Rocking Your World 2020: Week 1

Hi everyone, and a Happy new Year to you all. 

As expected, I didn't post last week so I really wanted to just draw together the last few days of 2019 before launching into the new year. So I am having a quick trawl through my photos and writing this on Thursday night as tomorrow I shall be up with the dawn chorus to get to Murcia airport to collect our eldest son Jim and his wife Jo. They are coming for a week to celebrate the Three Kings festival with us.

Earlier in the month we had a 'Red Day', one of our national holidays, this time a religious one for 'The Immaculate Conception'. Apart from a special mass in the church, the local folk don't seem to celebrate this in any special way, though of course, they are happy to have a day off work. But we have quite a large South American (mainly Ecuadorian) population around here, and for them it is a very special festival. They dress up in the most bizarre costumes, some beautiful and some verging on very ugly or scary, and gather for a big mass in the village church, when some kind of presentation was given to quite a few folk, and then they dance and play music as they parade down to a recreational area in the rambla at the top of the village, which is set aside for their use every weekend. There they party into the night. So I am just showing a couple of their costumes, as these  photos were overlooked at the time. And then I will move on to our Christmas.

First we will go back to the night before Mike came over for his (very) short break, when he played his usual role of Santa on the Round Table float that tours the villages in and around my home town of Oswestry. He always does it on the night it is in his old village, and was still asked to play the part again even though it is almost a year since he moved away.

He makes a very good Santa, partly because he enjoys it so much. The thing that struck me when I first saw this was, if I didn't know it was him, and I was asked who it was, I would immediately have said it was his brother Jim. I have never thought of them as being that alike, but it must be all in the eyes!

Anyway, the next day he was on the plane to us, sadly on his own, as his partner's father was very ill and she did not feel she could come away. But he made the most of his two days.

On the Sunday we had our Christmas dinner together. While Mike was having a drive along the sea front, I prepared the food and got the table ready.

Then early afternoon we sat down to pull crackers, raise a glass or two, and enjoy a good feast.

The next day he had some shopping to do, so while he was out doing that, Chris and I went for a walk along the sea-front at Garrucha, and on to the marina. It was a beautiful day. The beach was empty except for the sea gulls, but there were plenty of others enjoying a stroll in the sunshine.

While we were sitting watching the boats bobbing around in the marina we took a selfie, and you can tell from how dark our glasses had turned, just how bright the sun was.

Then, a couple of days later, it was Christmas Day, but as we had had our special time three days earlier, we had a quiet day at home together. It was another bright sunny day and we spent much of our time sitting outside on the porch. I did not want to cook turkey again, so I had bought us two extra nice steaks, and we ate outside, something we haven't managed on Christmas Day for a long time.

Both the dogs had a bone for their Christmas treat and that kept them occupied so we got to eat in peace.

We had ordered a new bed for each of them, but they did not arrive until a couple of days after Christmas. They are very soft and fluffy and they love them. Foxy's is dark grey and Kim's much bigger one is dark red - you can just see a bit at the left hand edge of this photo.

They actually spend a lot of time curled up in them , but Foxy does not look very relaxed in this picture because she hates the camera and didn't want to pose for me. I couldn't get Kim on his as he walked away every time I approached him. But needless to say I am forever catching them in the wrong bed. Kim hasn't got the sense to see that if he lays on Foxy's his rear end is on the cold floor, and Foxy is happy with either of them!

The rain we had a couple of weeks ago, followed by some very warm days has made all the weeds grow at a rapid pace. Next door's orange grove looks like a jungle. And there are now lots of buds forming so soon it will be covered in yellow flowers and then lots more seeds will be scattered.

But all the greenery hasn't spoiled the orange crop. The trees are full of fruit which really needs to be picked, but the house owner doesn't always come to get them. Eventually the lady who comes each week to water her plants, will pick some of them. I know, if I asked, she would happily give some to me too, but I have already picked the ones from our other neighbour's trees which hang into our garden, and have as many as we can use, and our own little tree has eight really big fruit on it which will not be ready until late February, when the others are passed their best, so we will enjoy those then.

