Friday, September 19, 2014

Now bearing in mind I usually sleep very badly and feel chuffed if I manage three hours straight with the rest in and out of sleep every hour or so, last night I managed not one but two stretches of four hours woo hop, now why do you need to know that? Well  there I was in this dream in a nice place with a waterfall cascading over the rocks, landing in a peaceful  lake throwing water droplets against the beautiful coloured leaves of the flowers and foliage when the rate of the flow suddenly got faster and louder until it was quite thunderous, at which point I decided to leave. I began to wake but the thunderous noise was following me coming through the levels of sleep it was like being smashed by a wild animal the more I ran the faster it followed. Where is this going you may well ask, bear with me, finally I woke but in the dozy sense of the word. I couldn't make sense of it, the thunderous noise was still there filling my ears, shaking the woollyness away, it suddenly dawned on me that it was..wait for it...raining! I reasoned the noise was the rainfall was overpowering the guttering, or a broken pipe, and was crashing down outside my window.  Now before you think my new place in the generations has addled my brain, my defense is that we haven't had any rain at home for about 18 months, not proper rain, I don't count the times when you can count the spots on the ground and they have been few and far between. What a strange way to start the day lol

Well better shake a leg and get going, lots to do,
Take care and enjoy your day
Xcx  

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Cuddles

Tuesday was a very special day, I boarded a plane in Alicante in the late afternoon  case packed with goodies, oh and a few clothes, if i run out i shall just have to go shopping lol,   and three hours later I was having my first ever cuddle with my beautiful new granddaughter and her daddy of course.
Such a strange sensation as Shine said here we are go to grandma as I associate that name to my grandma and my mum, but here I was suddenly in that role, it will take a bit of getting used to.
Yesterday evening we went out for a bite to eat and Leocia was fast asleep just as Shine returned with her meal she woke for a feed. As mums know adjusting to snatching a few minutes in between demands can be challenging, but as soon as she had finished I took her so they could enjoy the rest of the meal in peace. Was there an ulterior motive, yep you bet as I got a lovely half hour of humming and swaying to the background music and storing up memories whilst gazing down at my beautiful girl who was desperately fighting with her eyelids, but in the end it was Grandma 1, Leocia 0 :-)

Rebecca and Antoni also caught a flight Tuesday heading off for an adventure of their own, but they were landing at Bristol.  Antoni discovered a few months ago that he had a half sister so after corresponding with emails etc they decided to meet for the first time. She lives in Bristol so that was ideal.  There was a little trepidation all round, but thanks to the emails any awkwardness disappeared and they had a lovely evening. They are staying for three days, meeting Daisy for most of them before getting the coach to join us in Exeter.

 Gosh, what an emotional rollercoaster for us all as we are all getting used to our new roles and the family is expanding. such a shame Chris couldn't be with us, but thank goodness for Skype.

I shall have to wait until Antoni arrives to learn how to put photos on my tablet as he is the computer whizz. Just wish he would do it a little slower so I can take the instructions on board lol.
Take care xcx

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Praying mantis

Chris rushed in for the camera as he had spotted this beautiful creature, but he wasn't the only one, several of the cats were very interested in it too and wanted to 'play'. It was holding it's own though and with some distraction the cats got fed up waiting for it to move and went off to find something else to do, but Chris did rescue it on the end of a broom stick and relocated it. Such beautiful wings

praying mantis

We had a visit from our friend and neighbour and did a little bartering - she brought over a selection of chillies, ranging from hot to hotter including scotch bonnets.  We selected three plants for her in return as these produce little yellow chillies, again very hot,  they certainly put a sparkle in to a curry sauce.  

 I shall put them in the freezer as they are so much easier to grate when frozen and keep their lovely colour.

We swap other things too, such as I made her granddaughter one of the little rabbits and in return we got a huge bottle of first press olive oil, the flavour is very strong but used in the right way, quite delicious.
They have loads of olive trees on their land and each year put such hard work into laying down the nets, harvesting the olives by banging the branches with sticks or hand picking, then they take their bounty to Tarbena where they can watch them being pressed and put it in large containers. By putting the oil in decorative bottles they make lovely gifts.  It's still not over though as they then have to collect and clean the nets ready for the next year.

On the crafting front, I found a pattern for textural plaid stitch which I thought looked interesting, so I thought I would make a hot pot cloth, but as it was progressing I changed my mind, added a neck tie and made it into another bib.  


You can never have too many hot pot cloths, or bibs come to that
take care
xcx 


Monday, September 8, 2014

Our girls

Seven years ago today we found our 'girls', Tammy and Lucy. Two tiny kittens about 5 weeks old that were hiding under a bush near the pool  Obviously very hungry and not understanding why their Mum hadn't come home, sadly she never did.  We encouraged them from beneath the bush with food and brought them inside.

We had only been over here for 7 weeks and were not even thinking about another cat, (we had brought one with us) but as seems to be the way animals find you and it's meant to be.  It was a bit touch and go a few times with them but they soon thrived and grew

Here they are today, very happy and contented, and much larger! lol, Tammy follows us around, loves to be carried and is very jealous if we say hello to the other cats. Definately a daddies girl.  She was by far the smaller of the two, but that didn't stop her fooling us.  We were waiting to get them 'fixed' but the vet wouldn't 'do' them until they started calling, so we waited, Lucy began to call so she was done, but Tammy just didn't so we waited.  She had other ideas and one night went awol, yup you've guessed it off she went looking for a boyfriend, that sweet little butter wouldn't melt face was determined not to let us know before she had done something about it and produced three kittens herself..  We homed two and kept one

and that's how we ended up with four cats, how we ended up with a total of 8 is another story, opps, no 9 as Tom Ginger has adopted us now

take care
xcx

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Baking and pentagons

We took advantage of Holland and Barretts penny sale and placed an order with them. This is where you can buy certain items and get the second for 1 penny. I know health foods etc are always expensive, but here they seem to be double the price, with limited range.  This may be different in the large cities but certainly here is becomes prohibitive. The great thing is we can order as much, or little, as we wish all for the delivery charge of £6.95. Considering we have received one large box with another still to arrive, makes this charge very reasonable.

We decided to purchase Dove's farm gluten/wheat free flour and Rebecca and I set about making some carrot, walnut and raisin muffins.  The mix was slightly wetter than usual but the actual taste was lovely, light, moist and moreish!
We shared them out so Rebecca could take some home and the rest certainly didn't last very long!


So last night I made some goat cheese and onions muffins


The goat chesse has a milder flavour than I guess cheddar would have but they were still tasty.  Wish we had bought a couple more packets, but there's always next time

I have been playing with pentagons and first I decided to use a 4" one with only 6 different fabrics doubled up, but soon realised just how big they were going to come out, so for the next one I reduced it to 2" and chose 12 fabrics, much better size and without two fabrics together.

Thought these would be ideal for the little ones and could be used for quite a few games
I found Amber, or furry purry as she is known, completely at home, nestled in one of the fabric drawers, didn't have the heart to turf her out
 Hope you are having a great weekend
take care 
xcx