Friday Smiles 2022: Week 39

Hi again. Friday does seem to come around rather fast doesn't it, but as usual I am sure we can all think of things that have made us smile during the week.

I am happy because I have finished my Celtic Tiles blanket. It was heavy and very hot to have it piled on my lap on Tuesday night while I worked the border, but it was worth it to know it is all finished off properly. 

It has a simple border in a slightly contrasting colour which I also used to crochet the 'tiles' together using the 'flat zipper seam' which I think is neatest for this style of motifs. The border was finished with a round of surface slip stitches which gives it a nice definition.

Chris chose this pattern and bought the yarn, a cotton/acrylic mix in Aran weight, so this will be keeping his knees snug and warm on chilly evenings very soon.

I have started another small project but I will share that next week when I have done enough to show.

We had a little drama with Kim this week when he suddenly started limping around tea-time on Saturday. By Sunday he was unable (or unwilling) to walk and just held his right front paw up in a pathetic way to tell us it was hurting. However he wouldn't let me anywhere near it to investigate even when I tied a soft bandange around his muzzle so he couldn't nip me. Fortunately I had some dog painkillers that the vet gave me for Foxy, so I kept him going with those over the weekend. On Monday we managed to get an appointment with the vet and she thought he might have broken his toe. But a couple of x-rays later she said she couldn't find a break though it was quite swollen and obviously still painful. So she has given him a course of antibiotics and more painkillers and we will reassess next week when he has taken them all.

He is pretty good at taking medicine but is not keen on these bright pink antibiotics. They are huge and he needs 1 1⁄2 tablets twice a day. As you may be able to see in this picture, their colour makes them stand out in his food and he is suspicious, so I have started adding each one in a little bit of peanut butter, and they are going down well so far. I am not sure how much they are helping. He is now walking with only a slight limp but he still won't let me touch his paw and yelps if anyone or thing comes too close. So we will have to see how it goes.

Now we have made a space in the sitting room by taking away the sofa Kim used to love to lay on, but which had become too much of a climb for him to get onto, we have bought him a big memory foam bed. It arrived on Tuesday and he is getting used to it. It is plenty big enough for him to lay out on, as he doesn't curl up much these days, but he prefers to lay across it with his head over the edge.  Maybe he will lay in it better when the floor is cold in the winter.

I have been busy in my craftroom mostly making a set of six Christmas cards. But these will be entered in a challenge in October so I can't show them yet. But I also did a little bit of scrapbooking too. I have been trying to get back to making a few layouts but I never seem to have the time. 

It is just over a year since we had to say 'Good-bye' to our Paco and I started a double layout about him then, but it got shelved, and I never went back to it. So yesterday I got it out and finished the first page, and then did a second one, so these can now go in my album of 'Random things'. I have got the bug now so maybe I will manage to do some more.

Chris called me out to see the sky at the front of the house the other evening, and it was so lovely. The sun sets on the other side of the house, but these clouds were reflecting its last rays before it disappeared.

Yesterday this is the sky I woke up to, and I had to take a photo of it, because white fluffy clouds are a novelty here! Our sky is usually completely grey and overcast or just clear blue, but clouds make it look so much more interesting.

And here is one final sunset photo that was just such glorious colours, so I thought it was worth sharing.

So now I need to get this ready to post on Annie's Friday Smiles in the morning.

P.S. I prepared this on Thursday afternoon, but then last night I went out to see if there was a pretty sunset and I found this extraordinary sky. I thought it was worth adding on here today.

Friday Smiles 2022: Week 38

Here we are at the end of another week, so it is time to look back at those things that have made us smile.

On Saturday we took the bags of plastic, cardboard and paper, and glass, to the recycling bins on the edge of the village.  As we drove along the slip road to the bins, I saw that all the jacaranda trees were again in bloom. They are so pretty. I love their colour and their fern-like leaves. Sadly they don't last long, and yesterday's high winds probably blew many of the flowers away. Fortunately after the recycling, I walked back to the slip road and took these pictures.

