Rocking Your World 2020: Week 9

Well I hope something has 'Rocked your world' this week. It has been a mixed week for us as yesterday we lost a dear friend. She was an English lady, who, with her husband, was the first English resident in our village, so she has a huge number of Spanish friends as well as English. She was a lovely lady and we will really miss her.

That aside it has been a lovely week here, starting with last Saturday which was Carnival Day. it was a sunny afternoon though not the warmest as the parade doesn't start until 5.00pm. As you can see, the streets were buzzing.

Our little village carnival is such fun because all the families get involved. Those not in the parade, all turn out to cheer on those who are. Some groups hire elaborate costumes while others are all hand made.  Here are just a few of this year's entries.

This group had adults and children dressed alike and a lot of work had gone into making their costumes.

This family always build their set around the youngest member who is confined to an electric wheelchair. This year he was riding an elephant.

 

Some groups were slightly more bizarre.

One of our friends is inside a dinasaur. They were very difficult to walk in!

Music was provided by two bands. The one above was very colourful in wigs and skirts. In the group below the two girls had more 'clothes' on their heads than their bodies, but they enjoyed dancing down the street and their drummers were very good.

That evening everyone had the chance to vote for their favourite group on the Town Hall website and three prizes were awarded.

First prize went to Mary Poppins with their smartly dresses nannies and little sweeps (even down to the wee one in a pushchair).

Second prize went to this group called Keeping Los Gallardos Safe, with lots of little 'cops' and the adults were the 'robbers'.

And in third place was this group called Popcorn. They were my favourites and I know they made all their own costumes, so well done to them.

We went down to the slip road at the front of the village to see them set off and then they went all around the villlage, stopping to dance, blow bubbles and throw around giant inflatable balls every few yards along the way. This year they came up our road so we hurried ahead of them back home and watched from our front gate as they went passed. A Spanish lady I know came out of the parade to paint red cheeks on me! It was, as usual, a good fun day.

Chris decided to do some more gardening one day and he attacked the bougainvillia that grows all along the fence at the side of our house. It is a very robust grower and as the space is not very wide, (it is outside our kitchen door and houses the water softener, recycling bins, and is also where we feed the dogs), so it needs to be kept in check. But it is a big job so doesn't get done very often. Anyway, this time it is cut right back to the bare trunk. Just look at how much debris there is to clear away.

And here is what is left. It looks a bit brutal but we know it will all be back in a month or two. In places the woody stems have grown through the wire fence to such an extent that we can't remove them.

It has opened up the view from the kitchen window and made it much lighter. The groundsmen have since been in and strimmed the high weeds next door, so it is even lighter now.

Yesterday, after the sad news about our friend, I told Chris I wanted to go down to the Playa and walk along the sea-front so he came with me. It was a really warm day and we both went in T-shirts and left out 'woollies' at home. I am glad we did. I noticed this morning that I have pink line at the bottom of my sleeves and the back of my neck. We walked a long way along the promenade at Mojacar, and back again. I actually hit my target for steps on my fitbit and that doesn't happen as often as it should. I like that bit of coastline. In places you can't get down to the beach, but it is rocky, the sea is very clear, and there is a constant noise of gentle waved breaking on the rocks.

I stopped to watch the cormorants on the little rocky island. They all congregate there to warm their wings, and chatter to each other. They always amuse me.

We noticed that all along the prom, the mimosa was starting to bloom. That explains why my hay-fever has started up again!. (Some call this acacia and it is wattle to our Australian friends, but I still think of it as mimosa). It is not the pretty pale yellow one that used to be popular for wedding bouquets in UK, but a rather harsher yellow, and absolutely laden with little pom-pom flowers. it is prolific around here in March.

I also saw these very pretty flowering grasses. They were moving gently in the breeze.

And finally I spotted this tree. I thought it was dead but Chris said it was only in Winter mode and hadn't woken up yet. Either way I loved the shape, so when I got home I had a play with it.

I like to have the chance to practice using my photo editing programs and this photo was perfect for that. First, after several attempts I managed to isolate it from the background and make it into a black silhouette. Then I used adobe photoshop and some digital scrapbook files to turn it into a blossom tree. It is not a brilliant result but I had a fun afternoon trying!

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

Rocking Your World 2020; Week 8

Here's something I spotted this morning that tickled me.

Hopefully you are all smiling now, so let's see what has rocked my world for this week.

It has been another week of changeable weather, and I would be happier if it had been a little warmer some days, but when I see what my friends and family have been facing back in UK with storms Ciara and Dennis, I know I have lots to be grateful for. 

