Rocking Your World 2019: Week 26

Well we are half way through the year already, and dare I say, it is a now a count-down to Christmas! And what better way to start my post than with this gorgeous smiling face. My little great-grandson Alfie ended the season as Star Player in his group. Needless to say he is proudly showing his trophy while wearing his Arsenal shirt!

Summer has well and truly arrived and it has been very hot this week, so I have done as little as possible all day. It is forecast to reach 35º this weekend, but at least we are spared the 40º expected further inland. Any work that needs doing, gets done at the start of the morning. One day this week we decided to clean the ceiling fan in our bedroom so we could start using it at night. I had to get Chris to help me as the only way to reach it is by standing on our bed which has a lovely memory foam mattress on it, and every time I stepped onto it, I fell over. So amid much giggling, with Chris trying to balance on the bed, and me shaking a duster out the window every few minutes, we did manage to get it done, so it is now much safer to turn on, and better for our breathing. (I must admit I was a bit horrified at the amount of dust that came off it).

Although the temperature stays quite high all night, it is quite pleasant to sit outside in the evenings, and we have had a couple of good evenings out. On Sunday we went to the hotel on a local golf resort, for a concert by an orchestra, made up of mainly English retired residents, who have come together to play their chosen instruments. They have a new musical director and he has really injected some new energy into their playing. It was an excellent concert. It wasn't really the right situation to jump up and down with a camera so I only managed to get this rather poor photo of them.

Afterwards we sat outside on a wide patio with nice sails for protection during the day. The view was lovely, looking out towards the hills, with the golfing greens and then the sea beyond them. Several of our friends were there so we sat and had a drink with some of them, and when the mozzies got too active, we moved into the lounge bar and sat with some other friends for more chatting. So all in all it was a very enjoyable evening.

On Wednesday we went to another concert, this time a choral one. There was a new choir started up last year in Vera, originally for anyone who wanted to sing. This gradually whittled down to a serious choir and this week was their inaugural concert. 

They sang in Vera Convento, originally a convent but now an art gallery/music venue, where I have sung with the previous choir I was in. There was a really good turnout, with late-comers sitting on a ledge around the wall, or standing at the back. We half expected this so we got there in good time and found two seats near the front. You can see Chris in his red T-shirt, and me peeping out around the man sitting in front of him.

The choir are concentrating on a more classical style of music, so the programme was mostly some grand sacred pieces, and some opera.

They are fortunate to have some members with good, strong voices and enough confidence to sing solos.

Barry, their musical director, is a great pianist, and he is passionate about music. His aim is to coach the choir to sing a grand masterpiece, starting with the first half of Handel's Messiah at Christmas. He plays the piano for them as they sing, and at the same time, directs them when to sing, etc. His enthusiasm is infectious, and I really admired what he has done with the choir in their first year. We thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

There was something I was going to show you from the garden and I almost left it too late to take a photo. A couple of years ago we re-potted our big palm into a large square pot, because it was constantly blowing over in its original round one. It was a difficult job as it is covered in spines, but the Spanish folk in the village all approved when they saw us doing it. Palms like this are very expensive at garden centres, so they are highly prized. Since then it has improved a lot, growing straighter and bigger. We have cut some of the lower fronds off as they died, but new ones come from the centre. A few weeks ago we saw a new crown just beginning to shoot. They go through a stage when they start to open up, when all the 'leaves' are tightly curled, and I think it looks lovely. However when I went to photograph this on Wednesday, I found they had already almost straightened out and are quite tall now. It is certainly quite a healthy plant.

I have managed to have my first dip in the pool this week. It is the first time I have felt well enough to get in, and I must say it was lovely. The water has warmed up to a pleasant 26º which is just perfect for me. I may well have another dip when I have finished writing this post.

I have also spent some time in my craft room, making a birthday card for my son who was 48 this week - gosh that makes me feel old! I also made a set of twenty-two Christmas cards. I told you we had started the count down! I enter at least one card in a challenge on 25th of each month, called Rudolph day. It is a good way to get a few Christmas cards ready before the last minute panic. This time I made a set all the same to give to my friends in the choir. It is very unlikely any of them will read this post so here they are.

I also made one more lot of cherry jam. I shopped in Lidls and they had the cherries on special offer so I thought I might as well get it done. As it was so hot in the kitchen I sat outside for the rather tedious job of pitting them all. Here is my work space, with a parasol for shade, a blue tooth speaker hanging from it for entertainment, a damp cloth for sticky fingers, and of course a lovely cup of tea. What a lovely way to spend the afternoon. Once pitted, the fruit was soon cooked and the jam made and bottled. I have sold most of the first set and I expect these will soon go too, but I shan't be making any more this season.

We have another fun night out tonight, but I will save that to start off next week's post. So for now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and I'll see you all again next week.