We had a quiet new Year's Eve at home. The whole village is quite quiet as it is a night to spend with families here, though there are a few fireworks and people on the street at midnight. As we usually do, we turned onto Spanish TV at our midnight (that's 11.00 for our friends in UK), and then back on to UK TV at 1.00am for midnight in London. We like to watch the fireworks over the Thames, though this year they were partly hidden by smoke. There can't have been any wind to keep it moving. But I do wonder how much good might have been done with all the money that burned in those few minutes. Still, it does have a 'feel good' factor, and at this rather uncertain time, that is what folks need. We managed to talk to all our boys at some time during the day, so we happily took ourselves off to bed, still full of questions as to what 2020 may have in store for us. It is probably a good thing that we can't see into the future, so we take each day as it comes, and keep looking for those silver linings as we go.

New Year's Day was forecast to be cloudy and much colder, but it turned out to be rather better than that, so mid-morning we drove down to the Playa again, this time to the Mojacar end, and had a lovely walk along the promenade. There were lots of people about, walking off a night of partying, or just wanting to enjoy the sea air. Like us, they mostly stayed up on the prom, so the beach was very tranquil in the sunshine.

There is something about that wide stretch of blue sea, and gentle waves breaking on the rocks, that is very good for the soul!

However, when we reached a man-made bay, constructed to make a safer area as the currents can be quite dangerous at times, we came across a small group of folk who were brave enough to go for a New Year's Day swim. There is a much bigger organised group for this who take to the sea much further along the coast, but this was just a group of hardy friends who were having a great time, and were enjoying the attention they got from a large crowd of on-lookers.

As we walked further along I noticed some colour among the trees that lined the promenade, and on closer inspection I found they were little wild galardias, all opening up to enjoy the sun. I have a few of these in a pot in my garden. I didn't plant them so they must have been seeded by the birds, but I don't expect to see them in flower until the summer.

We hadn't planned on staying out for lunch, but it was so lovely that when we came to nice bar that we have visited before, we sat at a table on their front courtyard and enjoyed a very nice meal, before driving home to check on my line of washing, which I am pleased to say, was all dry.

Now we are preparing for our son Jim's visit. He and Jo have only been out a couple of times before, and never in the Winter, so we are looking forward to spending time with them.

I was pleased to see that the poinsettias in our front porch have weathered the highs and lows over Christmas, and still look good. I love their bright splash of colour. All our other decorations are still up too of course, as Christmas isn't over here until after twelfth night, 6th January.

I haven't been down in my craft room much over the holiday but I did want to get my new large calendar for the wall made. It shows the whole year with just the dates, no spaces for writing on. I have it on the wall just above my computer and it is very useful when the boys ring me up to discuss holidays, or things they will be doing, and I also print one off for Chris to have in his 'office' den. I like it to be something to make me smile when I glance up at it, so I wanted to include photos of all the family and the animals. The boys were easy to get sorted, but the animals!! None of them like the camera, so I decided to try to get new photos of them, and it took me forever to get each of them looking at the camera. But in the end I managed to get something I could edit to fit into the little spaces I had allotted them, and eventually I got my calendar made. I use Photoshop for something like this, and have put one of my lovely sunset photos behind us to make the background interesting. Now they are printed in a large A5 format, and are both in place on our walls. 

Now I must think about making a page per month calendar for writing our events on, as I did not get a new one this year. I like having a personalised one but it always takes me ages to decide which photos to use for each month.

And finally here is a not very dramatic, but very pretty sky to lead us gently into the new year.

Tomorrow, when I get back from the airport, I shall link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World. Why not start a new project this year, and add your happy moments in a post too.

P.S. Visitors arrived safely, first round of tea drunk, and the world put to rights. Hopefully I¡ll be back next week.

Rocking Your World 2019; Week 51

Well this may well be my last post for 2019, as I don't know what I will be doing by next Friday, but maybe I will have time to write a blog.

This has been a slightly less busy week, as so much happened last week, but we ended it up on Friday night, with our concert in the Convento of Vera, with my 'other' choir, Vera Voces, (or voices of Vera - a neighbouring town where we meet each week to practice). It is a very different choir from my original one where we mainly sing popular songs, and light medleys from stage and screen. Vera Voces was formed to bring more classical music to the area and on Friday we were singing Part 1 of Handle's Messiah. Back in the summer, for their first concert, (just before I joined them), the singers wore a variety of tee-shirts, but it was decided that we needed to look more uniform and professional, so we all wore a black layer and covered it with a simple royal blue tabard which worked very well. The men had matching cravats and pocket handkerchiefs.

