Week 11

Well the world is getting a bit worrying now with the coronavirus pandemic, but at least we can still find some things to smile about. I saw this on Facebook today and I had to smile. Anyone from my generation who remembers the Corona man doing the rounds each week, will also be smiling I'm sure.

I have very little news this week as Spain seems to now be affected more than UK by the virus. Not all areas have reacted quickly but Andalucía are taking it very seriously and are proactive in trying to slow down its progress. With immediate effect in some places, and from Monday in others, all schools and colleges are closed, all municipal venues are closed and there are no street markets etc. Every few minutes today, the local news station has posted cancellation of another concert, or class. We have no church services, no choir practices, and only Farmacías and food shops will be open. So next week will be even quieter.

On the positive side, I have done my main shop for the month and managed to top up with a few extras yesterday, so food will not be a problem. Chris has new inhalers for his CPOD and I have a full month's prescription for my diabetes etc, so we will keep ourselves to ourselves quite happily for now. I was quite surprised at how busy the shops were. I guess I hadn't realised how much the 'panic' is taking hold. I am really quite perplexed by the rush on toilet rolls. Surely there are other things available if necessary. Here nearly every bathroom has a bidet so it is not a problem, but the shelf was still empty in the shops. The strange thing is that apart from hand-sanitizer, which I can understand up to a point, there didn't seem to be a rush on anything else. I am sure there are lots of things I would worry about more than toilet paper, but as I say, I think we have enough of most things to see us through, so I hope I will not have to go to the supermarket again for a while.

Think of all the paper-crafting and crochet I will be able to do, and maybe even sort a few jobs around the house too!

I am hoping I might have my blanket finished to show you next week. I am working on the border now.

A few weeks ago I showed some new alcohol pens I had ordered online, which I am quite pleased with but they didn't quite fill the gaps in my colour range I was hoping for. So I searched again and found the site in UK that sells individual copic markers, so when my new pension came in I ordered a few more. I had to smile when they arrived. This was my package.

One, extremely well taped up, very full, padded envelope.

Inside, the pens were neatly packed in threes, in small boxes which exactly fitted in the envelop. I bet if they had come from Amazon they would at least have been in a shoe-box size parcel with loads of plastic balloon padding to stop them moving!

I am delighted with the pens and my colour range is now complete. Although most of my pens are copic ciao markers, I also have some from four different makes, so finding a colour match can be a challenge. So I spent most of yesterday and today, starting with my copic colour chart and inserting any others where they fitted best, then printing out the new chart and adding all the colour samples. It will now be much easier to select the pens I want, and I can't explain it, but I get an enormous amount of satisfaction from having done this!

I belong to a Facebook group called Wild-life in Southern Spain, where people post photos of all sorts of bugs, animals and plants  for other members to identify, and this week someone posted this picture.

From those who responded I learned that they are Barbary beetles, quite common here, and they eat flowers, and more specifically pollen, so it is advisable to keep them off the citrus blossom just appearing now. One person said they love arum lilies and as my plant has just had its first flower, I went out to have a look, and sure enough there was not just one, but six of the little critters feasting on its stamen. They flew off when I tried to get a closer look. I hope they are not doing any lasting damage.

Now I am linking up with Anne's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and hopefully I will be back next week. Stay safe everyone.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 10

The weeks seem to be rolling by at an alarming speed, so here we are at Friday again, and time to post our happy moments.

After I wrote my post last week, Chris and I went over to the marquee on the village car park because it was time for the celebration of Día de Andalucía. When we arrived everything was set up ready to go. The roof of the tent was swathed in bunting of the Andalucian flag, and the trestle tables were laden with cold meats, bread and cheese, all protected by paper tablecloths until after the show.

You can just spot some crates at intervals under the tables. These contain broad beans which are eaten raw, a great favourite in this locality, and much nicer than I had expected them to be.

Soon the choir had organised themselves and they treated us to some exuberant singing along with castanets, clapping and guitars.

The first dance group to perform were the fusion dancers, and you could see these young girls really loved their sequined costumes.

After these, the two local flamenco dance groups did their acts, but Friday is a very busy day for me, so we did not stay to see them all.

We know Spring is really here now because our whole house is filled with the scent of jasmine. Our front wall is again smothered in bloom, with not room to put a pin between the flowers, and their heady scent can be noticed half way down the street.

We often sit by open window and hear passers by commenting on it. And the flowers are so pretty too. They start as tight dark pink buds, but the flowers fade almost to white. It is an annual treat.

Another flower that is everywhere right now is the oxalis. It covers fields and road-sides, and carries masses of flowers. It is quite a harsh 'acid' yellow, which is not my favourite shade, but it flowers on delicate stems and bobs around in the breeze, and certainly brings some colour on a grey day. I must admit I prefer the pale pink oxalis we used to grow on our rockery in UK.

