My Spanish learning took a bit of a nosedive while we were house-sitting and not in town everyday but I'm trying to get back on track with the help of free podcasts.
I'm listing them here for other friends interested in Spanish but with the caveat that I haven't listened to all of them so they might be rubbish!
Coffee Break Spanish
This comes from Scotland and has been running for almost two years.
A Buen Puerto
This is a video podcast made to accompany an Open University course.
Voices en Espanol
Haven't listened to this yet but it looks like it might be American and therefore biased towards Latin American Spanish.
Notes in Spanish
There are three levels of 'notes in Spanish'.
Survival phrases Spanish
Spanish A+
Another one from the US featuring South American Spanish.
Spanish podcasts for beginners
Spanish Arriba
This is from a language school.
Spanish segunda lengua
More advanced this one but I like it.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Back in town
We have now handed the campo house (with its lovely pets) back to its owners and are back living in Orgiva town. It feels weird to be sleeping so near to other people. I can hear the TV sets and music of those nearby, nothing too annoying yet but it feels strange to be so close to other people after the relative isolation of a country house. I'm sure we'll get used to it though.
When Caroline was here she took some great pictures of near here and I thought it would be a good way of illustrating the nice side of being back in town.
I also asked her to take some pictures of the fancy knitted pants sold in posh kid's boutiques in Granada:
I'm not sure but I think these are designed to be worn by very little girls underneath fancy dresses and over their nappies but feel free to correct me if you know different.
Amazing aren't they?! And they cost around 60 Euros a pair which I think is reassuringly expensive.
When Caroline was here she took some great pictures of near here and I thought it would be a good way of illustrating the nice side of being back in town.
I also asked her to take some pictures of the fancy knitted pants sold in posh kid's boutiques in Granada:
I'm not sure but I think these are designed to be worn by very little girls underneath fancy dresses and over their nappies but feel free to correct me if you know different.
Amazing aren't they?! And they cost around 60 Euros a pair which I think is reassuringly expensive.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
When it's this hot....
a. You can leave the bread to rise outside instead of inside:
b. You cut the legs off your jeans as you realise you have far too few pairs of shorts and that all the clothes you thought of as summer clothes in Britain aren't actually all that summery at all:
c. You decide to invest a couple of euros in a fan:
d. You resolve to not to moan about it because you remember all too well how miserable last summer in the UK was.
(taken August 15th 2007)
Siesta time.
b. You cut the legs off your jeans as you realise you have far too few pairs of shorts and that all the clothes you thought of as summer clothes in Britain aren't actually all that summery at all:
c. You decide to invest a couple of euros in a fan:
d. You resolve to not to moan about it because you remember all too well how miserable last summer in the UK was.
(taken August 15th 2007)
Siesta time.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
On your marks...
My new knitting gadget - a stop watch - so I can keep track of how many hours go into producing each knit. People are always asking me 'how long did it take you?' and I never have a clue but now I can keep tabs. I should have some results to share soon...
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Queen of clean
Simone de Beauvoir on housework:
"Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day." from 'the second sex'.
Angie's the first to admit that maybe a cream floor wasn't the most practical choice for a campo house:
But by gum when you've cleaned it you feel like a true domestic diva:
Cleaning is going to be much on my mind this week as we prepare to hand the house back to its owners and play host to three guests.
De Beauvoir despised housework so much she moved into a hotel for much of her adult life. This time next week I could well be contemplating the same....
"Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day." from 'the second sex'.
Angie's the first to admit that maybe a cream floor wasn't the most practical choice for a campo house:
But by gum when you've cleaned it you feel like a true domestic diva:
Cleaning is going to be much on my mind this week as we prepare to hand the house back to its owners and play host to three guests.
De Beauvoir despised housework so much she moved into a hotel for much of her adult life. This time next week I could well be contemplating the same....
Monday, August 11, 2008
Madness, they call it madness
Knitting alpaca legwarmers in the hottest weeks of the year, that is.
As these were a Purlpower design I had to keep trying them on to check that they were fitting. Phew.
These are a long-belated birthday present for Angie, whose house we are currently enjoying. Hurrah.
I made them ribbed so that they would stay up if you wished them to although you can also wear them scrunched-up style. Gasp.
Suitable for yoga-style moves. Gulp.
And excellent (nay, perhaps essential) for singing along to 'Fame'. "FAME!"
Here cometh the nerdy bit:
Pattern: Purlpower design for Angie
Yarn: Katia Alpaca Andes (charcoal grey) - 2 balls, Lang Fantomas Superwash (bright pink) 1 ball.
Needles: 3.5mm
Comments: Although slightly different weight these yarns knit together well. The alpaca (while bloody hot to knit with in August!) is really nice quality and is super-soft, while the pink Lang - brought back from Germany by Uncle Bozo- has really excellent yardage, I used under 50g. More yarn details available on Ravelry for yarn nerds.
Finished: 08.08.08
n.b. in the absence of a camera all shots for the next few weeks are going to be taken from the macbook in-built camera hence the limited camera angles above!
