Eva Bélen is here

There is a lot to say about this event... but for the moment,, lets just look at her. Shes pretty cute, but of course I am COMPLETELY BIASED.

Eva Bélen week ONE

Summer vacation

School has finally let out, and summer has started with visitors from Canada and Germany. So we decided to play tourist a bit. Here are the pics:

Spain and Morocco vacation

Portraits

I really really really wanted to get some professional photos taken, you know of this special time. Harry was also amicable to the idea until he found out how much it cost. The local photographer is fantastic, but definitely doesn't have village prices, so we decided to take some ourselves,, not so profi, but some are OK...

Our Jimena portrait session

Just pictures

There was a Riding Festival in Jimena

Caballero Feira

We visited Cadiz

Cadiz

then canos de Mecca

Canos de Mecca

and back at home,, the wildlife on the river is pretty cool

Campo Creatures

TRUST ME he said

Famous last words or?

Two weeks ago Harry and I went to Tarifa. The goal was wind surfing (his) sleeping in the sun (mine). We drove out with the Merc on Saturday morning, found a great spot to park, and spent the day watching others surf. The weather was too cold, in fact I think it even rained for awhile, something the dog can attest to far more than us, as she refused to get back in the bus, despite the rain, but rather sat under it, until the rain stopped. She doesn't like driving, or anything associated with driving. She is also not a big fan of water, so the whole beach thing was more of a nightmare for her than a holiday, but Harry and I had fun, trapped in a small space together is always nice.

In the evening we went for a "romantic dinner", we drove to a little restaurant further down on the beach and watched the sun set on the water as we ate. We drove back to our campsite and Harry had the idea, that if we back up to the side of the cliff we will be able to wake up with a sea view even better than we had at the restaurant. I was against the idea, driving backwards up hill to the edge of a cliff in the dark in a bus with limited peripheral vision. I saw so much potential for problem. He told me it was hormones, and note to all men reading this, never tell the woman you made pregnant that her reactions are due to hormones...

Trust me he said.

Then he proceeded full gas backwards, up the side of the small hill and over the side of the cliff. I actually felt the front wheels go off the ground first, surprising, but natural physics I suppose as the back wheels fell down the front ones came up. With two wheels off the ground and hanging in mid air, I said I told you so, one of my rare moments of full pregnancy charm I admit. I refused to get back in the bus dangling over the cliff and Harry tried to get us out of the mess. His response,,, umm well yeah, I guess we did drive a little too far backwards and he laughed. Fifteen minutes later as he realized his hormonal girlfriend wasn't kidding when she said she wasn't sleeping in the van, and that van wasn't going anywhere without a tow, and that no one in their right mind was going to tow us at midnight, and that no matter how much he jumped on the rear bumper to show me it was safe I still would no longer trust him, he stopped laughing, looked at me in despair and asked, "well what can I do then to make this OK"

Looking at him, and his desperation to make amends, I managed to pull myself together. We were in the middle of no where. I weighed up options of sleeping in the front seat to counter balance....

Then we decided to stack rocks under the tyres so at least it wouldn't rock so much and I would have the FEELING of security. Stacking job done, we went to bed exhausted and the entertainment for the hippie colony was over for the night.

Tarifa

The Big news

So I haven't written here in a long time. I haven't done much of anything PUBLICLY for a long time. It's because INTERNALLY I have been really busy.

Baby Pictures

Anyone who tells you pregnancy is a wonderful time of your life is an idiot. Or still pumped full of those delusional "happy hormones" that I have clearly yet to receive. Let me sum up the first trimester with one word. VOMIT. AND to point out that it is one evil trick on the part of mother nature that your sense of smell increases phenomenally just as you enter this phase. Enough said, trimester 2 is much better however I am not "glowing" (unless you count the sunburn of last week, I didn't know my skin is now hypersensitive to sunlight) as everyone says I should, my skin is worse than it ever was during puberty acne days, and my hair is not thick and lovely, in fact I have discovered GRAY. The walk up the hill from my car to the house, requires a resting station about half way up, luckily in front of a kiosk where I can purchase an ice cream if I time it well. As for weight, I don't want to discuss it, 16 weeks in, I have gained 8 kilos (the doctor initially predicted 12 overall, now hes shooting for 15 plus). I have come to the realization that the leech inside me is probably ruining my body for life. I have low blood pressure, which the doctor says is not wonderful, but much better than high blood pressure, but it causes me to have ringing in my ears and feel faint most of the time that I am standing, lying down all the time isn't an option because Im supposed to be working and carrying on as if everything is normal. How can anyone think the entire reorganization of your skeleton (30% less calcium), circulatory system (30% more blood) and internal organs (all now apparently located under and stuffed into my breasts) is normal?

