Rocking Your World 2018: Week 17

Once again, Friday being one of my busiest days, I am running around trying to get everything done. I have been busy baking cakes this morning ready for the church Spring Fair down on the Playa tomorrow morning, so while my date cake is in the oven (it needs an hour), I am making a start on my  blog post.

First of all, here as promised is my Ta-da! photo. My Arizona blanket is done. I am really pleased with it. The designer's use of colour and texture has made an unusual blanket. It received lots of nice comments when I posted this photo on Facebook, just because it is a bit different from my normal ones. I have seen completed ones in all sorts of colours, but the ones that have chosen shades of one colour, as I did, are much more pleasing (in my opinion), than those made with multi-colours.

I made mine with one extra diamond in the centre row, and the finished blanket is a good size, and would just about fit a standard double bed.

We had a nice start to the week when we followed the church service with a community meal at a local bar/restaurant. We were served a lovely dinner, and then we sat around listening to our friend Sharon Reagan, who is also a member of our church congregation, while she sang for a three hour gig. She is very talented and we really enjoyed it.

I am short, and Sharon only comes up to my shoulders, so she very rightly advertises herself as "The little girl with a big voice".

On Monday we decided to make a start on the garage sort out. I moved as much as I could to one end to give us some space to work in, so it was all precariously piled up. This is how it started!

Chris unwrapped the first set of shelves and faced the mystery of any flat-packed furniture!

But eventually we got the first set assembled. Realising how much space it needed we changed our minds about using two sets in front of each other to make deeper shelves, and instead we thought we would try them as two sets of half-height ones under the windows on the next wall. The third set would go alongside the first one as originally intended. I helped Chris assemble the first set, but I think he decided he was better off without me because he made the other two sets on his own while I was out! (I had an arthritis flare up in my neck on Monday afternoon after the first lot, so it was probably for the best that I kept out of the way). So this is where we are at now.

The next task is to move all the piled up items onto the shelves for now, to clear the wall on the left where we will be moving the shelving from the larder, initially to house the food and baking equipment that are on them now, just until the kitchen is done. Then they will have a new home and we can sort the garage shelves out properly. The fourth wall of the garage is a floor to ceiling built in cupboard which needs a good clear out. Many things were put in there when we arrived ten years again, and they haven't been out again since. There are some very useful items in there as well, but it is definitely time to be really  ruthless and throw lots away, and then utilise all the space much more efficiently.

On Monday night, the nice warm sun we have enjoyed came to an abrupt halt. I was working in my craft room and suddenly realised that it was getting dark earlier than usual, and there was a very eerie light outside. I called Chris to look at the sky. It was still quite bright behind us, but out in front of us the sky was a dirty purple that turned an orangey red. It looked quite ominous. It is known locally as a 'Sahara sky'. The colour comes from the amount of desert sad that is in it. 

Gradually it came towards us, and later that night, the rain started, and with it came the sand.

I felt sorry for Chris who had cleaned the pool out the day before, because it now needs to be done again. All the patio furniture was red and so were our cars.

I needed to go out on Tuesday morning, so I was preparing to clean the car windows so I could see where I was going, only to find that Chris had got there before me and they were sparkling again. What a nice man!

It was the church AGM on Tuesday, which is not my favourite meeting, but a necessary one all the same. And yes; you've guessed it; we followed it with a lunch together. (Food is an important social event out here!) So by the time I got home, Tuesday was almost over. I spent the evening finishing off my blanket border, so now I can get on with a new project.

I have had some lovely parcels this week. One was a pale green sundress that I am very pleased with. But the parcels I really like getting are soft and squidgy ones, and two of those came together this week.

These came for a company called Wool warehouse which is based in UK. I am very impressed with their service. The items were ordered on Wednesday and Thursday last week, and they arrived together on Tuesday this week. That is much faster than most of my parcels, and they are always wrapped so well, with the wool in a drawstring organza bag, and then a plastic wrapper. The first parcel contained the wool I will need for my Cosmic blanket, though I have nearly finished part one and then it will be packed away until the Autumn. But I can download each part of the pattern as it is published, so with the wool in my stash, I will be ready to work on it again whenever I feel ready.

