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| *yawn* I may just manage a Kit-Kat soon |
| 07.31.04 (4:23 pm) [edit] |
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"Sometimes I just sit and think, and others I just sit." (Who said that?) Well today is a day for just sitting, so rather than tax my knackered old brain cell trying to think what to write I decided to post another photo instead. I like the shadows in this. |
| 11 Comments |
| Please leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as possible... |
| 07.30.04 (7:58 pm) [edit] |
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When I was wondering around the village taking the photo’s of windows and doors I met a really interesting woman. We first started chatting when she asked me why I was doing what I was doing, but we went on to talk about village life in general. It was fascinating. We’ve only lived here for a few months and for us it feels like moving back in time. She’s lived here for over thirty years (originally she’s from Germany), and is soon to move away because she thinks life here is moving too fast for her. She’s going to live in a place close to where we used to live, but the quirk is she’s bought a cave. [url=http://www.andalucia.com/guad...]There’s a town in Granada province [/url] where there’s a thriving community of troglodytes. I’ve been and had a look at these places and they can be as high-tech or low-tech as you want. She wants to live the lowest-tech life possible. I really took to her. I doubt we’ll meet again, but I know I’ll think of her from time to time and hope her new life is working for her. Anyway, what’s been playing on my mind today was “how or when did all this accessibility happen?” Early this morning I read some blogs, left comments, replied to some comments, listened to messages left on my answer machine, listened to messages left on my cell phone, read text messages, answered them, read and replied to emails. Eventually I got out of the house and drove down to the supermarket. When I came out there was a note on my car which said, “hello, are you Andaloo? If you are will you please call me on *** because I need to talk to you about something.” I’m not complaining, I just can’t remember how or when it all started. There are days when life in a cave sounds quite attractive! |
| 6 Comments |
| Windows and Doors |
| 07.29.04 (3:20 pm) [edit] |
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View my slideshow! Just me, my camera and some windows and doors. (They're quite big pics so they may take a few seconds to change.) |
| 8 Comments |
| Early morning coffee |
| 07.29.04 (9:01 am) [edit] |
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The great thing about being at home *and* on holiday is getting up in the morning and thinking “what shall I do today?” I love the thought of a whole day ahead to use however I feel. Whenever I’m not working I take off my watch. I get up when I wake up, eat when I'm hungry and sleep when I’m tired. Simple pleasures. One of the things I love about living here is that you can watch a place waking up in the mornings. I never noticed it in UK, probably because I always lived in cities there where there’s a constant buzz which just quietens down during the night. Here though, you can really feel and see a place starting a new day. Yesterday I woke up really early and decided to go to the coast, to the town we used to live in, and watch it wake up. People (generally) start work at 10 a.m. here, but if you know where to go you can find cafés open early. I knew where to go. By 8.30 I was sat alone outside the Café Real, the sun just starting to creep across the square. Inside the café were the two Guardia Civil officers you always see at that time, having just finished their night shift they stand at the bar drinking coffee laced with brandy and smoking strong black tobacco. The street cleaner was the first person I saw outside. Head bowed, eyes to the ground he cleared yesterday away. By nine o’clock there was a trickle of people passing through the square, which was now only half in shadow. The noise from inside the café was building, people shouting their orders, waiters shouting at each other. Even from outside I could smell strong coffee and cigarettes. By 9.30 the square was awake. People with arms full of paperwork rushed across it, others with dogs ambled or stopped to sit for a while in the sun. A woman with a mop was standing outside an office building smiling the working in, re-mopping the step, smiling the next lot in. I could hear the grinding of metal on metal as shutters were pushed up to show shop windows behind. Chairs scraped - workers left the café, replaced by tourists. A man looked at his watch, shouted for his bill and stood to leave. More followed. I heard the church clock strike ten and thought, “what shall I do today?” |
| 4 Comments |
| What's your porn star name? |
| 07.27.04 (7:40 pm) [edit] |