In my current bid to walk a bit more, on Sunday I decided to walk across the road to the urbanisation called Huerta Nueva (New Orchard?), where there is an ornamental lake. It is not very big but it is quite a novelty around here, and the Spanish people like to walk there to see the ducks and geese introduced by the local residents. They seem to thrive there, and I was pleased to see quite a few resting on the shore line. I think they may have inter-bred a bit as their colours are patchy.

They are very used to spectators and don't hide, but neither do they rush up for food. They are fed properly by the residents so visitors are discouraged from throwing bread etc, which they don't need. They all seem to get on together too.

I spotted this one, resting in a tiny patch of shade, and took its photo because it had such gorgeous colours in its feathers.

The lake itself is fenced all round, but people have tried to keep the area outside it as tidy as possible, and have planted some areas with cacti. These aloe-vera plants were full of fat buds, I must go over again soon and see them when they are in flower.

This one really made me smile. It looks like a cartoon duck. I guess the 'beak' is also a flower for a short while anyway. Cacti are such interesting plants and they come in a wide range of shapes. Their flowers are usually quite showy, but often only last for a day.  On my walk back home I passed a small area of campo or common land, and sitting under a tree was this old goat herd, with his loyal dog. He lives nearby and is always happy to pass the time of day with you.

In front of him, his herd of mixed goats were happily cropping the weeds and scrub, and it was such a peaceful scene. Looking at this, you could imagine you were in the English countryside, on a summer day.

Another thing that really made me happy this week was when I spotted a bird in a tree next door. When we first came here I read about some of the birds and flowers that are found here, and the two birds that really took my fancy were the bee-eaters and the hoopoe, and I was determined to see them both. Well a few years ago I found a nesting place for the bee-eaters and managed to get several photos of them, but in the eleven years we have been here, I have never seen a hoopoe. I knew my friends further inland have them in their garden in the early morning, but I think our village is a little busier than they like. However, when I was giving the dogs their breakfast this week, I saw a bird fly onto a tree in our neighbours garden, and when I looked closer I saw it was hoopoe. I rushed indoors to grab my phone, and fortunately he was still sitting there when I got back. It was a fair distance away so my photograph is not good, but there is no disputing that shape.

He is such a handsome bird. For clarification here is a google image of what he really looks like. When he gets excited he can raise that crest on his head like an Indian chief's headress. Isn't he lovely? I am told they do come to places in Southern England too, but I have never seen one there either. They are migratory birds and will move on once it gets too hot here.

Although the days are getting warmer now, in fact it is very pleasant in the day time, it is still cool enough in the evenings for me to work on my crochet blanket. I really want to get it done before the hot weather gets here, so I don't have to put it away unfinished. But I have a little helper every evening which slows my progress down!

Well, would you ask him to move so you could turn your work around? He is actually like having a second blanket on and sometimes makes me too hot so I have to move him, but most evenings he sleeps there until I go to bed, and sometimes just opens one eye as if to say 'I dare you to move!'

I am getting to grips with my new cutting machine and have tried to use it with different materials to see how it copes. This week a lady at church asked me to make a decal to put on the side of a candle for a baby's baptism. I made small decorative crosses for the altar candles last year, so she knew about my machine. So this week I worked on a design which she has approved of, and tomorrow I shall be cutting it from gold vinyl. I'll take it to church on Sunday and apply it for her, because it can be a bit fiddly if you are not used to working with vinyl. I am sure my machine will cut it well.

I have also been busy in the kitchen again. The piccalilli I made a couple of weeks ago, has all sold, so I made some more today. And yesterday I made some hot chili and ginger jam. I haven't made that for ages, and sometimes folk do ask if I am going to make more. We don't actually use the piccalilli much ourselves, but we do like the chilli jam. It is very hot and spicey but it does wonderful things to a cheese sandwich, and heats up a too mild curry. So the kitchen smell was pungent today and even managed to mask the jasmine, but I have a good extractor fan, so it will soon clear.

And that just leaves me with a couple of sky pictures. I saw this cloud from my craft-room window, like a little tornado spiraling down to the hills.

We haven't had many really nice skies lately so I thought I'd take a picture of it, even though it didn't have much colour in it.

Then ten minutes later the colour came in rush and suddenly the sky was ablaze. I just love the way it changes so quickly, and then it's gone, and you feel lucky to have been there at just the right moment to enjoy it.

I am afraid I have rambled on a bit again this week so I had better stop and go over to Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World at Celtic House, and link up before we go off for our usual fish and chip lunch.