Rocking Your World 2021: Week 51

Well another week has passed and this is a few of the things that I have done. We got a little bit 'Christmassy' on Monday by going to the campsite next to our village for the Carols for Remembrance meeting. We sat socially distanced around the large restaurant and sang all the familiar carols with a local singing group helping us. Then we each lit a candle and processed out around the building with it. 

Two helpers stood at the top of a few steps and took our candles, carefully placing them all around a low wall that surrounds the Tree of Remembrance in the campsite grounds.

It looked very pretty and the candles were left to burn out in their own time. Fortunately although the night was chilly there was no wind so they burned steadily. 

Last time we went to this service there was only a small group of people there, but this year there were many more. Sadly I guess most people have lost a friend or family in the past couple of years and they all came to light a candle for them. We went back indoors for mulled wine and mince pies. An excellent way to close proceedings.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse, but it was still lovely earlier in the week and Chris decided it was time to prune the roses around the front garden. They have flowered really well and a few late blooms were still clinging on so Chris cut them for me and I put them in a vase under the Christmas tree. They looked so pretty and surprisingly they have survived for the whole week, but I think they will drop over the weekend.

Last week I showed a couple of cut and layered card decorations I have made, and this week I did one more. This Nutcracker character is very well known and it has featured in the decorations of several shops out here. I bought the cutting file and used my Silhouette cameo to cut out the layers. Then I glued the layers together and fixed him to the wall. I'd like to try and make a larger one next time. I can only cut up to 12" x 12" on my Cameo so I would have to adapt the file to have some joins where they would be hidden under the next layer, but I think it could be done.

We went to the supermarkets together on Tuesday to do my main shopping for the month. It was fairly quiet and we managed to get almost everything on my list, and hurried home again. Once again we are being very careful, as the Omicron variant reaches our area. There are currently eight cases in Los Gallardos which is quite a few for our little village, and numbers throughout the province are rising rapidly. It looks as though Christmas will be another quiet one for a lot of folk. It was going to be for us anyway, but we will, of course, have a good video chat with each of the boys on Christmas or Boxing Day.

I was a bit worried that Tolly would destroy our tree this year but he has been really good with it. He does like to jump up onto any shelf so we do have to watch him, but the other night he was sitting under the tree like one of the ornaments.

I had to smile at the expression on his face, because he knew he shouldn't be there, and is daring me to do something about it. But as soon as he hears me press the button that lowers my recliner chair, he jumps down and walks away, tail in the air, a picture of innocence!

I had a morning in the kitchen today (Thursday). For the first year I have not made my usual marathon of mince pies, but today I made one lot of my special pastry which is enough for three dozen pies. That is more than sufficient for the two of us. 

On a Thursday evening we like watching Mary Berry's program on the BBC, because she uses mostly easily obtainable ingredients, and her dishes are not too 'way out'. If I like the look of something I go on the website and get the recipe, and this morning I made a batch of her ginger cookies, and I must say they look and taste really good.

And on that note I will close and go and feed the animals. They all have an internal clock that takes them to their feeding stations on time every day. And they soon let me know if I am late!

So I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles. I am sure no-one will be posting next week so I will wish you all a Happy Christmas. I hope you all get to spend time with your families, and really enjoy the celebrations. Stay safe and healthy everyone.

Rocking Your World 2021: Week 50

Only two more posts to go and Christmas will be over and done again. It rolls around so fast each year. Of course this week has been mostly about my decorations.  Last weekend I got my tree up. We downsized it last year as I am no longer up to climbing ladders etc. So now we have one that sits on out table, but I still manage to get most of my important ornaments on it. Each one evokes a memory, reminds me of someone special, or is something I have enjoyed making over the years. It is harder than the big one was to make look how I want it to, but I am happy with it now. The lights look mostly blue but they move through red, green and amber too, or all four together. I think the blue ones just photograph better.

I am pleased with my new Nativity set. I still have the tiny characters I made from a Woman's Weekly pattern around 50 years ago, but they really are looking a bit sad now, so last Christmas I bought part of this set, and during the year I have added to it, so I now have a nice elegant little group.

Amazingly the bauble wreath I made five years ago is still surviving. Every year the glue gun comes out and a few baubles have to be fixed back on. It is based on a plastic foam pool noodle and I did not expect it to have such a long life.  For the first few years it hung on the sitting room wall, but last year we risked it outside the front door, and that is where it is again this year.

Lidls came good as usual for poinsettias and I bought three to go in my pot stand in the front porch. They really brighten that corner up, and they are protected enough there to survive most weather.

Last week I showed you the angel I had cut on my Silhouette Cameo machine. While it was out I also made this layered strip. It is fun and adds a bit of colour to the wall as I am sure we will not be getting as many cards this year as we used to. It has glitter on the snow and pearl white curls on the fur trims, but they don't show well in the photos.

We have managed to get out once this week. Monday and Wednesday were bank holidays, the first being a secular celebration called Constitution day, and the second was a religious holiday - 'Immaculate Conception' which is in recognisation that Virgin Mary was born without sin. (Not a belief held by everyone, but an important day for Roman Catholics everywhere). They are always celebrated on 6th and 8th December and falling on Monday and Wednesday this year meant that many of the smaller shops and businesses also closed on Tuesday giving them a five day pre-Christmas break. But the big supermarkets etc were open on Tuesday so we went down to Mojacar and fortunately the main Post Office there was open, as Chris had some time-sensitive papers to post. I also posted my overseas cards, except for UK ones which are already gone. Then we went down to the huge ferriterria called Lopez to but an extension cable for my Christmas lights, and more glue sticks. (My glue gun seems to eat them!). It was such a beautiful day with 27º showing on our thermometers from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, so we stayed down there at our favourite café and had an al fresco lunch.