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Over the weekend we had a really funny half hour when a friend asked what our porn star names are. She explained; Porn stars always have the most amazing names and hadn’t we ever worked out how they get them. The theory is that your first name is the name of the first pet you had, and the surname is the name of the street you first lived in. Try it, it’s hilarious. Yours, Bruce Bute (Now if that’s not the name of a tall, muscular Italian I don’t know what is!) and Timothy Prospect (nuff said). |
| 12 Comments |
| Of headlines and fabric |
| 07.27.04 (8:40 am) [edit] |
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The following headline is real, and taken from BBC news this morning: It caught my attention because I wondered what they were to do? Check their bodies for signs of boredom perhaps, or see if shelves have been put up badly somewhere. I heard on the radio yesterday that they’re making a new series of “Queer Eye For A Straight Guy”, but this time it’s going to be “Straight Eye For A Queer Guy”. Gay men will be taught how to walk properly, wear checked shirts and Chinos and buy fabric without screaming “it’s to die for!” I know, I know…its not funny…well actually it is, VERY! |
| 6 Comments |
| You can't come back if you don't go in the first place |
| 07.26.04 (9:24 am) [edit] |
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Around the time that I last posted, I, or rather this blog was going through a bit of an identity crisis. No definitely not me, the blog. I didn’t know what I wanted it to be, to say, if anything. The one thing I knew I didn’t want it to be was a diary, I don’t know why. So when I noticed that everything I wrote (like now) was in the past tense I realised I was writing the one thing I said I wouldn’t. I decided a few days holiday away from the land of Blog would give me time and space to think things through. I went, I thought, I decided. *uck it, does it matter what I write as long as I enjoy writing it? Drama over. We’ve just got back from a few days in our old stomping ground of Granada province. It was fantastic to be back with friends, to be known, to have a history. I know the whole time thing is a bit of a cliché but I thought about it a lot over the weekend. Real friendships are fostered over time and there’s no replacement, no fast track. I think we can safely say that today I’m feeling all sentimental and unnecessary. It’s good to be back in the land of Blog. |
| 7 Comments |
| Three more days, count them... |
| 07.15.04 (8:27 am) [edit] |
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So it could be day three or day four of the music festival, you can stop it now, I want to go to sleep. Paco de Lucia: Excellent. Classical Spanish guitar is SO beautiful to listen to, shame about the singers. Flamenco just does my head in, but I’m clearly in the minority because the crowd went wild. The best bit was after the concert. They’d packed (literally) two fields with cars so that everybody was blocked in till the car in front was moved. The crowd was in a rush to get to the next venue for the next event so it was a total bun fight! On to the Plaza. Every night, from midnight till dawn there’s music and dancing in the plaza. We stayed for a while then went home where (of course) it was MUCH louder. No sleep. Mozart. Requiem K626: The venue (a convent) was amazing. The concert too was top quality. It was an hour of bliss. As the music washed over me my mind wandered and I tried to take in as much of my surroundings as possible. (The convent is of major significance in the village because it houses the virgin of The Mother Of All Saints, our Patron Saint.) Now call me fickle but…I’ve seen a few virgins in my time, and I know size doesn’t count, but this was a Barbie. I swear, the gentle folk of Jimena de la Frontera are paying homage to Barbie. I can’t wait till September when (according to the village cultural calendar), “during the fiesta of the Patron Saint the strong men of the village parade the virgin through the streets in an emotional procession”. After Mozart and Barbie we went to friends for spag’ bol’ and to catch the second half of the Serrat concert from their terrace. I’ve always liked Serrat, so while they all chatted I dipped out of the conversation and sat alone enjoying the music. A balmy night, good food, good wine and that velvet voice… The late night event last night was a techno style free for all. No sleep again. As I write the sun is creeping over the distant hills, there’s a cockerel crowing somewhere and the streets are full of bright young things on their way home from the Plaza. They’ve spent the night in close proximity to speakers the size of houses, they’re shouting at each other because they don’t realise they’re now deaf. I need to sleep. To be continued… |
| 4 Comments |
| Shadows |
| 07.13.04 (11:05 pm) [edit] |
Playing around with shadows at dusk. 
