The fair is even better than I thought. It turns out that there’s 100 stalls of non-edible craft work, (although some exhibitors have half a stand) and 20 of food and drink. The non-edible stuff includes lots of embroidery, crochet, tatting, leather work, felting, traditional folk dress, wooden boxes and bowls, notebooks and photo albums made of banana paper, paper and glass beads, wrought iron work, several very different styles…
The annual craft fair is now on in Los Cancajos. It’s a big event: there’s usually something like 80 stall holders displaying all kindsof crafts. Lots of embroidery and baskets, but also modern ceramics, tin smiths, candles, hand-made paper, pastries and buiscuits, liqueurs, jewelry made from dragon tree seeds, lava, or hand-made glass beads, painted silk, etc. Today, Thursday 15th, is a public holiday, and I’ve heard that the fair…
The patron saint of Barlovento is Our Lady of the Rosary (la Virgen del Rosario). The Christian victory at the battle of Lepanto in 1571 is attributed to her, soevery two years, Barlovento stages a re-enactment of the battle as part of the annual fiesta. This year, it happens on Sunday 11th at 6 pm. Here’s the fun part: the original sea-battle involved 80,000 men, and the re-enactment consists of…
The William Herschel Telescope at sunset. . The William Herschel Telescope was for many years the biggest and best optical telescope in Europe (until GranTeCan opened in 2009). The main mirror is 4.2 m across (165″, or 13′ 9″) which astronomers call “a good light bucket”. It’s rather old as world-class telescopes go, since it opened in 1987, but it still produced excellent science. In fact data from the WHT…
Are you eating? Because you’d probably prefer to read the next bit when you’re not. I made a big cake for my husband’s belated birthday party which I’d planned to decorate with “Felicidades” in chocolate letters. Only I opened the packet of letters and found – (You’re not eating, are you?) Maggots. About 10 of them. Yuck! Eugh! Gak! I’m quite a bit less squeamish than average, but believe me,…