#133 Crevé neuf

#132 Rice Ride

We went for a mountain bike ride around the rice fields in the Parc Natural de la Marjal de Pego-Oliva.

You don't immediately think of Spain as being a rice growing country, but our region of Valencia has plenty of rice - that's why they make so much paella!

#131 Soy Cuba

We went to see Soy Cuba.
It's a Russian film, made in Cuba, in 1964.

It's a bit triste but the cinematography is terrific. One long tracking shot starts with a party and a roof top 'beauty parade', then goes down the outside of the building, passes through sunbathers sipping cocktails and finishes underwater in the swimming pool.

In the story the Castro revolution is just beginning and in one scene a sympathiser's home is bombed. You don't actually see the plane, I imagine they didn't have enough in the budget, but it sounded real enough!

The film is rather long at 2:20 - but, if you like, you can find just the party sequence on YouTube.

#130 I want to live like common people

She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge,
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College - that's where I caught her eye.
She told me that her Dad was loaded,
I said in that case I'll have a rum and coca-cola,
She said fine (and in thirty seconds time) she said,
"I want to live like common people,
I want to do whatever common people do,
I want to sleep with common people
I want to sleep with common people like you".
Well what else could I do - I said "I'll see what I can do".
















Words by Pulp. Miss Olympia by Claude Monet.

#129 Mirrorman

I'm sorry to have to admit, but we have half of Australia's Great Barrier Reef decorating one of our mirrors.

Like the pony skin chairs, the tigron and kimono-dragon fur shooting jacket and the ivory chopsticks that we might have in our house, we didn't know they were verboten.

Sorry - we're going to put them all back ;-)

#128 Call that Art?

Crevé wheat

#126 Chairs, Chairs and More Chairs.

I'm just starting to recover our Josef Hoffmann dinning chairs. We tracked down some Hoffmann designed material (couldn't get the original design), bought foam rubber, felt, glue, staples, tape and got to work.

On the left is the first one recovered - only seven more to do!

















I'm a bit worried about the condition of our two Le Corbusier Dossier Basculant easy chairs (they were designed in 1928 but ours are a bit newer). I think they are covered in pony skin, which is, apparently, not permitted these days - are ponies an endangered species?

MANYA: (Angry) When I was a little girl in Poland, we all had ponies. My sister had pony, my cousin had pony . . . . . So, what's wrong with that?
JERRY: Nothing. Nothing at all. I was just merely expressing. . . . . .















Our Charles Rennie Mackintosh Hill House chair seems to be all right - that's 'cos no one ever sits on it :-)


















. . . . and finally, some bird - said her name was Venus - came round and said Diego Velázquez sent her, and could she lie on our Hoffmann sofa for a bit and look in the mirror.

#125 Luncheon

We went to lunch with Sally's Dad and Sister to our mate Phil and Hazel's restaurant called Al Gusto. Their lunchtime Menu del Dia is excellent - and just under 10 euros (six english quids, a dozen us dollars).

Pictured here, Phil with his microwave
(which he doesn't use, at all . . . . . )

#124 Riding on the Ramblas

Riding on the Ramblas
Biking in Barcelona
Cycling in Catalunya
. . . more Artful Alliterations?