Rocking Your World 2019; Week 40

Hi everyone. Firstly an apology for my lapse in concentration last week, when I somehow managed to publish my post on my craft blog instead of here. But I am back where I belong this week!
This is a significant week for us as it is exactly eleven years since we rolled onto the ferry in Poole, with a very full car, to start our new adventure living in Spain. It was the following year in February that we moved into this house, but we enjoyed our first months here in a rented apartment on the coast, while we set about house-hunting. It was a good decision to move here, and we have no regrets. Let's hope we get to enjoy many more years here.

My smiles for this week revolve around sunflowers. By now you are probably mostly aware that I love sunflowers (and other daisies), and poppies, and more years ago than I care to remember (around 40 I think), I bought a simple summer dress at Wembly market, that was covered in sunflowers. I have always loved it, and have worn it so it is now paper thin, and I doubt the seams will take any more repairs. At the time it was quite 'adventurous', for me anyway, and I took a lot of stick when I wore it. It became a family joke and a symbol for 'Mum'. Some thirty years on, when we moved here, I again wore it regularly but now it was greeted with much more enthusiasm, and my friends all recognise it here too. 

Here it is (on the left), together with a new one bought this year. The new one is more of a sundress so it won't get worn quite so often, but the old one will still make an appearance, even if it is only as a 'house dress'.  Almost two years ago, on my seventieth birthday, the boys bought a plain set of Russian style dolls, and a friend painted them as caricatures of myself with the five boys. Some of the likenesses are really good too. So of course, in the photo they gave the artist to copy, I am wearing 'that dress'.

Now, this week I have given them all something else to smile about as I sent for a Chilly bottle, and of course I chose the one covered in a sunflower design.

This is quite a luxury for a drinking bottle, but it is guaranteed to keep hot drinks hot for 12 hours, and cold drinks cold for 24 hours, and it will be well used as I take a drink to both my choir practices each week. In the winter I take warm honey and lemon which is always cold by the time I finish it, and water or a sharp fruit drink in the summer, which gets decidedly warm by the end. I am also hoping I will be able to take a cold drink on long journeys as bottled water soon warms up in a hot car. So I guess my bottle will be a good investment.

Here are two little visitors that we had this week. I was sitting in the front room with Chris and looked up to see this little gecko high up on the wall. We do see quite a few tiny babies indoors, around an inch in length, but this is the first time I have seen one this size inside. I just left him there and he disappeared. He may be hiding behind the mirror or a picture, but it is more likely he found an open window and went home.

The second visitor was this handsome praying mantis. Again, it is one of the biggest I have seen out here. She was on the path when I went out to the bins so I wanted to encourage her into the garden and onto a plant where she would be less vunerable.  She wasn't keen on being moved and I was surprised at the strength in those long back legs, but eventually I got her to climb the wall and head for the garden. At this time of year she was probably looking for somewhere to lay her eggs.

Both of these visitors are very welcome because they feed on mosquitoes, and other bugs that come to annoy us. So as far as possible we leave them alone and they don't bother us either.

This week I finished another project which I will be writing about at a later date. But since then I have been busy making angels. A few weeks ago I introduced an Advent Angels project at my church where I am encouraging all the congregation to get involved in making little angels. These can be knitted or crocheted, made from felt or fabric, beads, ribbons and even paper. At the start of Advent (four weeks before Christmas), they will be blessed in a service and then we will distribute them along with a card listing all the Christmas services in the three churches of our Chaplaincy, leaving them on supermarket shelves, in bars, on park benches etc. It is a fun little project and lots of people have joined in. To give them some inspiration, and show them what can be done, I am making a few using different methods, to display in each church, along with some patterns. Here are some of my originals that I made before the project launch, and some images taken from the patterns.

And here are a few I have made this week.

I love the little felt one, centre, bottom row but she was very fiddly, so I have enlarged the pattern a little and will have another go. As my arthritic hands find these small pieces difficult to manage, much of the sewing has been replaced using a hot glue gun. I am not very clever with that either, but it is a good way of holding different materials together.

After so many months of blue sky and no clouds, there have been very few sunsets to marvel at. But this week, there is a real change in the air. The days are still hot and sunny, well over 30º on most days, but the evenings are drawing in, and the mornings are often hazy first thing. With more clouds around the sky has been lit up around teatime, so I was quick to take my camera out when I saw this through my window on Monday.

It was subtle and pale, but very pretty. 

My Wednesday night choir practice takes place in a glass fronted building and I saw a beautiful sunset. But we still had ten minutes of singing to do, and by the time we got out, only this bright orange glow remained.

But last night I was just in time to spot this glorious sight. It changes so fast and only lasts for about a quarter of an hour, so it is a case of being in the right place at the right time, and fortunately, yesterday I was.

And on that beautiful note I will leave you and link up with  Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World,