As these were a Purlpower design I had to keep trying them on to check that they were fitting. Phew.
These are a long-belated birthday present for Angie, whose house we are currently enjoying. Hurrah.
I made them ribbed so that they would stay up if you wished them to although you can also wear them scrunched-up style. Gasp.
Suitable for yoga-style moves. Gulp.
And excellent (nay, perhaps essential) for singing along to 'Fame'. "FAME!"
Here cometh the nerdy bit:
Pattern: Purlpower design for Angie
Yarn: Katia Alpaca Andes (charcoal grey) - 2 balls, Lang Fantomas Superwash (bright pink) 1 ball.
Needles: 3.5mm
Comments: Although slightly different weight these yarns knit together well. The alpaca (while bloody hot to knit with in August!) is really nice quality and is super-soft, while the pink Lang - brought back from Germany by Uncle Bozo- has really excellent yardage, I used under 50g. More yarn details available on Ravelry for yarn nerds.
Finished: 08.08.08
n.b. in the absence of a camera all shots for the next few weeks are going to be taken from the macbook in-built camera hence the limited camera angles above!
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Paying for patterns / Dalek Socks
Thanks to Suzanne for sending me this link to a truly innovative Dalek sock design. The designer is generously offering her hard work for free from her site but I for one will be using the donation button because it looks like she's worked bloomin' hard on this design and hm, perhaps I'm just in a really good mood having just had a visit from my goodly friends Satnam and Jasbir.
Incidentally, the glittyknittykitty blog this week has a really interesting discussion on how the lovely free pattern culture can mutate into something nasty when it leads to people undervaluing the amount of work involved in creating and publishing designs. Go read more here.
Camera is still jiggered but am hopeful of picking up a similar model on Ebay for little pennies as I am quite content with 5 megapixels since my camera is mostly used for tiny blog pics, although actually our Pentax Optio (first model, 3 megapixels) took plenty of beautiful scenic shots over the years and also travelled to 11% of the world's countries - FACT!
Another baby lands in our lives this week, Hazel and Amani have made a little male one (not too little, he was 8lb 9oz) called Adili Rowan. Congratulations to them all!
And because no one likes a blog post without a picture here's an oldish one of Billy which I am calling 'cat in a basket':
"do you want chips with that?"
Incidentally, the glittyknittykitty blog this week has a really interesting discussion on how the lovely free pattern culture can mutate into something nasty when it leads to people undervaluing the amount of work involved in creating and publishing designs. Go read more here.
Camera is still jiggered but am hopeful of picking up a similar model on Ebay for little pennies as I am quite content with 5 megapixels since my camera is mostly used for tiny blog pics, although actually our Pentax Optio (first model, 3 megapixels) took plenty of beautiful scenic shots over the years and also travelled to 11% of the world's countries - FACT!
Another baby lands in our lives this week, Hazel and Amani have made a little male one (not too little, he was 8lb 9oz) called Adili Rowan. Congratulations to them all!
And because no one likes a blog post without a picture here's an oldish one of Billy which I am calling 'cat in a basket':
"do you want chips with that?"
Sunday, August 03, 2008
One of the best things about living here....
....is being in regular contact with like-minded people. People who, like us, feel that modern life as many of us were living in Britain before coming out here, is a bit, well, mental. A life absorbed in often meaningless work, for inadequate pay, that you then end up spending on things you don't really need or want and leaving you far too little time to spend on the things you do enjoy doing.
At the house we are house-sitting there is a fine collection of books surrounding this philosophy and the one with the most attention grabbing title for me thus far has been this one. Probably well known to most of you, I am, as I am often, late to the idling party. I really can't recommend it enough. There may well be sections of it I agree with more than others but the overall sentiment - that there is something fundamentally soul-destroying and crazy about the way many of us in the Western World are living our lives - just rings so true for me.
Getting some distance away from Britain, our mortgage, our jobs, has really helped us to focus on the kind of life that suits us and it isn't what we have been trying to do for several years....I hope I can blog more lucidly on this subject in the future, right now it's nearly two am and I'm only blogging out of insomnia, but this is something I feel it would be good to write about more.
Anyone interested in reading further about the type of lifestyle I'm talking about might want to check out the author's website and follow some of the links. You never know where you might end up...
At the house we are house-sitting there is a fine collection of books surrounding this philosophy and the one with the most attention grabbing title for me thus far has been this one. Probably well known to most of you, I am, as I am often, late to the idling party. I really can't recommend it enough. There may well be sections of it I agree with more than others but the overall sentiment - that there is something fundamentally soul-destroying and crazy about the way many of us in the Western World are living our lives - just rings so true for me.
Getting some distance away from Britain, our mortgage, our jobs, has really helped us to focus on the kind of life that suits us and it isn't what we have been trying to do for several years....I hope I can blog more lucidly on this subject in the future, right now it's nearly two am and I'm only blogging out of insomnia, but this is something I feel it would be good to write about more.
Anyone interested in reading further about the type of lifestyle I'm talking about might want to check out the author's website and follow some of the links. You never know where you might end up...
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