Sunday 10 August 2014

What's in a Name?

For those of you who don't know where you are, look up and you may, if there isn't any greenery in the way, see the name of the street. In this part of the world you'll find the street names on the buildings. When you don't know the area and you're desperately looking for a certain street, you often wish that balcony there on the corner didn't have such lovely plants hanging down, or if only that tree wasn't so tall. 

This particular street in the photo is one I've walked in since I've lived in Madrid. It's where my old language school was located before it was sold and an apartment block built in its place, and I still live around the corner from the street. However, compare the names in the two photos.(Sorry, the sign looks a little dirty in that first photo).

Can you see the name of the street in the first photo is Francisco de Navacerrada and in the second one Francisco Navacerrada = the right name. Somebody messed up when they made that first sign! 

The shop windows under the sign in the second photo advertise flats and places for sale. It's right next door to where our institute was. I've seen a video of one of the apartments for sale (haven't been in the building). I must say although the apartments are small, the kitchen was completely furnished and the distribution of the rooms was well-planned. I, however, have no intention of going there to live as it's probably got ghosts. LOL.

When it's hot and I'm out, I always try to walk on the side of the street with the most shade. Since the beginning of summer, 15 limbs have fallen from trees around Madrid. The first one we heard about happened in Retiro Park. The limb fell on a young father and killed him. He was able to push his two children out of the way, but how sad. A few cars have been damaged by falling limbs, and, on Thursday I think it was, a big limb fell onto an outdoor cafe in the centre. A couple of people were slightly hurt. They were lucky in that the parasol under which they were sitting cushioned the blow. I heard an 'expert' claim the other day that there was nothing the matter with the trees in Madrid. Well, I don't remember hearing of so many limbs down without there being a storm. Now it seems we have to look up for weak limbs too.

It's been a 'red' weekend for me as I've made gazpacho, and earlier today I made pisto gallego, which uses some of the same ingredients as gazpacho. While gazpacho isn't cooked, pisto is. Nobody can say I haven't got my vegetables in this weekend. I'll have pisto for a couple of days for sure.

That's me for this Sunday. Wishing everyone a wonderful week.

2 comments:

  1. Good to catch up on your news, Brenda, and interesting about the street signs. Enjoy your pisto, and your gazpacho!!

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  2. that was interesting about the street signs-had never heard about that-I would think they need to bring in an arborist to check on the trees-so sad about the father

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