After gazing skywards at yesterday’s hot air balloon, we’ll continue with a sunset. The hot air balloons were near our house in England. The sunset’s near my daughter’s house in Spain.
For Becky’s #SimplyRed
Sunset in Spain
Category: Spain
I Spy with my Little Eye …
something beginning with H. That’s what Sarah of Travel with Me wants from us today for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.
Well, in among all the other acts, Ripon’s Theatre Festival included a few sets of Morris dancers – just as likely to be women as men these days. And they all flaunt terrific Headgear on their Heads. I mean… Hats. Here are a couple: and including two more in the featured photo.
Horses. I won’t show you show-jumpers, or mares with their foals in bucolic meadows. Here’s one waiting patiently for the 159 in Masham one evening as we were on our way to Photo Club. The last bus had left an hour and a half before. In truth, she was on the way to Appleby Horse Fair, an event that. although centuries old, isn’t as long-established as Morris dancing. This horse was one of dozens of horses and vardoes we see making their slow way there in the weeks before.
Let’s continue to be a little Olde Worlde. Here’s a House spotted last year in Vitré in Brittany, a town which boasts almost no other housing style.
Or shall we go for a little Hut in the grounds of Sleningford Old Hall, or a tiny House, fairies-for-the-use-of, in Nidd Hall?
Fairies make me think of other out-of this world creatures, as seen at Hallowe’en.
Not frightened yet? I can sort that out. Here’s the Hideous Head of a Gegant in Premià de Mar , and a Haunting Harridan from the Puppet Museum in Cádiz.
I don’t want to leave you quivering though. Let’s go back to Morris Dancing and Hats of course, and let the Slubbing Billys cheer you up. In black and white, and in Glorious Technicolor With Red Highlights for Becky’s #SimplyRed Squares.
Benches near Beaches
I have chosen to stay in Premià this morning, perhaps because here it is grey and gloomy, even though warm enough. A beachside path leads all the way from Barcelona, through Badalona, Montgat, El Masnou, Premià and beyond – all the way to Mataró. Between the beach and the path is scattered a series of benches- wherever there’s a tree or two to offer welcome shade. Here are a few.
For Jude’s Bench Challenge.
A Morning in El Masnou
El Masnou is the nearest town to Premià de Mar, and somewhat nearer to Barcelona. Probably because of this, it has a slightly grander recent past. In the 19th century, wealthy families looked from Barcelona to its wide sandy beaches and the hilly countryside beyond, and commissioned Modernista architects to build them a residence away from the bustle of the Big City. Over in Premià they just got on with fishing and a spot of market gardening as usual.
One day last week, during my Spanish stay which was emphatically NOT a holiday, but Granny as housekeeper, au-pair and what’s the next job? I nevertheless awarded myself a day off, and walked the 6.5 km. there along the seaside path.
I wanted to track down a few neo-classical and modernista buildings, and I did. but they were hard to photograph, being – often – in narrow streets.
Click on the images to reveal the captions.
I wanted to track down street art. It’s often assertively political here, defending Catalan independence, the rights of the dispossessed, and celebrating female pioneers of the last couple of centuries.
Click on the images to read the captions (on some of them).
Then there are the charming details every town must have: the mosaic of St. George, Catalonia’s patron saint (and also of England; Aragon; Georgia; Lithuania; Palestine; Portugal; Bulgaria; Ukraine; Malta; Ethiopia; Russia; Bosnia; Kosovo & Serbia. To name but a few). The little cats painted at pavement level. The gaping mouth letter box (but how to get a letter in?). The door knockers.
Then there are the ordinary streets, with ordinary houses. Or not so ordinary houses.
And my favourite. The house with the matching car parked outside. In this image, they don’t seem quite to match. Trust me, they did.
I left the town, walking through its industrial quarter. Even industry seems pleasant enough when every street is lined with jacaranda trees in flower.
After that, it was a drink in the quiet square I showed ten days ago, and a walk home inland through the market gardening area. A morning well spent.
PS. The featured photo of the busy port wasn’t taken last week, but on a greyer day last spring. My walk was on a strictly bright blue sky day.
For Natalie’s Public Art Challenge.
Two Handy Benches Outside the Museum
Passing Premià de Mar’s Museum of Textile Printing the other day, this is what I saw. Two benches: three people. Three readers: two on their phones, one with a good old fashioned book. Only the young woman, I think, was waiting for the museum to open.
Maybe you’d prefer it in colour?
For Jude’s Bench Challenge.
