Rocking Your World 2020; Week 44

Well here we are at Friday again. It wasn't quite the week we had expected as we thought the house would be ringing to the tones of workmen stripping out the bathroom. Unfortunately the work could not start on Monday as planned because much of the new items had not arrived, and they didn't want to start ripping it out until they could put the new stuff in. Of course it is Covid causing delays in the deliveries. We were not even sure whether the workmen would be allowed to come but apparently they are.

When we checked today, we learned that the wall tiles had arrived, but not the ones for the floor, which are expected to arrive early next week, and the other items were sent out from Murcia on Wednesday so they should manage to get here, and may be delivered today. So we are hoping the work will begin by the end of next week.

Our village is not in the best situation right now with 59 active cases of the virus, but the rest of Spain is not doing too well either. The country is in a "State of Alarm" with a nationwide curfew, and each authority has the power to close its area borders. We haven't gone quite that far but police are often seen on the roads in and out of the village to make sure your journey is an essential one.

So once again we are mainly staying at home, but that hasn't been all bad. The weather has been lovely and we are grateful for that. We have been able to eat our midday meal outside on some days, it is pleasantly warm to sit out on the porch with a book or tablet, and on Wednesday I did a lot of washing which dried really quickly.

This morning we decided to do a 'big shop', making sure the larder and fridge were well stocked, so hopefully we will not need to go again during November. I will, of course need milk, bread and vegetables in that time, but they can be bought much nearer to home. The shops were quite quiet, with very little queuing, and there was little traffic on the roads. We went to the big Spanish supermarket Mercadona, and then went on to Iceland - Supermarkets Overseas, for the English items that I really wanted. Marmite was at the top of my list. I eat it regularly now as I try to eat less of the sweet spreads like jam and marmalade, and it is something that they just don't have in Spain. Mercadona was well stocked but there were a lot of empty shelves in Iceland so maybe they are also having problems with deliveries. They may have just been running down the cold counters before the long weekend closure but that would be unusual. Anyway, we got most of what we wanted so that was fine.

It was a good morning's work really, but I am happy not to need to do it again for a good while.

Two things I am constantly running out of is cat food and cat litter. They are both bulky and heavy items so I tend to only buy them when I know I am parked right outside the store. But yesterday I took my son's advice and ordered enough from Amazon to last us until Christmas. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. The first lot arrived today and the rest is coming on Tuesday. Monday is a bank holiday or red day here so there won't be any deliveries then.

I have been busy finishing off a crochet project and a photographic one but I can't show either of them here just yet. Now I am back working on my pocket scarf. I think I will need to use it soon for sitting at my computer. The evenings are decidedly colder.

So the only photos I have for you this week are of a lovely sunset. I saw this sky when I went out to feed the dogs their tea.

Then the sun broke out below the clouds and lit it up more.

Chris came out and said "What are you standing out here for. It's quite chilly?" and I said, "I am waiting for that sky to turn red. I am sure it is going to". And I was right. Before long it was a fiery red but it only lasted for a few minutes before it faded away completely.

So now it is time to link up with Rocking Your World on Virginia's blog, and Annie's Friday Smiles. Hopefully I will have a more exciting week to write about next time

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 43

As every day the news gets more confused and troubling, lets take a few minutes to share what has kept us smiling through these dark days.

Personally I have had a lovely week, not least because it was my birthday on Saturday.  So before I go any further, as promised,  I will show you the beautiful card my sister made for me,  that was inside the lovely envelope I showed last week. So here it is.

We have both been paper-crafters for many years but gradually we have developed very different styles. I tend to use bright colours, and my designs often end up 'busier' than I intended. Jean uses subtle colours and her work is very neat and precise. Fortunately we both appreciate the other's skills, and I think this card is very special.

Something else that made my day was this birthday tribute to both of us (Chris' birthday was the previous Thursday), posted on Facebook by one of our sons.

I can't think of anything nicer he could have said.

So, as we did not in the end do anything special on Thursday for Chris, when I saw another good day forecast for Saturday, I suggested we went for a walk in the sunshine. The fresh air, sea breeze and exercise would do us good after spending so long at home. So we drove to Vera Laguna, which is a fairly large lagoon formed at the mouth of the River Antas, where it flows onto Vera Playa. It is not somewhere you pass normally as the road comes to a dead end just passed the lake. But we knew it was there although we had never actually visited it. I was taken aback by the number of birds that were there. They were mostly ducks and moorhens, and they were happily feasting on scraps thrown by a Spanish family that was there.

