“Not today, Mummy, please?”“No, not today, today we won’t do it!” This was a conversation between me and my mother 60 years ago, every time I was given a shower as a little girl. The lung specialist had told my mother that ‘scaring the lungs’ by a cold shower was very good behavior for curing … Read more
In Spain, they have excellent table manners. Meaning that at the start of any meal you always get offered: salt, pepper, vinegar, and olive oil. Usually from very good quality. At least as far as we are concerned. But of course, we’re no real aficionados if it comes to these table annexes. We never add … Read more
I am trying to grow plants. The avocado took about 3 months before I could put that in the soil. By the way, that one is thriving now. It has several leaves and looks very healthy. The succulents were easy, which I expected. They had roots within a week. So now I tried some branches … Read more
There are not many alternative roads we can walk on around the house. One way or the other we pass a dry riverbed. There stands the sign of this picture. It says: coto privado de caza. This means: private hunting grounds. Most of the time when we pass this sign, we see rabbits running away … Read more
Manuel de Falla y Matheu (1876-1946) was one of Spain’s most important composers of the first half of the twentieth century. His best-known composition is El Amor Brujo, which can roughly be translated as The Bewitched Love. At the Auditorio El Batel in Cartagena this evening we experienced El Amor Brujo as a ballet in a … Read more
On a regular basis, I read books about personal development. The latest is “Living by Design” by Nisandeh Neta. One of the pieces of advice in that book is ‘do new things’. From my own experience, I now know that this is very good advice. I have believed for the last couple of years that … Read more
This picture epitomizes our lifestyle. At least, if it comes to food. This is the fruit snack with which we start the day. And we do this already for years. As far as I can remember from 1991 onwards. In that year we went to the USA for the first time. But there is more … Read more
Ai, another message a package has been sent to us and we still haven’t seen anything. That’s the second or the third one that we know of. A solicitor we spoke yesterday remarked that the Correos is functioning so badly, that a lot of his customers let the important letters be sent to him. His … Read more
This strange-looking stuff is Tibicos, better known as water kefir grains or Japanese water crystals. I got it as a present from Sebastian. The stuff grows if you take good care of it, and you’re more or less supposed to pass it on to others once you have too much. And why would anyone take … Read more
They say you only practice hard enough if you are sweating. Well, sweating we are. Strangely enough, I sweat more nowadays than Tom does. In the Netherlands, I hardly sweated at all. It’s not just the temperatures though, but also the fact that we change our practice a lot. At times we walk longer distances … Read more