Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 5

We have had a mixed week of bright sunshine days, and cold grey days, but last Sunday was one of the sunny ones so we decided to go for an afternoon walk around Vera Laguna. We never know whether there will be lots of birds there or none at all, nor what they will be. It is dependent on the weather a lot as the lake is entirely natural, so wild life is free to come and go, and also it is only a short stretch of sand away from the high tide line, so on really stormy days it just becomes one with the sea. However, on Sunday it was crowded with seagulls, plus a fair flock of moor hens. The more usual ducks and geese were nowhere to be seen.

The lake is lovely with its backdrop of reeds, at this time of year swaying with feather flower heads, and beyond them, the misty mountains. 

Looking the other way, you can see the sea, and if you look closely at this rather blurry photo (blurred because I cropped and enlarged one section), you can see a further row of seagulls sitting along the edge of the sea.

Every time a child ran passed shouting at the birds, or just playing, the gulls all took off, and then settled again a bit further away. I have never seen this many gulls at the lake before.

The moorhens must be used the children because they continued to bob around near the shore.

It was a lovely walk and blew the cobwebs away for us. We should do it more often while the weather is sunny but not too hot.

We only have live TV to watch but the programms are quite good at this time of year, so we usually spend our evenings with the fire on, comfy on the new settee, and I do a little bit more of my crochet each evening. So I have now finished the first motif of the blanket I am making.  It was a case of two steps forward and one backwards. I don't expect to have to do as much unpicking as I have with this, but I am comfortable with how it works now so hopefully the next motif will go better.

I don't think I made the best choice of wool for my secondary colour for this first one. It was sock wool and it changed colour too frequently so the pattern is not very clear, but it is alright. Here it is on my blocking board. I have steamed it and when it is quite dry I will store it away until the next one is done. By blocking them I can make sure they are all the same size. There are twenty altogether and they will all have the same blue yarn for their main colour, with various secondary colours using up oddments from my stash.

The warm weather is confusing the garden again. I noticed as I came in from shopping, that my bright pink geranium is looking better now than it did a couple of months ago. It even has two more heads of buds coming up for when these ones die off. I have normally brought them in under the porch for shelter by now.

I have a friend who has been a crafter ever since I first knew him, but he is now limited to only leaving the house on his mobility scooter so he spends a fair bit of time at home. To keep busy he has developed his skills with laser cutting, 3-D printing and other technical wizardry. He has a lot of knowledge in the field of electronics and on Tuesday he invited me up to see his machines in action. I was very impressed with his set-up. There were four laser cutters, and a computer to control them and an amazing array of wires and switches, all in a small garden 'shed'. And behind that, in what I think would be called a narrow storage room he had three 3D printers all set up ready to use, and another machine that I have forgotten the name of. (Of course I was too interested to stop and take photos!)

He talked me through the software for the cutters, and I did manage to cut one image out of 400gm card. Then he gave me the smallest cutter to have at home on 'long term lend'. So yesterday we set it up in my craft room and installed the software, but we could not get it to read the files. Chris spent ages trying to sort it out for me but we had to admit defeat. So we are going back to Steve's probably tomorrow afternoon, and he is going to swap it for a different machine that he thinks may work better for me, and give me a few more tips for using it. So maybe by next week I will have something to show.

It was cold and grey when I set out this morning. I had an early appointment with the nurse to have the dressing on my hand changed. I hoped to have it uncovered by now, but although it is no longer infected, it is very slow to heal properly, so I am again well wrapped. But never mind. I can do most things I need to, and I have silicone gloves for washing, and in the kitchen.

It has taken all day for the sun to finally break through, so I am hoping for a brighter day tomorrow so I can wash the sheets and get them dry outside.

So now I will just finish this off ready to publish and post on Annie's Friday Smiles tomorrow.