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| 7 Comments |
| Tea and memories |
| 07.09.04 (9:07 am) [edit] |
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I was having my first cup of tea of the day and my mind was doing the free flow thing it does in the early mornings; “How did that man get to The Lebanon from Iraq?.. must take something out of the freezer for dinner…why does the sound of water on glass sound so relaxing?..when did I lose contact with Richard?” Richard was my personal tutor when I was at college. I didn’t do college till I was in my mid twenties. We’d taken a year off and travelled Australia and Thailand, and when I got back to UK decided to retrain. So that’s how I found myself sitting in a small room somewhere in North East London Poly’ being talked at by what I thought was the coolest tutor ever. Richard was in his forties, amazingly intelligent, his glasses were held to his head with a rubber band and he never wore shoes. Richard had a mission. Somewhere between that first day when we all sat with wide eyes and the day we walked out of his life we’d learn to write. I’d hand in an assignment and he’d say, “rewrite it, but this time use half the amount of words without losing any content”. What started life as reams of waffle would eventually end up as a single page of fact. I kept in touch with Richard after leaving college. He even spent a weekend helping me rewrite a departmental manual when *I* was teaching. Thinking about him has made me smile…I know what he’d say if he was to read this post. “That’s sentimental crap Andaloo, take it away and…” I’m off to call an old friend who probably thinks I’ve walked out of his life. |
| 8 Comments |
| Feeling psychopathic |
| 07.08.04 (11:19 am) [edit] |
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Re: The man who takes my neighbour to work at 5 a.m. and rather than get off his big fat ass to ring the doorbell sits in his car honking the horn. Would I have a better case if I said the voices made me do it? |
| 12 Comments |
| Another room finished |
| 07.07.04 (8:39 am) [edit] |
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Yesterday was a blue ribbon day, I unpacked the last of the boxes. It’s taken five months but now everything has a home, or otherwise cleverly hidden away till the day FlyLady bites. Palacio Andaloo is a small (though perfectly formed) house, but for the first time we have a “den”. OK the den also doubles up as study and spare room (for spare room read “guest wing”) but who cares! That’s just reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago…I was online talking to a friend in Texas and the other Mr. Andaloo was working. Our apartment was small so the desk was in the spare bedroom. At one point the guy in Texas asked where the other Mr. Andaloo was, I said he was working in the bedroom. Thinking I was clarifying I said, “well it’s actually a bedroom-cum-study”. He asked, “what’s a cum study?” I literally fell on the floor laughing! Anyway… All the den needed to complete it was a sofa bed. Easy. No. They clearly make sofa beds to be either ugly and uncomfortable to sit on, ugly and uncomfortable to sleep on or just plain ugly. I looked everywhere. Yesterday I wondered into a local shop and there it was, the mother of all sofa beds. It is NOT multi coloured psychedelic swirls, but plain green. Transfixed I kept counting the colour…one. I sat on it and it was comfortable. Now the big test, I unfolded it, lay down and could have drifted off into a peaceful sleep there and then. As if that wasn’t enough, secreted below was another pull-out single bed. I was in sofa bed heaven! So this afternoon the guest wing of Palacio Andaloo will be declared open. And now the weather: Scorchio |
| 12 Comments |
| Bull |
| 07.05.04 (12:25 pm) [edit] |
| Tomorrow is the Start of San Fermín, and all over Spain people will be doing the “bull run”. The most famous run is in [url=http://www.whatsonwhen.com/vi...]Pamplona[/url] (see video). I think originally it was the bull fighters who ran with the bulls, but now it’s mostly tourists. I hate this week. Every evening we’re given a running total of the deaths on the news. I will NEVER understand why anybody would want to run through slippery cobbled streets being chased by terrified bulls. Nope, never. |
| 5 Comments |
| It's only gossip if you don't like the content |
| 07.04.04 (9:48 am) [edit] |
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I was talking to somebody the other day about a man who’s recently moved to the village. After a few minutes I realised this woman was talking about me! I decided not to say anything, what she was saying was VERY complimentary. I just hope now I can live up to the reputation that seems to go before me. Ah the village grapevine, where would we be without it! The above reminded me of a war story. The men at the front line decided to go forward, but needed back-up. The man in charge said to the man next to him “please send reinforcements, we’re going to advance. Pass it on”. The message was passed along from man to man until it reached the man it was intended for. The message he received was, “please send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance”. :wink: And now the weather: Scorchio |
| 8 Comments |