I had to be at a meeting for 10.00 on Monday morning, but the forecast said it would be a warm and sunny day so I put the washing machine on the night before so I could hang everything out to dry before I went out. But when I woke up on Monday there was thick fog, the like of which we very rarely see here. But I trusted in the forecast and hung my washing out anyway and sure enough by mid-morning the fog had cleared and the sun was out, and by the afternoon, everything was dry. So I am grateful for a reliable weather forecaster too.

This is a photo from early 2009. It is not brilliant but I couldn't find a better one in the time I have. It is the view of the Cabrera mountains as seen from our back railings.

However, this has been the view most mornings and evenings this week.

I know the mountains are there, but they have been hidden from view by low cloud or thick mist. On Tuesday and Wednesday we had low cloud and a fair amount of rain, but the other days the sun has soon scattered the mist and we have spent time sitting outside in the sun, and even managed to eat lunch outside one day.

Early Wednesday afternoon we sat out the back just watching some ants. They are such busy little creatures. There were three of them each going to different cracks between the crazy paving to collect grains of sand/stone, much bigger than their own heads. Then they all carried them back to the same spot a couple of stones away and dropped them, then scurried back for the next one. It was fascinating to watch them, and you have to admire their industry, and unwavering sense of direction. 

Beside me Arwen was sleeping and soaking up the sun. Little did he know that I was about to scoop him up to shave that tummy. He is starting to moult and every night there is a load of dead leaves and twigs wound up in his tangles, so the easiest solution is to shave it off. I may have to shave his sides too, but for now just his tummy will do.

Last week I showed some of my favourite wild flowers and here is another one. This is called Asphodel and it grows in profusion along the road side and on open ground where the soil is quite poor and dry. 

It flowers on long stems that wave gently in the breeze and it looks so pretty.

The individual flowers are pretty too. I am sure we used to grow something very similar as a cultivated plant in the UK. Here is an interesting quote from Google "In Greek mythology, the Asphodel is one of the most famous of the plants connected with the dead and the underworld: the Asphodel Meadows is a section of the ancient Greek underworld where ordinary souls were sent to live after death."

While I am talking about flowers here is a picture of the tulips I bought last Friday, taken this morning. I can't believe they are still looking as good as when I bought them. They have lived on my kitchen table as that is where I spend a lot of time, so I thought they may as well sit where I can enjoy them the most. I don't think they will open out far, and probably they will soon fade and die, but haven't they done well?! I will share a little trick with you that some of you may know already, but when I was told it, it seemed so bizarre that I didn't believe it would work, but it does! It depends how you like your tulips to be. They have a tendency to droop over quite quickly which to me is a shame as you don't get to see their beautiful stamens (especially on the big red ones that look like poppies when they open up). But when you first get them, if you take an ordinary sewing pin, and push it through each stem, about a centimetre (half an inch) below the base of the flower, then take it out again and put the flowers in water, then they will not droop. As you can see, it worked for mine. The first time I tried it I left the pins in  and it looked a bit odd, but then someone told me I should take them out again. You live and learn!

When I do manage to get to my craft room to make cards, I really enjoy stamping and colouring. My favourite colouring medium is my alcohol markers and a few years ago my lovely husband bought me the full set of 168 colours of Copic Ciao markers. I love them because unlike most alcohol ink markers they have a brush tip, and they blend beautifully. Sadly some of my most used colours have recently dried out so it was time to replace them. Crafters Companion have just released a new version of their Spectrum Noir pens called Illustrator which also have a soft brush nib. (The original Spectrum Noir pens don't have this). So I decided to try them out. I chose a range of colours and sent off my order, and on Tuesday they arrived. I love having new pens so I was excited to try them out. I am fairly pleased with them. They are very nice and smooth to use, but the ink colours do not match the pen tops at all, and some colours are not at all true to the colour chart I chose from. However, they are within the range of shades I needed so I will enjoy using them. To help me select the pens I need on any project I keep a colour chart of all my Copics so I can see what they are actually like on paper, so my first job was to make a similar chart for these new pens.

As you can see it was greens and skin tones I needed most. I have since used them to colour some stamped images on a set of four Christmas cards I have made for a Challenge I join in with on 25th of each month. So I'll be posting them on my craft blog next week.