The house opposite to us had a large extension built on a few years ago, and it is now run as an airbnb, so there is a constant stream of visitors each week. It is large and can sleep up to a dozen people, so sometimes there are two families staying there, and sometimes it is just a couple. We really only know they are there by the number of cars outside, and occasionally we hear them going out, or playing in the pool at the back of the house, but they don't disturb us at all. This weekend there was a whole gang of young ladies we think celebrating a 'hen night' for one of them. They were a bit noisier than most but in a very good-natured way. We saw them congregating at their gate one morning just as we were going out, and they all waved and called out greetings to us. I think they really had a good weekend together.

On Sunday I actually made it to church where we had a special service to commemorate the life of Queen Elizabeth. We finished with the national anthem and it was really strange to change the words to 'King, he, his' etc, but no doubt we will get used to it. It was lovely to see my old friends again.

I expect most of you spent at least part of Monday glued to the TV and we did the same. Whatever your feelings are about our monarchy, you have to admit that we do state ceremonies very well.

It has been a week of planning and one thing we decided to do was to have a complete makeover of our second bathroom. This is in the 'living' half of the house. The main bathroom is in the 'sleeping' part. It is smaller than the main one but I use it throughout the day, and it is also used by any visitors who come to stay with us, so it will be good to have it overhauled. We went to the company who did our main bathroom and the kitchen but the people we wanted weren't there so we left our details and are waiting for them to get back to us.

The second thing we did was to get rid of the too large settee that has been taking up a lot of space in the living room. We have hung on to it up 'til now as both Kim and Foxy have spent many hours on it, but now we only have Kim, and his arthritus means he struggles to get onto it. Yesterday was one of the 'big' throw out days when we can leave anything next to the bin and the council workers will take it away. It can be hard to get rid of items like furniture so we decided to leave it there. Fortunately the bin is only outside the house next door so we didn't have far to take it. We put it out in good time, while it was still daylight, and as expected, someone had taken it away before the council came. We expected it to go and are happy if someone now has more comfortable seating than they had before!

With the extra space this made we have been able to bring in our two new Poang chairs from the porch so they are not damaged by the winter weather, and the old ones that we repaired enough to make them useable, are back on the porch for us to use on the nicer afternoons. We have also ordered a big memory foam bed for Kim which is just a few inches off the floor and hopefully he will be comfortable in that this winter.

I was really pleased to finish the last of my crocheted celtic tiles, but when I started to join them, I found I had made a fundemental mistake right at the beginning of three of them. It is the same mistake on each one, and though Chris couldn't see it and said to leave it, I know it will glare at me every time I look at it, so I have undone those three tiles and am now remaking them. I am never comfortable with leaving work I know has a mistake in it.

I am very wary of ordering items from UK since Brexit as we are now charged, sometimes very heavy, import duties, as we are from other non-European countries too. I guess because of trade agreements with them, we do not pay duties on items from China, so reluctantly I find myself ordering more from there. Just lately their service has been excellent and things arrive well before the estimated date. One thing I have seen advertised on Facebook (I do not order direct from these adverts but they do give me ideas!), is a three tier fruit bowl. I looked for it on Amazon.es and on there it was ridiculously expensive - I'm talking about over a hundred euros, and in one case over a thousand. I then realised these were a frame made from oak with porcelain bowls. In the end I went for the cheap Chinese version which has a bamboo frame and plastic bowls, and I have to say I really like it. 

I bet you all know that feeling when you see something black run across the bedroom ceiling just as you are about to turn out the lights, and then you can't sleep until the 'spider' has been removed. Well I felt it on Tuesday night but when I looked again I saw it wasn't a spider; it was a smallish gecko. (The ceiling is white but I took this when it was fully dark outside and only two bedside lights were on). I toyed with trying to move it, but didn't want to end up with just a wriggling tail in my hand - which is what usually happens if you corner a gecko - and in the end I reminded myself that he would spend the night catching flies and other bugs and was therefore welcome to stay. I soon fell asleep and the next morning he was sitting on the fly net at the window and I haven't seen him since, so he probably found his own way out.

