Today’s Photohunt theme is “wrong”.
A couple of months ago I was on my way to do a tapas tour and did a double take when seeing these two street scenes as there seemed to be something wrong with both of them…
wrong
03 Saturday Sep 2011
Category Archives: photos
symbolic
27 Saturday Aug 2011
Today’s Photohunt theme is “symbolic”.
NO8DO. If you ever come to Sevilla you will see this symbol everywhere, from manhole covers to newspaper kiosks, and from Christopher Columbus’s tomb to most official signs. But if you look closely you will see that the central symbol is not an “8”, but a skein of wool, “madeja” in Spanish, and the whole word can be read as “no-madeja-do” which run together sounds like “no me ha dejado”, Spanish for “she hasn’t abandoned me.”
So what’s the story behind it? When Fernando III reconquered Sevilla from the Moors in 1248, he made it his capital. His son, Alfonso X, was known as “The Wise”, due to his prediliction for poetry, art, astronomy and learning in general. Alfonso’s son, Sancho IV of Castile, however, believing that a Spanish king would be better employed in expelling the Moors, and that he himself could do the job, tried to usurp the throne. Many Spanish cities followed Sancho, but Sevilla remained loyal to its scholar king, and NO8DO became the official emblem of the city, symbolic of its loyalty.
drink
20 Saturday Aug 2011
Today’s Photohunt theme is “drink”.
This is Azar (aka: the love of my life) having a drink. Out of his own special glass. You see, Azar is now 16 1/2 and his kidneys aren’t working as well as they should be. It’s very common for older cats with this problem to stop drinking and then they get dehydrated. But Azar is a very clever cat. He has made a game out of drinking so that he gets a lot of extra attention. He’ll walk into the room and mieow-mieow-mieow until I get his glass, fill it with fresh water, and then make a big fuss over him while he drinks deeply. Several times a day.
botani vendimia tour
14 Sunday Aug 2011
Tags
almachar, botani, botani 2011, Malaga, vendimia, victoria ordonez, wine, wine harvest, winery
The main reason for going to Málaga last week was to be able to get some face-to-face work done with Victoria, as we have a few projects on the go and I thought it would be easier for me to meet her on her home turf. And well, okay… I also love going to Málaga! Then I thought that, as one of the projects was to take photos of the vendimia (grape harvest) and make a few videos, it would be a lot more natural if I could catch Victoria “in action” talking to people, rather than just speaking into the camera. And so I organised the Botani vendimia tour.
I invited a few journalists and one amazing photographer. It was great to see Michelle and Chris Chaplow again, and to finally meet Ben Cooper and his wife Philippa. And although it was a shame that Annie Bennett and Eduardo Blanco couldn’t make it, we still ended up making a nice group of five, including me.
Then *almost disaster* struck when Victoria was suddenly called away to a very important meeting out of town, which meant my “face time” with her just wasn’t going to happen. But luckily she only postponed the vendimia tour to the next day, something I know was very generous on her part as this is the busiest time of year for her and losing time going out of town meant she was going to be backed up when she returned. But she still spent all of last Friday with us, taking us to a a couple of the vineyards, then to see some sites in Almáchar and, after a quick trip to the bodega to talk to the winemaker there and see the grapes being pressed for Botani 2011, she invited us all to an amazing lunch at a beachside seafood restaurant in Málaga.
It was a fabulous day – hope you enjoy the pics.
one
13 Saturday Aug 2011
Today’s Photohunt theme is “one”.
Although this may look like one flower it’s actually a biznaga, which is a small arrangement of jasmine flowers, created by mounting the small flower heads on the dry branch of another mediterranean plant, known as “ammi visage”. The jasmine flowers are collected in the late afternoon while they are still closed, so that they are easier to attach to the base. At dusk the flowers open to become an incredible white floral sphere with an intoxicating aroma.
casa azahar 