Grenada

We left our run to late to extend accommodation in our Seville hostel and had to move to the other side of the river. No big deal, easily accomplished with the aid of our concierge and a taxi which we shared with Cat and Kell as they returned to El Cid for their bus link to the airport. It was in the shower at the new place that the first of the stigmata appeared. Yes in this intensely catholic country, with a high standard of miracle, a wound in the shape of a rocket ship appeared mysteriously on my shin. Seeing canonisation as remote I contented myself with a wad of tissue held in place by Alice’s blister tape and thus it would remain till our arrival in Sydney a week or more later. Happily with care and attention it healed a month or so later and the only reoccurrence of this miracle was definitely aided by my boss’s clumsiness with plumbing pipe.

That off my chest I feel free to continue our travelogue which proceeded by train from Seville to Grenada. This day trip provided us with a view of rural southern Spain, completely given over to the farming of olives. So many olives that you’d have to hope no one else would be foolish enough to compete in the market.

The only breaks in this landscape were these delightful white villages

Dominated by the local rancher’s hacienda.

Grenada is wonderfully placed in the otherwise flat bright plain of Spain’s south in foothills of some, um, mountains. By now you have noticed that research is not my strong point. I have no affinity for a script. I like to work, as they say, off the cuff, which my research defines thus: “Spoken, performed, or composed with little or no preparation or forethought.” Sounds like me to me.

One advantage of this foothill situation is that compasses are made redundant. If your path takes you uphill you are traveling north and vice versa which my research defines as: With the order and meaning reversed but I promise not to continue with this Google definition stuff, not the least because it’s so distracting, to me. If you are traveling to the left of uphill you are traveling west etc.

To those not as obsessed with direction as I am, the next wonder is that it is cool and has climatic variation. Waiting before dawn for the Alhambra to open we froze our nuts off. I know I promised no more Google definitions but I could not resist the temptation to see if there was a cross gender variation of this expression. Of course I got no where but you surely get my meaning.

Not enough, then consider this that I hope my photographs illustrate. With a varied topography comes the potential for a view or as I prefer a outlook, and Grenada has outlook.



Unfortunately for you fate intervened causing me to forget my camera when in the chill of dawn we visited the Alhambra so I cannot show you the princely views, ah outlooks of those who once occupied these fortified palaces. Built to defend Islamic culture and royal privilege from possibly Christian though I suspect barbarian outsiders, the builders spared no expense, or effort, with these expansive quarters. No surface; be it wall, floor or ceiling was spared their intricate design and patterning. With the exception only of the floor all surfaces were patterned in relief which must have proved a nightmare for housekeepers. All windows opened to magnificent and tactically advantageous views of the valley below and if not to private sumptuous baths and ponds.

Any of you wishing to see the photos I failed to take need to go no father than my afore mentioned research source Google to find adequate craftsman like snaps if not those of the gifted artist that you have become accustomed to.

For the rest of this early rising day, after checking out for an early evening departure, we indulged our newfound knowledge of the workings of the Tapas system. An emergency call to Jack had clarified that in Southern Spain, which we were about to leave, you order only a drink and the nibbles come gratis.

At the first place we tried the system worked perfectly. A delicious curry dish accompanied the delightful sparkling red, two out of two. Anxious to test our newfound competence in this market place we proceeded on a virtual pub crawl tour of Grenada. Like most pub crawls it had its highs and lows and if a score were taken, most times we lost. The same order for alcohol, which we felt we had perfected at the first place, always produced different results though not always food. Eventually tipsy we returned to our first stop where we felt confident. Our confidence was soon shattered when no tappas arrived to accompany what was at least the original wine.

Along the way we did manage to visit some of the sights including the downtown of this very pretty city about the size of Casino with documented history back to the thirteenth century and here is some photographic record of what we saw.

Our first bar

The Granadan’s are not adverse to a little Tromp L’oeil, so sophisticated it took us a while to notice




They have a typically crowded cathedral in the heart of town.


Some chic bars


Beautiful girls who seem to have no employment

An extravagantly indulgent attitude to clothing their children

And a downtown that hints of a fashionably dressed Adelaide

I would recommend it to all.

