rain

Sunday Sevens #53 16.10.16

~ Making Stitches ~ 11 Comments

Postcard from Gibraltar’s Sunday Sevens is officially one year old today! 

This week’s Sunday sevens has a distinct lack of crochet and sewing, there has been a little going on behind the scenes but nothing of note. It’s been a funny old week really, the first one of the school term without any big events or visitors and I’ve felt oddly at a loose end. I’d been quite looking forward to getting back to ‘normal’ but I’m not entirely sure I enjoyed it. 

I normally embrace free time and fill it with crafty things but this time I began to feel slightly guilty at having time on my hands and began a big autumnal ‘spring’ clean (for those of you who don’t know me – that’s NOT normal behavior) 😉 Next week we have plenty going on, so there’s no fear of the newly found domesticity continuing …. phew!

A spot of Sunday afternoon painting

You know when you just get the urge to do something? I had the overwhelming urge on Sunday afternoon to crack out my paints and have a go at painting the Europa Point lighthouse. I’ve tried to paint it a couple of times before and it’s just not worked out right. This time, I think it did.

More painting


The painting bug continued into Monday. The laundry was washed and I went to the supermarket but the bathroom didn’t get cleaned and neither did the floors – whoops! When the creative urge strikes, it’s a shame not to take advantage don’t you think? 😉

I tinkered with my lighthouse picture from the day before and had a bash at Catalan Bay (using a photo I took one evening as the sun was setting). This one is still a work-in-progress… I was also supposed to be doing a bit of sewing while the kids were at school – hence the sewing machine on the kitchen table. It made a good proper-upper for my pictures though!

Boats in the bay


This huge boat was anchored in the Bay and was lit up like a Christmas tree on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I love watching the boats in the bay out of the window and from our balcony. As a family we like to look up the most interesting looking ones on Marine Traffic to find out where they’ve come from. We have visitors from all the corners of the world mooring in front of our home! 

This was a drill ship registered in the Marshall Islands and it had travelled to Gibraltar from Amsterdam. 

Rainy weather


The autumn weather arrived in Gibraltar this week, the temperature dropped a bit and the rains came. There was a mad scramble on Thursday morning to dig out wellies and waterproofs ready for the school run. Normally I’d be better organised but the lovely Indian summer we’ve been enjoying had lulled me into a false sense of security!

Exploring new territory 

On Friday morning I got up raring to climb the Med Steps, but alas the weather scuppered my plans. I didn’t fancy slipping off the steep side of the Rock, so opted for a coastal walk instead. 

Last week, fellow Gibraltar blogger Brit on the Rock  posted a photo on Instagram of a view at Europa Point which I didn’t recognise. I asked her where she’d taken it from and here is where it was. It’s a place called the Europa foreshore and it’s part of the Gibraltar Nature Reserve. 

I stood looking out to sea and watched the next rain shower swiftly coming across the Straits towards me. It was fascinating to watch the clouds scudding across the sky and I was lost in the moment for a while before I suddenly realised that I needed to get a move on and head home before getting well and truly drenched!

An afternoon in Spain

Yesterday, the weather was much better and we headed across the border to Duquesa where some special people were waiting for us. My brother, his fiancée and her family had arrived for a short holiday the night before. We had a lovely long afternoon in the garden of the villa they’d rented for their stay. 

The Little Postcards played in the pool and we enjoyed a barbecue and lots of catching up. This was the magnificent view from the garden out towards the Mediterranean- just lovely.

We got this lovely view of the Rock on our way back home.

One more thing…

If you’re reading this in Gibraltar, and you have yet to purchase your Christmas cards, please consider supporting this very worthy cause. Babystepps is a very important charity supporting parents through early parenthood and pregnancy here in Gibraltar. Thank you 🙂


Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie at Threads & Bobbins blog. Pop over to her blog to find out how to join in.



Sunday Sevens #49 18.9.16

~ Making Stitches ~ 9 Comments

Bus stop crochet

This week has seen me with actual free time during the day as all three Little Postcards went to school for full days for five whole days. I can’t tell you what a difference that has made for me in terms of being able to get things done. The house has been cleaned, the ironing is up to date and I even managed to fit in a bit of crochet too. I’m working away on my #sixtymilliontrebles blanket and trying to do a little bit every day.

