{this moment}

A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.  :: Idea from :SouleMama:   If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

All the fun of the fair?

We went to the fair last week - three times - and yes, I cheered and waved at the children as they whizzed past on whizzy things or crashed into each other in dodgem cars. I even went on a ride myself - in a spinning teacup - and screamed as the world blurred, my stomach churned and the music blasted.

FR did really well to capture us, we were going REALLY fast!!

Throwing coins onto boxes of turron - you win if the coin stays put.

I ate candy floss and the turron that Romy won. (Not all of it! We shared it.)













However, being honest, the fiestas in Alcala la Real this week were uninspiring. There were very few rides and the stalls were all the same; either throw three darts into three different rings or burst three balloons with three darts (so if you miss with the first one, there's just no incentive to continue) and the prizes were truly dreadful. The noise level was absolutely deafening; the prices were sky-high for food that was full of sugar, salt and fat; designer fakes were on sale everywhere. It didn't live up to my expectations.

There, I've said it. I didn't enjoy the ferias this time at all. Each time we went, I returned feeling my soul had suffered a little more damage. I go thinking that I love fairs and whilst this was obviously a disappointing one, it felt worse than that - in some way, this fair was damaging. And I should have learned after the first visit.. like my eldest son.

Because Mateo sussed it all out on the first evening, when he went with his friends. He gave it a good go - staying out for three hours. He spent just 20 centimos (like 20p) - arriving home at 11.00, full of enthusiasm only for the kebab he'd bought on the way home, which he had clearly really enjoyed. As for the fair, he didn't visit it again despite our encouragement. Why did we feel we had to encourage him to go again? Well, because that is what everyone else was doing. I have to admire Mateo's clarity of mind despite being only 13 and of an age when most youngsters do what most other youngsters do. He felt no obligation to go just because it was there once he'd established that there was nothing there to interest him.


I think things have changed since the fairgrounds of my own youth - or am I just seeing things through time's rose-coloured spectacles? Weren't they full of stalls where you could win a goldfish in a bag; where real coconuts could be won at the shies; where rubber ducks bobbed around watery canals, smiling and resisting the hook; and didn't the rides include gorgeous galloping-horse merry-go-rounds, helterskelters, big dippers, waltzers and ghost trains - and of course, dodgems which are one of the sole survivors that seemed familiar. Yes, they were noisy; yes, there was the all-pervading smell of hot dogs, onions and candy floss(even then full of fat, sugar and salt) and there was always music but not so loud it was painful, relentlessly reducing people to yelling or being totally subdued. Was it better then I wonder - or I kidding myself?

Fairgrounds have always been about show and amusement and fun. Passing through a place to temporarily lighten the load and the purses of the more permanent inhabitants, providing a glimpse of a 'romantic', bohemian life. Nowadays, a brisk and efficient team arrives a few days prior to the opening of the fair and sets about with power tools, rigging, poles and wires; great modern trucks pull up and disgorge their contents which are quickly converted into rides or stalls. And when the music starts, it drowns out all conversation and forces the heart to beat at an unnatural speed.  This modern fairground does not bring much that is genuinely good with it.

And it makes me think back a few months to the Etnosur Fiestas, when our children so enjoyed the simple wooden games that they played in the main square and how different was the atmosphere then, with happy smiling people on the streets, talking to each other and sharing in the fun that was going on around them.  I know which we will remember most in years to come. But I do regret the decline of the fair and hope that this time was just a particularly poor show and not one to measure future fairs to come. Because, next time, without being a stick-in-the mud, when the fair next comes to town, if it doesn't set me alight on the first visit, I will take a leaf out of Mateo's book and not go back again to find out why.

Are there are any wonderful fairs happening anywhere in the world? What makes them good? I really would like to know.

Sunday morning.

