Grandchildren’s Room and Francesca’s painting in the hallway
This evening my older daughter and her family will arrive from Spain for a visit. I am so excited to see the whole family! The grandchildren’s room is ready and I look forward to the patter of little feet running up to their room to see what outfits Mimi has on the wall for them. The Pink Grandchildren’s Room
Pixies and Fairies Painted by the Author/Artist when she was seven years old
Two paintings that I created years ago when I was a child myself are framed and hanging on the wall . My mother had kept these paintings and had them framed for my oldest daughter’s first birthday.
For those of you, like me, who have grandchildren who live miles away, you know the feeling of feast or famine with the family.
I have been gardening in the children’s garden seeing that it needs attention! There is a jungle gym for the children to play on as well as many little gardens for them to dig and plant in.
A song came to mind that I heard years ago that matched my mood and excitement of the day. Michael Franti – Say Hey For years I searched for it on the internet and suddenly discovered it again.
Enjoy July whatever fun events or happenings you might have planned. I will look forward to being back in touch mid-August!
Bye for Now,
Francesca
Elephants at The Circus Painted by Francesca When She was Seven Years Old
Sunflowers are so much FUN to Grow!!! If you have a place where you can put them every year they give so much joy! I smile every time I walk out and look at the field full of these tall prehistoric plants! Maybe that is why we love them so much! They have been around for a long time! And we feel the earth connection all the way back to cave man and beyond!
I actually did not know why I had never grown them.
In late June of 1996 Peter, Erica and I traveled to Madrid, Spain to see our older daughter Yvette who had been an exchange student from UCSD for the whole year. We then traveled by Eurail and Rick Steves suggestions of lodging and places to visit throughout Europe for one month!
Author’s Daughters in Provence, France, 1996
First stop off Eurail was the town of Arles, a town rich in Roman history and ruins in the province of Provence, France. We stayed in a small hotel for one week traveling to charming small towns such as Aix-en-Provence enjoying the multitude of nature’s sites through traveling through the countryside from small town to small town. The countryside was carpeted with fields of Sunflowers and fields of Lavender! In breathtaking excitement the girls and I ran into some of these fields and we could not stop taking pictures! It was awe-inspiring to experience!
Several years later Peter and I moved to a property that had lots of land. I planted a Giverny style garden with Nasturtiums lining one of the paths all the way down to horses in pastures far below our home. A girlfriend stopped by one day and exclaimed
Fran, why don’t you grow sunflowers!? I actually had no idea why I had never grown them! Especially since we had experienced the beauty and wonder of this ancient plant in the south of France a few years earlier!
Fran and her daughter Erica in a field full of Sunflowers, Provence, France, 1996
I love the very tall ones! This particular girlfriend gave me a bunch of seeds. I planted them and WOW!!!! So much FUN! This year I am planting a second Parterre of them so I will still have some when my grandchildren come to visit in July! After planting the seeds I cover the area with netting so the crows don’t pull up my seeds. I put the netting about three feet high on stakes. When the Sunflowers reached the netting I remove the netting and they continue to grow up to eight or nine feet tall! This year I bought the seeds online; some for their height, some for their seed production, and some for the Mammoth flowers. And then it is FUN to sit and paint them or take pictures to put on Facebook :) or just sit, smile and watch them grow. Have Fun Growing Sunflowers!
Fossils of Ancient Member of the Daisy Family Discovered in Argentina
The Dutch born, post impressionist, artist Vincent Van Gogh famously painted a number of still life pictures of sunflowers. One such painting was sold at auction in the late 1980s for a little under $40 million USD. However, researchers at the Argentinian Museum of National Sciences have discovered their own “portrait of sunflowers” with the finding of two exquisitely preserved fossilised flowering heads in southern Patagonia (Argentina). Sunflowers are members of the Asteraceae (otherwise known as Compositae – we think) Family. This family of flowering plants (Angiosperms), is one of the most diverse and widespread of all the plant families. This family includes plants such as the daisy, dandelion and commercially important plants such as the tea bush and sunflowers.
