Rocking Your World 2017; Week 39

Here is my smile for this week, which is, of course, telling you that last Sunday was our Harvest Service of Thanksgiving. It is one of my favourite services of the church year. Sadly it is not celebrated as much in many places now, but I remember as quite a small child, entering the church and being greeted by the colours and smells of fruit, vegetables and flowers, and I am happy to say that at our church the tradition continues.

Although this first photo represents the most important gifts of bread and wine, The rest of the church was decorated with produce of all kinds too.

In the picture below you can just see a jug of water on the table. Water is such a valuable commodity out here, that it needs to be remembered when we are giving thanks.

These decorations were kindly done by some ladies from the church so that it was ready for us. But on Sunday we all brought in our offerings of non-perishable foods and made this wonderful display under the altar.

Early this week, some of our workers sorted all the food into family parcels, and were able to take 30 bags up to Zurgena Town Hall to be handed out to their most needy folk. This was a tremendous result, especially as we only average around thirty-two people in the congregation each week, and last year we were able to donate just 15 bags.

We actually had some more fun up at the church at the weekend because on Saturday we had our first fund-raiser of the season. 

It started with a 'fashion show' when some of the ladies, and one gentleman, modelled some 'nearly-new' clothes, which were later available for us to buy.

Gus was our only male model, and here he is, looking very smart, walking with his wife who was modelling a pretty pink dress, to the catwalk. He also escorted each of the other models on their first appearance.

In the picture below, the man in a pink shirt, talking into a microphone, is Tony, our church warden, who had arranged this event. The model is his wife, and although she was reluctant to be involved at first, she threw herself into the role.

The final model was the 'world famous Chantelle le Belle', AKA Tony, who was resplendent in a bright pink wig, short black skirt, zebra print shirt and large heavy walking boots!!!

When the models had 'strutted their stuff', we all enjoyed a barbecue cooked by Richard and John, who slaved over hot grills to feed us all.

William and his wife Sylvia, who disappeared when I was taking photos, manned a bar selling wine and beer as well as soft drinks.

There were two other very special guests;- Matty the eagle owl, and Molly the barn owl. Aren't they beautiful?

It is hard to believe that, born within a day of each other, they are both just eighteen weeks old. This was their first public appearance, and they were very good. I got to stroke both of them, but later maybe the heat and all the people got to Matty, and he had a tantrum and had to be returned to his holding cage. But I did get to hold Molly who was very friendly. She is responding well to being trained , and will already return to a glove when called. They are being trained to show at various events around the area.

The whole event was a great success. The sun shone without it being too hot, and over fifty people turned up to join in the fun. We raised 588€ for our funds.

The rest of the week has passed in its usual blur. I have done some crafting, including making a set of 11 Christmas cards. (It should have been a dozen but I had a slight mishap with one). You can read more about them on my craft blog by clicking HERE.

But I have also been trying to do a bit of knitting and crochet, as shortly after I return from UK, we have our Christmas charity coffee morning which I have a table at, and as usual I have very little ready to sell. I said I would show you when I had completed one of my projects so here are some lavender dolls that I have knitted. I think they are really cute. I have nearly finished the fourth one now and hope to make at least six for the sale.

The pattern is by Dolly Time and it is free. You can find it HERE.

When we set out with the dogs on Saturday morning the sky was looking a bit doubtful, and we were wondering what the weather would be like for our event that afternoon. But we need not have worried, as the cloud soon burned away and we had a lovely day. This was sunrise at around 8.00 that morning.

And so another week has flown by. I am expecting the next one to pass even more quickly as I prepare for our trip to UK, but hopefully I will manage a quick post before I go. For now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and then I had better go and feed the dogs (and the husband if he is lucky!).

Rocking Your World 2017: Week 38

Don't die of shock, but this is actually going to be a fairly short post and very thin on photographs. Not that that means it has not been a good week; just one of those weeks that flies peacefully by,and is gone before you realise it is Friday again.

So what has made me smile in this gentle week. Well, for a start the sun! I love September-October out here. The sun has been out most days, but the temperature has dropped enough to make sitting and walking outside more pleasant. There is just enough breeze to keep my wind chimes ringing gently outside my window. This photo is exactly why I like my life out here in the Autumn.

A small errand to deal with in Mojacar, followed by a gentle stroll along the sea front. With blue skies and quiet roads, what is not to like? Of course we stopped at a bar/café, and had a snack and drink. For a change we went to one on the plaza in Parque Comerciál, the rather 'touristy' group of shops down by the sea front. Although the holiday season is over for the Spanish, there are still enough UK holiday makers around for it to be quite busy, but they didn't keep us waiting for long.

I had already had breakfast earlier so I didn't want much, but a big fresh croissant was just too tempting. I also risked ordering tea. It is a bit of a risk out here as they don't drink the tea we are used to, but with so many holiday makers to keep happy, some places have got it right now. And I'm happy to say this was one of them. They brought me a pot of hot water - probably not quite boiling but you can't have everything - and a box of mixed tea-bags. Searching through them I came up with some English breakfast tea - Yay! And look at the lovely, rather huge, cup they gave me to drink it from.

(Blogger is being a pain tonight, but I will keep writing and hopefully be able to add the photos later).

When we stepped out the door to walk the dogs at the start of the week, I saw a line of little birds on the overhead cable. A closer look proved they were young swallows getting ready to leave us. They looked so sweet all in a row, and I knew I needed a photo of them, so the next morning I took my camera, but there were no birds, and I thought I must be too late. I took it for a couple of days but they weren't there again. I don't really need extra luggage when I have a huge hound on a lead, so I left the camera at home yesterday, and you've guessed it, the birds were back. I asked Chris to try to get  a picture on his phone, but he has Foxy who is not good on a lead, and not patient when it comes to standing still while we take photos, so he didn't get a very good one, but here it is.

I managed to crop in a little on another one but it is a bit blurred.

The sky looks very dark in these, but the sun was only just rising, and it soon cleared to give another lovely day.

Other good things that have happened; well our rather old car got safely through its itv - that's the same as M.O.T. in UK. Our mechanic told us that there is nothing really wrong with it, but it is getting worn out. With that in mind we took up the offer to buy a different car from a friend. It is only a couple of years newer than ours, but has a fraction of the miles - or kilometers on it, and it has had one careful owner. Unfortunately there was a lot of legal red tape to wade through for us to buy it, but we heard yesterday that we are ready for the final hurdle and then we can go ahead with the sale. So maybe by next week, we will have some good news.

We took the dogs to have their injections on Monday, ready for when they go to kennels next month. Our vet is very good, and they hardly noticed it being done. We had to put them on the scales to work out what dosage was needed, and Foxy was only 17 kg but Kim is now a whopping 48 kg. No wonder he squashes me when he sits on me.

After my somewhat busy time of making Christmas cards, I have turned to scrapbooking again this week. I am making a real effort to finish my album of our holiday spent touring around Ireland - that was in 2012! So it really is time I finished it. Here are two individual pages I made and a double spread page. 

They are, of course, all digital pages. I have done two more since then, and now I think I have only six or eight more to do, so the end is in sight. I am a shocker for abandoning projects that take too long, but I am determined to finish this one, and then I can spend more time on my random pages.

I have also been doing some knitting and crochet, but I have a lot of little projects on the go so I will save the photos until one of them at least, is done!

And that's about it for this week, so I will do my usual link ups with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and we'll see what next week brings.