Things my sweetie saw that I want to see

 Hello, everyone.

While I was laid up (not to use the colloquial expression "stove up") DH walked all over Madrid. This was hard for him, as we customarily go together to see the churches, the gardens, etc.

He found more than one church that we had never seen together.

And, of course, he visited our favorite art museums: the Prado and the Thyssen-Bournemisza.

I will try to get the pictures that he took together over the next several posts to share them with y'all.

This was a church near the place where we were staying. I share a few of the many photos he took.

This view of the niche was amazingly beautiful.

San Rocco, with the dog who brought him bread when he was ill.

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, with the scapular.

This was a lovely church. I am excited to be there to visit in person when next we go to Madrid.

Rest day in Mérida

Hello, everyone. 

We scheduled a rest day in Mérida because there are a number of things to take in. We therefore didn't stay in the pilgrim albergue in the town. Albergues typically limit a pilgrim's stay to one night. We will always figure out a place that accepts  a two night stay if it's a rest day.

As I mentioned yesterday,  we hit  Mérida during the festival. There have been people in Roman-like costumes everywhere. The city had gone all-in on this, apparently for a number of years. School groups trekked across town in Roman-style dress with little banners to the Amphitheater (an actual Roman place) and watched presentations and cheered that they're the sons of Augusta Emerita. Which they actually are. There have been bands of "Roman soldiers" marching around the town, dressed in Roman legion-like costumes. Every toddler, almost, has a tunic and either a draped shawl (for girls) or a sword or shield and maybe greves (for boys) and they're all having a wonderful time.

Today we visited the Amphitheater,  where we saw part of the elementary school stuff, then we wandered over into the arena, then over to the shrine basilica of St. Eurlalia de Boveda (of the arch) which was lovely, and the nice man there had a sello for my pilgrim credencial. Then we wandered some more, found a grocery store and picked up some hand sani (great for cleaning a blister too) and sunscreen and cheese slices and local wine. With all this loot we went back to the hotel to eat at midday and rest during the siesta. 

Tomorrow we head out again for a long day, probably, and it's possible I will be too tired to post after arriving. 

You don't see a costumed plastic pig very often. 

The explanation of where St. Eulalia is buried.

The actual spot of her tomb.

The temple of Diana, fixed up for the Fiesta.

We had some wind locally a few days ago...

 Hello, everyone.

By "some wind" I mean enough to make the branches move a lot. Also this happened:

All but the very bottom layer of the stack-a-plant tower tipped over and many of the plants were dislodged.

This little flower (?) I rescued from the vegetable garden was dumped onto the grass. I decided to put it into a gallon-sized pot by itself. (It's very happy in its new situation. Has almost doubled in size!) 

The grassy leaves hanging upside-down in the pot are some of the rain lilies I had planted into it.

Many of the succulents were tossed and turned.

Oh well, I really needed to rearrange that plant tower anyway. The rescued flower was getting too big for the stack-a-plant slots, and the rain lily bulbs were poorly situated. 

I wonder if the best plan for a pot like this is to have either small-sized herbs, exclusively, or flowers, or in the alternative some partial-sun succulents, but not a mix of all three. The tower garden would have more compatibility in watering needs that way.

New version has all of the rain lilies on the top 2 layers and all of the succulents in the lower parts. Also some of the succulents with transparent leaf tops, as in the second picture above, were transferred to other pots with more light.

I will try to remember to take a photo of the rearranged plant tower.

In other garden news, St. Joseph has been placed in his new garden at the corner of the yard.

The large rocks are there as accents. Behind him is a croton plant, the kind with multicolored leaves, which we hope will grow taller to serve as a background.

The native honeysuckle vine that we got from High Country Gardens has begun making flower buds, the pink primrose is burgeoning and I found some root suckers sprouting in the base of the pot so now there are two pots of these lovely flowers, and various other potted plants are also delighted in the return of warm weather.

 

Recap of Camino Primitivo, Day 3

 Hello everyone. I had located photos for this day of travel at the same time as I located photos for the previous day of travel, so I thought I would get after it and make the post for the walk from Salas to Tineo.

