I don't even know where to start

Here we go, gotta start somewhere...

Wed night...hugging nephews, getting beat at Mancala, eating stupendous food, watching Messi be BRILLIANT  GO BARÇA and Madrid...you were NOT playing hockey, though maybe that passed you by.  Also laughing so hard my stomach hurt.  Good good good.   (By the way Barça, you played like crap the second half today, you cannot win if you try and kill time by passing back to the goallie for 45 min, you earned today's loss.  Bronx cheer to you!)


Thursday walking the boys to school, pain au chocolate, delicious sandwich for breakfast, Museum of Modern art, Van Dongen exhibit...meh.  There were some INCREDIBLE pieces in their permanent collection....like this piece by Jesus Rafel Soto...then to the Orangerie, but the queue was huge, the Jeu du Pomme was closed....a gorgeous statue in the park there by Dubuffett....the Louvre, I thought, well, maybe, there's an exhibit of Rembrandts', which I love, but it's titled 'Painting Christ' ...gave it a shot, but the half hour line I stood in didn't sell the tickets I needed, message telling me that was a miss.  Out onto the Ille de la Cité...and decided to walk to the end of the island...I had to pass a momma duck with all her ducklings tucked under her...I walked slowly, as far away from her as I could with my eyes averted and she stuck!  YEAH!  The Siene looked ccccooooooooold to me.

Japanese for lunch, what else would you do in Paris, but my brother-in-law was cooking dinner that night and so early sushi was perfect for that light not super full feeling when dinner rolled around!

Musée D'Orsay...giant line.  Walked on.  The Rodin Museum.

OMG

Before that though, I got caught up in a demonstration complete with French National Police in full riot gear. I hauled the map our of my pocket and tried to look naive....a challenge for me, but no one bonked me with a riot stick, so not too bad.

Don't know who the protesters were, maybe it was a warm-up for May 1?  The only sign I saw was for 'autonoms'; in Catalan, that's the self-employed.  Now THERE's a dangerous group!  What are they going to do, thump you with their blackberries?  Maybe the cops are all iphone users and figure those rockberries have no other use????

Onto the very very very best deal in Paris.  The Rodin Museum.  Now, I am NOT a big Rodin Fan, but
the entry fee for the garden is 1€.  YES indeed, 1 small Euro, less than a cup of coffee....and you get into a beautiful garden, dappled with shade, ponds, two sandboxes, you can picknick and there are benches and chairs for the weary tourist, there are even gorgeous and wonderfully comfortable recliners, plus a toilet and cafe with icecream!  Rose gardens and about 40 sculptures, which is about as much Rodin as I need to see.

1€!

Onwards....to Nomad's school!  YES indeed, Nomad is in art school and I got to see what she's working on and where.  SUPER sweet and super talented.

Dinner on mass with my sister and her family and Nomad and hers, wonderful, lovely, funny and deLICious....goodness all around.

Oh, and at one point in the day I trudged past the Ecole Militaire (that looks like it's missing an accent or two and maybe a letter as well, shucks) as I was grinding past there was a totally inocuous older French man walking beside me, beige trench coat, a bad haircut, like his wife had done it the day he finished the chocolate, kind of stooped and in his 60s.  Coming towards us was a young soldier in uniform who gave a BIG fat salute and a big smile to this man, who straightened and nodded back as we went by, leaving me wondering what kind of poobah this guy really was?

The mysteries of life.

More later, that's enough for one day...even writing about it!

WEEEEE

I'M IN PARIS!!!!!

More later......

Granollers!

Guess where I went today?  Abandoned my family and hopped a train to Granollers!  Never been there before and it is a lovely town - (pop. 60,000)

I met up with Tiffany and Kate again, which was a delight again, and we had a lovely lebanese lunch and coffee in the center of the old town, which was beautiful, and if my guides are to be trusted has had a market that has run EVERY single week, always on a Thursday since some time in the 1100s!

