Rocking Your World 2020: Week 48

I expect, like me, most of you have very little to write about, yet we can still find little things to make us smile. In fact it is more important than ever to focus on these happy moments, so here are mine.

First of all, our bathroom is finally finished. They came back this morning to fit the last piece (It was missing from the original package). We are delighted with it, especially the walk-in shower which makes life a lot easier for both of us. The room is fairly small and a difficult shape for taking photos so, as I can't show it off to anyone right now, here is a 22 second video tour.

[I have not added a video this way before, so am not sure whether it will work]

Now that is done, we have asked the same men to do some repair work on our outside plumbing. We did ask a plumber to look at this before and he installed a temporary valve so we could turn it off when we didn't need it, as waste water is very expensive out here, and we knew there was a leak somewhere in the outdoor system. It was a bit inconvenient having to turn it on for the shower every time we used the pool this summer, or to water the plants in all my pots, but we managed. However he is a very busy man, and we had given up hope of him returning to do a proper repair. So when we asked Dave (the bathroom plumber) to look at it, and he said 'Yes', he had the builders on his books to do the digging etc, so he could access the pipes, we asked him to do it.

They arrived early yesterday and worked hard to lift some of the patio tiles at the end of the pool. We knew there was a second leak somewhere near the two skimmer baskets. There was a thick layer of concrete under the tiles so it was no easy task.

They dug a deep trench to get below the skimmers and finally found the problem pipe. It was way too long, (Had it expanded since it was installed some 15+years ago? Who knows?), but it had two tight folds in it, so no wonder the water couldn't flow through it.

They replaced the pipe, and filled in the trench, and intended to return to day to re-tile it. Unfortunately, because the house is fairly old, the tiles are no longer produced, so they are going to patch a neat area with plain ones that are similar in colour to the originals. But last night the heavens opened and we had A LOT of rain. It was still coming down this morning so of course the work cannot be completed yet! Typical! We get about a month of rain each year here, and it has to fall just as we have the garden dug up. But never mind. They will finish when they can, and we are not exactly using the pool right now.

Meanwhile Dave started looking for the leak down the other end of the pool between the pool shower and the temporary tap in the front yard. Fortunately it turned out to be in the actual plumbing of the shower, so he is fitting a new tap and shower head, and then re-tiling it, and it was not necessary to dig up the front yard as we had feared. That job is also on hold because of the weather, but the sky is brightening up so he will be back soon to finish it.

So that was the excitement for this week. Monday was the only sunny day and I caught this lovely pink-orange cloud at sundown, the last bit of sunshine we have seen this week. But of course, the ground desperately needs the rain so we are not bothered that it has inconvenienced us a little this week. We have a warm house and plenty to keep us busy indoors, so there is still lots to be grateful for.

I am happy to say that so far our postal service is still working quite well during lock-down. I have received several little packets this week, mainly small craft items, and some larger ones from couriers. On Tuesday I had some lovely squishy parcels which contained the yarn for my next project, another blanket made from 18 inch squares, which are a nice size for me to handle. Aren't the colours delicious?

These are slow-changing colours. The yarn has three strands and the colours change one strand at a time so you move gradually from one to the next. As you can see I have started work on the first square and it looks as though it is solid yellow, but very soon the orange and pink will be introduced. I am supposed to be able to make three squares from each ball, so we will see how it goes. The third one will start quite dark pink and end up deep blue on the outer rounds. The pattern is sufficiently complex that I shouldn't get bored making it over and over so many times.

This has cropped up on Facebook a few times this week, and it has made me smile. 

But really I am quite sad that many of our usual Christmas carol services, crib services, and other events that make this such a wonderful season, will not take place this year. We are in a tight lock-down until 10th December, but I am hoping we will be able to have some sort of celebratory service after that. But even if there is no 'Nativity' this year, it is still "the reason for the season",  and we will be making it as happy and special an occasion as we can. 

I am looking forward to putting the decorations up very soon. We have used the same artificial Christmas tree since our boys were in primary school and the oldest one is fifty next year. I have kept it going for nostalgic reasons but it is getting a bit sad, and I am also struggling to dress it as it is too big for me now. So we had agreed to buy a bit smaller one this year and we were all set to go to the ferriteria (A general hardware, garden and household items shop) to buy one as soon as the lock-down was relaxed. Unfortunately instead of being relaxed, it was if anything made tighter. Even our workmen were stopped by police when they went that way for some materials, and questioned as to why they weren't using the builders merchant in the village - who doesn't happen to stock what they wanted! So we knew we weren't going to be allowed to go there. So in the end I have ordered one from Amazon, and it is arriving on Tuesday. It was hard to chose without seeing it, and you can't always trust the photos online, so I am hoping it will be thick enough to look good when I have decorated it. Expect some photos next week! 