One initial thought: apparently the meal served at the albergue in Salas was vegan. It had no meat, no cheese, and while there was some rice in the vegetable soup, there was no bean element so no complete protein at all. And it was awfully low fat for people who are hiking all day. I completely ran out of energy and hit the wall around 2 hours into our walk. But we made it into Tineo and it wasn't super late in the day after all. Though we did arrive during siesta time so not much was open until later.

This was part of the path towards Tineo.

We also passed black raspberry plants, some of the berries ripe, but didn't take pictures of them. The berry I ate had a sort of dark, musky flavor. (Pick your wild berry above the height of doggy investigations if you try one! Just saying.) I never picked a berry that appeared to be under cultivation, as that would be an utterly tacky thing to do.

We passed an amazing growth of mushrooms along the way. They appeared to be growing on the roots of some dead trees.

This sundial is on the outskirts of Tineo, along the hiking path. There is actually a sort of "parks belt" along there before you enter the town. The whole town is clinging to the side of a mountain/huge hill and they also have at least one terrace below the nearby street that is used for a vegetable garden by someone there. I saw large plants that looked like asparagus, busy storing up energy to turn into lovely spears in the spring. The little bar we were sitting at, through a little tunnel across the square from the Palacio de Meras, and on the left, had terrace seating with a beautiful view of the town. Also very tasty croquetas for a snack.

We stayed in the albergue space of the Palacio de Meras hotel which was quite nice. You go to the main entrance and ask and they check you in. Also ask for your sello! I did and DH forgot, so for that day I have 2 stamps and he has one (the little church dedicated to SS Saturnino and Justino I think their names were.) The albergue space there has little 4-bed (2 bunk-stack) cubicles with a heavy curtain across the door to somewhat contain the sounds of snorers. I remember lockers and electric plugs, too. The hotel offers a pilgrims' meal at I think 8 pm, for an extra fee.

We had a (really big) hamburger in their bar for dinner. Very nicely done and filling, too. We didn't think that we could do justice to a full 3 course pilgrims' meal so skipped that option. 

Returning to the San Salvador--Last Day

 Hello, everyone.

View back toward Mieres in the dawn

Today's post returns to the pilgrimage for the last day of the walk into Oviedo.  This is a shorter day than many, but the middle portion was a very steep climb that was signed as a "greenway". The first portion was a gentle climb over switchbacks on the road and third portion was also gentle hill going through and around farms.

View of Oviedo in the distance

When we were walking through the farms, we met some of the farmers. They were very friendly and reminded us of the old saying, "He who visits Santiago and neglects to visit Oviedo, visits the servant and neglects the Master."

The actual entry into Oviedo was a gentle slope down suburban streets, passing the official albergue in Oviedo and arriving in the Cathedral square downtown. 

We had reserved a room at Hostel Fidalgo, the same pension we had stayed at when we bussed to Oviedo in 2018. This time, being mid October, it was a bit chilly in the room; the lady explained to us that the heat in the building is controlled for the whole building by the overall management. 

The tourism office wants everyone to know that Oviedo is the origin of the
 Camino de Santiago. Which it is, as Oviedo was the capital of
Asturias when the bones were found.

We paid our respects to the Sudario and the Cross of Victory from Covadonga when we went to the Cathedral to get our Salvadoranas.

The reliquary of the Sudario, the head cloth mentioned in the Gospel of John
 description of the apostles discovering that Jesus had been resurrected

The credencial for the Salvador, the bottom stamp is upside
down as the credencial is unfolded here and the
final stamp is on a different page.

The Salvadorana
It had to be weighted down to uncurl the shape of the carrying tube.

We took a rest day in Oviedo.

Sixth update on pilgrimage 2021

 Hello, everyone. 

Yesterday we left Salas at around 9 in the morning. This was late for us.