I'm going to be off the air/intermittent for the next couple of days, and I'll tell you why when I get back online!

On another note, I am NEARLY finished the newest Murakami (no spoilers please)  104 pages to go.  That sounds like rather a lot, but there are very nearly 800 pages in the whole thing, so it seems very little...

Gonna go read now, though I don't think I'll manage to finish it today!

Cheers!  and here's to good food, good company and some good laughs!

O

You know...

Chores that are occasional and could be quite a drag are a whole lot of fun with a willing kid.

Youngest and I tackled scrubbing out the safareig today, it is a GIANT sink in the patí, more like a tub honestly.  They were used for doing laundry....and probably a fair variety of other tasks too.    This first photo is a view of it befire construction began, the patí has changed, quite a bit.

Below is an image looking sort of over the top as if you were standing in front of it:

Finally, the whole thing:

Well, the story is longer than that...his Chuckiness found some nice smelly poo to roll around in and as he is shedding I couldn't quite imagine that much hair going down the drain, so the safareig it was.  Traditionally used for washing clothes, it was up to the task.

Once he got out, the girl and I went to it with scrubbies and cold water, then she wanted here bathing suit...and know what?  It was a lot of fun, but we both would have hated it on our own.

Times are a changing a wee bit around here....

and it's good too.

Girls are back, safe and sound and reading madly.  Their grandparents give them money for books for their birthdays and Christmas, and they buy tons of books in the UK and bring them back with them...but they cannot read them till they get back!  HEHEHE

Happy girls!

Gotten noisier around here, and the man only had two naps today, so things are shaping up!  He's even walking the dog this evening, and managed to come to the airport to get them.  I wouldn't have wanted him to, but they were flying in without without a parent and if someone were to make a fuss, better if he were there.

I have also moved out of Youngest's bedroom and am back in my own with the man...I left pestilent boy on his own, partially for my own good, but also so he could thrash around and suffer in the night without fussing he was waking me, and also I wouldn't worry I was waking him.  Nice to be back!

Trying to keep going to bed at a REASONABLE time...I've been managing before 12 most nights....that should go right down the toilet when I go back to work, but for now....

Here's a riddle:

What goes 99, clunck?







A centipede with a false leg!





Hahahahahahhaha

BUSTED OUT!!!

YEEEHAW!

The man is doing better, well....no, but better.  He even managed to stagger around the St Jordi event today, then went kind of pale and came home to two naps, but still a massive improvement.  I abandoned him, at his urging, and went into BCN today....

Ahhhhhh........

St Jordi in BCN is something to behold.  OMG the numbers of people out was truly astonishing.  I don't think a single solitary person could have been in their apartment.  E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E. was out!

I went to Caixa Forum and saw a show about Tetihuacan what was cool, and there wasn't much else on there, well a piece on Haiti, that I should have seen but just didn't want to.

SO

I went over in the lovely sunshine to MNAC, and saw a show there about Realism, I saw some neat stuff there too, some teeny tinsy Rembrandts - I love Rembrandt - and a lot of Courbet, I saw some Picassos, always a pleasure, it is amazing how his paintings dominate a room.

Then I went and visited some of my favorites, some Rusignols, and Casas and Mirs.....

Heavenly!

Then, as it is St Jordi, I had to go and buy a book.  Oh the penance of the day!

One for me, Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated, and one for the man too....plus I was given a book in the metro...well I almost wasn't....the lady handing them out looked me over and marked me as a girri...as in not a local....and I went on past peering at what she had in her hand.  When I got a little further and realised that everyone had a free book I went back and asked for one!  YEAH!

Then a couple of the neighbourhood teens gave me a rose and St Jordi's was complete!!!! (I even got a walk in the mountain in and finished another third of the homework!)

WHAT a lovely day.


.......later..........shhhhhhhh, the man in well enough to be in the kitchen cooking his own meal!!!!  Bliss.  Happy St. Jordi's day darling, you've made mine!