We are lucky to have some truly talented men and ladies within our group to sing all the solos, and a very accomplished pianist/musical director. The rest of the choir sang all the chorus pieces. We had a full audience and it went very well. There will be a DVD of the performance for us to buy in the new year, but I shared a taster on my Facebook page, so if you are a Facebook user you can see it HERE. If not, then here are a couple of 'stills' taken from it. I am on the right at the very end of the second row, behind a tall lady with blonde hair. The front row are all the soloists.

I am looking forward to finding out what we will be working on in the new year.

We had a couple of nice days at the start of the week, followed by two rather wet and dull days, and yesterday it was so windy I was nearly blown off my feet. Fortunately I didn't go out far, and spent most of the day in the kitchen making one last batch of mince pies, a light fruit cake as neither of us really choose the traditional dark Christmas cake, and some shortbreads.

We are having our Christmas dinner on Sunday while our son is here, so I am almost ready for that now.

Sadly all the cats have taken it in turn to catch a cold and have been sneezing a lot, and curling up in the sitting room, reluctant to move even for food. I am happy to say that they seem to be recovering quite quickly and for none of them has it developed into cat-flu. But I feel a bit sorry for them when the house feels chilly in the mornings so I have bought two new cat beds. Usually the cats are happy to lay on a cushion, or a blanket, but I wanted them to have something with sides to keep out the draughts. It has been really funny to watch them - like they are playing musical chairs. As soon as one gets up, another one jumps in, and then they get sat on and wriggle out. I did go into the kitchen and find Paco and Charlie sharing the bigger bed, which is really very unusual. But they seem to be enjoying them. Tango still prefers my lap to any bed, so he is happy when I settle down for the evening. He jumps up on me and doesn't move until bedtime.

We are very lucky at our little church because Zurgena Town Hall, who own the building, allow us to use it rent free. The only way we can really show our appreciation is by collecting food as an unofficial food bank, and every few weeks, taking up bags for some of the needy families on the Town Hall list. We always make an extra effort at this time of year, and try to include some special treats of tinned meats, chocolates etc in each bag. On Wednesday Keith and Peter, who organise this, together with their helper Hazel,  took twenty-five bags and two big boxes up to the Town Hall to give to Jim, our councillor contact, who will distribute them where they are most needed. 

We also asked how many children were in these families and were told five aged five to eight, and five aged eight to sixteen, so we asked the church for donations, and were able to take up boxes of gifts for each child. It is lovely to offer this small service to our community, and help those who desperately need it.

I seem to have found plenty to do each day but it is nice to sit down in the evening and do some crochet while the TV is on in the background. I am continuing to make blocks for my next blanket. It is a mosaic of various sizes of squares and rectangles, which hopefully will all join up to make a perfect rectangle in the end. I am using six bright colours and a very dark navy to tie them all together. There are fifty-three blocks altogether, two each of twenty-six designs and one for the centre. I have made twenty-eight so far so I am about half way. Here are a few of the finished ones.

These relatively small pieces of work are easier for my hands to hold and good for carrying to my sewing group etc, but sometimes I want a change of eyesight. So when I saw a new pattern this week, of another blanket made as a whole, I fell in love with the design, and knew I was going to give it a go. It is yet another new technique, called tapestry crochet which involves using  two colours and carrying one behind the other to make the pattern. I had no idea there were so many new techniques to learn with crochet, but I do enjoy trying something different. I was tempted to send for the colour pack of yarn put together for this design, but I actually chose the more sensible route of trying to make it with yarn already in my stash. So I chose colours I liked together and had a go. As I am getting more used to it, I am not finding it too complicated. It starts off with a circular mandala, which later will become a square, and then it has a deep border across the bottom to turn it into a rectangle. I hope I can still handle the weight of it. This is what I have done so far.

I will update you as the pattern develops.

I won't be doing much of it today as we are going out soon. Our church carol service is tonight at 6.00, followed by mince pies and mulled wine. We have always held this in our little church, but last year around a hundred turned up for it, and it was quite a safety hazard, especially when we all held a lit candle to sing Silent Night. So this year we have moved to a nearby hall. It is a disused railway station which is used for all sorts of functions, and will easily accommodate all who come. I hope this wind and the threat of rain won't put too many folk off. It is always a lovely event. Of course I shall be contributing a big box of my mince pies.

So before I get ready to go, I will quickly link this up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World. 

And then all that is left is for me to thank you for faithfully visiting me week by week, and to wish you all a very Happy Christmas, and a new Year full of love  good health, and lots of Smiles.