Hermits and art

We have a village hermit.

He's a young man who lives up in the hills, his hair is badly matted, although he is reasonably clean...at least he doesn't smell bad. He walks everywhere in bare feet and comes down into the town from time to time, for food, for work, to use the internet....

He is reportedly a young German man, with some English skills who came here in the past to go climbing. Since then he decided that life is too busy and crazy, too noisy, and cash-mad...and so he came here where the winters are less harsh and took to the hills.

Sounds tempting sometimes doesn't it?

Then again I think it might get lonely.

I came across him in the hills the other day in one of those door-in-the-hill places where the locals used to store I don't know what, everything from farming implements to wine and oil to arms and prisoners given what has gone on here in the past....

Now there is a hermit sitting in them keeping warm and dry.

I was kind of startled when I saw him...I had been past this particular doorway a week or so before, right after a strong rain...I had seen his footprints in the mud....no one else is barefoot and I had smelt a faint odour of wood smoke, but still I was surprised when I saw him there...the door was a little ajar, but there was no noise or smell...it was a warm beautiful day, so I peered in...I'm a little nosy about those rooms in the hills, and there he was sitting on the ground shirtless.

I had twin responses to it all, a mixture of concern that most women would have around a questionable man in a remote location, and curiosity...should I talk to him?

Instead I called the dog and walked on. I still am not sure if it was the right thing to do....but for now....it was.

On another note....my man seems to be improving, eldest to some extent.

On a third different note I brought the camera into BCN today because there were a few things I wanted to take pictures of to post but between the late bus and the cloudy weather, that didn't happen, so instead, you get an blow by blow of a painting I have been working on. After Nomad started up her art blog Poena I debated doing the same but decided that no, I would continue to use my doodles as blog fodder....I am not sure if this piece is finished or not...I blue tacked it up onto the wall to look at for a couple of days....here goes....








At this point I liked it, but knew it had a fair way to go, so I let it sit for a while and thought about what might work....so this is what I did last night....





Still thinking about it.

I overheard this today too, it was a child speaking...."I always thought of Mark Twain as a political type of person, didn't he invent communism or something?"
Adult, "No, that was Karl Marx"

Not too hard to confuse, huh?

Out with the youngest....

NaNoWriMo is on...National novel writing month or something like that and I would love to get that organised, but I have to admit that between kids, work, Catalan studies, the dog and trying to maintain a semblance of a relationship with my husband, let alone paint a bit, I am not sure that is going to happen. I also need to start Spanish...that said, if I was driven enough I would FIND the time for it, but well, guess I am not.

Youngest and I instead went into BCN today. Eldest is still hurtin' and the man is recovering...so it was youngest's choice of what to do...we went SKATING!!! It was pretty cool, they have a hockey rink in the ground floor of a building, and there were skate rentals...it was all fairly pricey especially if you are used to the free neighbourhood rink, but man we had fun. There was some mandatory safety wear, which seems a good idea, except that it was a pair of gloves. Yup, I had to cough up for a pair of regular knitted gloves...high tech safety wear. No helmets available, god forbid you might mess up your manicure though...very strange. We saw several children whack their heads pretty hard too, two on the ice and one slid into the boards...we are not looking at a collection of highly competent skaters here. No fingernails were damaged though I am glad to report.

Youngest caught on quite fast in fact. Especially since she went skating once last year, and then once about five years ago...she was doing a Klingon to the boards at first and by the time we left two hours later (oh my poor feet and abraded legs) we were whizzing around the rink, passing people and dodging incompetents. Now that doesn't mean she could do anything as fancy as stop or turn in any major way, but we had a good time.

No pics. Sorry folks. But the camera is pricey and bulky, BCN is a hive of thieves, and I wasn't sure of the security options...and the chance that I would fall and wreck the camera completely were pretty high....

After that we went and had a little food, the mandatory hot chocolate...that was a bit of a wash-out. The Catalan's make AWESOME hot chocolate, but not this café...though he did throw some chocolate milk in the nuker for us...it was kind of like the stuff you get out of the machines at arenas so it fit the bill. We also had sandwiches which were as always excellent and we stopped at a patisseria that would warm any one's heart.

Finally we went to the Antoni Tàpies foundation, which I had wanted to see, but youngest said was Booooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnnnnnnnnnng.

I liked some of his work, it is abstract and vigorous, and I love his use of just about anything that comes to hand in his paintings and sculptures...and the sheer size of the pieces...that said I am not sure how much I like his message...a mite grim, and his chosen pallet is a bit harsh and dour....