Of course, the seagulls wanted their share and weren't slow to take it!

Suddenly all the birds took off across the lake to a spit of sand at the side where another family were getting out a bag of food. They obviously thought there might be better picking there.

We were walking in that direction and when we got there the birds were not a bit fased to have us walking among them. Aren't their heads a beautiful colour?

In this picture you can see how the far side of the lake is only separated from the beach by a small board-walk, so the fresh water coming down from the River Antas must mix with the salt water from the sea, especially in bad weather, but the ducks seemed very happy with it. Apparently it is a stopping off point for them on their winter migration from northern Europe to Africa, but some have made it their permanent home.

We walked along three sides of the lake, but the path on the fourth side would have taken us up to the main road, a fair distance from our car, so we turned around and walked back. I took various views because it looked so different from different angles. I think this one is beautiful. It is so peaceful and the light is just right so I used it as my new header on Facebook. I think it may end up on my blog too.

This time I took a closer one because it shows the jagged mountain range behind Mojacar village. When we first came here we used the 'dragon's teeth' mountains as a landmark to help us get our bearings. And there are lovely reflections in the water too.

When we left the lake we continued our walk along the promenade. The road comes to an end but the walk way continues all the way to Garrucha I think. The stretch of sand down to the sea gets very wide, but fortunately the council have installed concrete 'board-walks' at intervals along it, making getting down there much easier. I am always surprised how well the palm trees grow in the salty sand. I just had to catch this little group with a big green tanker in the distance behind them.

As you can see, there were very few people on the beach, though we did see a couple of families arriving as we left. They would have no problem with social distancing down there! Of course I couldn't leave with out having a birthday paddle so here is the proof.

We decided against going in any of the bars for a drink, and made our way home where I made our dinner with my favourite comfort food - jacket potatoes with cheese and beans. Lovely!

On Sunday I did do a special meal for us midday, with some excellent fillet steak and all the trimmings. When we had eaten Chris suggested another walk would do us good so we drove down to Garrucha marina. Normally this would be heaving on a Sunday with Spanish families out for a stroll before their Sunday meal in one of the many bars and restaurants there. But this week it was very quiet.

There were a few people out walking like us, but not very many. We stopped to watch the little shoals of fish swimming between the boats. They flashed silver as the sun caught them.

We left the marina and continued along the promenade stopping to buy a very large ice-cream. Only one person was allowed in the shop at a time, and we decided not to sit at one of their tables outside, and instead we crossed back over to the seafront and found a sunny bench to sit on.

Near the port there is a statue of Virgen del Carmen de la Mar. She is the patron saint of Garrucha town and also of fishermen, so she stands looking out across the sea where the fishing boats come and go every day. A large amount of European money has been used to build a lovely walkway out to where she stands, and on round to the harbour to the big building where the catches are auctioned. It was only finished this year so we thought we'd walk around it. The statue is one of the more attractive ones I have seen.

As we walked around it we were much closer to the working port that we usually see across the water from the marina. And there, in the main berth, was the green tanker we had seen at the lake the day before. No work goes on on a Sunday, but usually the port is a continuous flow of lorries bringing stone quarried from around Sorbas, which is loaded onto tankers and taken away to build roads etc elsewhere.

It was such a lovely day, warm and sunny but not too hot to walk comfortably, so we were in no hurry to return home, and instead drove from Garrucha all along the coastal road to the far end of Mojacar. This used to be a very rough, deserted stretch of beach but it has been developed for tourism, with a sea wall forming a small  bay and cutting off the dangerous tides that Mojacar is infamous for. There were a few cars on the parking area, but only one couple sitting in a sheltered corner where we were. We sat on some rocks and let the waves lap over our feet.

Here's Chris doing his Pixie pose. I wish I could still sit like that, and have a smile on my face. (I'm not sure I ever could!).

Soon the sun was going down, sparkling on the water and making it look even more peaceful. Another photo with no other people around.

I am always looking out for interesting patterns around me and I loved this neat dry.stone wall, and the reflected light of the sun on the water on the end of a rusty old boat.

