Eddie the Perro RIP

Eddie died two weeks ago. We received his ashes last week and spent yesterday saying goodbye at one of his favourite places, the seaside. Eddie loved water and getting wet. If he could also get muddy then so much the better. It seemed fitting to scatter his ashes over the sea.

Thank you Eddie for fifteen years of fun, friendship and loyalty. Adios, you are sorely missed.

New Blog - The Negative

Bejeweled Bicycle

I've been busy since moving back in England, visiting galleries and taking photographs. But this blog and it's Mediterranean theme doesn't seem to be the appropriate place to tell you about these things. So I've created a new blog which is more in step with what I'm doing at this phase of my life. You can visit it here timirving.blogspot.com/ and I'd love to have your comments and suggestions.

I'll continue to add to Stylemed on an occasional basis and when I have appropriate content.

Thank you to everyone who has helped to make this a succesful blog - and I do hope you enjoy my new venture!

A day in Cambridge, England

We've worked very hard for the past two months, repairing and decorating the house. The repairs are almost finished but the decorating continues. As of yesterday the kitchen and dining room are finished. All floors, walls and ceilings have been restored or replaced. Next week we move into the lounge and start again. But before then I need to buy a long hose to add water to the garden pond which seems to have sprung a leak.

As the house progresses I'm starting to plan my other work, taking photographs and showing my work. Today I managed to combine house related business with photo business, or nearly.

I had to go to Cambridge to buy some materials, including the hose, and pay for some furniture that's being delivered tomorrow, so it seemed convenient to take a photograph while I was there. I've had the photo in mind for some time, it's the ancient market from the roof of the University Church. I spent a couple of hours yesterday making enquiries and arrangements for the photograph. Every problem was overcome and all I had to do was turn up at the church and climb up to the roof.

I arrived in Cambridge around 10am this morning and quickly got the house tasks completed. Then I made my way to the market square, passing more charity shops than I've ever seen in one street. I stopped off - of course - as I am in pursuit of a particular style of hat, which I feel I will only find in one of these shops. Further into the city I passed more bicycles chained to railings than I've ever seen before. And finally I reached the market square and made my way to the church.

I introduced myself and I was pointed in the direction of the stairs, and there are many of them, 123 to be exact. On the way up, around halfway, there's the room where the bell ringers ring the four original bells, the bells were installed in 1515, the octave was added during the 17th century. I felt very privileged to be amongst all this history!

I was excited when I reached the top of the tower, fabulous views of the city and the universities, but with one problem. Can you spot the scaffolding? To me, it marred a beautiful and classic view of such a famous and important city.

So I'll have to go back and do it again in a few weeks, no problem it will still be there - and maybe my hat will be there too.

Easter week

Female Penetents - Spain

Ever wondered why Easter’s date wanders around? Because it’s determined by the lunar calendar. Easter is celebrated at the first Sunday after the first full Moon, after the Spring Equinox. It can therefore arrive anywhere between March 21st and April 25th.

This shifting of dates used to cause me big problems in Spain when I photographed the Easter processions, the reason being that the more dramatic processions take place in the evening or through the night. So if Easter falls in mid to late April I can take photographs until the early evening, but if Easter falls at the end of March it gets dark too early.

This year Easter is too early for my style of photography which is just as well because I won't be there. This year I'm celebrating Easter in the UK, swapping fiestas and fireworks for long dog walks in the countryside and garden centres - very British!

The Christian meaning aside, Easter (named after a Germanic goddess, Eostre) has elements of fertility, the resurrection of nature and new beginings. Whatever your views on the spring holidays, I wish you a happy holiday.

A Day Off

The work on the house is continuing at a good pace. The plasterer and plumber have finished and most of Wednesday was spent disposing of the rubble they kindly left us. I've been itching to start taking photographs since we arrived in February, and yesterday with no urgent housey jobs to do I decided to take a drive and take a photo.

I have written a long list of photo ideas that I'll explore over the coming months, but yesterday I just wanted to take a walk somewhere new and use up some film. The day was cold with high cloud and flat lighting, typical for this time of year.

After 2 hours driving I found myself on the Suffolk coast at Southwold, a seaside town that, except for the cafe's and shops, hasn't changed since Queen Victoria ruled the empire. There are very few visitors in March and I hardly saw a soul. I spent 2 very pleasant hours walking along the promenade and beach, had cheese on toast in a cafe and took about 40 photographs.

