Rocking Your World 2021: Week 13

Well we are back onto a shorter post this week after last week's rather lengthy effort. It has been a fairly straightforward week with more ups than downs I am pleased to say.

It has been a sunny and comfortably warm week so most afternoons I have sat out on the porch for a couple of hours relaxing, before going down to my room to craft or to the kitchen. I did do a little bit of baking this week. I saw a recipe for 'Tarta de Santiago', and really wanted to give it a go. The name Santiago has a Latin origin and is a composite of old Spanish words for Saint and James. Tarta do Santiago is traditionally associated with the folk who make the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compestelo in Northern Spain. The main ingredient is almonds and it is often eaten with cheese. It is believed that the early pilgrims gathered almonds along the way and were given cheese from the farms they passed. The 'tarta' is fairly thin and is made mainly from ground almonds, and eggs, and is covered with sifted icing sugar with a cut out of Saint James cross in the centre. So to make mine authentic I used my cameo cutting machine to make a template of the cross, and it looks as it should (except I smudged my sugar a bit before I took the photo!)

However, I wasn't completely happy with it as it was more 'solid', what I call 'puddingy', like a heavy fruit cake, and I was expecting almost a soft shortbread texture. Years ago, these were sold in Lidl's around the time of the pilgrimage, and I loved them, but they have't had them for a long time now. So I am going to look for a different recipe and have another go soon. It hasn't gone to waste as we are still eating it, but instead of cheese, I am adding ice-cream or custard!

I heard from my son Mike this week with something that made me smile. Years ago,(1990 I think), when his older brother got married, Mike already had a new baby girl and I caught him on camera,  sitting at the back of the church, holding her, with her head in his hands, and talking to her as though it was just the two of them in the whole world. I loved that photo and know I still have it, but I can't lay my hands on it today. But many years later  when his son was born, I saw this cross stitch pattern and knew I had to make it for him. It was not an easy one because all the threads were shades of brown, and the aida fabric was fine, but he loved it. 

It hung in their house for a long time but when his marriage broke up, it 'went astray'. However, this week he went back to the house to retrieve some items from the loft, and there he found the picture and rescued it. Finlay is now almost 15, but he spends a lot of time at his dad's new home, and the picture will again be on display there, which makes us both happy.

About a month ago I showed some squares from my current blanket project, and I was about to start on a new ball of wool that was a rather strange combination of purple, lilac and orange. Well those three squares are now done. The orange is quite harsh but it will mix in with all the others I know. So now I have used all four of the balls in the original pattern, and I have sewn in all the ends, and done one round of dark blue (called blueberry but really a dark teal) around all of them, which pulls all the colours together. I will be using it to join them and work a border too.

The blanket in the pattern is three squares wide by four squares long, which is a bit smaller than I want, so I have bought three more balls in different colours, so that my blanket can be 4 x 5 squares instead. The one I am working on now is called Banana cream, and it is quite pale. I wasn't sure I liked this first square as I started doing it, but the deeper colours are creeping in now and grounding the very pale centre, and like the orange, I know it will blend in with the others. If I do the three squares from each ball as I have so far, I will have one square to many, so I will discard whichever ones doesn't fit in as well as the others when they are all done.

When my new office chair arrived I decided to keep the old one so that I have a seat for visitors, when they can come again. It isn't really in the way, and as it is on casters I can roll it around if I need to. But both Tolly and Tango have discovered it is there and they take it in turns to come and sleep on it. Tolly is curled up there now. It is nice because I have them comfortable in my company without them climbing over whatever I am trying to work on, and knocking everything down. Just occasionally one comes down here and discovers the other one has got there first. If Tolly is there, Tango will usually wander away again. But if Tango is there, Tolly just jumps up as well, and for a while they sit together happily. It doesn't last as Tolly wants to play and if he gets too rough they both get sent out. But it is nice while it lasts.

One other cause to be grateful this week was getting the results of blood tests and scans I have had for a health problem, and everything has come back within the 'normal' range, so that is a relief.

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

P.S. Don't forget to spring your clocks forward on Saturday night. One less hour in bed for us all.