Mix and Match

I am so disorganised.  Kate, over at The Catalan Way is doing Virtual Vermut, like Bodhi does Virtual Coffee.  Fortunately, my post today lends itself to the theme...though my drink of choice is Tea, so I may have to move to Tuesdays....


I am home today again, but the big new is that the man seems to be improving!  I talked at him three times so far for more than five minutes each!  YEAH!  He even responded sometimes!


He came and ate a MAMMOTH lunch (and then needed a nap) which is very good.....


I will also say that a two hour walk in the mountain with a supremely happy dog does wonders for a person's outlook on life.


Poetry...not something I usually quote, but Knopf is emailing a poem a day this month, and today's I liked a lot:

Two Poems On Fishing Should I go drinking and wenching? Oh, no. It isn't proper for the poet that I am. Shall I go hunting wealth and honor? I am not inclined that way either. Well, let me be a fisherman or shepherd and enjoy myself on the reedy shore.

When it stops raining at the fishing site I will use green-moss for bait. With no idea of catching the fish I will enjoy watching them at play. A slice of moon passes as it casts a silver line onto the green stream below.

By Kwon Homun, a Korean poet whose dates are 1532-1587, translated by Jaihiun Kim


What I like about it?  My kind of fishing.  I could enjoy fishing if I could have my own supply of hooks.  They would look a lot like the weights, you know, round and dull and just heavy enough to make the line look respectable, but no sane fish would consider nibbling it.  Either that or some kind of hot-dog fish-feeding mechanism.  Know what I mean?  The object would be to feed them off the end of the line...and watch them at it rather than catch them at it.  I think I would find it more fun.


I have also spent MANY hours today studying Catalan.  It is not a barrel of fun at our house this week. Can I also say that Catalan pronouns are going to be the death of me?


Brace yourself, I am going to cover some grammar:


No, I'm not, I am making myself nauseous thinking about it.


Let's just say that it is NEEDLESSLY complicated.  M'kay?  The fact that there are major differences between how it is written and how it is spoken, and the fact that there are two kinds of pronouns, forts (strong ones) and febles (weak...and the difficult ones) and that the febles (weak and difficult) are 'mengat' - eaten - as in the Catalans barely pronounce them when they speak....so as a language learner you barely hear the d*mn things.....


*inhale*


*hold*


*exhale*


At the very least I am fending off alzheimers in my old age.  Or maybe I'm causing it.

Perfection

I have been ruminating on the idea of perfection for the last couple of days.  Probably as a result of spending so much time studying Catalan and painting - when not completing nursing duties.  Lord I am bad at that.  The man continues to be ill, but I can actually have a conversation with him for more than five minutes before he runs out of breath or falls asleep.

Seems he has some fluid in one of his lungs.  Considering he's done marathons not too long ago and can do a 10k run like I walk to the corner for some chocolate, the fact that he was seriously winded at the top of a flight of stairs was somewhat worrying.

He seems to be s.l.o.w.l.y. on the mend.  We think it is whatever I had last week, (see the running note that I have no lungs) but worse.

ANYWHO...

I have been contemplating perfection.  A nice idea that I think does quite a lot of harm.  I have had many adult students who beat themselves up quite horrendously because they aren't doing something perfectly.  I always say to them that perfection is an ideal towards which we strive, but realistically are aware that we will never acheive (and don't really want to, were we to think about it for any length of time).

I mean, really, if we pulled it off, what would be the point of going on?  That sounds trite, but I do mean it.  If you create a 'perfect' novel, or a 'perfect' presentation what do you do next?  No one speaks a language perfectly, not even the most highly educated native speaker, we all make mistakes from time to time, and that is soooo OK.

So WHY do we get our shirts in a knot about it.

I rumble this around in my head while I paint.  You see work in museums and galleries and it looks so....slick.  So polished, so finished.  Then you look at a video of someone doing art restorations and you realise that Matisse painted in the eyes of a portrait three times!  And the first time they were in a truly disasterously unanatomical out of place.

