beaches and batiks

I mentioned in the last post that after chipping plaster yesterday we went off for a brief tour of a museum, on the final day of an exhibit we had wanted to go to since it's inception.  It is always the way, no?

They had a lovely exhibit on batiks and how they are made, sent from Indonesia.

We learned about the steps necessary to make traditional batik there:   first, block out - by hand - all the areas that you want to have end up white or brown.  On both sides.  Have a wee look at the detail there.  Holy crumbs, but that would take some work.  Then you dye it blue, this takes several cycles of immersion and drying.  With natural vegetable dyes, at least five.  With synthetic, only three or so.  Then you boil it to remove the wax.  Then you re-wax it, covering - on both sides - all the areas that you want to have stay white or blue. Dye it brown. Rinse and repeat the brown dye. The blue and brown mixed make a black.  Boil it again to remove the wax and Bob's your uncle!

No trouble, huh?

Sometimes they use one of these:

for more detailed patterns and to make it easier to do, but often it is simply drawn on by hand.

I am left in awe.

Then we went to the sea.  That was excellent too.  I took a photo.  It's on the header now.

Hope you had a lovely Sunday.

Just walked in the mountains with Chuck, and it is an absolutely stunning day.  Now, I feel like I live in Spain near the Med again.  *ahhhh*

Cheers,

O

Tips from a ladder

After an exciting morning spent pounding plaster while listening to fantastic podcast, we headed off to a museum for a quick visit.

Before we left, I did manage one astonishing neurological feat.  I was standing on the next to last step of a ladder with one headphone in, a respirating air mask (go for the big bucks on those, what a dream!) a baseball hat (well known safety wear) eye goggles and leather work gloves.  I had a hammer in one hand and a hmmmm, what are those called?  A metal spike with a flat wedge at one end, like a chisel but without the handle in the other.

Then my phone rang!

Got the glove off, got the phone out, got it open and answered it.  Still on the ladder.   Then I put it up to the ear with the headphone in.  Some Brit chatting about books layered over my kid chatting to me.  I managed to hold the conversation (shouting throught the darth vader mask) and DIDN'T fall off the ladder!!!!!

I would have thought the two conversations piped into one ear might have done it to me, but N0!

Nothing like playing with your brain on top of a ladder.

Another tip, invaluable I know.  When chipping plaster over your head, take your bra off before you start. Astonishing the geological specimens that accumulate, and how quickly!

Deconstruction fun.

Today I discovered something new that I love to do.

Sledgehammering.

Woah Nellie THAT was fun.

You know like in the movies when they are driving in the railway spikes?  They heave it up behind them and then whang it down in front of them?  You know what I mean?

It's not nearly as hard as it seems like it would be, and WAY fun.

And yes, I did have that song running through my head all morning.  Remember this one?

Wanna see what I was doing?  I love destroying things.  What can I say, my kinda fun.


Before:

Part way through, I forgot to take an after, but believe me, there is little left.

Then the man and I chipped plaster off.  I have to say it was s.l.o.w. going, sadly, it is really firmly stuck on and we make progress in centimeters.

Sledgehammer!  (not on the ceiling).

The reasons we have to replace the beams.

Where it enters the wall....

Somewhere in the middle.....

This is the end of one of the cross beams sitting on one of the larger beams.

Looks like something from an archaeological dig, no?

What goes on when I'm not home

Hmmm, he never sends me a message......

Possible the best housewarming present ever.

I am delighted to be able to report that I officially can say that I have another good friend here.

That is a delightful thing to be able to say.

She and her partner gave us a house warming present this week, even though we are not yet in the house.....

it is, to my mind, possibly the best house warming present I have received.

Beautiful driftwood that they searched for and found for us, and then cleaned while they were on holiday this weekend.  They went to a town called Sau, which used to be a town, but now is a church steeple sticking out of a reservoir, when the water gets really low other bits of buildings start to emerge.  We haven't been yet, it must look pretty weird.

My kingdom for a bucket.

The guys came today to pour the concrete for the terrace.  Sing a hallelujah chorus.

There were, I believe 7 or 8 of them, nothing like big big machines for attracting a crowd of men (and boys).  They had a freaking ENORMOUS pumper crane (above and below)

as well as the concrete mixer truck.

They had wheelbarrows, boots gloves (no raincoats?!?!?) giant palette knives for flattening the surface, tarps and I don't know how many individual vehicles.

They were however missing 2 buckets.  There are a lot of buckets in the house.  What I need to explain is a Catalan (Spanish?) tradition.  The tradition is this.  Never ever bring a bucket.

