A Spanish adventure update

The new year has started and it's been a really long time since I published my last Spanish adventure blog. Looking back at 2017 it has been a very intense year with ups and downs, but I think that is part of human life.

                

It's January 2018 now and winter in Spain. However, it certainly doesn't feel that way. Last December wasn't much of a winter month either. The weather is unbelievably mild which is both fantastic and terrifying. It surely is very enjoyable when the sun is caressing your face when enjoying a coffee or a drink on the sea front, but it also scares me. Whether you believe in global warming or not, that temperatures are rising is undeniable and when you live in Spain that isn't necessarily a good thing.

But it is funny

The new coat I bought can stay in the wardrobe as a light cardigan will do. I realise that this is always a funny time of the year with the Spanish and all-year-round expats, like me, taking out our cardigans and boots to go for a stroll along the beach. It is very clear that you adjust to temperatures of the country you live in as I definitively feel the cold a lot sooner than when I lived in The Netherlands.

So I also put on my winter boots, even though, quite frankly, the temperatures are a bit too high for that. I still like to cover up as the fresh sea breeze is a bit too chilly to my liking. However, the holiday makers feel it's mid summer as they walk around in flip-flops and vests. Yesterday at 18.00 I saw a couple walking on the beach in their swimming costumes whilst on the pavement the Spanish were dressed in winter coats, boots, hats and scarves.

I enjoy watching that as me and my husband walk our dogs along the sea front. My husband is Spanish and before meeting him I always said... I don't want a Spanish man as they don't have animals in the house. But my Miguel had a lovely, young, female Bullmastiff called Fani (make sure you pronounce that correctly) who slept in the house on her own sofa. 
I had my dog Choppy, rescued in 2005 from a life in the streets. Sadly Choppy died in February 2017 due to heart failure and lung embolism. It was of course a very sad period. We buried him in the

avocado 'cortijo' (small farm) in the mountains and I put some nasturtiums on his grave which I picked with their roots from the river bed. They actually did really well with a sea of flowers at the beginning of last summer.

Last week Miguel and I celebrated Christmas in the cortijo and we visited Choppy's grave with Miki. To my delight his grave is now a beautiful bed of nasturtiums leaves that will soon turn into a sea of orange flowers.

Miki is our new dog, an approximately one year old 'whatever-cross' who was left in the streets of the city of Granada. Beautiful as that city is, for a tiny dog that is no place to live and through the fantastic animal rescue organisation Valle Verde we were able to adopt him last August.

He makes me so happy, he is a smiley doggy who is eager to greet everybody, always jumping around as a tiny bouncing ball. He follows me everywhere, possibly afraid to be left again, but that will not happen. He's here to stay. So when we take Fani and Miki and some plastic bags out for our daily walk we are feeling blessed. The plastic bags are to pick up their 'inner beauty' from the pavement so that no one will step in it. Fani being a big lady she needs a kitchen garbage bag for her 'deposit' and it always puts a smile on my face when I see my husband pick it up with two specially cut pieces of cardboard, from a box from the local supermarket, and putting it into a bright blue garbage bag, whilst Fani calmly waits for him. We then continue our walk in the late afternoon sunshine, just before the most stunning sunset on the horizon, every evening something you can count on.

Sometimes that worry creeps in again. As much as I love those sunsets and the sunshine, there is such a huge need for rain in the region. It amazes me that Spain doesn't have a system in place to fund solar panels so that - among other things - the sea water can be turned into drinking water. I have moments that I feel bad about my own hypocrisy and that of fellow citizens. Enjoying the good life, having a shower every day, using the dishwasher and washing machine whenever it pleases me. I see people watering their plants excessively, surely taking long baths and well, the swimming pool needs to remain topped up doesn't it? Not that I have one, but I certainly would love one.

However, there is a part of me that cannot understand why everybody is not taking more care about this lack of water as rain is something we've hardly seen this 'winter' season. Being in a part of Spain where avocado and mango plantations are an important part of the Spanish economy I'm baffled that there are no signs of projects to make sure this can continue. If you know that an avocado tree needs about 120 litres of water a day in the summer you can understand what I'm talking about. Mel o'Gorman wrote an interesting article about this as well. If you haven't read it yet, feel free to read her story 'Let it Leap'. 

The truth is I can only do so much, perhaps irritating people a little with my words that might shock them into some awareness of the same hypocrisy that I feel. It doesn't feel good. But, life is what it is and with all the things happening in the world I can only decide to become more aware of my personal water use, but also not to forget to enjoy the moment. Pick the day. Enjoy the sun, the warm weather. Me being miserable doesn't do the world or myself any good.

I do believe in the power of positive thoughts, but more than thoughts I think it is the power of vibrations, so one of my resolutions for 2018 is to feel happy feelings for the first 17 seconds after waking up. This is a technique suggested by Esther Hicks (you can Google that). In short the theory is that thinking positive, although good, won't work if you, deep down in side, subconsciously, don't believe that thought. To get into a more positive frame of mind it is important to regularly feel the vibration of happiness.

Thinking about something that truly makes you happy and really feeling that happiness, whether that is watching a sunset, swimming with dolphins, a sky diving experience or whatever tickles your fancy, and feel that feeling for 17 seconds. It sounds easier than it actually is as the brain will try to distract you with daily to-do-lists. However, for me it works to think about my new, funny, mad happy dog Miki as I love that little monkey to bits. I intent to keep it up for at least 21 days to turn it into a habit (I hope).

But I'm also going to add another 17 seconds and think about the rain in Spain, how wonderful it is to see the water drops clearing away the dust in the streets, the smell of happy trees, grateful for a much needed shower, and the knowledge that flowers and greens will be popping up all around us in the countryside as soon as the sun comes back. Which never takes very long. Since mass meditation has been scientifically proven to work, perhaps mass rain wishes and visualisation will do the trick as well. I will give it a try and I hope you will join me.

