Happy Easter

 

Wishing everyone a HAPPY EASTER. Hope you all have a lovely holiday.

I would also thank you all for dropping by my blog from time to time and leaving me your lovely comments. They are very much appreciated.

Crochet update

This how I have progressed on my zig-zag cushion.
There is still a lot to do but I am pleased with my progress. I have done 27 rows, only another 19 to go. The colours are more vibrant that the photo really shows, it does have a bit more zing to it.

Caught in the Act.

This morning had a lot of promise as been a good day

I even put out my washing!! Big mistake. We had very very heavy rain with thunder and lightening again. The weather has been quite unsettled these last few days.

However caught these two enjoying the early morning sun. I just happened to catch them in the act.

They have long snouts, don't know what they are though.

p.s You never guess they were still at it this morning.

Nuts to you!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I mean walnuts and almonds.

The almond trees flowered a while ago, but you should see the size of the almond nuts now.

This was the tree in flower. Photo taken 04/02/2009

And look at it now

See the two fruits, they grow like peaches. When they are ripe the fruit case bursts open and the nuts are revealed

.

The walnut trees are just starting to sprout their new leaves and flowers.

The leaves have a lovely bronze tinge to them. Can you see the flowers. They are just greenish, nothing stunning.

In another few weeks I will post another photo on their progress.

I Have Given In To Temptation

Oh dear! I have done it now. All these months and I have resisted the temptation and then yesterday, yes, yesterday I finally gave in.

I hunted through my craft stuff until I found my two boxes with knitting needles and crochet hooks. It was nice getting acquainted with them again. Feeling them in my hands. Got out some wool and then there was no stopping me. Sorted my pattern out and off I went.

The pattern I chose is for a zig-zag cushion. I have made it before but many many years ago. Thinking about it I don't think I want to go there. Can it be really be that long ago? Suppose it can!

I sat down and did my chain of 214 then the next row was setting the pattern, so far so good. The first pattern row seemed to be going fine then I got myself in a twist, literally. I untwisted myself and got back on track. Can't remember it been this difficult the last time. Anyway did another row and it didn't look right. My peaks and troughs were a bit off. Oh bother. (that's been polite). Out it all came and I started again. Chain 214, fine. Set the pattern row, fine and the first row of the pattern, fine.

Success !!!!!!!!!!

Now there will be no stopping me.

My Old Quilt.

I have had this quilt for quite a number of years. I did not make it myself but bought it at a salerooms in Alnwick, Northumberland. when I live in Amble in the 70's I used to go to the salerooms regularly. I bought quite a few quilts but over the years they have dwindled away. This has not been made the normal way. The top has been made out of large pieces of fabric and topstitched onto the middle layer. Not sure what the middle layer is though.

It has been bound in a rose print fabric very crudely.

 

And this is the reverse side plain and checked materials. I assume it was made in the war years more out of necessity than as a work of art. Maybe its from the fifties I'm not sure.

It now covers my light coloured settee, so our black haired dog Lucky, doesn't make a hairy mess of it.

Flowers, flowers and more flowers

 

 

Our walk along the cliff tops on Sunday was most interesting. The flowers were beautiful and blanketed the green areas in lovely colour.

   Malva

So many flowers it was unbelievable.

This last two photo's are of a plant with lovely markings on its stems

After our walk we sat on the beach and soaked up the sun and ate sandwiches and drank juice. We had a very enjoyable day.

Heating and hot water, yes please!!!

 

Our solar panel was delivered last week but then they realised that the coil for the central heating was not there so they had to order a part. We have spent a week with no hot water or heating and it has been cold here at nights. Luckily we were able to borrow a oil filled radiator to warm us up a bit.

Yesterday morning the phone rang and hey presto, they had the part. The guy  delivered it and fitted it. Ian filled it with the required fluid and the water.  Then the sun went behind some brewing clouds.  Isn't that just typical!

The guy fitting the heating coil.  He also told us that the plant with the yellow flowers growing in our garden can be collected before the flowers open, boiled then put into your omelette. (you can just make them out if you look through the top two rungs of the ladder)

My dear hubby putting in the fluid. The fluid helps the water heat up.

Next was to connect all the central heating pipes and let the water flow through into the central heating wood burning stove and radiators. There we were getting all excited and then it happened. We sprung a leak!  No not one but three. The system was all drained back down. We were a bit deflated to say the least.

This morning he got up had his breakfast and then set about fixing the leaks.

With the joints all taken apart and soldered back up again we filled it up again. No leaks! Excited I laid the fire in the stove and put a match to it.

 

And boy didn't it go. Heat at last!!!!

The sun was shining most of the day so we also got hot water free.

FLOWERS AND VEG

Went shopping for vegetables and treated myself to some lovely Freesia. They smell divine.

These are some of the vegetables that I got. Tomatoes and peppers

These greens on the right of the photo. The ones on the left were given to me by our next-door neighbour. Do you know what they are?

I made some chutney today as well. It is supposed to be Green Tomato Chutney but as you can see there is red in there too.

And this is what it turned out like. Looks yummy to me, thing is, you are supposed to wait 2 weeks till it matures before you eat it. Think this will be quite hard to do. I got the recipe from the internet and it turned out to be a blogger that I follow. http://greenforks.com

On the Wander

 

We moved into our house in Vrisses last Friday and today was the first time that I had time to take Lucky exploring the area.

We  walked through the olive groves and when we came to a clearing I looked up and could see our house in the distance. Had I walked that far?It was well worth it though, just look what I saw, even if it was uphill all the way back.

These pretty white camomile and hiding amongst them anemones and this splendid plant

I,m not sure what it is called but there are a lot of them about reaching about 2ft or more tall.

 

There where trees loaded with blossom not sure if this is almond or a cherry.

A Walk On The Beach

After spending all morning packing boxes for our move on Friday, we went to Malia to get somethings my husband needed for the house. We took our little dog Lucky with us, as we like to take her for a walk on the beach. She hates the water but loves the sand. Thought you might like to share some of the things that we saw there.



The rocks here are very jagged and sharp. Just look how they are formed.















There are small ridges. I think it was caused by volcanic action many millions of years ago.














A strange feature out in the water.

















This looks like a fossilised tree root.












A rock pool. There is lots of life in there and some pretty colours too.















There are a lot of round holes in the rocks. I think this was formed by molten lava.















Pretty flowers blooming away to themselves.















Its well seen that the sun has been shining for the last few days
















Everything is bursting out.












I know this one, it is a century agave, it is about 30 to 36 inches high. They supposedly live for about a hundred years then flower and die. The flower spike rises over 10ft in the air. There was a lot of small plantlets around the base of this plant as they send up offsets.

When they are fully mature they are really wide. On the leaves there are sharp spikes so beware. Well we enjoyed our walk and thank you for coming along with us.

Don't forget you can click on the pictures to get a full sized version so you can see the detail more clearly.

Knock Knock.

At long last we have a door to our upstairs bedroom. This door leads out onto the roof from which we have lovely veiws. You really got to see this door, it's great and I'm very thankfull to the person that made it for us.




































Look at the workmanship on that lock. I love it!

















These are the veiws from our roof. It will be lovely waking up in the morning and just walking out onto the roof.

Thanks Geoff.
(Jude's husband.)