We have had some cloudy days, and yesterday was very, windy. We even had a few showers but the yellow storm warning we were given did not materialise into anything significant. As I drove out on Wednesday morning there was a lot of grey cloud over the Cabrera mountains and I think it was raining higher up, but again the clouds broke up and the sun came out.

But the storms did come and some were very near here. Vera playa is the next beach along from Mojacar after Garrucha, and is only a short drive from us, and they had a fierce storm. We didn't go there, but a local man who runs an estate agents in our village, is also a keen photographer, and he has a lovely camera, and he went to Vera playa after the storm had abated,  so I have taken a few of his pictures - which is why they have his trade watermark on them. I cannot claim any credit for them. The waves were strong and they tore up parasols and beach furniture, and swept away the boardwalks down to the sea.

This area is where the Luguna is that we sometimes visit to walk around. The boundary between lake and beach has gone, and so have all the water birds who presumeably are seeking shelter further inland.

I  just thought this was such a beautiful photo so I had to include it. Well done to Paul for capturing it.

And there is a smile in there too as the storm did not come as far as us to cause any damage.

After today's visit to the clinic I now only have a small plaster on my hand and the ulcer is much better. The skin is still very fragile and it is sore to touch so I have to take care not to knock it, and I will be straight back to the surgery if I think it has the slightest sign of the infection returning, but it is moving in the right direction so that is also a smile.

So now I will smile my way over to link up with Annie at a stitch  in time. Hope to see you there.

Kate's Diary for week ending 16.09.2022

It has been a sombre week, with reports following the Queens progress dominating TV and news,much of which I have watched, but I have decided to go ahead with posting again this week, though I am not sure everyone will do the same.

I am starting with a wonderful picture I managed to take of a blood red moon last Friday night. I was talking to Chris out on the porch and I just caught a glimpse of it as it rose above the horizon, and shot out the front of the house to take a photo. It didn't stay this colour for long of course, and soon it was higher in the sky and shining its usual bright silver.

Another case of being in the right place at the right time was when I took this photo. It turned out the ulcer on my hand has a strep. infection so I am taking ten days of antibiotics and twice a week I have to go to the medical centre to have the dressing replaced. So on Monday night we had some rain; not a lot but enough to make everywhere feel more fresh the next morning. I was walking up to the medical centre and I saw a group of Spanish ladies all talking and pointing, outside Isabella's house, just a few doors up, across the road from us. One of them often stops to talk to me about the plants in the garden and she beckoned me over to see what they had found, and it was this little fellow. The rain had obviously driven it from its usual covered haunts and it had run up, under the railings on Isabella's window. In case you don't recognise it, it is a chameleon and it is the first one I have seen 'in the wild' since we came out here. I have always hoped to find one so that is another one ticked off my list. By the time I came home it had disappeared so I was lucky to see it at all. (It isn't camouflaged with the wall but it would have been hard to spot on the gravel path it must have crossed to get there.

It has been a cloudy start most days this week and we have had a few light showers, which have combined to bring the temperature down a little though it is still quite humid some days. So after hardly touching it all summer, I have finally got my crochet out again. I am determined to finish my Celtic Tiles blanket before doing anything else. I have a stack of 'tiles' all blocked and packed away to keep them clean.

I need twenty tiles in all and number eighteen it currently on my blocking board. I pin them out to all be the same size and steam them with a hand-held steamer. Then I leave them until they are completely dry and un-pin them so I can do the next one. That should mean they will all go together easily when I am ready to join them, and I have some yarn ready in a slightly darker shade to make some sort of a border.

The blanket is for Chris to throw over himself on Winter evenings, and he chose the pattern and chose and paid for the wool, so I hope he likes the finished blanket. I will be happy to get back to using something a bit more colourful soon!

it is a while since I showed any of my "I can see a face in it" photos and I know some of you think I am a bit do-lally. I was happy to discover that there is an official name for finding faces everywhere. It is called 'Face pareidolia' and obviously I have it.

So here is my first late evening photo where I can clearly see a girl wearing glasses with lots of unruly hair.

