El Cotillo and dying lens

Today we went to El Cotillo on a bus — which was large, comfortable, air-conditioned and on time. I don’t know why it surprises me, but it does. I think it was the same bus both ways, at least it was the same driver.

We’ve been to the village before, so, led by imprinting, we turned right as we came to the ocean, and walked to the “Los Lagos” (lakes) beach that is sort of to the north of the village. It’s a series of nicely enclosed calm lagoons, white sand and black volcanic stone, with easy sandy access to the water. Only after we came back I’ve checked and found out that there are much longer beaches if you head in the opposite direction, but they are exposed and not calm — better for surfing than for swimming.

getting paperwork done

Over our first week here we've achieved an important thing - we've got possibly the biggest bit of paperwork done. That was obtaining a "residencia" - green paper of A4 format per head, stating that we live where we live. Apparently, we are supposed to carry it around. Used to be a photo-card that fits in a standard card slot in any wallet, but that was changed to a floppy large piece of paper with no photo which doesn't fit any. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but there you go. It will probably change again, hopefully we'd be able to do our own paperwork by then - this time we had to engage professional help

We have to do a few more pieces - maybe next week.

Pictures are more or less random.

Cup of coffee in a cafe in Puerto del Rosario, while we waited for Sabrina, who went off to the bank to pay the official fees.

selling my car

this is a somewhat boring post, but I thought I'd better do it for a record, plus it might be useful to somebody. I never sold a car before, and was intimidated by the idea. But I had to, I thought black just won't work on Fuerteventura, it'll be like a furnace.

Kitesurfing

Yesterday we finally found the way down to the beach - not the town beach, but one at the beginning of natural reserve of dunes of Corralejo. When it's windy, it's full of free-range kitesurfers. It was windy yesterday.

I never observed the tricks they do before - I was under the impression that they just go to and fro very fast. I was wrong. Maybe the weather was appropriate yesterday, maybe it's something to do with the fact that there's kitesurfing championship going on the other end of the island, but they were doing jumps, twist and turns, you name it. There was also a fair bit of falling going, too. Shame that my biggest zoom's in a container somewhere, but I caught what I could.

Those guys are crazy, and I mean it in a nicest possible sense. I want to have a go too, one day. I probably would never able to jump like that, but I will try

Artesan market in Corralejo

Today, and every sunday, there was an "Artesan market" (Mercado de artesanía) in commercial centre Campanario. What is for sale are mostly useless, though often desirable - volcanic stone jewelry, trinkets, bags, more jewelry, etc. There were some food for sale - local cheeses, bread - but not much. Apparently you need to go to Puerto del Rosario on Fridays for food market - which I fully intend to do.

What I especially noticed where those wind toys made out of plastic bottles.

first and last

My last week was full of "last" things - last zumba lesson with Luisa, last salsa with Nunchi and Udoka, last casual lunch in Saffron Walden, even last trip to its Library and recycling center, etc. Granted, apart from possibly last two items, the other things can still occur if I come over for a visit, but it felt sad all the same. I will miss all that, even the recycling center

Today it is a different story altogether - day of "firsts"

First litrona bottle shared in the patio

Race for Life - Cambridge

we came to Cambridge today to spot two friends that were taking part in Race for life event. Needless to say, we were sort of late, as we tend to be, so Kirill managed to spot one, me - none. What we did see was a lot of ladies of all ages, all without exception looking lovely in their (mostly) pink outfits, enjoying a run, jog or stroll under sunshine. I liked it a lot. I like it when anybody can join, and here it is pretty much the case - unlike marathon, for example, where even strolling the whole distance is a huge effort. Granted, it's ladies-only event, but apart from that, very inclusive

Grassington

First time (and the only one until a week ago) we visited Grassignton with our friend, on almost the first drive around in the UK ever, fifteen years ago. I don't remember much from the first visit, apart from some bunting across the streets.

This time there was no bunting, but the village (or town if you insist on being correct) is almost too pretty. We went for an extremely short walk to the Linton Falls, then a little way along the river Wharfe and then turned back into the village (yeah, town, I know) in search of a cafe

I saw some activity on the river and couldn't figure out what it was - and now wikipedia tells me they are restoring hydroelectric plant there. Well done, I say.

Back from Yorkshire

just came back from Yorkshire after a couple of days of going around places we saw first time fifteen years ago. Yorkshire holidays always turn out to be nice in low-key way - no big discoveries, no big disappointments either. We stayed in Leeds and went for drives. I do believe I broke some rules, turning where I was not at all supposed to - and doing it twice in as many days, due to our navigator's directions. I just hope they'll let it go if I am caught on camera.

Below are some almost randoms pics

Difficult to spell but easy to pronounce - Knaresborough. Easy on the eye, too.

I spend a while waiting for  a train to appear on the viaduct, given up and we started moving down to the river level when it finally did, and I wasn't really ready of course. There's a picture on another camera, though, taken with lensbaby, but I haven't seen how it turned out yet.

