Rocking Your World 2021: Week 31

Well I have another week of 'mixed blessings' but I will start with two photos that made me smile. 

This is my second son who was celebrating his 48th birthday at the weekend. He just loves the sea and sand, and hops across to the Welsh coast whenever he can. For his birthday he was joined by his partner of course, plus two of his brothers, his daughter, her husband and his grandsons, plus his own sons and stepsons, and some friends, and as you can see by his face, he thoroughly enjoyed his day. It always makes me smile to see my boys having a good time.

The second photo is again of Tango. On this evening I was sitting out on the porch as usual, with my crochet on hand, and I would not let Tango claim his place on my lap because it was just so hot. I was listening to a shuffled library of music and the blue cylinder beside him is my speaker. What made me smile was that he didn't even flinch when a louder or heavier song came on. At one time he even had his chin resting on the speaker. He must have liked the vibrations.

So during the week, Chris continued with the makeover in the yard. The space in the corner is where the shed was, and now he has removed all the bamboo fencing that covered the long wall. Under it was some very sad peach coloured paint that needed attention. He power washed the really loose flakes off and then we both had scrapers to to try and shift the rest. Yesterday he bought a sander and a good mask to finish preparing the surface ready for repainting. It is a long wall and we are considering doing it plain white with some tiling areas to break it up. But we are not sure yet.

On Tuesday Chris called me out to look at the clouds and they were beautiful. The whole sky was covered with 'cotton wool balls' which are know as Mammatus clouds. 

They usually become heavy with moisture and sure enough, shortly after that we had a wonderful storm. It cleared the air and washed the car! as well as pleasing all the plants. It rained quite heavily for a while and I continued to sit out on the porch, under our big sunshade which fortunately is waterproof, watching the rain bounce off the pool, but I am glad to say we were spared the huge hail stones that hit many places around us.

Chris wanted a lemon for his drink one evening so I went out to pick one off our tree which is just outside the kitchen door. It was this one which I thought was really funny because it is all the wrong way round. The fruit was oval as you would expect, but its place where it was joined to the stem and its point, were at the sides instead of the ends. But it was fine inside.

Now, as you know I am interested in the 'minibeasts' that share our life so here are a couple you may not have met. Everyone is, of course, aware of the dreaded wasp that likes to spoil our picnics and carries a painful and irritating sting. We get a lot of these coming to the pool apparently to collect water to cool their nest. They mostly congregate around the steps and rail, and don't really bother us as long as we don't bother them. If I see a live one thrashing about in the water, I try to retrieve it on a pool noodle and deposit it on the side to dry out and fly away, but quite a few do drown.

But here are couple of different wasps. Firstly this is a female Mammoth wasp. (I know it is female as it has a yellow face but I couldn't get that in the photo). These are considerably larger than a common wasp with a fatter body,  and can grow to 4.5cm long. Happily we don't see them that size here. They are  totally non-agressive and are not known to sting people.

And the second example is this strange creature. It has a black head and thorax, and then a long yellow tube which carries a 'comma' shaped abdomen on the end.  This is a mud dauber wasp, and again, although a female may sting its prey to paralyse it, it is not agressive and doesn't sting people. An interesting fact about this one is that it builds a beautiful little nest out of mud, shaped like a little clay pot, and lays one egg in it. Then she fills it up with tiny spiders and other insects and seals the top. When the egg hatches it feeds on the food store left for it, until it is big enough to emerge. I say it again; isn't nature wonderful?

The moon is almost full this week and I took this photo because looking up at it there was a very clear face on it. It is not so obvious in my photo but if you stand off from it and look and I think you will see it too.

Now here is this week's crocheted square, this time inspired by the thatched huts that are often seen on stilts at the edge of the sea on tropical coasts. I made this one and am halfway though making the other three (doing a round on each so they will all be finished by Sunday night ready for the last square pattern that will be released on Monday.

Here is the designers inspiration for it.

I have written this on Thursday because we have a busy couple of days. Today we took Kim to the vet for three small operations that will all be done while he is under the anaesthetic. I have had two phone calls so far to update us and ask how we want to proceed, so it was a bit more complicated than we had expected, but hopefully he will recover fine. We collect him around 5.00 tonight so I can't settle to do much and thought writing this would give me something to do.

Some other sad news is that last Friday we said 'Good-bye' to our little cat Paco. Some of you will have read about it on Facebook. Paco, along with the rest of his litter, was abandoned in a plastic carrier bag hung on someone's gate, even before his eyes were open. The lady took them in and her dog helped her to care for them, keeping them clean and returning them to her bed whenever they escaped. At six weeks old, he came to live with us and he has been our friend and companion for twelve and a half years.

We really miss him as he never roamed far from home, but although we are sad to lose him, we know he had a good life, and was loved and cared for. He died naturally in his sleep which is a lovely way to go.

So I will end there and link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World in the morning. If I have time I will add an update for Kim but we have to go to Almeria in the morning to collect our TIE cards (ID cards), so there may not be time.

Thursday night. Update on Kim. He is home again and seems quite settled. About eighteen months ago we were alerted to an infection in a back toe because he kept chewing it. A course of antibiotics seemed to cure it but it kept reoccurring and no amount of medication would deal with it, so this time the vet decided it needed more drastic attention. So she has now removed the nail bed and bone from the toe. He has about seven stitches in it. She also removed a large, marble size skin tag from his haunch, and a fairly large wart from underneath his eye lid that was beginning to affect his sight. So all in all he has plenty to feel sorry for himself about, but he seems to be in good spirits. He still tries to chew the toe so he  has a huge 'lampshade' collar which he has to wear whenever we are not with him. But for now, one or other of us will sit with him during the day, so he only needs it at night.

