, so they set up a long table outside and various church members had contributed with plates of food, and the table was laden down. A second smaller table housed an urn and a cool box, so there was a choice of drinks available too. The choir mingled with the crowd and we had a good chat with them, and even though it was getting late by then, it was warm enough, (and dry enough) for us to stand around for quite  while.

When I saw the table I never thought we could eat everything, but I have to say, we did our best. There seems to be quite a big Welsh contingent at the Mojacar church, and there were plates of Welsh cakes, and Bara Brith, as well as lots of other lovely things. We didn't quite 'clear the decks' but there wasn't much left, and for sure, no one went home feeling hungry!

Having eaten well, and talked my head off, I rested by the wall and watched the sun slowly sinking behind the hills and into the sea. What a calm and beautiful way to end a lovely evening.

Now it is time to pop over to Annie's blog - A Stitch in Time, and Virginia's blog - Celtic House , and find out what has lifted you this week.

Rocking Your World 2016: Week 18

Hi folks. I have no special smile this week, just a few happy occasions that had me smiling. It was a relatively quiet, and therefore relaxing week, which made a nice change. For us it started on Saturday when we attended one of the events put on by our Town Hall, for a cultural weekend. The other events were drama and visiting speakers which we didn't feel our Spanish was quite up to appreciating, but on Saturday it was Flamenco music and dancing which we really enjoy.

It took place on the plaza which was a bonus. I always love outdoor entertainment, and it was a warm evening so we could sit and watch in comfort. There was a large wooden stage which resounded nicely to the stamping feet of the dancer, but first there were four men who played and sang.

(The stage lighting has added an extra layer of colour to most of these pictures.)

The men were joined by this lady who started dancing. It is always so dramatic with tapping feet and tossing head, and arms flung out to emphasize her emotions. And the anguished facial expressions just add to it. I just love that red dress!

Later she danced again, this time in a black dress, and one of the men joined her.

There was a good turn out of village folk. They all enjoy the Flamenco style of singing and dancing.

But there was something else happening at the same time. On the same stage, over to the right, there were two large boards set up on easels, and as soon as the music began, a man started to paint the boards with long vertical patches of blue in several shades.

Mostly it was spray paint which he spread with a broad brush. He worked steadily but unhurriedly and we  were wondering what he was there for, as there was no sign of any shapes being formed with his paint. Towards the end of the show he covered each board with a sheet of clear plastic that was hanging behind them, and then he started to spray white paint over them.

With absolutely perfect timing, on the final beats of the music he finished his spraying and lifted off the plastic sheets, and there were revealed two superb paintings of a Flamenco dancer and a singer.

See the lace on the dancers sleeves, and all the detail in the second picture. I couldn't believe he had got such a result from a flimsy plastic stencil. Here are the stencils, once more hanging behind the boards.

Everyone was amazed by the end result, and his timing couldn't have been better.

The show had lasted about an hour, so although it had started quite late, there was still time to visit a couple of bars on our way home for a night-cap or two!

Other little things that have made me smile - 

The news that our Royal Birthday Party last week raised over 500€ for our church funds.

A successful outcome to negotiations between Cati for Asadis and a local group of woman bowlers, with me as their liaison, resulting in us buying a special light pad for the children in the special needs class of the village school, to be paid for by the bowlers. Two parts have arrived and I hope to have the last part by Tuesday so we can arrange for a presentation at the school very soon.

We spent Monday morning working in the garden, and all the flowers we bought last week, are now in pots and containers around the yard. And very pretty they all look too.

My lovely ginger cat had his stitches out on Monday and remains apparently oblivious to all we have done for him. He tore a claw on his front paw a couple of months ago, but despite two courses of anti-biotics, it refused to heal, so last week the vet removed the claw and nail bed, and he had two stitches in it. He is such a laid back boy, and although he was limping a bit, he never fussed with it, he didn't attempt to chew at his stitches, and he took his tablets without batting an eye. Now he has a slightly odd looking toe, but apart from that, he seems none the worse for the experience.

On Thursday Chris took me out for lunch at a nearby cafe and we had an lovely meal as we always do there. Then we popped into 'the brothers', a company run by twin brothers where you can buy all sorts of building supplies, gardening supplies and some pet items, and we bought a small cat flap for our kitchen door. At the moment we have to leave the door open all the time for the cats to come in and out, and we have a chain link curtain to keep out the flies. But it is not really very efficient and I am always getting tangled up in it when I go out to feed the dogs, or hang washing on the line. So Chris sat down and removed a small section of the metal railing and replaced it with the cat flap. Now the rest of the door can be covered with clear perspex or similar for the bottom section, and proper fly screen for the rest. Then I can have the inner door open all summer and not worry about the bugs. Now all we have do is teach three cats how to get through it. At the minute they can just walk around it but whenever I can I make them go through the flap. Hopefully very soon the rest will be done, and then they will have to come in that way if they want to be fed, so I expect they will soon get used to it.

Here is Chris doing the hard bit - making it fit the space. I wish I could still sit on the floor cross-legged like that!

Apart from that I have spent some time sitting here at the computer. Yesterday I made some booklets for church, for the order of service we use for the Eucharist celebration. Our numbers are growing and we ran out of books last week. They weren't easy to do as they have laminated covers and it is hard work folding a fairly heavyweight piece of card that has been laminated, but I got them done in the end. 

Today I revisited a piece of software that I haven't used for a long time, and designed a template for a scrapbook page, inspired by one I saw on pinterest.

I have finished this fortnight's part of my crochet-along with several days to spare, so I have also finished the squares for the tote bag, and added one more round to my Sophie blanket.

I even managed to make half a dozen greetings cards too. So all in all it has been a very productive week.

It is warming up even though there has not been so much clear sunshine this week, and last weekend I replaced our winter duvet with the summer-weight one. I find it much more comfortable and I sleep better with it. But my goodness, there has been some shocking weather for our friends and family back in UK. I hope the snow is on its way out again now.

I have just one sky photo to show you. As I said, there hasn't been a lot of sunshine, but I did catch this one sunset which I rather like, because it has the black storm clouds on the top left, that balance out the dark landscape on the right.

They have promised more rain tonight and tomorrow, but on the bright side, that is one less time for me to hose all the pots of plants, which is a very time-consuming occupation.

So now I'm off to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking your World at Virginia's blog.