Friday, May 29, 2020

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 22

Well today I am trying out the new Blogger interface to see if there are any improvements. If not I shall return to the Classic version.
Here we are at Friday again. We have been in phase 2 of the relaxing of lock-down this week, but I can't say it has made much difference to us.  Apart from a trip to the road at the front of the village to pick up some dog food, we haven't left home.
It has been quite hot most days and I have had my first dip in the pool, which was lovely.
I was happy to get several loads of washing dry and put away, including the blankets we wrap up in on chilly evening through the winter. They won't be wanted again for a while so I like to put them away clean so they are ready for next autumn.



I only have a few photos this week. I had to show my lovely yellow hibiscus. It is getting a bit thin and straggly as they really don't like being confined to a pot, even if it is a large one, but it still gave me a lovely show of flowers this week.



This one fascinates me because when it rains, the red centre mixes with the yellow petals, and the whole flower turns orange! But this is how it should look. I love that long stamen, and the bees love it too.


For a couple of years I have had some lavender growing in a pot by the back railings. Again being in a pot limits its life and as they had gone past their best. I pulled them out intending to replace them this spring, but of course that hasn't happened; not yet anyway. Yesterday I noticed that a weed seedling had appeared in the pot and was growing fast. I thought I'd leave it to see what it was, but today most of it had been eaten away. I lifted the leaves to look for the culprit and this wee fellow jumped out. Isn't he cute. Even for those who don't like spiders, you must admit that a vivid yellow miniature one is something special. This is from the family of crab spiders, and they turn up in a variety of colours. It was only about half a centimetre across, but I managed to get a picture, just because it was such an amazing colour.
It was nice to have the local herd of goats back visiting in the green zone this morning. I heard their bells and went to look for them. They were over the other side but I could see they had quite a few young kids with them.


I made a cake today. The Spanish folk rarely use Self-Raising flour, which those of us who are British bakers, are used to.  They mainly have what we call plain flour and they just call flour! (All purpose flour to my American friends I think). I tend to still buy SR at the English shop, but I haven't been able to find any at all locally until this week. I found a small bag of flour that I translated as being for making cakes. It said you do not need to add levadura (generally meaning baking powder here though they tend to use the same word for yeast which can be a bit confusing), and when I read the ingredients it said with 'gasification' which I would expect to mean bicarb soda. Are you still with me? Well on the side of the packet there was a recipe for a plain cake and I decided I could understand it enough to have a go. It needed a pot of natural yoghurt, and then used the yoghurt pot to measure everything else! It told you what heat to set the oven to, but not the time - "Leave in the oven until golden. It is important not to open the oven door until it is cooked completely". All a bit vague to me, but I still had a go and to my surprise it turned out really well, even and golden brown. I had to have a little taste from the end, and it is very nice. I shall add a bit of buttercream or something before we eat it I expect.

It has been a bit windy for sitting outside in the afternoons, so I have spent some time down in my craft room and was pleased to finish a set of sixteen Christmas cards, in time to enter them in a card challenge on line that I try to take part in each month. They are all very similar but with small difference in the embellishments. You can find out more about them on my craft blog HERE.

I have also been continuing to crochet of course. I though I would show you the yarn I am using. It is an interesting colour combination. I bought it for another project but when it arrived I felt it wasn't suitable, but it was too expensive to waste, so now I have put it to good use. I will show what I have made when it is finished in a few weeks I hope. 

On Wednesday, a minute's silence marked the start of an official ten days of mourning throughout Spain, for the thousands who have lost their lives during the Corona virus pandemic. Flags will remain at half mast for the ten days. I haven't managed to get a photo of the ones on our own Town Hall yet, but this is a typical picture from the internet.

I have reverted to Classic Blogger because the new one wouldn't let me add photos. (It is supposed to be easier for those using smart phones). I think I need to do something about syncing with Google docs. I will get my techie man on to it later. He is busy sunbathing right now!

And so it is time to link with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and I will leave you with this which made me chuckle.
It has been a bit like that for all of us these passed few weeks, but hopefully we will soon all be back on track.

10 comments:

  1. As I'm sure you know I'm not a lover of spiders but this week even I took a pic of one that turned up in our house because it was bright green and not something I'd seen before...I thought I'd try to identify it on google but found I couldn't look at all the pics of the spiders I found and most of them just seemed to be called small green spiders and because the photo I took kept popping up on my iPad when I was least expecting it I had to remove it :-) :-)
    I love your hibiscus...what a stunning yellow flower. It really made me smile.
    Your final funny describes life at the mo doesn't it..... and then they throw in a Bank holiday !!
    Hugs,
    Annie x

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  2. I used new blogger for test post last night Kate. I worked out how to add photos ok.. just a tab on side somewhere.. as mine are stored on my phone I dont have to faff with Google docs. Not even sure what they are.
    I resize mine in resize app and it stores it in my Gallery. So all good tested it last night.
    We will have to adapt by July. Not overly keen on changes, but that is life.
    Wow what a wonderful cake.. very clever!! Love your cards too..and local pickies, too.
    Enjoy your pool!
    Thanks for sharing, and may God bless and keep you and all whom you love safe and well.
    Prayer hugs, Shaz in Oz. X

