Rocking Your World 2021: Week 44

Here we are looking back over the week for those golden moments that made us smile. I can't believe it is the end of the week already. It has mostly been a stay at home week. We have had a fair amount of rain which has done the ground a lot of good. And we are lucky here in the village. The surrounding Cabrera mountains seem to sheild us from the worst of the elements, so once again we had no problems with flooding etc that was seen in many areas around us.

After the sound of heavy rain plus thunder and lightening woke us last Friday night, I took my camera outside on Saturday morning to catch some photos of raindrops on the plants.You might think that is a bit odd, but rain is rather more of a novelty here than it is in UK, and it is usually followed by sunshine that makes the raindrops glisten. So here is what  I took.

I do like to see rain drops on roses and right now our roses are giving us another flurry of lovely flowers.

When I was shopping in Lidls I saw some rather sad and bruised Winter pansies. They were very cheap so I bought four and have now planted them in a pot on our front step. Within a couple of days, they had all bucked up and now have beautiful flowers on them.

I had to smile at Tango when I caught him napping in the sun. I am keeping a close eye on this cactus which is almost as tall as I am. The last one keeled over when it got this tall, but I keep hoping it will produce a flower on the top before this one falls. When I went out there Tango was curled up with his head right in the centre of the cactus and I thought it was a very uncomfortable place to chose to rest. Needless to say, by the time I returned with my camera he has moved his head but at least he was still sitting there.

While standing by the front gate, I notoced these little birds lined up along the cables. They are almost certainly spotless starlings which are flocking back here for the colder months. They are so noisy when they all chatter each morning and evening, with all the sparrows joining in to give them some competition.  But these ones quite intrigued me, because after a few minutes they dropped one by one, straight down to the ground, and soon they were all gone. I guess there was some food below them but I couldn't see from where I was.

Here is another flock of them that I saw just as the sun was going down. I was trying to catch a sunset that never really happened, when they all flew across in front of me, no doubt going back to their trees to roost for the night.

I am pleased to say I am making some progress, albeit slowly, with my big crochet project. I am still not showing it, but I think I am about a quarter of the way through. I still have to undo rows sometimes to correct a mistake, but mostly I am on the right track now. It is just complicated and needs a lot of focus and concentration.

That obviously doesn't make it very easy to work on if I am watching TV, and as the evenings are drawing in we do find ourselves in the sitting room in front of the TV most evenings now, so I needed a much simpler project to work on then. So I have started to make lots of little squares. Each one has three rounds of one colour in different shades. They are all surrounded by a black row which makes the colours pop, and brings them all together. It is a great way to use up all my little balls of left-over yarn from previous projects, and I did have a big bag of them. I soon got tired of hunting through it for my colours so one night I sorted them all into different bags, one for esch colour set, and now I can quickly chose three that tone, and I can get out just one bag for the evening and make all red ones, or all green ones etc! I need almost 300 squares for my blanket, so that's around 50 from each bag! I happened to have quite a lot of black bought for another project that I decided against doing, a few years ago, so that has given me a good start.

Here are just a few of the squares I have made so far.

A happy little post came in from my Granddaughter yesterday to say her son Alfie(age 6),  played football for the West Brom under seven's team again, and scored a hat trick against Manchester United. Not too many folk can say they have done that!

Although most days have broken out to sunshine by mid-morning, the clouds are often gathering before dusk so there haven't been any really colourful sunsets, but yesterday I was up in time to see the sunrise. It wasn't spectacular, but made a nice start to the day.

The one evening photo I did manage to get is very pretty. I really like this one.

So now it is time to link up with Annie at A Stitch in Time. I hope everyone else has found something to smile about, and be grateful for too. 

Here we are at Thursday again already, and it seems to suit me as the time to write my blog for tomorrow, when we look for the silver linings, and those things that have made us smile and feel grateful during the past week.

It was a good week as it started with my birthday, (mine was on Sunday and Chris' just two days earlier on Friday), and although we do not make a big thing of these celebrations now, it was nice to have a little trip out together. We had intended to walk along the sea front but as it started out a bit of a grey day I suggested  a little drive instead to visit the new lighthouse at Mojacar. This only started operating last month, but I had read about it's construction and seen it from down on the coast. Google maps told us how to get there, and boy was the last bit a steep and narrow road! We decided afterwards that we were meant to park at the bottom of that bit and walk up, but there were no signs to tell us that, and I am not sure either of us would have made it! The drive was a bit hairy but Chris got us up there, and back down again safely. Although the web site said that the public viewing gallery was open all day, every day, it was in fact closed, but we were still able to walk onto the lower viewing area and the views were certainly worth going for.

