Rocking Your World 2020: Week 51

Well this year Week 52 will actually fall on Christmas Day so I doubt I will be posting again at least until New Year's Day.  But there is time to still share a few smiles with you this week.

And first up is that little amaryllis I bought at Lidls a few weeks ago. It is now in full bloom and absolutely beautiful. The first stem has four flowers on it.

And when I turn it round, you can see that the second stem has also grown up tall and has another set of buds ready to burst any day now.

Chris has made the most of the nicer weather this week to tidy up the garden. There was a lot of cleaning up to do after last week's high winds. There is still plenty of colour in the front yard including the red geranium I bought back in October. It should really be hibernating by now, but it still has lots of flowers on it. I also spotted these roses as I opened the window one morning. They grow so high we almost miss them, but the flowers are on a level with the sitting room windows. They looked so pretty against a deep blue sky.

The post man has just been here with a lovely set of cards from friends in UK and elsewhere. But understandably there are far fewer being sent because of higher postage, and inability to get to shops and Post Offices everywhere, so I knew not all my usual card strings would be filled. So when I saw these cutting files by Carina Gardner, in the Silhouette store, I bought the set and decided to make them into a banner to fill one of my empty strings.

They were fun to cut out, and some pieces were really tiny and a fiddle to assemble, (I think there are 20 separate pieces in 'eight maids a milking') but the banner is fun and it was nice to make something other than cards for a change. My Silhouette Cameo cooperated for once, and everything cut well first time, and all the card was pieces from my stash.

One good thing that happened this week is that our restrictions were slightly relaxed. They haven't moved far yet but the one that mattered for us is that we can now leave the village and move around Almeria Province. That meant we could do a major shopping session at the bigger supermarkets and I was able to get everything on my list I had been compiling over the past few weeks. They were all things I had been unable to buy in the village shops. So now the larder and freezer are full and I will only need to pop out for bread, milk and fresh vegetables until Next Year!!

As you probably all remember from previous years, I have a reputation fro making good mince pies, with the result that I am asked to make them to order by several friends, and I also donate several dozen to church meetings, carol service refreshments and Christmas markets. So every year I struggle to find enough mincemeat in our shops. (It is one thing I decided a long time ago, is not worth the hassle of making myself). Usually I end up with a dozen or so small jars, and if I am lucky a larger tub. So it was ironic that this year, when I only needed to make a couple of dozen pies for own use, the only mincemeat I could get was in a giant tub, the like of which I have never seen in our shops before.

However, with nothing else available, I bought it and yesterday the kitchen was filled with a warm spicy smell, as I made just one batch of my special pastry and around three dozen mince pies. I will reseal the mincemeat well once I am sure I have finished with it, and it will keep well until next year,

The weather has been changeable again but with more sunshine and less wind this week. There has been some clouds so of course the evening skies have been interesting. I had so many photos I couldn't choose just a couple to show, so here is a collage I made of just some of the sunsets over the past couple of weeks.

And that is probably it for this week but I thought I'd just share these pictures my sons posted during some  banter on our family WhatsApp group. You all know how important the Nativity is to me at Christmas and I make sure if features in my cards and decorations, so I hope no-one is offended by these Nativity 'smiles'. They certainly made us chuckle.

It was followed by this one, apparently carved entirely from cheese!

Another son added this one.

And here is a slightly 'nutty' one I spotted somewhere.

Thank you to my regular visitors and commenters. I have enjoyed your company during this troubled year. Wishing you all a Peaceful  and hopefully a Happy Christmas. May you all find things to make you Smile through any sadness you may have. Family and Friends will all be there to greet us next year, so make the most of what you have, and here's to a much better 2021.