    {Wonderful Words of Life - Shaz in Oz}
    {Calligraphy Cards - Shaz in Oz}

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  3. PS this day that day! Dopey here totally forgot it was Friday somehow thought it Thurs. Even when drove home I saw all bins out and thought wow, folks are organised for Thurs!
    Oops Friday garbos heard doing pick up toooo late!!
    Ah well, next fortnight!
    😉😁😂

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  4. Hi Kate, I think it’s lovely that they have the flags at half mast over hear, we have a giant one on one of the roundabouts.
    I haven’t been able to get Sr flour yet or baking powder, I did get some of the spanish flour with a picture of cakes on the front but I’ve used it as plain flour and it’s been fine .
    We keep have quite big centipedes this year, never had them before and they are bright orange, even the birds won’t touch them unfortunately, we’ve just got rid of all those small black caterpillars, then the other day we had tiny flying ants, they even get through the door jams too, I have a daily fight with ants,LoL
    Have a lovely weekend, Jan x

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  5. Your funny had me giggling. Thisday, thatday... I know, times are strange at the mo.
    The yarn is absolutely beautiful and I look forward to see what you are making.
    The card you've made are really lovely. It wasn't until I enlarged your photo that i saw it was a Christmas tree full of robins. What a delightful image.
    Yes, people are flying the flag here too. A prominent house here in the village has a black ribbon on the flag as well.
    A yellow spider. How pretty. I'm not spider phobic and usually leave them along unless they are in my bedroom or bathroom (the large ones). This yellow one is a real beauty.
    I have been baking with plain flour for 10 years now (ever since we left the UK) as we can't get SR flour here. It would confuse me now as most of my recipes are for plain flower except for a few Dutch ones.
    The cake you made is a popular Spanish sponge. They call it a yoghurt cake here. Of course the acid in the yoghurt is part of the chemistry of baking a cake. Yours looks really nice (I forgot you can't have any).
    Have a great weekend,
    Stay safe and take care,
    Hugs,
    Lisca

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  6. Hi Kate that Hibiscus is gorgeous they are a lovely flower. The spiders are interesting but bright coloured insects worry me a little as it usually means they bite or sting. I love the goats, we don't see many around here but the dear are becoming more noticeable, they are called Muntjac. The cake and the cards look lovely, I really need to think about starting some Christmas cards. I'll be pleased when you sort the new Blogger stuff, I tried it when they first mentioned it but not keen but guess in time we wont have any choice. Love the days of the week funny. Take care and have a lovely weekend, Angela xXx

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  7. Another lovely post Kate! I don't think we'll have to move to the new blogger - my understanding is that the old one will still be available. There again- I could be wrong of course :)

    Hugs

    Di xx

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  8. Hi Kate - you are not the only one frustrated with the new blogger - I have not tried it yet, but others are commenting about it...
    Loving that hibiscus - how fascinating that the colours merge in the rain!
    The spider looks cute - I was about to iron a pillow case yesterday and a white tail spider jumped out of the top and ran under my ironing board. These spiders have a nasty bite that can turn very septic, so I liberally sprayed the underside of the board with fly spray, and it eventually dropped down, and was VERY promptly squashed with my slipper!
    That cake recipe sounds fascinating - and I could follow you re the ingredient names :) The final cake looks great :)
    We are now into our second week of level 2 alert (level four was total lockdown) and we have had 8 days of no new cases, and only one 'active' case, and they are not in hospital. So glad our government shut down so quickly, or it could have been far worse - as I saw in your case
    Stay safe
    Blessings
    Maxine

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  9. I was late linking at Annie's this week and have not been able to catch up. Sorry I'm late visiting you, too.

    Your cake is making me hungry and your cards are making me realize why I don't make cards. The yarn is beautiful. I hope it works up well.

    We didn't get in on that International days of mourning. I think your flags are beautiful, though.

    Loved your funny, too. Again, sorry I was late. I hope you have a super rest of whatever is left of your weekend, dear.

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  10. Oh hello sweetie, I persevered with the new blogger, but I can't for the life of me get Mr Linky to work, I've tried everything, there is an insert code button which apparently is like a toggle but no matter what I do it won't publish the link, the old version had the HMTL code behind it, the issue I have is that we willl have to use the new version soon anyway, so I'll persevere but I will need people to provide the link to their blog in the comment, like i used to in the good old days. Oh well.

    Anyway intrigued with the crochet the colour of the wool is beautiful, so can't wait to see what you create.

    I have made soooooooo many Christmas cards this year that it will last me this year and some of next, so I daren't join in the challenge, but I love to see the sets that you create.

    The hibiscus is beautiful, the first time we came across this plant was when we visited Rhodes in the early nineties, the hotel had a hibuscus hedge in full bloom, I didn't think I'd ever seen anything quite so pretty, it was a bright red hibiscus flower, so it was fabulous to see a different colour.

    I hope you have a wonderful weekend and week ahead.

    Hugs

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