Tomorrow back to the grind....it has been a lovely weekend, but it is a shame that a full half of the family has been under the weather....ah well.

The girls also wanted me to show some of their latest work....this is Youngest's (8), she is very happy with how it turned out....



And in the multimedia category, Eldest's blue tack art....



I see a contest, or exhibition in here somewhere...a challenge of sorts in fact...let me think about the details, maybe we will have a blue tack art contest....announcements to follow...

Photography and food

A friend here asked why I took a camera with me so often...The obvious answer is that when I don't there are things I want to take pictures of....but the real answer goes further, and is also harder to pin down.

What do I like about taking photos...?

Part of it is definitely that I like sharing what I see around here with others...or gloating? I think not, sometimes it definitely feels like I am doing my own little show and tell. Sometimes that is certainly the point.

Sometimes there is an artistic element....I find beauty, and want to tease it out. Though I think my photography skills are such that I am definitely not creating Aaart, some of the images have turned out well enough that I am really happy with them, and I am gradually getting them blown up, printed and framed....

There is inevitably a certain amount of record keeping, though I tend to have to remember to do this, rather than want to...for instance at the Halloween party and at Birthdays...but it is not an urge like some photos I want to take.

Sometimes I take photos purely as note taking for possible paintings...effects of light, and the possibility for long study when I have time.

Sometimes I am simply so struck by the beauty of something that I feel compelled to try to - oh I hate the word capture, but it is what follows logically here - I feel compelled to grasp a glimmer of it. I am frequently disappointed with these pictures...

One of the other things I like about carrying the camera and using it often is that it does help to keep my eyes open to the beauty around me, even in unlikely places...painting does this too, but feeling the weight dangling off my shoulder keeps my head up and my eyes open a little bit more...and I like that.

So, in honour of this post, here's a bunch of photos I took today....

Youngest and I set out to make panallets...which are a tradition here at this time of year. Eldest helped as well a bit, but we were off, with youngest's remembered recipe from school as our guide.....

Here's the ingredients: pounded almonds, sugar a potato and cocoa...

First, boil the potato...

While that is going on, mix equal quantities of pounded almonds and sugar...some recipes call for 2 to 3, the three being the almonds....but this IS what they did with the kids in the school.

Once the potatoes are cooked, mash them...

Then stir, nay, knead them into the almond mixture....

Until it is all one mix....we used too much potato.

Make them into little balls and roll them in the cocoa, mix in peanut butter for a North American flavour, add coconut, jam, rolling them in pine nuts is very common here and very very good.

Now your supposed to put them into a 350 degree oven for five to ten minutes, but we don't have an oven...therein lies another post, so I put them in a cast iron pan on very low with a lid. As I mentioned, we had too much potato, so you can actually see them melting there. They shouldn't.

This is how some of the cocoa ones looked at the end. They firmed up when they cooled, and have a candy-ish texture that the kids love, but they are not panellets.

Now, in the midst of all this, youngest had decided to go out on the balcony and get some pine nuts out of some cones I had gathered, pound the nuts and make some panellets with pine nuts. Unfortunately something large, yellow and scorpion shaped scuttled out of one of the cones while she was working on them. Freaked her right out, so we don't have any pinyon panallets...I did have a mess to clean up as well as a scorpion search to conduct. I love it when my cooking is interrupted by searching for scorpions...it just adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the entire endeavour.......here I am starting to look.

No scorpion here...just a lot of fruit flies....

Ditto...

Well, I never did find that bug/insect/arachnid/whatever...so Chuck came out and did his I'm-a-Catalan-dog thing and started splitting pine cones for us to get the pine nuts out. That is until something else came out of one of the cones and he left too after a few panicked circles and some frantic sniffing. He retired to the living room to lick his wounds. Literally.

SO.

How about you?

Why do you enjoy taking photos?

Do you enjoy taking photos?...Esben, if you read this I'd love to hear your response....

Halloween part two, take three

Feeling a little calmer now....we'll start off with a couple of shots from my walk in the mountain with the dog...



To eat or not to eat....Not.



That's some fairly heavy duty armour isn't it!

Halloween....Lets see how this goes....

