dates & time – Page 32 – don't confuse the narrator

the silly season

Although in the UK that phrase refers to the summer, here in Spain, it seems to suit the winter, or more specifically, the period between early December and the end of the week when Epiphany falls. What with official holidays and business dinners etc., it’s amost impossible to get a full five days’ work done in any semana laborable in that period.

This year is what I think of as “un año segoviano”: next week we’ve not just got a puente – a bridge day linking a Tuesday or Thursday bank holiday to the nearest weekend – we’ve got a whole aqueduct coming up.

hallowe’en

I’ve been reading online that lots of places in the States won’t let you adopt a black cat in October for fear that you’ll torture and mutilate it as part of a satanic ritual for Hallowe’en. This being Spain, though, I suspect that these three – who, when tumbled together in the sunshine seem to jointly warrant the name of Cerberus – are probably no more at risk than at any other time of year.

time flies

All over Europe people have been ‘putting the clocks back’ this weekend.

Well, not quite all over: a story on the BBC reports that Russian clocks stay on summertime.

What I like most about that is the fact that when President Medvedev announced his decision he said it was “in order to relieve the stress of changing clocks.”

Most of my clocks are digital and change automatically, so there’s not too much stress involved in changing them.
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harvest

I’ve mentioned before that there’s an old guy who keeps cerdos on the plot of land alongside the olivar. Just two pigs, each year: one for each of his daughters. I’ve started taking the windfalls across for them when I walk down to the village.

When the guy isn’t there, I leave the bag by the chair where he sits each day, morning and evening, watching the pigs get fat. Sometimes one of the other viejos del pueblo joins him and they put the world to rights while the old burro grazes patiently, tethered to an olive tree.
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sunrise; moonset

In reality, the mountains were even redder and the moon was rather clearer. Clicking on the photo will give a bigger, slightly brighter, version.

(If you’re wondering, yes, it’s “shopped”, inasmuch as I cloned out some cables. If I’d walked far enough to take the picture without them being in the way, the colours would have been completely lost.)