Minies again

Yesterday was our Miniatures club meeting, getting a bit thin on the ground now with only 4 of us there this time!  We haven't met up since May due to every ones own commitments, but we decided to carry on the last theme, window boxes and planters.

I took the workshop this month as everyone wanted me to show them how to make embroidered ferns. A lovely variegated effect is achieved by tweeding two threads together. The technique is needle weaving, which allows the fern leaf to fall free once completed, the longer you make it, the more it twists. They also resemble spider plants
(Just viewed the photos, opps, sorry bit blurrey!)

Its a very soothing technique and everyone enjoyed doing it, you can be as wild and full on as the fancy takes you and when finished, by cutting quite close to the finish petals they can be inserted into troughs and pots. Next time it creeping plants, ie aubretia

There have been builders in the square today, one of the stone walls to the plaza store is in need of some serious tlc. They have rebuilt the wall and added a new window surround. At the end of the day we realised we didn't have any furries around. Cat trap! there were four of them investigating all the work giving their opinion. True to word of being inquisitive. Where the others were is a mystery lol....

Lucy was the only one who owned up!

Take care

xcx

A visitor

This wasn't going to be my post for today, but we had a visitor last night and Chris was clever and quick enough to film it.

During the day we had been watching an eagle, circling and swooping around in the valley, but this evening this huge owl suddenly appeared. We have heard the odd hoot now and again but its the first time we have seen one here.

Look at his huge claws

We do get concerned for the furries when huge birds like this appear, some of ours are quite light and tiny, no match for talons

take care

xcx

A trip out

We decided on a little trip out to explore some of the little coves along the coast. It was about an hours drive, pleasant with less traffic now the main season has ended, very sunny and bright.

First up was Grandella, a pretty spot, but my was the wind blowing, made me smile as the information board said it was renowned for ´gentle breezes´!  

Being hungry we decided to visit the local restaurant - Oh my - talk about captive audience,

A small bottle of sparkling water for me was 2.95e, Chris had a coffee, a reasonable 1.65e, with a mixed salad and potatas bravas (spicy potatoes) to share the bill came to 20e. Moral of the story - take a picnic!

We visited another cove further along, but this was a cliff top view only and again extremely windy.

On our way home we passed through an area that was totally devastated in last years horrific bush fires. Amazingly the area is now covered in greenery as everything starts to replenish.

This whole area had to be evacuated, in this park area a sculptor has used the remaining tree stumps to carve the most wonderful animals.

As you can see there are a few more stumps left, so I do hope they continue carving, lovely to see the inspiration after such a tragedy. Apparently it is one of the bomberos (fireman). Probably most of it done with a chain saw.

I leave you with a photo Chris took the other evening of the harvest moon

Enjoy whats left of the weekend

take care

xcx

Sunsets

With the temps being slightly cooler we were able to get out into the wilderness, sorry, garden and do some cutting back and tidying. As we are on the campo and rural we cannot get a burning license until at least 20th October and only then if our local town hall regulations permit. So we had to be careful how big a pile of overgrowth we could make. Nice to make a start though.

Apart from that a very lazy couldn't be bothered to do much weekend, hopefully we can find a little bit of get up and go this month. Repairs and outside projects can kick in now, maybe even a little bit of painting where hopefully it doesn't dry on the brush.

 

Its sunset season with some really spectacular skies. The bottom one show one of our huge cacti flowering, then it will die. Shame

Have a good day

Take care

xcx

Baking and a little knitting

Rebecca popped over for the afternoon this week, which was lovely and we had a kitchen spree.

First we made another batch of lip balm, this time lime and bergamot, very zingy and fresh.

The we decided to make a batch of carrot and walnut muffins

They were lovely, moist and very yummy, we shared the batch and I had to hurry to take a photo before they all disappeared.

Today we had to pop into the garage to have our brakes checked, they were making the most awful noise. Luckily they did them whilst we waited and replaced all four calipers and brake pads, I was getting a bit concerned as to the final bill, but was pleasantly surprised and relieved at the invoice.

We carried on to Rebecca´s for a cuppa and to collect a parcel, lovely to see her and have a catch up.

As we were leaving she showed me a plant that had self seeded, it was quite amazing and I had never seen anything like it.

The pod was approx. 3" long

One of them had burst and this is what was inside

Gossamer seed heads, very light and fluffy, tightly packed together 

The inside of the pod was covered in a soft membrane similar to that of a horse chestnut, for protection

Some had spilled out and covered quite an area, so Rebecca very wisely decided to collect them before more of them self seeded.

It´s getting a little cooler in the evenings now, you can tell as suddenly the furries are looking for a nice lap to perch on and enough for a little knitting. 

Whilst on a recent skype call to Daniel and the girls, I noted that dolly didn't have a very varied wardrobe, so I´ve hunted about the various knitting sites and found a dress and cardi, start Christmas pressies early!

It´s usually impossible to knit with Benji on my lap, but he was so comfy and tired he completely ignored the tickling yarn and clicking needles.

Well, another weekend, enjoy what ever you choose to do

Take care

xcx

Another new start

Feel a bit of a fraud! Here I was having a tad dar moment of having internet then I disappear again!
Bit of a catalogue of errors really, I went out on to the bancarles and fell down a huge hole made by the boar, smashed my left knee down, badly bruised but still functioning, just! That was on the Monday, then on Friday we had a day of fine mountain mist and drizzle and the courtyard gate began banging in the wind, so annoying, so I went out to shut it, turned around and slipped on the wet tiles on the slope, yup! straight on the knees, then to add insult, because of the slope I was unable to get up again.
So I sat and pondered, hubby was well away in the lounge and due to the thickness of the walls was unable to hear my cries for help. I even resorted to banging against a metal bucket to raise attention, nope, nada, zilch, it was raining quite heavily by then, hubby eventually came near enough to hear me and I was rescued, nothing broken just badly bruised and very wet.

Been nursing myself, taking it easy and gently going about daily life. So now, feeling better, (Just don't touch the knees) I thought I would share the hand sewing I have been doing during the summer

This was a project I took to the UK back in May, as I hate to be without something to do, and so I continued, it has been quite nice sitting in the warm shade hand stitching all these little blighters together. Then came the next stage....

Piecing it all together on a background design sheet. So now slowly stitching everything together, eventually a cot quilt.

Do you sometimes get to the stage where you think "what can we have for lunch, something different"?

So today I tried slicing sweet potatoes, grilling for 20 minutes then using them to create a pizza, very different but certainly gluten free, well worth a try,

So, hope you have all had a wonderful weekend, catch up soon

take care

xcx

Back online

We have internet!!!!!!!! Yeah..........
At long last we are now back with internet, what a long and frustrating road we have been on. Our provider of 9 years suddenly announced our poor connection was that we were suddenly too far away!? So had we upped and moved our house, certainly got the feeling they couldn´t be asked. Then it was too much interference and too many holiday makers using the system and they wouldn´t review the situation until late September.

We managed to find another provider with a complete package to offer, we waited for the engineer, and waited, only to be told that he had visited the plaza (which is way below us and we know does not receive signal) but not the house and refused all pleas to try again properly. We knew we could get 4g via the wireless because that's the system we use for the house line.

We tried another provider, 4g wireless router, fast connection and lots of bandwidth. Ok it does pop in and out sometimes but its so fast. Now I can catch up on blogs, Ancestry, courses and more. Yes!!!

I´ll leave you with our new visitor who is very industrious and seems to be growing by the day.

She has been named Doris, and already has quite a following, just be careful where you walk at night!

Back soon, take care

xcx