I am glad we had this lovely weekend as we are more or less housebound  again now. Sadly we have 45 cases of the virus in our little village now, and with a population of around 2,700 that equates to over 900 per 100,000, which really is very high. So although we are not actually in lock-down, we are recommended to stay home as much as possible, so no more nice outings for a while.

I have continued to try to catch our difficult animals on camera, and had some success when I eventually managed this one of big Kim and his sidekick, little blue-eyed Foxy.

Tolly on the other hand is not camera shy. Yesterday he had his visit to the vet to be neutered and micro-chipped, so we will continue to keep him indoors or in the fly free porch this weekend, but next week we will start letting him explore outside, which I think he will enjoy. He is still a little on the wild side so we are hoping the operation will calm him down a bit. Here he has taken over the waste paper bin again. I have given up using it for its intended purpose as he just empties it over the floor and jumps in again!

And finally a sky photo, and we haven't had one of those for a while. We usually sleep with our windows uncovered, and one morning I woke up to see this lovely sunrise, so I jumped out of bed and threw on a housecoat so I could get out to take a picture before it faded, and I was just in time.

I hope I haven't worn you out with all my photos. I have had so few for a while now, so I had to share these. Now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World. Enjoy your extra hour in bed on Sunday, and I'll see you next week.

Rocking our World 2020; Week 42

It is nice to see Annie is safely back from her holiday today. We continue to stay at home most of the time, but it has still been a nice week.

Yesterday was Chris' birthday so there were several happy family phone calls and messages on social media. We had intended going to a local bar -restaurant for lunch, but changed our minds at the last minute. There are now eleven cases of the virus in our village which is quite a high ratio per number of inhabitants in our small community. So I cooked our lunch and we were able to eat it outside which was good. The days are cooling down quite noticeably, and some evenings have called for a light cardigan, but we have still had a few days above 30º around lunchtime, so we make the most of these temperatures for some al fresco dining.

We did go out for our lunch last week, when we went for our fish and chip dinner at the camp site on the edge of the village. We decided to give it a miss again this week but I had to smile at their Facebook page, where they were reminding everyone they would be serving as usual from noon until 9.00pm. This was what they posted.

I hasten to add they do serve their's on a plate!

Tomorrow it is my birthday as well, but we haven't made any specific plans. We'll wait and see what the day brings. Having our birthdays so close together, means we tend to get mail sent in one envelope, and one such arrived this week. I knew it was from my sister so I opened the package and sure enough there was a lovely handmade card for Chris, and this is just the envelope for mine.

Decorated both back and front it is already adorning my shelf, as it is too pretty to hide away. Tomorrow morning I will open it, and I'll try to remember to show you what is inside, next week.

I also received a surprise parcel from my daughter in law. She knew I have been looking for a yarn bowl so she sent me this one. Isn't it cute?

For anyone who doesn't know what a yarn bowl is, it is a bowl with a spiral cut out which is supposed to be used to feed your wool through as you work, saving it from getting tangled, or from rolling across the floor gathering pet hairs and dust; so a really useful item for me.

As I am currently using the huge balls of wool I showed you last week, it is not possible to use it in this way, but when I worked my first ball it quickly collapsed and I had to keep stopping to untangle it. Now I am on the second ball, I am using it from the centre, and the yarn bowl is helping to hold it all together and so far I have had no tangles.

I am pleased with how the wool is working up. I am making a second longer, and wider, pocket scarf without a pattern, so I just chose a few nice textured stitches and am deciding on the size as I go. Lisca said the pretty wool made her think of ice-cream, and that is exactly what I said to Chris when I first opened the parcel.

When the yarn bowl arrived it was also stuffed with a bag of organic cookies and some apple and ginger tea-bags. What a happy parcel and it really made me smile.

I managed to have another little accident this week! This time I tripped over the corner of a drawer that we had taken out in the kitchen in order to clean behind it, and I injured my leg instead of my foot. So now I have an egg shaped bruise there. That's three in a row, so maybe I will be safe again now.

As you can see I am still wearing flip-flops most of the time, though I have managed to limp to the shops in sandals a couple of times.

I was sitting here at my computer and craft table yesterday, making a birthday card for a family member, and I stopped to gaze out the window. This is my view from my chair. It is a little obscured by layers of fly net, cat nets and rejas (the iron security rails), but I just thought "How lucky am I to have this space to call my own, with a quiet outlook over the green zone where I can see the little birds busy in the bushes, with no traffic zooming past, and just a distant sound of village life" It makes me very grateful to be living here.