Plant material is rarely preserved as a whole fossil, for instance, a fossil of the entire plant with roots, leaves and flowers all together. Fossils normally occur as isolated individual parts such as cones, pollen grains, pieces of trunk and such like. Delicate flowering heads (capitula) are extremely rare in the fossil record. However, the discovery of a fossil that shows two complete flower heads, winged seeds and the flower stem is helping scientists to understand the evolution of this very important group of plants.
The fossil has been dated to approximately 47.5 million years ago (Eocene Epoch) and it was found in strata along the Pichi Leufu river. During the Eocene, this part of the world had a sub-tropical climate with average temperatures of around 19 degrees Celsius. The dense flower-head would have been attractive to pollinating insects, suggesting that flowers such as these primitive ancestors of the sunflower already had a long established relationship with insect pollinators.
The Fossilised Flower Heads
Dr. Viviana Barreda, one of the authors of the paper, the details of which have been published in the journal “Science”, suggests that the finding of this fossil supports the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Asteraceae Family evolved in the southern region of Gondwanaland and spread to most of this super-continent before this landmass began to break up. This would explain the wide geographical dispersal of related genera.
Scientists believe that the common ancestor to a number of related plant families first evolved in sub-tropical Antarctica, (which was part of Gondwanaland), before migrating to Australia and South America as Antarctica cooled and became an unfavourable climate for most plant species.
Commenting on the discovery, University of Vienna (Austria) botanist, Dr. Tod Stuessy stated that this fossil and the related pollen grains were clear evidence of the existence of the sunflower sub-family at the early stages of Asteraceae diversification. Dr. Stuessy wrote an accompanying article to the Argentinian scientific paper. He went on to add that little is known about the origins of sunflowers and there is much still to learn about how these plants evolved and spread all over the world or indeed how members of the Asteraceae became so “incredibly diverse.”
The scientific paper on which the journal article is based is the culmination of two years of research.
The Healer’s Healing Garden in SpainA Photo of a Garden Reminiscent of the Healing Garden in Spain
I just saw a beautiful garden photo on Facebook and it reminded me of friends of my daughter in Spain who have the most Beautiful Garden! The husband used to be a brick mason and now he is in the Healing Arts. He practices Craniosacral therapy and also massage techniques to help with physical and emotional health. His wife is a lovely calm woman too. She seems to be a healer in vibration. I have been to their garden several times and have enjoyed the garden immensely when Anushka was a baby and later with Mikaela, her younger sister. The husband is always gardening when he is not working. He has no outside help. He does all the work and in my opinion the garden looks like Monet’s garden outside of Paris, Giverny. One can even see a factory from the garden but when you are in this lovely garden you are entranced by its beauty and the industry in the background disappears. The wife has brought me tea and/or cafe con leches and an assortment of homemade goodies while I waited with the baby in the garden. The lady of the house is also an artist and when one is inside their beautiful eclectic home, unless you pinch yourself you might think you were in Santa Fe, New Mexico rather than northern Spain!
Being in this healing paradise for an hour or two at a time with one of my grand babies I always feel an urge to paint! If the grand baby was awake I would drink in the moment and enjoy watching the child look with wide eyes at nature around her. When one of the babies was napping I would sometimes take out colored pencils and draw what I was experiencing visually. But many times I sat with a huge smile fixed on my face drinking in the magnificence of nature directed by man.
These luscious moments of life where we are truly in the moment are treasures that we can draw on through our lives.
I am thankful for beauty where I find it; in people in experiences in tragedy in beauty and ultimately in love.
Here’s to having experiences that we look back on as ahhhh moments!
Bye for now,
Francesca
Painting that Francesca painted from thoughts of Spain www.francescafilanc.com
We all know someone or are that person who is dying of a disease, or someone whose body is failing as a result of old age. As my father said on his deathbed “Honey, nobody gets out of here alive!”