Walking back to the car I took this photo which I have titled "Why we choose to live in Spain". 

You would never think looking at it, that it is December. We were in short sleeves, and our jackets were left in the car. It has actually been lovely all week but right down in the lower single figures at night time, so there is lots of contrast, and we are glad enough of our lap blankets and the fire once darkenss falls. So how lucky are we to get both sunny days and cosy evenings.

On Wednesday Chris put up the new washing line for me so I was able to take advantage of the lower cost of electricity on Bank Holidays and also the sun and wind to dry my washing. So I got the sheets done as well as as everything else. 

Our sceened porch is fairly sheltered from the wind that can be chilly to sit in, so if we are sitting on his fav ourite chair,  Tolly has started staying in and finding a sunny spot in the house to doze in. He is much more friendly now and often follows me around. My old office chair is still in my craft room and he often lays on that but his body is so long now that he only just fits. But he looks so comfy there. He rolls over to let the sun warm his tummy, and his face looks so contented. After lunch my room is the sunniest in the house.

I took this photo from the garden this morning. You probably wonder why, but I love the pattern of branches against the blue. I will have to try and use it as a background for a card one day.

And finally one nice sunset. For once the clouds turned quite red and orange before the sky darkened so there are some lovely contrasts in it.

And with that it is time to link up with Annie for her Friday Smiles. I hope you all have something to smile about too.

Rocking Your World 2021 :Week 49

Not many posts left to go this year, and I am now beginning to feel a little bit Christmassy.

I have just heard from my sister that my parcel of cards have arrived and she has put stamps on them and will be posting them by the weekend. I know it is early but I like to think it is one thing out of the way. It may seem a long way round for a simple task, but by doing this she has saved me around 30€. The Spanish mail is so expensive and I can't make a card that is under the minimum weight and size for a lower price.

Inspired by Lisca's post last week when she had made a 'toad in the hole' for lunch, I thought I'd have a go. It is probably a few years since I last made one but my Yorkshire pudding mixing has improved since then so on Saturday that is what we had. And I have to say it was probably the best one I have ever made. It was very satisfying to watch the batter rise around the sausages and turn a golden brown.

When we had our new fire fited a while ago, the man told us he would need to make a hole in the chimney breast to fit the new flue. He said he would repair it but we would be responsible for repainting it. He did a descent job of filling the hole and eversince we have had a big white patch of plaster on the dark terracotta wall. We wanted to give it plenty of time to dry out completely before we covered it, but this week I asked Chris to do it as I will be putting decorations on the mantlepiece very soon. Fortunately it is not that long since the room was decorated and we had a pot of matching paint still usable in the garage. So on Monday Chris gave it a couple of layers of paint, and now it is dry, you can't see the repair at all. So I am grateful to have that done.

I was not so grateful when my washing line broke on Wednesday, but fortunately it was a dry day, and quite windy so some of the washing had tangled in the line which prevented it from reaching the ground. I have four parallel lines and they are attached in pairs, so I was happy to see the front two are still taut and strong. Only the back two have broken and this morning we popped into the ferratería and bought some new line, so hopefully we will get that fixed by the weekend.

On Friday the men were outside our house fitting a Christmas light to the telegraph pole, and to each pole from us, down to the bottom of the village. Normally they are not lit until mid-December, and I have always assumed this is because they stay on until after our Three Kings festival, but this year they were lit straight away. We noticed that, although they were on all down the street, the one outside of our house was not! So when I went up to market on Tueday I popped into the Town Hall and reported it. That same afternoon the men were back and they soon had it working; very good service isn't it?

So now we have a pretty coloured bauble lit up outside every night.

Although it has been quite sunny some days, (See the deep blue sky in the photo above),  there has been a very cold wind from the north, and I was amused to see that Tango had made himself a little nest in the long grass next door, and he slept soundly there all afternoon. It was sheltered and warm for him, and I hardly noticed he was there, so he must have felt safe from Tolly's rather energetic attempts to make him play.

I have been busy making decorations this week. One wall hanging is waiting to be assembled , but I did finish this layered angel. She is double-sided with LED lights between the wings of the two halves. I thought she turned out quite well, and when I tried her out in a dark room last night, she showed up well again. The layers were all cut on my Silhouette cameo machine using a cut files that a designer posted on our Facebook page.

I have also been doing a few more rows of my big crochet project, and this week I worked row 84 of 168 so I am now half way! I have also made a few more of the tiny squares, but because they are divided into colour bags right now, I do not have a total to hand. 

But this week I started a new project as well! I know, I should know better, but we saw a pattern that we both liked, which is again a bit different from anythong else I have done, and I decided to make it for Chris. He chose the colour yarn from the website and even said he would pay for it, so that is big grateful! I ordered it from a Spanish website on Friday afternoon and it arrived on Saturday! That was a surprise. The blanket is made up of twenty square tiles, all the same and all in the same colour, so I made one using the hook they recommended, but I am a fairly tight worker and it came out much too small, and a bit stiff. So I undid it and made another one using a size bigger hook and making a real effort not to pull the yarn too tight, and it is just right for the recommended tension. I made it a bit damp and blocked it so I can make sure each one is blocked the same and then it will all go together nicely. Here is the one I have done. The pattern is called Celtic Tiles.

And now I just have one sunset photo that I saw last night just before it faded away.

Tomorrow I hope to get the Christmas tree up. I will have to try to Tolly-proof it! But for now I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles, and see what silver linings have brightened your clouds this week.

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.