We arrived in Tineo around 3:30 pm, just before the daily siesta started.  We stayed in the albergue of Hotel de Meras. The setup was fresh and modern. (In other words, nothing was old enough to be broken, the bunks were sturdy and comfortable, and they were set up in 4 bed nooks.) We were assigned to the two bottom bunks in one nook. It had a big red curtain for noise control and privacy.

A parish church along the way. It is dedicated to the martyrs St. Justo and his companion, who were shepherds.

We had a lovely snack of vino tinto and croquetas at a bar near our alburgue. This was their terrace view of Tineo. 

Later, instead of signing up for the fix price pilgrim's menu, we had burgers in the bar of the hotel. They weren't bad at all.

A little sewing

Hello, everyone.

Last week, before the storm hit, there was a little bit of sewing accomplished.

DH had said he wants to have another mask. (This brings him to three.) I thought I'd make one for myself, too, and the piece cut from the cranes fabric turned out to be large enough for two. These are all a larger size than the pattern called for, the flowers at 9.5" wide and the others at 9.75", I think. I underlined all of them with some gray voile that has been lying around the sewing space for years. 

If travel to Spain ever opens up--the news media seem determined to panic-monger their way into no one ever being allowed to travel ever again!--I will get to decide which one or two masks gets to go with me. 

The plan is, use common sense and courtesy. This works out to carrying a mask and if the people in an area are wearing them, pull it out of the pocket and put it on. (That's the courtesy part.) There is also the abiding thought that perhaps this is not the year to really try to stay in the group bunk houses (albergues) and where there is a pensión or similar, stay there instead. (That is the common-sense part.) I remember that the county west of ours, even before masks became a "thing" in our area, was very much into wearing them to contain germs during the current outbreak of "stuff." It is my thought that if a village or town is wearing the masks, even if there isn't a law requiring it, courtesy recommends the rule of St. Augustine: "when in Rome, I do as the Romans do."

Spring flowerpots update, and a wild creature

Hello, everyone.

The last few posts have shown the progress of the holdover lily plant. This may be the last one for that plant this year, if it doesn't surprise us all by making seeds. (I haven't seen any bees coming around.)

Y'all can see that the main bulb has made many buds this year. It also has "pupped out" several stems in the pot and maybe in a couple-three years they will bloom, too. At the left in this picture is the stem of another Easter lily that was bought this year. It gave about 4 blossoms. In a little while I will find a larger pot--larger than the 1 gallon one inside the "decorator" purple can--and see if we can have two holdover lilies next year.

The yellow is one of the daylily plants that was brought over from the old house. The other three found homes in a flower bed, but there wasn't room enough for all four. It seems to be happy in the pot, anyway.

On another note, in March on one of the days we were sharing an afternoon gin and tonic (to frighten the plague-virii away) we saw a critter crawling around in the radio.

It's not very big, and we have no idea what manner of moth or butterfly it should become down the road. We did follow our standard rule of thumb: don't touch the fuzzy caterpillars. Some of them have stingers!

Today is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, and by official proclamation in the US has been declared  "Law Day"--no idea if this name will stick around or not--as well as being May Day.

I was once told by my grandmother that on May Day in her youth they would make paper baskets and give flowers to their friends. As she grew up in eastern Montana, at the exact other extreme of the US (speaking north-south here) I suspect that any flowers they could find on May Day was a pretty big thing. Snow is not unheard of on May Day, and even on May 31 they sometimes get snow in those parts.

Here in South Texas, the first of May is well into "pretty darned warm" season. At this time of the year there is generally little rain and from now into fall what there is usually comes from tropical systems. Today the temperature has been well into the 90's F. (north of 32C for my metric zone readers.)

I have made about all of the elastic in the house into masks, and as the plague seems to be on the downhill slope now am looking toward other projects. DH wants some sleepwear, there is a piece of knit that looks just right for an infinity scarf for me, and hopefully the Kimberbell Christmas quilt classes will be able to resume at my local quilt shop. Also I have started working on a new fidget--still kind of misty and vague right now, but there is an oval of blue fur cut out for the base.