And this morning I was happy to wake up to bluer skies though there were still a good few clouds, and in this picture I can see the face of a young fox. Annie told me on facebook that she can see it too so maybe you can?

Now my post is prepared and if Annie posts her Friday Smiles I will link with her, but I shall publish in the morning anyway.

I rarely add funnies to my post, but I saw this today on my nephew's page, and as I like puns, I copied it to share with you.

Kate's diary for the week ending 09.09.2022

I was deeply saddened yesterday to hear about the death of our Queen. She was a lovely lady, beautiful inside and out, and I have nothing but admiration for the way she has faithfully led her people over the past seventy years. May she rest in peace. 

My thoughts and prayers are with her family and especially with Charles as he takes on the role of King.

Annie feels it is inappropriate to post her usual Smile post today and I fully support her in this.

However, my post was written and saved ready for publication this morning, long before the sad news hit our radios and TVs, and as my blog was primarily to be a diary to keep in touch with family and friends in UK and elsewhere, and was only added to Annie's group much later, I decided to go ahead and publish anyway, though not under its usual title. Feel free to read and/or comment on it if you wish, but I quite understand if you prefer not to.

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As my intentions are at least for me to return to church some Sundays from this coming weekend, I thought last Sunday might be my last free Sunday morning for a while, so I suggested we went out for a little break. We settled on Villaricos, a small coastal village near where we rented a flat for our first six months in Spain. Once a mining village it is a maze of narrow streets, some steep hills, and a selection of small shops and bars. It is relatively quiet all week but very busy each weekend as Spanish families return from wherever they live and work, to their family homes in Villaricos. They have quite a big market on Sundays and I like wandering through it as there is a much wider choice of both clothes and fruit and vegetables than we get in our little market. I managed to buy a very comfortable pair of navy sandals (it's unusual to find them in my size), and also bought a little bit of fruit. After the market we had a wander along the sea front. There is an excellent paved promenade which makes walking easy. The first section of beach had a dense line of folk, probably holiday makers but maybe some residents, each with a seat and a parasol, as the beach is stoney and not ideal for sitting on. But there were several people in swimming so I guess the water was not too rocky or weedy.

The next section was empty except for a couple of dog-walkers so I am guessing here it was too rocky for swimmers.

Continuing round the promenade we came to a sudden end at a small marina. There is a bar here where we have often enjoyed a cool drink after our walk, but on Sunday there was a sign that said only open for those buying food, which was a bit disappointing. I took this photo of some of the yatchs in the marina and beyond them you can just see two of the barges waiting just out in the bay, for their turn to pull into Garrucha harbour to be filled with gravel. (You can actually see them better in the previous photo!).

But it was too hot to linger for long, and as the bars were very busy we went back to the car and drove on towards San Juan. We passed our old flat and relived a few memories, and eventually took a right turn down a sand and gravel track towards the beach at El Pozo. Herre there is a restaurant called El Frontera that was one of our favourite haunts when we were living near here nearly fourteen years ago. We have brought visitors back for a meal ocasionally but it is several years since we were here last, and we were pleased to see it was thriving still, and as busy as ever. Such crowds say a lot for the reputation of a place and we knew we would not be disappointed. They are right on the sea wall with tables and chairs stretched all along the front, as well as a good size dining room inside. 

When we arrived they were busy but we were just a little ahead of the usual dining time for the Spanish folk, so we did manage to get a table. We were 'inside but still outside' as we were under a lean-to on the front of the building. So we had open sides with a soft breeze to keep us cool, but the roof sheltered us from the hot sun. You can just see the glass frontage in this picture, and the folk sitting on the wall are waiting their turn for a free table.

There are team of young men serving, each with their own area of tables to look after, and they literally ran from table to table all the time we were there. So we didn't have to wait very long for our order, and the meal was all we had hoped for. As we left we walked passed all these tables filled with happy diners.

And then round the corner there were even more, so the lads waiting at that group must have run a few miles by the time the place closed!

I confess we got home and had a siesta before getting on with our day.