For now I will link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles. Keep looking for those positive moments and keep smiling.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 47

I am starting today with a couple of photos that family members have sent to me and they have really made me smile. 

So first we have my great-grandsons who seem to enjoy their time and always have a ready smile for the camera. Their natural colouring seems to lend itself to Autumn, as I always get lovely photos of them around this time. Here they have obviously had fun finding muddy puddles, and running through the fallen leaves.

Their Grandad, our son Mike, and his partner Lucy have two Jack Russel terriers. They are brother and sister and in September they reached the splendid age of 16. 

Ally, (on the right) is still amazingly fit and loves to go on long walks with them in the Welsh hills near where they live. Dave is showing his age more. He has had several bouts of illness this year, and he usually chooses to stay at home, though a trip to the beach is still fun. This week Mike posted this photo on social media with the caption, "Dave is of a course a dear to us always, but in his dreams he is a deer to everyone, a mighty stag, defender of us all!"...  Perfect placement!

And so to my week. 

The bathroom continues to slowly move along. I believe last week we were still waiting for a replacement for the shower tray which was damaged in transit. Well the new one arrived Saturday morning, BUT, it was 8cms too short! Apparently the manager of the manufacturers had loaded it into his VW and driven over from Murcia especially for us the night before. It turned out he had picked up the wrong one, so on Tuesday the correct one turned up and was installed. Then the tiler came back and finished the tiling all around it, and since then the builder has been in assembling some other pieces. So now the shower screen is in and the toilet is plumbed in, so next week the cupboard and wash basin unit will be done and it will be just about ready to use. It seems to have been a very lengthy job, but at least the end is in view now.

It is nearly three weeks since I did my 'big shop', and I had run out of fresh vegetables and fresh milk - I really don't like the readily- available boxed milk in tea, so I travel to buy fresh when I can. So yesterday I decided I must drive as far as Turre to restock. No-one was around to question my journey, so I went a couple of kilometers further to our nearest Lidls near Garrucha, as they have the best range of fruit and vegetables around here. I did a successful smallish shop, and while there I bought a dear little baby poinsettia, to sit on my kitchen counter top, and an amaryllis that already has two buds on it. I am hoping I can keep them alive long enough to enjoy them. I also bought one larger poinsettia to go in the top of front porch holder. Later I will two more to go below it, but right now there is a fair amount of builders equipment and dust out there, so they can wait until everything is cleared away.

As I had finished my second crochet scarf and I am still waiting for the yarn for the next project to arrive, I thought I would have a go at a pattern I saw a while ago. I ordered the wool, but it was back in the summer and I found the pattern was quite tricky so I put it away until the days were cooler. So this week I have managed to make one motif. It is another new technique to me, called Brioche crochet, where basically alternate rows are worked in the two colours, with the paler one sort of embroidering the pattern over the base colour. I do like it now it is done, but it took a lot of concentration and fair bit of unpicking when I made mistakes, so it will be a background project to do one motif now and then when I want a change of eyesight. The pattern is called Coral Story.

And to end with, a little Spanish lesson for anyone interested. A craft blog friend shared a recipe for dog treats with me last week and the main ingredient is pumpkin puree. We don't get the cans of this that the recipe called for so I needed to make my own. Out here the roundish orange pumpkins that are popular in UK, are not seen often except in the big supermarkets at Halloween. But the Spanish have a generic word "calabaza" which covers almost any vine growing gourd style vegetable. The exception are courgettes which are called "calabacin". They use a sort of jam/preserve which is made from very highly sweetened calabaza puree as a base of fruit tarts and pastries. Although I can now buy peanut squash quite easily (also called calabaza), the most common local one is large, mainly green and has a very knobbly skin.

Inside the flesh is bright orange, with the usual mass of fibres and pips in the centre.

Because they grow quite big, and once cut, have a fairly short shelf life, they are usually sold in wedges. In the market you can say how big a 'slice' you want and they cut it for you, but at the minute it is usually ready cut and firmly wrapped in cling film.

