Madrid a city of tolerance. Spanish Urlaub 1

 Madrid a city of tolerance.

(Note:  A person ´close to this blog writer´opined there is too much about holy stuff on this blog posting, and that I should cut a lot of the content out.  After review and consideration, I decided, I want to keep it as is.  

But if all the holy is too much for your delicate state dear reader, just skip down to the last two or three paragraphs.) 

Last Sunday week in Madrid they had a  procession for Corpus Christi.  This is a Catholic church feast day that is celebrated the Thursday two months after Easter.

Now the reason I explain that is, I came up a procession in the city of Madrid with bells and whistles and all sorts of holy the like of which I never saw in Ireland - even as a child; there were  lines and lines of priests and nuns.  And young priests and nuns too.

In fact the nearest I could think of to compare to this procession would have been pictures of ´holy processions´ in Ireland from the 1950´s.   Only it would not have been in 37C (or 98.6F)  weather - at 7.00 in the evening!

So as you can see in the photos below.... there they are with their procession including all the bells and whistles past the royal palace and the main cathedral in Madrid. Nobody bothered the participants and they bothered no one.

Check out the nuns above.  My grandaunt Mother Rose who as a nun who died back in the 1970´s at 92, did not have as much ´body coverage´ as these nuns above.  And these nuns are young too.  Don´t know who they are but perhaps an enclosed order (stay inside the convent walls by choice and pray a lot) of a very conservative variety.

And following the young likely conservative enclosed order nuns were....

The Señoras in black.   

The works, including mantilla and high comb in their hair, the lot.  But...

... judging from the not so long dresses and rather high heels of some of the members of this group of señoras, I would hazard a guess several of them could party as well as they could kneel and pray!  - I hope so anyway, then they´d have the best of both worlds.

And note... all this in  37C / 98.6F heat.

Now this group of lay men (i.e. not priets) were dressed in what appeared to as knights of the church.  I don´t know noth´en about noth´en, but I might surmise, that they are, or were, an arch conservative group of powerful lay men, the kind that like to keep all the power and keep it in secret.  Whether I am right or wrong  I would be delighted to add more information of the group if anyone can tell me about them.

Well if there is a shortage of trainee priests in the Catholic world, nobody told ´m about it in Madrid!

So there you have the holy procession with all the bells and whistles - and in all that heat.

Now the alert reader of this blog will note I started the blog posting with the phrase: ` Madrid a city of tolerance`.  And ´why?´you may ponder.  What is the connection to tolerance and this holy parade with all the bells and whistles?



Well I will tell you why!

All over the main areas of Madrid, as with the street corner where I stood to take these photos of the holy parade,  there are traffic lights.  But instead of the normal little pedestrian green man to go and red man to stop.  They often had little pairs of green/red men and green/red woman for the stop and go.  See below.

(I wanted to get a few more shots, but it was hard to photographs the traffic lights in the sunny weather, so I am glad I got this sort of OK shot at all!)

And it was so.  There were lots of gay and lesbian couples in the city and just like in the holy catholic procession from the 1950´s; nobody bothered the couples and they bothered no one either.

In fact right now going on in Madrid from June 23 to July 2nd there is a big global festival Pride World it is called.  And the city has indeed much to be proud of indeed that two so widely differing ´ways of being oneself´ are encompassed comfortably (from what I could see anyway) in the one not very big - but oh so hot - metropolis!

Olé Madrid!

Follow up on previous postings - including the safe arrival of six healthy Cygnets!

So there we had spring bursting out all over most beautifully in March....

Then SNOW on the 19th of April...

And snow AGAIN on the 26th of April...


















And then it was warm enough to swim LESS THAT THREE WEEKS later!

I tell you, I am no expert to talk about climate concerns. But even as a lay person I can say.... ´something is not right here`.

And spare a thought for the farmers whose crops started to grow and then were frozen over when the weather turned cold again.   And this happened all over Europe, as we found out on our trip to Spain.


But to end on a more ´ahhh` note.

The regular I.S.f.t.S. blog reader may recall the picture of the pair of swans who built their nest at the  Allensbach camp site.

Well a week or two later, the proud swan parents were swimming on the lake with SIX cygnets.


 How wonderful is that I have to say again!

Indeed I would say bottoms up all round!

Happy Day!   Liebe Grüße,  Hausfrau Roisin.

