Rockin' Your World 2014; Week 8

Another Friday swings round, and I find myself considering all the things I have to be thankful for in the past seven days.

First here is my smile of the week. This is my beautiful fluff ball Arwen, in her usual place, taking up most of the space on my crafting desk.

She has the most extraordinary fur, thick and soft, but when she moults, it doesn't fall out. It just lifts away from her skin and mats, so in this photo, her back is one really hard lump of felted hair. Although I do occasionally manage to snip some knots from round her face, she is not very friendly, and I cannot brush or comb her, though I know from her very friendly brother who died last year, brushing doesn't really solve the problem. She was a rescue cat, and when I took her in she was badly neglected and abused, so I excuse her behaviour, and very, very slowly, she is responding to the love lavished on her, and will allow me to stroke her a little. She even purrs sometimes now, but she won't let me pick her up for a cuddle yet. Anyway, once or twice a year, when her fur gets bad enough, I take her to the vets to be sedated and shaved, I did this on Wednesday so this is what she looks like now.

There were a new couple working as dog groomers in the vet's this time, and they have not shaved her quite so close to the skin as usual. I always ask them to leave her face, tail and boots, so now she is my poodle cat! I don't think they had ever been asked to shave a cat before, and they thought it was hilarious. She does look a bit odd for a few weeks, but actually she is so much happier, and more comfortable without all the tangles, so it is worth it.

The next thing that made me very happy was a

parcel arriving from UK containing a wide selection of vinyl. (As I explained to my son in an e-mail today, I mean vinyl of the sticky-back plastic kind, not records! He collects vinyl records.) I couldn't find a company over here that would supply small quantities for a crafter, nor one that stocked the range I wanted, so I decided that it made sense to pay the postage just once, and order all I am ever likely to need in one go, from England. So now I have small rolls (with 1 or 2 mtrs on each, of metallics and glitters, in several colours, and a lot of sheets (24"x9") of gloss in all the colours of the rainbow. There is still a 5m roll of black and one of white to come. I can't wait to make something, but I have no idea what it will be!

I see our platypus got in on the corner of that photo. We bought it for our youngest son on his first Christmas. He will be twenty-seven this weekend, but I still can't part with it, so it lives on our spare bed, which is where I have spread the vinyl until I find a proper home for it.

I had a long chat with  my son on skype this week. He is away on holiday so I won't be able to speak to him on his birthday, so we had a chat before he went. I love skype. When we do a video call it is just like being in the room with him.

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day so we drove the ten minutes down to Mojacar Playa and had a walk along the sea front. It was as beautiful as ever, and although we did see one couple, probably holiday makers, lying sun-bathing on the sand, the actual beach was almost deserted. 

I had to smile at this group of cormorants gathering on a rock for their morning chat. There are usually a couple there, but this morning there were seven of them. For once I wasn't tempted to dip my toes in the water, but it was lovely and warm, and we soon shed our jumpers as we walked into the sun. After half an hour we turned around and strolled back, and then had a lovely lunch at our favourite café before driving home again. Here's one more photo I took down there. 

Mojacar has a Moorish history, and many homes and hotels reflect this influence with their white walls, arches and domes. This one has a splendid backdrop of the mountains as seen from the coast. I usually show you them from round the other side where our village is.

We walked back to the car along the road which runs

all along the coast, only separated from the sea by a few shops and bars. As we walked we passed this lovely bed of mesembryanthemums out in flower. They reminded me of how I used to try to grow these in my little patch of garden I had as a child, because I loved their bright colours, but they only open their flowers when the sun is full on them, so I never achieved anything like this.

I am grateful to a friend who dropped by with this gift for me. It is a big bag of grapefruit straight from his tree. They are delicious, and we have eaten a few and had a some in my blended fruit juice drinks. I have now bought a jar of preserved stem ginger in syrup, and tomorrow I shall make some grapefruit and ginger jam. I have made it before and it was lovely.

I was thinking that we hadn't had any very exciting skies to show this week. Then last night there was a scattering of tiny clouds reflecting the last of the sun and it looked so pretty, so I took this photo. I was so surprised to look out of the window half an hour later, to find it now looked like this.

Beautiful isn't it?

And on that happy note I shall leave you to pop over and link this up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Virginia's Rockin' Your World blog.