It is a very versatile vegetable, full of vitamins and fibre, and it is much easier to prepare than its nearest UK cousin, Swede. I serve it mashed with carrots, sweet potato and parsnip, or roasted in thick slices, or just cut into cubes and microwaved for a few minutes. It cooks much faster than carrots or swede. This wedge has been roasted and pureed and is now in the fridge waiting for me to make it into doggy treats.

But before I do that I will just link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles.

Rocking Your World 2020: Week 46

Another week has flown by with little to report. There has been some progress in the bathroom, albeit slow. There was another setback when the shower tray was unpacked and they found it had been damaged in transit, so we are still waiting for a replacement to arrive. But such a pleasant young man has been in each day and he has done an excellent job tiling the walls and floor. Yesterday he grouted the walls but he can't do any more until the shower tray is in place. I was hoping they would start building the other units today but so far no-one has come. They have probably been working on another job all week and want to get that finished first. 

We are pleased with the tiles, and this is the border that runs round at waist height. It is subtle but offers the opportunity to add both blue and pink accessories. I will be ordering new towels, and bath mats once I know what shape and space the floor is after everything is installed.  

The weather has been a bit hit and miss this week, with some rain, but still some pleasantly warm sunshine too. The first lot of rain we had was so dirty. It left a thick layer of red sand on everything. You couldn't even see the colour of our outside table, and I had to call Chris to help me clean the car before I could see out of the window to drive to the shops.

So I have been keeping busy indoors. Yesterday morning was spent in the kitchen. I started by mixing up some dough for a loaf. I made some quite successful rolls last week with a new recipe, and I wanted to try making the same recipe into a loaf so I could toast some. Sufficient to say it grew, but it made a good loaf which we made a start on for our tea.

(I wonder whether any of you sharp-eyed folk noticed the little oval tin in the background. There wasn't a lot of money to spare for nice things when we were children, and Mum always put the needs of Dad and us eight children before her own, so it gave her a lot of pleasure when we young ones would club together to buy her something special at Christmas. The thing she loved getting the most was a bar of Yardley's lavender soap. It came in this little oval tin, and instead of using it, she kept it in her clothes drawer to make everything smell nice. I guess when a new one came she used the old one, but I don't remember that. Anyway I rescued this tin when her things were being cleared (she passed away 25 years ago, and had lived with us for the last eight of them). It now has pins in it. I am not sure what they were doing on my kitchen table but the tin jumped out at me when I saw this photo).

While the bread was rising I made one of my all time favourites - date and walnut tea-loaf. It is a recipe from an old Jimmy Young cookbook. I doubled everything and used my largest loaf tin, so I cut a generous piece of the end to freeze for later. The rest will not last long I am sure. I have already enjoyed a couple of slices.

And finally I made another favourite - Viennese whirls. Chris isn't so keen on the dates, but he loves these. The mixture should be piped into nice neat rosettes but my hands couldn't manage the piping bag, so I just spooned it in and marked it with a fork. So they are a bit untidy and misshapen - I used a mixture of round and square silicone cups to bake them -  and they taste just as good even if I wouldn't get many marks for presentation.

And along side all of these I managed to put together chicken curry for our midday dinner, so all in all it was a good day.

The place we used to go every week for a fish and chip dinner on Fridays has this week started offering this as a takeaway meal. It is a good way to boost their trade as they can only have a very limited number of seated diners during the corona virus, and much of their trade came for the evening meals which are not allowed now we have a 6.00 curfew for bars and restaurants. So we have ordered a takeaway today and Chris will be collecting it very soon. So today my kitchen, and I, are having a rest.

I have been slowing working on my crochet, usually just doing a couple of rows a night as the damper weather is not doing my arthritis any favours. I will aclimatize to it soon, but I always notice it at the change of season. However I have now finished my second pocket scarf. It is very pretty and feels so soft. It will be lovely to wrap up in on chilly evenings.

It is much wider than the first one, so it can go right down to my waist at the back, and longer too, which makes the pockets more accessible. I didn't use a pattern this time, and instead just chose a couple of textured stitches from the internet, to make it more interesting to work on than a plain one.

I have of course, just ordered more yarn for my next big project. This time it is going to be a blanket made from a dozen 18 inch squares, which are a good size for me to work with. In the meantime I am working on a little Christmas project I started a while ago.

Other than that the days have somehow passed. I have enjoyed long video calls with my son, and with my sister. I have missed all of them visiting us this year, so it is good to chat.