The second parcel contained some wool in lovely variegated Autumn colours with a gold lurex thread running through it. I knew I needed a smaller project to be working on for now, so I am going to try knitting again and make a cardigan for myself ready for when the cooler weather comes round again. 

I also bought a gadget called a Wool Jeanie, which holds a ball of wool on a spindle that hangs by a magnet, and slowly revolves as you use the wool. I have tried it out and it is a great idea. The two drawbacks for me are that it needs to be at work height and for knitting needs to be on my right, and my table is on my left! So it will be fine for when I am crocheting and need the wool to feed from my left. But last night I managed to balance it on the arm of Chris' chair while I was knitting and that worked OK. Also this particular wool is wound in big loose balls, so layers of it keep falling off before they unwind, which is not ideal, but the Jeanie still prevents my ball from falling on the floor, and rolling under my chair.

Yesterday we woke up to heavy rain which persisted on and off all day, but at least it was 'clean rain' this time so the rest of my car got washed too! In the afternoon I collect a friend from the choir, and we went to the house of another friend who has had around six months away from singing for health reasons. So we went through all the newer music with her, singing along to the practice CDs provided by our Musical Director. In the evening I went with another friend to a choir concert by another choir in our area. They are quite different in style from us, and it was nice to hear what they are doing. We are singing at the same venue in a month's time, and some of them are coming to listen to us.

Now I am back from our usual Fish & Chip lunch that we go for every Friday, a big tray of flapjack is in the oven, the washing is dry and retrieved from the line as it was in danger of blowing away, and now it is almost time to get ready for choir practice. Friday's have a way of disappearing on me. But we have the weekend to look forward to. Here's hoping it is a relaxing time for everyone.

Before I go it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World.

Rocking Your World 2018; Week 16

Well we have had a lovely week, with lots of sunshine that not even a cool wind could spoil. As it was a nice day, when I got home from church on Sunday, we drove over to Vera for the Lions Club "Party in the Park". We knew there was a good crowd there because we had to hunt to find a parking space. As we entered the park, we saw the main stage which at that time had some very small school children doing a dance routine.

We walked around the spectators and over to the other side of the park where we found a wide variety of stalls, some market traders, and others local crafts -people eager to sell their wares.

We bought a few cakes and some pickle and headed over to the white wall you can see in the background which was the entrance to the 'Irish' bar.

Here we met up with friends, and sat to listen to live musicians while the men indulged in several glasses of Guinness! 

These two singers were people we know. Derek, on the left, is a friend from our village, whose claim to fame is that he once played his saxophone in a backing group for Ben E King. His co-singer on the right is Clive Sarstedt, older brother of Peter Sarstedt who had a big hit back in the sixties with "Where do you go to my lovely?". They also have another brother, older again, who sang under the name Eden Kane, and he was one of my favourites. I saw him on stage in Bournemouth on several occasions back in my student days! Clive now lives near here so he turns up at various music functions to sing.

After them, there were more musicians who have enjoyed performing through the years and are now retired in 'Sunny Spain', and they are all still good entertainers. 

The last act was  a younger man called Jack Law and he was very good.

With youth on his side, he had more energy and volume to his singing and he did an excellent set.

Fortunately for the performers, they had a small corner stage with a roof so they had some shade from the sun. I think it was the hottest day we have had so far. The audience were all seated or standing around the courtyard, and it did get very warm indeed. The heat took us all by surprise, and few had thought to bring sun cream or a hat with them.

You can see Chris sitting in the centre (in a yellow T-shirt), with our friends Eileen and Tony. His nose and forehead are peeling today! I had moved to the side to sit in the shade by this time, but even so, the cross straps on my dress are now etched into my back!

After Jack's set we wandered back over to the main stage, and we were happy to sit and relax in the shade of the very tall palm trees that give the park its name - El Palmeral Parque.

We left around 6.00 to go home and feed the dogs, but the music went on until 11.00pm. It was a really good event and cleared almost 6,000€ profit for the Lions Club, who do so much to help people in need in the area.

