Holidays: de fiesta 2

To us, the highlight of the festival was the “Dance of the Dragons”. Groups from the city itself and the surrounding communities would come with their dragon figures and “dance”. They put fireworks into the mouths and talons of the dragons and danced through the streets with everybody following them, with bands and music and everything.

It was an amazing experience. Only the pics are bad and in between my batteries gave out.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved Whoever the person inside is, I hope they got a nice beer or beverage of their choice afterwards. Or a dozen. They deserve it.

©Giliell, all rights reserved Music band

©Giliell, all rights reserved Breathing fire

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved Many kids were dressed up as devils and well protected with ear protection.

 

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

And a gif. It was easiest to post it to Twitter

 

The Art of Book design: Fancy Work for Pleasure and Profit

Today’s book was sent in by Anne, Cranky Cat Lady and it comes from her own library. It’s a beautiful old book that’s chock full of bright needlework patterns along with the directions for making them.

Adelaide E. Heron. Fancy Work for Pleasure and Profit. Chicago, Thompson & Thomas, 1905

Adelaide E. Heron. Fancy Work for Pleasure and Profit. Chicago, Thompson & Thomas, 1905

Adelaide E. Heron. Fancy Work for Pleasure and Profit. Chicago, Thompson & Thomas, 1905

 

The Book is available to read at The Internet Archive

 

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

The past few days have been cold and damp with heavy grey skies that look full of gloom. Temperatures have been hovering around 8° during the day and a mere 3 or 4° at night and it’s been the sort of weather that works its way into your bones and keeps you feeling chilled. November has definitely arrived and so far it’s been a bit unpleasant, but I really shouldn’t complain. Overall, it’s been an enjoyable autumn this year. There’s been plenty of sunshine, lots of warm days and the changing leaves have been ablaze with brilliant colour.  Conditions were my idea of perfect right through the whole month of October. Now, if I could only find the repeat button for that…

Falter

I’ll begin with my apology to Avalus for taking so long to post this photo of a beautiful moth (falter). I received it in August and promptly misplaced it. It popped up at me today in an unexpected place, and I am happy to post it at last. You might say that I faltered in posting this falter.

Here is a black and white moth on the bark of a birch tree.

falter ©Avalus, all rights reserved

 

Tummy Thursday: Happy Halloween

It probably still is Thursday somewhere.

For the last few years we have been celebrating Halloween with our friends and yesterday we went to my BFFs city where the local shop owners and the city and the different clubs and associations organised a Halloween event where the shops would give out candy. The town centre was packed and it was a lovely evening, followed by lots of spooky food.

©Giliell, all rights reserved A haunted “Haus”. Probably to scare English teachers.

 

©Giliell, all rights reserved The little one, dressed up as Wonder Woman

©Giliell, all rights reserved #1, dressed up as Harley Quinn.

While I could simply buy a generic Wonder Woman costume for the Little One, #1’s was more complicated. She#s too tall for the kids versions and the adult versions rely more on the DC movies than the animated Super Hero Girls show she likes to watch. While we found a nice pair of red and blue leggings, we agreed that a jacket with “property of Joker” on the back was highly inappropriate. “I’m no fucking property of anyone!” Mum to the rescue, I ordered two hoodies with a ziper, cut them in half and sewed them together again. Well, I still have to do the second one…

Same money, 1 hour of time, two jackets she can actually wear outside of costume events as well. And I’m damn proud of her. You know she’s on the spectrum and one of her great difficulties is interacting with strangers. She often preferred no ice cream to telling a stranger what she wants, but yesterday she went around all evening and asked for candy. It’s those things that make you proud.

Now for the food:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

From left to right we have:

©Giliell, all rights reserved Pumpkin bread skulls

©Giliell, all rights reserved A cemetery: Pizza dip with bread tombstones

©Giliell, all rights reserved Mozzarella and olive eyes. Or as we say in German: Zahnstocher im Au’ brennt wie’n Sau (a toothpick in the eye hurts as fuck, just with a rhyme)

©Giliell, all rights reserved Bloody pumpkin and tomato soup

©Giliell, all rights reserved Spider meatballs

I made the dessert, because I’ve been baking non stop anyway…

©Giliell, all rights reserved Pumpkin almond cake with blood orange buttercream and dark chocolate ganache.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved Halloween petit fours with strawberry jam and pumpkin spice lemon curd.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

So, I hope you all had a reasonably happy Halloween (thinking of you, voyager). Now I’m baking for the little one’s birthday party tomorrow.