In 1993 I was fortunate to go on a trip to Alaska with my husband and other family members. The trip did not leave me where it found me!
This picture shows the huge tide differential of thirty-six feet!
Alaska was the most adventuresome trip I had ever experienced! We flew into Juno taking in the sights for a few days. We then were on a chartered boat (the Alaskan Solitude) eighty-nine feet in length for ten days in the Inland Passage. The scenery was beyond belief, simply beautiful! We saw glaciers up close and personal, whales as far as the eye could see in every direction breaching, porpoising, and lobtailing. We anchored for several days off an island where the wildlife had never seen humans, or so our guide assured us. There was a thirty six foot difference in the tides every day so our guides had to plan carefully or our Zodiac would be gone out to sea or completely stranded, high and dry. As we walked quietly in the small streams of the island my boots were surrounded by salmon, alive, dead and dying, on their way up the streams to mate.
Author artist watching the whales!
Starting out as small eggs in a stream bed, they hatch and begin their journey downstream towards the ocean. They spend a couple of years in the streams and rivers growing from small alevin to juvenile smolts. At the mouth of the streams and rivers, the smolts school together and ready themselves for the trip out into the ocean. During this time, their bodies change to adapt to the seawater. The young adult salmon then head out to sea and spend several years swimming in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. Once they have fully matured, they will swim back to their original stream or river where they re-adapt to the fresh water and swim back up the stream to reach their spawning grounds. Sometimes this means swimming up rugged rivers with miles of rapids and even waterfalls to leap. Once they get back to their natal stream, they breed and lay their eggs. After spawning they generally die within a week, fertilizing the stream and creating a nutrient-rich environment for the new infant salmon that are about to hatch. (From Fishex.com)
Author palmful of wild blueberries – they were delicious!
The eagles swooped in for salmon, the geese flew thick overhead and landed to drink. Bears were eating salmon.
I also note this when I am watching a nature show on KPBS about Africa and how the animals are eating each other. On the one hand it seems so gross, but on the other a natural and essential part of life on our planet!
I was thinking then too how sad we are when friends and loved ones are sick and pass away to the next realm but really it is the way of life and we are all in it and part of it! In living we are dying and in dying we are living! Our struggles health wise and physically and mentally are all part of this wonderful mysterious amazing journey that we call life! But who knows what is in store for us in the hereafter! By mistake I often comment that we have a granddaughter born on the same day that my deceased husband was born! Maybe I say it not so much by mistake as affirming his birth into his next life! Wherever and whatever that is! Many times when I have been sad I go out for a drive in my car with the top down. It clears my head to drive with the wind in my hair! I remember riding my horses after my father passed and how good that felt to be one with nature! Gardening and painting both also clear my head! Sometimes the sadness just won’t go away as much as I try rise above it, thinking my life is so good this is ridiculous! But maybe we are to accept these stages, times and experiences. Maybe it is all part of the whole.
Pete and The Author in the Zodiac Going Back to The Boat After Dark!
In writing this blog I am reminded of one of the most amazing spiritual and breathtaking experiences of my lifetime! I was alone on deck. The others had gone inside for lunch. Standing on the bow of the boat, I was transfixed and mesmerized as if time stood still. The only sounds to be heard were the sounds of whales Breathing and Splashing as they waved their flukes and breached in all directions as far as the eye could see!
When our oldest child was a baby I used to say Yvette would be upset when she got older because she lived in Hawaii for almost half of her first year of life. Too young to remember the amazing time we had! Although being exposed to such beauty at a young age definitely went into her psyche.
That was the year that I said I had three summers! My husband, Pete, was working for the government installing the first computer system for the sewage treatment plant at Pearl Harbor. Yvette was three months old and we lived in Honolulu from October to November of 1976. We then returned to live there for the months of May and June in 1977.
