Rocking Your World 2020: Week 30

It has been a very quiet week, partly because the days are hotting up, and when it gets this hot I only have the energy to do what is really necessary. So as very little is necessary right now, I have done very little!!

These little fellows have been reminding us that every day is above 30º, which is apparently the temperature at which they start calling for a mate. And they sure are noisy! In case you don't know, this is a cicada, a creature synonymous with Mediterranean summers. When they all shout together, the sound is like a really bad electric fault in the cables above us. But if you walk passed one, it can switch off like a light switch. They merge in with their background and are incredibly hard to see unless, like this one, it stops for a brief rest on our fly screen. 

As soon as the sun goes down and the temperature drops a few degrees, they go quiet, and straight away the night crickets start chirruping instead. It is a much gentler sound and I like to hear them.

I have two photos this week to keep you guessing. Yesterday the 'man with a van' left me one of these brown boxes with a smile on them. I think we all like getting one of those. I have lifted the top flap (bottom one actually!) but that is all I am going to show you for now.

I wonder what that is all about?

And secondly, although it stays so warm all evening, and we have spent most evenings sitting out on the porch, sometimes resorting to using my big industrial strength fan out there to get some movement in the air, I have managed to do a little bit of crochet most days. So now I am working with that big ball of yarn I showed you a while ago. This is my progress so far, but I won't be showing it any more until I have reached the dark yarn at the end of the ball, so you will have to decide what I am making, or wait patiently for me to finish it!

With a bit of extra time on my hands, I wanted to do something different so I raided my box of 'old' photos; i.e. the ones that were taken before digital cameras were the norm. I selected a few and scanned them into the computer so I could give them a face-lift. Then I worked in Adobe Photoshop to make this layout for my son Mike's 47th birthday which is today. I enjoyed doing that, so I hope he likes it too.

Apart from a long chat with my sister, and one that lasted four hours(!) with my youngest son, that's about it for this week. So I will now link up with Rocking Your World, and Annie's Friday Smiles.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 29

I am starting my blog this week with a photo of my Grandson, who last week heard he had graduated from Aberystwyth  University with a 2.1 in Accounting and Finance. Clever lad, and we are very proud of him. It was not the end of year he had hoped for, with little chance to say 'Goodbye' to all his friends, and no graduation ceremony. But he also won an award for his contribution to university life, both playing for and also as chair of the Uni football team, and playing in the first team for the chess club. I hope the future holds something good for him now.

Our week has been a mixture of sad and happy, at least for our Spanish neighbours, because yesterday was our Fiesta Patronal, i.e. the Fiesta de la Virgen Maira del Carmen. Here she is on her plinth at the entrance to the village church.

Normally, as regular followers of my ramblings will know, this means four days of 24 hour celebrations, with music and dancing, a fairground, lots of market stalls, extra bars on the plazas and of course food, food and more food! However, with the pandemic still very much in evidence, none of this was possible. It is a very important event for the local people, and for some of them it represents their only holiday.

But our new Mayor, voted in at last year's elections, is very good, and he has done all he can to make it a special few days, particularly yesterday which was the actual Saint's day. He made sure the Town Hall was looking festive and encouraged everyone to decorate their porches,windows and verandas.

Above is the Town Hall and this is a small selection of the decorated houses.

The highlight of the fiesta is the mass for the Virgen del Carmen and they decided to go ahead with that as it was possible to control the crowding. We were warned it was soon to start by the usual volley of rockets that make a very large noise and sound like a set of guns being fired. You can hear a whoosh as they shoot up, then you see a flare followed by a boom, and then little puffs of white smoke. The dogs in the village all start barking when they go off. Kim doesn't seem too bothered by them but we let Foxy in to hide behind the settee before we went out.

