Oh the other hand when I downloaded the day’s photos, I got a nice surprise. I spent the morning in Franceses with my friends, Helen and Theresa. On the way there, I finally took the time to walk on the new bridge at Los Sauces. It’s true, you get a much better view that way. Here’s the shadow of the bridge on the valley beneath. And I had another session…
I’ve just received a UK tax return to fill in. I left the UK for Spain in December 1990, 16 and a half years ago. True, I was officially a UK civil servant while I worked for the observatory here, but I left that job in October 2002. I sold my UK house soon after that. So for teh last FIVE YEARS my UK income consists on one savings account…
I’ve had a productive day. As soon as I dropped my son off at his school, I went to the one where I used to work as an English Classroom Assistant until June last year. Everyone was delighted to see me, wihch was very touching. I stayed for the first class, which was the five-year-olds. I’d forgotten how many calories you burn teaching infants. It’s not a major workout, but…
Today is Mother’s Day in Spain, which is a relatively recent thing. In fact the first place in the country to have it was the village I live in, San Jose de Brena Baja. The custom was started by a local writer, Felix Duarte, who emigrated to South America very young (fifteen, I think) and sent a lot of letters back to his mother. When he finally came back to…
Today is Fiesta de la Cruz in Spain. La Palma was finally conquered on May 3rd, 1493, and the town of Santa Cruz de la Palma was officially founded the same day. Now I’m not sure it’s in good taste to celebrate treachery and slaughter, but of course people are celebrating because they’ve always celebrated. And the celebration itself is beautiful – they decorate the roadside crosses in Santa Cruz,…
A butterfly on amor-secalo (Bidens alba) Yesterday was a public holiday here, so I went to see my friends in Franceses Alone, since my husband and son didn’t want to come. It was drizzling when I left, but the sun was shining by the time I got there. We had the usual wide-ranging conversation about how their house was getting on, how my writing was getting on, and whether your…