Rocking Your World 2020: Week 36

I sat down to write this post this morning and then a good friend video called me, and we spent over an hour putting the world to rights, which was lovely. So here I am, in the middle of the afternoon and just getting started.

And of course, having enjoyed seeing so many happy faces of children getting back to their schools this week, I have to start with a picture of my own. This is my two gorgeous great-grandsons, all ready to start in Years 1 and 5. It doesn't seem possible. Their mummy is a teaching assistant, and works at the same school, so will understand any  strange new rules and ways of doing things that they have to get accustomed to. 

Sadly my week was not all smiles as yesterday I received the news that my eldest sister had passed away peacefully in her nursing home. This was not altogether unexpected as the family have been called in on three or four occasions in the last couple of months thinking it was the end, but that doesn't make it any easier when the time comes. Evelyn was 92 years old, and was married for 68 happy years. Her husband passed away two years ago. They had five children, 27 grandchildren, and I have lost track and lost count of the great-grandchildren. So she had a long and happy life, but in her last years she suffered from lung cancer, and I am happy for her that she is no longer in pain. Our family of eight, of which I am the youngest, is now down to four. This is the last photo I have of us five sisters together. It was taken at John's funeral in 2018. Evelyn is the one front right. She was a wonderful support to me when I was going through a divorce with two small children to care for, and also when our mum died, 26 years ago. Although I haven't seen her much in the last few years, I shall miss knowing she is there. R.I.P.Evelyn. (Not a very good photo but the background was very busy so I have partially edited it out; not very well as I can't spend any more time on it!).

When my new kitchen was installed a few years ago I asked for a waste-disposal unit in the sink. They are not generally fitted out here, but I think it is perfect for this climate, as I have almost no organic waste now. (I have no plantable land so there is no point in my setting up a compost-box). I also have three big bins in the back yard for recycling plastic and cans, paper and cardboard, and glass. I take these to special bins on the edge of the village whenever they get so full I cannot close their lids. That leaves me very little for the kitchen bin, so I only take it out to the big basura on the street once a week. This is emptied every day in the early hours of the morning, except for Sundays, but our rubbish has to be in a plastic sack and I won't waste one by taking it out more often. This week, when I moved the bin to take its sack out I found a tiny little gheko trapped under it. It got under there so it should have been able to get out, but sadly I couldn't revive it. It was only a baby, no more than 2cm long, and so thin it was almost transparent. He may have been chased there by a cat in the night as the end of his tail was missing, (it would have grown again), and his legs were a bit damaged. But just look at those cute little hands and fingers with suckers on each one to enable it to run up a vertical wall. We have quite a lot around here, inside and outside the house and they are welcome visitors as they eat the bugs.

Tolly continues to drive us mad and then be so cute you forgive him anything. I try to keep him occupied so he doesn't annoy the other animals for too long at a time, and this toy has proved quite successful. But his favourite is a little pink rubber ball and he runs around with it in his mouth like a little puppy.

Kim is getting increasingly tolerant of him and he allows him to jump up onto "his sofa" and sleep with him.

Each evening I continue to do my crochet out on the porch as I am no good at sitting doing nothing, and I can only cope with so much screen time before I start to see double.

My current project is a study in textures, so there have been a few new stitches for me to try out. I love the way they are turning out and they are enhanced by being worked in aran weight yarn. This is thicker than I am used to working with, but the pattern called for it, and I happened to have a big bag of this very neutral colour that I bought a few years back, intending to knit a jacket for myself. But as knitting became increasingly difficult for me, I knew I would not handle the heavier pieces of work, so it got put to the back of the cupboard. So I am happy to be using some of it now. Here is a little bit to show you the pattern. The project should be finished in another two or three weeks so I will show it again then.

At the other end of the scale, I have a second project on the go for when my hands are not so good and I need something really light to hold. This is made from 4ply cotton, and involves making 90 of these little motifs, six each in fifteen different colours.

Each one is quick and easy to make, but making 90 all the same is a bit boring, so I just keep it by my chair and do the odd one or two when I want a change of eyesight. But 'the odd one or two' soon add up, and I was surprised when I sorted them out today, to see how many I had done. This is my collection so far.