Rocking Your World 2019: Week 25

Thank you to everyone who visited and left encouraging comments last week. It is always lovely to hear from you. I don't know whether everyone has the same problem with Blogger as I do, but I no longer get notifications when someone leaves a comment, so I have to remember to go to my dashboard and check for new ones. That is why it sometimes takes a while for them to appear under my post. However, I enjoy hearing from you, and they do get seen by the next week!

So, this week of course, started with our choir concert. It was up in Albox - roughly a forty minute drive from here, so Chris agreed to be my chauffeur as I don't like driving less familiar roads after dark. It was held in the function room of a small hotel, and the charity we were supporting did a good job of selling tickets, so the room was full.

We did two forty minute sessions, including some old favourites from our repertoire like a medley from Les Miserables, and some new pieces including Bohemian Rhapsody which was quite ambitious, but was very well received.

David is a very good MD and knows how to get the best out of us. I don't know how much money was raised but it must have been a good sum with a raffle and the ticket money. Generally we invite a charity to organise a concert - venue, advertising, tickets and a raffle if they want one, and we just turn up and sing for free. It usually works quite well, and we do one Friends and family concert each year for our own funds. This concert was for an organisation called AUAN who have worked tirelessly over the past decade to regularise the paper work for people whose houses were deemed to be illegal, despite them having the correct paperwork! - and therefore freeing them from the fear of having their homes demolished. It has been a worrying time for so many people, but this organisation have managed to find a path through the bureaucracy, and are beginning to see the results now. They have to meet huge legal costs so we were happy to help them raise some much needed cash.

Since then the week has flown past. I did manage to get to the market on Tuesday, and I found the local cherries were down in price a little, so I bought two  and a half kilos to make some jam. The girl knocked an extra 30 cents per kilo off because I was buying a lot, so yesterday I made a dozen jars of jam. Half them are 'sold' on order all ready so I may make one more lot, but I'll wait until nearer the end of their season and see if they get even cheaper.

Of course the worst part is removing all the pips. It takes quite a while to stone that many cherries and it can get messy, but the jam is lovely so it was worth the effort.

I don't know is any of you also follow Virginia's blog called Rocking Your World, which I also link this post to along with Annie's Friday Smiles. Well last week, Virginia posted a picture of a plant that lives in her bathroom, and it suddenly shot up a long stem that eventually had a fairly insignificant little flower on it. Well I have one just the same (not the same plant, but the same behaviour).

Mine is a cactus and I thought I'd share it here. It sits by our window and the stem has been stretching up for several weeks. I watched with interest as buds started to form, but I needed to get right in close to see the tiny flowers when they finally opened. Its very pretty but you do have to look closely to appreciate it!

Chris and I each have our own space, mainly because we each have so much equipment, materials etc that we would need a barn to both fit in it. Also we like to listen to different music while we work etc, so this arrangements works for both of us. I have my craft room, and Chris has his 'office'. We both work in semi-chaos, but we nearly always know where things are. Chris has his computer desk and a second table under the window. He chooses to keep his blind down through the summer, but the windows open, and the cats have discovered this is a cool place to spend the morning. I was surprised to see both Charlie and Tango quite happily sharing the space this week, but when Paco jumped up there and saw the competition, he decided "two's company but three's a crowd", and promptly made off to find a different place to rest in.

This morning my computer decided to throw a wobbly, and after closing itself down, it refused to open again. So I am very grateful for a techie-minded husband who managed to get it up and running for me again.

And now for my Ta-dah moment. My blanket is finished. I love it, and my son does too. He saw it in progress when he came over on holiday last month. Another son, Ben, is coming over in July and he is hoping to be able to take it back for Jonathan. So here it is.

The pattern was called Early American inspired afghan, and the patterns all have their own symbolism so the designer, Lissa Conley, gave us this picture to explain what each section represents.

There was the option to have the wolves both facing to the right, or facing each other and I chose the second option. It was also my choice to use two alternative colours, with black as my main colour, and then I decided to use yellow for the moons. That was almost my undoing as it turned out to be quite a hassle, but I am glad I persevered with it. I am also glad that I managed, by sitting under the fan and doing a few rows each night, to finish it, as the weather is now very hot, in the mid-thirties by day, and I couldn't manage such a big, heavy piece of work for much longer. I shall be looking for small and simple items to work on now until the autumn.

I thought it had been hanging around for a while, and the dog has drooled on it, and the cats have sat on it, so since taking the above photo, I put it inside a single duvet cover and washed it in the machine on a gentle program. It came up really well, so fresh and bright, and I was able to pull it into shape and leave it to dry, so now it is all ready to parcel up for Ben to take back to its new home.

So now I just have two more photos of the night sky to share. Chris found the app on his phone and we were able to confirm that the planet I could see was in fact Jupiter. It was still visible this week, though a little lower in the sky so I took another photo of it. I don't know where the green came from?

As it was so big and bright, I also took another one of the full moon which turned out rather well.

So now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking Your World. Have a good weekend everyone.