When it’s finished it will be added to many other blankets to make the biggest crochet blanket in the world which is being created to raise awareness for the sixty million refugees in the world today. It will then go on to be a blanket for someone who needs it either in the UK or Syria. For more information on the project look out for sixty million trebles on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Back to school for me

The time came this week for me to return to school myself. I’m now in my second year at the Dorcas Hammond Fashion Academy in Gibraltar. Last year it was all about skirts, this year I’m learning about tops and dresses. We hit the ground running this week with our first lesson in drawing our own pattern to make a vest top. It’s been interesting and challenging so far, although reassuring that I haven’t forgotten everything I’d learned last time!

Here comes the rain

If you’re a regular visitor to my blog, you may remember me banging on about the weather here in Gibraltar since we returned from our holiday in England in the summer. It’s been really unbearably hot with a scorcher of a heat wave. On Tuesday, the rain came in spectacular style with thunder and lightning and with it came cooler weather… what a relief!

Normal service is resumed…

Once the rain had cleared off the sun came back but with less ferocity. This is the kind of weather when it’s a pleasure to live here, clear blue skies and sunshine but actually being able to function without wilting and needing several showers a day! I took this photo on a walk by Rosia Bay on Thursday morning, it was just so blue and beautiful.

Back to painting class too

Another of my regular weekly classes started up again this week, my lovely, relaxing watercolour classes. Oh how I have missed these lessons over the long summer break. I had grand plans to paint when I was on holiday this year and managed to get to my destination with the correct paper but had forgotten to pack my paint and brushes! I had hoped to do a bit more painting during my Summer Craft Challenge, but as it requires a bit of space, time and equipment it didn’t really happen during the school holidays.

This week I finished off a watercolour of the Rock of Gibraltar and discussed some ideas about what my next project will be. I have been greatly inspired by our English seaside holiday this year, so hope to recapture that on paper soon. Whether it will look anything like I have in my head is another matter!

A Pokemon birthday

We have been celebrating a birthday again in the Postcard household this week. I was given a design brief of the Deathstar from Star Wars for the cake. After Googleing images of Death Star birthday cakes, I soon came to the conclusion that it may be slightly beyond my skill set. As Pokemon is currently on trend in our house I figured I couldn’t go too far wrong with a Pokeball cake instead. It went down very well with the birthday boy and tasted ok too. Everyone was happy and that’s another party out of the way – phew!

Bumper harvest


Here’s something to make you allotment holders and veg patch devotees chuckle… This year we treated ourselves to a fig tree, they grow like weeds here. There’s one at the end of our road which is cut back to a stump every year to stop it overhanging the road, and every year it grows back as big as ever and is laden with fruit.

Our little tree which is no more than a metre tall had about a dozen fruit on it earlier in the summer. ‘Not bad for the first year’ I thought. I watched the largest fruit swell to the size you see in the supermarket but it looked a little under ripe to pick. A day later, it was perfect – so perfect the ants had invaded and were devouring it.

What a shame – but never mind there were still plenty of others to have a go at. Each time I was on the patio hanging out washing I noticed that the remaining figs were growing fewer in number everytime I looked. Either something or someone had been pilfering our figs – they hadn’t fallen off as there was no sign anywhere in the garden of the fruit.

Yesterday while doing the laundry I spotted we had just two left on the tree, so I picked them – that way we can at least taste them when they ripen (I hope they ripen ok when they are picked!). It’s a mystery as to what’s happened to the rest of our crop… and to think I had envisioned making all sorts of recipes with our home grown figs. They are a rather puny couple of specimens, but at least they have done zero food miles 😉

 

Thank you for joining me for Sunday Sevens again this week, it’s been lovely to have your company!

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie at Threads & Bobbins

 

 

Sunday Sevens #12 3.1.16

~ Making Stitches ~ 15 Comments

Moody weather

 At the start of the week, as we watched news coverage of the terrible flooding across the north of England we were still basking in pretty mild but cloudy weather. My heart goes out to those affected, with family and friends in Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire I have followed the news and hoped that all of their homes have stayed flood free. So far, I’m pleased to say they have, although one friend went 36 hours without power and the flood waters came into her cul-de-sac but stopped before reaching her place. How awful for those who didn’t escape the effects. The above photo features a Royal Navy ship leaving Gibraltar during a rather oddly coloured sunset on Monday. 
Rain comes to Gibraltar   
Back in October we had a pretty wet spell ourselves which brought with it a rather dramatic landslide  this post has the details. Back then I discovered my wellies had perished and sprung a leak over the summer so I ended up wearing flip-flops with my waterproofs. I got one or two odd looks and comments that it was obvious I must be English (not local) as I’m a bit mad. After a week or so of splashing about in flip-flops I went crazy and bought some posh wellies – to much ridicule from Mr Postcard along the lines of  ‘this is Gibraltar not Glastonbury’. Then the rain stopped, for two months, until Tuesday. I unwrapped my new wellies with relish and jumped in a few puddles (you’re never to old for that I reckon!).

