Yesterday, it was overcast again and rained all day, as it did during the night. It was late afternoon by the time I walked to Tesco's to get olives wine and baby shampoo for Clare. Then I walked to Blackweir Bridge, buffeted by the wind. The water was up by a metre since yesterday, over the top of the fish trap. Hardly anyone was out walking, though I did meet our neighbour Miriam from Bilbao who also walks daily. She said that the rain doesn't bother her, as it rains a great deal in her Basque homeland, just like it does here, I wish I could say the same. I miss the endless sun and blue skies of Andalucia, and long to return and spend time there again, whether for work or for leisure. Who knows when it will be possible?
It was a relief from frustration to wake up to sunshine this morning, albeit in a sky studded with cloud. After our ritual late lie-in and pancake breakfast I walked in the park for an hour before cooking lunch. It was only as I approached home again that it began to drizzle intermittently. More disappointment!
When I came to do my daily DuoLingo language drill, I was delighted to discover thirty new stories have been added to a list which already contains hundreds. Some stories are funny enough to raise a laugh, but their importance lies in the clever gradual insinuation of new grammatical constructions and words which change their meaning in different contexts. These can be hard to get your head around in except in the context they are used. Building up familiarity with these through simple dialogue and narrative works well to maintain interest and motivation in language comprehension and development.
By way of contrast, I'm still plodding my way through 'Winter in Madrid' an English spy novel in Spanish translation, thanks to Kath, who bought a copy at an airport bookshop in transit, and passed it on to me to read. It's a good translation which conveys well in Spanish the English ethos of the narrative. The price to be paid for this is the use of extensive Spanish vocabulary which is as rich in synonyms as English. It's not very demanding to make general sense of, but much recourse to the dictionary is needed to add colour to the story telling, which makes for slow reading of a somewhat slow uneventful story.
I had two Spanish novela for my birthday, which will be easier to read eventually, but I'm determined to finish 'Invierno en Madrid' and hoping it'll help me to tackle other elements of Spanish literature. It's all a matter of time. Life seems quite busy these days, taking photos, exercising, blogging, language practice, following the news and church duties absorb so much time each day, that book reading gets neglected. I could do with another three hours per day, but could only achieve this by cutting down on sleep, which I'm reluctant to do, as only recently, due to the improving state of my open wound, that my sleep quality has improved, enhancing waking hours. How to get the balance right is the challenge.
Last year in Ibiza, the family held a WhatsApp Eurovision Song Contest fancy dress party as it was being broadcasted, a bit of wacky fun in a dark time. The contest was staged live from Rotterdam tonight, and for old time's sake we sat and watched. Well, I say watch, but for many of the performances flashing multi-coloured lights behind the performers were so intense that I couldn't watch. Total overkill. That was the four hours of my life wasted that I'll never get back. Putting together a broadcast extravaganza on this scale with an audience of 3,000 plus hundreds of artists on stage given the still tight pandemic restrictions in force in the Netherlands was a colossal technical feat. Pity about the content.
Over-dramatic pauses during the announcement of the results, long video fill-ins between programme items, too much time spent watching performers lounging about waving at the camera in the 'green room' adding very little if anything to the programme. An indifferent Italian heavy metal band sang the winning song, with a massive popular vote surge springing a surprise almost at the end. Heavy metal music is popular in many former Soviet Bloc countries and Baltic nations, so that helps to explain the result.
Far superior were the two French language chansons from French and Swiss performers that took the two runners-up places. As for the rest of the two dozen songs, nothing memorable. For the second time in a row, the UK scored 'nul point' - a mediocre song badly sung by a nice guy. Given that Britain has some of the top internationally known groups and recording artists it's a bit strange that we've not had a Eurovision winner since 1997. I wonder if two successive 'nul point' scores isn't a reflection of how other people in other countries see things British post-brexit. Will questions be asked in the House of Commons?
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