Linking up with Rocking Your World, and Annie's Friday Smiles.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 50

So here we are at week 50, with just two more to go in this troubled year.  This week it is all about preparing for Christmas. So of course I am starting with my tree. I love the tree, and although this one is considerably smaller than our usual, it was much easier for me to handle and to dress. And I still managed to put plenty of decorations on it. I smile when I see some of my friends modern trees with colour co-ordinated bows and baubles. Mine is a mish-mash of colour, shape and size, and almost everything that hangs on it holds a special meaning for me. From the silver wreath brought back from a holiday in Ireland, to the scratched and worn red treble-clef added when Ben first started to show his musical talent, I love them all, and the same serene angel has sat at the top for more than twenty years.

Some of my favourite decorations are the hand-made ones. Many were made by myself like these angels that I made so many of for a church project last year, and the beautiful glass 'egg', coated inside with paint and glitter which I made at a workshop long before we left UK.

Some were made by other people, and that makes them extra special. My sister decorated a whole set of wooden pieces for me like this snow scene, and the stable was made by my very talented nephew who makes them from slices of the previous year's trees.

My little red girl and her friend make an appearance each year, ever since I bought them from our dear friend Annie. The bell was made several years ago by one of my older sisters who celebrated her 90th birthday this week.

And although I made the folded fabric wreath, it was again my sister Jean who made all the cross-stitch frames.

Here are some more things I have made. The crocheted mandala was added to my collection last year, and the bauble wreath was made a few years before that. The quilted tree was a little project we all made together at my Wednesday sewing group, and the large Mary and Joseph figures I made many, many years ago after a watching a lady making (way more elaborate) figurines at a craft show in Birmingham NEC. They are moulded on wine bottles, and have survived being packed away each year, quite remarkably well.

Probably my oldest 'home-make' is my nativity scene made from a Woman's Weekly magazine pattern when my oldest boys were toddlers, so some 45 years ago. They are decidedly worn but somehow I can't bring myself to throw them away, so every year they sit on the shelf again.

Another little piece of nostalgia is my collection of pieces I bought when I visited my son in Denmark. I was rather dismayed to find absolutely no decorations depicting any aspect of the Nativity story, but everywhere you looked there were gnomes. This year all my on-line crafting friends are using them on cards, in garlands, and crocheting them, so my Danish ones shouldn't be feeling too homesick.

During this time of lock-down, our Town Hall has frequently encouraged us to use the local shops so this week we visited a 'garage shop' which opens temporarily every year to sell poinsettias. We chose two lovely plants to go with the one we already had, and now all three are making a lovely splash of colour on our front porch. We don't usually have one indoors as their sap is an irritant and can be poisonous to the animals.

The street is also looking quite festive. We watched the men going up in their bucket crane to fix a light to the telegraph pole outside our house. We have had an angel for the past two years but this year it is either a snowy mountain or blue tree , we are not quite sure which, and last night they were switched on for the first time. There is one on each post down the street. We are the last house to get one, and after us there are bands of lights stretching across the road, all the way up to the centre of the village. They are not as grand as the lights in the big towns, but for a little village we do quite well.

And leaving Christmas behind now, here are some of the pansies and violas that I bought several weeks ago. They are still looking lovely despite the very fierce, cold winds we have had all week.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how Tango has started to sleep in the little house half way up the climbing tower we bought. It was bought with Tolly in mind, but I hoped the others would use it too, and they would play together on it. Well Tolly had made that little house his own, and he was not keen to see an interloper, so one night he just climbed in on top of Tango. There really isn't space for them both, but they stayed there together for quite a while.

I would expect Tango to move first, but that night he stuck to his guns and in the end it was Tolly who moved out, and up onto the top platform, but he doesn't look very impressed to have been pushed out.

All this week we have a lot of cloud which has been broken up by very high winds - the sort of wind that blows the patio furniture around, and fills the pool with leaves and debris. But the sun has also tried to shine so we have been treated to some lovely sunsets. So I am going to post some of the best, each beautiful in its own way. I should add that the dark plume that looks like smoke, is in fact a storm cloud being whipped up from the N.West, and not smoke at all.

And finally I will link up with Rocking Your World, and Annie's Friday Smiles, and leave you with this image that I spotted this morning. It seems very pertinent as we put up decorations and try to make our Christmas the best we can at this difficult time.