And another little bit of craft news. As you probably know by now, I have had a Silhouette Cameo machine for years now. It is something that connects to the computer and you can import an image into the software, or design your own, and the computer then sends it to the machine which cuts it out. My Cameo 2 was getting a bit worn and wasn't communicating with the computer as well as it used to, so when they brought out version four in November, Chris ordered one for me for Christmas. How lucky as I? It arrived quite quickly but I had several other things going on at the time and I decided to wait until I had time to try it out properly before I did anything with it. 

So last week we set it up but I had trouble trying to register it, which meant that it wouldn't recognise my software etc. I went to the Silhouette site (in America) and used their chat line to try to get help from their advisor. Unfortunately the instructions he gave me didn't help. (It felt he had not understood the problem properly which was probably down to me not explaining it well enough!). As they are eight hours behind Spanish time, I had to leave it until after the weekend, but yesterday I had a free afternoon and I had another go. This time I was connected to a young lady and she was so helpful. She soon had my machine registered and explained several other things I asked about so now I think I am all set up and ready to go. So I am very grateful to a lady called Kadie, who was so patient with me yesterday and so very capable at understanding my needs and dealing with them. Now I am excited to get started with it. Friday is not the right day for me as I have a lunch time commitment and then choir practice, but maybe tomorrow I can have a go.

I am also very grateful to the Silhouette experts who have taken time to make videos available on youtube to help with actually using the machine, inserting the blades correctly, how to load the paper etc. There is a good instruction manual for the software but nothing that I could find on actually using the machine, so these videos have been a great help.

And on that note I will quickly link up to Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles, before I go off to lunch, and when I get back I will try to do some visiting to see what has made you smile this week.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 7

Don't these Fridays come around kind of fast?! So here we are again. I hope you have all had things this week that have made you smile and feel grateful for life.  Even though it has been one of those 'ordinary' weeks again, I still have plenty to be grateful for.

My first smile was an unexpected one when, on Saturday afternoon, we heard very loud music in our street. We opened the front door to investigate and found a small procession of folk, mainly parents with children, but some of us oldies as well, all following a troupe of street entertainers. Street entertainment is much loved in the local villages, and we see it happening whenever there is an event on. This weekend it was 1º Jornada Comercial do Invierno 2020, which basically means the first commercial day of Winter 2020. These days happen about four times a year with the purpose of promoting local shops and businesses. For the first ones, local shops put up market stalls on the plaza, but more recently they have involved the shops who are interested in joining it, signing up at the Town Hall. On the day they have a white balloon flying by their door and we can get a sketch map of where they are. You are invited to visit some or all of them, and if you make a purchase you are given a raffle ticket. The draw takes place the following week. Prizes have been things like a weekend break for two, and at Christmas it was a large TV. The afternoon of the event, there is now always some form of street entertainers who visit each shop in turn, led there by the village band. They stop to do their 'show' outside the shop, often encouraging the shop owners to join in. It is all good fun and good for trade too. 

We have a small shoe shop in a house at the bottom of our road, hence the parade passing our house. It was just getting dark by the time they came by us, but I followed them anyway and found their leader was this man in his snazzy pink jacket, driving  a sort of motorised truck, pulling a cart with huge, very loud speakers blaring out their music.

In front of the shop there were four young men on very high stilts, who danced and juggled with boxes of childrens shoes from the shop. 

I have to say I admired their agility on the stilts. They danced and pirouetted on one while waving the other in the air, and seemed to have no trouble staying upright.

After their little performance, they took a bow and moved on to the next shop.

I do enjoy these little quirky things that happen from time to time. I feel they would not be as appreciated in modern Britain, and of course, we do have the advantage of far less traffic, so it is not a problem to perform in the street.

I have been continuing to work on my blanket but I hit a wall early in the week with a section of the pattern that I just couldn't get right. I had completed my circular part and it was time to add four corners to turn it into a square. I counted the stitches and made sure I started in the right place, but when I had finished I still had three or four stitches left at one end and around ten the other end. So I pulled it all out and tried again. After my third failed attempt I was ready to bin it, but I would not be defeated. So I got pencil and paper and made a chart of exactly which stitches I should be working into for each row. I was so grateful that Amazon sent me these little colourful pin-style stitch holders so quickly. I used them in pairs to pin each stitch that I needed along the edge, and voila!, my first corner was complete. I have now done the second one and the third one is pinned up ready to go. Hopefully by next week they will all be done and I'll be able to move on to the bottom panel, which should plain sailing after this.

