Processions. Closed restaurants and cafes. Wider world chaos continues. And Joni Mitchell.

In the middle evening yesterday as I waited for Phil to finish his chess game I felt rather than heard rhythmic drumming. So I went out to take a look. Another Holy Week procession was underway. i should have realised this was about to happen as I had seen some barriers on side streets. I have not been able to ascertain which bit of the Holy Week story was connected to Tuesday but a procession was taking place.

Sombre looking dignitaries walked along, some in traditional anonymity.

The statue of Jesus almost as a king on his throne was carried along.

And Mary was there as well, of course.

As well as the drumming, there was the inevitable rather mournful marching band.

My Spanish sister assures me that where she loves there is a procession every day but when we spent Easter in Salamanca we did not see daily processions.

After the chess games were over we went out looking for beer and a snack. When we arrived here, almost a week ago now, it seemed that we found restaurants and bars to our liking all over the place. Starting from Monday of this week we have found more and more of these places closed. Maybe it’s a consequence of it being Holy Week. So last night we ended up at what seemed to be a vegan place where one harassed young lady appeared to be the only waitress. Eventually we got beer but the service was so slow that we gave up on  selecting a snack from the limited range available. So it goes.

Out in the wider world I read that there are plans to move Picasso’s Guernica from Madrid to Bilbao.

“The Basque regional government has formally asked Spain’s Ministry of Culture to authorize a temporary loan of Pablo Picasso‘s "Guernica" to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, according to Ara, a Catalan-language newspaper. If the move is approved, it would mark the first time the painting has traveled since it was installed at Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía in 1992.⁠

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The proposed transfer would take place between October 2026 and June 2027, coinciding with the 90th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica, the Basque city whose destruction by Nazi and Italian Fascist air forces on April 26, 1937, inspired Picasso to paint the antiwar canvas.⁠”

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So it’s 90 years since the town of Guernica was destroyed in what some have described as an experiment in carpet bombing civilian areas. Guernica, Dresden, Coventry - and still places are being flattened.

Here’s a cartoon illustration of the history of Gaza.

And here is something from Tuesday’s social media:

Zarah Sultana MP

“Queeser Zuhrah was held in detention for 15 months without trial, during which she wwent on hunger strike. I was proud, alongside others, to get the ambulance she urgently needed deep into that strike when her life was on the line.

Last week she broke her silence and spoke publicly about the violence she endured at HMP Bronzefield.

Today, just one month after being released on bail, she has been rearrested under the terrorism act - reportedly in connection with a social media post.

She was arrested in an early hours raid by police officers wearing face coverings. The same tactic used by ICE officers in the US.

This is state intimidation, designed to silence dissent. As a movement we must fight back.”

On the good news front, Joni Mitchell was presented with the the #JUNOs Lifetime Achievement Award!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

The market hall and other fine places in Las Palmas. And death penalties for selected terrorists.

This morning I went to check out the Vegueta market here in las Palmas. En route I discovered Marks and Spencer - St Michael is ubiquitous.

Vegueta has a fine market hall.

The fish stalls make our Uppermill Market fish-man’s van display look rather inadequate.

And as ever, the fruit and veg stalls are wonderfully colourful. 

Nearby was the Teatro Pérez Galdos, the writer being a famous son of Las Palmas. (Our accommodation, coincidentally, is on Calle Pérez Galďos.) 

I couldn’t quite work out why the statue of the famous writer was without clothes. So it goes!

I also went by the Ilustrísimo Gabinete Literario.

Such a collectipn of fine buildings in this city! 

Apparently we are suffering today from a “calima”, a sort of dust storm from the Sahara. Mostly for us it just makes the distance very hazy and the air quality poor. We’ve seen quite a lot of people wearing masks today. 7I don’t know of that helps.

Menawhile, out in the wider world, Israel just passed a law to execute Palestinian detainees.

The bill stipulates "the death penalty for anyone who intentionally or negligently causes the death of an Israeli citizen out of racist or hateful motives and to harm Israel."Does it apply to Israelis who kill Palestinians under similar circumstances? No

The bill was devised by Itamar Ben Gvir, who wore noose-shaped lapel pins in the weeks before the vote. Ben Gvir was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement against Arabs and support for the Kach group, a terrorist organization under both Israeli and U.S. law.

One report I saw said it applied to anyone involved in terrorist attacks which denied the existence of the state of Israel. Now, what about denying the existence of the state of Palestine?

Here’s another thing: on Sunday Israeli police blocked Jerusalem's top Catholic leaders from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a centuries-old tradition to mark Palm Sunday.

And here’s something from George Galloway: “British soldiers in the Grand Mosque in Gaza 1917. We fooled the Arabs into believing that if they allied with us against Turkey we would give them unity and independence. But at the very moment we conquered Gaza we had promised it to an obscure group of European and American settlers. We betrayed Palestine. We betrayed the Arabs. We betrayed the Muslims. The source of everything that happened next.”

There we are!

 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

A too quiet Sunday evening. A normally quiet Monday morning. And the weekend protests.

Yesterday evening we went on an unsuccessful search for somewhere to have a beer and a snack after Phil”s chess game finished. We didn’t wander too far afield but certainly in our local area lots of small places were closed. Is this general Sunday procedure or was it special for Palm Sunday? As next Sunday is Easter Sunday we will have no way of assessing the true situation. So it goes. We ended up back at our accommodation making ham and salad sandwiches and drinking tea. Note to self: go to the supermarket and lay in stocks of emergency beer! 

