Classes

Even our night classes are typically un-Spanish. Our class is from 5.30 to 7.00 and on Wednesday we were leaving the bar at about 11.20p.m when a friend came in for her tea, having just finished her night class that was from 8.00p.m - 11.00p.m. I felt quite bleary eyed at the thought of it. She said that actually the class was quite early as evening classes normally start at 9.00pm as people finished work at 8.00 during the winter.

It rained on Wednesday, for the first time for ages. The weather seems to be as strange here as anywhere. October should be one of the wettest months of the year, but so far has been dry. The temperature has dropped a bit and for the first time this summer we've both put on fleeces in the morning, but it is still t-shirt and short weather in the afternoons and early evening. We know it is getting colder as Tinks has been sleeping on Basil again!

Whose Chair is it Anyway?

Loom - Progress?

Well, I am now planning a proper project. I have geared down the plans from many yards of fine fabric to something the size of, say, an egg cozy.

At last we got the connector for my glass blow torch so all we need now is the pipe and we'll be well away. At long last we'll be making beads wehey!

And talking of pipes, I had a flash of brilliance this week. What I really need to do is to learn the bagpipes. I took a quick look on Ebay (wonderful, where would we be without it...) and they are really not that expensive. I broke the news to Ian last night and then played him a 'how to learn the bagpipes' video I found on youtube.com, he went a little pale, but I think that this was due to excitement.

Spanish classes start next week. Apparently they ran them last year which we didn't know about, but what with everything we had on our plate we probably wouldn't have been able to go anyway. People from last year are in the advanced class and people starting this year are in the beginner class. There are mostly english, but a brazillian couple are in our class and there is a Romanian lady in the other class whose Spanish sounded perfect to me. Other nationalities - french, Holland and germany.

How exciting!

Spanish Classes

We went to enrol on the Spanish classes last week. As if to demonstrate our need for classes, we went in and asked where we needed to go to enrol and promptly got taken up to the roof top. I didn´t do the final bit which was a steep staircase but Ian did and stood there for a while looking at other roof tops. After a decent amount of time we tried again and this time were slightly more successful.

I am not certain that the classes are starting this week. They said they would ring us and let us know the start date. I hope we understand.

Loom

Having sleyed my heddles, and threaded the reed, as I started beaming the warp ready for cranking and found that I had twisted warps. So I had to undo the whole lot and start again.

What I have learned so far:

A/ The industrial revolution was probably a Good Thing.
B/ Not to skip over chapters called 'Important - how to thread your loom' in my how to weave book.
C/ My vision of Ian and I wearing matching handwoven outfits is looking someway off - to his evident relief!

Getting back to normal

The one thing that has had to give over the last fortnight has been our walks. We went out yesterday for the first time for a couple of weeks and petal fell in the water fountain which made us wonder about her status of most-intelligent-dog-in-the-house.

Now I have finished the projects that I have had I can concentrate on new things. Loom and glass beads to name but two. I've not even looked at the loom as I wanted to give it my full attention, so that is going to be next. And I have bought a connector for my blow torch so hopefully our glass bead making day will also be imminent. At last.

We are going into Zafra this week to sign up for Spanish lessons. There are two classes, complete beginners and everyone else. I'm not sure which class we'll be in, but I have a horrible feeling we will end up as the dumbo's in the not-beginner class.

Autumn is now here, marked with the fields going green and flowers reappearing. The temperature is lovely, the sharp heat has gone now. Today I went to sniff a rose in a romantic way and a HUGE locust appeared from in it and I found myself looking into the whites of his eyes, and then not learning my lesson I went to sniff a trumpet type of flower and an insect flew into my eye. Flowers are more dangerous than they look.

Capelet

My capelet design has appeared in Interweave Crochet magazine. Pic bottom right www.interweavecrochet.com. I still think it is cow pat brown and that it was modeled on a stick insect...

Compliment or Insult

Ian made a delicious paella last night. Gently sauteeing the onion and garlic until it was a soft paste, adding vegetables and olive oil, frying the rice and adding it all together with saffron in the paella pan with a glug of white wine, letting it all steam away until soft.

As we took the first taste we both said 'savoury rice'. It tasted just like packet Batchelor's savoury rice!

So, did Mr Batchelor visit spain for a hol, try the paella and think - aha, a business idea....?