Luton carnival 2011

Second year we go to Luton carnival and it second year it rains on their parade. You can see the rain in some pics. Stupidly, I didn't take an umbrella out of the car, so we started moving pretty fast just as soon Acro Iris went past us, and didn't see the tail of the parade properly. It's a nice event though, rain or not.

would smell as sweet?

Once setup for "black mirror" photos is set up, so to speak, it's difficult to stop making small still-life images with it.

The rose bud is from our garden, rosebush came with the house. The plant is very old and the trunk base is as thick as a small tree's. Flowers are not particularly pretty, they open too quickly, loosing the central swirl, most attractive feature in a rose flower to me. But they are highly scented, so much so that it seems almost unnatural. The scent is so strong that it reminds me not so much of other flowers, as of a small tube or essential rose oil that we used to have in our house in Moscow, years ago.

I just looked up the rose oil, and think that maybe "our" rose is related to rosa centifolia (cabbage rose) that is apparently one of the two main sources of the oil.  Well, all roses are related, but some more'n others

black mirror images on shutterstock

weekend

There was an international market in Saffron Walden over the weekend. We only got there on Sunday afternoon, when it was pretty much over (*), so it was bit empty

pea plants — tendrils

I guess I’d better give them something to cling to before they suffocate each other

More pea tendril pics at Shutterstock

trio of onions

No reason for this picture, except they look nice. I don't know how is it around here, but my granny would always put an onion that has started to sprout into a jar of water to get the green "plume" of spring onion eventually.

Onions that we buy here hardly ever sprout, or maybe it takes them so much longer that we eat them before it happens. But this trio did eventually, and was placed in water, and made water brown overnight.

Today Yuri came from school, looked at them and went "mum, why do you have onions standing in what looks like beer?"

And that brought another memory - of coloring Easter eggs (real chicken eggs, hard-boiled) with outer layer of onion skin, the thin papery stuff. You put a lot of onion skins in water, add eggs and booil. They go lovely rich brown.

Of course, it involves saving a lot of onion peel, first eating a lot of onions.

old lens

I had my sigma dc 17-70 2.8-4.5 idling ever since I switched from cropped frame canon 20d to full-frame 5d. I theoretically knew that nothing terrible will happen if I put it on fullframe camera, but something always stopped me.

splashes

there are a lot of splashing fruit&veg pictures around, but they are always fun to make, because the results are somewhat unpredictable. I like taking pictures of smoke for exactly the same reason.

knit fast, die warm

Couple of days ago a lady electrician came to check wiring and fitting in our house. She noticed that I have a stash of knitting yarns (I readily admit to compulsive yarn-buying, me) and mentioned a wool shop in Saffron Walden. It happened to be in one of the nooks you hardly go to, unless you have a specific place in mind - a passage between King Street and High Street where Mocha cafe is. It doesn't even show on the googlemap as a separate track.

Of course I felt I must go check it out, and today I did. The motto "Knit fast, die warm" was on a blackboard outside. The shop is small and cute, with a lot of interesting yarns, considering the available space. For example, the blue ruffle scarf is made of a pre-kitted strip of loose netting, which you crochet tightly on on side. I never seen one of those yarns before, and spent a minute trying to imagine how much time it must have taken to knit that much ruffle in what looks like a very fine yarn (came up with "an awful lot" figure ). With that strip thing, you can make two scarves a day, if you feel so inclined :)

Non flowering lake and more flowers

My visit to Norway was short (less than one full day), but there was no plan, only a vague idea that I want to see more white flowers (wood anemones that is). So when we went to a lake and didn't find any around, it was decided that we will go back to Tønsberg were they we in plenty. There were also lily-of-the-valley, just starting to bloom. We met a guy in his fifties who was collecting them. He probably was not supposed to do that (I know you were not supposed to pick them round Moscow when I was growing up), which probably explains why he produced some sort of vague mumble instead of articulated words. But I understood him - he just wanted a few for their beautiful smell :)

Egg tree of Stavern

We went to a little town (village?) of Stavern to have a little walk and some food. There is a fortress there, main building of which is on a small island (or maybe it's a peninsula, I am never sure with those scattered large rocks in the sea). The main visual impression on me was made by the row of large yellow sheds (maybe used to store ammunition, or maybe not. Sadly, I don't know Norwegian) and by a lilac bush branches hang by easter eggs, which somebody put on a bench just outside of them. Somehow, it seems sweet that they went into trouble of giving branches some soil to hold on to. Lilac responded well - you can see green leaves

white flowers and snakes

it's second year in a row that I go to Norway in early May, to visit my friend and to see wood anemones (hvitveis) everywhere. Last year I discovered that there were blue hepatica flowers there, too - not as many as anemonies, but still. And this year, lily-of-the-valley, wood-sorrel and violets suddenly caught my attention. I am sure they were there last year, too, I must have not been paying attention