thank you very much ...not!

 

 As if I didn't have better things to do...

My neighbours and I received last Thursday notification from the Town Hall indicating that our address has been changed. 

 

Alicante Town Hall

We are not a street any more but an avenue!  The avenue has been named after a certain Alicantino citizen who the city wish to publicly honour and who they believe deserves public recognition.  There was even a ceremony to uncover the new name plaque! Do you think we were invited, we were not. Do we know who this person is who has been granted this honour,we don't. I certainly don't and even Sr P said he doesn't know him either and Sr P practically knows everyone in Alicante! 

Now... we have a very long list of places we have to notify of our change of address and lots of documents have to be changed.  

Really!    I am not amused!😞

 

Relics 

Many thanks to Meredith for this inspiration from her recent very intriguing post on her blog Mereknits.    It has reminded me it is something I had in the back of my mind to do! I am not getting any younger and I have the time to do this now,so I thought I should make a start. I am thinking if I write about one family treasure/ heirloom in each post I can then later collate it all into a single pdf document and save it on a pen drive. At least that is the goal! There are some things I just don't want to be lost and my great grandchildren will need to know why I kept all these things over the years and likewise why my mother did and my grandmother did.  

 I am starting off with this tin-box which is bit of a family joke .  It isn't really that much of a relic/heirloom as it is approximately 38 years old but it has been with me as of day one back then in 1981 when  I opened my own language school... all those years ago. 

 

 

 

 

 

I started my school in a small premises which had an office and one classroom. Funds were pretty limited after decorating and furnishing the school (not really a school then) and paying for a large amount of publicity.  Can you imagine day one taking in enrolment fees from parents and I had no cash box at all and no money to spare to buy one. All monies paid in were haphazardly stuffed in an envelope.  That lunch time I went home and looked around for some sort of box or tin to put the cash in and to take back with me to the school that afternoon.  I had been shopping the previous weekend and had brought a special offer of frozen Fish Fingers and this tin " Captain Igloos Treasure box " was part of that special offer. I won't go into more detail but this became our cash box and it also became quite a novelty. I became so attached to it that I refused to use the new one that we brought later on and always used the treasure box for the petty cash. When I transferred the business to my daughter she said she wanted the treasure box too so it stayed there until she opened up her own school in other premises. Even though it was pretty tatty I was determined not to lose sight of it and I made sure it came back to me. It always triggers a rush of memories every-time I use it or look at it! It has been with me so long and I still use it for little treasures that I want to keep safe. 

 

RAOCK

I  feel quite pleased with myself as I am steadily using up all the leftovers in my stash to make RAOCKs. This is my latest creation:  Anja the Orange tree gnomess.

 

 

 She will be going out smile 😀 hunting as from this Friday.

 

I apologise if I haven't finished replying to comments on my last post but this new medicine I am taking makes me queasy. I lie down on the settee for a little while,munch on a cracker and drink some water and the feeling drifts away. During the good intervals I can get back to writing. 

Happy Blogging

Amanda :-)

🌞🌞🌞

 

 

 

 

 

 

It could very well be...

 

Just going to get this bit of a moan over and done with !

I am bored of these digestive problems it has been going on since mid February! I have had no end of allergy & intolerance tests and nothing has come to light. Now it seems of all things it could be the thyroid medicine I take that is the cause of all my tummy problems. It is the only medicine I take at present. The dose has been lowered and I go back to my doctor next Tuesday.  My GP is actually totally baffled as to what is the cause of it.   I despair! ... sniff!

 

My balcony garden revisited

After seeing this wonderfully illustrated post from Katie on I live,I love,I craft,I am me blog     I thought about adding some small garden ornaments to my balcony garden. Further inspiration came from Katie in her reply to the comment I left on that post,"I have a few in my garden and you have to look hard for them so when you see them it is a surprise",  I very much like that idea.

I have made a start! I have pushed the majority of the pots into the corner where I only had the rubber tree plant and bunched them all up together.  

 

 

 

I have also dotted around some little garden features which I will probably change around a bit when I sit down and have a good look at it.

 

 

Can you see them? There were a few more ornaments but I thought it was getting too fussy so I got rid of them.  

I am planning to buy something like this to put against the wall under the green wall pot, mostly for the cacti.

Walmart image

 I have also been looking at a mini solar powered fountain online. It might be a bit ambition that but we'll see. 🌳   I would like to put a few more pots on the wall but I have to catch Sr P in the right mood for that. I also want more flowering plants and a exuberant hanging plant to go in the green pot on the wall. I need some more colourful pots so a trip to Agost the pottery village is on my list too. There is no hurry of course but now I have made my mind up about the balcony and its mini garden I would like to get it done.  I can use the balcony all year round as we installed hermetic sliding windows some years ago so we could enjoy that extra space in all weathers although when we were both working we rarely used it.