After last night's noisy fiestas - when the streets were packed and the music went on and on and on...this morning has dawned quiet, calm and beautiful. My photograph can't capture the sense of peace that exists on our little street or the feeling of pure tranquility I have as I sit on the roof terrace with my coffee and look up towards La Mota. The crane - still, silent today - merely serves as a perch for tens of pigeons that from time to time, take off in unison and fly around in an unfathomable pattern before settling back again.

And is it wickedly selfish to be enjoying this all the more because I am the only one in my family who is up (apart from Darwin) and I've had a whole hour to myself, soaking in the morning sun and chilling out in a mindless and satisfied sort of way? I think not.

Peace, perfect peace.
Sunday morning as it should be.

{this moment}

A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.  :: Idea from :SouleMama:   If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

A pain in the...

Late Saturday night, after we'd NOT gone to a lovely Aqua Park for the day for Ruy's birthday (cos the website didn't announce it was closed from 4th September until 16th September...but never mind)...start again.

On Saturday, we spent an unexpectedly lazy and rather quiet day celebrating Ruy's 10th birthday after our original plans had been scuppered changed at the eleventh hour. Ruy was very sanguine about not going to the water park as he had secretly preferred to spend the day playing with his birthday presents. Romy was a bit unimpressed with the turn of events and several times during the day she said 'This is just like an ordinary day.' But in fact, we had a lovely, ordinary sort of day.

Instead of the planned sandwiches and cake in the sunshine, we indulged in big juicy steaks and chips (and cake) and later on had ice cream... and then pizza bread... and then popcorn... and then FR had something involving cheese and anchovies...

And at about 5 in the morning, I was awoken with gusts of warm air in my ear (with what at first I thought might have been a rather uninviting attempt to impress me) but which I soon realised was a display of discomfort. There was a lot of groaning, moaning, writhing, panting... the list goes on but I'll spare you further details. FR was in pain and not bearing it well at all. I was unsympathetic to say the least especially as he seemed to think I was somehow making it worse - apparently, I was giving off heat and then wasn't quick enough to put him a blanket on when he felt cold. I duly fetched a glass of water - which was the wrong temperature/colour/flavour or something - but I didn't really see what else I could be expected to do as I knew, of course, that it was just trapped wind and after cheese and anchovies, self-inflicted and only to be expected.

Trapped wind can, I know, be very painful. But it's not life-threatening; it passes; it doesn't deserve special attention at 5.30 in the morning and it shouldn't nearly wake up the whole neighbourhood. So I told him to lie on his left side and pull his knees up to his chest - good wind expelling position - and he'd soon feel better. And I went back to sleep in a huff.

He didn't feel better. I was much nicer to him in the morning and brought him peppermint tea and tried to massage his tummy which he didn't appreciate at all. Then for an hour or so, he slept deeply and woke up saying he felt a bit better but the pain was still there.

The pain hadn't moved since the early hours. Clearly this was not wind. I suggested we went up to the emergency clinic but no - he wanted to wait a bit longer to see if things improved.

By mid-afternoon, I was pretty sure what the problem was and knew he needed to see a doctor and I managed to get him into the car and up to the health centre. Fifteen minutes later and he was carted off in an ambulance to a hospital in Granada with suspected appendicitis. 'Are they going to remove his intestines?' asked Romy when I came back alone.

No - they'll probably leave most of his intestines alone but today, they are removing his appendix.

This morning, Romy was heard to tell someone at school that her papa had gone to hospital and they were going to remove his testes. (I must remember to tell her that it's the dog who will have that operation, not her father.)

Poor FR - I'll have to tell him this when it no longer hurts for him to laugh. Get well soon, my love.

Rainbows, Parsley and Ruy

After the drama of 9th September 2001, where all our attentions were focused on what was happening in the United States, I think I forgot that I was due to have a baby. We spent days pined to the television watching the awful images over and again as the disbelief turned to something else - not understanding but something more stark - realisation.