The Bunnings Knife Block Set

The Bunnings Knife Block Set was this years present. Unannounced by postcard as the game set had been, it came, and within a week we were all owners of this new culinary tool. To me these things seem like over kill but the only thing I’ve ever cooked is coffee so I accept I’m not qualified judge. Dangerous is the other thing I think of them. Others agree. One of a group of our night fill Sherpas took his out to examine it on that nights eleven forty to Seven Hills. The guard who stumbled onto this display made quite a fuss and demanded its confiscation until our lad’s brown skinned brothers in arms, attempting to resolve the confusion, produced their own gifts and the guard finding himself surrounded by armed Ghurkhas wished them a merry Christmas and wisely retreated.

You may empathise with me in the conflict I feel passing this windfall on to those nearest and dearest to me. Obviously I find no use for a knife block when it comes to making coffee so it fails my first test of a gift; that it be something that I would like myself. Unwanted / unneeded / undesired, I look to find those who may fill at least one of these aspirations. I dismiss E-Bay, it doesn’t seem right for the Life Line bin or the local busker. No the obvious beneficiaries would have to be Alice and Jack. No possibility of garlanding myself as ‘world’s most generous dad’ either as Bunnings had taken the precaution of branding the block and sand blasting individual knives with their logo. The best result of this could come years hence when mint condition blocks, cardboard packaging included, might gain value in the limited edition vintage market.

The word limited here raises more questions. No yet devised inquiry via Google to Bunnings will divulge the number of employees who would have received this largesse. It must though count in the hundreds of thousands, just look at their ad. I noticed a similar discount price for a Whiltshire Block in today’s paper of $112.00. This would put the cost retail of these blocks at the least at hundreds of hundred thousand dollars and by extrapolation the cost trade at about half that enormous sum. Who would have paid this price? Bunnings would like us to believe that they did but the cynic in me sees them demanding from their Chinese supplier, who profits from much more than knife blocks, a ridiculously low price that they provide by ever more taxing demands on their under age and helpless battery hen like labour force.

Ah yes! So many questions about so simple a gift and I still haven’t indulged my underlying misgivings about the danger. In fact some of you may have noticed how I keep dodging this inevitable tract. The pen is mightier than the sword in the broad sense but in the domestic, well I’m afraid the deepest cuts still come from the sword. Oh I’ve indulged in school boy games that saw us break the longer point from an old fashion dip pen nib to create a very accurate two prong dart that could be propelled by elastic band to embedment in the ceiling. This activity paled then and now in comparison to what could be achieved by a full set of butchers knives. The butcher had a chain mail glove. What mayhem might be unleashed innocently, let alone maliciously, by another hundred thousand such sets in amateur public circulation.

Domestic violence, an even greater killer than war or traffic carnage, probably both, is dominated the world over by knives. Certainly in the USA and other Balkan like states where guns are prolific many homicides are gun driven but even there the knife has the sharp edge of the domestic market.

Now it’s always been my belief that if you anticipate the disaster it will not come to fruition. Yes sounds silly but I firmly believe that if whenever you take off, or drive off, you think what disasters might prevail, they won’t. Works for me OK. Anyway this is the light in which I would like you to view this diatribe. I like a Jack with all his digits attached. I like an unscarred Alice. I like both of these much more than a full set of butchers knives in every home, an aspiration that would have been difficult to sell to any previous generation, and that I hope will remain sales resistant in the future despite the wiles of marketers such as Bunnings.

Notes on the news

“Police disgusted by pub violence” Now that’s a headline it would be hard to improve on. Devil disgusted with hell fire perhaps. Pol Pot disgusted with room service in Phnom Pen maybe. It’s hard to imagine what police would be disgusted by; barring pay rates or leave loadings of course. Never mind, I’m glad to find them disgusted with what ever other than me. Especially so in the silly season when any distraction from the usual suspects, tippling motorist, is more than welcomed. My CTP Green slip with NRMA increased by ninety percent this year, a rise that AAMI was pleased to match and raise by three dollars. Has my car become ninety percent more lethal in twelve months and if so where were the press reports to accompany this shock statistic? I got my Green slip for only a few dollars more than last year from QBE but only because incredulously it seemed, to them not me, my licence lacked no points. Which brings me back to my delight in our government’s along with their media and police accomplices discovery of a new target this year. Very effective too if my experiences lunching at The Warren View and the Duke can be held as exemplar.