In those days my folks used to vacation at a friend’s private shack in Kihei, as Betty called it, twice a year. They would go for two weeks in the fall and two weeks in the spring. Betty had a guest house on stilts. Rolling grass and palm trees extended out in front to her private beach. (Beaches in Hawaii are public, but her little beach was so secluded, being at the end of the road, it was rarely used.)
The view took one’s breath away! And the beach had the softest creamiest colored sand. The way the sand felt between my toes was like nothing I had ever experienced before. The ocean felt like velvet on my skin and the snorkeling off Maui was stupendous! The most colorful coral and water teeming with fish I have ever experienced to this day! The colors of the coral were every color in the rainbow and more; vivid pink, orange, blue, purple, red, violet and white!
Pete and I had decided we had seen the best and knew that the island had been developed. So we chose to remember Maui the way we experienced the Island staying with my folks one week in the fall of 1976 and one week in the spring of 1977.
As our girls grew up we vacationed on the North Shore of Kauai several times.We also frequented the Kona Coast of the Island of Hawaii and Oahu, but I had never returned to Maui until two weeks ago.
Naturally the development has continued on the island in the intervening years, but nonetheless I was not disappointed and had a fabulous time!
The very first day we arrived I found Betty’s Beach. The property is now covered with condos but the beach is the same! My friend and I stayed at the Maui Coast Hotel in the town of Kihei.
The hotel has good prices and they have a great concierge service with Expedia. Whether or not one choses to do some of the many activities the island has to offer, it is great to hear the options! We met in the lobby of our hotel with other guests to hear the fun things available to do!
The author at the top of Mount Haleakala
We chose to go on a 45 minute helicopter ride that toured Molakai and Maui. We also chose to take the snorkeling trip to the Molokini Crater and lastly to take in a Luau at a neighboring hotel.
The day that we went on the helicopter tour, we then took a drive to Kula experiencing a botanical garden and then driving up to the top of Haleakala. The day was crisp and clear!
We ate dinner at the Kula Lodge on the way back to our hotel. It was beautiful and romantic. The views were spectacular and I would go there again even though the food was underwhelming.
The highlight of our snorkeling trip was a surprise sighting of whales fluke waving and breaching right in front of our boat! I was disappointed to discover that much of the coral has died and lost its color. Development and agriculture are the most significant threats to Hawaiian coral reefs because of runoff containing sediments (soil and silt) and chemicals and nutrients from lawns, farms, golf courses, construction sites, storm drains, cesspools and septic tanks. The runoff of sediment reduces sunlight penetration and smothers corals. The reef then starves to death because it can’t manufacture food from sunlight any longer.
We had a fun experience of being there the same week as some friends who showed us excellent snorkeling spots! Honolua Bay offered some great underwater sights. My friends had the amazing experience of swimming with a pod of dolphins back in the mid 1980s in this same Bay. Honolua has treacherous surf in the winter-time but amazing snorkeling in the spring and summer.
Snorkeling in Honolua Bay
After visiting with friends in Napili Point we drove up around the end of the island. The road is a single lane in areas and rules dictate that the person heading downhill has to back up and make room for the person coming uphill, often a dangerous situation and the map reads,
The road around this north side of Maui is desolate but very picturesque. It also has a very narrow section of road and a sheer cliff and no guard rail before you reach Kahakuloa. Not for faint-hearted. Drive at your own risk.
All in all the eight days were fun, beautiful and had new surprises to offer!
Bye for Now,
Francesca
Did somebody tell you about watermelon Viagra? If you’re concerned about sexual disorder, you have to study about it. Erectile dysfunction, defined as the persistent failure to maintain an erection to the orgasm, exerts an estimated 15 to 30 millions men in the United States only. Because some of symptoms are medical emergencies, it’s considerable to know what to do if they happen. On occasion kidney illness will lead to erectile dysfunction. As a rule, this may include high blood pressure, anxiety, or a venous leak.