Goodness, but if they all mess it up, and simply cover it with another layer of paint, can't the rest of us?  Except watercolourists. They simply have to burn the evidence.  No going back with that medium at all. But really, if  multi-million dollar funded software programs that have hundreds of professionals working on them come out 'buggy', or like Vista, hopelessly flawed?

So why should the rest of us believe that we have to work to this standard?  I think it's OK if I sometimes modify a painting cause I smudged the d*mn thing..OK, so his mouth is going to be a little wider than I first thought of...is that all that bad?  I messed up my freaking pronoms febles, which are BRUTAL in Catalan, all of you English speakers....kiss the word 'it' next time you see it.  (Go on...it's just a computer screen, it can handle a quick smooch). You have NO idea the problems 'it' avoids.  None.

Does that mean that I don't want my painting to improve?  Does it mean that I don't want my accent to improve, my grammar and vocabulary?  Of course not, of course I want to be better at all of these things, of course I put a lot of grinding time and effort into it, some of which is even fun.  But perfect?  SHUT UP!


Then there are those lovely rewarding moments when understanding just sort of 'clicks' into place and it is like magic.


Honestly, there is nothing, not one single thing (note, my family, I am saying thing here) that is better than that feeling and that moment.


Ping!

FInished Sunday and Wednesday

Immigration series, Acrylic, marker and pen on paper.  57 x 57 cm.

Immigration series, Watercolour, marker, paintmarker, pen and pencil on paper.  20.4.11, 56 x 76.

Note to lexicographers

The man's still sick, so I am working away in Catalan here....

I now have a note for any lexicographers who might be listening:

Can I just say that it is really stupid to define a word using the same word? THIS DOES NOT ANSWER THE QUESTION?

Hello?

Knock knock?

*crickets*

This is the entry:

tarat -ada adj 
1 tarado -da. Fruita tarada, fruta tarada.


Doesn't make it clearer boys.


Sweet mother of all that is good, does this not seem obvious?

Somedays, it's worth the effort

VAL la pena de vegades!

Sometimes, 6 hours of studying Catalan is worth it.  The best part, or at least the most entertaining has been looking at idioms, locutions and eufemismes - n.iii.ce...spelled that in Catalan, that would be euphemisms.  Ways of saying things that are a little different.

Here's some of the fruits of my work:

To be useless, or to do something useless:  picar ferro fred - hammer cold iron.  Good imagery there.

To have diarrea - perdre la clau del cul - loose the key to your *ss.  JEJEJEJEJEJEJEJEJEEEEE

A person who is really irritiating:  un torracollons - a tower of, well you might be more familiar with cojones, but a tower of balls....hehehhehehe

A super wimp, a cockhold - un pet aviciat - a weak fart!  OMG I am dying over here!

Someone who has no opinion, wishy-washy - un pixafreda - a cold pisser!  Not enough heat inside to warm their piss.  I LIKE that image.

A polleguerra is part of a set phrase, it literally means a chicken war - more or less I think - it means crazy, fitting, no?

Oh, and you have to go here and check this out...

I handed in my next assignment for the Catalan course, cross all your fingers and light all your candles (hey!  It's a Catholic country!).  EEK!

Yesterday

Went to a calçotada yesterday in a neighbouring village.  Felt like I was in a movie at times, you know those ones that are selling the Mediterranean life, like that Tuscan one?

Long sun-dappled tables weighted with delicious food and wine and multi-lingual conversations going on around it while children play in the background and an olive-wood fire smokes in the distance on which the food has been cooked?

That was it.

Weirdness.

They were a fascinating and wildly international lot and as a result the conversation was very Spanish - the lingua franca - except my little corner of it.  They are a delightful family, my hosts, three fifths of whom I have taught English.  One of the kids, now pushing 18, sat beside me.  Handy having an 18 year old boy next to you at a big feed, I just kept passing stuff onto his plate and it kept disappearing inside him.  Third helping of botifarra appears?  GONE!

