Rocking Your World 2021: Week 19

Well here we go again. It has been a pleasant week on the whole with plenty of grateful moments. I am writing this on Thursday afternoon as tomorrow could be a busy day.

In the morning we are both going for our second vaccinations. They are two hours apart, which is a bit better than the first ones which were two days apart, but if the queues are anything like last time, we will be lucky to be home again by mid-afternoon! But we are not really complaining. It will be a good thing to have had them.

The week started off a bit shaky with windy days, clouds and some more rain, but it has got steadily better and today it is 'wall-to-wall' sunshine, and temperatures are in the upper twenties, even touching thirty some early afternoons. 

We have got a lot more clearing up done in the garden, (well mostly Chris has), and there is a big pile of broken chairs, old lounger cushions, rusty fencing wire and cracked pots to all go out by the bin tonight. We are fortunate to have two nights every month when we can put any large items out next to the bin, and the next morning the council workers come round with a grabber-lorry to collect them. Quite a bit disappears before they get there, but that's fine. If someone else can use what we have finished with, they are welcome to it.

This week I finished my craft project and needed to send it on its way to UK so I parcelled it up carefully and downloaded a customs form and we decided it was better to send it from the main post office in Mojacar rather than our little village one, so yesterday we drove down there.

Because it was such a lovely morning, and parking at the P.O. is at a premium, we parked on the sea front and walked up to office. On the way back we stopped to take a few photos. The sea was very lively, with waves breaking a long way out with a line of foam, and then rolling in and breaking again. It is so hard to catch this on camera, but here are a couple of shots.

The sea was very noisy. I tried to take a short video but I am useless at videos and ended up with nothing worth sharing.

There have been more signs of life in the garden. I was very pleased to spot this a few days ago.

It doesn't look much yet but it is flower buds coming on my baby silk tree. It will be the first year it has flowered so maybe in a week or two I will have some flowers to show you.

In the green zone behind us there are some splashes of bright orange which I know are flowers on the wild pomegranate tree. It looks as though it is fighting with a wild grape vine this year, that the birds must have planted there.

Plants have a habit of just appearing here and a couple of years ago we noticed a new 'stick' just beyond our back railings. It has grown quite quickly but we didn't know what it was. This year it is a small tree.

It is now covered with tiny clusters of flower buds. From this we realised it is an olive tree, again planted by birds or the goats that occasionally visit here. There are several olive trees down in the green zone but they are not looked after by anyone, so the goats have a feast when they come here. 

When our first two dogs were puppies and we used to walk them on the campo over the road, they used to rush to scavenge under the olive trees and the vet said the oil was good for their skin, and the pips would just pass through them, so I suppose it is the same of the goats.

Last week I posted a picture of what I thought was a type of ladybird, with an extra long body. I also put the picture on Facebook in a group I belong to called Wildlife in S.Spain. It has lots of very knowledgeable members and one soon told me that it is in fact a leaf beetle. So I also posted this picture of another similar critter I found this week, though I wouldn't want to count the spots on him.

That one stumped most people but eventually one member told me it is also a type of leaf beetle found only in S.Spain, Portugal and Morocco. It goes by the fancy name of Lachnaia Variolosa. I love that group. They are all willing to share their knowledge and I have learned so much from them. I am pleased to say I have also been able to help a few folk out too.

I was sent a lovely video by my daughter-in-law today, of our latest grandchild. She is changing so fast. Her features are settling down and she no longer looks 'new-born'. I am so happy they are keeping me updated. It will be lovely when I can come and see her.

These two made me smile today. Being somewhat short in stature, I keep a small plastic stool handy in the kitchen, and Tango likes to curl up under it, with his chin resting on the bar. Today Tolly wanted him to come and play, so he sat close to him, and then started rolling around next to him, just inviting some interaction.

Tango wasn't having any of it so Tolly started patting at him through the side of the stall. When this got no reaction either he jumped in on top of him, and then there was trouble! Tolly just won't learn when the answer is 'No'!

Although there have been plenty of smiles, not everything this week has been plain sailing. They say troubles come in threes. Well our first one was on Tuesday afternoon when I heard water running in the bathroom. I thought Chris had chosen an odd time to have a shower but when I went to check I found water flowing under the door of the second bathroom. (It is not used as much as the main one except when we have visitors). On investigation I found it was hot water and it was rapidly flowing all over the bathroom floor, and down the corridor in both directions. I called Chris to come quick and he located the link to the joint below the hot tap at the sink. So he rushed outside to turn the water off, and I set to with mop and bucket. Four buckets later we could walk without paddling. Fortunately we know a local plumber so Chris went round to speak to him and later that afternoon he called round. We had to pop down to a builder's merchant at the bottom of the village for some spare parts, but he soon had it fixed and we could turn the water back on. So I was very grateful for the plumber's quick and efficient response.

This morning I made a fresh fruit salad for breakfast and when I put all the peelings into the waste disposal I found the air switch no longer works. This is not a major disaster but I love that machine and use it several times every day. So we called up the folk who installed it and they promised to come as soon as they were free. 

Then at lunch time, the tall pull-out cupboard in the kitchen came off its runners so I couldn't shut it. Again Chris came to rescue and we shored it up so it is safe, and I again rang the man who installed it (The same man as above) and let him know I had two problems for him to deal with. Neither are his fault, not the fault of the actual items, so I guess I have to take some of the blame. Though I do get annoyed when something is made for use in a kitchen but can't handle heavy use. I will have to try to rearrange the cupboards to even out the weight in each one, but I don't have a lot of options! Anyway I am sure Dave will pop in on his way home from work tonight or tomorrow.

And we have had our three troubles so hopefully nothing else will go wrong for a while.

I shall link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World tomorrow and then get this published.

P.S. Friday morning and all three of our 'troubles' are now sorted. Grateful sigh!!
Now we are off to face the vaccination queues.