The beach huts are a delight, evoking childhood memories for me, but they now cost about the same as a small 2 bedroom apartment. The photograph above is available from my Etsy shop.

So it's back to work now, laying floors. See you soon.

Tim

The William Egglestone ceiling

The William Egglestone ceiling

I've had to put my photography on hold for a month or so while we make our new house comfortable. As I write this in the bedroom, the plumber and his mate are above my head in the loft installing a new heating system. Below me are three builders, plasterer, electrician and labourer, they are knocking down walls and putting up ceilings. The current work should be finished on Sunday, then the next phase will start, floors and exterior.

Constructing a new ceiling

Structurally, the house appears very sound but aesthecially it's a disaster (in my opinion), which made it affordable. It not a big disaster just a product of the previous owners preference for textured ceilings and arches, oh, and a few other little things. There are parts of this house that William Egglestone would pay to photograph, maybe I should call him.

Nearly finished ceiling

When the builders have gone home we try to prepare for the next days events, which is mostly cleaning and disposing of rubble but also planning the next phase, which I'll call the Cy Twombly bathroom.

Join me in the bathroom very soon.

The house move

Just an up-date to let you all know that I've arrived safely in England.

The move has not gone smoothly, in fact about 20% of our belongings are still in the care of a removals firm, somewhere in Spain! These include my PC and a lot of items I use on a daily basis. So I'm using borrowed PC's to communicate, but I have no way of getting pictures up-loaded for this blog or for work.

Still, we are in our new house and looking forward to an exciting year. The journey from Spain to England was straightforward and quick, but very cramped with two adults, a cat a dog and enough clothes and essentials to last two weeks.

When we set off, Eddie the dog was in his basket behind a dog guard and Chico the cat kept him company in his locked travelling box. The cat isn't a good traveller so we gave him a tranqueliser pill one hour before we set off.

The first half hour of the journey was spent discussing and worrying about what we might have left behind, then we settled down to what was going to be a 19 hour drive, broken up with two overnight stops. Just before our first coffee stop I noticed something in the rearview mirror, something very, very bad!

The cat had forced his way out of his travelling box, and in doing so had caused his nose to bleed. What I saw in the mirror was an animal dripping blood with manic eyes making its way to the front of the car.

It wasn't that dramatic really and his nose bleed was brief, I pulled over and we put him back in his box but for the next 18 hours Chico sat in his box on the passenger's knee.

The only other incident was the cat (again) finding and disappearing into a small gap between the bath panel and wall in a hotel in France. I had visions of him wondering around the heating duct system. I used a key and a pen knife as tools to remove the bath panel and found him tucked into a corner.

At this point in my blog I'd normally add a few photos, but I can't.
My observations on the journey were that service stations have improved greatly since my last big journey 5 years ago. In a lot of service stations in France there's a franchise called "Paul" which sells fresh baked bread, pastries and very good coffee, quite a luxury on a long journey.

The hotels we stayed in, both in Spain and France en route were Ibis which are comfortable and pet friendly.

The highlight of the drive was watching the landscape change from the ruggedness of rural Andalucia to the Great Plain south of Madrid and then change again to the alpine landscape of northern Spain and the Basque country. All very grand and dramatic.

Driving up through western France there is no drama or hills for that matter. There are hours of forests that give way to the great wine producing regions, finally through the battle fields of the two wars. All very beautiful in the spring and summer but very bleak during the first week of February week. We were relieved and impressed with the Pet Passporting procedures at the Eurotunnel when both animals and paperwork were checked and OK'd for entry into the UK! Similarly, the entire Eurotunnel experience was quick and efficient for us.

We have had every type of weather known to man in our first week here, and today are looking out at what can only be described as a Christmas card landscape from our windows!

Join me again soon to see if our belonging have turned up!

One thousand kisses

I visited the Rubén Afanador, Mil Besos (One Thousand Kisses) exhibition in Granada this morning. The last day of the exhibition and probably the last exhibition I shall attend in Spain.

I'm a snob when it comes to viewing art, ideally I like the whole gallery to myself. If the gallery spaces are large I'm content to share it with a few other viewers. Being so fussy makes it difficult to see art in the major galleries, in fact I gave up on the National Gallery (London), in about 1998 after trying three times to see the Ambassadors by Holbein. On each occasion I went to the gallery, people were packed in twenty bodies deep listening (not looking), to a guide describing the painting and the supposed meaning.