While driving home last week end I was caught in a heavy shower, and when I switched on the wiper blades, the one on the driver side fell off! Again Amazon came to our rescue and two days later we had the correct ones for our car model and Chris was able to fit them. They actually work better and more smoothly than any I have had before, which I suspect were locally sourced and not quite right for our car. My only complaint  is that one pair of wipers arrived in a  box that was over a metre long, and about 8cm square! They rattled around inside despite a load of crumpled paper padding. Amazon have a way to go to sort out their packaging.

Although some days have been a little overcast this week, it has been warmer and there is a definite feel of Spring in the air. Everywhere I go I see the campo coming to life with wild flowers. One of my favourites that is starting to flower now is the wild chrysanthemum. It makes patches of bright yellow in every field, along the road side and wherever it can find a space. It actually makes a good cut flower too.

The little flowers all around them are also very pretty though the hairs on their leaves can be an irritant. It opens out as a pink flower and gradually changes to violet and then deep blue, and it is common to see all three colours on a plant at the same time.

Another smile is this pot of tulips. I spotted them when I was out shopping and bought a bunch. I doubt they are Spanish. I have tried several times to grow them but conditions are not right for them here. But maybe there are nurseries that can control temperature and water for them. I don't know, but I shall enjoy these for a few days anyway.

I came home from shopping today to find Chris clearing the little square of garden at the front of the house, and that makes me really happy.  It had got very overgrown, but my hands are not able to manage the loppers any more; even secateurs are a struggle, so I was glad he has had a go at it. It is our only piece of plantable land, and there is little space left in it, even when all the weeds etc are taken down. Along one edge is a wall covered in our lovely pink jasmine which is already in bud, so that couldn't be cut back much, but it does catch onto my Bird of Paradise tree and smother it a bit. The whole area had also been invaded by a lantana plant. It is very pretty when in flower, but its berries are poisonous for the animals, and it is a very strong grower, so it needed to be cut right down.

And around the edge we have half a dozen roses which did not do so well this year as they did not get enough light or water, but they have now been pruned back hard, and I am sure they will do better again this year. We left one tall stem because it has this beautiful flower at the top.

We couldn't bear to cut that off so we will let it have its moment of glory, and then cut it down to match the others.

I have promised to help Chris collect up all the rubbish and bag it up after lunch, so we can put it in the bin. There is rather a lot of it!

And that's about it for this week, so I shall link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles, and then, before I go, I shall add one more success story.

I am sure we all like a success story. Well, some of you may remember that around nine years ago I started a group to knit tiny jumpers and beanie hats for what were known as 'Fish and Chip babies'. Family member, and friends from my church and sewing group, all contributed yarn or knitted garment. When this charity folded and I was desperately trying to find an outlet for my remaining stash of knitting, I was finally introduced to Brian and Barbara Hatton who started a charity called Greenfields Africa. For several years we continued to knit for them sending sack after sack of clothes and blankets to their warehouse in UK. More recently the cost of shipping these items to Kenya became untenable and we had to stop, but the charity continued to work with the people of the Kakamega rain-forest area of Kenya, building up the hospital they had founded, using local workers and resouces to make sanitary protection for girls so they could attend school, setting up workshops and providing reconditioned tools to teach local young people useful trades, and their most important work of treating children affected by Jiggers, (the larva of sand flies that burrow into hands and feet causing pain, deformity and sometimes amputation). This year, Brian and Barbara, who are both well into their eighties, have decided that it is time to stop. They have spent the passed couple of years making sure each of their projects are self-sustaining, and they have now achieved this.

Because I have continued to support them after the knitting project ended, they sent me a copy of their final report which was so uplifting - a real success story. My church have also supported them over the years so I prepared a copy of the report for their notice boards and added this page of photos highlighting some of their achievements, so I thought I would share it here. This is mainly for my family who have helped me over time, but I hope you all are happy to see what a wonderful legacy these two lovely people are leaving.

Rocking Your World 2020; Week 6

My week got off to a good start with a lovely church service on Sunday morning celebrating Candlemas (when the infant Jesus was presented at the temple and Simeon recognised who he was, and also when the new church candles are blessed for the new year). We were each given a little candle as we arrived, with a cardboard circle around it to catch any wax drips. These were lit during the first hymn, and we were then invited to bring them to the front and press them into two trays of wet sand prepared for them.

They burned happily throughout the service. It was intended that we would collect them again on the way out, but sadly one or two folk had accidentally left their cardboard circles at an angle, and during the closing hymn one caught fire, and a quick thinking gentleman grabbed the trays and took them outside to burn themselves out!

It was out first time trying this so I guess it is a lesson learned and we will do things a little differently next year!