It is a very strange building, and not one you would immediately recognise as a lighthouse, but the modern lines and angles, and lots of white paint, made it quite interesting. Despite the haze we could see right along the whole stretch of Mojacar Playa to the right, and across Garrucha port and on across Vera Playa to the left.

 

I have not used the panoramic setting on my current phone before so I had to have a go.

After the scary ride we decided we deserved a coffee break so when we got back onto the coast road, we stopped at Koi café again. This is our 3€'s worth I was telling you about last week.

Back at home I cooked us a nice steak dinner and finished off with one of the best cheesecakes I have made for a long while. (Chris not being a great one for deserts, and me needing to ration my intake, we have enjoyed it all week!).

A few observations from the garden this week. It is a sure sign that Autumn has arrived when the oranges on our neighbour's trees start to change colour.

Something has been having a good munch on our pink bougainvillia! I couldn't spot the culprit, but he either has a voracious appetite or he brings his family with him. It looks like this over most of the plant. I am guessing it is one of those big grasshoppers, but I can't be sure. In summer I would have said a hatching of caterpillars but it is a bit late in the year for them. Anyway I will leave him/them to enjoy it. It is all a part of the circle of life!

This morning we were up earlier than usual to let some workmen in, and when I opened up the back door I was struck by the light of the rising sun hitting the house next door. I love the way it is illuminating the porch. This photo doesn't do it justice but you get the idea.

Earlier in the week we had a phone call from the fire shop to say our new fire had arrived , a fortnight earlier than expected, and they would come to fit it today. So last night we cleared my photos and ornaments from the shelf above the fireplace and the cupboard next to it, and moved everything to the back of the shelves on the other side.

It didn't take them long to remove the old fire and make a hole in the chimney above it to fit the flu. They had warned us that this would be done and said they would repair the hole but we would have to repaint it. 

By lunch time the hole was filled in and the new fire was resting in the space for it. Now we are waiting for them to return around 5.00 with the fitting for the gas. Hopefully they will then put the artificial logs and coals into it, and fit the facia. 

And as promised they did come back and now the fire is installed. It threw out a lot of heat so it only stayed on long enough to grab a quick photo. We will be nice and cosy this winter.

Here as promised is the (I think) finished mural on the house across the road from us. To me it is very simplistic and the hill is an 'odd' shape. I would like to have seen a couple of small cacti growing in the sand of the slope. But it has been interesting to watch people passing by, stopping and have a good look at it, and sometimes discussing it with their friends. I don't know whether they like it or not, but it is a lot better than the big plain white wall was.

And finally a couple of nice skies I have spotted this week.

So time now to connect with Annie at a stitich in time.

Rocking Your World 2021: Week 42

It has been a funny old week weather wise with some days starting quite grey and dark, but every day the sun has come out in the end and it has remained warm enough for me to stay in summer dresses. I like this time of year when the fierce heat has died down and it is not yet cold!

At the weekend we were interested to watch what was happening across the road from us. There is a big house right opposite to us, and a couple of years ago a big extention was added. We recognise the owner enough to say hello when we see her, but she is a very private person and has high walls around her property and solid gates instead of the more usual railings, and the extension has no windows on the side facing the road. So it was just a big expanse of white wall which is what we see from our sitting room window. But last weekend a man arrived and was busy along side the wall and we suddenly realised he was painting a mural on it. He started by laying down a base coat of grey and black, but has now started to add some colour. As you can see it is a hillside with a row of cacti along the top. He only works at the weekend so I am guessing he has a job beside this. I can't say I am very impressed so far but I am interested to see how it develops next weekend.

Tuesday was a Bank holiday here (Día de Hispanidad or National Day, also known in some areas as Christopher Columbus Day), so no shops were open. I decided to do some baking, so for the first time this side of Summer, I made some white bread dough which rose beautifully. I made some of it into some big soft rolls and with the rest I made a lardy cake. It is not a very healthy recipe but I love it. It is basically bread dough rolled out, spread over two thirds with lard or butter, and then sugar and spice, and folded over into three layers. It is then turned through 90º and the process is reapeated again and once more. Then it is baked and as you can see, mine had a little longer in the oven than it needed, but it still tasted as it should, and we enjoyed it. Sadly I can no longer buy lovely Bramley cooking apples. Iceland used to have a few imported from UK, but that doesn't happen any more. So I decided to cook with Granny Smiths. The rather untidy looking cake in the pink dish is pastry rolled out thinly and spread with cubed apple and sugar and cinnamon. Then it is rolled up - like a Swiss roll - and cut into slices which are squeezed into the pan and baked. When cool I drizzled it with soft icing, and it was delicious with custard. I had a little apple left so I made a small crumble in my little red oval dish, and when it was completely cold I turned it into a box and froze it for another time. 

