WOYWW 356

Good Morning dear 'deskers'. It's Wednesday again and that's when we bare all when it comes to our workdesks. Warts and all.
Well mine is full of warts so to speak:

We have been away for a week and it is an unholy mess!

The open book is my tangle journal which I brought with me on holiday. I did a few pages as you can see. It's this book:

I love the idea of the book and the tasks/challenges/excercises. But the quality of the paper is not good and the ink bleeds through the page. Look:

The left hand page has the pattern from the previous page showing through. Not good...

I sometimes participate in Traveling Notebooks. One from a girl in France arrived the day before we left on our holiday. Today I made a start by printing some photos.

I got allocated several pages in which to write something about myself, my village and a local recipe. Then I send it to the next person. There will be about 10 people on the list from different countries and eventually the girl in France will get an interesting book back. 

There are some Postcrossing postcards there that shouldn't really be in the photo but fortunately the address is not visible.

I have been doing some decoupage too at the campsite. I found this book with everything in it to make a card. Ideal for the holidays.

I will leave you with this postcard:

Yes, I know, Easter has been and gone.... but I thought these eggs were so beautifully decorated that I wanted to share them with you. (The card came from Poland).

Wishing you all a happy WOYWW and a fab week to follow,
Blessings,
Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Friday 4 Dec 2015 Friday Smiles

Good Morning! Are you having a good day? Are you smiling today?

I'm linking up with Annie for Friday Smiles, so think of all the positiveness in your life and count your blessings and share them here with us.

I've had a good week. The weather here is still sunny every day although the temperatures are down at night, I can still sit outside in the sun and that makes me happy.

The highlight for me this week was yesterday when I joined a friend from church to make bread. Most people here have land although they live in the town or village. The land usually has a house on it that people use to relax or for holidays and of course when they work the land. My friend's name is Juanita, and in her place in the country she has an old fashioned oven (which is on my wishlist of things I would like) and with two more girls we made 20 loaves of bread.

Here she is building up a fire in the oven to heat it up for the next batch.

And here below she has just made some almond meringue type cup cakes. Very clever as the oven must not be too hot. They turned out perfect. I like a meringue with a bit of chewyness in the middle.

Our new bedroom is nearing completion and we hope to be able to sleep in there on Saturday. The electrician hasn't quite finished and my husband  needs to grout the tiles, and place the toilet.

Also this week my Tangle it! Journal has arrived! (I already wrote this on my Tuesday blog), but here it is:

Then on Wednesday morning my copy of the Flow Book for Paperlovers arrived too! I'm in seventh (paper) heaven!

 Can you read what it says? "More than 300 pages of paper goodies. *mini cards *postman paper doll * pop-up house * glitter postcards *wrapping paper *folding houses *coloring pages *craft paper *posters *stickers *and so much more!"

Here is their website and here is the link for the Youtube flipthrough. Do have a look.

Now for my postcard:

It's from my collection of WW2 motivational posters. During the Second World War people were encouraged in the US as well as in Britain, to make do and mend. There was no manufacturing, so new clothes were not available. 

When Kansas Wheat realized that women were sewing children's clothes out of their old sacks, they started to use sacks with pretty patterns.

Isn't that great! This is a photo from 1939. I found it on the internet. 

That's enough for today. I hope I have made you smile today. 

I'm also linking in with Virginia at Rocking your world Friday.

Have a good positive week,

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Tuesday 1 Dec 2015 - T for Champagne

Good Morning Bloggers!

It's Tuesday again and I will link up with Elizabeth at T for Tuesday. Please join us. All you have to do is have something drink related in your post (I bet you have a mug on your desk and that will do).

My drink related things are postcards of champagne making. The following postcards are from my grandmother's collection. She traveled a lot in Europe after WW2 and her cards are all from the late nineteen forties to the early sixties. 
This card shows the pressing room at Moet & Chandon.

Moet & Chandon is one of the world's largest champagne producers and a prominent champagne house in Epernay, France.

After primary fermentation and bottling, a second alcoholic fermentation occurs in the bottle. This second fermentation is induced by adding yeast and sugar. During this time the champagne bottle is sealed with a bottle top like the ones used for beer bottles.
The bottles are then placed in racks called 'pulpitres' .

After ageing, the lees (dead yeast and residual particles) must be consolidated for removal. The bottles undergo a process known as 'riddling' (French: remuage). Every two days the bottles are given a slight shake and turn, alternatively on right then left, and dropped back into the pulpitres, with the angle slightly increased. The drop back into the rack causes a slight tap, pushing sediments towards the neck of the bottle. In 8 to 10 weeks the position of bottle is straight down, with the sediment settled in the neck.

Le Remueur (1889), engraving of a man engaged in the laborious daily task of turning each bottle a fraction.

The lees removal process is called 'disgorging'. Modern automated disgorgement is done by freezing a small amount of the liquid in the neck and removing this plug of ice containing the sediment.

I have seen photos on Trip Adviser of the cellars and they don't look any different to these.

On a personal note: our house is coming on fine. We now have a back door:

Since we took the photo we have made a threshold and covered the gap at the top.

This space, now occupied by building materials, will be the car port. The door opens up to a long staircase  down that connects all four floors.
This is what it looks like on the other side:

The back door is not visible on this photo as it's on the other side. We have a magnificent view from our house.