I have been looking out for a hydrangea plant. We had such a pretty one a few years back, but sadly the dogs started to eat it! We don't know why as they generally do not harm any of our plants. Anyway, I popped over to Lidls on Monday and they happened to have some on their plants stall, so I bought two - a pink one like we had lost, and a deep blue one. 

They need to be planted in large, heavy pots. As their name suggests, they are water plants and get very thirsty, so a small pot will dry out too quickly. So yesterday we decided to go to a local garden centre

On the way, we stopped at the big ferreteria and bought some 'dexion-style' shelving for the garage. I am about to tackle the garage which is a general dumping ground for anything that doesn't have a specific home, and need an easier way of storing everything, so that I can make space for the contents of the kitchen until the work is done. They are still flat packed in the hall for now, but on Monday we are going to make a start.

We then moved on to the garden centre and it was ablaze with colour. In front of the 'shop' were rows and rows of bedding plants all in full bloom.

I believe the back row was geraniums, which do very well out here and seem to cope with the hot, dry summer. In front of those were petunias in every colour you can think of.

They look lovely, but the flowers don't last long out here, and as you dead-head them they bloom further and further out on long stems,and can get a bit untidy. They are another plant that needs constant watering. We did buy just a couple of them to go in with the hydrangeas while they are growing, to save the pots looking too empty.

The last row were these amazing succulents, which bloom profusely in the sun, and close up at night. We have one in our front yard that was in the hanging baskets last year. We had to give up on the baskets because it is just too windy here, and they are difficult for me to keep watered. But I left the remains of one resting on a pot under the outside tap, which dripped on it just enough for it to survive the winter. Now it is a mass of red flowers, and looks much better than it ever did hanging up.

The journey was worth while, and we came home with our two big, terracotta pots, and four petunias. Now I have to find the time to get them planted up.

Most days this week I have sat out on the patio to eat my lunch, and then ended up staying there and doing some crochet. One day it was too hot with a woolen blanket bundled on my lap, and I had to abandon it and read a book instead, which made a nice change. But I did get part seven of my blanket finished in plenty of time. The design is based on Navajo symbols, so here are the arrows from part six, and last week's Apache tears that I mentioned in my previous blog. It is not a difficult stitch once you have done the first row and set the stitches, and it can be a bit tedious to do too much of, but I love it and think the result was well worth the work.

I have just downloaded the final part, which is the border. It is fairly plain and simple so as not to distract from the main pattern, so I am hoping that will get done this week. Maybe next week will be the full reveal, or the 'Ta-da' moment as Lucy of Attic 24 calls it.

Now I know I said I would have to put it away for the summer once this was finished, but I have been sorely tempted by a new Crochet-along (CAL) project that had its first part released this week. Every time I saw a photo of it on Facebook, I liked it a bit more,so I gave in and ordered the wool. The first task was to chose a colour palette. I am finding I prefer the ones that have a limited choice of colours in them, so this is what I ended up with.

The CAL is called Cosmic blanket, and this sort of colour way is Harmony. I have used the designers suggestions as a starting point, and just tweaked it a bit. The last two colours are extras that I may use to replace the first two sometimes, if I think it needs a bit of extra colour depth.

As I was waiting for the final part of my Arizona blanket, and I don't like sitting around with nothing to do, I made a start on Cosmic. I keep a stash of one ball in each colour so I didn't have to wait for my order to arrive. I know it is shipped and on its way, so I have squishy parcels to look forward to next week, but in the meanwhile I used what I had in my stash. It is a much more challenging pattern than Arizona, more in line with Sophie that I finished last year, but I like the challenge, and I have already done a couple of new stitches in the little bit I have done.

I think it will be lovely, and I shall keep going with it if I can, but I know it will soon have to be packed away.

I needed a few cards this week, so I have done some paper crafting as well, but I think you can see that my main obsession is yarn at the minute. So when I saw this on the web, I just knew it was meant for me. I bet I am not the only one who can relate to most of these. (STABLE - Not me surely?!)

So ending with a smile, I will now link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking your World, and then get ready for choir. 

Our practices start half an hour earlier than they did when they were on Wednesdays, so I am usually home by 9.00. So tonight Chris and I are going round to our local to raise a glass in celebration of 39 years of marriage. How time flies when you are having fun!