It is not everyday that you relive one of the great fairy stories in your local supermarket, but I managed to do just that.
Doing a little late night (relatively, this is Spain after all) shopping I decided to go to the slightly more select of the two supermarkets that lie side by side as there is always parking space and, because of the higher prices fewer people.
The reason I was there was to buy some bread and something else which I have already forgotten. Needless to say by the time I had gone around the shelves my trolley (why had I taken one in the first place) was filled with a whole variety of things that I had seen en passant and couldn’t bear to leave lying there.
I had even remembered to buy some sugar: an act of selflessness as I never use the stuff myself. I plopped it into the car and continued on my way, pausing only to pick up interesting things for purchase.
I became aware that I was being followed by a wall-eyed ginger who eventually approached me and in a suitably diffident way intimated that my sugar bag was broken. Sure enough as I looked down the aisle I realized that there was small, but significant piles of sugar indicating each of my stops for pondering with scattered granules indicating my on-going progress.
He took away the offending bag while I spluttered out my apologies and shambled away to get me another. Then, just as in the fairy story, he swept up the trail that I had been leaving to find my way out!
Luckily the store is not big so one is always in sight of the exit!
I did find my way out, but not before, in a further fairy tale like ending I obtained what might be the end to a questl
For some time I have been trying to find a decent kitchen knife. The best one I have has been almost ruined by person, or person unknown who have obviously used it for sawing through something which is not a vegetable or fruit.
This little Kitchen Devil knife is now, of course, unobtainable in their range – it was probably too perfect and therefore deleted! I have found nothing even remotely as effective as this little saw toothed knife. And god knows I have looked.
That section of one’s kitchen drawer that is reserved for all those long, thin things that don’t really fit anywhere else in my case if filled with failed knives in my Great Search for the Right One.
As is my want I had a cursory look through the tiny cutlery section and found yet another knife that looked as though it might suit. So for less than two euros I bought one.
It’s fantastic! It cut through the Edam like a dream; I even managed to chop it to put on my fresh spaghetti! That, in my book is passing a stiff test.
I have bought two more because I know that they will immediately stop making them now that I have found The One.
I know, I know that there are kitchen knives that are probably French and cost a small fortune which do the job as they have been doing for generations. I know this. I also know that my cooking does not justify such an enormous outlay on a humble knife. Even if it does last a lifetime!
The 60th birthday party went well and was a raucously emotional event enjoyed by all. It is always comforting to welcome new members to the club! Though there is always the nagging worry about who is left to make the money to pay us all!
Saturday in Barcelona (after an interminable wait for the bloody bus) was exhausting as I think that I must have picked up something from the nephews. The spreading of disease is second nature to those two children; Plague Annie herself could learn a thing or two from them!
My prupose in Barcelona was to go to the latest exhibition in La Caixa Forum called “Construir la Revolución” which concerns art and architecture in Russia from 1915 to 1935.
This small but powerful exhibition is laid out in an open hall with the walls displaying the architectural photographs with models, paintings and drawings occupying the space in the hall.
Iconic buildings are illustrated by contemporary photographs and magazines while modern colour photographs graphically illustrate the fate of the buildings in the present day.
The exhibits are interesting rather than startling, but a substantial model of Tatlin’s Tower commands attention together with a film which shows what it would have looked like in situ if it had been built.
For me the star exhibits were the paintings especially a fairly large painting by Solomon Nikritin called “La conexión de la pintura con la arquitectura” 1751 x 1311 mm though the actual picture is in the centre of the canvas. It is clearly a Constructivist painting but to me it seems to be closer to Orphic Cubism and Futurism than anything else. The reproduction in the catalogue does it no justice and I think it is one of those paintings that simply have to be seen in real life.
It has a colourful complexity and a subtlety in construction that is deeply satisfying. I liked it a lot.
The relics of Modernism in fading buildings are everywhere on the walls, but some of the buildings seem to be remarkably well preserved and still to look modern in spite of their age.
This is an exhibition to revisit after trying to get my way through the catalogue (35€ and no reduction for teachers of the history of art) which is in Spanish and then coming back with a little more knowledge. And, after all, this exhibition is free.
This is an exhibition that is not exclusive and the way it is laid out encourages wandering without looking aimless. There were a surprising number of visitors there so it must be breaking down barriers to visiting. Well worth seeing and going to see.
I felt really rough this morning and was hoping that it might continue to Monday and give me a day off but, staying in bed until lunchtime seems to have done the trick yet again and I feel fine! Is there no justice in the world.
And tomorrow is an early start.
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