KARETHE LINAAE
I have to admit, I had become a great disappointment to the ladies of my furniture restoration class. Week after week I would come into the class empty handed. The other students would look at me with lifted plucked eyebrows, wondering why I would not bring old treasures from my grand casa(we have none…) or at…
I simply cannot fathom why some people love to repel themselves hundreds of meters into caves and squeeze themselves through even darker cracks into airless underground chambers. Yet, somehow, I found myself voluntary locked into an unlit cave amongst million-year-old stalagmites and petrified human remains, and loving it! Meet La queva de la Pileta: In…
Looking out my window this morning, I see fields of pure gold. Gold and dust. Summer is here. The Andalucían winter landscape is foggy and mystical, shrouded in dark greens and cool greys. Come February, things start to change. The fields go electric green, by April interspersed by a plethora of multi-coloured blooms. By…
For the past few weeks I have had the sorrow and also the privilege of spending the last days and indeed hours of my father’s life at his bedside. I say privilege, because I have so many friends who have lost their parents suddenly and not been able to say goodbye and hold their hands…
In some parts of the world the turn of the sun does not matter much. July is almost as light as January. But for Norwegians, the bi-annual ebb and flow of the sun is very much part of who we are. Summer solstice, the longest day of the year, is welcomed with a sense…
Andalucians love to eat, drink and party, and no time is this more apparent than during social gatherings. Be it a religious celebration, a family affair, or simply a friendly get-together, any Spanish gathering is synonymous with lots and LOTS of food! My husband has been taking a woodcarving class this spring and the end-of-term…
Last weekend, our hiking club Pasos Largos (large steps) arranged a 16 km climb of the Sierra de las Nieves. A national park and UNESCO Biosphere since 1995, this snowy mountain chain has barely seen any snow this winter. Years ago, ice was transported down the mountains and sold for refrigeration, though I cannot possibly see how…
Living in a place with Roman and Arab ruins abound, one could become jaded. We had been told that Andalucia’s best-preserved Roman theatre laid merely 20 minutes drive away, yet we had been ‘too busy’ to go and explore it. One day we saw the sign for Ronda Veija and decided to drive and check…
April is here and the fields have been transformed into a deep green colour, looking like a velvet patchwork carpet with stone fences as seams. Though the poppies won’t come out in their full splendor until May, the country has started looking like a Monet painting. On our walk the other morning (it is…
In Norway, Easter is synonymous with spring skiing, while in Canada it seems to be all about bunnies and egg hunts. Nothing wrong with chocolate and skiing, of course, but Spanish Easter is certainly more spiritual. Yesterday was Domingo de Ramos or Palm Sunday and the holiest week in the Catholic calendar has begun. Andalucía’s…