spanish – Page 14 – don't confuse the narrator

leap of logic

I don’t think there will be any daffodils in bloom for St David’s day tomorrow, but the apricot trees have suddenly burst into blossom. Of course, it’s far too early for them, but since we’ve had nothing but sunshine for weeks now, it’s hardly surprising that everything’s confused.

The river is as low as it usually is in summer and even when we get a frost, it seems to thaw to dryness and leaves the earth scorched rather than moist.

The locals have a theory about the drought: they say it’s because 2012 is bisiesto – a leap year.

I’m really not sure about the logic there, but who am I to come between el pueblo and their folclore? (Yes, that really is a Spanish word and it means exactly what you’d expect it to if you substitute a ‘k’ for the ‘c’.)

Personally, I was hoping bisiesto meant I’d get twice as many siestas as usual this year.

time for thought

I’m currently working on a translation project to produce an English version of the voice-over script for a dance video. The original is not precisely poetry, but it’s certainly not standard prose and it does depend on multiple meanings and interpretations.

This is the sort of project I love, as it offers all sorts of creative potential – as long as the person you’re working with doesn’t demand that the translation say exactly the same as the original.

To begin with, there’s no way I can find a word in English like the Spanish word tiempo, which can be used for ‘verb tense’, ‘weather’, ‘time’ and ‘time signature’, plus a few other unrelated concepts.

This, of course, is one reason it’s fun being a ‘creative translator’. It probably also accounts for the fact that my thesaurus is falling apart.

costumes and customs

Years ago (in our world before digital cameras, hence no photos) we were asked by a friend to make a costume for his son for the school carnival celebration. I don’t really know why he thought we would be good people to ask, but clearly as bar owners he and his wife had little free time for handicrafts.

He gave us a cardboard box and told us what the costume should be, but the details were up to us. Several rolls of aluminium foil later, and with the addition of such details as stick-on dollar signs, a coin slot and tray, and a dangling electric plug, we had created a rather wonderful one-armed bandit that won the prize for best costume.
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storks, herons and a crane

construction crane and storks over church tower

As is probably apparent from other posts on the blog, I tend to notice birds. I don’t actually like them very much, but I notice them and they crop up in my writing all the time.

This week I had to go to Ávila, a city that boasts more storks than any other place I’ve ever visited. Every church tower has a nest or two, and everywhere you go the great pterodactyl-like silhouettes wheel slowly overhead.

Here in the village we seldom get cigüeñas, although we have a pair of garzas that are nesting somewhere along the river. I find it odd how easy it is to tell a heron in flight from a stork. There’s the distinctive curve of the neck and something about the heron’s feet that always makes me think of ballet shoes.

Yesterday, though, my attention was caught by storks and a crane silhouetted against the sky. (The pun works rather better in English than in Spanish, where the construction crane is grúa and the bird is grulla.)

a flock of bird thoughts

A fragment of an old poem to start off with:

Under the apple treee, a prattle
of tabby-feathered sparrows anticipates
the flick and snap of chequered tablecloth
that signals their breadcrumb breakfast.

I was reminded of the image because I had a newspaper clipping sent to me the other day – yes, there are still people who read printed newspapers, albethey freebies, and who cut out things other than coupons to send on accompanied by real letters to specific people, rather than glancing superficially at on-line phrases and sending irrelevant links to everyone in their email address book. It was a cutting about the Spanish sparrow who is causing a furore in a coastal village in Hampsire.
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