Rocking Your World 2021: Week 30

I can't believe it is week 30 already. We'll be on the countdown to Christmas soon! 

It has been a mixed week of highs and lows, but today we will concentrate on the highs.

I'll start with this picture of my lovely great-grandson Alfie. He is only 6½ and he has just won his 100 metre award in swimming. It always pleases me to see them learning how to handle themselves in water. He looks very proud of his acheivement.

Last week Thursday through to Sunday was our village fiesta. It was very low key this year with none of the street bars or market stalls that we usually have, but there was a small funfair and several activities arranged for the youngsters.

With it being so hot, we mainly stayed at home under a fan, but we did venture out on Friday night for the patronal mass. This is to celebrate our patron saint 'Virgen del Carmen'. The mass takes place on the main plaza in the early evening, and although we don't actually join in we do sit at the back and follow as much as we can.

The start and end of each fiesta event is marked with the letting off of firecrackers, or large rockets. Sometimes you can hear the 'swoosh' as they go up, and you wait, holding your breath, for the bright burst of fire and then a deafening noise, leaving little puffs of dark smoke where they were. Sometimes a whole volley of them are launched together and the noise is horrendous. Then just as you give a sigh of relief, another volley goes off. We have always thought this highly unnecessary, and every year there are complaints on Facebook, but it is a tradition that they seem unwilling to relinquish. Of course it starts all the dogs in the village barking, or hiding in fear. Kim is not too fazed by them though he did bark at them this year, but at the first sound, Foxy runs inside and hides behind a chair, and stays there all day if we let her!

The statue was put in place beside a temporary altar, and instead of the usual offering of flowers from everyone during the service, some people had added bunches around the plinth earlier, and also after the mass. Normally once the mass has ended we go off to see friends or have a drink at a bar, but this year, while Chris went to our local bar, I decided to follow the procession back up to the church at the top of the village, so this week I will share that with you.

The local choir sang several rousing songs during the mass and the music group played while the folk around us went up to receive the bread from the priest.

They then led the procession to take the statue back to the church. The 'trono' she is on is very heavy and four strong men carry it on poles on their shoulders. One person, this time the priest's assistant, has the job of making sure the bearers keep the rhythm of their side to side steps in sync, and he frequently knocks on the trono surface to tell them to stop. Four young lads were enlisted to carry stout poles with a hook on them which are used to support the trono while the bearers rest. The procession winds around some side streets and then up our road which is the main route up to the church.

 

The band kept up a slow steady beat on their drums, and sometimes broke into music. 

This all took a long time and it was getting dark as we neared the top of the village. There are some tricky corners to navigate here, and the men were getting tired. I was quite worried about one of the bearers who was elderly and his steps began to falter. On one stop he changed sides with the other man at the back so he took the weight on his other shoulder. It is seen as a great honour to be a bearer, and he was obviously not going to relinquish it. One of the men at the front occasionally let a member of the crowd take over for a while, but he stayed close by and helped them to keep in step.

Near the top of the village we reached the Town Hall and I was surprised when they slowly turned and walked her up to the main doors. Here they lifted her up as the upstairs windows opened and the Mayor and his helpers came out and showered her with rose petals as the crowd answered his shouts of "Viva  la Virgen del Carmen! Viva Los Gallardos!"

Then amidst lots of shouting and cheering they turned around and continued up to the church. I can't describe the noise, of people laughing and talking, the band playing a rousing number and suddenly the church bells pealing out their notes (which are deafening anyway).  As we turned into the patio in front of the church, the band moved to the side and the statue was taken up to the door, turned around to be presented to the people, and then lowered onto a table quickly brought from the church for the purpose. 

At that precise moments the fireworks started. It is the first time I have seen pretty, colourful fireworks since we came here. I have always assumed they are not encouraged because of the ever constant fear of fire, but obviously the fiesta is an exception. They were really nice and as they went off the bells continued to clang until one really loud explosion signalled the end, and we all made our way back down to the village.

I hope you have enjoyed sharing this little part of our celebrations with me. It is the first time I have  followed it so I know I haven't shared it before. I have added some photos along the way and I hope you can see some of the things I have mentioned. I am going to try to add a little video to finish. It is less than a minute long, but will give you a feel of what it was like. I hope you are able to play it.

Since then it has been too hot to do much at all. Chris did manage to dismantle the shed and on Wednesday night I helped him take all the panels, and other large rubbish out to lay beside our bin. Early the next morning we heard the crane lorry come to take it all away. It is such a useful scheme for disposing of larger items. So now we can plan what to do with the space, but we are in no rush. I expect it will wait for slightly cooler days.

We did have the 40º promised again on Monday and the same is forecast for tomorrow (43º). So another day indoors with the aircon on I guess. The rest of the week is showing 29º-36º, so that is pretty warm too!

I spent a couple of mornings in my craft room as it is at its coolest then, and I have a ceiling fan as well as a floor standing one which help. I managed to make a set of nine Christmas cards but they are for a challenge at the weekend so I can't show them here yet.

I have had a few late night swims to cool down before going to bed. We cool the bedroom down with the aircon for an hour, and then just leave a ceiling fan on all night, so if I start off cool, with a cool room, I usually manage to fall asleep OK.

Here are my additions for the Tropical Coast blanket. This week we were given the pattern for three small squares representing a cut open coconut, a shell and sparkling sea, and we needed to make four of each. I have done one of each, and all four of the blue ones, so now I am going to tackle the other three shells. I am not sure I will finish the coconuts as well, as it is too warm even in the evenings, to do very much. 

The designer didn't give is a picture board for this little squares so I made one of my own using her squares from the pattern.

And with that I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World.