Rocking Your World 2018: Week 17

Once again, Friday being one of my busiest days, I am running around trying to get everything done. I have been busy baking cakes this morning ready for the church Spring Fair down on the Playa tomorrow morning, so while my date cake is in the oven (it needs an hour), I am making a start on my  blog post.

First of all, here as promised is my Ta-da! photo. My Arizona blanket is done. I am really pleased with it. The designer's use of colour and texture has made an unusual blanket. It received lots of nice comments when I posted this photo on Facebook, just because it is a bit different from my normal ones. I have seen completed ones in all sorts of colours, but the ones that have chosen shades of one colour, as I did, are much more pleasing (in my opinion), than those made with multi-colours.

I made mine with one extra diamond in the centre row, and the finished blanket is a good size, and would just about fit a standard double bed.

We had a nice start to the week when we followed the church service with a community meal at a local bar/restaurant. We were served a lovely dinner, and then we sat around listening to our friend Sharon Reagan, who is also a member of our church congregation, while she sang for a three hour gig. She is very talented and we really enjoyed it.

I am short, and Sharon only comes up to my shoulders, so she very rightly advertises herself as "The little girl with a big voice".

On Monday we decided to make a start on the garage sort out. I moved as much as I could to one end to give us some space to work in, so it was all precariously piled up. This is how it started!

Chris unwrapped the first set of shelves and faced the mystery of any flat-packed furniture!

But eventually we got the first set assembled. Realising how much space it needed we changed our minds about using two sets in front of each other to make deeper shelves, and instead we thought we would try them as two sets of half-height ones under the windows on the next wall. The third set would go alongside the first one as originally intended. I helped Chris assemble the first set, but I think he decided he was better off without me because he made the other two sets on his own while I was out! (I had an arthritis flare up in my neck on Monday afternoon after the first lot, so it was probably for the best that I kept out of the way). So this is where we are at now.

The next task is to move all the piled up items onto the shelves for now, to clear the wall on the left where we will be moving the shelving from the larder, initially to house the food and baking equipment that are on them now, just until the kitchen is done. Then they will have a new home and we can sort the garage shelves out properly. The fourth wall of the garage is a floor to ceiling built in cupboard which needs a good clear out. Many things were put in there when we arrived ten years again, and they haven't been out again since. There are some very useful items in there as well, but it is definitely time to be really  ruthless and throw lots away, and then utilise all the space much more efficiently.

On Monday night, the nice warm sun we have enjoyed came to an abrupt halt. I was working in my craft room and suddenly realised that it was getting dark earlier than usual, and there was a very eerie light outside. I called Chris to look at the sky. It was still quite bright behind us, but out in front of us the sky was a dirty purple that turned an orangey red. It looked quite ominous. It is known locally as a 'Sahara sky'. The colour comes from the amount of desert sad that is in it. 

Gradually it came towards us, and later that night, the rain started, and with it came the sand.

I felt sorry for Chris who had cleaned the pool out the day before, because it now needs to be done again. All the patio furniture was red and so were our cars.

I needed to go out on Tuesday morning, so I was preparing to clean the car windows so I could see where I was going, only to find that Chris had got there before me and they were sparkling again. What a nice man!

It was the church AGM on Tuesday, which is not my favourite meeting, but a necessary one all the same. And yes; you've guessed it; we followed it with a lunch together. (Food is an important social event out here!) So by the time I got home, Tuesday was almost over. I spent the evening finishing off my blanket border, so now I can get on with a new project.

I have had some lovely parcels this week. One was a pale green sundress that I am very pleased with. But the parcels I really like getting are soft and squidgy ones, and two of those came together this week.

These came for a company called Wool warehouse which is based in UK. I am very impressed with their service. The items were ordered on Wednesday and Thursday last week, and they arrived together on Tuesday this week. That is much faster than most of my parcels, and they are always wrapped so well, with the wool in a drawstring organza bag, and then a plastic wrapper. The first parcel contained the wool I will need for my Cosmic blanket, though I have nearly finished part one and then it will be packed away until the Autumn. But I can download each part of the pattern as it is published, so with the wool in my stash, I will be ready to work on it again whenever I feel ready.

The second parcel contained some wool in lovely variegated Autumn colours with a gold lurex thread running through it. I knew I needed a smaller project to be working on for now, so I am going to try knitting again and make a cardigan for myself ready for when the cooler weather comes round again. 

I also bought a gadget called a Wool Jeanie, which holds a ball of wool on a spindle that hangs by a magnet, and slowly revolves as you use the wool. I have tried it out and it is a great idea. The two drawbacks for me are that it needs to be at work height and for knitting needs to be on my right, and my table is on my left! So it will be fine for when I am crocheting and need the wool to feed from my left. But last night I managed to balance it on the arm of Chris' chair while I was knitting and that worked OK. Also this particular wool is wound in big loose balls, so layers of it keep falling off before they unwind, which is not ideal, but the Jeanie still prevents my ball from falling on the floor, and rolling under my chair.

Yesterday we woke up to heavy rain which persisted on and off all day, but at least it was 'clean rain' this time so the rest of my car got washed too! In the afternoon I collect a friend from the choir, and we went to the house of another friend who has had around six months away from singing for health reasons. So we went through all the newer music with her, singing along to the practice CDs provided by our Musical Director. In the evening I went with another friend to a choir concert by another choir in our area. They are quite different in style from us, and it was nice to hear what they are doing. We are singing at the same venue in a month's time, and some of them are coming to listen to us.

Now I am back from our usual Fish & Chip lunch that we go for every Friday, a big tray of flapjack is in the oven, the washing is dry and retrieved from the line as it was in danger of blowing away, and now it is almost time to get ready for choir practice. Friday's have a way of disappearing on me. But we have the weekend to look forward to. Here's hoping it is a relaxing time for everyone.

Before I go it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World.