Spanish views from a small town

From time to time, I hit the easel with my pastels. I haven't been doing much of late, but I still like to have supplies. Last December, I ordered some from Jackson's Art in Britain, trying to get ahead of Brexit. This past month, curiosity about how it will be from now on, led me to visit its page. There are a lot of products that are out of stock. I assume that those are products that the company normally buys from European providers. I ordered a new pastel board I had never used before, and a large sheet of Art Spectrum paper I can't find in Spain, as well as a Caran d'Ache pencil in a color I didn't have. Wow. Shipping now cost around twenty-five euros. Back in December, it had cost around five. I went ahead with the order, however. These were products that I couldn't find in Spain, not even online.  I received it today, except for the pastel board, which is on back order. Apparently, it also comes from a European provider. It was always very easy to order f...

Have you ever wanted to learn how to knit? Have you ever wanted to own the most iconic cars in miniature? How about construct a model battleship? Read every important book of universal literature? Now you can. Beginning this month you can buy the first installment of any part of human knowledge at your kiosk. And, if you're a millionnaire, you can acquire every installment to its end, in about five years. I'm not kidding. September being the month kids return to school, some adults get nostalgic. So, many pretend to be students once again and learn something new. When you go to buy the newspaper or walk by a kiosk there is the first installment of "Learn German in Two Easy Weekly Lessons" staring at you. It will probably consist of a large booklet of ten pages, and a CD or DVD that lasts fifteen minutes with two lessons. At a modical cost of maybe 1.99. That is paid for and taken home. And yes, it's easy. You have just learned how to say hello , goodbye , and th...

The season isn't quite over. In August we tend to have the last celebrations. The first (and more numerous) are in June. No, not weddings, communions. Though they're almost like weddings here. The crisis has stopped some families from going overboard, but it's still too much. I remember my First Communion in Boston. It was in the month of May, and since the church had a school attached, very numerous. All the second-graders who attended the school, and practicing Catholics who didn't, made their communion en masse. No exceptions. I remember we occupied almost half the pews. After private pictures in front of the church, and a short stint at a photographer's studio, we went home, where my mother cooked for us and our guests, ten people total. There were two children invited with whom I played. Though it was May it was cold and we stayed indoors. (Around that date we had a late snowstorm.) That was a typical communion in Boston in those days. In these days here a ...