I did go back to the National a few years later when I had a few hours to kill in London, but it was worse. Even the less popular wings of the gallery were crowded with people shuffling around. But regional galleries are a different story and I can usually see an exhibition without distraction, and so it was this morning.





I enjoyed the space and the photographs. I think Rubén Afanador is always going to be Rubén Afanador, these are high contrast images but the style remains the same as his earlier work - 'Toreo'. Each one of these images could be a magazine cover which is where I would normally see them.

So watch out for this exhibition if it happens to come your way, I'd heartily recommend it. And if you're near Granada you must visit Centro Cultural Memoria de Andalucía and see what's on offer.

Memory Lane

Just over a week left of living in Spain!
I'd like to assure everyone that this isn't the end of this blog, far from it, it's just the start of a new chapter.

This isn't even the last post from Spain, I should fit in a couple more before I go, but it is time to say goodbye to a lot of friends I've made over eight years. I've had some wonderful times here, Spain is a great country populated with wonderful, warm characters.

So without further ado, I present to you a few of the friends whose lives have touched mine over the years.

Carmelina filling a bag of lemons for me

A Morrocan couple visiting their daughter

Tres guapas

Dolores and Pepe

Flamenco practice

A goat herder from the next village

Flower picking

Manuel my neighbour

Man and mule

Neighbour

Virginia the tobacconist

Old friends (90 ish years old)

Orange picking

Gigglers

Rafael with garlic

Paco with Linda and Linda!

A fiesta of fire in Andalucia this morning!

It's not difficult to see why Spain has produced artists of genius throughout the centuries. There are so many spectacular sights here that must lie deep in the sub-conscious. Dali's crutches come immediately to mind and I used to wonder where the idea came from, until I moved to Spain and saw that crutches are commonly used to support the branches of fruit trees when the fruit becomes too heavy.

This morning I came across some imagery that will stay with me forever.

Most mornings I drive to the post office in a small town called Padul. Today, like every other day I turned off the main road into the town centre and then boom!!!

I thought I had driven into a disaster area, a bomb or perhaps a gasoline tanker explosion. If this was indeed a disaster, the locals were behaving very calmly just like any normal day, except people were dragging what appeared to be bunches of wood.

I parked the car and discovered I was in the middle of the second weirdest fiesta I've ever witnessed (see below for the weirdest). The bunches of wood that everyone carried were in fact rosemary, which grows in abundance in this part of Spain. The huge bunches of rosamary were stacked up high - then massive fires were lit in the middle of the streets, all over the town. As you can see some of the fires are big and fierce and as one dies down another will be lit just down the road. Today is a blustery day, and the smoke and fire was being blown every which way! People stood in groups watching and chatting. And that smoke, like a London fog with perfume. I love it, and long may it continue.

Unfortunately, the post office was closed for the fiesta...........but tomorrow I shall try and find out from the friendly man who works there what this local fiesta was all about!

Plaza in the town centre

The fires

The fireworks

You may be wondering what is the Number One weird fiesta. Well, that belongs to a small village near Granada where the villagers create life size characters and pose them around the village, then the real villagers seem to disappear. It's like walking around a ghost town!

Life size doll

Lunch

The brass beds

When we sold our house in December,we decided to sell most of the furniture too. The reasons are, we fancied a change and the furniture wouldn't be entirely appropriate in our next house. However one of the things that we were not sure about selling were the antique brass beds, but in the end they were sold too.

Was it a mistake to sell the brass beds? Time will tell.

Here a few nice examples from some of the houses I've photographed.

Quirky and original

This week I went shopping for a new hard disk, life doesn't get much more exciting!
The purpose of the hard disk is to store all my photos that are currently on CD's, of which I have hundreds.

The transfer was easy enough, and I could have done it without looking in the files, but I had to look. I discovered that I have lots of photos that should be shared with you because the design is quirky and original, but they don't fit neatly into a particular category. I'll slip a few of these photos in from time to time to add a little spice to the blog, hope you enjoy them.

The house below is known in France as a pied-à-terre which translated means foot on the ground but really means a very small house. This house is extraordinarily tiny but designed to give a big impression, it even comes with its own pool.

The genius of the house is that on each floor is just one small room. On the ground floor is a small sitting room, big enough for a 2 seater sofa, a single chair and an occasional table. The first floor is a tiny bedroom with a double bed. The bay window bulging out is the shower room. On the second floor is another slightly bigger bedroom with an en-suite bathroom. And the kitchen and small dining area is in the cellar, with the wine.