And finally, I am trying to collate a few photos of our family including our pets, for a project I may mention again later in the year, but I find it very difficult to get pictures of the animals. They are all camera shy, and turn away if they see me coming! But yesterday little Tolly just sat and posed for me, so I snapped this one quick.

And with that I'll pop over to link up with Virginia at Celtic House, and Annie's Friday Smiles.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 41

Well it is a short one from me today as I have little to write about. Annie is away on holiday this week so no Mr Linky, but I can still link with Virginia over at Celtic House, and of course we can still share our smiles (and not quite such happy moments).

So I will start with my big happy 'TaDa' moment. My multi-coloured project is finished. Remember those 90 fiddly little 'L' shaped pieces I was making in various colours. They were followed by a further 60 hexagons in the purple/pink background shade. Then they all had to be sewn together, in the right order of course, and here we have it. A piece of modern wall art in crochet. 

It is colouful and different, and the geometric design appeals to the mathematician in me. I am sure it is not to everyone's taste, but I love it. I bought two metal rods to thread through the tabs top and bottom, but it is not hung properly yet. I will spread it out more evenly and hang it better. This was just making use of some hooks that were already there, so I could take a photo today.

So of course I was happy to receive another squishy parcel this week with new yarn in it. This was ordered from a Danish company called Hobbii. They sell some beautiful yarns but as with most things Danish, they are usually out of my price range. But at the end of each year they have really good sale offers on a different yarn each week, and this one caught my eye.

Isn't it pretty. It looks good enough to eat. So now I am working on another pocket scarf, lighter weight than the previous one, but a bit longer and wider, and in a more simple stitch.

I am supposed to take good care of my feet because as a diabetic, feet are something that require some consideration. However I seem to have it in for my left foot. Having just about recovered from a bout of plantar faciitis, I then dropped a full jar of jam on it. That bruise has subsided, though not gone completely and now I have stubbed my little toe on the leg of my step stool. It was at an odd angle and at first I thought I had dislocated it (something that I did 50 years ago to the same toe). But now I think it is probably just bruised.

It is still swollen and sore, and the bruise has spread along the base of my toes, so the only shoes I can get on are flip-flops (a nuisance as we get fined if we are caught driving in them, so I am reliant on Chris taking me to the shops etc). My feet are not in the best of condition anyway as I cannot bend to reach them for the TLC they need, but I am sure this will soon be better. I really must be more careful!

And finally, another picture to make you smile. Tolly is still very cute but he can be an awful pest too. He so wants to play with the other animals but none of them welcome being pounced on. However every afternoon he has a long siesta, and his favourite resting place is the big settee which also happens to be Kim's chosen bed. So they are beginning to share it, and we have enjoyed some peaceful afternoons.

And with that I will ink up with Rocking Your World. Do pop over and join in with your positive moments from this week. 

Rocking our World 2020; Week 40

I think we are all doing pretty well to find things to write about that have lifted our spirits in these unprecedented times. Here is a quick run though my week.

Last week I showed some flowers we had bought at the garden centre, so this week we had a morning working outside and I got many of them planted up. This geranium is still waiting for its new home so I left it in the box to give it protection from the wind, and when I went out side next, this is what I found.

I thought cats didn't like geraniums! I used to plant them in my window boxes to keep the cats off them. But Paco is an old man now. He is only just coming up to 12 years old, but he seems to be almost deaf, and his eyesight is not so good, so maybe he has lost his sense of smell as well. He looked so comfy there, I just left him to it.

While at the market I again bought some lovely purple plums, and this time I bought just enough to make a small run of plum jam. I have little opportunity to sell any jams etc right now, but we are running out of strawberry jam - the only one we really eat ourselves except for marmalade which I love, so as there are no strawberries around now, I thought I'd make some plum. It turned out quite well, and we have enjoyed it on scones this week. I need to print off some labels so it can be stored away in the garage until it is needed.

We have had some kitchen drama this week, as my new (2 year old) fridge freezer stopped working. Fortunately I realised it was not cold enough and was able to transfer the contents to the old fridge and freezer that we keep in the garage. Both were already quite full so it was a bit of a squeeze, but I saved all the main items. I thought it was bad that the new one had packed up, just two months out of guarantee of course, but we arranged for the man to come and look at it, but I have to say, we weren't prepared for what he found. Apparently we have a resident mouse (mice?) that had chewed through the condenser cable. He replaced it for us and I am glad to say it is now working again.