On Wednesday I had another day in the kitchen. I popped to a shop in Turre where they nearly always have the best fresh ginger which we both love. It was particularly fresh this week so I bought some and decided to make some lemon and ginger jam. There are not many ingredients; just lemons, ginger and sugar. 

It looked really runny and I was a bit skeptical about the recipe which I hadn't used before, but I trusted my jam thermometer and waited for it to reach the 'jam' temperature, and once cooled it has set really well. It didn't have anything like as much sugar as my usual marmalade so I thought it might be a bit bitter from the lemons, but it is actually very nice. I only made a small amount; these three jars and a fourth one in the fridge which is already half gone, but I didn't want too much because previous efforts to make ginger jam has not kept well. But hopefully we can use this up before it goes 'off'.

As Autumn approaches we watch a bit more television, but most evenings we still sit outside, Chris with his computer and me with my crochet, and sometimes some music  on. The cats run in and out around us but usually the dogs stay with us and Kim likes to lay out in front of Chris, watching for anything interesting outside. He is a bit camera shy so I was pleased to get this photo with him looking at me. He is such a handsome fellow and is only eight years old, but already he is showing signs of the arthritis that often affects German Shepherds. He sometimes struggles to stand up in the morning, and spends a lot of his time laying on the settee assigned to the animals in our sitting room. When I was giving him his usual fuss first thing yesterday, I noticed that he has a swelling in the muscle at the top of his right, back leg, so we need to get him to the vet again, and hopefully she can give him some anti-inflamatories to make him more comfortable.

One afternoon I was sitting out with the dogs when Kim rushed out and stood by a tree just at the railings to the green zone. He wasn't barking but he wouldn't come away and I thought he had seen something under the tree, so I went to investigate in case a young snake was looking for somewhere to hide for the Winter. At first I couldn't see anything, and then a movement caught my eye just beyond the railings, and there, making his way over the garden debris we throw there, was a tortoise! We know there are one or two in the green zone but I have only seen them on a couple of occasions. I always like to see these animals that we didn't have at home, thriving in their natural habitat. They can actually move surprisingly fast, and he soon disappeared again, and Kim settled down.

I was placing a small order with Amazon this week and just for fun I added a 'flapping fish' for the cats to play with. In case you are wondering what I mean, they are a cloth fish with a cavity inside where you can put a little bag of catnip, and also a small rechargeable motor. The fish has a sensor and when the cat touches it, its tail flaps up and down. I thought Tolly might have some fun with it. That evening I put it on the floor between Tango and Tolly and Tolly was immediately aware of the catnip smell. But when it started to move he backed off. Tango was very wary of it and wouldn't get close enough to touch it. Tolly watched from beside my chair and then approached it again. He threw it by the fin but ran away again when the tail started to flap. Tango just walked away, Tolly layed next to it to guard it but didn't touch it again, and eventually he too walked away. So it wasn't really very successful, but it entertained us for a while!

I am writing this on Thursday again as in the morning I have to shop for milk and bread before the weekend. I had a very productive morning starting with Chris and I taking all the recycling to the big bins on the edge of the village. I have a bin in my back yard with three compartments. Here we have one for glass, one for card and paper, and one for plastics, waxed cartons and cans. When my bags are full we take them to the recycing spot where there is a green 'igloo' for glass, a blue bin for paper and a yellow one for plastics etc. It is simple and doesn't take us long to do as it is already sorted into the bins at home. It makes me sad to see how many folk don't bother to sort their rubbish and just throw it all in the grey general rubbish bins.

After that I decided to clean and sort the fridge in the kitchen. It is always a muddle because the shelves are not far enough apart for many of the things I want to keep in there. Throughout the summer I keep extras like eggs, jam and pickles as well as bread in the fridge too. So today it all came out, and I washed the shelves and cold boxes for cheese, meat, fish and vegetables. On the top shelf I found the end of two loaves of bread which were getting dry and stale so I made a pan of bread pudding. Chris isn't keen, but I absolutely love it, and the smell of it cooking takes me right back to the kitchen of my childhood with mum making huge trays of bread pudding. It is a great way of using up stale bread too.  Then I combined the ends of jars of jam and pickles (of the same flavour of course). I have a bad habit of getting a new jar when I can't find the one I thought was open, just becuase it has got pushed to the back of the shelf and had a load of yoghurts put in front of it or something similar.

