Wulf's Web-Den

In early March, Jane and I spent a week in Galicia in Northern Spain. We stayed in an apartment in Santiago de Compostela (which we know a little from our trips on the Camino de Santiago) and also ventured out on trips to Lugo (where the city centre is still encircled by a complete Roman wall) and A Coruña (a port city to the north of the region).

Our trip included music and food, some practise for our Spanish and lots and lots of photographs. In fact, I took so many pictures that I have only just finished sorting through them, keeping enough to remind us of our trip but discarding many of the near misses and close duplicates.

What has slowed me down is that, on many of the pictures, I have seen opportunities for applying some development in the digital darkroom (mainly using The Gimp); however, that means that I am now sharing a set that I am largely very happy with.

Don't forget that, because the pictures are hosted on Flickr, you can also jump straight to viewing details (showing larger preview images along with titles and descriptions), a slideshow or even view all the images posted on a map.

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I am working on some fireworks pictures that I took last night but it might be a few days before I have finished sorting through them. In the meanwhile, I wanted to note my visit to Grant and Cutler on Great Marlborough Street in London.

I was wending my way through Soho, heading back to Charing Cross and trying to avoid the crowds on the bigger streets when I looked up and spotted the shop; I had heard of it before but never got round to visiting.

Since I was in no hurry, I took a few minutes to browse and can confirm that it is a fabulous repository of all things related to languages; definitely one I will visit again.

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I have had a picture published by Schmap in their online guide to Sevilla, where Jane and I spent a few days in March 2006. We stayed in Hotel Zaida and the image is of the lobby of that establishment.

They found the picture via my Flickr account. However, they did the whole process properly - contacting me to ask if I would allow my photo to be considered for inclusion. There is no story of photo-stealing here and, truth be told, I may well check their guide next time I am looking for a hotel in a foreign city as it seems to be a good source of information.

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Commenting on my previous post on learning Spanish, Mike reminded me of the Coffee Break Spanish podcasts.

I do subscribe to those (see my blogroll) but have to confess that I have been tending to mark them off as read without listening. However, they are an excellent resource, as I reminded myself this morning by listening to the latest one.

Jane starts her GCSE Spanish course today so maybe I should support her by taking more coffee breaks...

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I think that means "bad student" but my Spanish (or what there was of it) has been getting rusty because other pursuits, particularly photography and music, have been taking my time.

However, Jane has signed up for a GCSE course; I am sure she will be wanting to practise and also getting to know some more people who are actively learning the language. Maybe that will help my studies also pick up again?

We will see. Que sera sera (an easily memorised phrase because of the song although it was only fairly recently that I realised that "whatever will be will be" was the translation and not just a lyric following some nonsense vocalisation!).

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By virtue of doing some research for Jane on wooden flutes, I came across the site of Phil Bleazey who hand crafts such instruments. Having read about his flutes, I then explored further round the site and discovered that, like me, he is a peregrino de santiago.

You can read the story of Phil, his late wife, Cathie, and the first part of his journey down the Camino de Santiago in the section entitled "About Cathie.

That reminded me of my own journeys down The Way of St James, which I travelled along in 2005 and 2006 and blogged about extensively. I am not making another return journey this year but continue nevertheless on my pilgrimage through life. Hola and salut to my fellow pilgrim, Mr Bleazey, and thanks to him for sharing his story.

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Despite the relative absence of any mention of Spain or Spanish here for the last few months (see the Spain category), I am still persisting in trying to learn the language. However, amidst a welter of other interests and activities, I have to admit that it is proceeding at a rate that could only be described as muy lento - very slow!

I have still been thinking about Spain - if you take a look at the pictures attached to my blog posting comments box you will see that I have recently been running through photos from my trip to Sevilla last March.

Following the recent introduction of "collections" on Flickr, I feel free to be more profligate with creating sets. I have put all my images from the trip together; there are still plenty more to keep me dreaming of Andalucia!

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