Kacenka on the road

Everytime I need to switch off and relax, I abuse my friend Isaac’s generosity. Isaac owns a weekend home on the other side of the mountains, less than 2 hours of drive from Madrid, in a little village abbandoned by almost all permanent inhabitants and ignored by every mobile phone provider. Which is perfect when what you need is stop checking your phone for new messages every couple of minutes. Orejanilla and El Arenal have been taken over by a colourful population of nature lovers from Madrid and Segovia, who bit by bit bought and restored ruined houses and turned them into their weekend refuge. 

Whenever I need to lock the world outside and have a little (and usually inconclusive) think about what I want to be when I grow up, or when I need to lick my wounds, or generally just fold myself in self-pity and depression, Isaac’s door is open. Along with his extensive wine cellar. I take Mango and Sancha, the Great Danes, and Carmela, Ara and PG, the donkeys, on long walks twice a day, and feed them carrots (to the donkeys, not the Danes). I sleep in the garden in summer when it’s too hot to be inside, and lay in the middle of a field and watch shooting stars. And we barbeque, and watch old movies, and put the world to rights – with scarse result –  while eating an entire packet of toasted sunflower seeds (pipas) – with scarse resulto, too, as I still havent’s quite mastered the quintessencially spanish skill of eating pipas without using hands (other than putting them in our mouths, obviously, we have manners). The technique is to crack the seed open with one’s teeth and free the seed from the husk just with one’s tongue. I still need some practice, but it sounds like a useful skill to have, one that may come in handy on other occasions. 

The Spanish obsession to litter the country with chapels and churches is the result of a pissing contest that dates back to the long process of Reconquista. Every time any of the christian kingdoms gained some land, they marked the territory: there’s a church, it’s ours. Which explains why there are unnecessarily opulent basilicas in the middle of nowhere, or at least a little hermitage in every field. Here the ruins of Romanesque church of the Holy Spirit and still fuctioning church of St. John the Baptist between El Arenal and Revilla (also Romanesque). 

Exercises in style I. For the major part badly executed. 

Where’s Wally?

Tha Donkey Gang: Carmela, Ara and PG (and Sancha the Great Dane).

Exercises in Style II

Sunset in Orejanilla