I have a tray for jams and spreads, and one for pickles and sauces that I can lift out which should make it easier, but they still get muddled up. So now everything is in the right place, I have a load of empty jars in the dishwasher, and I have removed the bottle rack which isn't used properly because our big old fridge in the garage is used for drinks, extra jams and cooking fats, so that has given me a better space to use. I even have some gaps now! 

My final job for the fridge was to sort the fruit and vegetable box. I do try to sort this regularly but there is usually something at the bottom that has passed its best. So I already had a bag of cabbage leaves, celery tops, and some cauliflower, ready to puree and I added a couple of over ripe tomatoes, some onion, a potato and a rather soft red pepper, and cooked them all in the instant pot for ten minutes. Then I put them all in my smoothie maker and filled four plastic boxes with 'pisto', which is just mixed cooked vegetables roughly pureed. I used to buy small tins of it when I first came here, but now I make my own and it is a great starter for soup or any mince meal. And I ended up with one small bag of non recyclable rubbish instead of the sackful I sometimes have. So I feel I have done my bit towards sustainable  food shopping, and being 'green' today.

I have made a start on my new crochet project and as I expected it is quite a challenge. No peeps yet but this is the box of wool I am currently working with. I have 288 stitches in a row with each colour working just a few, and the grey popping up between them. I had actually got to row 20 when I realised I had made a mistake and ended up carefully pulling out 12 rows and having another go. Sometimes I will leave a tiny mistake, but this one was too much for me to leave and I am glad I decided to undo it. Now I am on row 25 so I have made good progress. (I think there are something like 320 rows altogether!), so it is a long term project, especially if it continues as two steps forwards and one backwards!

This second box of wool is all the colours I will be adding as I go along, and hopefully I will be leaving some of the first ones behind!

So another week has flashed passed. I had another long chat with Ben one evening, who wanted to show me his new Mac book and music set up.  So hopefully he will be making some nice music again soon.

And finally I have two sky photos. The cloud has often cleared by sun down so there have not been many special skies, but I did catch this one. I have to be so quick because they are gone again a few minutes later.

And I was especially pleased with this one which looks to me like a big fish (or bottle nose dolphin as my friend suggested) swimming into a big wave. I love it when I can see pictures in the clouds.

And now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and publish this. I seem to ramble on more and more each week, so thank you to those who take the time to read my posts and to leave such nice comments. I do appreciate you all.

Rocking Your World 2021: Week 41

I am starting this week with some more photos of our little footballer. Last Friday night my great-grandson's junior football club was invited to the West Bromwich Albion Academy for the under sevens team to play some matches. They played four games, won two, drew one and lost one. They all look very pleased with themselves. (Alfie is second from the right).

At the end of the evening Alfie was invited to go back the next day to play for the West Brom under sevens. His mum was quite upset that "her baby" was given a new kit including shin pads and boots, and was sent off to strange changing room to get himself ready, but of course he managed. (I am sure there were people there to help them).They played against Sunderland and Bristol Rovers. I don't know the final scores but Alfie managed a couple of goals. They do get some amazing opportunities these days though he seems so very young for all this yet. Emma said the best thing was that he wasn't fully aware of what it was all about, and he just wanted to play more football and have fun, which is the best way to look at it for now anyway.

I did say I wasn't sure what I would be making next after the green jacket was finished, but then I saw a pattern that I knew I had to try. It will be very challenging for me, but I have to have a go. One good thing is that it uses small amounts of quite a few colours so I will be able to use up some of my rather large stash of yarn. But I did need several balls of dark grey. Dark grey? I hear you say. That's not a colour Kate normally chooses. But it was what was needed, and of course it is not a colour I keep much of in my stash so I had to try to find a supplier in Spain, or at least Europe, so I could buy it without the huge tax and import duties I was stung with on my last order from UK. It  turned out to be a bit of a mission, but I ended up writing to Stylecraft for help and they pointed me towards a couple of shops in Ireland and the Netherlands. I wrote to the shop in Ireland but I never received an answer! The Dutch shops all said that they only offered 'click and collect', but when I looked into it further I found one company that did do international orders, so I ordered what I needed staraight away. It took a couple of weeks to arrive but I did smile when the squishy parcel finally got here.

I can see me using them again in the future. I won't be revealing what I am making with it, until I am sure I can manage it.

While waiting for the wool to arrive I decided to have a play with a few smaller projects. The first one I completed was this wind spinner. It was fun to do and it does spin really well in the breeze. Unfortunately, when it was done I tossed it into my knitting box until I had got round to make the tassell it needed to add weight at the bottom, and when I came to hang it I had trouble trying to make the ring spiral neatly, so my spinner is a bit wavy. But it still works and was a bit of fun to make.

