Rocking Your World 2021: Week 44

Here we are looking back over the week for those golden moments that made us smile. I can't believe it is the end of the week already. It has mostly been a stay at home week. We have had a fair amount of rain which has done the ground a lot of good. And we are lucky here in the village. The surrounding Cabrera mountains seem to sheild us from the worst of the elements, so once again we had no problems with flooding etc that was seen in many areas around us.

After the sound of heavy rain plus thunder and lightening woke us last Friday night, I took my camera outside on Saturday morning to catch some photos of raindrops on the plants.You might think that is a bit odd, but rain is rather more of a novelty here than it is in UK, and it is usually followed by sunshine that makes the raindrops glisten. So here is what  I took.

I do like to see rain drops on roses and right now our roses are giving us another flurry of lovely flowers.

When I was shopping in Lidls I saw some rather sad and bruised Winter pansies. They were very cheap so I bought four and have now planted them in a pot on our front step. Within a couple of days, they had all bucked up and now have beautiful flowers on them.

I had to smile at Tango when I caught him napping in the sun. I am keeping a close eye on this cactus which is almost as tall as I am. The last one keeled over when it got this tall, but I keep hoping it will produce a flower on the top before this one falls. When I went out there Tango was curled up with his head right in the centre of the cactus and I thought it was a very uncomfortable place to chose to rest. Needless to say, by the time I returned with my camera he has moved his head but at least he was still sitting there.

While standing by the front gate, I notoced these little birds lined up along the cables. They are almost certainly spotless starlings which are flocking back here for the colder months. They are so noisy when they all chatter each morning and evening, with all the sparrows joining in to give them some competition.  But these ones quite intrigued me, because after a few minutes they dropped one by one, straight down to the ground, and soon they were all gone. I guess there was some food below them but I couldn't see from where I was.

Here is another flock of them that I saw just as the sun was going down. I was trying to catch a sunset that never really happened, when they all flew across in front of me, no doubt going back to their trees to roost for the night.

I am pleased to say I am making some progress, albeit slowly, with my big crochet project. I am still not showing it, but I think I am about a quarter of the way through. I still have to undo rows sometimes to correct a mistake, but mostly I am on the right track now. It is just complicated and needs a lot of focus and concentration.

That obviously doesn't make it very easy to work on if I am watching TV, and as the evenings are drawing in we do find ourselves in the sitting room in front of the TV most evenings now, so I needed a much simpler project to work on then. So I have started to make lots of little squares. Each one has three rounds of one colour in different shades. They are all surrounded by a black row which makes the colours pop, and brings them all together. It is a great way to use up all my little balls of left-over yarn from previous projects, and I did have a big bag of them. I soon got tired of hunting through it for my colours so one night I sorted them all into different bags, one for esch colour set, and now I can quickly chose three that tone, and I can get out just one bag for the evening and make all red ones, or all green ones etc! I need almost 300 squares for my blanket, so that's around 50 from each bag! I happened to have quite a lot of black bought for another project that I decided against doing, a few years ago, so that has given me a good start.

Here are just a few of the squares I have made so far.

A happy little post came in from my Granddaughter yesterday to say her son Alfie(age 6),  played football for the West Brom under seven's team again, and scored a hat trick against Manchester United. Not too many folk can say they have done that!

Although most days have broken out to sunshine by mid-morning, the clouds are often gathering before dusk so there haven't been any really colourful sunsets, but yesterday I was up in time to see the sunrise. It wasn't spectacular, but made a nice start to the day.

The one evening photo I did manage to get is very pretty. I really like this one.

So now it is time to link up with Annie at A Stitch in Time. I hope everyone else has found something to smile about, and be grateful for too. 

Here we are at Thursday again already, and it seems to suit me as the time to write my blog for tomorrow, when we look for the silver linings, and those things that have made us smile and feel grateful during the past week.

It was a good week as it started with my birthday, (mine was on Sunday and Chris' just two days earlier on Friday), and although we do not make a big thing of these celebrations now, it was nice to have a little trip out together. We had intended to walk along the sea front but as it started out a bit of a grey day I suggested  a little drive instead to visit the new lighthouse at Mojacar. This only started operating last month, but I had read about it's construction and seen it from down on the coast. Google maps told us how to get there, and boy was the last bit a steep and narrow road! We decided afterwards that we were meant to park at the bottom of that bit and walk up, but there were no signs to tell us that, and I am not sure either of us would have made it! The drive was a bit hairy but Chris got us up there, and back down again safely. Although the web site said that the public viewing gallery was open all day, every day, it was in fact closed, but we were still able to walk onto the lower viewing area and the views were certainly worth going for.

It is a very strange building, and not one you would immediately recognise as a lighthouse, but the modern lines and angles, and lots of white paint, made it quite interesting. Despite the haze we could see right along the whole stretch of Mojacar Playa to the right, and across Garrucha port and on across Vera Playa to the left.

 

I have not used the panoramic setting on my current phone before so I had to have a go.

After the scary ride we decided we deserved a coffee break so when we got back onto the coast road, we stopped at Koi café again. This is our 3€'s worth I was telling you about last week.

Back at home I cooked us a nice steak dinner and finished off with one of the best cheesecakes I have made for a long while. (Chris not being a great one for deserts, and me needing to ration my intake, we have enjoyed it all week!).

A few observations from the garden this week. It is a sure sign that Autumn has arrived when the oranges on our neighbour's trees start to change colour.

Something has been having a good munch on our pink bougainvillia! I couldn't spot the culprit, but he either has a voracious appetite or he brings his family with him. It looks like this over most of the plant. I am guessing it is one of those big grasshoppers, but I can't be sure. In summer I would have said a hatching of caterpillars but it is a bit late in the year for them. Anyway I will leave him/them to enjoy it. It is all a part of the circle of life!

This morning we were up earlier than usual to let some workmen in, and when I opened up the back door I was struck by the light of the rising sun hitting the house next door. I love the way it is illuminating the porch. This photo doesn't do it justice but you get the idea.

Earlier in the week we had a phone call from the fire shop to say our new fire had arrived , a fortnight earlier than expected, and they would come to fit it today. So last night we cleared my photos and ornaments from the shelf above the fireplace and the cupboard next to it, and moved everything to the back of the shelves on the other side.

It didn't take them long to remove the old fire and make a hole in the chimney above it to fit the flu. They had warned us that this would be done and said they would repair the hole but we would have to repaint it. 

By lunch time the hole was filled in and the new fire was resting in the space for it. Now we are waiting for them to return around 5.00 with the fitting for the gas. Hopefully they will then put the artificial logs and coals into it, and fit the facia. 

And as promised they did come back and now the fire is installed. It threw out a lot of heat so it only stayed on long enough to grab a quick photo. We will be nice and cosy this winter.

Here as promised is the (I think) finished mural on the house across the road from us. To me it is very simplistic and the hill is an 'odd' shape. I would like to have seen a couple of small cacti growing in the sand of the slope. But it has been interesting to watch people passing by, stopping and have a good look at it, and sometimes discussing it with their friends. I don't know whether they like it or not, but it is a lot better than the big plain white wall was.

And finally a couple of nice skies I have spotted this week.

So time now to connect with Annie at a stitich in time.