no joke

One more post prompted by my trip to Madrid this week: at metro Bilbao, my attention was caught by this advert:

yommana thai concept advert
There has to be a joke there somewhere, but “Yo momma is una auténtica terapeuta tailandesa – a real Thai masseuse” just doesn’t seem to work.
Continue reading “no joke”

musings on the metro

My trip to Madrid this week involved a lot of rushing around, and a lot of trips on the Metro.

madrid metro video still
At Gran Vía, the whole of the station is currently plastered with posters advertising The Hobbit – due out in Spain today. As I scurried up and down escalators and along dank tunnels, I remembered the book’s opening: Continue reading “musings on the metro”

taxing times

This glorious building is the former Palacio de Comunicaciones in Madrid.

Palacio de Comunicaciones, Madrid
It used to house the headquarters of Correos – the Spanish postal service – and in my early days in the city the arrival of a parcel would involve the added joy of a chance to roam around the vast interior, tracking down the right delivery point, maybe climbing the spiral stairs of one the turrets, whose walls were decorated with ancient ceramic tiles, or venturing upstairs in the central building where you had a marvellous view down into the great hall.
Continue reading “taxing times”

seasons

I’ve mentioned bonfires a couple of times in the last week, and I reckon half the village have been out in their gardens, taking advantage of the sunshine and what, for many, is a long weekend. They haven’t all been busy at the same task, though:

cutting the grass

Clear
above the bitter smoke of bonfires
the scent of new-mown grass

 
I was particularly surprised by that as my lawn looked like this until about midday:
Continue reading “seasons”

more burning issues

pruning fruit trees; Gredos backdrop

La inmaculada, 2012

In the orchard, you
are busy pruning
and tending a bonfire.
In the kitchen, the toaster
fails to pop; I offer up
my own burnt offering
to the Virgin.

 
In fact – as far as I know – Spain has no tradition of sacrificial fires to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, but most of the ‘clouds’ in the photo are really bonfire smoke, which does make me wonder.

There’s a longer poem for la Inmaculada, posted a couple of years ago, which was inspired by the painting by Tiépolo.