spain – Page 74 – don't confuse the narrator

plane and fancy

Not all the plane trees in the area are the carefully trimmed and ‘domesticated’ ones I mentioned in the post Plane Speaking. There are some along the other side of the river that are huge and untrimmed.

Which is why I had to look up straight into the sun to take this picture the other day.

Of course, if the sun hadn’t been directly behind it, I wouldn’t have noticed the tiny halo of light caught on the stem of the lowest hanging fruit. It was as bright and pretty as any Christmas-tree bauble wrapped in tinsel. And almost impossible to catch using a phone camera.

silence in the library

So, what do you go to the library for?

Prohibido gritar, pegar e insultar en la biblioteca — Which still leaves a lot of options.

I think most of us go to read books, refer to works of reference, borrow books to take home, use the computer facilities etc. But it seems that either other people have other motives, or they get a lot more het up and argumentative than I would expect.

That’s the only explanation I can see for the sign displayed in the library at Navarredonda. For those who don’t read Spanish, it says:

IT IS FORBIDDEN
TO SHOUT, HIT OR
INSULT
IN THE LIBRARY

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swallows

with primaries taut, they finger-tip
the contoured air, screeching
a splay-tailed upward glide to peak

then tuck – dip – swoop –

and skim the puddled mud,
gape-mouthed and hungering.

It’s San José – St Joseph’s Day – which is Father’s Day in Spain, and a bank holiday in parts of the country. It’s also the day that the swallows return to Capistrano, which is why I’ve chosen to post this poem. (Or, perhaps, this ‘poem draft’.)
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white

snowdust on the mountain;
weft of cirrus; along the bridle path,
a twist of lamb’s wool, bramble-caught.

(No photo of the lamb’s wool, I’m afraid – it looks awfully grubby when you try and take a close-up!)

not if, but when

It's not if we catch you, it's when — Big Brother is watching you

For reasons I won’t go into, I clicked a link to watch a video on YouTube and was startled by the advert that came up alongside.

I don’t think I have a particularly guilty conscience, but I can’t imagine I’m the only person who has seen that appear on their screen and immediately started wondering what on earth they’ve been doing that they shouldn’t have.
Continue reading “not if, but when”