When we arrived up at the church we found the patio beside it was set out with neatly spaced rows of seats. We were directed to the local police who were spraying everyone's hands with sanitiser, and asked to take a seat.  I walked around the corner for a better view because this plaza has sections set off at each side, and all sections were similarly laid out, with a shaded place in the centre where an altar was set up. The statue of Maria del Carmen was to the side of it, and the choir was in the back left corner and the band on the right. It was fairly early so there were still plenty of seats.

I went back round to sit near Chris, and before long all the seats were filled, and there were police officers to make sure no-one was loitering by a wall. A few late-comers were allowed to stand at the back barrier, well spaced out of course. Everyone except the priest and choir had masks on. These are now compulsory in all public spaces, both indoors and outside.

After the mass, Chris and I walked to a local bar. We didn't feel confident to go inside, but as there was an empty table outside, we stopped for one drink before going home. I had my first Tinto de verano of the year (summer wine, basically red wine with lemonade, and sometimes fruit juice) which was lovely. While we sat there, there were some more explosions and a shower of coloured stars lit up the now dark sky. It is very unusual to see proper coloured fireworks here. They were fairly basic ones, but it was a nice way to end the fiesta day.

I have a 'ta-da' moment to share with you as I finished my latest crochet project using the grey and green yarn I showed a few weeks ago. As you can see it is a shoulder bag, with an embossed crochet design on it. The pattern was called Meadow  bag.

It was quite difficult as I have never done anything using this technique before, but you know me; I like a challenge. It was awkward to hold with my not very efficient hands, and it certainly isn't perfect, but I am glad I finished it and have something fit for use. The twisted chord handle was a real challenge and I had to undo it several times before I suddenly got the idea. Then it was just a bit of a chore to need such a long piece of it. But I rather like the result.

Of course, for me, the biggest challenge was then lining it and adding a zip. Sewing does not come naturally to me, and I incurred a few injuries along the way, including this bruise on my middle finger! I have so little feeling in my fingers that holding a thread is hard, let alone trying to get it through the eye of a needle. It is a good thing I have a stubborn streak or it might have gone out the window!

While my machine was out, I decided to tackle a few other sewing jobs that have been waiting for me to get inspired. Here I am trying to use the material from two identical, very cheap dresses from the Todo shop, to make one new dress using one of my favourite sun dresses as a pattern. I bet Annie could have done it in half a day, but this is my third day and it still isn't finished. As you can see I am an untidy worker, and let's say I am easily distracted. But I will get it done, maybe tomorrow!

I have also spent some time in my craft room this week. Since I lost Arwen, Tango has started to wander down here and spend time with me. Arwen never made visitors feel welcome! I had lifted a big box of papers out of one of my units, and Tango spotted the gap and was straight in there. Since then he has been here quite often and he always goes straight for the gap, so I haven't had the heart to put the box of papers back yet. When he is not in there, he lays out on the base of my floor fan. I think he likes the vibrations.

And finally, here are a couple of sky photos taken earlier this week. We had a one or two  overcast days so there was a bit of cloud around at nightfall. I saw this circular formation through the kitchen window and went out for a better look.

At first I thought it was like hands forming a circle with the fingers, but as it started to move I clearly saw an animal face, with eyes and a pointy nose, and two flying back ears. Can you see him? 

I am always seeing faces in clouds, rock formations and food, in fact almost anywhere. Often the people I am with can't see them at all. I am sure they think I am mad! So I was very interested to read an article this week that said it is a normal condition that has a name. It is Pareidolia. It means 'seeing patterns, often faces, in randomness!' Apparently it used to be considered a form of psychosis, but now they know that many people do it, and it is a way for the brain to make sense in a mass of random stimuli, by linking them to something familiar. So I am not so mad after all. That's nice to know!

So now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking Your World. Stay safe everyone. We are seeing a worrying number of new, small outbreaks of the virus in Spain, mainly to the north of the country, and I know the government are keeping a close eye on the situation, and warned they will not hesitate to lock us down again if it get worse, and UK seems to be going the same way.