As I think back now, it was an otherwise very pleasant period. My mother-in-law had come to stay for a fortnight. I had denied her the opportunity when Mateo was born, preferring to be on my own to deal with a new baby as I simply wasn't sure how I was going to feel and needed to find out alone. I don't regret my decision but I knew how difficult Amelia had found it and so I was very keen to make up for what must have seemed to her very strange and stubborn behaviour. She arrived on the 6th September and was due to go on the 19th - the intention being to have a week before the baby was due and a week after the birth. However, the days came and the days - and the Twin Towers - went and no baby arrived. Mateo and his abuela spent hours wandering around near our home, picking blackberries and enjoying the Indian summer weather. We visited Bretton Hall Park in Yorkshire, which we love and so did Amelia and I remember feeling very well indeed.

Amelia was due to leave on Wednesday morning and on the Sunday - still no signs of baby - we went to my parents in Knutsford for a meal. It was a lovely and very special time - which I know both our mothers will remember for the non-stop conversation they had, (though my mum doesn't speak Spanish and Amelia doesn't speak English).


On our way home on the motorway (M62) over the Yorkshire Pennines we drove past the Red Rose of Lancashire and the White Rose of Yorkshire and almost literally on the border, we left bright sunshine behind us and faced a wall of dark clouds and showers ahead of us. Travelling from west to east also meant the sun was behind us and at where the two 'weathers' merged, there was the brightest, biggest and most impressive rainbow I have ever seen and we seemed to go right through it! The effect was stunning and I remember thinking it was a 'sign' - a sign that my baby was coming... and we should call him/her Rainbow. (I hadn't been drinking but I was feeling very calmed and possibly a bit too relaxed.)

That evening, Amelia was clearly beginning to worry that she might have to go home before she saw another Rainbow or have to cancel her flight, so she made me a 'special' omelette. It contained quite a lot of parsley which she knew, from growing up in a small Spanish village, helped to induce birth. Well, it might have been coincidence but just two hours later, things began to happen and by 7.30am the next day, we didn't have a Rainbow but having Ruy was like finding the pot of gold at the rainbow's end.

Happy 10th  Birthday, Ruy. Here he is this morning, with his necklace of sweets, which Cesar makes for them all every birthday - and a giant Chupa Chups which I found yesterday and couldn't resist buying for him!

Fruits of my labour

Been busy, busy, busy these past few days. We'd already stopped on our way back from a lovely day out in Valdepenas de Jaen and picked several bags of green figs, which I turned into our favourite fig and orange jam with walnuts. And there's only one jar of that left...it is so delicious.


And on a walk in the countryside, we found a tree of plums - (a plum tree) - which were too sour to eat so I made a sweet and sour sauce to eat with pork. That's sitting for a month to develop its flavour.

Then we had the rain of tomatoes and pepinos (cucumber) from all sides - our landlord, our next door neighbour and our ex-next-piso neighbour all showering their fruits upon us. So we salsa'd and passata'd and tzatziki'd and gazpacho'd and chopped and ate and froze our welcome and unexpected bounty.


 
Then two weeks ago, Greet, a Dutch lady who has joined my Spanish conversation class, brought me a big bag of gorgeous purple figs - glut from her many trees. We ate a lot of them almost straight from the bag- then we ate some more with honey or mixed with greek yogurt and when we'd had our fill, I froze several handy bags and with the rest I made a spicy fig jam.

And we're already part way down that jar.









And last week, Carol, also a conversation class member, brought me bags of pears - so many that she actually apologised. I shared them with several other people who fancied a couple of kilos but still had to make two trips to get them all home.

This week I have been mostly peeling pears.

And I found this wonderful recipe for Belgian Pears which is basically sugar, white wine vinegar and pears but the chemical mix and the combination of the ingredients is pure magic! They are out-of-this-world delicious and I know they are not going to last long...


Our new shelves are now bearing the weight of all this wonderful - almost free - food. It is almost (but not quite) as good as making chocolates.....

I am so very grateful for all generosity of everyone around here. I shall be handing out a few of these jars as tangible thanks and that feels good!