Rocking Your World 2021: Week 48

Well there is not much to write about except the weather and glorious skies, but it is Friday again so here goes.

One thing is for sure, last weekend was wet, wet, wet. Fortunately it stopped just short of causing serious flooding, though some cars were washed away etc. My son laughs at me when I talk about the rain but he (and you my friends in UK) are used to it. For us it is novelty, and one that soon wears thin!

It rained all day Saturday and got heavier all night. Once again we could here the water spouts pouring from each corner of the roof. It continued on Sunday so after lunch we had a little local drive round to see if everyone had the same as us. The weather here is often very localised. 

As we drove the back road to Turre and approached the bridge over what is usually a dry rambla, we could see there was a river flowing along it.

We have only seen this with any significant water in it, a couple of times before, so there had obviously been some pretty heavy rain up in the mountains that was flowing down it to the sea.

We left Turre on the main road which passes over the rambla much further along, and here it was a wide, and muddy river. 

Some fields along the road were under water. Not much of this stretch is cultivated so there was no real damage done, and I am sure the trees loved it. (Sorry the photos are not very crisp. They were all taken from a moving car).

On the way back home we drove over the rambla that goes around our village, normally a gravel path that folks like to walk their dogs along, and it is also car access to some of the isolated homes up on the campo. But on Sunday that too had water flowing along it. We have only been aware of this once before since we came here, and that was in the devastating storms and floods of 2012.

Despite two days of steady rain, there was a small attempt at a sunset on Sunday night, peeping out from under the storm clouds.

Since then we have had some showers and a fair bit of sunshine at least for part of the day, but there is a wind coming down from the north that can be very cold. We have managed to sit out in the porch around midday several days as it is fairly sheltered from the wind, but the sun is lower now and soon the corner of the roof puts the porch in shade, and it is time to move inside. 

We have been glad of our new fire, which has been lit each evening.

Now, one week on, the results of the rain can be seen in the new vegetation everywhere. You have probably seen in many of my sky photos, there is a 'lacy' tree that I like to catch as a silhouette. Sadly it won't been there any more, as the rain has beaten it down. It was growing into the side of the slope down into the green zone, behind my neighbours garden, and its roots were not deep enough to hold it there, so it is now lying at right angles to the slope, and I suspect one more heavy rainfall will bring it right down. But look at how green the green zone is right now.

At least the bright sky and wind dried a line of washing for me on Tuesday. I was grateful for that as I usually wash at the weekend and that couldn't happen this week. I have to try and dry everything outside, as I have nowhere suitable to hang it indoors, and no longer have a tumble drier. So I was grateful for that.

I had a long chat with Ben one evening. He has been a bit rough with some virus, but fortunately it wasn't Covid. He has worked for the railway around 16 years now, and this is the first time he has taken a week off sick, so he was annoyed to have broken that record. He was fed up being at home on his own so we had a good long chat to pass the evening for him.

I have managed to do a bit of crafting. I made a few more Christmas cards. I have actually written all the ones for UK and posted them in a parcel to my sister who will post them on for me next month. But I need a few more for friends over here, so I made some, and then prepared the first one of some decorations I want to get made. I am just waiting for some special adhesives to come from Amazon, tomorrow hopefully, so I can assemble it.

The off and on weather had given a few spectacular skies in the evenings, and I can't help but see faces in them. Here are two examples.

No face this time, (well maybe; maybe not), but I just love the way this one turned out.

Last night there was bright streak of light along a cloud as I went out to feed the dogs.

I just knew it was going to turn from gold to red soon, but the clouds were gathering and it was quite an ominous sky. The light was fading but a pink started showing at each wave of cloud.  Suddenly I saw this 'cat trying to catch a fish'. I took several shots using slightly different effects and settings on the camera and here are the best ones. My husband Chris gave a reluctant grunt of agreement when I asked him if he could see the image, so I wonder whether you can too.

And with that I will go over to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles.

Rocking Your World 2021: Week 47

Well here we go again and I am starting this post with a photo from a week ago. Last Friday was a beautiful day and we sat out on the porch all afternoon, enjoying the sun. But by sundown the clouds were gathering and I was just there at the right time to catch this lovely photo. A beautiful end to a beautiful day! (Sorry to those who have already seen it on Facebook).

We have had some chilly days this week (I even got the duvet out last night!), and some wet evenings, and the cats have had the sense to stay in more. Tango came in very wet on Tuesday night so I rubbed him dry and he soon settled down in his usual place on my lap. Then Tolly came crashing in. He also needed a towelling but is not as cooperative about it. He insists on jumping up a bit higher than Tango, but that night he put his head in my hand and went to sleep. It was so sweet, I just had to let him.

He doesn't stay in one position for long, and soon he was trying to groom Tango who just ignored him, so he just laid down with one arm across him and dozed again. But he was soon up and away again and I was able to do some more crochet, because Tango just sits there among my wool and lets me get on with it.

Last night was even wetter and this time they both decided to jump on me and stayed there. They are really very sweet when they cuddle together, and although I wouldn't say they are best buddies, Tango does tolerate Tolly's overtures now. You can just see the two dogs on the settee across the room from us, also seeking shelter from the rain. Needless to say I didn't get much work done last night!