This morning was very quiet when I went our for a bit of a run, just a standard Monday morning.

And as Monday is traditionally washing day - according to the nursery rhymes and folklore and such - we investigated the washing machine in our accommodation and emptied our washing bags. One of the advantages of self-catering accommodation. As far as I am concerned, self-catering runs to breakfast, the occasional cup,of tea or coffee and very exceptionally a sandwich. I don’t go on holiday to cook, especially when there are local dishes to try! 

Over the weekend, while we had religious processions here, there were protest marches in various places.

In London there was a huge Together Alliance march against the far right.

In the USA there were NO KINGS rallies, with supporting rallies in Italy where people took the streets of Rome for a demonstration organised by the No Kings movement on Saturday. Part of a weekend of protests, the protest was aimed at opposing a new security decree and the Meloni government’s shift toward authoritarianism.

And in Tel Aviv, Israel, hundreds of people gathered at Habima Square for an anti-war protest on Saturday. Demonstrators chanted slogans against Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Israeli police dispersed the crowd using force and some demonstrators were detained.

Dissenting voices are making themselves heard.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Palm Sunday processions. The problems of eating out on Palm Sunday. The wider world - Gaza.

Today is Palm Sunday, the day when Jesus is supposed to have ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey and palm fronds were strewn in his path in his honour. And so there was a procession on the street where our accommodation here in Las Palmas is situated. 

Small children were in the forefront.  Well, almost in the forefront.

A band played. A statue of Christ on his donkey was, of course, brought out of the church and carried along the street. 

And masses of people followed with olive branches

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There will be more processions as Holy Week progresses.

Because today is Sunday and even more so because today is Palm Sunday, several of the places where we have enjoyed eating in the short time we have been here were closed. Other places had tables reserved for family groups. We managed to get a table (on a short term, “be aware it’s booked for 3.30”) at a restaurant called Allende. 

Last time we were in Portugal we had “ovos rotos”, “huevos rotos’ in Castilian Spanish, a dish made up of chips, serrano ham and fried eggs - the eggs being broken onto the potatoes. Phil had that same dish here but served in a completely different way, almost moulded into a compact shape. Still tasty! Still far too much for one person to eat in one sitting! 

I had a Lebanese salad, which was very good. 

Back home in Oldham, the historic Tommyfield Market has finally closed and moved to a new home in or next to the Spindles shopping centre. I’ll have to investigate it when I return home. The old open air market site is going to be home of an academy backed by Eton College. Here’s a link to an article about it.

And here’s a link to an article reminding us that the “ceasefire” in Gaza is still killing Palestinians.

Nothing changes!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

The trials of using Google maps. Looking for bread for breakfast. Guiding. And other stuff to cheer us up.

 In the middle evening last night we decided to go for a stroll and a beer and maybe a snack. We had a place in mind, a place where we ate “papas arrugadas” on Thursday. The idea was to decide if it would be a good place to go late in the evenings when Phil has finished playing in the chess tournament here. 

We’ve been relying on Google maps or satnav to find our way around and last night almost got ourselves lost. The trouble with maps on your phone as opposed to actual paper maps is that it’s hard tell which way the map is oriented - north isn’t always at the top and you can end up walking in the wrong direction. I suspect it works better when you’re driving and you have an annoying voice telling you when to turn left or right and so on. 

Anyway, we overshot and found ourselves in a bit of the area that we have not yet explored! Minor panic! Especially as the phone signal dropped momentarily. But we found our way back to our planned route. The restaurant/snack bar we were after was absolutely overwhelmed with customers. Well, it was Friday night. Everyone and their grandmothers were out and about. In fact, with the mix of ages, it looked as though everyone was out and about WITH their grandmothers. 

Finally we stopped for a beer and croquetas at a little place on one of the back streets. Perfectly fine!

This morning I got up and went looking for bread-shops. There seems to be a dearth of bread-shops as such in our neck of the woods. Eventually I found two small cafes which also sell bread. This is the reverse of the breadshop which has a small cafe section, and sometimes not even a table outside, just a seating area at one side of the shop. So we had fresh bread for breakfast with our coffee this morning.

Now that I have located the bread shop, tomorrow I may well get up and run (keeping my Fitbit happy) and buy bread on my way back! That’s the plan. I just need the will-power.

Some time ago, chatting with the smaller grandchildren about favourite animals, I was asked if I preferred dogs or cats. I kept them waiting and then told them I preferred a ca….pybara! This has been a family joke ever since. And here is a link to an article about a capybara who got away!

Following the UK supreme court ruling last year that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer only to a biological woman and to biological sex, trans women have restricted access to services and places and organisation. The Girl Guides have chosen to follow the letter of the ruling and are expelling trans women. It seems a bit harsh. Here is a link to Zoe Williams’ article on that matter. 

With the world in a continued state of chaos, I read this: “Britain is “a few weeks away” from medicine shortages ranging from painkillers to cancer treatment if the Iran war continues, according to experts, while drug prices could also rise.”

The interconnectedness of everything goes on and on.

To cheer us up, here is an illustration by Tove Jansson, creator of The Moomins. This is from a satirical magazine Garm, where Tove worked as a political cartoonist from 1929 to 1953. In the 1950s, dancing and festive evenings became a source of joy for Jansson and her artistic circle. In an post-war era marked by renewal and optimism, music, movement and shared celebrations offered a sense of freedom and delight.

Music and dance - a source of joy in a crazy world.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!