On Tuesday we went round to the camp site at the edge of the village for a meeting with officers from the British Consul, and the organisation "Brits in Spain", who were talking about how we can expect Brexit to affect those of us who have migrated to Spain. It was a super sunny day and there was a good crowd already there when we arrived.

We joined the queue at the front to collect some handouts, and then found ourselves seats around the swimming pool as the patio was a bit crowded.

I can't say we heard anything really new, but it was reassuring to have some of the rumours confirmed in our favour. Those of us who live here permanently and have our residencia and Spanish drivers licenses already, really have nothing to worry about. There will be some changes for those who 'to and fro' throughout the year, but not until after the transitional year.

I made good use of the oranges I was given last week with one more batch of bitter orange marmalade and one of a darker one with thick cut peel. So now my shelves are full. I will be given some grapefruit soon from a friend, so I shall be making one or two lots with them, and I hope to get some of my hot ginger and chilli jam made too, but I need to sell some of this lot first so I have space on my shelves. Last week Annie asked me about my jars. Most of my customers do bring them back when they are empty, and also add some from jam they have bought in the supermarkets. I can't use all of them, but any that are too big, or too small etc I recycle at the glass bank. The lids do wear out over time, but I can sometimes buy replacements in one of the todo shops. Even when they come to me looking really clean, I put them all through the dishwasher, store them without lids to prevent them from smelling musty, and immediately before I use them, I sterilize them in the oven.

The weather has picked up again but it is very unstable with some days being warm and sunny and some still quite cold. I have said before how green everything is looking, because we have had several spells of rain with enough coming down to do some good. It is hard to decided what to wear each day. On Tuesday this week it peaked at 25º in the afternoon and the next day it was 15º. Even the wild life is confused. We have had a tortoise in our yard this week and one night, Chris got up to investigate because the dogs were yelping in an unusual way, and found they had spotted a hedgehog walking across the patio. The dogs are enclosed in the fly free porch at night and were frustrated because they couldn't get out to the intruder. Hedgehogs are quite rare here, and we have not seen one on our land before. I am sure both of these should still be hibernating. At least there is plenty of green vegetation for the tortoise to break his fast on.

The combination of wet and warm encourages everything to grow and I have been watching what many would call a weed, growing outside the kitchen door. It is in fact a herb called fumitory, and according to the internet, it can be bought dried, and burnt, and the smoke is supposed to clear a space of bad spirits! This one was a tiny shoot in a square of soil where we used to have a shrub growing. I had placed an old plastic seat over this square and sometimes I sit on it while the dogs are eating their food near it. Anyway, in just a few weeks the fumitory grew up the legs of the chair, across the seat, and right to the top of the fence behind it. The fence is covered in a type of artificial grass bought by the roll here and used mainly for privacy. You can see the bright green of the plant climbing up it though. It is incredible how quickly it has grown to the top. It now has flowers all over it, and I think they are really pretty.

Probably my biggest smile of the week came yesterday. The Christmas before last, you may remember that Chris bought me some hand-made shoes at a Christmas Fair. (See here). They were made of red and orange leather and had a picture of cacti on them. My friends called them my 'hippy shoes', but everyone who has seen them has loved them.

This Christmas I returned to the same fair hoping to buy a blue pair and was very disappointed because the lady who makes them was not there. They are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn, but I do wear a lot of blue, and the orange ones just don't 'go' with them. Anyway, I asked around and although lots of folk know about 'The lady who makes shoes', no-one could tell me how to contact her. I did learn that she lives just outside Bédar, the little white village up behind our's, but that is all. I have spent a lot of time searching for her online, but without a name I was not having much success, but then I discovered a travel page with a link to a Facebook group called  'People who live in the Village of Bédar'. I sent them a message and someone sent me the email for Beth's shoes, and that was it. I had found my lady. I wrote to her and explained what I was looking for and yesterday she came to my house, and brought about a dozen pairs of shoes for me to try! How is that for personal service?

She was so nice, and we had a lovely chat about the area, markets she sometimes attends, and the problems involved in small scale selling within the bounds of the law in Spain. She didn't have any blue one with a painted design on them, but I settled on a plainer pair made from three shades of blue leather, dark at the side, paler at the back, and a bright turquoise on the toes.

Then my lovely husband Chris said he would buy me one more pair so I have these gorgeous black and green ones with a hummingbird sipping from a flower on them.

So now I can have comfortable feet whatever colour I am wearing, and that is something to be really grateful for.

So now it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and see what is making you smile too.