Plus, I live in constant fear that I am doing something WRONG, to the leech. Clearly it can fend for itself, I experience this daily, and although the doctor says it is still too soon for me to feel the baby,, I tell you the fluttering and goings on in there is not gas, but the leech doing gymnastics. So far the sport cannon is great, passed every test with flying colours, what a relief, but I suspect this is only the beginning of a lifetime of worry about a little life that I might be helping to build at the moment but clearly have absolutely no control over and never will.In fact I suspect as far as control goes, the leech has all of it hands down, over both me and Harry. Another thing to accept. We are just around to help build and will probably get kicked in the stomach a lot of times in the process.

Never make a Gypsy mad

It started harmlessly enough. First my wondowbox plant went missing. Then the pot. We bought another plant, that went missing too. Then I found her, cleaning some sort of faeces from her son´s shoes onto my doorstep.

Everytime we walk by her, she lowers her voice and gives us the evil eye.

Now, although I haven´t seen her do it, I am sure the following series of events that have taken place at our old house are due to her.

The mail gets burned, the post man sets it in the small space between the door and the step, and its all burned, the door is a little singed too. A drowned frog was placed on the window sitting in water in a tuperwear box. A pile of toilet paper was thrown on the sill as well. A few dazs later the frog was dumped out on the sill, and the paper was buned...

I can not beleive we have mad such a ferocious enemy in such a short time. I am also really happy we moved and she hasn´t realised it yet.

Al Hambra

Harry has wanted to go to Al-Hambra for ages, but never managed to make it. Why? Becuase you have to book in advance, that goes against his spontaneous nature. We did manage though to get some tickets, in the usually over full castle and grounds and had even more luck because we had good weather. Cold but clear.

The original castle was built in the 11th century by Samuel Ha-Nagid, a Jewish grand vizier of one of Granadas sultans. It was turned into a fortress in the 13th century as the Moors took over, and the castle came into the possession of the Nasrid dynasty. After the Reconquista, when the Christians basically drove the arabs out, or tried in any case, the palace that the Nasrid emirs had built was restored and partially demolised to make way for a new palace for Carlos I, and the mosque was turned into a church. In the 18th century no one was interested in Al-Hambra and it was abandonded, left to go to ruin and only thieves and beggars lived in its grand walls and palace rooms.

When Napolean invaded, he used the palace for barracks and in the ensuing battles the palace was very nearly destroyed. In 1870, the government finaly re-discovered its worth and it was declared a national monument, and the authors of the romantic period all flocked there to live in it, despite its decrepid state. Can you imagine the sort of bohemean artist colony that must have wandered around there gathering wood to burn in monunetal fireplaces??? It was basically ignored by Franco,, and after he died, the Al-hambra was declared a world heritage site and rightly so.

Is there any other place that has such a checkered history?

Al Hambra

mpm=Malaga Picasso Museum

The next stop on the daily ausflug trail was Malaga. I was pleasantly surprised. What has been missing from my Spanish life was a good shopping experience, and there is one to be found in Malaga. I didn't have high hopes for this ugly city, but discovered that it is actually not so ugly. The inner city was renovated by Fernando and Isabella in the 15th century and it still stands much as it was. They had good taste! The shopping street is something to behold. I didn't buy anything. The men were patient however while I scoured the shoe stores looking either for a black back to match my back boots or brown boots to match my bag. They royal pair, Ferdinand and Isabella, not Harry and his dad, also started a big renovation of the cathedral of Malaga, however it ran short of cash, or in any case someone decided that they didn't want to invest any more in the completion of the church and from one day to the next it seemed, stopped. The cathedral looks strange because although the work stopped after 200 years (can you imagine 200 years on the same project)there are still lose bricks sitting around, parts of the original mosque (yes I said Mosque, Malaga like most of Andalusia spent a lot of time under Arabic rule) are still clearly visible and the second bell tower consists of a few incomplete pillars, yet no one has worked there since 1782.

The cathedral and the old town were not why we were there though, we went to see Malagas newest and most expensive tourist attraction, the Picasso Museum, of course there are Picasso museums all over the place but how many are in his home town? It was good, but Harry and his father were more impressed with the Max Ernst temporary exhibition also on display. German patriotism perhaps?

All that said, I didn't take any pictures, sorry mom, maybe I was looking for an excuse to go back.