Category Archives: friends

the morning after

04 Thursday Oct 2007

Posted by in food & drink, friends, sevilla, tapas

≈ 3 Comments

wine-bottles.jpg

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time … 😉

And actually it was well worth it, even though this morning my eyeballs looked like the proverbial two pee-holes in the snow.

What happened was this. Nog and I went out for our usual tapas after finishing our Wednesday evening classes, which is one of our little weekly routines. And we decided to go back to one of our favourite places called Enrique Becerra because I wanted to give the waiters the URL for my Sevilla Tapas blog so they could see the latest photos that I’d taken there. And also to get some more food shots to add to the page.

And while we were eating we heard a couple speaking in English, wondering if they should stay there or go elsewhere. And so I turned around and told them they should definitely stay because the food was excellent. And so we got to talking and I explained about my tapa blog and they totally got into it – offering me to take photos of their food too before they tucked in. Well, one thing led to another (mostly to do with more wine being ordered) and we all ended up spending a lovely and more than somewhat drunken evening together. 🙂

Finally lurched home some time after midnight and so during my first class this morning I was in serious ‘zombie teacher’ mode. But my student thought that my explanation was quite funny and forgave me for being less ‘with it’ than usual.

Anyhow, you can see the photos I took last night (5-11) on the Enrique Becerra page .

summer holidays

01 Wednesday Aug 2007

Posted by in animals & pets, blogging, books & writing, computers, culture, films, food & drink, friends, fun stuff, health & happiness, holidays, home, humour, life stuff, love, miscellany, music, musings, philosophy, photos, sevilla, television

≈ 13 Comments

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It’s August 1st and I am officially ‘on holiday’.

No classes until September. Yay! Well okay, no income either, but I’ve been looking forward to this stretch of time ahead of me not having to be anywhere or do anything unless I feel like it. It will especially be nice not to be woken up by alarm clocks (well, other than the pointy-eared variety).

When I asked earlier about what summer stuff everyone was planning to do I still hadn’t made any major plans, and then I realised that what I wanted most was a month totally without plans. So there. 🙂

Well, there are a few things I want to do like go to the gym in the mornings and do some stuff around the apartment. But mostly I reckon I’ll be reading and hanging out online (hence that particular thumbnail), taking evening walks with Nog, going out for our *emergency cold beer and air-conditioning sessions* and the occasional tapa, and also watching films and playing with floppy cats who – I am very happy to report – appear to be friends again. They’ve even started playing fighting again, with no pee in sight, which to me is even more of a sign of them being pals again than falling asleep together.

For awhile it looked like a recent bad back incident (comment 19) had put the kibosh on my gym idea, but after a couple days of anti-inflammatories, gentle stretching and lots of walking I think I’ll be able to start back mañana.

Meanwhile, Sevilla has pretty much turned into a ghost town already, which is always a pleasant change of pace.

So all in all, August should be a nice month for carping the diem.

How’s your summer been so far?

10 ways to improve your life

23 Monday Jul 2007

Posted by in friends, health & happiness, life stuff, musings, philosophy

≈ 6 Comments

I found the following Lifehack.org article on Lori’s blog the other day and thought it was worth reprinting here, if only as an easy-access reminder for myself. But I also thought most people would relate to it – there are at least a couple habits here that feel very true for me. I wasn’t sure whether to post this here or on nothing ventured …
in the end I posted it on both because, although it may get more response here initially, it’s more likely to stay at the top of the page at the other place (for easy reference).

Many of our problems come from within our own minds. They aren’t caused by events, bad luck, or other people. We cause them through our own poor mental habits. Here are 10 habits you should set aside right away to free yourself from the many problems each one will be causing you.

Continue reading →

más magica

19 Thursday Jul 2007

Posted by in art, culture, friends, photos, sevilla

≈ 5 Comments

norberto5.jpg

We saw Norberto again this evening.

Some of you may recall when our friend Craig (aka zoomer on h2g2) was here visiting us last July we stumbled upon a little workshop still open around midnight as we were on our way home from having tapas … you can read the full story over here on the ~serigraph serendipity~ post. Anyhoo, Craig bought a lovely serigraph there for his daughter and had asked us to go back and take some photos of the workshop as it had been such a magical moment for him, but somehow it just didn’t happen – until tonight.

In fact, this was quite a serendipitous kind of day. For some reason nice and pleasant things just kept happening to both Nog and me all day long and then this evening we decided to go for a walk and a tapa (which turned into a whole meal! photos to follow) and then while wandering home I thought of Norberto as we were near his workshop and said to Nog that we should go and see if he was there. And he was!

He’s made a few changes to the workshop, including a very nice showcase window outside and a fabulous metal engraved Giraldillo that is also on the wall outside the shop. I told him it was a shame about the meterbox next to it (kind of spoiling the effect) and he said he had a metal plate that he was planning to put over it, but in the meantime he posed next to his creation using his head to cover up the meter thingy (see the pic above). 🙂

And so – finally – here are the photos we promised you, Craig. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge them …

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You can see all the photos in my Norberto album.