Tuesday was market day in our village. I just love the soft fruits that are in season right now. The cherries and apricots are finished but I bought lovely red plums to cook and freeze away for winter crumbles, soft yellow plums, ripe and ready to eat now, some paraguayas, the peaches that look as though they have been sat on! They are easily bruised and only have a short shelf life, but they are sweet and have a lovely flavour. The big yellow fruit in my photo are also peaches. These are quite hard and have little flavour eaten raw, but I peel them and lightly poach them and they are exactly like the yellow cling peaches we buy in cans in UK. I like to have a few boxes of them in the freezer too and I think their season will soon be over so I made sure to buy a few. I saw one supermarket advertising that they had their first batch of this year's mandarines in store, and that is a sure sign winter is coming.

The mornings have continued to be a bit cloudy here despite the continuing heat, but the sun is usually out by midday, and then the clouds gather again in the evening. These provide a possibility  of a nice sunset and as it has been very windy some afternoons, the clouds get tossed around giving some lovely sky photos. Here are few that I liked.

And this one was taken just last night. It is unusualy because I managed to catch the moon rising and also the refexion of the setting sun in the clouds. The actual sun had already gone down behind the hills that are at the back of me, but the clouds were still picking up a bit of colour high up, as well as the sun's reflexion. I might make this my header for a while.

Friday Smiles 2022; Week 35

I am starting today with a gorgeous photo of two of my great-grandsons, that my granddaughter sent me this week. Young Alfie loves his new baby brother Reuben, and they both have such lovely smiles.

Emma also sent this photo which includes her and their elder brother Isaac and as you can see they are all smilers. Unbelieveably Isaac starts at secondary school next week! How did that come round so fast? He will probably be the youngest in his class or even year as he only turned eleven this week, but I think he will be just fine.

Now Mike and his family are back home they have posted photos of their holiday. It does seem quiet here this week and I am sure Kim misses their fuss and company. They have two dogs and two cats of their own so they are very used to animals and they loved having ours to cuddle up with. Although Kim lives a quiet life with just us two oldies for company, he really does seem to like people and he was quick to curl up with anyone who was around, so here is a little collage of the animals getting some love.

I spent one day this week sorting out my craft room, and in particular the computer desk. Chris built me a shelf so I could stack my two printers; an A4 laser black and white printer for letters etc, and a big flatbed colour injet printer for card making and printing 12" x 12" digital scrapbook pages. However, now I no longer print a weekly newsletter for the church, (the reason I bought it originally), the laser printer doesn't get used very often. So I have moved it to the spare room for now, but it will eventually come back in and sit on a small cupboard that I have under my desk. And in its place I have put my wonderful Silhouette Cameo , my digital cutter, that I use so much in my craft. It was under the window to my right but it stopped the window from opening properly, (this is an old Spanish house with traditionally inward opening windows), and also took up a lot of space there. So now I have a neater desk and a good useful space at the side of me for my current project, when I want to work on something and refer to a computer image as I do it.

I have a nasty sore on my hand which the doctor says is an infected ulcer so I had to take a swab from it and get it to the clinc at 8.00 yesterday morning, as that's the day the hospital collects samples etc for analysis. That meant I was up and out a bit earlier than usual and this was the sky as I stood at our front porch. We don't often see these sort of clouds and it was very calm and peaceful so I just breathed it all in before setting off for the clinic.

When I got out I walked a short block around the front of the village before going home. The sun was just breaking through the clouds and sending down shafts of light. 

And to my right was this lovely view of the Cabrera mountains with one of the tall pine trees that line the slip road. It turned into a lovely morning.

It had actually been a very mixed week and I am glad the family came last week and not this one. The sky has been overcast for part of every day which has raised the humidity level, but the temperature has remained high in the upper thirties, so it has been hot and sticky! We have even had a few short showers, mainly late evening and night time, but the rain was not enough to have a significant effect on the ground. We have been warned that we could get some severe storms in September when the 'gota fria', (a blast of colder air) meets with the rising condensation from an unusually warm sea, so we can only wait and see. At least the authorities have taken some steps to make the main town more protected against flooding. Let's hope they have done a good job!

Now I will popover to Annie's Friday Smiles, and I hope to see you there too.