Pied-à-terre

The bathroom below is just brilliant, not a straight line in sight. What I find particularly disturbing yet appealling is the shattered mirror used as a splash back behind the sink.

Another view inside this house, this is the kitchen/dining room.

Shopping in the village

We have about 4 weeks left in Spain, before the big move. We've had a wonderful life here, made a lot of friends and will leave with very happy memories.

Besides the interior photos which I've shared with you there have been many snaps of village life, so while I've been pet sitting I've sorted through the photos to give you a look inside village life.

Shopping:

Market day

Monday is market day! Every Monday 3 or 4 stalls set up in the church plaza selling clothes, shoes and household goods. The traders set up at 9am and leave around 1pm. There are mainly women browsing and buying, a great opportunity to catch up on village news and events - and a godsend to the elderly people who don't have transport or access to the larger shops outside of the valley. The busiest day of the year for the market is the week before the Day of the Dead, when all the villagers buy artificial flowers for the graves of their loved ones.

The village shop

This is Encarnacion in her shop where I buy beer and milk. 8 years ago cows milk was a novelty here and you had to visit a supermarket in one of the larger towns. The shop is also a place to hear news. At the back of the shop, next to the toilet rolls are 2 dining chairs where the older customers sit and call out their shopping lists to Encarnacion.

After 8 years I thought I understood the shop opening hours, which are Monday to Friday 9am-2pm and 5pm-8pm. Saturday, 9am-1pm. Sunday closed. Holidays and fiestas 9am-1pm. However, I've found there are days when the shop should be open, but is closed, and visa versa. But it seems I'm the only one who gets caught out by these odd days (or I'm the only one who runs out of beer and milk). I've questioned these anomolies as I seem to be the only person in the village who gets confused.

Lala's cake show

If I'm in the market for cake other than the sponge cakes baked by the local panaderia, then I have to travel to the next village where occasionally my friend Lala will hold a cake show. The cake show is one of the highlights of the social calendar, it's where models glide around showing and serving beautiful cakes to a drooling audience.

So there you have my brief outline of shopping in my village. We also have deliveries of bread, eggs, and cheese and hams. Once in a while a knife sharpener will appear on a moped and up until a few years ago, a man would call to repair cane seated chairs, but I fear he is now dead.

Snow on the sunbeds

I promise this is the last time you'll hear me drone on about the weather, I honestly promise not to mention it again. But I must tell you, last night it snowed here in southern Andalucia, that's snow on those sunbeds. There's a bitterly cold wind too.

Fortunately I have a few items of clothing that I acquired for the skiing photo session, so I'm OK. Otherwise, the only outfit I have with long sleeves and long trousers is my all purpose black suit that I wear for funerals and parties, and that's in storage.

Snow on the roof terrace

A recipe from Bangkok for you

With 'Los Reyes' out of the way the holidays are finally over in Spain, for a few weeks anyway. The weather here is like the rest of Europe, wet or worse, it snowed in Madrid and further south today.

I ventured out with my dog this morning and the rain reminded me of a week I spent in Glasgow a few years back. Rain so hard it bounces off the pavement so your legs get soaked. To avoid going stir crazy I'm cooking recipes from my travels, tonight it's Pad Thai. This is a very authentic recipe, I made the notes myself on the streets of Bangkok a few years ago and I've added a few Bangkok images for you.

Ingredients for 2 people:
2 eggs
4 teaspoons fish sauce
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground dried chilli pepper
1 shallot, finely chopped
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon of tamarind
enough cooked noodles for 2 people*
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil or sesame oil
hot chilli sauce (optional!)

Additionally, you can add bean sprouts and chopped peanuts.

*In Bangkok you can choose from 4 or 5 different noodles, from very fine to thick, so use what you prefer. The noodles should be slightly under-cooked.
Method:
Cooking time 2-3 minutes.
Use a wok.
On a high heat add the oil.
Add the shallots and garlic and stir until they start to brown. Add the cooked noodles. Stir quickly to keep things from sticking. Add tamarind, sugar, fish sauce and chilli pepper.
The heat should remain high.
Crack the egg into the wok and scramble it until it is almost all cooked. Fold the egg into the noodles. Add bean sprouts and peanuts at this stage. Stir a few more times and serve. I add a very hot chilli sauce....you may choose not to!