That School’s Spectacular is something isn’t it? Oh! I hear some among you scoff. Well you can keep your Eurovision Song Contest your Search for a Star’s and the like. The Schools Spectacular is the genuine article and should be a daily, alright weekly television event. Any of you who want argument on this see me in thirty years time. Loaded as it is with pubescent testosterone and as yet un-compromised raw talent with loads of convicted support, how could it fail to please?

Tiger Woods must now realise his true calling. If you have a porn star’s name your probably a porn star. Get over it Tiger. Here’s a little ditty to help you find the way.

Far beyond the tigers lovin for the blonde among the woods,
The putters and the drivers and the sumptuous promotion goods.
There’s a clean and squeaky loving guy like Clooney who it seems,
Can do the same and be spared of blame at cost only in dreams.

What about Warren Beatty who surely showed them how
To take it all, without a fall, and walk off with a bow.
Come on Tiger show your stripes literally I mean
Take chipper wood and putter and show us what’s obscene.

R

Family day in Seville

We left Rome in relative comfort by rail to the airport. The few notes I might make of this are all are relevant to the size of Roma Termini where It seemed that the otherwise excellent monitors describing platforms and departure times took it for granted that the largely foreign community going to the airport would know that it departed platform 25 every half hour so why waste screen space repeating the obvious. We walked 0.6K down the platform to our train. It was understandable that folk so far down these platforms sometimes chose the option of crossing the lines, an option required at many provincial stations, rather than walk 1,2k+ legally. We along with two members of the Polizia watched several lads preform this bold feat but it wasn’t till a young lass attempted the same that these stalwart defenders of community morals acted reminding me their Gallic brothers in Offenbach’s Bold Gendarmes who when they see a helpless woman or little boys who do no harm “we run them in, we run them in, we show them were the bold gendarmes…”

Seville airport is possibly the next closest to the CBD to Sydney. In the early afternoon a very crowded bus was soon dropping us off at Monumento Cid from whence with hostel instructions, a map and compass we were able to find our new home. The shared six berth dorm was a new experience for me. The two American girls in occupation were very messy but when they left next day I saw the advantage when they generously left half of a litre bottle of Jamisons that would obviously have been unwelcome on their air flight.

We set out that afternoon for food, drink and a general orientation so that we would be able to show Cat and Kell, who were arriving that evening, our town. At least we were able to meet them at El Cid’s monument and show them to there digs. Then as I recall we dined and drank a bit and my memories became foggy till I found pictures to carry this monologue forward.

You can see that this boy practising for a future role as a statue, when we waited by El Cid, was foggy as if in a dream.

Just like other cities with centuries of history Seville’s streetscape is highly descriptive. This is the local fire station and it understands its debt to the local obsession with ceramics.


Here are some other magnificently tiled extrava anzas.
Keeping the tax agents quarters and minaret dry down by the bridge.

In the local markets

Providing a sense of bonhomie at the local restaurant and piquing an interest in the past history of this address.

And here some of the current sources of this ongoing tradition


Some typical streetscapes including the main square I conjecture






With a few close ups of said square



Which brings us to the cathedral which like so many such buildings is so crowded in by commerce it is impossible to get a good shot.




Obviously no one had yet written the book pointing out the limitations to the builders of such places.
I ran into these Australian chicks

out by the Plaza De Espana which they thought really cool.

Especially the fountain.

One of them even snapped me.

Oh yes Ceramics were not forgotten.

and feature ceilings were.
large
This building which as far as I could ascertain was the centre of government or at the least the home to much of the public service and had NSW’s Dept of Labour and Industry been thus housed in 1964 I might have considered it much more seriously as a vocation. No probably not.


Kelly gave us a Picnic at Hanging Rock moment here and we thought this lad might know something but as it turned out she was only a phone call away.

Eventually I pulled the Aussie chicks back to my pad where I made quite an impression.


Night fell and after much dining, drinking and Flamenco dancing we wound up in this park where Kelly proved to be not just a pretty face but a very professional photographer.





The next day wasn’t so pretty and I’ve decided to spare you the personal snaps in fear of what might be lurking in others as yet un deleted photo albums.

Safe to say the day was spent quietly reviewing souvenirs and gifts for those back home, a task best completed with a guilty hangover.

Ah girls, what could have possessed us to believe that this place promised anything other than the disappointment her face suggests.

I may be mistaken but I think I snapped this happy Aussie

admiring these guys