I haven’t posted lately, because pretty much all I’ve been doing is translating, and translating and translating. It’s not just the quantity of translating. It’s stuff about church architecture, full of technical stuff like “a balcony supported by six cantilever beams with turned-wood balustrade”. I’ve learnt the Spanish technical term for the central third of a tie beam roof. And then there’s the job-titles of the people involved: military governors,…
I Make This Stuff Up
Lately, my life’s felt like all work andno play. Even the blogs feel like work. Worse, even the little fiction writing I’ve done has felt like work. So I’ve started a just-for-fun fiction blog at i-make-this-stuff-up.blogspot.com. It won’t earn a thing, if only because there isn’t a logical advertising niche to go with it. That doesn’t matter. In fact it’s almost the point. I write what I like, when I…
Mother’s Day Again
Mother’s Day in most of Spain was last week, the first Sunday in May. But Breña Bajae celebrates it on the third Sunday in May – today. A local poet called Felix Duarte (1895-1990) emigrated to Venezuela, alone, at some horrendously young age (15, I think) and boy did he miss his mum. He became a published poet, and moved to Cuba and later, the United States. He finally came…
San Isidro Livestock Fair
Saint Isidore the Laborer This weekend they’re holding the second biggest livestock fair on the island, at San Isidro, in Breña Alta. (The biggest is San Antonio del Monte, in June). It starts off with a procession which brings the statue of the saint from the church to the fairground. Sorry, I missed that bit (I was having a lie in) Cattle at the fair of St. Isidore, Breña Alta…
The Virgin of Fatima in La Punta
Mass for the Virgin of Fatima, La Punta Last night I went to the fiesta for The Virgin of Fatima in La Punta, in the municipality of Tijarafe. Things didn’t go according to plan (see my personal blog, but I had a good time. Procession La Punta is just a hamlet. Like most small villages, the main annual fiesta is the saint’s day of the village’s patron saint. Practically all…
Be Prepared!
Last night I went to La Punta in Tijarafe, to get some photos of the fiesta. It’s not a big fiesta but I’ve been going cross-eyed with the current translation, and I really, really needed a break in my routine. Besides, in 18 years of living on La Palma, I’d never been to La Punta. Since the procession was going to be quite late, I made sure I had the…