I finally have my Tangle it! Journal. It nearly took a month to arrive but i have it now!

I have started tangling on the first page. This book is going in my handbag when we travel (we're going to Holland on the 21st) as it is ideal to while away waiting time.

That's it from me for today. Have a great T-Day and see you tomorrow for WOYWW.

Blessings,

Lisca

WOYWW 328 - total mess, totally tangled and some observatories on a mountain.

Good morning! 

Do you really want to see the mess on my desk? Well, if you insist....

On the left are two postcards I am writing, and there is one I have received with lots of writing on it. On the right, on top of my colorful laptop, is a little book about Zentangling by Sandy Steen Bartholomew, which arrived in the post today. Shoshi is having some of her art published in one of Sandy's books (not this one). I'm looking forward to trying out several tangles, as we are going away this afternoon in our campervan for a few days. I will have plenty of time (I hope).

Panning to the right... there is a layout I am working on. Next to my coffee cup are some blackboard stickers I got yesterday. And in the bottom right corner is a box with postcards, as I was writing postcards when I took the photo. I have to finish writing them as they need to be posted this morning. The piece of paper next to the mouse is info about solar water heaters to put on the roof. We need to buy one next week.

Last night we went to the Calar Alta observatories not far from here. My daughter and grandson, who are coming over soon, want to watch the red moon (at the end of the month) through our little telescope from the top of the mountain. We thought we'd take the campervan up for that occasion, but we have now seen that it is much too steep and long for the 'old girl'. So it will be  a car and a tent I suppose. (Note to self: buy tent on the way to the airport...)

There are five observatories plus laboratories and residential buildings etc. Quite a complex!

There is a modern sundial outside one of them. As we have summer time it is one hour 'out'. It was 7pm when we were there.

And the view was stunning!

The altitude is 2100m or 7000ft. I thought it would be cold and had brought my cardigan, but i didn't really need it. The weather was glorious.

Hope you enjoyed another little glimpse of my particular corner of Spain. And if you were wondering what all this desk peeking is all about, go to Julia's Stamping Ground and all will be explained.

Have a fantastic week everyone,

Blessings,

Lisca

WOYWW 326 desk and building update

Good morning! 
This week has flown by! We always say that don't we. I think the older you get, the faster time flies!

I'm extra excited today as we are going away in our camper van later in the morning. We will have dinner (at about 2pm) in a nice restaurant on the way. So no cooking for me today.

This is my desk this morning before I prepare stuff to take with me to the camper.

 I had printed out some photos of my grandson and I was experimentally laying them on the 12x12 paper. In the background you can see the provisional shelving. There is a thermos of ice cold drink and the yellow book on the left is my Spanish dictionary which I'm using less and less now that I am more fluent.

By my dictionarey are a few pieces of printed paper left over from the lay out that i finished this weekend:

The piece of Kraft paper sticking out from under the layout is my attempt to a zentangle that I saw on Shoshi's page recently.

The house build is coming on nicely. Here is a photo of our house from a distance. I've tried to annotate it, I hope it's not too small. 

The entrance to the cave house is by the vine. That is a small court yard and the main entrance is there. The cave house itself obviously is not visible as it is built inside the 'mountain'. Where it says 'roof terrace', is the roof of the cave, which has earth so I'm growing plants as you can see. The terrace is also the street level at the back. The apartment at the bottom is not finished. We park our car there at the moment. That apartment is all on one level so that is for when we are old and grey.... The apartment at the top will hopefully be ready at Christmas. That one has an upstairs bedroom. I don't mind at the moment as we are both fit and well, thank the Lord.

I'm linking up with Whats on your workdesk Wednesday, organised by Julia. Want to know more? Go to her blog:http://www.stamping-ground.blogspot.com.es/

Have a good week everyone and I will try to visit as many of you as I can, but I usually take all week to get through the list as I love reading and looking and clicking on what you are all doing.

Blessings,

Lisca

PS... Look what I just found!

Those of you who read my WOYWW post last week will know that I had lost a little birdie. I've just this minute found it! (on my desk, which I have turned upside down... don't ask me...)

WOYWW 321 beach, envelopes and creepy crawly

Hi deskers,

It's good to be back. We've been on holiday for a few days last week to the coast. (we must be mad! There's a heatwave here!) My hubby fancied a dip in the sea (turned out to be bath water temperature!)
We know a little beach where we can park right at the beach.

As you can see, it's not very busy.

But you're here to see my desk:

I've finally started scrapbooking again! I have a deadline to do a scrapbook for my grandson's 10th birthday in October.
I'm also participating in a envelope exchange so I've been decorating envelopes. In fact I made my own out of 12 x 12 paper and then doodled/zentangled the shapes.

Here is a close up of the envelopes ready to send:

Now to finish off another creepy crawly (look away if you're squeamish)

I found this dead chappie outside on the terrace lying on its back. What a beauty! Again, I have no idea what it is, but it's impressive.

That's it from me today. I'll try to visit as many people as I can. If you're reading this and don't know what I'm on about, go to Julia's blog where it is all explained: http://www.stamping-ground.blogspot.com.es/

Have a great week everyone,

Lisca