We Shall Be Released

Two more days to go after today. 

Karen has said she'll be going out first thing Wednesday to shop for fresh food, mainly vegetables and fruit, and has threatened to go out again Thursday if there are attractive deals in the next week's flyers. I'm not crazy about her spending a lot of time in shops with other people, but we do need to replenish stocks. 

We've been subsisting since we came home on frozen meat (which, to be clear, we thaw and cook before eating), frozen vegetables (rarely satisfactory) and some fresh fruit and veg we left behind. The onion, garlic, carrot, squash, celery and apples were fine, which is perhaps not surprising. The oranges were a surprise. They looked a bit decrepit after six weeks in the fridge, but they tasted good. 

We've been missing salads and fresh cooking veg, but on the whole, we've eaten quite well.

We could have ordered food to be delivered, of course, but our condo community has asked residents not to let delivery people into the building - as a way of reducing Covid spread. We're supposed to go down to the front door to accept deliveries. But as we're in quarantine, we're not supposed to go into public areas. So, catch-22. We could have asked neighbours to help, but...well, we didn't. 

The upshot is, we basically haven't been out of our unit in almost two weeks, not even to go to the garbage chute. The kitchen garbage is piled outside on the balcony. That may sound gross, but it does freeze out there, and the stuff certainly doesn't smell - even when I'm out there taking the air.

*

Today's memory bank shot comes from our first winter in Valencia, 2012. We stayed in an apartment down near the beach and marina. It wasn't a great spot, not a particularly attractive part of town and the building was on a four-lane-wide thoroughfare. There were occasional hot water problems, shower drain problems, and an outrageous amount of noise in the middle of the night every Friday and Saturday from an after-hours nightclub a couple of blocks away. But we fell in love with the city.

The picture was taken at the parade of flowers in the middle of Fallas, the fortnight-long end-of-winter festival in March. Neighbourhood associations across the city organize groups of mostly girls and women, but some men, decked out in these beautifully embroidered costumes inspired by 18th century fashions. They march, carrying bouquets of flowers, to a square in front of the basilica, the Square of the Virgin, where the city has erected a giant statue of Mary. The bottom part of the statue, the Virgin's robe, is open wooden scaffolding. As each group arrives in the square with its floral tribute, helpers take it from them and climb the scaffold to place the flowers. At the end of the day, the robe is a riot of colour.

This group, I'm assuming a family, was a long way from the square. The parade lasts hours, stopping and starting as each group has its moment with the Virgin. The parade was in one of its momentary pauses, and these folks were posing for a friend to take a picture. I just piggybacked on the shoot. They look very patrician, I think, and very handsome. In truth, he's probably a dentist and his wife the hygienist. The women's hairdos, with the circular coils of hair on either side, are a traditional Valencian style.

*

When we were in England last September, son-in-law Bob added me to his Apple Music family account. Fair play: they piggyback on our Netflix in the same way. It was a real revelation, having access to all that music. Apple offers something like 50 million tracks, which must translate to at least four million albums. And new stuff gets added all the time.

It was the new stuff that particularly caught my attention. For each category of music, there is a periodically updated listing of recently released albums. I went straight to the classical section and scrolled through the new releases, auditioning any that looked appealing. A few made the cut. My recommendation for today is one of them, although it might be difficult to access if you don't have Apple Music, or something similar. It's not exactly mainstream music.

The composer, Luys Milan, a renaissance-era Spaniard, from Valencia, is one I'd not heard of before. Ditto for the player, Sébastian Llinares on guitar. (I should have mentioned: it's an album of solo guitar music, not perhaps everybody's cup of tea.) His name sounds Spanish and he plays in the Spanish style, but Llinares, a guy in his early 40, was actually born and trained in France.

I'm not sure why this recording of fairly obscure music is so appealing to me. I think it just comes down to excellence, in the playing - he has amazing technique and musicality - and in the recording. It really sings. Even the album cover design is pretty cool. If you're interested, you can sample the music here.

*

And once again, I'll end with Louis, who we saw briefly today in a Portal call, grinning at us, but not having much to say for himself. I took the picture earlier this month.