Rocking Your World 2019; Week 10

Hi everyone. Here we are at Friday again. This will be a short post as it has been a 'flat' week, but there are still things to reflect on and smile. Like, for example, these lovely freesias. Last week they were all in bud, but the sunshine has brought them all open. Such a lovely range of 'autumn colours' for pretty spring flowers, and they smell divine.

Yesterday I had two parcels to send to UK. Both were too big and one too heavy, to post at the little office in our village, so we drove over to Vera where there is a main Post Office for the lighter parcel, and a Mail Box company that acts as a collection point for some couriers, and a very pleasant lady there, helped me find the cheaper option for the heavy one, and did all the necessary labels for me, so hopefully both will find their way to their new homes by the end of next week. I felt it was a good mornings work.

As we walked through the centre of Vera, which is mainly pedestrianised, we crossed the plaza in front of the big church  and along the edge we saw two long beds just full of bright red geraniums. They were all in bloom together and made a gorgeous splash of colour on what is otherwise a fairly plain plaza.

It was lunch time when we got home so we went to a bar in the village for a drink and tapa. They were particularly nice tapas so between us we had four drinks and four tapas and the bill was 8€. Talk about value for money!

I usually buy my wool online from the same company, and their service is second to none, but my order for my next project has hit a snag. They wrote to me straight away and said they were one ball short of one of the yarns but expected more the following week, so I agreed to wait. But then, I received my dispatch note but the order did not arrive. I have written to them twice more but they say they cannot track an international package until 21 working days after the dispatch. It is not really their fault as they did dispatch the parcel on 11th February, but they can't even investigate it until next Tuesday. Then they will hopefully send a replacement order which will be at least another week before it gets here, so I decided I couldn't wait that long. I wanted to get started on another blanket and it won't be too long before it is too warm to work on a large project. So I went to a local Chinese 'todo' shop, (todo meaning everything), and bought wool. It is not quite as soft and nice as what I buy from UK, but for a blanket that is not so important. So I have done the first eight rows. There is not much to show but here it is.

As you can see I am working with two balls of wool together, going across with one, and then across again with the second working through the first row, and then turn around and work back with each of them in the same way. I am using a big hook so the 'fabric' is not too dense, so it is all a new experience for me. It is not a pattern for when I am watching TV. Every row is counting all the way and I have to mark off every little group of stitches as I work them so that I know where I am! It takes anything up to 45 minutes to work one row! The design comes in five sections so I will show it again when the first section is done.

On Tuesday it was my turn to lead our house group and we talked about Lent and some of the traditions that surround it, why  and how we observe it. It was interesting to hear other folk's views and everyone seemed to enjoy our discussion.

I had a phone call from Jonathan (son number four) this week to say he had found very reasonable flights from Manchester to Almeria so he and his wife will be here for a short break, five days, at the start of May, so that is something to look forward to.

I have been hit by my annual bout of hayfever as the mimosa, (acacia or wattle depending on where you live), and olives come into flower, and the long haired cats all start to moult. So I have been coughing and sneezing and the medicine always makes me feel dozy, so I spent most afternoons sitting on the patio with a book. It is ages since I read so much but it made a nice relaxing change. Unfortunately my cough has deepened into something a bit more, but hopefully it will clear again soon.

And now I just have some sky photos to share that I took on Wednesday evening. We had a day of horrendous wind that rattled the windows, tossed the trees around, and left the yard covered in debris. By tea time it had settled down but cloud had blown in and hidden the sun, though it was still warm. But just before sunset, the sun tried to break through giving this lovely view.

Suddenly the sun won, the clouds broke apart, and the sky was a mixture of deep blue, orange and yellow. It was beautiful.

The orange quickly turned to red and the clouds darkened, and few minutes later it was gone.

Meanwhile, as I turned just a few degrees to my right, the sky looked like this!

It never developed into anything more sinister and we are back to sunshine again now.

So time to link up with Rocking Your World on Virginia's blog, and Annie's Friday Smiles.