A little Hug-Babe RAOCK  

I had some yarn leftovers from the jumper I made,mentioned in my last post , so I made this little Hug-Babe from those leftovers for little Arabella to carrying in her pocket.

 The basic pattern comes from Nic Thompson a fellow RAOC member and she calls them little hugs. I tweaked it a little bit and gave her a bonnet and a dress.   I had to embroidery the face because it is for a little one.  I am not impressed with the result as usual. I am useless embroidering faces.

Just the right size for a little pocket! 

 

A little GD time

 
Cookie baby (GD) has been spending the day with us today and she is meeting up with some friends this afternoon at the pool here. It is the best place to be in this heat. 

She brought me one of her home baked Country Crusty loaves of bread.  She knows just how much I like home baked bread!

 

I asked to take her photo which she wasn't keen on so I said I would just photograph her curls.

 

Lucky girl she has beautifully thick curly hair. I so wish she would grow it again it used to reach her waist. I understand though it is so hot having long hair in this heat.

 

Happy blogging

Stay safe

 

Amanda 🌝

 

 

Ice-creams that taste like ice-cream

 

I don't like ice-cream!

 This doesn't mean I didn't rush out my front door like a bat out of hell as soon as I heard the Ice-cream man jingle when I was a child...of course I did but I would usually buy a lolly more than ice-cream. Having said that and giving it a thought maybe I always bought a lolly because I didn't have enough money to buy an ice-cream!  

 

Google image

We were given a few pennies to buy ice-cream from the ice-cream man only on Sundays. I just didn't understand it at the time because my friend would get ice-cream on Fridays and Saturdays too but we were only allowed on Sundays. As I got older I understood why and it is a pretty simple reason! In those days when you had 6 children you couldn't treat them to ice-cream, more than once week! 

Nevertheless ice-cream doesn't thrill me much!  The majority of the time when we go out for a meal here the dessert is a selection of ice-creams or ice-cream accompanied by something so I rarely have dessert.  This is ice-cream country and the local ice-cream made in the mountain town of Jijona is very popular.

 

Google image

 Jijona is famous worldwide for its Turron/almond nougat but locally it is also extremely well know for its ice-cream too. There are no end of ice-cream parlours that sell Jijona ice-cream throughout the city and I sometimes go and buy for Sr P who certainly loves it. This type of ice-cream always reminds me of the Italian type of ice-cream which I remember trying in London but I was not impressed with it at all. There are endless amount of flavours some quite strange.   Unfortunately I am just not keen at all.  Far too sweet for me!

 

There is an exception though to this dislike of ice-cream and I would go out of my way to get one of these. It is in fact the only ice-cream I would eat with relish. 

 

 

This is a 99!   

I believe you may not of heard of this particular ice-cream over there in the States, in case you haven't allow me to describe it.   The best is local soft Cornish ice-cream made with Cornish Clotted Cream with a Cadbury's chocolate flake inserted into it. Everyone has their own particular way of eating their 99. I like to push the flake right down into the bottom of the cone (carefully done as the cone could crack) eat the ice cream until there is only what is left in the bottom of the cone and then crunch on the chocolate,ice-cream and cone together!             What else can I say except  mmmm...yummy!

 

 

 

Crochet for Arabella.

 

I had a request from my niece in Nelson,New Zealand who asked me if I could crochet this sweater for her 18 month old daughter, Arabella (just love her name).

I have actually never crocheted a jumper before! There is no particular reason why except I think perhaps it is because I have never been asked to make one. I wasn't worried about that at all! I just needed a pattern.  However easier said than done! We couldn't find the pattern for this jumper and there were three of us hunting for it online, me, my sister and my niece. Finally I sent my niece a few baby sweater patterns and asked her to choose one of those and although it wouldn't be the same I promised I would make it as colourful as the jumper she wanted. 

 

 

THE FRONT

 

 

 

 

 

THE BACK

 

I managed to use yarn from my stash. I felt very good about this and quite proud of myself that I was able to resist the temptation of buying a new batch of yarn just for the jumper. I used DK yarn and hooks 3,5 and 3,00. The pattern is a free pattern from Yarnspirations.

 

 

I did tweak this pattern a little bit :-) 

A nice cuddly warm jumper to keep a pretty babe lovely and snug. As I am sure you know it is winter in New Zealand at present. 

 

 

 

 A new book

 

I have just started this book and time will tell but it looks as if it is going to be a good read as from the very beginning it has piqued my curiosity. A good start. 

This was a recommendation given on one of the blogs that I follow unfortunately I cannot remember exactly whose blog. I took a screenshot of the book at the time and put it on my desktop thinking to check out it out later on and purchase it. That was last month or the end of May.  I think it was either Radka on My Stitching or other journeys or Marlene on Poppy Patchwork where I saw it!  Anyhow, many thanks for sharing.

 

Happy blogging to you all

Stay safe

Amanda :-)

 

Santa Pola cove and Tabarca Island