I have three granddaughters, two who live in Spain. As a result I have been a Cyberspace Granny since they were born. SKYPE is so great because it gives one the opportunity to relate to the grandchildren even though one might be thousands of miles apart.
Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise
The younger one in Spain is still a baby and I sing to her and play peek-a-boo. My oldest grandchild is her big sister and she is now five and a half. Anushka and I play on the computer. I also read her stories some of which Nana, my mother, has given her so that she has one book in Europe and the same book in the states when she comes here to visit. What my mother did not even think of and has worked out so great is that I can read to her over Skype and she can look at the pictures in her copy of the book. One of these books that we have two copies of is Barbar Comes to America. Barbar is a long story and we talk about what is happening on every page in the pictures. That usually takes several Skype sessions.
Anushka used to get the giggles and move me from room to room in her home in Spain, even onto the balcony that overlooks the horse pasture.
Now this is your home Mimi, and then she would burst out laughing.
It was really funny because little Mimi was in the computer. Sometimes she would take blocks and put them on each side of the computer to show my house and then she would put a towel over the screen.
Anushka, I can’t see!
Anushka would then throw up the towel and laugh hysterically. We have sometimes played for hours cooking and store, plastic horses, little dolls. Anushka used to say,
OK Mimi, I am the princess and you are my husband and I have 3 husbands. Not all at the same time!
I would respond.
Oh yes, Mimi, at the same time! I get tired of one and then I have another prince.
And then Anushka makes her mouth in the shape of an O and then smiles, then laughs hysterically.
On my recent trip to Spain last month, after seeing the Chagall traveling exhibit in Madrid, Anushka and I both bought books depicting Chagall’s art.
After viewing the Chagall exhibit we went to lunch. We also bought in the museum store sketchbook paper and colored pencils. At lunch Anushka and I drew and looked at our books and compared the paintings. Anushka would show me a painting that she loved in her book and then I would do the same. We then talked about Chagall’s use of colors and depictions of scenes and emotions from his life including many brides and grooms. Anushka loved all the wedding paintings. As I mentioned in my last blog post she also loved all the animals in the sky.
Abraham and the Three Angels
After I was home in California I Skyped with the family one day and asked Anushka if she wanted to go get her book with the paintings of Chagall. With a large grin on her face she said,
I’ll be right back, OK Mimi?!
OK Anushka let’s do like we did in Spain, why don’t you show me a painting that you like in your book and then I will show you a painting that I like in my book.
Our books are different and do not have all the same paintings. Anushka’s is a large soft back so easy for a child to turn the pages and not too heavy.
Ok Mimi, I show you, and Anushka proceeded to take her time to look thoughtfully through the book.
Oh this one Mimi, I think this one is very beautiful!
It’s a painting depicting three angels. Then I showed Anushka the one that is on this page. It was also in the exhibit.
We were showing each other our favorite paintings and describing them and telling each other why we liked them and then all of a sudden Anushka said, I don’t like this painting at all!
OK Anushka, why don’t we show each other paintings we don’t like and talk about why we don’t like them.
Illustration for the Book Marc Chagall. Cirque, Paris, 1967
Chagall was so in love with his first wife and then she died. Anushka’s book had a picture that to her depicted the woman dead.
The woman is dead in this picture.
So then we discussed how that made Anushka feel, very sad.
At times life is really sad and great art can depict the sad parts of life. My Mimi, Anushka’s great-great-grandmother, used to say:
If you look at a great piece of art and look in one corner it may look very ugly but if you look at the whole painting it is so beautiful. The ugly part together with the beautiful part is the essence of making a particular painting great.
Mimi was also teaching me about life. Life has its sad and ugly parts but all together those parts can help us learn and grow.
So after revisiting the angel painting that was Anushka’s favorite, she said,
The Angels take care of us but we can’t see them.
About that time her mother came into the room.
Anushka we are going to take a walk now.
We say our goodbyes and blow kisses at the computer screen. I hug myself telling Anushka and her family I am hugging and kissing them.