Commonwealth Park looking festive  I was lucky enough to be able to sneak out one evening and watch the new Star Wars film. I can’t do it justice, so won’t give a review – I liked it, a lot. En-route to the cinema I took a stroll through Commonwealth Park. I’ve driven past at night and seen the lights but this was the first time I’d seen it up close. I thought it looked fab.

Hard Rock Café, Puerto Banús  
We escaped and dashed along the coast for a few days over New Year.  First night found us at the Hard Rock Café where the kids were bemused at the old fashioned rock music playing on the screens. No 1 son asked whether Oasis had been in the charts when I was growing up! The previous night he had watched a TV programme about the 1950s and thought the music in that was from my youth… not much difference between that and Oasis. How do their brains work when it comes to recent history?!

Year’s end in Nueva Andalucía 

  We were blessed with beautiful weather over new year, and found a peaceful spot little to recharge our batteries. Well, it was peaceful before we arrived ;-).

New Year’s Day walk 

 The glorious weather continued into January and on New Year’s Day we went for a lovely walk along the beach footpath from Puerto Banús towards Marbella. We had long sleeves on but there were some people in trunks etc sunbathing on the beach… on January 1st… in the northern hemisphere, can’t get my head round that!

I was so brave!!! 

 After the entire Postcard clan had posed for photos ‘wearing’ moths at the Benalmádena Butterfly Park, it looked as though I had to overcome my reservations and have a go too. I’m not great with creepy crawlies in general and while I loved watching the butterflies fliting about us on our visit, the thought of having one ON me was a big deal! I’ll have many more photos about this in my next post…

Sunday Sevens is a blog series featuring seven photos from the past seven days. It was created by Natalie at Threads & Bobbins pop along to her blog to find out more. Thanks for stopping by 🙂 and Happy New Year!

Sunday Sevens #4

~ Making Stitches ~ 2 Comments

Time flies when you’re having fun, I can’t believe this is my forth installment of the Sunday Sevens series. I have linked up with Natalie at Threads and Bobbins to let you see what I’ve been up to during the past week. There was no watercolour class to share this week and my dressmaking class didn’t offer up any exciting photos so I’m craft free this week in Sunday Sevens.

1 Let’s go fly a kite

Last Sunday, we all jumped into the car and headed off up the coast to just outside Estepona. We had a great family day out visiting my brother and his fiancée who had just flown over to stay for a long weekend with her family at a beautiful villa right on the seafront. My boys absolutely loved playing in the huge garden there, and spent most of the day tearing around the enormous lawn. Although the weather wasn’t perfect, it didn’t dampen our spirits, the windy conditions were perfect for kite flying. We were also able to handover the frog & fox hats I’d been working on for a few weeks.

2 More rain!

The wet, autumnal weather of the last few weeks has continued here in Gibraltar. Thankfully it hasn’t been as wet as it was last week and the landslide I mentioned in my rainy weather post has been cleared up and the road reopened thanks to some frantic work. The rain brought this little chap out and was a focus of much attention on the school run by my own little bug hunter. He was fascinated by the snail, and we had to look out for him each day to see if he was still there, sadly he has moved on…

3 Lunch with a view 

I went for lunch with my parents to the Eroski supermarket café one day this week and had front row seats for the activities going on at the airport. We sat out on the roof of the supermarket and watched the comings and goings. This photo shows the EasyJet to Gatwick taking off and for those of you not familiar with Gibraltar and it’s unique airport arrangements, it also illustrates how the main road from the Rock to the border with Spain bisects the airport runway. The traffic is brought to a standstill with traffic lights and barriers each time a plane needs to take off or land. Well, almost each time, my in-laws were once on a plane which was forced to pull up at the last minute and take a brief detour as the pilot saw traffic still on the runway as he was coming in to land! That, thankfully, is a very rare occurrence.

4 Sunset at the marina

One evening this week, I found myself walking through Queensway Quay marina at sunset. It was really lovely and I couldn’t resist taking a photo.

5 Ocean Village Marina 

Another of Gibraltar’s marinas is Ocean Village, it’s the largest and busiest. I walked through on my mission to buy some more school uniform ready for the soon to come winter weather and thought it looked glorious in the afternoon sunshine.