Israel pilgrimage: Fifteenth in series

Hello, everyone.

By now, we were close to the end of our visiting in the Holy Land. It was the day after the Stations of the Cross, which had been a lot of standing and a fair amount of walking on pavement. On this day we began by visiting the last surviving wall of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem.

(Herod's temple was I believe an enlargement of the second temple that was built by returnees during the Persians' rule. I think we're talking about the book of Nehemiah here, but am not completely sure. At any rate, later after the Maccabees pushed the imperialist Greek colonizers--who insisted that the occupants of this area become Greek pagans like themselves instead of letting them live their own lives with their own religion--there was unrest and much turnover in the kingship of the area. The Romans having come along by then, they grew impatient with the fighting over the king's seat and put in place the family of Herod as kings. One of the Herods decided to make the temple in Jerusalem really impressive and added on to it.)

The western wall foundation is the last remnant of Herod's temple. The rest was torn down during the rebellion of about 100 AD when the Romans rolled through in force and sacked the city.

Pigeons in a niche in the wall.

Ladies praying at the wall. (The local custom is for the ladies to have a section that is theirs and the gentlemen to have a section that is theirs.) It is the strictly observed custom for all the ladies to wear hats or scarves and all the gentlemen to wear a kippah, the Jewish mens' cap, while visiting the Western Wall.

Ruins in the vicinity of the wall.

There were a lot of people there. We saw a number of groups processing in to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of their young man, carrying canopies and singing and being accompanied by drummers and other musicians. Some of them were dancing as they went. (To respect the privacy of the various people in these groups, I am not putting those pictures up.)

After that visit, we went by bus over to the church of St Peter in Gallicante, St Peter of the Crowing Rooster. (So named because here St. Peter was called out by various persons as part of Jesus' party and in an attempt to remain low profile he denied that he knew Jesus. And the third time he did so, the rooster crowed.)

A good look at the front of the church of Gethsemane, which is too close to the sidewalk for a view of the mosaic above the entrance, but from across the Kidron valley shows beautifully.

St Peter in Gallicante is built over the ruins of the house of Caiaphas the High Priest, who as y'all will remember was the one who interrogated Jesus after His arrest and convened a (kangaroo-style) court to judge Him. After the group of elders they had on hand condemned Jesus to death, they stored Him in an old grain cellar, lowering Him by rope, until morning. Then they dragged Him over to Pilate to convince the Romans to permit the death penalty.

These days there are stairs down to the grain cellar. Groups take turns paying respects to the site.

After this visit, we went to Ein Kerem, which is not pronounced in the German fashion like I expected but instead as if the I in Ein isn't actually there, and visited the Church of the Visitation. (The Visitation is the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, it is when Mary visited her cousin St. Elizabeth and is described briefly in the Gospel of Luke.)

Ein Kerem is in the hills and we had a very respectable walk uphill to the church. It was the longest continuous walk in our visit to the Holy Land.

There was a very peaceful outdoor chapel there where our pastor offered Mass.

When we returned to the parking area at the bottom we discovered that there is a walk in the hills around the area. The trail mark was oval and two-colored; it looked to me like the eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings

but I'm sure the people who picked it out were probably unaware that a movie would pick that shape for the eye years later.

This was the last stop of another full day.

Israel pilgrimage, fourteenth in series, and Christmas greetings (updated for spelling)

Hello, everyone.

This is the third post for the day we walked the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem. It will complete the day with a brief remembrance of the chapel of Golgotha, which is also inside of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

As you enter the church, if you look to the right immediately, you see some very steep steps. These are the steps of Golgotha. It's a really steep little peak--granted there may have been a little more dirt over the rocks back then. Still, a tough climb up at the last from someone who had been beaten, dragged across the city three times, and then had to drag/carry a cross to the outside of the city. I almost wonder whether they had to do the nailing a little below the peak as there appears to be not much flat space for the executioners to work in at the top.

Inside the door of the chapel is another, very crowded, line.

