I really should have written this entry yesterday – I’m writing 2 days on you see (it’s now the 12th) + especially when one doesn’t do very much, it is not very easy to recall the events of the day. The big events, the exciting happenings, it’s easy to remember – one barely needs to write about them at all, since they’re going to be remembered anyway – but it’s the everyday, which forms by far the greater part of the trip, which I am trying to preserve just as much. Not always successfully. I sometimes feel that all I am doing is recording a wealth of unnecessary detail, mere facts, at the expense of feelings + emotions. Still, I can hardly be accused of that today. I have successfully managed to waste half a page in arguably even more idle quasi-philosophical discussion. Ah well.
I felt a little better today, sufficient to rise from my bed… hammock… and attempt a little breakfast, coffee, bread + honey, with Val. Then she went off to weave while I amused myself for the rest of the day. I achieved this in various ways. I read a little. Cervantes makes for fairly light reading, + undoubtedly Don Quixote is one of those books that “should” be read, + since I doubt whether I would have the necessary determination otherwise, I’m grateful for this opportunity offered. I also sat in the square for a while, + worked on another bracelet, one I’m making for Pete. I visited the toilet (not so much a visit, more a way of life) quite a lot. It’s an interesting toilet, out in the back yard, under a lean-to shelter, just a concrete doughnut to sit on, + throw a bucket of water down after you’ve finished. Val came back late afternoon, + she had some soup, while I had more tea. We took a walk to the bakery, just to see what was going on… nothing… so then we came home, played cards, went to bed.
The photos are from my photo shoot at Rosa’s – unsurprisingly, there are no pictures to accompany my recovery process. In the lower picture, you can see the frame, needed as part of the preparatory process before actual weaving. Val was so taken by the idea that we commissioned a tech teacher at the school I taught at when we returned, to make her own. But my recollection is that it has never actually been used. Ah well, a retirement project to come perhaps.
Pamela J Blair
I know how fascinating weaving can seem to someone who doesn’t do it. I loved watching Algerian women weave in their homes on primitive looms. Also in Tunisia. They had no furniture, except for the loom. It’s such an international activity. I was in Peru, and went to a small island, Taquile, on Lake Titicaca, where the men wove the cloth (first time I’d seen men weaving) and the women wove the strips of decoration that they attached to the cloth. On that island, the men also knit! I hope your intestines improve soon.