A visit

We had some old friends visit from the States with their 12 year old son.  This is always the perfect excuse to do some siteseeing, although for some reason between my phone and the camera I don´t seem to have many pictures.

Our area is not exactly rich in tourist attractions, but since it was raining off and on for most of their visit, we went to the nearby waterfall.  I don´t know if it´s budget cuts or lack of interest, but the vegetation was so thick a lot of the view was obscured.  Lots of water falling, though.

Then we went to the Monastery at Sobrado dos Monxes, an imposing baroque structure built for the Cistercians.  I blogged about their lake here, when V and I stumbled on it after a wrong turn.

The Cistercians are supposed to be the ¨engineers¨ of the orders, so I was amused by their method of keeping people from coming in directly through the front doors, instead of the preferred route of the tour through the gift shop.  Simple, but effective.

We also spent a day in La Coruña climbing the Torre de Hercules, the oldest functioning lighthouse in Western Europe, ate tapas for lunch in the old city center and swung by a little 16th century castle fortress in Santa Cruz built to fortify defenses of the bay.

All in all, I think it was a good visit and lovely to catch up with them.  And I was happy to have flowers to brighten the guest bedroom.

Firsts

Made a notebook cover for my dear friend W, whose b-day was in January.  She was very gracious about the crude rustic nature of the finished product, but it was a great learning exercise for me.  New-to-me sewing machine, first time using leather, and first time embroidery with coton a broder thread.  Baby steps.

The monogram came from Broderie d´Antan.

Beer

V and I brewed beer on Sunday!

We have fabulous friends who actually mounted their own brewery in Chicago. (Madly waving at Tracy and Doug) They were nice enough to have us over for an evening´s brewing before we left and then a few weeks later brought the resulting red ale over for a night of bbq and billiards. Good times.

My brother has become quite a homebrew savant, as well. While I was visiting in July, he was kind enough to schedule a brew/bottling session for me. And I did my share of sampling of his efforts while I was there.

There´s much more of a brewing culture in the rest of Europe than Spain, which is dominated by a few huge market players and little or nothing in the way of micro-breweries that we can find. And Estrella Galicia is the only Spanish beer we´ve seen outside Spain.

Last Christmas, after some searching online, I bought a kit thinking that it was something V would enjoy trying. He´s really the beer drinker in the house, I usually prefer wine. But between one thing and another, it has remained in its box in a closet. He insisted that I shouldn´t just go ahead and do it myself, that he wanted to participate. So finally Sunday we went ahead.

The kit came with 2 plastic buckets and taps, 2 cans of malt/hops, a packet of yeast, a packet of hops, and a packet of ¨cleanser¨.


Cleanliness is godliness in brewing - you don´t want any wild bacteria screwing up your results. A thermometer and a gizmo that measures density (densometer?) some tubing, bottle caps, etc., finished out the kit.

So after soaking the instruments in the bleach solution we started off proofing the yeast in 27 C water.


Mixed the malt mixture with boiled water, carefully stirring so it wouldn´t stick and burn.


Took the mixture to the bathtub to cool it down before adding the yeast.


Topped up the batch to 23 liters.


Fitted the lid and air valve. And left it to repose and ferment back in its space in the closet.



This morning we had bubbling!

So now we´ve gotten our feet wet with the kit, I´m hoping we can venture a little further and actually use some combinations of grains/hops/malt of our own choosing.

Most exciting. I may have to plant hops.

Sevilla - tiene un color especial

Last weekend we went to Sevilla to meet our fabulous friend T who was attending a conference in Cadiz.

We had a great time seeing the sights, drinking and eating. He´s much more droll than I am so I´ll just direct you to him.

http://www.hundredandonethings.com/

Next week we´re in Galicia desperately looking for our ruin. More on our ruin-hunting saga in Spain when I get back.

A Farewell

A few weeks ago we received the terrible news that a friend had died in a car accident back in the states.

Susan is a very dear friend´s sister. We met when she moved to Chicago to make a fresh start. A former military police officer with a fondness for white wicker and lace, Susan was a genuinely good person with a ready empathy. She was dealt many challenges in life, and while she occasionally paused to catch her breath, always kept on fighting the good fight. She was an inspiration and she will be sincerely missed.

We sponsored a memorial grove with the Trees for Life organization dedicated to re-foresting the Caledonian forest in the Scottish Highlands. The image is from their website.

If you´d like to participate more trees can be added. The memorial grove is under Susan M. Kihlgren.

http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/index.html

I don´t know if Susan was a Loreena McKennit fan, but I do know that J is.

O Bonny Portmore I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O Bonny Portmore you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.


All the Birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying "where shall we shelter or where shall we sleep?"
For the Oak and the Ash they all cutten down
And the walls of Bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.


O Bonny Portmore you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

Let´s see what we can to do restore the environment, instead of hurtling headlong toward its destruction.