6 Street art

This beautiful wooden sculpture appeared outside a frame shop in Gibraltar this week. The shop is called Face Frames, so it perfectly illustrates the name don’t you think? How refreshing to see something so beautiful to advertise a shop instead of the usual neon or plastic signage. It sits right at the end of a road off Main Street and has instantly become a landmark, dominating the end of the street. I love it!

6 Hallowe’en

Now, if you read my previous post Trick or Treat? Hallowe’en – bah Humbug!, you might find this photo a surprise. I am not quite the old misery I perhaps made out, so when my boys asked if we could carve a pumpkin, I couldn’t say no. Here’s our very simple effort. With more time I would have liked to make a more intricate carving but time didn’t allow. (The face was designed by my 8 year old, he wanted a cheeky face, not a scary one :-)).

7 Midterm getaway

  

It’s midterm in Gibraltar now, school broke up on Friday. We decided to go away for a few days so yesterday we reluctantly said goodbye to my parents who have been here for the last couple of weeks, we packed up the car and drove a short distance along the Costa del Sol to just outside Marbella.  This magnificent palm tree is right outside our home for the next few days. 

I believe strong winds and rain are lashing Gibraltar this morning, luckily for us the bad weather hasn’t followed us here. 
Have a great week all of you. 

Sunday Sevens #3

~ Making Stitches ~ 12 Comments

Hello there, I hope you have had a great week. It’s been a fab one for me as I have had all my nearest and dearest close by. My parents flew over at the start of the week followed by my brother and his lovely fiancée. It’s been wonderful. So here goes, here’s my Sunday Sevens for this week:

1 The wet stuff


Blimey, we haven’t half seen some rain here in Gibraltar this week. The start of the week brought with it autumnal deluges. I rather stupidly stopped to take this photo of a normally busy Main Street on Monday morning en-route to my art class, I thought it quite entertaining that the gardener who’d been giving the trees a haircut had just downed tools and scarpered as soon as the rain came. I should have done the same, as moments later, it got really heavy and I ended up looking like I’d been for a swim fully clothed! The raincoat which stands up to English & Scottish rain was no good – full plastic wet weather gear is the only option I’m afraid!

2 Watercolour class

 

I’m rather pleased with this one. It was kind of copied from an illustration in one of my teacher’s art books but I’m pretty sure it’s not an anatomically correct poppy. I don’t think the leaves are quite right but I like it none the less.

3 Collecting visitors

  

I can’t tell you how much I look forward to my parents arriving for a visit. When we lived in the UK, although we were living in different counties, we saw each other most weeks. The biggest draw back about living here in Gibraltar is being so far away from family. It was so exciting to watch their plane land and meet them at the airport this week. 

4 Tropical blooms

  

I always smile when these gorgeous frangipani flowers appear each year on Queensway, here in Gibraltar. They remind me of a trip we took to Thailand a few years ago. It was a great trip and I remember seeing these ‘in the flesh’ back then and thinking they looked so perfect. I’ve seen many artificial versions since then, but you can’t beat the real thing.

5 Grab the chance when you can!

I’ve been frantically busy this week and have been working towards a deadline for what I’ve been knitting. It’s going to be a gift and needed to be ready by today. That meant that in any spare moments between appointments and commitments, I had to shoehorn in a bit of knitting time. I succeeded in getting a few rows in during a football training session this week. I got a few odd looks from a couple of the Dads there along the lines of “who’s the weirdo with the knitting?” but I don’t care!

6 Super sunset

If you follow me on Twitter (@postcardfromgib) or Instagram (@postcardfromgibraltar), you might be aware of my fixation of taking photos of sunsets. We experienced an absolutely stunning sunset on Thursday evening and just wanted to share it with you, even though it’s a bit grainy.

7 Saturday night out 

 
Having visitors gave me the perfect excuse to have a lovely evening out. I had a great meal in Queensway Quay with my Mum & Dad last night. Mr Postcard stayed home with the boys which meant we were able to have a good chat without interruptions! Lovely food and lovely company, a perfect Saturday night out!
  

Rain, rain go away!

~ Making Stitches ~ 10 Comments

It’s been a bit wet here in Gibraltar this week. Autumn has well and truly arrived! We’ve had some major deluges and thunder storms which have caused chaos for many.

There have been floods AND a landslide!