As I have said before, the whole Halloween fiesta went off pretty well. The first kids arrived before me! One of the Moms phoned the night before to ask if her daughter could come over straight from school, an hour early, as she had to leave early. It seemed a little strange, but what the heck. The second also beat me home, his folks just dropped him off at about 5:20 for a 6pm party....by the 6:00 start time there were a good 15 kids here. Nothing like a little free babysitting, no?

Two of the mom's stayed and helped which was a great think when you think about 40 kids all working on the first pumpkin of their lives with knives all at the same time. Thankfully no-one was wounded, not even a scrape. The finished doing all of the pumpkins, and the tombstone poems by 7pm. Egad. Then they all turned to me and asked what was next. Only two hours to go!

Fortunately one of the Moms had set up for the kids to trick or treat at her house and a neighbours, so off we went...in a big fat parade of gleeful kids. They stopped after the second house to eat, after which we went for a bit more of a wander around the village to show off the costumes, stopping on the stairs of the church in the main plaça for a photo op...nothing like a little devil worship on the church stairs. Keeps the priest in trim. We wandered a little further, then headed home for a few minutes of eating and chatting then the dreaded question appeared again, what do we do next? Clearly they felt there was a protocol to these sorts of events....so we went up to the terrace, OH, I failed to mention that it rained during the party, so we did the pumpkin carving with all 40 kids, some from grade six and pretty much adult sized, in my 10 by 25 foot living room...plus four adults. It was some crowded! Anyway, up on the terrace trying to light the pumpkins, but these are kids who are used to running through fireworks, and their idea of safety around open flame does not match up with mine. The other moms were just as darned scary.

The kids were holding the pumpkins, nay, hugging the pumpkins while peering down into the flaming center with their long hair and wildly inflammable costumes...I finally got them all to put the darn things down without anyone turning into a human torch...then they all wanted to carry the things downstairs. Lit. In the main part of the house. Small children in costumes labeled "keep away from open flame", tottering down the stairs in masks they cannot see out of with skirts that are too long, all with lit pumpkins in their hands. Even eldest was twitchy....we eventually got them all blown out.

The last one (who was second to arrive) didn't leave until an hour past the exit time...goodness gracious.

And my house? Beth asked how it was cleaner than in the morning....here's the trick. I cleaned the bathroom, fresh towel and soap cause that's just a nice thing to do, swept the stairs up to the apartment cause the parents would see that. I swept up anything that appeared as I moved the furniture around and that was that. With forty kids coming over, I am NOT cleaning first.

After they left, leaving a universal coating of pumpkin guts, pop, chips and dirt throughout the apartment (I found pumpkin guts on the wall near the ceiling today) I mopped everything twice...the bathroom got three goes.

- OK boys, ready, AIM fire, no?

By the time I was done all the furniture was back where it belonged, I had most of the decorations down, the kitchen was clean and everything was packed away....not everything, but there wasn't much left to do. Took about two hours.

Next year it we do it again, I will get the other mothers to all host a trick or treat, we'll be party central, but a longer trick or treat, plus I'll end it at 8:30 rather than 9.

*Phew*

Today was wildly productive...I went into town to do a bunch of bureaucratic crap, all reasonably successfully, I had a nice walk, found a great Turkish place for lunch, sat on the beach eating it, and then had the most amazing sea glass hunting in my entire life...honestly I could squat down on the beach and pick up 15 pieces of yellow and blue glass...I even found purple!!! It was amazing...I found everything in the picture in about 20 minutes...and I wasn't looking all that hard...there must be more!



Look at these pieces...interesting shapes, good size, good colour, particularily the two bi-coloured yellow pieces!!!
Wait a bit and you could see them as jewelry on my friends site!




Then the trip home was fairly clear.

Yahhooooo

Tonight is movie night..and the man seems to be recovering...eldest at the moment seems fine, cross your fingers please.

Halloween part two

Now I am stinking mad. I had a big long post and f*cking blogger autosave didn't save it. They said the saved it. I posted, there was an error message. I went back, re saved it. Then when I posted, all I got was the pictures and I had tried every freaking thing I know and the post is just plain gone.

OK. Not exactly a disaster, but as it is now 11:20 and I still have to walk the dog, I am not a happy camper.

Cheery prose about the party is rather tougher as well.

The re-creation is never as good.

I tried.

This simply will not come out right.

I will write another day, once again I am going to bed.

Curses on you blogger.

Here's the pics anyway. Mysteriously, they didn't get lost.

The party, part 1

Well, it's over; and if I do say so myself it was a ROARING success. (thank god)

My Catalan held up, a couple of Mom's pitched in and helped, which was fantastic of them....the kids all had a blast. The only tears were when it was time to go.

