70 – Goodbye to the NHS

A flying visit to the UK, just for a week, mostly to see friends but also to sort the documents I need to begin the process of registering as resident in Spain.  Doing battle with British bureaucracy in order to minimise any hassle with Spanish bureaucracy.

69 – The Many Faces of Feria

A city enjoying itself.  A heaving, friendly, loud, joyous crowd of humanity, crushed into the city centre then dispersed into plazas, casetas, and random streets where singers sang, dancers danced, drinkers drank, and police looked on benignly.

68 – Something In The Air

It’s all around.  You can feel it. It’s intangible but you know it’s there.   The city, the people, even the buildings, are expectant.

67 – Can’t Be Translated!

I remember writing a bit of French homework when I was about 12.  It was pretty dire, something about falling in a river and being rescued by a boy, and all I recall is that I ended it by writing that “now he is my boyfriend”, and simply putting together the French for boy and the French for friend, coming up with the non-existent word “garçon-ami”.  Wrong!  My friend Margaret remembered a similar mis-translation in which she was trying to write about blowing up a balloon, but ended up writing about making it explode.  So we know we can’t just translate word-for-word.