Today is Holy Innocents Day, which is the Spanish equivalent of April Fool’s Day. Last year I got my friends in Franceses This year they got me. They came to visit on Christmas day, and poor Theresa got stung by a wasp, just below her eye. Of course it’s a terrible place to get stung, and it swelled up like she’d been thumped by Mike Tyson. So when I phoned…
Holy Innocents’ Day
Today is Holy Innocents’ Day, which commemorates the massacre of the innocents by Herod in Matthew’s gospel (although according to Wikipedia, it’s probably not a historical event). In Spain and SPanish-speaking countries, it’s the Spanish equivalent of April Fool’s Day. Last year I got my friends in Franceses. This year they got me. They came to visit on Christmas day, and poor Theresa got stung by a wasp, just below…
Muddle Christmas
First there was the job at short notice. Then there was the flu. Then there was the cough that wouldn’t let me sleep properly. As a result, Christmas preparations got done as I flew by various shops, without any proper overall planning. And amazingly, it pretty much worked. True, there was almost no butter for the brandy sauce, so I made it with a little olive oil and added a…
Hungover
The rest of the working week passed in a blur. I finished checking the books on the shelves against the inventory and started on the huge pile of books to add to the database and then shelve. I’ve done 152 so far and there’s maybe 3,000 to go. It didn’t help that I’ve got a heavy cold, which I think is the one my son had last week. But last…
An Unusual Tree
I’m getting a little more organised. Over the weekend I managed to get the last of the Christmas cards in the post and to cook industrial quantities of lentils and chicken stew, so I’ve got ready meals in the freezer. Last night I managed to get to yoga. Only three students turned up, so the teacher asked what we wanted to do. I said, “Relaxation,” since my head was buzzing…
An Unusual Christmas Tree
The Christmas decorations are up in Santa Cruz, and most of the villages too. I particularly liked this Christmas “tree” outside a shop on the main street in Santa Cruz. It’s made from the dead flower stalk of an agarve plant.