Chris has done some sterling work outside this week. We only have one small patch of plantable land but it had become very overgrown, almost a mini jungle. The jasmine that is so lovely in the spring had completely overtaken my Bird of Paradise tree, and the roses had shot up taller than me, to find some light. So Chris has now cut the jasmine almost down to ground level, and has pruned the tree hard. The roses will continue to sway above the space until the flowers are gone, but they took a bit of a beating in the storms last night. 

It always amazes me how much debris there is from even a small plot, and we had a mountain of greenery and vine stems. I bagged up as much as I could so we could put it in the big bins out on the street, as we have no-where suitable to have a bonfire. Then Chris helped me do the rest in the front yard. Most bags have now been binned, and just these two remain...

...plus a small pile of sticks that need to be chopped before we dispose of them. 

The little garden patch looks so much better. The jasmine will shoot up again in the Spring, but we will keep a closer eye on it and not let it get quite so out of hand again. We will probably give the wall behind it a protective layer of paint before then.

Unfortunately there is almost as big a heap of rubbish on the other side of the wall which we haven't had time to bag up yet. It has been well soaked now but as soon as it dries out a bit we will dispose of that as well.

We had a laugh yesterday when I gave Chris a Kitkat with his cup of tea. When he bit into it, he found it was solid chocolate all the way through. Somehow it missed the biscuit altogether.

We had big storms all last night but this morning there was  watery sun and Chris called me out to see the long wall that runs along the front of our swimming pool area. It was covered in tiny snails. I have often found these tiny conical shells on the ground, always empty, and it was only last year that I first saw one with a snail still in it. Well there must have been a nest of eggs in the ground here, and the rain woke up them all up. I have never seen so many snails. Our green wall had loads on and next door's crazy paved wall had even more. The snails are small and almost black and they carry their shells on their side. I think they are quite cute. We have never been aware of much snail damage to our plants so we just let them slide away. (I have now looked him up with google and apparently he is a Decollate snail, a fierce preditor who eats other snails and slugs and their eggs, and only causes minor damage to plants. It is most active in rainy weather).

Another visitor that is not quite so welcome is this spider. I have an outside sink by the kitchen door with a small black plastic bowl in it. It had filled up with water overnight and this fellow was swimming across it. He was struggling to get out, but as long as he doesn't come in my house, I have no desire to kill him, so Chris picked the bowl up and threw the contents, including the spider, over the railings into the green zone. Hopefully he will find somewhere else to hide away for the Winter. He was big and I am pretty sure he was a wolf spider, so he is capable of giving someone a nasty bite, but only if he is disturbed, so we try to leave his sort well alone!

This morning (Thursday)  we drove to Huercal-Overa (in heavy rain) for our booster vaccines. There was no queue this time so we weren't away for long. We also had our flu ones earlier in the week, at the health centre in the village. So that is something we are both grateful for.

Now my son Ben has just sent a messege to say he is free if  I want a chat, so that will brighten up a dull evening too.

I have one sky photo that I took last night when the storm clouds parted briefly. I think you will see why I took it. Can you see it?

And now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and leave you with a thoughtful little meme that I saw this week. Something to consider.

Rocking Your World 2021: Week 46

I have a short post this week (short for me anyway!), as it has been a very quiet one. We have been out a couple of times. Once was to go to the bank to complete some required paper work. Sometimes this can involve a long wait but we were lucky this week. We had no wait, and a very helpful lady did the paperwork with us, so that is a good job done. 

On Monday we went to the vet with Kim. She confirmed what we had already suspected, that he is starting to get arthritis in his hips - a common complaint with German Shepherd dogs - with some inflamation causing the swelling I had found at the top of his back leg. So he is now on anti-imflamatory drugs for a month with some others tablets to help build up the damaged muscle, and he also has anti-biotic drops for an ear infection! But he is his usual gentle self and still spend a lot of time sleeping on our settee, or out on the porch with us when it is sunny enough. I had to laugh when I took my morning cuppa out yesterday. Kim was asleep, 'overflowing' Foxy's little bed, while a much more alert Foxy was sitting on Kim's bed. 

It must have been Kim's choice because he would have soon shifted Foxy if he had wanted his own bed back.

On Tuesday we had to take the car to our mechanic friend who puts it through its I.T.V., (same as M.O.T. in UK) for us. So we drove over to Huerta Nueva - the urbanisation across the main road from us which is a part of Los Gallardos, left the car at his house, and although Andy was willing to drive us back home, we opted to walk. It was a lovely morning with blue skies, but cool enough to make walking comfortable. I actually hit my target of 5,000steps in a day, which hasn't happened for a long while! Huerta Nueva is built on a big area of campo, and although there is now some building going on to expand it, there is still a lot of open ground. So I stopped to try another panoramic photo, as my last one was very distorted, and I have read up about how to do it better. As you can see, there is very little distortion in this one. Chris looks fine, and in the distance behind him you can see the Cabrera mountains, but only just, as we were in a bit of a dip where I took it.