Happy Mother´s Day - to us all!

I sent out Mother´s Day wishes to all the mammies I know.  See below in green.  The message received a lot of comment, so I thought, as I am wont to do,  that the world via my blog posting would like to see the message too.  See below.

To you and to all the mammies in the world today, I wish you a very happy Mother´s Day!  

It is most in order today to acknowledge your contribution to the world.  

And I am sure there are lots of daddies out there who would concur.

I know many mammies in the world today who should be acknowledged, won´t be.  So a pause for a moment for them too.

As my friend Oprah says,   .... well   sort of  friend Oprah .... OK  well not really a sort of friend... OK not really a friend.  BUT, I did once sit in the seat she used in the Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago.  But I digress.  

Which or whether Oprah and I agree on the fact that parenting well is the most demanding job in the world.

So well done Mammy, take a bow! 

Now  go sit on the sofa, put your feet up, have a cup of tea and a nice big piece of cake/chocolate/ice cream or what ever and enjoy.    While enjoying same, smile and be proud. 

I said NOW; the world can wait a minute or two  until your tea and cake/chocolate/ice cream or what ever are finished!


But then I send a variation on the them to non-mammy mammies.  This message brought even more comments.  See below. Again.

There I was sending my ´mother´s day´wishes to the mammies in my world.

And it occurred to me there are LOTS of us who are not mammies,  some because they are the wrong gender to be eligible in the first place, and others for lots of other reasons.  But even so,  for us there are beings either human, furry, feathered or other wise in our lives that need mothering -  Or should I be more specific and say ´parenting´.  OK maybe not for 20 odd years on the trot.  But none the less we have done some of the mothering duties in one way or another. 

So I say:

Let us all  go sit on the sofa - not all together, that could be a bit cramped.  And there might be logistical issues here too!   Let us  put our feet up, have a cup of tea and a nice big piece of cake/chocolate/ice cream or what ever and enjoy.   

For me, I am off to put the kettle on and check how out that tub of chocolate ice cream in the freezer! 

Happy Day!

  

In spite of the various feedback I received,  I trust no one will feel put out if I copy in these lovely words of feedback from an ´Ex-Beau´.  He wrote...

I on  behalf of my mother, my wife and her mother, thank you! And even though some women haven't had the pleasure or displeasure of childbirth, there are some who have displayed great sacrifice and devotion in the spirit of motherhood. You are one of those people and to you I say; with total conviction: Happy Mother's Day Roe! Love ..

...From Mystery Ex-Beau.. 

And as his wife gets all these charming words coming at her daily.  Plus breakfast in bed everyday !! So you can imagine how harmonious their household is! 

Another interesting comment came from an American.  She noted that I had used the southern U.S. old negro form of addressing a mother i.e.  mammy.   Irish mammies are called well mammies too. 

Here´s an interesting fact in England and Ireland at least; the way one addresses ones  mother may, not always but may sometimes, tell a lot about the speaker´s station in life. 

Ma going to Mammy going to Mum, Mummy and the really posh people say Mommy.  And in Ireland as a group Irish mammies are referred to as well.... Irish mammies!    

A Walk, A Cycle, and Lots of Snow Flakes!

Last Monday the weather was beautiful.  It was also my birthday.  So Romeo H. and I went for a walk in the area to enjoy and celebrate.

See below pictures from our walk, where you can see the Bodensee, (Bodensee is the name of the section of Lake Konstanz near Allensbach) and environs looking very nice indeed.

And, from this blog writer´s persestive at least, some of ´ the views´ had legs on them.















That little tip of a building which you can see right in the centre of this picture is Schloss Freudental.  Which literally means ´joyful valley castle´
A beautiful name that truly befits this fine building.  Over the years the building had  fallen into disrepair.  Some years ago it was purchased by a Swiss man ´of means´ who put a lot of time, love AND money into renovating the castle. 

















And God bless him for it. Becasue, as you can see he did a great job too.  See more in the link below.
 https://www.schloss-freudental.de/hotel

So at the end of the week, I went for a cycle starting in a small town of Engen.  Below is the view I enjoyed with my pre-cycle sandwich.

Engen is not an unpleasant place to live.  As the little town is not on the lake, it is much quieter than if it was.



Truly one could say it has ´a view to die for´!   Which is a nice segway to the grave stone for a noble pair which I saw in the little church.