Then I saw another pattern on Facebook that I wanted to try. I found two oddments and tried a small swatch and rather liked how it turned out. (I ran out of green. There should have been two more rows to complete the pattern repeat). It was another slightly different technique and I like to try out new ideas.

I had the idea to make a small rug to replace the rather ancient one beside my bed, so I went to the local Chinese bazaar to see if they had any suitable yarn. I wanted chunky weight cotton but they didn't have any and in the end I bought these two. We recently bought new blue and white bedding.

I knew it wouldn't be easy to work with but I got the hang of it in the end. I needed a big hook which I held a bit like a screw driver, as I tried to force it through the stitches, but I got there.The minute I put the finished rug on the floor to get a proper look at it, Tolly leapt on it and just sat there. I have a little bit of yarn left over so I may make a simple little mat for him one day!

I have since done two rows of border using a cone of "T-shirt" yarn, to give it a firmer edge. It proved to be even harder to work with, but has made it more finished.. It has buckled a bit but I think as I stand on it more, the rug will stretch a bit and fit the border better so it lies flatter.

On Tuesday we decided to drive over to the Repsol gas shop in Vera to look for a new fire for the sitting room. The one we have was very efficient and we liked it, but it has been failing the last two winters, and last year it continually turned itself off, so we intended to replace it this year. It turned out that the girl at the gas shop couldn't help us, but directed us to a shop in Mojacar Pueblo, around half an hour's drive away. When we got there we couldn't find the shop, and having asked several people, no-one could tell us where it was. We were just about giving up when a council worker who was sweeping the street, told us there was a shop that only sold 'stoves' in Vera, so back we went again!

But we hadn't been up in the Pueblo for quite some time so we had a little walk around first, and ended up at the Fuente. This is a fountain flowing continually with drinkable water, and many families still go there with a collection of containers, to draw all the water they use in their houses. It is a very attractive place, set up around a large patio area. The drinking water spouts go all along the far end of it, and the water runs off into channels along each side which I believe were once where the women came to do their laundry. The side walls are covered in pots of red and pink geraniums, and it is a very peaceful and cool spot, even when it is invaded by a bus load of tourists, or a group of thirsty walkers, as was the case when we got there.

However, we were soon back at the car and decided to drive all along the coast road to get back to Vera. We stopped at our favourite cafe in Mojacar Playa where Chris ordered a 'café con leche' and I asked for té ingles. I then smiled sweetly at the waitress and said PG tips? (For my American friends, this is a popular brand of tea in UK). So when our drinks arrived Chris had a very generous sized cup of coffee and I had a similar cup, with a glass bowl full of PG tips tea bags, a pot of hot water and a jug of cold milk. Plus we were given a glass of water - often served with a coffee - two small glasses of fresh orange juice, a plate with two mini sugared dough balls and two savoury pastries, and a bowl of mixed nuts, and the total bill was just 3€. You can see why we like going there, and why their forecourt tables are nearly always full!

It was a lovely sunny day, and as we drove along the coast I rolled down my window and tried to take some photos from the moving car. Most were not very good, but I was happy with these ones. The sea was such an incredible blue, with quite fierce white waves breaking on the rocks.

At Vera we found the shop we needed and duly chose a fire. The next day a man came to look at the space where it will go and made sure it was suitable and has promised that the fire will arrive in around twenty days, and he will then phone to arrange installing it, so it will be ready by the time we need to start using it.

Two weeks ago I showed a photo of next door's garden, just a wide space of mud and mostly under water. What a difference a couple of weeks make. With the sun warming the ground after the rain, it is now thick green vegetation. No doubt the men will be back soon to clear it all away again, but it is a battle they will never win. In the meantime it is nice to see some green again after a summer of brown sun baked land.

Once again I am grateful for technology, especially being able to make video calls using Messenger. Youngest son Ben and I chatted for just over four hours on Wednesday evening. It was the wee small hours before I got to bed, ( I am one hour ahead of UK time), but it was so lovely to take time to really talk together. Then the next day my sister and I chatted for an hour and a half, and shared our latest family news and crafty makes. We have similar interests so it is always good to see what each other is making.

And now I will close with a few sky photo. The first is actually a sunrise. I am not often up to see it but on Tueday I opened my eyes to see a sky streaked in gold and orange, and I leapt up, grabbed my phone and ran out to catch a few shots before it all changed. It is a bit blurry because I was still half asleep!

The rest are sunsets - nothing very dramatic but interesting and sometimes pretty all the same.

So now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles before publishing this.