Rocking Your World 2019; Week 8

I have to start this week with a collage of photos of our youngest son Ben as today is his 32nd birthday. Thirty-two years gone in the blink of an eye. It doesn't seem possible.

He was such a contented baby, and still has a big smile for everyone. Happy Birthday Ben.

I have had another steady week with no big events, but plenty of little things to make me smile and be grateful for my life.

Little things like opening a new jar of Marmite! I can't explain why, but taking the top of new jar and seeing that smooth brown surface that I am about to disturb with my knife, always gives me a good feeling, and makes breakfast special. (For non UK friends, Marmite is very similar to Vegemite and most folk either love or hate it.). I love Marmite and brought all my babes up on it too, but I understand it is not for everyone.

Another smile came when I went to the utility room and found Charlie asleep in a bed that he is really too big for. He has been with us for almost a year now and it is lovely to see him so relaxed and at home with us.

Meanwhile, Tango prefers to do his snoozing on a bench out in the sunshine.

An unplanned lunch out was a nice treat. On a spur of the moment decision we set off for one of our favourite restaurants, only to find it was closed - for the day or a vacation we don't know. So we drove on a bit further to another one we used to go to until it closed down. I heard it had new owners and did a good meal and we were not disappointed. The starter of grilled goat's cheese, home-made paté, red fruit jam and toast was delicious, as was the main  course of grilled meat and chips, and I had  a lovely cheesecake while Chris had his usual ice-cream.

Another thing to celebrate is that on April 20th it is our ruby wedding anniversary. We decided that we would have a few days away but as 20th is Easter Saturday, we are going the following week. We are visiting a place called Ronda near Granada that has been on my list of places to see, ever since we came out here. This week we confirmed our hotel booking, and our son Tom confirmed his flights so he can come and house/dog sit for us, and we will get to spend a few days with him on either side of our trip too, so that is something nice to look forward to.

Our choir concert last week was a great success. I was hoping to have a photo but no-one managed a good one as there were too many folk milling around. But we had a much better audience than last time we performed at that venue, and we managed to raise the wonderful sum of 930€ for the charity Paws-Patas that we were doing it for.

Coming home from my sewing group on Wednesday I stopped at a field of wild flowers. I mentioned the yellow daisies that grow abundantly here a few weeks ago, and this is what a field of them looks like.

Aren't they stunning? This is what the individual flowers look like.

I think I am right in saying they are Garland Chrysanthemums. They last well in water so I picked a small bunch of them to brighten up my table at home.

The field next to this is the one where I took the photo of daisies and poppies that I used as my header last year. This year it seemed to be all daisies which didn't surprise me as poppies like the soil to be disturbed and this field has been left to its own devices for a long time. But when I looked closer I found there were a few poppies bravely showing their faces, though they were few and far between.

Poppies will always be one of my favourites. They are such a 'happy' colour, and their petals are delicate like silk, yet they withstand fierce winds, and just wave around on their fine stems looking lovely.

I also noticed some patches of pink in the field and these turned out to be a form of wild peas. They were not as flamboyant as the poppies, but still very pretty.

And still on the subject of flowers, I took a walk around the garden this morning, enjoying the perfume from the jasmine which is rapidly opening its buds in the sunshine. I noticed that this plant had fought its way up through the jasmine, and was in full flower.

It is considered a weed by some people, because it drops baby plants from the flowers and leaf edges, so it spreads rapidly, but it is easy to pull them up so I let it stay and just keep it under control. It is so beautiful.

I was pleased to see my that hydrangeas are waking up. They lie dormant all winter and look almost dead, but there is lots of new growth now.

When a friend moved back to UK he gave me a baby tree that had self-seeded from his silk tree. It needs to be planted somewhere soon but I left it in the pot he gave it to me in over the winter. The tree looks like a dead stick, but I am optimistic that it will come to life again soon, and in the meantime I have a bonus of several freesias that were in the pot with it, that are all in bud and will be open by next week if this nice weather continues.

And that's about it for this week so I will link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles and then leave you with a picture I spotted this week that really made me smile. It had the caption "Cantata".