Friday Smiles 2022: Week 12

 Well here we go again. At the end of a rather dull week it is important to look for  things that we are grateful for; those things that have made us smile.

So after the "Clima" or Sahara sand storms of last week, we have had a week of rain, rain and more rain. And just to rub it in, our sons have been sending photos of themselves sitting in the garden in shorts and tee-shirts, enjoying the sun! But the rain did get cleaner and helped to wash the dust off the plants. Unfortunately it wasn't heavy enough to wash all the sand away which just turned to thick clay-like mud.

But we did have some dryer mornings so Chris was able to wash the worst of it off the patios and the porch with the power washer. Fortunately our roof does have an over-hang, unlike many of the houses in the village, and they ended up needing to power wash all their walls as well as the floor. At least we were saved that. (See, there's a positive!)

Sadly the 'clima' returned today over much of the province, but here it was much lighter so the new layer of sand on the table, floors and everything else, will soon wash away by itself I expect. The rain on Tuesday was exceptionally heavy and some areas near here had a month's rain in one day, but since the floods of 2012, most towns have improved their drainage and I haven't heard of any real damage this time. This is where the ramblas come into use. Basically a rambla is a dry river bed, but you are not suposed to build in them or plant crops, and if you do, there is every chance they will be washed away. They really are completly dry for most of the year, and make ideal places for dog-walking, wild-life watching, and taking short cuts between two places. But after a storm the extra water up in the hills come rushing down and within minutes a rambla can become a fast moving river. Here is the rambla at Macael, about 40 mins drive inland from us. Taken last night, it is a fast flowing mix of mud and water, rushing down to the coast near us.

So much rain has made my laundry situation a bit difficult as I have no-where to hang washing to dry indoors. But in desperation for clean undies etc, I did put a load on, and that day the new airer I had ordered, arrived. (Another positive).  It took the two of us most of the morning to put together, but now I can hang my washing in the spare room and wheel it into the sitting room in the evening when the fire is on. Hopefully I won't need it very often, but it is good to know it is there when I do.

I went to upload some new books to my Kindle to read on my trip to UK only to find they had not uploaded. Normally I can do this from my computer without having my Kindle next to me and the next time I open it they are all there in my library. However, when I went to check I found my Kindle was well and truly dead! It had no battery and would not recharge, so I couldn't even open it. We tried several cables, and USB sockets, but all to no avail. As I read quite a lot when I am travelling, Chris straight away sent for a new one for me, and it arrived very quickly. So I am all set up again now - another positive, and a big Thank you to hubby.

When I went outside to inspect the garden for storm damage, I found my Easter lily had produced a flower. It is a bit early but of course they like the rain, so maybe that helped it along. Hopefully it wll have a few more soon.

The cold and wet have meant that I have not been out much so I have managed to get some more crochet done. For a start I have finished my Pansy pizza mandala. It is very pretty. I do like it. Unfortunately it is a little bigger than I was hoping for so now it has been blocked it fits into a circle with diamater of 42 cms. This makes it very difficult to find a hoop to attach it to so I can hang it up. They seem to be either 40cms which is too small or 50 cm which is way to big. If I can find a 45 cm one somewhere, I could make that work. 

However I am going to make another mandala called Salutations. I am taking the yarn for it with me which may be a bit optomistic, but I am sure my daughter-in-law will sit and crochet with me some days. When I finish that one I will measure that for a ring and then do a proper search to try and find ones that will fit them both.

The other thing I made is a little bit of fun for my Grand-daughter/mother-to-be in July. I am not very happy with the result but I think it is good enough to give her. It was made from fairly fine cotton and was a real fiddle to make. My sister laughed at the baby with red hair, but as I told her it is actually more orange than red and Emma already has had one baby with very 'orange' hair, so there is every chance she will have another the same, though her second little boy was fair.

As well as crochet I have spent quite a bit of time at my computer finishing off all the cards I need for family members while I am away. Then I finally managed to finish my double page for February to go in my 2022 albumn. It will soon be time to do the March ones but they will have to wait until I get back home in May. Then I can do the April ones as well!

My last hospital appointment for now, was today, and they were quite efficient. Yesterday they phoned and asked me to arrive an hour before my appointment time but we sat around for quite a while when we got there, but we were actually out and back in the car five minutes before my real appointment time, so that wasn't too bad. It all went very well. We had to get up considerably earlier than usual to get there, but at least we still had most of the day to get things done, when we got home.

