Monday, March 13, 2017

What a difference........

a day makes................in 24 hours we have gone from 28C, beautiful blue skies to 7C raging storms and lashing rain.  We have weather watch groups here so we were warned to batten down the hatches, but my goodness, when it rains, it rains.

It started last night with crashing thunder and zig zagging lightning over head, losing satellite and turning off computers and routers. Then the rain started, we left it to get on with it and retired to bed. Then in the night I awoke to the awful acrid smell of smoke in the bedroom, that was a heart thumper. On investigation we found that the rain and wind had made the log burner blow back and filled the house with smoke. We had to open the lounge, landing and our bedroom windows to get an air flow, not the most pleasant experience in the middle of the night, cold and wet.  It cleared enough to close the windows, but this morning the smell was still quite strong.

It was miniature club today and although the rain wasn´t too bad up here, by the time we got down the mountain it was absolutely throwing it down, and continued to do so for our journey, the rest of the morning and on our way back up, visability was about 50m, not very pleasant. Amazing how everything suddenly turned into raging torrents, along the road sides, rivers down the roads and huge puddles spanning the roads. At home our lounge terrace was 4" underwater, the kitchen courtyard about 3" and some of the driveway has been washed away. Not too bad and with the log burner going again we are quite toasty.

This was today´s project

Decoupage butterflies.
A base print of butterflies then cutting out and adding each individual one on top and curling their wings to make it 3D.
It was very fiddly and eye boggling, but very effective.

I had a call from Rebecca yesterday, she is in Nottingham at the moment, asking me to guess what they had just found..... It was a Kitty CafĂ©, they had to book a table for later as it was so busy and when they returned they delighted in being able to spend an hour with so many furries, all shapes, colours and sizes, all playing, sleeping or relaxing around the customers. With toys, cat trees, walkways and entertainment areas. As they were missing their own two furry girls, it was a lovely for them to have hands on.
Apparently it is a rescue centre and adoption agency for rehoming the cats with wonderful food.
What a brilliant concept, the kitchen is sealed behind glass so there are no paws helping and the entrance fee allows them to look after the cats until there are rehomed.


 Their cat trees are brilliant, Daddy can you make us one pleasssssssse............!!!!!!

Oh well off to make kebabs for dinner
take care
xcx

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Wild orchids

This is lovely time of year here with all the wild flowers coming out, wonderful shades of greens and everything looking fresh and healthy. Unlike the middle summer months with the high temps and lack of water making everything curl up, turn brown and protect themselves.
We have some beautiful wild orchids growing on one of the bancales


We have also been having some spectacular sunsets, which Chris has been delighted to capture
This one is very Lion King
Thomas playing in the tree

One of the ladies at the miniatures club expressed a wish to make a 1/12th scale greenhouse, so Chris ever ready for a challenge, made plans and has partially built one. Yesterday he bricked the walls and today is making the door and hinged windows.
Glazing should be fun!

Rebecca is visiting Antoni in the UK at the moment, but I think the cold, rain and dreary grey skies, all the hussle and bustle too are a bit of a shock to the system. So glad the sun has decided to come out here at last, yesterday was about 25C, bit warmer today. yeah!
take care
xcx