When a plumber came here to fix the hot water heating system?  No bucket.

The painter?  No bucket.

Friends or ours were reduced to hiding all of their buckets when work was being done on the house, so they went into the kitchen a grabbed tupperware!  When banned from that, they found the daughter's little bitty plastic beach bucket and shovel and mixed concrete in that.

The boss of the construction company was wandering the village at 8:30 am looking for a store that would be open to get a bucket ?!??!?!

WTF?

rain.

It is raining in the house.  Hard.  Deep puddles in the kid's bedrooms, seeping through the vaults.

They can't pour the concrete cause it's raining too hard.

Ho hum

....later.......

It has indeed rained all day and is still raining.  I don't want to go and look honestly.  The architect said that drips will probably start coming down through the vaults by tomorrow.

Ho hum.

I went in later still, I even borrowed one of the guy's hardhats, dark, wet and mud walls.

See what I saw:

That's in the hallway upstairs.

Youngest's new swimming pool.

Water water everywhere.....

Ho hum

Photo day!

One thing I failed to mention yesterday about the castellers, it isn't a sport for people with personal space issues. Just saying.

Sited.
Now I am not exactly a fashionista to say the least, but somehow the stroller/smoking combo mixed in with the long knitted hoody, leggings and sl*t boots is not a look I would aim for.

Just saying.

Sorry for the blurred photos.

Sited.

Mullet, big puffy mullet that makes you look like your from the movie Aliens, or you've got Lord Voldemort stashed on the back of your head and -my personal favourite - dreads!

A dread-voldemort mullet!

Don't see that every day.

Onto prettier topics.  Roses from the garden.  They smell really nice too.

And there are lots and lots of them.

This is a rather random post, but I have a number of photos I wanted to bang up...all somewhat unrelated.

In the mountains a few days ago I noticed these mushrooms emerging.  At first they looked like they were planning on being fairly normal mushrooms, then today they looked like this!  Weird mushroom-y hatchlings emerging.

Nearby was a fully inflated one.

Think their edible?

Me neither.

PS, a warning, the photo after this one, while not gory, might make you kind of squirm.

Just saying.

Youngest today managed to stand on a tack.  When I have done this, it just sort of hung on there by a quarter of a millimeter.  Youngest is much more accomplished.

Love having a 24 hour fully free medical center less than a five minute walk away.

See:

I'da taken it out myself, but she really didn't want me to. She figured they might use some of that anaesthesia stuff, you know.

Seemed reasonable to me.

Not a drop of blood and it didn't hurt that much, I'm told.

Does kinda make your toes curl up to think about it though, doesn't it.

and Mom, she's just fine.

Overheard and agreed

I was making a big fat truita de patates for Youngest and a friend to sell on the street, a kind of lemonade stand, in a Catalan sort of way.

While they were working away peeling potatoes they were chatting and they commented on the fact that no matter how often you practice something, when it comes time to show it to someone else it often comes off not quite so well.

Then I went to flip the truita and the whole darned thing stuck to the pan.

##***##||||

They were going to take this out to sell the entire village and say I'd made it.

Grrrr.

In the end it turned out alright, when they put it on the plate the right way up.

One noticable thing here is that there is not the same tradition of lemonade stands and the near obligation of stopping at them.  They have a tough time getting people to stop and buy, big old brush-offs most of the time.  Also oddly, it is normally teens who are the best customers.

That and grandparents.

Later on we went and saw some castallers....I've posted about them before and there is a whole album of photos on the right there for you to look at, maybe two.

These photos I took today struck me as interesting though.  The guys on the bottom are carrying a fairly enormous strain, they have up to 7 people one on top of the other standing on their shoulders.  The strain doesn't show as much as you would expect.  They also have to work very hard at resisting any lateral forces they are subjected too.  Additional strain.  This guys face however seems to illustrate it nicely.

First layer up, all fairly calm.  Focus and concentration, but all OK

Here you can see the next layer heading up....two people standing on his shoulders at once!

Now he has about five layers of people on him.  Starting to work a little more.

He's got seven folks on his shoulders now, in the zone, veins bulging and blood congesting in his face with the effort.  Still looking pretty calm.

He had to talk for a moment while there were seven layers on him.  Doesn't look that easy.

Now?  No problemo, the 180 pound man is the only one left, and he's climbing down, plenty of time for a chat, no?  I'd be chatting with a 180 pound man climbing down off my shoulders, wouldn't you?