Back with sanguinity!

I haven't written a post for a long time now. Life didn't run smoothly in the first month of this year. Most of the time I felt ill, drained and exhausted. I didn't get rid of the aftermaths of the flue. I got a couple of other inflammations, had to go to the doctors several times and I couldn't find any strength. I felt like a sick rabbit who wants to creep in his burrow to be not seen or heard until ... yes until when? Until better times come maybe.

I hate to complain partly because I know there are so many people who are having a much rougher ride. And I hate to complain because 

I HATE BEING SICK!!! 

It's driving me cuckoo. 

That's why I stopped blogging, I just couldn't  find any words worth writing. There was nothing for me to say. I had a hard time to cope with daily life. But it didn't stop me from crocheting though. To grab a needle and some nice, colourful yarn felt like a relief and while working up my stitches I temporarily forgot about all sorrow. I did some nice little things in candy colours, something springlike that really soothed my mind.

 

And then after Easter our holiday began. And it's been a wonderful, gorgeous, phantasmagorical holiday! We went to the small Canarian island of La Gomera for almost 2 weeks and within a few days I felt so much better. The weather was gorgeous, about 20 to 24 degrees, the sun was almost always shining and the air felt light and warm. We soon forgot what day or time it was, we went swimming and hiking and strolling around small villages.

Here are a full load of pictures, sorry for that but every time I look at them I feel so happy and thankful that I would love to show you all of our more than 500 pictures we have taken!

To get to La Gomera you have to take the plane to Tenerife and from there you take the ferry to San Sebastian de La Gomera. On the above picture you see Tenerife with the highest mountain, Pico de Teide.

 This is the small town of San Sebastian where all the ferries land. But we had to continue our travel by bus to the wonderful steep valley on the other side of the island - Valle Gran Rey.

 

The Atlantic ocean there is wild and rough, the waves are strong and the play of colours is magical. If you look over the ocean you may see all different shades of blue, I wish that I could be able to dye yarn in this wonderful seawater.

 My children loved to go swimming in these powerful, head-high waves.

 

 One day we took part in a whale watching tour and we saw lots of pilot whales. But it is so difficult to get a good picture! The boat is rocking and the whales are really fast.

 We had lovely food, I especially loved the ripe avocados there. They taste so much better than the ones you can buy here. We even saw avocados hanging on a tree!

 

And the Canarian bananas are delicious, as well. They are much smaller than our usual ones and the taste is better. 

 

There is a speciality that is merely produced on La Gomera, the Miel de Palma, palm tree honey. It is a liquid brown honey that is sweet and really, really nice on pancakes. One day we accidentally saw a palm tree that produced the honey. The interesting thing about this honey is that you can only harvest it when it is dark. The palm liquid is spoiled when touching light. 

 And we went hiking, as well. La Gomera is a paradise for hikers. There are so many well signposted trails that it is difficult to decide which trail to choose. The children loved the trail following a brook bed through trees, palms and bamboo. It included quite a bit of climbing, as well.

 I especially loved the trails through the Laurissilva forest, a thick green leaf forest. This forest is not green from rain, instead, it catches the moist carried with the trade winds, which blow from the humid north. The funny thing is that it can often be quite cold and humid, even rainy in this forest and on the Northern part of La Gomera and when you get back (and down!) to the Southern coastline the weather is sunny, dry and warm. 

This is the Pico de Teide of Tenerife again. When the skies are clear and blue you have a fantastic view to the other Canarian islands Tenerife, La Palma and El Hierro.

  

 

La Gomera has been a place for us to relax, to enjoy nature, to find silence and to dance with the Atlantic waves on beaches with black volcanic sand. We spent a most blissful and happy time there and we surely will come back one day.

That's it for today, I hope you are not too exhausted by this overload of pictures. I don't know when I will come back here, I have to go to hospital again next week but as soon as possible I will write the next blog entry about my finished rainbow ripple blanket. I' m so happy, happy, happy with it!

I hope you are well and happy and have lots of nice things going on.

Big hugs,

Viola

  

February vexations

My children and I had the influenza. It caught us out of nowhere. We were all
knocked out for 5 days with high temperatures, headaches, cough and pain in the limbs. Now the fever has gone but we are TIRED, having pudding instead of muscles around our bones. 

It is difficult to manage the daily chores, even having a shower requires lots of energy. But it will get better and J is our hero, he stayed okay and brought us tea and medicine and everything that was required. For several days I couldn't even crochet, my head was to heavy. But then I started again, choosing thick felting yarn out of my stock (hooray!) to make another hot water bottle cover because my old felted one had a hole.  

 Do you remember my first hottie? 

I made it for my mum as a birthday gift. The yarn I used was pure cotton yarn and this time I wanted to use pure wool.

So I chose an undyed yarn and with hooking needle 8 I had crocheted the body in no time. The head is a ripple pattern and it is really chunky. There is just no possibility to touch the rubber of the hottie accidentally!

 I love my lovely hottie!