I have downloaded some new books to my Kindle, and if I am enjoying one, I can happily read all day, and am always amazed at how much time has passed.

I had to take Tolly to the vet because he had a cold and it caused very sore looking eyes, and lots of sneezing. So he has been on a course of antibiotics which finished today, and he had some eye ointment which he didn't appreciate at all. But I am glad to see he is fully recovered now. We have started letting him go outside now and he is getting more adventurous each day. He has mastered the cat flap in the back door and the dog flap in the porch, but he doesn't go too far, and usually comes when we call him. 

Now I shall link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World, and go and enjoy my lunch. Then I will come and visit you all and see what has made you smile this week.

Rocking YOUR World 2020; Week 45

So, has this week had some golden moments for you? I do hope so. If it has, why not follow me to share them on Annie's Friday Smiles or Rocking Your World on Virginia's blog.

I think the highlight of my week was being told I could now share some exciting news. Our fourth son, Jonathan and his wife Ella, are expecting their first baby in April. It is not the best world to be bringing a new life into, but they are so excited and so am I. I have known for a while, but I promised not to say anything until they had had their next scan. That happened last week and they were told the baby is fine, Ella is healthy, and it is a low-risk pregnancy, so now they are sharing the news with their friends, and have said I can talk about it too.Let's hope we are in a better place by next April. Her next scan is on 20th of this month and then we should know whether it is a girl or boy.

On Wednesday we knew rain was forecast for late evening, so we weren't surprised to be woken up in the early hours by thunder and lightening, and heavy rain. It continued on and off all day though only as intermittent light showers. It is the first proper rain we have had for months so we are expecting the green zone to suddenly become green again. It was very much needed.

It was not perhaps the weather we would have chosen as yesterday the men arrived to start on our bathroom. This is a picture I took the day before when I had stripped it of all but essentials.

It was impossible to take one of the whole room from the doorway, so this is the corner in the front left of the one above, showing the bit that I couldn't see from the doorway.
The first thing the men did was remove most of the 'furniture' and strip the tiles from the walls and floors. Apparently when they work in newer houses, the tiles almost 'jump off the walls'. Well ours weren't jumping at all, and it took a lot of work with hammers and drills to get this far. Sufficient to say we had a very noisy day.

I took this one when they went off for some lunch. By the end of the day they had just about cleared the walls and floor, and removed the patches of cement, so today they are filling the floor holes from the new plumbing, replacing some badly worn pipes, and putting in the shower tray, and tomorrow morning they are coming back to tile the walls. I admire the Spanish work ethic. When they start a job they crack on and only stop for a short coffee, and then a lunch break. The tilers are two Spanish men who work for the English company contracted for the whole job. It is run by a lovely couple we have got to know quite well. The wife, and her father draw the plans and work out the estimates, her husband does all the plumbing, and a second English man does any building, assembles cabinets etc. They must be a good team for three of them to mange to work together in our fairly small bathroom. It is good to see it getting done.

My only other photos are from the garden, taken on a greyish day, but before the rain came. I just happened to notice that the bright pink bougainvillea that we cut back quite hard a few weeks ago, is now growing again, and has some lovely new flowers on it. Rather like the rhododendrons in UK, the one with mauve flowers is the common one and grows like a weed all over the place. This is the one we have finally got under control, outside my kitchen window. But I always wanted one of the bright pink ones, and one day I saw a sad little cutting in the corner of the garden centre. It was really only a bare stick, with a couple of leaves on it and I think we paid 1€ for it. I took it home and gave it lots of TLC, and when I was fairly sure it would survive, Chris planted it just beyond our back railings so I could encourage it to grow up a fence there, and along the railings, which it has now done. And for most of the year it now has flowers on, and is a riotous patch of colour even on the grey days.

I am happy to say the number of active virus cases in the village has almost halved, so hopefully the outbreak is now under control. Of course we are still taking great care. And our province , along with major cities, have closed their borders, so I thought I would show you how this is enforced!

Of course this is only possible because we have far fewer main roads leading in and out of our towns and cities than you do, and it is an extreme measure,only used in the worst affected areas. Usually a policeman waving you down to check on the reason for your journey is sufficient.

And to end on a happy note, here a picture that caught my eye when  a friend posted it on Facebook. Those who know me well will understand why I like it. I wouldn't want to make it, but I understand it was a joint effort. I don't know the location. I believe I saw it, or something similar, last year, but I just had to have a second look.

So I will link this up now, (links at top of post), and see you all next week.