The house is cleaner than it was this morning, and almost back to normal.

Now I must go to bed. More tomorrow, and maybe even some photos.

*phew*

ho hum, another boring day in Spain....

To do today:

Wake up,
walk the dog,
feed the children,
feed the dog,
medicate the dog,
make lunch for youngest's field trip
make snack for both children,
medicate eldest for the stomach ache,
soothe youngest because her ankle hurts
have a breakdown on the couch
get up because I don't have time for that shit
take youngest to school early so I can go to the bank,
tell the school eldest won't be there, she has a stomach ache (again)
in Catalan
Wave youngest off on the bus (maybe)
RUN to work
Teach
teach
teach
run to the candy store before they close at 1pm.
Internally curse the Spanish working hours
Pick up youngest at school (late)
Internally curse the husband for his temerity in getting sick right now
Go to the municipal building to cancel the painting classes before they bill me for November
Go home,
dump the candy
take eldest to the medical center for another futile round with the doctors who have no idea WTF is going on
Internally curse the medical system for their ignorance and incompetence
return home.
Eat
hopefully sleep for an hour
walk the dog
leave a note for husband about what to ask the vet tonight
pick up kids from school
drop them at home
put on a costume for work, not yet created
work
work
return home
eat
read to the children
spray paint rubber gloves with glow in the dark paint
sew onto the witch outside
make a broom out of the olive branches I gathered for the witch(these last two are rather optional)
study Catalan with a neighbour
walk the dog (we are now approaching midnight)
Blog (you may not hear from me)
crash hard.

God almighty, what a day, and very little of it I can discard. I may bail on the neighbour, but if I start that, my Catalan will peter out, I have to cling HARD to it.

See ya, I am reminding myself that we are all having fun here. No?

Yeah, we are, except eldest with her stomach ache...and the man who is sick.
I can get sick on Wednesday night at 9:05.

Halloween, part I don't know, about seven thousand.

More Halloween prep today, this was fun though...I also took the mutt for a walk, and finally got a picture of this door knocker that I adore....



The mushrooms are out all over, though I can only reliably recognize one kind....can you spot the mushroom? I didn't pick these, I am pretty sure that you cannot eat these....though I found two yesterday that we could and did and they were excellent. I got it confirmed by three seperate people before we tried it.



The day was mostly spent making tombstones...surprisingly laborious, cut out the cardboard, shape it, trim it, then the good part, painting it and speckling it. I am suddenly and profoundly converted to acrylics, man those are FUN...they dry fast, mix big and bright and bold, thin beautifully and have excellent, albeit extremely opaque coverage.





I have also been downloading Bach's Toccada and Fugh in D minor, the classic Halloween music, and my God Mother is going to love this, the version I downloaded was recorded live on Riga's famous Cathedral organ!

We have now achieved all the things that we HAVE to do, other than the pizza, though the time change added one more item to my to-do list...more light on the terrace, also they are going to freeze their butts off up there, OH NO! We may end up with all forty of them down in the apartment.....my chest is tightening with tension at the thought. The noise. OMG.

Only three hours...

It's only three hours....

Ah, what the heck, it'll be a lot of fun.

Canadian content

We spent the day prepping for the party. First the girls and I made copious lists of what we needed from the various stores then headed out. We came back with a mere nine giant jugs of pop. As we climbed the mule track they call a road near our house we realised, by our rough calculations, that since I was by this time carrying all the pop, I was in fact carrying more than the weight of youngest up the hill.

Groan.

We then went back again for real groceries.

Groan.

The man is still kind of ill, but the girls and I got quite a bit done...here's some pictures, we did more, but this was the start, and a pretty good start I think.

The door to a different world.



She's lovely isn't she?



He likes her so much he can't control those independent eyeballs...



I have to get one of these for my living room.

Then again, I have one.

Don't you think Martha Stewart will have this in next fall's line up?

For anyone concerned for the mental well being of our visitors, this is a seperate room, and entirely voluntary....other bits look much simpler, though we haven't finished yet.....BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!