  In this picture I wear a pair of wrist warmers I crocheted a few weeks ago. I do like this winter accessory a lot because my arms are too long for ordinary women's clothes. Most shirts and coats are made for women with shorter arms and I always feel cold around the wrists. Wrist warmers are just the accessory for me! Want to have a closer look at these ones?

As I look at this picture I realise that both items have a cross stitch on their front. Yes, I do like cross stitch on crocheted items a lot at the moment. Though I do not like to cross stitch though. But the effect is always very nice that why I pull myself together.

I will finish this post now. I am exhausted and my hottie is waiting for me on the sofa. 

Don't come near the influenza virus! It's no fun, not at all. But if it already hit you as well, take your hottie and join me on the sofa. 

A Sunday walk 'im Treppenviertel'

Last weekend my young sister (she is just 24 years old!) and her boyfriend spent four lovely days here with us. It was so nice to have them around! We talked for hours, drinking tea or coffee, munching delicious food and playing 'The legends of Andor', one of our favourite parlour games at the moment.

Saturday was a fairly sunny day here in Northern Germany and we decided to do some Hamburg sightseeing. We went to one of the most beautiful districts of Hamburg, Blankenese. It is a district that is situated directly on the bank of the River Elbe. Here live the beautiful people! You will notice it immediately when you reach Blankenese. You are welcomed by villas surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens.  

And in the middle of this district there is the sweet 'Treppenviertel' (stairways district). Many narrow paths are just made of staircases and they are often named after someone who has once been the owner of a piece of ground there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking up and down these staircases always feels a bit like being on holiday. We admired beautiful views, tiny houses, small gardens...

a beautiful door...

or a funny sign in a window (when too perfect dear God angry').

There are so many details worth exploring there. But it is quite an exhausting trip if you really want to sneak into every nook and corner. It's worth it yet!

When we took a break to recover our breaths, we were  rewarded by beautiful views of the houses and the Elbe.

 

Needless to say that we rewarded ourselves with a nice cup of coffee and a cake...

  sitting outside of one of the most tiny cafes called 'Treppenkrämer' (staircase monger). 

When walking around the 'Treppenviertel' we're always magically gravitated towards the Elbe. It's just a river but it feels like the sea. You can take long walks on the riverbank and if you are lucky big container vessels or cruise liners pass by.

I hope I didn't overwhelm you with this load of pictures. The 'Treppenviertel' is such a lovely place on this planet and if you are in Hamburg don't hesitate to go there. 

I hope you all have a fine week, 

Viola

A cheer for a warm and cosy poncho!

I finally finished my poncho. The crocheting was done already last week, but I knew that I had to block the edging and I hate to do it. So the poncho was lying around, sadly asking why I didn't wear him (her or it?, I don't know yet). So on Sunday and Monday I felt a flush of determination, took all my T-pins and the iron and started to block one section of the edging after the other. 

And now this is it. Finished while I am in need of it - usually I finish a winter work in summer and the other way round. But this time I am lucky, delighted, successful, glad, cheerful, happy and 

SMILING!

But enough of words:

 The poncho fits my red boots, doesn't it?

Sorry for these bad pictures of me. But I always look like a nerd on pictures. Hopefully not in real life...

 

Some of you asked what my edging would be like as I didn't want the fringes. I thought a lot about this question the last couple of weeks. I had seen how Lucy of attic24 had made her edging and I liked it a lot. So I did almost the same but with some variation. First of all I didn't do the last couple of granny stripes in my main colour. But only because I was so absorbed into crocheting the stripes that I didn't realise that the poncho was already long enough. I had reached row 30 - always alternating colours - and I didn't want to get it any longer. So I kept my edging quite short: 

3 rows of single crochet (sc, in UK: dc), the first in grey purple, the second in deep red, and the third again in deep purple. Then I did two rows of chain loops and the last row I used wave-like stitches as follows: 

Slip stitch into first space to begin. Chain 2, then 1 sc, chain 2, 2 sc in the same chain space. *In the next chain space 1 sc, then again 2 sc, chain 2, 2sc*. I repeated between ** until I got back where I started.

This morning I started cleaning the house, and yes , it was really needed. I wiped the floor and did some washing. And afterwards, as a kind of reward, I bought myself some flowers.

Some white daisies that I planted in a Valentine's crochet jar. Daisies are called 'Tausendschön' in German, I do like this name a lot, it might be translated as "a thousand beauty". They are really beautiful, aren't they?

 Do you see my cleaning bucket in the back? That doesn't look very nice. So here's a picture without it, much better...

and I couldn't resist buying some narcissi, too...

and some tulips...

and a white hyacinth. I will make another hearty cover for this jar, as well. And then the hyacinth will join my 'Tausendschön'. They will get along with each other very nicely. 

Thanks a lot for your nice comments on my last posts. Your warm and encouraging words fill my heart with joy and comfort. And a warm welcome to my new followers, of course. I will have a look at your blogs - as long as you have one - as soon as possible.

This night my younger sister and her boyfriend will visit us for the first time since they are together. She lives more that 400 km away, so I am happy that they finally have found time to come. They will stay until Sunday and I am sure that we will have a super-duper time.

Take care of yourselves, Viola