... So on with my cycle, which was truly ´tra la tra la´all the way; with only occasional cyclists or walkers passing, I more or less had the road, and the view to myself.

When I arrived on this little stretch of the road below, I just had to pause and be in awe for a moment...

Alas my attempts to take a set of photos of the view do not do it justice.  But do take note of this last photo in particular.  I will come back to it in a moment.



It was only after my tea and (second) pause that I noticed this sweet little statue of holy Mary in a little alcove beside the bench.  I felt she deserved inclusion!

And the sign on the right is also of interest; I passed a working farm, no bother there. But this poster explained that in the 1650´s roof tiles were produced in the same building.  I marvel at how much has survived here through the ages.

So cycled on beside the river Aach which flows into the Bodensee

... AND full marks to the local authorities around Singen who built and maintain these beautiful walk/cycle ways in this area. 

Coming nearer to Radolfzell.  Can you see in the photo below several white dots in the field...

Storks!   Seven of them I saw.  All most likely with a nest and hopefully some stork Kücken, (chicks), and cygnets in the area nearby.

The Brutzeit or breeding season is amazing here.  The humans and birds though wild - the birds I mean,   have an understanding. YOU leave us alone and we will leave you alone.

An amazing example of that philosophy in action can been seen with this Schwanenpaar nesting on the lake AT THE LOCAL CAMPSITE.  Yes, the local campsite.  Can you credit that!

 And a few more pictures near where the swans were nesting ... well just because the scenes were beautiful.

So, back to my cycle.

Coming  back to Allensbach, the area was experiencing  a Föhn.  That is a weather phenomenon that I won´t attempt to explain. But you can read more about Föhne here on wikipedia:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind


One characteristic of a Föhn is that the sky is very clear, there are few clouds and you can see for miles...

Look carefully on the picture on the right: There is a pale shadow on the horizon, you can see....






The Santis mountain, a part of the Alpine Mountain Range....

Thanks to the Föhn even with my little pocket camera I can zoom in and you can see the Santis as clear as daylight, and that even though the mountain range is well over 50 miles away!

So!  Although this blog was at first about pretty pictures in this pretty area, a perfectly good theme for a blog posting.  However, when I was compiling and sorting the photos to prepare the posting  I had a ´ goose pimple maximus´ moment.  `And why?` dear reader you ask in puzzlement... Well....

Walking and cycling in an area with a diameter of  about 40 kilometers - to those that haven´t yet converted -  that is 24.854848 Miles to you!   I witnessed three dramatic geological phenomena:

Glacial: The Bodensee
The Bodensee is a glacial lake created during which ever ice age, when the stenght and force of the ice alone pulled rocks from the earth carving out a lake 73 km long, as wide as 20 km and as deep as 350 meters in some places.

Volcanic:
Dead volcanoes - very dead, so no worries.  The viewer can see the evidence of the volcanic eruptions in the photos I took near Engen -  one photo plus up from holy Mary above.

The Alps:   As seen in the later photos, thanks to the Föhn.
As the wise and well read readership of this blog know; the area where the Alps are now situated  was once under the sea.

Back in the  Oigocene and Miocene epochs, the continent of Africa moved northwards, (VERY slowly.  Slower even than my bicyling!)  The African landmass crashed into and pushed against the the Eurasian tectonic plates.  Forcing the seabed in between upwards; And ta tah there you have the Alps!

Now for the one or two readers who may have missed the geography class on tectonic plates, you can go once again to the wonderful wikiepedia for a link on same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Alps

Now think about this for a moment.  All those geological phenomena in such close proximity to one another.  Add to that the other natural, if not so dramatic,  phenomena I past by on my walk and cycle: forests, rivers, and the wonder of the nesting birds.  - YEP putting this little blog posting together did indeed cause goose pimples maximus.

You know, thinking about the wonder of it all would make you want to make a big strong cup of tea.

´Oh yes, and what about the snow flakes mentioned in the title? ´ I hear you all cry:

Well on the Wednesday in between our walk on the Monday, and my cycle on the Saturday - we had SNOW.

Can you credit! Snow, in Allensbach in the last week of April.  When I came to this region in 2008,  we had   33 °C or 91.4 °F  which ever you prefer in April.

This week April 2017, I had to go and unpack my warm boots already put away for the winter. This at the end of April.  Can you credit that!