The line. Also an overview of some of the beautiful and edifying mosaics on the ceiling and walls. (The birds alongside the cross are souls ascending into Heaven.) This is the Latin chapel, the actual place the Cross stood is in the Orthodox chapel which is out of sight around the corner on the left.

Detail of the mosaic: the Bark (ship) of Peter on the left, a symbol of the Church; the Eucharistic pelican on the right. The pelican here is a theological, poetic pelican. She feeds her young with her own blood by piercing her breast. It is a very ancient analogy of the Eucharist.

A detail of the Sorrowful Mother, viewing her Son. Even the executioner is sad.

Another image of Mary as Sorrowful Mother. Besides the candles and the crucifix (it's an altar) you can also see some of the devotional gifts that have been offered to the honor of the mother of Our Lord. This time she's portrayed with the sword prophesied by Simeon when He was presented in the Temple as an infant. ("Your heart, too, will be pierced by a sword, that the thoughts of many may be revealed," I think it goes. It's in the Gospel of Luke.)


And speaking of the Gospel of Luke, today is Christmas Eve, AKA the Vigil of Christmas.



The tree has a bow because the fake trees are too delicate to accept a star. Trying to strengthen it never really worked, so I capitulated.






The angel was a light cover from a tree light strand that had a whole flock of angels. It came with a little clip, which holds it nicely atop the stable.


I hope for all y'all to have a blessed and merry Christmas and a happy new year. Feliz navidad, y prospero año y felicidad!

Israel pilgrimage, twelvth in series

Hello, everyone.

One minor note, the last post was a separate day from the prior one--the photo file dates corrected my memory. Oops!

The next day was quite busy, so the earliest visit of the day will have its own post.

We visited the church of the Nativity of Mary. As most of the holy sites, the actual architecture of the shrine is fairly new. (You may go back to the discussion of Gethsemane for a look at the kind of build-destruction-rebuild history that is common in the Holy Land. Not to mention the names, ahem, of any particular group that is all about destroying shrines that are older than their things. Ahem.)

Inside the upper church. (In background, another group at prayer.)

There is a staircase down into the grotto. The shrine custodians have helpfully placed a sign at the steps.

One of the images of the birth of Our Lady. St. Anna, top left, wiping her face after the labor is completed. St. Joachim, bottom, stewing outside and hoping all goes well for his aged wife.

This was the first time on this pilgrimage that I saw some handwork that I could photograph. (Much of the time the altar cloths were either not easily photographed or looked like they'd been done by machine embroidery.)

It looks like herringbone stitch filling on the lily and chain stitch for the monogram outline. This monogram would be the A-M for Ave Maria. The A legs are included in the M legs I think. The point on top, though, while it could be the echo of the lily, seems to me to certainly be the point of the A. The lily covers over all of the center parts of the monogram.

This looks like chain stitch used as filling for the IHS (Iesus Salvador Hominum, Jesus Savior of Mankind) and also for the cruciform outlines.

 This is not embroidery but a mosaic. I liked the way the fish and loaves and basket are made here. (The fish and loaves, being a reference to the miraculous feeding of the multitude, are a Eucharistic symbol.)

This is seen from a difficult angle. It appears to be a painted image on fabric, with pearls added, below the A-M monogram with a crown above, these either in couched-down metallic braid or actual braided goldwork stitching. The crown has a couple of gems added, too. A lovely image of the infant Mary.

This book on the pillow is likely the Gospels but it's not easy for me to tell. The image in the metalwork is of the Cross with Jesus crucified, and Mary and St John at the feet of the Cross. The pillow here matches one in a photo I didn't include, of a crown in a niche like the Infant Mary image above. This photo is included because of the lovely lace hanging from the altar. It might be hand crocheted, or might not, but it's lovely.

The story of the birth of the Virgin Mary isn't actually in the Gospel. It's in the contemporaneous works that are now lumped under the title of Apocrypha. It's a lovely story, which I heard once on a Great Courses set we listened to, but I don't recall it well enough to recap it here. I do remember that St. Anne and St. Joachim are the parents of the Blessed Virgin.