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.