KARETHE LINAAE
When I hear the word blacksmith, I immediately think of the remote smithy in Dickens Great Expectations. The name itself has a sound of yesteryear, when hammers echoed in every hamlet and when blacksmiths were the heart, or certainly the hearth of every community. As unfortunate as it is, these days the smith-trade has been…
Due to my lack of skills in the cooking department, I had serious intensions of making up for this unfortunate deficiency by expanding my baking repertoire once we moved to Andalucía. Yet as time went by, even this has petered down to rare, bi-annual attempts. It is not that I am lazy – it is…
If there is one thing that Ronda is known for, it is its emblematic bridge, El Puente Nuevo. Literally millions of tourists from all around the world come to our small town in southern Spain to photograph the lofty construction that gaps the deep El Tajo gorge. However, these days the residents of Ronda are…
Soon after having moved to Ronda in southern Spain, my husband and I discovered a recent construction that was different from any other building in town. As Ronda is known for it’s protect-worthy edifices, it felt refreshing to discover that it had at least one modern-style building. Even historical towns needs to adjust with the…
Our community garden is showing clear signs that the end is near. The tomatoes are gone, save a few rouge cherries. The abundant production of eggplants and peppers has ground to a halt and the rambling zucchini and cucumber plants lay wilted on the ground. The measly melons we have left can fit in our…
Can you teach English? Carlos the city electrician was on the phone. Me…, I asked Yes. You do speak English, don’t you, he continued, in Spanish of course. Yes, that was the case. But… I was not able to complete my argument before he rambled on. The centre where his daughter took classes was…
Ever since our first day of living in Ronda, Andalucía I was in awe of the street sweeper’s brooms. I would follow the cleaning crews around with my camera surreptitiously behind my back, trying to snatch photos of their perfectly setup: A couple of sturdy hand-made long shafted brooms standing upside down in plastic garbage…
I don’t care what El Traam, as they call the American president here in Andalucía, says. Global Warming is a scary fact. Anyone who isn’t living inside an air-conditioned bubble of denial knows so. And this is just the beginning. When I was a child, I used to love the sun. We all did. Having…
At noon on Monday Ronda went into three days of official mourning. A deafening silence descended upon the town hall square where friends and family of the diseased gathered to show their respect while listening to the toll of the church bells – a deep goooong expiring into silence, followed by a slightly more baritone…
“Are you going into that? Now?” My Mexican-born husband looked at me in disbelief as I headed for the fjord on the very first morning of our holiday. To him, swimming in the North Sea, a slightly southern neighbour to the Arctic Ocean, certainly when one like me went straight from bed to the water, was…