It is strange to think I should be in UK by this time next week. My flights are booked and the family have my full itinery. I like to be organised and know where I am suposed to be throughout my stay. It was fun trying to sort out who was available when, but it has all sorted itself out now, and I am really looking forward to it. I am still a little bit concerned about the Covid situation, but I realised that if I waited until the virus had disappeared I might never see everyone again. I only expect to stay with each family in their own homes, and am not intending to go out to anywhere crowded, so I will be very careful wherever I go.

Whether or not I manage to post while I am away I an not sure. I am so used to doing everything on my PC and find the phone or tablet quite difficult, but I will just have to wait and see. But for now I will link up with Annie, and see what has given your clouds a silver lining this week.

P.S: Friday morning, and we have woken up to another heavy fall of red sand and steady rain. I wonder whether I will ever get the house properly clean before I go away.

Plus Ryanair's website has been "under refurbishment" for 24 hours so I haven't been able to print my boarding passes yet. Apparently it is causing havoc at airports. Ryanair you have six days to get yourselves sorted!

Fridy Smiles 2022: Week 11

This has been a strange, strange week, but it has still tripped along very quickly. Saturday I knew I needed to go to our local baker's as I was out of bread. The shop is only a five minute walk from here, but as it was such a lovely day I decided to walk around the edge of the village to get to it. On my way I saw an area of scrubland that was covered in wild crysanthemums, so I picked a little bunch to go in a posy vase on the kitchen table. They are so pretty, and as I was able to use the stage of their centres to pick the freshly opened ones, they are still looking as lovely as they did when I brought them home.

I was glad I had the walk and found the flowers because the weather took a drastic turn for the worse the next day. On Monday we were expecting rain but we noticed the sky was turning a rather ominous yellow so we expected a storm was brewing. I said to Chris that when the rain came it was probably going to drop some dessert sand on us. However, no rain came. Instead the sky got more and more yellow, then turned to orange and by tea-time it was a bright red! The weather man called it a 'meteorological phenomenon', and apparently it hasn't been seen here in decades. It started as Storm Celia which whipped up sand from the Sahara Dessert and carried it over to us.

We still expected rain in the night but we woke up on Tuesday to find we had only had 'dry rain', or 'mud rain' as they sometimes call it. Everything had a thick layer of red dust on it. I wrote our initials on the black glass table in our porch to show how much had come down. It is very fine dust so it fell through the fly netting.

The trees and flowers were dull and dusty, the cat and dog drinking bowls had to be washed out and refilled, and there was an almost eerie silence on the street. By Wednesday the rain started to fall but it was not too heavy so it turned the dust to mud but didn't wash it away. This is the table by my outside sink. The blue-grey in the top left corner is my mop which lives there. It is going to need a good wash itself before it will be any use washing my floors. 

One of the cats came indoors and sat on my kitchen stool. I suppose that was better than on the settee! But the dogs, cats and ourselves have all managed to tread some around as it is inescapable. Even indoors the dust has blown in through windows and doors. So once it has settled down I will be having a major clean up inside, and Chris will set the power washer to work outside.

On Tuesday our air quality was described as 'very unhealthy' and we were advised to stay inside if possible, but now it has rained all day today (Thursday), the sky is back to a more normal grey, and the crisis is over, though we are now forecast rain for another full week. Our village carnival was arranged for this Saturday but has been postponed until next week in the hope of better weather by then.

We saw on the news last night that a little of the sand has even reached as far as the South of England. The one positive from all that is that apparently the sand is very fertile and rich in minerals, so this being an area that relies on agriculture, the land workers should be very happy.

I have little other news except that I have finished my Christmas shawl project. This was made with one ball of colour changing yarn in a limited edition colour that was released only for this project. It is called Evergreen. This being St.Patrick's day it seems very apporpriate to be showing off a green shawl. 

It is a lovely light weight shawl that will be useful on Spring evenings.  And I modelled it for you so you can see it is a good size too.

Other than that, despite the sand, we managed to get Kim to the vet for his blood test, and I have now had mine, so hopefully we will have some results soon.

I have had several chats with our youngest son Ben who spent all week finishing packing up his belongings and desposing of unwanted furniture, as today is his last day in his house. Tomorrow he starts a new chapter of his life a bit further north from Birmingham.

And that is about it for this week. We are anxiously watching the charts as Covid numbers in UK are rising steadily, and are hoping they don't get to a level where I need to reconsider my planned visit over there at the end of the month!

So for now I am keeping positive, continuing to pray for a de-escalation of the war in Ukraine, and just hoping that the world returns to some sort of normality soon. Now I am linking up with Annie's Friday Smiles.