Rocking Your World 2019; Week 1

Well, here we go again. The start of a New Year, and in many ways I am grateful that I don't know what it has in store for me.  But whatever it is, I feel I am up to the challenge, and I shall do my best to face it all with a smile. I saw this little post on Facebook this week, and I thought I would share it as it is the perfect challenge for each one of us, and fits exactly the idea behind "Rocking Your World".

So I encourage everyone to see the good in each situation, and to be grateful for all they have, and then to share their happy moments with us in this challenge.

As is usual for us, we had a very quiet New Year's Eve. Here it is known as Noche viejo, which means Old night, and it is usually spent with family and close friends, at home. So most bars are closed, and the streets are quiet, though in some places it is a custom to go out at midnight banging pans etc together, and making as much noise as possible to keep the bad spirits away from the new year. Also at midnight, in most homes and on the town plazas, people come out with glasses of cava, and twelve grapes which they eat on the twelve dongs of the Town Hall clock. I challenge you to try it. It is no easy feat, to eat them all without choking! 

However, we stayed in front of a warm fire to eat our grapes and raise a glass together. 

This year we did not tune into the Spanish channel to watch the celebrations in Madrid, though we did hear a few firecrackers out on the street. But we watched the live video of fireworks that our son sent from his roof terrace in Denmark. They are in the same time zone as Spain. And then we managed to stay awake for another hour and enjoyed watching the fireworks in London at 1 o'clock our time. I took this photo of our television, and I was quite pleased with it.

The excellent weather our grandson enjoyed over Christmas with us, ended the day he went home, and we had a rather wet and cold weekend. But then, although we woke up to grey skies, they soon cleared and there has been some lovely sunshine during daylight hours. One morning, we needed to be up a bit earlier than usual, so I saw the 'sunrise'. In fact what I saw was a small crack appearing in the cloud-cover so long rays of sunshine escaped and shone down on the edge of our village.

We were also up quite early on Thursday as the gas man comes round the street to replace our empty gas bottles with full ones, and we use them more quickly while the fire is lit each evening. If we want him to stop we put an empty orange gas bottle by the gate and when he sees it he sounds his horn to tell us he is there. I don't know what it is about his horn, but it must be just the right frequency for the dogs, and Kim starts up a wonderful wolf howl, and usually Foxy then joins in. They rarely do it anywhen else, but I like to hear them, though we do quieten them down again for the sake of the neighbours.

Anyway, while Chris dealt with the gas man, I went out the back, attracted by the noise of birds, and I was lucky enough to see a murmuration of starlings, swooping around above the green zone. They were not as close knit as I have seen in UK, but they were still wonderful to watch as they all flew together, and changed direction with no collisions, and then  swept passed again. The sky was just full of little birds.

After a while they stopped to rest, some on the telegraph wires..... Could they squeeze any more on that top wire?

Some covered the roofs of the villas, enjoying the early sunshine...

Some even sat on a tree just behind our house so I was able to get a close-up photo. They look like juveniles to me.

Then they all took off again and slowly went their separate ways.

Such a treat to start the day with this show.

I hope everyone had some lovely presents for Christmas. I was lucky to get a new craft machine that enables me to put gold foil images and greetings on my cards. I haven't had time to play with it much yet, but the possibilities are endless. Chris also bought me this necklace that he knew I liked when we saw it at a Christmas market a little while ago. It is a Swarovski Crystal and has flashes of deep pink. purple, gold and blue in it. It looks lovely over the plain green top I bought in UK, and on sunny days it send little sparks of rainbows everywhere. A photo can't do it justice, but this was my best attempt. As you can see, it has a rope of tiny, pretty, beads instead of a chain.

Yesterday I decided I needed to cut back some branches of my little lemon tree, as they had dropped under the weight of the fruit. While I was picking a few of them, I noticed half a dozen of next years crop on there. They are an unusual tree in that they can hold, ripe fruit, new fruit and even blossom all at the same time. So I started by making some lemon curd, something I haven't done for years. I really like it, and it turned out well, but it is not something we will use a lot of. I know it has a relatively short shelf-life so I made just four small pots of it, one of which we are using and the others I will try to sell at church or my sewing group next week. If there is enough demand, I will then make some more. Hopefully this weekend I will get a lemon meringue pie made. We both really like that. I also like to keep a box of frozen lemon slices in the freezer to go in drinks. But quite what I will do with the rest of them I don't know. I will try to pass a few on, but many people have their own tree and don't need more.

When I did the shopping yesterday, I went to Lidl's and one of their special offers was chrome baskets with linen linings. I bought a smaller one for when I want to put bread rolls or cut bread sicks on the table, and a larger one for fruit. Chris says it looks more at home storing things in a garage! I told him it was modern kitchen-ware, and when I filled it up with fresh fruit from my shopping trip, I was very pleased with it!

Another unexpected purchase this week came yesterday. My microwave works quite hard, and I have had it for many years, but just lately the electricity in the house keeps 'tripping', which is very annoying when you are in the middle of cooking, and it kills my computer too. But we finally realised it only happened when the microwave was in use, so Chris said it was time to replace it. We managed to get one the same which means I don't have to learn a load of new settings. It is shiny stainless steel inside and out, and goes well in my new kitchen. (I cannot understand how a machine that can't have any metal pans or utensils used in it, can still be made from metal inside and out! But I like the look of it.) It is housed opposite the window so I couldn't take a photos without lots of reflections in its door.

I have managed to start deep-cleaning the house this week, starting with our bedroom. It is surprising how many things I found that I have been looking for!

But now I am tackling my craft room and that is a major undertaking. I am a messy crafter, and I am very bad at putting everything away when a project is finished. On top of that I am trying to rearrange things a bit, though there is not scope to move much. However I do have two printers - a small black ink lazer one used mainly to print the church newsletter each week, and a big colour inkjet one that can print my 12"x12" scrapbook pages. They both sit on my desk top and take up a lot of space, so Chris is going to make me a big shelf over my computer desk so I can stack them. My first task then, is to clear the computer desk of a huge heap of oddments. I'll give you an update when I emerge on the other side!!

Despite the mess, I did manage a little craft task yesterday, making a one page calendar for the wall above my computer. This is so important for me, and I often refer to it when I am chatting to our boys online. It doesn't need to be decorated by I like it to have a photo with it. This year I played around with masks and overlays in Photoshop, and came up with  a composite that included the two of us, and each of our boys with their partners. It will be nice to have them smiling at me whenever I look up. I printed one off for Chris as well, for his office.

So now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking Your World, and I encourage you to join us there, and smile along with us, and share what you are grateful for as the New year rolls out before us.