When they are all done I have a further sixty motifs to make all in the same colour but in four different shapes, so I will be working on this one for a while yet.

We have had slightly cooler days this week, only by a couple of degrees, but it makes it so much more comfortable. They forecast rain which never came, but we sometimes wake up to a light cloud cover which soon disappears, and in the evenings, small fluffy clouds start to form, which have given us some pretty skies. Here are a few of my best photos.

And to finish with, here is something I saw today which made me smile. You need to be familiar with story books that we read to our little ones, to understand these. I used them when I was running my nursery/preschool in UK. I hope they make you smile too.

2020 editions of familiar children's story books.

And my nursery children's favourite.

Ans with that I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World. Stay safe everyone!

Rocking Your World 2020; Week 35

Another week of not doing very much, but it has been pleasant all the same. The highlight for me was a visit yesterday from a dear friend Chris and her husband Phil, and guess what - I forgot to take a photo! Phil and my Chris went into the village for a pint and a tapa while Chris and I had a good catch up over salad and fruit in the fly-free porch.  It was very pleasant sitting there, and lovely to share all our news. Chris has several health issues, so like us, they have mostly been shielding at home, but we took all the right precautions and felt it was safe to have a visit, and I am sure it did us both good.

On Sunday I follow one or two church services on-line. Our vicar is away on holiday so this week our service was led by my dear friend Margie who is our licensed lay-reader, and David who is the church representative on the PCC.

They did a lovely service with some of my favourite hymns from YouTube that I could sing along with. It could be a while yet before the church is able to open again.

On Tuesday night I was my usual clumsy self, and I knocked a jar of jam off the top shelf of the fridge and unfortunately it landed on the top of my foot. Within an hour it had swollen up so I could not get a shoe on. Boy did it hurt at the time, but I was pretty sure I had not done any real damage.

It has now gone down  a lot but is still a bit 'fat' and shades of blue and grey are creeping in all along the base of my toes. But to be honest, it doesn't really hurt now as long as I don't try to put any sandals on. Fortunately I have one pair of summer casuals that are low cut along the toes, so I am wearing those for now. That should teach me to be more careful, but I doubt that it will!

The rest of my post is about little Tolly again, but he is still at that age when he is so cute, even if he is all legs and long body now. He is so much more relaxed around the house now and doesn't constantly cry for attention. He can amuse himself with almost anything but has a definite preference for our shoes! When he has had a good feed and a playtime, he goes off to one of his favourite spots and sleeps. Often he is curled up in the little space behind my chair, but when we are outside he loves the corner next to the water feature. He hasn't seen it in action very often. That might change his mind.

When I am down here in my craft room, he often comes with me. He can be a nuisance, with 'too much help', but sometimes he just sits beside me and watches me typing into the computer.  I must have been at it for too long one day because he got bored and just stretched out between the keyboard and monitor, and went to sleep.

We still spend most evenings sitting out on the porch and one night, Tolly had been playing around and needed a rest and he just leaned into Kim's back, and Kim took no notice of him. I was really pleased because I want them to all be friends. The cats are very slowly coming round to his presence, but apart from Tango they won't let him come close, but the dogs are doing better. In fact they are very good considering how annoying he can be, when he persistently plays with their tails, despite being warned off!

Every night when we are sitting out there, I hear a bird calling softly and have tried many times to catch it on my app to identify it. I had an idea of what it was but I wanted to be sure. And last night the call was much louder and my app identified it as an Eurasian stone curlew, which was what I thought.  It is  mainly nocturnal, which is why I don't notice its call through the day, and often it is heard regularly but never seen. I have never seen one. But I have found a photo from google and this is what it looks like.

It has quite a distinctive cry, so I am sure I will hear it again.

I prepared most of this post yesterday and I am glad that I did as today has turned out to be one of the hottest this year. Our thermometer on a wall in the fly-free porch, which never gets direct sun, is showing 38º this afternoon. That is hot, even by our standards. So now I am going for a cooling dip in the pool, and a lazy rest in front of my largest fan!

And that my friends is about it for this week. So I will link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles and wait to see what next week brings.