As we walked back I saw this lovely patch of flowers in a roadside bed under a palm tree. It is bright pink bougainvillea and pale almost blue plumbago. They looked so pretty together.

I am happy to say that the car passed its test with nothing needing to be done, and Andy returned it to us by lunch time. So we are grateful for that.

I went out the back one night and was struck by how bright the little sliver of moon was, and there was one bright, lonely star visible as well. I wanted to take a picture of them but couldn't get a sharp one because my camera could pick up the feint full moon not visible to my eyes. So this was the best I could do.

I am still managing to do a couple of rows to my big blanket most days. I have around twenty five balls of wool in a row at the minute and after each row I sort them all out so the tangles don't get out of hand. We have had a couple of wet evening this week so the cats have chosen to stay in with us and I had a bit more help than I really needed. Fortunately they took it in turns to sit on me. I couldn't have managed both of them as well as the blanket and the box of wool! Tango is showing his age now (around 12 we think), and he just wants to be warm and comfortable, so he sleeps on me, regardless of what I am doing, and rest his chin on my strands of wool.

Tolly on the other hand, thinks anything that moves is worth playing with, and he fishes the balls out of the box and steals the pen I cross off my pattern with! So not much gets done when he jumps on me. He looks sleepy here, but don't be fooled!

On Wednesday I took a couple of cloud photos. Earlier I saw this funnel of cloud, going down behind the houses. 

Later I saw this one. It looks like a bird swooping down on us.

And that's about it for this week. I did have a long video chat with my sister one afternoon, but son Ben is on holiday this week so we didn't have our usual session.

So I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and hopefully some of you will join in with what has made you happy/grateful this week.

Rocking Your World 2021: Week 45

Today's post is mostly about the sky. It has been an uneventful week, but the skies have been majestic so here is what has lifted my spirits and made me smile this week. (Apologies to my Facebook friends who  may have seen this before!)

First up is something I saw in the sky.  I was hanging my washing out on the line when I glanced up and saw a huge number of birds very high up, wheeling arund in the clouds, (probably enjoying the thermals up there). I knew they were not the birds we usually see here, and presumed they were some kind of raptor,  so I posted on my Facebook Wildlife page and was soon informed that these were griffon vultures.

They would be pretty huge down low, as I could see them despite their height. I zoomed in as far as I could to try and see their outline shape better. I reckon that there were between fifty and a hundred of them, in two groups. One circling and the others in a file. While I watched them, the file started to move off, and then the others joined them, also forming a file, and off they went towards the sea. I am thinking they were resting in the thermal air currents on their migration journey.

I felt very priviledged to have seen them and realised that had I hung out my washing ten minutes earlier or later, then I would have missed them.

The other thing that has filled me with delight this week is the sunsets. I have the 'condition' known as Face Pereidolia, which means I see faces in every day objects. This week it was the sky I saw them in, and here are a collection of some of the photos I took. You may, or may not be able to see the faces, but either way you can't help but be inspired by the majestic skies.

Having posted these on facebook, I was surprised to go out the next night and see another face; quite a friendly one with a feint friendly smile.

Then the next day this one appeared! Not such a friendly one. The clouds are constantly moving in the wind, so these faces are only there for minutes, even seconds sometimes, so it is just luck if my camera is at hand at the right moment.

And of course, not all sunsets bring hidden faces so here are a couple of sky photos that I liked for their own sake. You may even spot pictures in them. Every one's perseption is a little different. My family often say I am 'making it up' because they can't see what I can, even when it is really clear to me.

This one is a reflection of a sunset in the clouds looking towards the east.

And this one is a sunrise. One of the few days when I was up early enough to see it!

But now I will leave the sky and look more down to earth at the garden. I said last week that our roses were trying to have a second flowering and this week they are lovely. These are all on one plant.

Behind them is this pink rose which grows a bit taller every year. We think it is also stronger this year and has some lovely flowers at the top.

This is another plant that I really love. It's most common name is simply Pink Trumpet Vine, but its botanical name is Podranea Ricasoliana, and it has several other names too including, Canpis Radicans, Port St.John's Creeper, Queen of Shebe Vine, Cow Itch Vine, and Hummingbird Vine. I think the Pink Trumpet is as good a name as any. It has the odd flower almost all year but it comes into its own in this season.

This one is growing in next door's garden, and her groundsmen cut it back quite hard last time they came, which seems to have done it good. As well as growing all along her front railings, it also hangs over our side fence. We too have to cut it right back when it gets too invasive, but right now we are just enjoying its lovely flowers.

And that's about it for this week. I haven't really been out far except to do the essential food shopping. I have had lovely long chats with my son and my sister, and put the world to rights with them. I have made my last few Christmas cards as I need to post the UK ones by the end of the month, and of course I have added a couple more rows to my crochet project each evening. I was a bit optomistic when I said I had done a quarter of it last week, as I found I was only on row 30 out of 160, but I am now on row 40 so I guess I am a quarter done now. Not that there is any rush. It was always meant to be a long-term project.

And finally I will leave you with my absolutely favourite photo that I have taken over the last few weeks. I hope you think it is beautiful too.

And with that I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and enjoy reading about what every one else has been doing.