A Multicultural Bag of Oranges
Here’s a bag of oranges from my daughter’s on-line shopping haul. It had been ready to be sold anywhere in Spain, as every official Spanish language is represented here: Castilian (Spanish); Gallego (Galician); Catalan; and Eureska (Basque). I think it’s got all bases covered.
And – oh look! – Carrots are even better.
Street lights in Spain
For this week’s Monochrome Madness, This week’s host Brian of Bushboy’s World has asked us to consider Street lights. I assembled a clutch of them, and realised that they all come from Spain.
The featured photo was taken one evening near our hotel in Seville. This next batch all come from Cádiz.
… and one of them is merely a shadow of a streetlight.
Off to Málaga now, just after Christmas.
Another one from Seville …
And the city I know best, Barcelona? Well, not a single night time shot. Instead, here are two taken in broad daylight.
I’m away for a few days, so this post, and the next few are scheduled. So – sorry – I may be slow in commenting, and even slower at reading your posts.
Mirror
Today, it’s my turn to offer a theme for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. And I’ve chosen Mirror.
‘Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?’ So asks the evil queen in the classic 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
I haven’t used my mirror to find the answer to this question, largely because I haven’t got a magic one. But I have found some mirrors in a junk shop in Harrogate, reflecting both some of the goods on offer, and the Victorian street where you’ll find it. In fact the shop window itself serves as an extra mirror.
And here’s another street mirror, helping the motorist out into a busy road. And a car’s passenger-side mirror in Lancashire one winter’s morning.
Let’s default to shop windows as mirrors.
And the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead makes a ceiling into a mirror, while outside the VA in London is one in marble……
Water is an old favourite for a reflective surface. Let’s go to Studley Royal, Seville, a humble puddle in Masham, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Gargrave.
…. and finally, an impromptu wintry lake mirror near home.
Oh, and finally finally, a bit of fun. Two little lambs spotted last week. Using a pre-digital film analogy, one’s a negative of the other. Not quite mirror images, but please don’t quibble when they’re so sweet.
Night Time
Night photography isn’t really my thing, so Elke, this week’s host for Monochrome Madness, provided me with a real challenge when she proposed Night time as her theme.
Unsurprisingly, towns and cities provided me with a few ideas. Let’s go on a quick tour. Let’s visit Albania, England, Spain, France, South Korea and Poland…
Really though, Country Mouse prefers to dodge big cities. My featured photo is of the moon as darkness fell recently, while the photo below was taken just at the end of the road.
Chairs in the Service of Art
Chairs. That’s what Brian of Bushboy’s World fame, and host this week of Leanne’s Monochrome Madness wants us to get our cameras out for. And I’ve decided to show Chairs in the Service of Art
My first clutch of photos all come from Spain. A day out in Logroño, la Rioja, yielded some street sculpture featuring chairs and those who sit in them, whether alive or sculpted.
More recently, in Barcelona, I visited of of its newer museums, Museu de l’Art Prohibit – the Musem of Censored Art. It covers political, religious and sexual themes, and is not for the faint-hearted, but I found it fascinating and enlightening.
The first image here was exhibited at the Pamplona Festival in 1972 – a brave thing to do, as Spain was still in the grip of Franco’s dictatorship. This depicts one of Franco’s secret policemen.
The second is by the South Korean artists Kim Eun-Sung & Kim Seo-Kyung, and shows a Girl of Peace. It was exhibited as part of the Aichi Triennale 2019 in Japan, and received threats of attack for being anti-Japanese propaganda. The exhibition was closed but reactions against its censorship forced it to be reopened. This artwork has caused various diplomatic incidents between Japan and South Korea. For its creators, it is an icon of peace. There’s another view of it as my featured photo.
My final Spanish shot is of a chair (and the kitchen stove?) painted on a garage door in a back street in Seville.
Back in the UK, to visit Harewood House near Leeds, and show an image of a chair constructed by the Galvin Brothers specifically for the house’s Yellow Drawing Room – a place to sit, talk, reflect, share, remember. Created at the time of the death of Elizabeth II, this chair was intended as a sober reflection on her reign. Its design, featuring maturing crops as part of the backrest, references the transient and intangible.
Lastly, I’ll take you to Edinburgh, to the National Museum of Scotland. This is where we saw this chair. An astonishing chair. It began its life as a simple willow tree, but was obliged to convolute itself as it grew into the form of a chair by Gavin Munro. Do have a look at his website.
Well, this hasty tour has turned up quite a few different chairs. It’s perhaps the simplest ones that convey the most potent messages.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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