Tag: Museo del Titere

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.

Spooky? Perhaps … Eerie?

Hallowe’en turns me into a Grumpy Old Woman. Not the event and its history. I like the fact that here, its roots lie deep in the Celtic festival of Samhain. As harvest ended and winter began, the veil between the living and the dead grew thinner, making it easier for spirits to return.

By the Middle Ages, the church had appropriated the days for its own ends, and made All Saints Eve (‘Hallowe’en’) a day for honouring the dead. And over the years, various merry-making traditions grew up round it: Trick or Treat; dressing up as witches, ghouls and ghosts; carving Jack-o’-Lanterns (from swedes in my day. Can you imagine the hard work involved?); and games such as apple-bobbing. Yes, all that I liked: community-based home-spun entertainment just right for this miserable time of year when clock-change plunges us all into night from about 4 o’clock onwards.

What I don’t like is that, these days, from September onwards, shops are crammed with Hallowe’en souvenirs of every kind – all plastic and ultra-transient, and cheap and tacky costumes, not even slightly bio-degradable, to be worn – for one night only – by marauding hordes of children descending on the neighbourhood demanding sweets without number from about four o’clock onwards. I can still remember the night we gave out more than 200 treats before firmly shutting up shop and closing the front door against all comers (We had an American base nearby – they taught our children well).

So the images I offer for this week’s Monochrome Madness: Spooky, as suggested by Dawn are perhaps eerie rather than spooky, and come from the natural world, or at least a world-gone-by. Apart from my header photo. This is a puppet from the Puppet Museum (Museo del Titere) in Cádiz and spooky enough to terrify anybody. And two bits of street-fun: one from Brick Lane, the other from Newcastle.

The Magic of Cádiz

This week, Anne-Christine invites us to share Magical Moments from for the Lens-Artist Challenge. I’m choosing a magical few days spent four years ago in Cádiz, Andalucía.

Cádiz isn’t a city with world-beating museums or inspirational churches. But it’s the oldest city in Western Europe, founded by the Phoenicians. Greeks and Romans peopled the area, and from the 8th century, the city was a Muslim stronghold for 700 years. Christopher Columbus sailed from here three times on his voyages of discovery to the New World, and in 1812 the first Spanish Constitution, making a unified nation of the peninsula’s disparate kingdoms. All this is reflected in today’s city.

For us though, this was a seaside city of characterful streets. It had once-upon-a time fishing quarters now re-purposed for locals and tourists alike as the place to relax at an outdoor table over a leisurely meal (this was January).

It was the city where we could find delightful old bars selling local sherries to savour and compare. And above all, it was the city of sunsets. Every evening it seemed, everybody came to the seashore to simply stand and watch, and witness the magic of the sun dipping down over the sea and beyond the horizon. These photos have not been edited or retouched – except to correct the odd wonky horizon.

Even one of its museums, the Puppet Museum, Museo del Titere, had moments of magic. How about these rather witchy women?

Or the magical and gigantic baobab tree?

Two months later, as we looked back on this special holiday, it seemed even more magical. We hadn’t known as we wandered its streets that this would be our last bit of freedom to travel for a very long time. In March 2020, the world locked down.

A Puppet in the Limelight

Bright, slight, light – maybe a Bit of a Fright. A puppet from Cádiz. You wanted culture? Wait till I get home and can access all my camera photos. For now, enjoy this little charmer from the Museo del Titere , a delightful little museum all about puppets at the edge of the old town.

January Squares: January Light