2018 will be a year full of new adventures for me. I will continue making mono-prints, something new to me but that I really enjoyed. I also intent to continue blogging about my art and my books (see section below) and I feel a lot of inspiration coming up for another book, and a series of Angel paintings, as the world could do with a few more Angels.

Happy New Year!

If you are interested to find out more about me as a writer and an artist I invite you to visit my website www.renatevannijen.com where you can also read my art blog or my books blog. You can subscribe for free and will receive two chapters of my book 'Cheers', which I'm currently blogging about as it is a book that brings awareness to a worldwide problem and helps people getting out of isolation. Click the following link for my Art Blog Click the following link for my Cheers Blog

Sunshine and water in Spain,

I live in Spain and this means I get to see a lot of blue sky, orange glows created by late-afternoon sunshine on mountain ranges and ever changing horizons whilst the sea is playing with a large spectrum of blues and turquoises, which is, quite frankly, absolutely marvellous. Bring into the mix the light from the south of Spain in general and you get an excellent inspirational elixir, especially for artists like me. I don’t have to paint landscapes with olive trees, amazing skies above a dark indigo sea during a winter sunset in the La Herradura bay for it to become evident that I am influenced by all this. Looking at my body of work over the years it becomes very clear that the light and many hours of sunshine have influenced my art. The colours in my paintings have become brighter, livelier and more intense. I don’t use models for my paintings but like to observe and I get a lot of inspiration from just watching people and enjoy the variety of what’s on ‘offer’ in La Herradura.

Especially during the spring, autumn and winter season it isn’t very difficult to distinguish between the different types of people. Without wanting to generalize you could say that those who live here permanently notice their bodies adapt over the years to the summer and winter temperatures, becoming more tolerable to high temperatures, but less tolerable to the cold, which their winter dress codes clearly shows. Working on a tan also becomes less important. Those who escape the winter months in their home country can often be recognised by their sun tanned skin and more summery clothing, but possibly with a jumper draped over the shoulder. Then there are the holidaymakers who run around in t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops whilst the locals and permanent expats put on an extra jumper and shiver in the corner of one of the sea-front cafes.

But now, the beginning of June, summer has truly arrived, like it does every year. Everybody has got their summer gear out and I watch a group of women passing by the table where I am enjoying a milky coffee and some wholemeal bread with tomatoes, salt and extra virgin olive oil. There is an invasion of flip-flops, uncomfortably looking flimsy footwear in bright colours, exotic designs with or without a wobbly rubber flower. I am surprised by the audacity and guts of some of the female owners. Flaking nail polish on too long toe nails proudly peeking out into the open air. Cracked heals carry the smooth legs freed from unflattering hair. I am also fascinated by the ease some classy women show off their strangely shaped feet, deformed by having been squeezed into pointy tight stiletto heal shoes for too many years. Their expensive leather flip-flops revealing the fruitless attempts of yet another pedicure. Corns, dried out blisters and plasters a little black around the edges catch my attention…. I seem to be surrounded by damaged, not very attractive feet. Nobody seems to care… I wonder why I do.
So I take my attention back to the colourful mixture of people strolling along the seaside attracted by the sea, the sunshine and some ‘lucky ones’ who will be able to go back to a villa with a swimming pool to wash away the heat. Something worries me though. Most people, the tourists, the expats and also the Spanish often seem to take water for granted. Excessively watering the plants in a much loved-garden, leaving the tap wide open when brushing teeth, cleaning vegetables or freshly caught fish, and long showers to sooth a sun-burned skin or a warm bath to pamper a chilly body … it all feels so normal.

Nobody seems to even wonder where all this water is coming from. When it rains, which is quite frankly not happening anywhere near enough, it does usually pour down and streets can turn into rivers in no time, but to my amazement I then often hear people moan about it. Although it is rare to have a week without sunshine, it can sometimes happen that it rains every day of a week which happened in the beginning of May. For people who have come here for a sunshine holiday to then finding themselves in a rather chilly and wet week, this is understandably a little sad, but if you are in the privileged position to call this beautiful country your home for longer periods during a year you might want to look at the rain as a gift.
It is so very necessary in Andalusia, also in La Herradura. The local economy is based on agriculture, like avocado and tropical fruit farms, and tourism and both need large amounts of water. In a sense we are lucky that there is a large underground water reservoir in La Herradura, but to keep that full it has to rain during the winter months. When there is too little rain the salty sea water mixes in with the fresh mountain water and water from the tap will become salty, disastrous for the farmers and not so handy if you want to shower off the salty sea water.
I pay for my breakfast and realise that I am having a moan about the moaning but I also realise that I am one of the lucky ones to call this beautiful, inspiring little seaside village my home. That is something I will never take for granted and guess what…

I feel a painting coming up!

If you like to know more about La Herradura this is now possible on the new website, www.laherradura-cultural.eu that I have created together with Ferry Verhoeve. Lately Ana Espildora has also joined our team and we are working on getting La Herradura better known as the cultural hotspot that it already is.
You can subscribe for the La Herradura-cultural web magazine with useful information and interesting articles about La Herradura and surroundings, events, sports, people, art, environment, recipes and where to go. It is free to subscribe. Your support as a subscriber will be greatly appreciated. Check it out here and subscribe on the right-hand side.

And if you like to purchase my book Reflections from La Herradura, please click here.

Would you like to be notified when there is a new blog? You can subscribe below for my newsletter which will always have a link to my latest blog. You can also follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RenartsBookWorld/

Subscribe to my newsletter with blog information