Hugs and kisses and love till the next time we Skype and have another art adventure.
The world is a much smaller place than it used to be thanks to modern technology.
Painting as well as other disciplines needs enlightenment and inspiration for the artist to make the opportunity to paint an inspired piece of art. It is paramount for an artist to view paintings in museums. Many artists, some who paint abstract and some who are traditionalists inspire me which can be seen through my art.
The last few days I was in Spain visiting my daughter and her family, we traveled from their home in the town of Izcue by bus to Pamplona and then by train to Madrid.
We stayed in a hotel that I would highly recommend. The prices were good. It was clean and lovely located in a residential neighborhood on a tree-lined street. AC Hotel Carlton Madrid Paseo de las Delicas 26 28045 Madrid. The hotel is in walking distance to all the museums and just down the street from the train station. Which by the by has a restaurant and a beautiful garden. The hotel seems to cater to the businessperson as well as the vacationer. There is a sumptuous buffet breakfast with everything from smoked salmon to deserts. After stuffing ourselves on the delicious repast we were ready to walk it off with plenty of museum viewing!
I was thrilled to learn that we were in time to see the Marc Chagall exhibit at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Chagall’s art is childlike yet sophisticated. He paints cows, roosters, goats and lovers in the sky. Chagall was a colorist and he painted his feelings.
I relate to Chagall because I am also a colorist and I paint my feelings.
We walked to three museums that day including the Prado. We looked at works by Diego Velazquez, larger than life paintings, some looking to be ten stories high. The majority of people were clustered around Las Meninas. Las Meninas is famous in part because Velazquez painted himself in the painting. One painting in particular that I was especially attracted to depicted a magnificent white horse with flowing mane, snorting the air, high-spirited with a regal-looking man on his back. There were many such paintings with a similar theme. Velazquez is a national treasure of Spain. When you go to the Prado you see a multitude of his works.
My son-in-law Iban and I visited Guernica by Picasso, depicting the massacre in a small Basque town during the time of Franco. They are working on refurbishing the painting at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía but it was still on display. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italianwarplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on April 26th, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War.
On my last night in Madrid we walked to dinner a few blocks away from our hotel. We sat on the street, drank good wine and had a culinary delight of several courses of tapas that my daughter took great delight in ordering for the table. We started with calamari and white asparagus, the dishes kept coming including lamb and ending with traditional deserts.
Mikaela had fallen asleep in the stroller next to our table and Anushka stayed awake until we returned back to our lovely hotel. I asked for a cab to pick me up in the morning to take me to the airport. Yvette, Iban, Anushka and Mikaela enjoyed the day in Madrid and then walked to the train that took them back to Izcue, and yours truly traveled home to California. What a lovely memory of my last two days in Spain.
This past weekend I was in the San Francisco Bay area. Sunday was the 75th birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge. Check out the picture on the right and this video of the fireworks taken this last Sunday May 29, 2012.
Last week on PBS Evening News a reporter gave some history on the building of the bridge. There was controversy surrounding the idea of building the bridge. There was even controversy on who were the true engineering architects of the bridge! On Sunday May 29th this was all set straight — after 75 years!
“One aspect of the 75th birthday celebration that wasn’t in the plans was the rekindling of an old controversy. Who should get the credit for building and designing this spectacular bridge? The first design, from 1922, showed a bulky unattractive bridge, part cantilever, part suspension. It was the work of Chicago bridge builder Joseph Strauss, who had decided his legacy would be a span to rival the Brooklyn and George Washington bridges in New York.
