Calçots in batter.
Just when you think that you have one aspect of foreign living sussed – they do something slightly different and you realise that you are still very much in the learning stage!
Another excellent menu del dia in the centre of Castelldefels just before retrieving Ceri’s working charcoal from the framers. This was the only real casualty in the move and so a nasty Habitat slip frame broke allowing the purchase of something rather more appropriate. And, of course, costing more than the original charcoal! Such is time and inflation – and buying the picture years ago!
Where to put it is an increasingly difficult prospect as I am disinclined to drill into virgin walls. The system of putting up sizable pictures here is two fixed hooks to fix into two eye screws on the frame. This has to be exact because there is no room for adjustment as far as I can see. Give me the old fashioned string at the back every time!
Today I picked up the third in the series of Catalan Artists from the newspaper: Gaudi. I have a few books on Gaudi and I assumed that this little monograph would not add much but I was mistaken as there were a number of pictures and views of edifices that I had not seen before. As the text is in Catalan I will have to use more imagination than knowledge to decipher what new insights the text might add!
The other book I bought today was the next volume in the National Geographic's Atlas Visual Patrimonies de la Human dad which this week was of France.
As you can imagine the wealth of buildings in France is a little overwhelming and the traditionally spectacular photographs of the National Geographic do more than adequate justice of their impossibly famous subjects.
The vast majority of buildings considered worthy to be part of the protected heritage of human kind are religious institutions. And those that aren’t, are royal. It is with conflicting emotions that one considers the disproportionate time, effort and money devoted to the construction in stone of monuments to the philosophically impossible and the politically inexcusable!
But often the sheer beauty of the proportions of some of those Gothic cathedrals and abbeys just takes the breath away. The Baroque is easy to resist and the French preoccupation with excessive ornamentation leaves me cold but the spaces that the Master Builders managed to create never fail to excite.
And the book is in Spanish, so at least I have a partial chance of understanding what it’s on about.
I am reading (as a Holiday Treat) a novel! I have chosen ‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold. I should have finished this by tomorrow and write my response then.
I bet you can hardly wait!
Cheers!
Just when you think that you have one aspect of foreign living sussed – they do something slightly different and you realise that you are still very much in the learning stage!
Another excellent menu del dia in the centre of Castelldefels just before retrieving Ceri’s working charcoal from the framers. This was the only real casualty in the move and so a nasty Habitat slip frame broke allowing the purchase of something rather more appropriate. And, of course, costing more than the original charcoal! Such is time and inflation – and buying the picture years ago!
Where to put it is an increasingly difficult prospect as I am disinclined to drill into virgin walls. The system of putting up sizable pictures here is two fixed hooks to fix into two eye screws on the frame. This has to be exact because there is no room for adjustment as far as I can see. Give me the old fashioned string at the back every time!
Today I picked up the third in the series of Catalan Artists from the newspaper: Gaudi. I have a few books on Gaudi and I assumed that this little monograph would not add much but I was mistaken as there were a number of pictures and views of edifices that I had not seen before. As the text is in Catalan I will have to use more imagination than knowledge to decipher what new insights the text might add!
The other book I bought today was the next volume in the National Geographic's Atlas Visual Patrimonies de la Human dad which this week was of France.
As you can imagine the wealth of buildings in France is a little overwhelming and the traditionally spectacular photographs of the National Geographic do more than adequate justice of their impossibly famous subjects.
The vast majority of buildings considered worthy to be part of the protected heritage of human kind are religious institutions. And those that aren’t, are royal. It is with conflicting emotions that one considers the disproportionate time, effort and money devoted to the construction in stone of monuments to the philosophically impossible and the politically inexcusable!
But often the sheer beauty of the proportions of some of those Gothic cathedrals and abbeys just takes the breath away. The Baroque is easy to resist and the French preoccupation with excessive ornamentation leaves me cold but the spaces that the Master Builders managed to create never fail to excite.
And the book is in Spanish, so at least I have a partial chance of understanding what it’s on about.
I am reading (as a Holiday Treat) a novel! I have chosen ‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold. I should have finished this by tomorrow and write my response then.
I bet you can hardly wait!
Cheers!
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