So the next thing was to locate the mouse and get rid of it, but he has so far proved quite elusive. We had to remove the foot-plate that runs all along the bottom of the cupboard units, but we found it had only been in the first section, next to the fridge/freezer, where there was the makings of a nest and some droppings, so we set a trap in there. (Last night the trap had been triggered, some of the peanut butter had been taken, but the little critter had escaped!).

Meanwhile, earlier in the week I noticed that a pear in the fruit bowl had been nibbled. As we cannot pick our own fruit at the market right now, my first thought was that the stall-holder had given me a bad one. But I cut it off, and put the good part back in the bowl, and the next night there were new teeth marks in it, and quite a bit had been eaten. There were some dried up pieces of pear skin there but no droppings, and the tissue I had left by it to see if it would be taken as bedding, had not been touched. So I thought this had been the work of a gecko, as they need some fruit in their diet along with the bugs they eat. But after the fridge episode I began to think this was also our mouse so we set another trap in the fruit bowl. This too was triggered over-night and moved, but had failed to trap a mouse.

Now that his space under the cupboards was no longer safe he seems to have investigated the space behind the washing machine and dishwasher, but a trap left near there was untouched, as was a new one in the fruit bowl. So now we are at a bit of a loss as to how to proceed. You would think with four cats in the house, mice would not be a problem, but none of them have shown any interest in the places it has been! Usually the cats have the run of the kitchen at night coming and going through a cat flap, but we have had to shut them out for a couple of nights as the traps are exposed and they could get hurt.

So we will persevere, and as a last resort we will lay poison under the cupboards, but not anywhere else because of our animals. Any suggestions would be welcome.

So on to the gardening. We did manage to pot up the new hibiscus, and plant out some of the pansies. We disposed of a bottle brush shrub that had outgrown itself and no longer produces any 'brushes', and we re-potted a big succulent tree that was originally in half a barrel but the wood had rotted and split.

Over by the garage gate we have my elephant foot palm which produced two spires of flowers this year. It is nice to see this though they are not particularly spectacular flowers. When they die, the rings of leaves around each spire gradually dry up until they fall off, and then if we are lucky, new shoots appear. This year, the leaves don't seem to want to die, and I was disappointed to see no new shoots coming to take their place. But a little while ago we suddenly saw new growth pushing up through the old leaves, around the base of each flower. There are three or four around this one.

So this week I carefully cut through the dead flowers to expose the new plants and they look much better.

There are three strong ones on this branch and three more on this one.

As I pushed aside the leaves to do this, I was surprised to see a further four new shoots in the 'elbow' of the plant and another three at the base of the trunk!

So actually our palm is doing very well indeed. Whether all of these will survive and grow remains to be seen, but we could have quite a few flower spires next season.

I also showed our big round cactus the other week which is flourishing since we started watering that bed regularly for the silk tree. Well this week some brown buds appeared on it and yesterday I spotted this flower. It is the first time it has flowered in the eleven years we have lived here. It is a bit disappointing as sometimes cacti have big white flowers, but I was just happy to see a flower on it.

On the big tall cactus that grows next to it I caught sight of this little fellow. She is a praying mantis though not a bit like the long, slim green ones we usually see. According to Google this is a European dwarf mantis. Just look at the huge spines surrounding her. I don't know how she can move around without getting pierced!

So pottering around in the garden and kitchen have kept me feeling happy this week. Even the little mouse has given us something else to think about and any distraction is better than none! Afternoons spent sitting in the sunny porch is another plus, as is long video calls with my sons.

We have finally received the estimate for our bathroom makeover and we are happy with it and have agreed for the work to begin at the end of October. So yesterday we went to the builders to choose tiles for the floor and walls. Most bathrooms are tiled floor to ceiling out here. We chose off white non slip ones for the floor, and glossy white with grey/blue lines for the walls with a band of mainly blue decorative pattern to go round half way up. Fortunately we have a second bathroom to use while the work is being done and it will be lovely to have the new shower and other appliances. So that is something to look forward to.

Now I will close with a love sky photo I took at sun-down one evening this week. Isn't it beautiful. And then I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World.