He is a neat bright kid too.  Helpful translator as well when I got lost.

He and I determinedely spoke Catalan to everyone - rather than Spanish - when we didn't speak English.  The man on my left was a delight too, older (late 60's?) and architect, very well read - I love to sit with people I can talk books with! - and fascinating.  His wife was also interesting, though she only spoke Spanish.

I have to say I was amazed how well I understood what was going on, when I listened hard......those Spanish lessons are paying off anyway.

We, of course, ate calçots with homemade sauce, botifarra and costelles (ribs), bread, tiramiso and chocolate muffins and chocolate crisps that I brought, lots of wine, water and some cava that I also handed over to the boy....his parents were right there, it is Spain.....

Got home, had a bath and went to bed with the Murakami book.

Pretty darned delightful day!

Saps què?

Know what?

I am now on TWO WEEKS of vacation!


AAAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The kids have arrived safe and sound in the UK for a week with their grandparents....they had some challenges at Immigration in the UK, who phoned their grandmother to be sure someone was there to meet them, and they lost their bag for a while, but seem to have recovered it.

Good on them, they should have a BLAST.  Now to get them back into Spain!!!

In the mean time, I am making t.r.a.c.k.s with the Catalan homework, I have a PACK of paintings lined up, and mass of Spanish homework, walking with the man in the mountains, the beach is calling my name, and there are some new exhibits in BCN we haven't seen yet PLUS  a whole lot of napping zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  in the books!  And then there is the reading....I'm past page 100 in the new Murakami and LOVING it.

OH, life is Good good goooooood

SUPER sweet.

Is it?

Is it Friday yet?


*please*

WOW!!!

I got a B on my writing assignment, and I got another ****A**** on the next assignment!


YIPEE!!!


Off to bed.  Weirdly tired again!


Bring on Setmana Santa, this girl needs a break!

Do you really want to win this?

The man, man of my dreams, went into BCN and got the new Murakami for me.  Not sure I'll be blogging till I finish it!

On the cover was a contest, the prize, a trip for two to Tokyo!  Sadly the entry had to be submitted by the third of April.  I'm too late.

Then again, it is one of those things that you're not certain you want to win, no?

Sooooo

An Aussi, a Brit and a Canuck sit down in a cafe...

Sounds like a joke, it isn't but it was a big fat laugh!

Friday I got to meet up with Kate and Tiffany, two other expats living here in Catalonia.  It was FUN.  We all got a chance to talk about our individual challenges and communal challenges (noise, bureaucracy, language)

We started at one cafe, too noisy (pneumatic drills), moved to a second, no service (weirdness) then finally a third which actually had pretty crappy service, but what the heck, we had time.

A treat!

We ate, we drank, we chatted and laughed...they walked me down to the metro when I had to go, I dragged them into a bookstore cause I am jonesing SO bad for the new Murakami, IQ84....no go.  I have asked at a local store here to see if they can get it in, if not I have to WAIT till I go to BCN again!  AUGH!!!!

Lovely lovely lovely!  I learned new vocab too!  Gotta love an Aussi!

Gonna have to do that again, if your up for it ladies!

Weird virus?

Felt odd and yucky and vile Friday night.  In bed by 8, slept till 8 when I got woken up.

Napped that afternoon in a hammock in the mountains after a wonderful meal among friends.  Ahhhhhh

Got home, went to bed weirdly exhausted and somewhat nauseous about 6pm, dozed on and off till about 11 and then slept through till 8am when I was woken up from a sound sleep.

Felt much better today!

You might think so, no?

Youngest and I went on an orienteering training session, which was a three hour lovely walk in the mountains then when we got back, instead of following the pattern of the last few days, I DIDN'T go to bed!

Instead I started painting!

Four started and three completed.

