Back to the start - Y cuento veinte

...65, 66, 67, 68, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 SALIDA

The year in London comes to an end, exactly 352 days in this city, and everything starts all over again.
It would be so nice to count it all...but yet impossible to keep track of lesser things...things that pass unnoticed and give texture to our everyday life.
26 curries?
12 Pho's?
200 litres of tea?
55 hand made loaves of bread?
70 laps around Regent's Park?
60 laps around Victoria Park?
...  ¶ 23:46 10 comments

  View from my window 2 - Pasa la vida 2

Tengo desde hace tiempo una carpeta abierta en el disco duro del ordenador. Se llama Nuevos poemas. Con nuevos quiero decir desde 1997. Tan sólo tiene un poema, escrito esta primavera.

(Versión 0.3)

Hoy cruzan el cielo de mi ciudad
multitud de estorninos (Sturnus vulgaris)
carboneros (Parus major) y herrerillos (Parus caeruleus)
un fugaz pito picapinos (Pendrocopos major), en un roble.

Los primeros vencejos del año (Apus apus) ya están aquí
arrendajos (Garrulus glandarius) y urracas (Pica pica)
barnaclas canadienses (Branta canadensis) con sus crías
fochas (Fulica atra) con sus crías
pinzones (Fringilla coelebs).

Boeing 737-500 con rallas azules
Boeing 747-400 con motivos azules y rojos
Airbus A-310 con lineas naranjas.


Tal vez esta tarde, según va entrando el invierno, haga otra taza de té y lo termine, contando como se han ido ya los vencejos y sólo quedan las urracas (Pica pica) y las cornejas del parque (Corvus corone).  ¶ 12:54 11 comments

  View from my window - Pasa la vida

Pasa la vida y no has notado que has vivido
cuando pasa la vida
pasa la vida, tus ilusiones y tus bellos sueños
todo se olvida

Pasa la vida igual que pasa la corriente
cuando un río busca el mar
y yo camino indiferente
allí donde me quiera llevar

Pasa la gloria nos ciega la soberbia
pero un día pasa la gloria
y ves que de tu obra ya no queda ni la memoria

Pasa la vida igual que pasa la corriente
cuando un río busca el mar
y yo camino indiferente
allí donde me quiera llevar

Pasan los años
se va la juventud calladamente pasan los años
pasan los años, pasa la vida
con su triste carga de desengaños
pasan los años igual que pasa la corriente...

"Pasa la vida" (Real Player) - Pata Negra (El blues de la frontera, 1987)  ¶ 18:55 11 comments

  Tick Tock Tea - Tick Tock Bread

Winter's coming, something's going on in the kitchen...  ¶ 12:42 4 comments

  Matches

The old lady next door, let's say her name is Mrs Holy.
She's very old, terribly old I'd dare to say. She's already entered those years when age becomes a terrible matter. I don't think Mrs Holy's head is alright. I mean, she can walk, and talk, and it's polite as British can be. But she's terribly old, you know.
My house, number 7, let's say Mornington Street, has four doors. But I think we two are the only dwellers here most of the time. She's old and I am unemployed.

She's been coming upstairs knocking at my door for the last month or so. Always asking for matches. I don't know what she exactly does with them, as a matter of fact it's hardly a week since I give her a matchbox, and here she comes again.
It's been like that the last three times. Until that day I told Mrs Holy I didn't have any matches left. In fact I don't even use matches, I have automatic gas hobs, you know, the kind that doesn't require any match.
That's what I told her last time. I had to explain Mrs Holy the reason why I don't use matches. She seemed to understand. And there she was the very next morning, at my doorstep, with a big matchbox. She couldn't light them up because they were wet. So I had to show her how you can light a wet match by pulling strongly. She listened carefully.
I thought that was going to be the last time she came by, until this mornig.
"Knock-knock"
- ¿Can you get me some toilet roll and matches?
- I don’t have any matches left, I don’t use them.
- No, I want you to get me some toilet roll and matches (she had a coin in her hand, a Pound, and she waved it, somehow pointing the nearby supermarket)
- But I don’t have matches, I don’t use them.
- Oh, you don’t use them. But I want you to get me some toilet roll and matches.
- Wait, I can give you some toilet roll…(I go to the toilet and get her a couple of toilet rolls, by the time I'm back she has already sneaked inside and curiously scans everything)
- Oh, thank you (shaking the toilet rolls in her hands)…but don’t you have any matches?
- No, I don’t use them. My kitchen has an automatic spark.
- Oh…
- …
- What a pity, thank you very much.  ¶ 14:39 12 comments

  Everyone knows Sinterklaas comes from Spain

...at least in The Netherlands.
Funnily enough, he has came all the way from Spain, via Holland to the doorstep of this Spaniard in London.
As I have really been a good boy this year, he has brought me something really special, a book of Jip en Janneke
There's something unique about these two children. Something magical in the way short Dutch words (mostly monosyllable expresions) tell timeless little stories, true gems. The lovely short stories of the 5 Jip and Janneke volumes were illustrated by Fiep Westendorp, with little silhouettes of their homely adventures. There's Takkie, the dog (het hondje van Jip); Siepie, the cat (De poes van Janneke); Poppejans, Janneke's puppet...

Winter comes to this little house in London. Come in, there's tea and Spekulaas for everybody, you're invited.  ¶ 15:34 8 comments

  Tenemos visita

Click on the image for a HANDFULL


...y polkas y almendrados.
Estar aquí como estando allí.


Incomparable hojaldre de Torrelavega  ¶ 19:19 7 comments

  Pimientos asados - Transformando pimientos

No sé en qué se convertirán. Ayer estaban hinchados y rígidos, hoy suaves y dulces.
Tal vez los rehogue y les saque un pilpil, o los pongamos en ensalada con aceite, tomate, ajo y perejil.  ¶ 10:06 6 comments