Tonight we kind of tried to go to correllengua, which is 'run your tongue' in translation, or run your language. I think run your tongue is more fun. It was a bit of a washout. There were the diablos and a couple of the giant puppets, they shot off some of the correfoc fireworks, but not very much, and that was about all. I thought there would be some butiffara and mungetes with pa amb tomaquet, but they were still loading wood on the fire at that point. We went home feeling sniffy and put out to a lunch type dinner of bread, cheese and fruit. There was one guy quaffing back mouthfuls of kerosene and then breathing fire...he was impressive, but it actually made me gag to watch him drinking out of that giant container of kerosene.

*shudder*

This is an uber nationalistic event all about the maintenance and preservation of the Catalan cultural and linguistic heritage. It is a bit like moving to a hard-core separatist town in Quebec, near Lac Sant Jean maybe, and seeing the local celebrations and strong strong feelings about their nationhood....

While I am writing Canadian references here, I picked up a copy of the Morningside Papers, book five. Now if you don't know what Morningside was, or who the inimitable Peter Gzowsky was, you have truly missed out on something. The man was simply brilliant. This was a three hour radio show every weekday that ran for 12 years, and Gzowsky probably the best interviewer I have ever heard anywhere. The book is a collection of letters that were sent into the show by Canadians from all over, as well as notes penned by Gzowsky himself.

Here are some funny bits I enjoyed out of the book....

How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?

A fish.


And another little story I liked a lot, this is part of what Gzowsky did so well, he could tell a simple story, in a manner that completely brought to life the feelings of what was going on....he also managed to stay this side of sentimentality almost all the time, though I will admit he occasionally danced rather close to the line.

He had lead in pieces every morning....here's one:

October 31, 1991

Good morning...I'm Peter Gzowsky and this is Morningside....

Heard a nice little story the other day and, although it is apropos pf nothing on Morningside today, I thought I might pass it along. It took place about ten days ago, when Wayne Gretzky's father, Walter - a really nice guy, by the way - was fighting back from the brain aneurysm that's laid him low, and Wayne was away from hockey and at his bedside. Wayne, in fact, was alone with his ad saying, it's me, Wayne, if you recognize me, squeeze my hand. Suddenly, there was a response, and Wayne knew that his father would pull through. "He knew me, he knew me," he said as he left the room. "Gee, Wayne," said someone outside, "I don't want to let you down....but everybody knows Wayne Gretzky."

A totally typical Gzowsky story.

As an interesting aside, you should try to type ''Gzowsky'', unless you are a pro, it is quite the interesting little exercise.

After the kids were put to bed I went down to the tongue running Correllengua in search of wood fire cooked butifarra (sausage) and mungetes (beans), plus pa amb tomaquet (bread with tomato). They were up and running now, so this is what I got. I took it home, which explains the silver cutlery. It doesn't really go with the plastic plate, but what the heck. It sure is nice to eat off.

The band has just started up, and they are appalling. I like most kinds of music, don't get me wrong (Well. Not Rod Stewart), but I think someone ran over the lead singer's tongue....it is AWFUL. Simply AWFUL. I may go out on the porch and see if I can post some of the music...

I also just did the spell check, I misspelled the amb in pa amb tomaquet, the google spell check highlighted it, the list came up, and there was the correct spelling, amb. Then further down, it had the correct spelling highlighted as a mistake. Thoughts about right hands and left hands not knowing what the **ck is going on, eh?

Spookkkyyyyy

Some good friends in Toronto have sent us some Halloween goodies to help out with the party....here's what we got......

Those are some nasty pimples he's got going on.....

Looks like his tooth hurts pretty badly, no?

How I look in the morning before I've had a cup of tea. Pity my children.

I took Chuck to the vet again today to check his progress, the poor guy did his best imitation of a carpet on the way in, fortunately the floor is very slippery so I was able to just slide him on in, then he trembled the entire time.

That said, his lungs sound clear, and we can take him for slightly longer walks, although he is still contagious for for another week I am told.

Unfortunately the man has gone to bed and is not going back to work this afternoon, he's feeling that miserable undefinable sense of impending doom. Let's hope we don't get sick before the party.

Oh, and the obnoxious lady at the Catalan class? Several of us were commenting on our dread of her joining us, which of course we did, but I hushed her rudely several times. Make that many times, and things improved, somewhat. Still she is a resounding pain.

One of the weird things about studying the language is that I have days/hours/moments when I think I may actually manage this some days, and others when I am certain that I am NEVER going to manage this, let alone the second language I need to tackle very very soon. Not quite like mood swings, more like confidence swings, fortunately I am old enough to recognise them for what they are, and just ride it out...though I enjoy the moments of confidences as the unvarnished truth anyway....