This photo is courtesy the Government of Gibraltar and shows how the retaining wall below the Rock Hotel collapsed and sent a huge amount of earth and trees across one of Gibraltar’s major routes, Europa Road (read more about it on  Your Gibraltar TV). 

   

This was the scene this morning. It’s big job, the authorities are hoping to have the road reopened to two-way traffic by Monday.

 

Elsewhere in Gibraltar there was severe flooding on Queensway which also made travel by car or bus erm, rather interesting. 

  

We had a rather gloomy start to the week all round. Soggy school runs (you just know the really heavy showers always coincide with a lunchtime or afternoon pick-up), wet washing you just can’t dry (central heating is non-existent in Gibraltar therefore there are no radiators to toast your damp socks on!) and interesting fashion choices (waterproof trousers & coat worn with flip flops).

 
 
I know that a couple of weeks ago I was waxing lyrical about the rain and how refreshing it was after a long, hot summer but I’m kind of over that fascination!

Blue sky, come back please!

  

Please!!!

  

Oh that’s better, thank you! It’s so lovely to see you again.

  

And of course blue sky and sunshine = sunsets….

   

What a corker we had last night, I think you’ll agree that it was stunning. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a great weekend!

Sunday Sevens #1

~ Making Stitches ~ 14 Comments

IMG_8900

Over the past few weeks I have noticed a few of the blogs I follow are taking part in a series called Sunday Sevens. It’s a perfect medium to give a brief round up of your week in the form of seven photos and a few words about each of them. The idea was first devised by Natalie at threadsandbobbims.com What a good idea – I have been inspired!  So here goes with my very first Sunday Sevens…

1 Watercolour class

IMG_8750

As, I imagine, is the case with many craft loving folk, my desire to make stuff on a day to day basis is usually thwarted by everyday life and even when I have a quiet few minutes to myself there’s always that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that I really should put the washing out or get the dinner on. However, since my boys started back on full-days at school in mid September a rather lovely routine has developed for me on my early weekday mornings. Mondays mean watercolour class, this week we did a workshop on flowers one of which is above. I painted a butterfly a couple of weeks ago but didn’t know what it should sit on, perhaps a daisy-like bloom like the one above?

2 Dressmaking class

IMG_8780

Tuesday mornings now mean dressmaking class. Apologies for the uninspiring picture to illustrate it, but I am just practicing the waist band of a skirt before making it up for real. I learned a bit of dressmaking at school and have had a few botched attempts since but I’m very pleased to be taught by a very talented lady with years of teaching and dressmaking behind her. I’ll tell you more about her when I have a bit more to show for my efforts! I’m pleased with my neat seams though.

3 After-school activity bustle

IMG_8828

Wednesday was busy and not at all creative, but my youngest and I stopped to have a laugh at our long legged shadows while rushing to collect one of his siblings from an after-school activity!

4 Knitting

IMG_8890

Despite learning knitting before crochet, I’m not much of a knitter. I find it much harder to follow knitting patterns and drop stitches from needles in between knitting sessions. Tension is also a problem for me, so all in all it’s not usually my craft of choice. I dusted off my needles on Thursday though as I have a fab pattern I want to make up for a gift for someone special. Depending on how much like the pattern it is, I may or may not share my finished item with you ;-).

5 Leisurely breakfast

IMG_8832

On Friday I had a rare day free of any appointments or obligations – it was lovely! Time for a breakfast of Pan Tumaca (crushed tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and salt & pepper on a toasted roll) alongside a large cappuccino – bliss!

6 A cosy Saturday night in

IMG_8778

It rained yesterday evening, which was really great for the plants and for us as we were all indoors (less so for those braving the elements). It made for a lovely autumnal atmosphere as we settled down to watch Strictly. I snuggled under my cosy stripe blanket (using the wool pack and pattern from Attic 24), Mr Postcard cooked up his speciality chilli using his homegrown chilli peppers and red peppers. It was just perfect!

7 Feeling Misty

IMG_0026

Today we woke up to mist and rain, it was lovely! I’m saying that because we’ve not seen weather like this for such a long time and when we were out in it, we caught the dry gap between showers. With a bit of imagination, we could almost have been in the Lake District or the Scottish Highlands (I did say almost). After a very hot summer and autumn so far, I’m embracing the cooler weather, it reminds me so much of home. Perhaps I won’t be so up beat if it continues for several weeks/months, but for now I’m enjoying it. I’m off now to dig out the wellies and waterproofs ready for tomorrow morning’s school run. Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!