In an empty park

autumn lights

This photo album made with Smilebox

Nature can surprise us any time. After a cold sunless morning we've got one of these rare evenings with a talking sky.

A goodbye

A whisker left on the carpet after the cat is gone can bring so many thoughts on how much an animal is able offer in its lifetime and how little we, perfect and reasonable human beings, are capable of appreciating it.

"Another kind of book"

There is an old Math teacher (actually, a whole family of teachers) who makes the best known exercise book for Secondary School Maths. The book is unofficially called "The Chicken"because it has a duckling on the cover, regardless of the level of the class, year after year. It's a good book: revised and adapted each year, no errors, costless, easy to handle, diversified. They bring it directly to schools and they are nice and reliable.
Well, this old teacher brought us a gift. He published, on his own expense, a book dedicated to teachers that has the same cover with the duckling and the title of the post. Inside there are poems, short real stories, epigrams related to teaching. Each one has a motto in Latin (a dictum) and the same final line: "The rest? The rest is silence."
He offered a book, with a few handwritten lines, to each teacher he has collaborated with.
Only a confirmed and incurable idealistic person can teach for a lifetime.
The rest is silence.

SVAW

Team work can also be a family affair. Doing things together is a way to make links stronger. Hand, labelling and photo are ours, the message is public.

Traditional food fair

Slow food, you may call it, traditional food from Northern Moldavia in a fair in the park. We got smoked trout, cheese, mushroom salad, ham....

nature and scenes

There has not been a final golden wutumn yet. Green fights for survival, but the low temperatures will finish with it.

Each one tries to shelter from these cold mornings, like these men and women wearing the traditional Castillian cloak. I knew there was a special day for these garments. It was Saturday morning. As a matter of fact, they can wear it whenever they want, but it is not common to see the group together.

The ancient survivors to storms, rain, snow, wind remain silent as always. just watching life pass in front of them.

some mornings

yesterday morning, when I was coming down to school, I faced this grey un-light. It was like a smoky blanket between the sky and the mountains. It felt cold and mysterious. I wouldn't say beautiful but appealing, like a whisper calling you to enter and forget. Less than foggy but more than cloudy, that area seemed to be dwelling a different world. Then, it was the lessons and the wonder disappeared.

Unwords

I may have posted this before, but since we have been talking of trees, here it is.

Unwords
by Nichta Stanescu

He offered me a leaf like a hand with fingers.
I offered him a hand like a leaf with teeth.
He offered me a branch like an arm.
I offered him my arm like a branch.
He tipped his trunk towards me
like a shoulder.
I tipped my shoulder to him
like a knotted trunk.
I could hear his sap quicken, beating
like blood.
He could hear my blood slacken like rising sap.
I passed through him.
He passed through me.
I remained a solitary tree.
He-a solitary man.

What's important

A colleague sent me this, sorry for the bad translation- I'm tired.

An Indian American walked with his friend in downtown New York. It was noon and the streets were crowded. Speeding cars and taxis, sirens near or far, all these deafening city sounds. Suddenly the Indian said:
- I heard a cricket.
- You cannot hear a cricket in all this uproar! his friend answered.
- I'm sure I heard a cricket! the Indian insisted.
- That's crazy! the friend said.

The Indian listened carefully for a moment then went upstreet to an area with some trees. He looked around, under the branches and found the little cricket. His friend was amazed.

- It's incredible! You must have a superhuman hearing!
- No, said the Indian. My ears are different from yours. It depends on what you listen to.
- But you just can't hear a cricket in this noise! continued his friend.
- Depends on what is important to you, was the answer. Let me show you.

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some coins that he discretely dropped on the pavement. Then, with all the deafening noise of the city, everyone within a radius of five meters turned their heads and look around to check if the money was theirs.

- See what I mean? the Indian continued. It all depends on what is important to you.

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El Castañar

This is an ancient forest in El Tiemblo. All kind of nut trees grow together with berry bushes. There are also fruit trees, osme of them have become wild. Romans are said to have planted many of these trees in order to ensure nutrition for legions moving from one place to another.
It is always a real pleasure to walk among the trees and listen to the tales you have heard in your childhood and feel the same fears and joys.
Forests dwell in us launching energy, feeding us with their strength from the beginning of the times.

Colours here

Getting closer to the school this morning I couldn't avoid catching the cool rays and the colours.

This strange combination of fallen leaves and green flowered bush made me think about the great variety of life.

The wall in this yard has got a red teint, nevertheless green spots try to survive.

One of the oldest churches in Ávila, surrounded by golden trees keeps an eye over urban activities. Little by little, step by step winter light is wrapping us. It is already dark at 6:30. An invitation to go back home.

A teacher

An old writer is coming tomorrow to our school to present his newest book, and it's a special moment for me because he was my Literature teacher in the 11th grade. By then, I sort of considered being a Math teacher already, but that year I only went to literature contests, due to him. Believe it or not, I went as far as the national phase and even got a prize there. But it was all due to the classes he taught- the the most captivating ones I was ever in. I was lucky to have lots of good teachers, but thinking back, he had this real way of guiding us without us knowing, of facilitating our own travel to our own knowledge.
Anyway, he's in his eighties and he certainly does not remember me after 30 years, but I expect it will be a very emotional moment for me.

Colours (2)

Autumn is nothing but a beautiful death.