But Strauss wasn’t a civil engineer. He was a builder of drawbridges, a promoter and organizer. And he organized a decades-long campaign to get the Golden Gate Bridge approved and built by him. Before construction began, Strauss’ clunky design was scrapped, though he remained as chief engineer. In its place was a sleeker structure made possible by University of Illinois engineer Charles Ellis and Leon Moisseiff, who had designed the Manhattan Bridge.” (PBS New Hour Interview)
I will never forget the first time I was with my family driving over the Golden Gate Bridge as a little girl. Imagine a child’s dismay – the bridge was not gold, it was red! The fact that it was red instead of gold disturbed me for many years. Today I am just taken by its majestic beauty.
Birthday Girl Lorraine and Sister CorrineRoses in Lorraine’s Garden
My father used to rouse the family in a song of California Here I Come. During vacations with my husband, Pete, and our daughters years ago; I led the song, much to the horror of my children! To this day I roll down the windows and belt out the song as I drive over the bridge. I have the opportunity to see the Golden Gate Bridge often and to drive across. The experience always takes my breath away. If I am not driving, I am snapping pictures. Shrouded in clouds, in rain or on the occasional clear day the view is always magnificent!
The Author, Cousin Jeremy and Lorraine
This weekend I went to Point Reyes station and Inverness for my cousin’s birthday. Lorraine lives with her family on eight acres surrounded by verdant gardens and nature. Friends and family came with delicious food. A friend raised and roasted a pig for the event. Oysters were abundant, found locally, raw and cooked on the barbecue.
Google weather fore-casted a cold rainy day but to the delight of the birthday girl and the rest of us there was sun to penetrate warmth on our backs and shoulders.
Here’s to celebrating life with family and friends!
Bye for now,
Francesca
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Viva España! I just arrived home from Spain after visiting one of my daughters and her family. My son-in-law is Spanish Basque. They live in a delightful little country town about fifteen minutes outside of Pamplona in the Province of Navarre.
I “Skype” from California to my family in Spain often, and I have seen the beauty of the countryside from Cyberspace, but being there!!!
The landscape is Breathtaking!
The town felt like something out of a fairytale. Izcue is situated on a hillside surrounded by fields of rapeseed, Images of RapeseedFacts about rapeseedwheat and barley, sprinkled with vibrant red poppies. When the wind blows, in my daughter Yvette’s words
the fields look like waves on the ocean.
When I experienced the same sight it took my breath away! Different shades of green and bright yellow folding over and over as the wind touched the fields highlighted with sunlight.
Every town in Spain has festivales for the birthday of the town and Izcue is no exception. I happened to be there over the town’s birthday. May sixteenth the whole weekend had fun activities planned. Friday night was a potluck dinner at the clubhouse. Everyone brought their traditional dishes to share. Saturday was the big party that went all night long. Everyone was to dress like roaring twenties in the USA, authentic flapper and gangster costumes were abundant.
On Saturday at 2:00 p.m. there was a catered lunch at the clubhouse. The meal started with bread and mixed drinks such as martini rojo, bread, white asparagus and pate followed by Ensalada Mixta (lettuce, tomatoes, olives, tuna fish, and red cooked peppers). While this salad can vary according to the region and maker, here’s a great example — Ensalada Mixta. Then the main entree was lamb, potatoes and vegetables, then a drink that is so amazing to cleanse the palette; lemon juice, vanilla ice cream or lemon sorbet and champagne. Recipe for Sparkling Wine Lemon Sorbet. Desert was fresh strawberries with bananas followed by the cafe con leche.
After lunch music could be heard wafting in from outside. We all arose, led by the band, we paraded singing and dancing to the far end of the town. Making our way back, stopping at centuries-old homes we were served refreshments and pastries either in a lovely garden or in the grand home itself. After about four hours this activity was finished and everyone proceeded into a town hall where there was rock and roll music, dancing ‘till dawn.
For the older generation and myself, we went happily, if not a little tipsily to bed.
Ah, what a memory! Have a great holiday weekend however you celebrate yours!
We remember those who have lost their lives to protect our own!
A song came to mind that I heard years ago that matched my mood and excitement of the day. Michael Franti – Say Hey For years I searched for it on the internet and suddenly discovered it again.