You can just make out Eldest's finger and feet!  Largest of the three, 151cm x 151 cm.  Acrylic and marker on paper.  'How do you see me?'

'I can't even find the box' Acrylic, paintmarker, marker and pencil on paper.  70 x 50 cm.  Immigration series.

Finally, ' Facing Canada'  Marker and watercolour on paper. 56 x 57 cm

Then a big delicious dinner.  Mmmmmmm

Channel James Brown with me here, OK?

I feel GOOD!

Ahhhhhh

I was bad the night before last.

Didn't paint, didn't draw, didn't study Catalan (much), didn't read in Spanish, didn't - well, I did do some work - and then....

I watched a movie!


It was very good.

Anyone else out there seen Juno?

Good flick.

That was fabulous

Dangers

Youngest made me think a little about danger.

When I got home for lunch, she solemnly (THERE's a word that deserves it's very own spelling bee - goodness)

Anyway, she solemnly (that would make my English students just keel right over and die - actually they have this great gesture where they pretend to stab themselves on the stomach with a sword...I know, not too new, but then they drag the imaginary knife in a sort of catholic blessing cross fashion, so you stab it into your solar plexus, slice down hard, come up towards the left - your heart pretty much, than then slice horizontally across to the right.  Just like if you were to cross yourself, samuri style.  It is quite graphic)

Anyway, she solemnly - (you just KNOW this word is going to show up in a class I teach tomorrow, just to see if I can get any of them to use this gesture!)

Anyway, she solemnly very seriously informed me that the sharp kitchen scissors are beside the sink as she didn't want to put them into the soapy water as someone might hurt themselves.  I thought that was delightful.

Then she told me that she had used them to take the toast out of the toaster.  Can I just say what you know I am going to say?  She didn't unplug it, OK?  I kissed her after she told me this.  She didn't smell singed at all.  I was glad.

We had a wee conversation about elecTRICity and what it can do to smallish much-loved people if they stick a pair of metal scissors into a 220V toaster without unplugging it.

She solemnly agreed not to do it again.

We are all glad.  Not solemn.  Glad.

RUNning

Can I just say that I ran today (finally!)

It was pretty pathetic, as one might expect.

Can I also say, that it was great?

And my butt only hurts a wee little bit!

YEAH

Oof

Say what you like about Mondays,

Tuesdays can be pretty darned long and hard too, no?

Sorta low on inspiration and hig on exhaustion.  You know those kinds of days...

Yup.

Know something else?

I look older really late at night...or should I say really early in the morning.  Then again, maybe many of us do.

Green goes up! Nothing like daylight

Immigrations series, acrylic, pen and paint marker on paper.  56 x 77 cm. 3.4.11

After the delight of yesterdsay

Today my halo is grimly glowing.

I have spent HOURS wading through a series of long dreaded tasks...tinc el cul quadrat.  Directly translated as my butt is squared off, or as we would less graphically put it, my butt's gone numb from sitting....

However I got a ton done, even some taxes...urgh.  We get to do it twice, one month for Canada and then the next for Spain, the fun never ends!

I did however finish THREE books today, which definitely perks things up, and finished two paintings!

Not bad, no?

I'm putting up one photo, but the camera simply cannot manage the second one, it is green and the camera is completely freaking out and it is coming out either grey or a weird pustilating yellow.....

maybe tomorrow in the daylight, it is such a lovely green.  When I look at the wood in the background, one side is a lurid red and the other yellow...how can that be?

Here's the other one, easier to solve any issues with the lighting as it is almost all black and white.

Immigration series, acrylic on paper, 3.4.11 56 x 60.5

While it's not my favourite kind of day, a getting stuff done day isn't all bad.

Food.

We've been talking a bit lately about how the Catalans LOVE food.  LOVE food.

LOVE.

Today was a great example.

We had the good luck to be invited down to lunch on a boat with a whole bunch of other folks we know....all wonderful.  Lunch started in theory at 2....for a variety of reasons we all arrived at around 1:30...no problemo, out came the pica pica, which is nibbles basically, beer, something else (coke this time) chips, olives, sliced meats, yadda yadda yadda....we brought wasabi peas...they met with mixed results, some delight, some spitting.

Lunch itself formally arrived at around 3:00.  We started with an empanada, which is like a flat dough pie.  Home made, of course. This had tuna, veg, boiled eggs and I know not what else inside and was gorgeous.

Then came the grilled veg: taters, mushrooms, eggplant and zuccini....

Then came the meat (this is now the third course after an HOUR of chips and nibbles.  There was:  chicken, rabbit, ribs, morro (pig snout) sausages, shishkabab (how DO you spell that), pork loin, wings, and something else or 2 that is escaping me, all in giant mounds.  We ate about half to two thirds and there were 10+ hungry people there so you can imagine the quantities!  This was accompanied by 7 litres  of Basque cider (the hard stuff).  The stern was about a foot undwater once we all got aboard.

Then we went onto a flan, bread-pan sized, homemade...and delicious, everyone but me and the minors had it with orojo (spelling is wrong) which is some kind of distilled liquer made from the left-over grapes from wine pressing, which our host had altered by putting coffee beans into a half-full bottle of the stuff. This was warmly received.  They thought the bean idea wonderful, though I think folks do know about this.

I would like to point out that almost all of this, with the exception of the empanada, was made by two guys on a 31 foot boat.  You have to LOVE food to make so much so well with such limited resources...

Then a homemade cake, which was delicious.....several folks put some rum on this. I would like to point out that there were some people who weren't drinking at quite the same level, as they would have to be driving, but the other thing to remember is the LENGTH of this lunch....

Then coffee, or one of about 16 types of tea.  (No decaf and I bailed on the tea..two worst cups in my life were made by Catalans, it makes me a little wary)

By now it is closing in on 6, and a couple of the guys are wanting mojitos.  Now I don't know about you, but not many people in this day and age are willing to go to the kind of effort that they all did.  The owner of the boat had a mint plant, two of the women started picking leaves, the mortar and pestle came out and mint leaves were pounded with brown sugar for ages to make a paste, meanwhile someone else took a bag of ice onto the dock and used a bottle to crush it, this was put into the glasses, then mint/brown sugar mixture was dosed with rum to liquify it more and make it easier to share out into the glasses.....

and we were gone.

I figure that most people didn't even think of leaving till 8pm, and there are probably still a few folks there now.

OM GOODNESS!

I think I'll still be full tomorrow.

*burp*

*Whew*

Today has been long and hard.  In WAY too many ways.  I got a lot of blog fodder anyway.  Not helped by going to bed at 4am.  Why?  That's another blog post.

Bad stuff, I'm not tallying that up right now.

Let's count the good stuff.

1. I got some really important work finished today, against considerable technological odds.  YEAH!  Only needed one break sitting outside in the sun breathing deeply and reading a good book for a few minutes.
2. It was another beautiful sunny day.  I sat out in the sun at lunch AGAIN and life was good, especially when the man had mercy on me and made me lunch, and brought it all the way to the terrace for me, and the paracetamol kicked in and the tea was ready all at the same time.
3. The teens I taught today were HAPPY!  IncREADibly loud, but happy.
4. I read to the kids and they brushed my hair.  Bliss
5. Nomad and I are talking about a collaborative installation work for the summer that would also include TRAVEL!!!!  Long shot, but SUPER exciting.... I've been cracking grins all day, just thinking about it...(thanks JG for bringing the idea up!  Made my (otherwise kind of crappy) day!
6. I whipped out two, count 'em two paintings that I am in LOVE with.
7. I'm thinking I'm going to show.

My eyes are burning out of my head.  NO Catalan homework done today and that's just TOO BAD!

HA!

Here they are:  I ain't measuring today, too tired.  Biggish.

Both acrylic, watercolour and marker on paper.