Four Summers ago New Mexico

Four summers ago, after a serious case of island fever (while living on a small island in the Caribbean), we bought a motorhome in the USA and we have crossed 31 states during four summers. 

Since it is that time of the year again and we are now living in Spain, I wanted to take you on our trips and show details thereof through the pictures.

The first trip was only for a long weekend, to see if the motorhome that we intended to purchase, would meet our expectations; we had done thorough research on the internet, but still...

So in this weekend we traveled to Albuquerque (where the car was) and to Santa Fe, where the very nice owner lived and invited us to his home.

The owner was so nice as to lend us his motorhome and make a testdrive (and camp with it) during the weekend, before we decided on the purchase.

 The New Mexico state map was quite handy to get around. We enjoyed the adobe houses, the strings of chillies (chillielovers that we are), the architecture, the colours of the houses and windows, the food and the spectacular countryside. The land seemed so empty and arid, but when you took a good look you discovered the pueblos. We were the only campers in the campground near the Cochiti pueblo and because it was March, it was cold at night, very cold!

The motorhome was ours, we parked it at the dealer until we could really start our first trip of two months during this 2009 summer.
The New Mexico state stamp is from the title of our 'summerhome'.

Next time: the start of our vacation in New Mexico and Arizona...

(you can find more on these trips here, and in this and this post )

And if you have been, thanks for reading, have a great weekend!

Regina

In between...

... clearing the debris, preparing the floor for the underfloor heating and thousands of other chores ref. the renovation, I found some time to play!

This five piece storyboard I created this afternoon. The original work consists of nine little collages that are attached with each other by copper wire in a three by three grid.

The work is hanging in our bedroom and I enjoy looking at it inmensely...

and since I don't have time or inspiration to make some new collages, I once again show it on my blog.

Thanks for visiting, as always,

Regina

Gates

On Sunday mornings I like to walk and get to know the neighborhoods of our village by the sea...

I simply love the details you can see at this speed! The shadow pattern of this gate was stunning

today's walk took me uphill first. This is an upscale neighborhood and this gate was at the entrance of a huge driving lane to a posh villa. The bird statues were on both sides of the gate.

and though this one is humble, I think I like it best. The house was simple,  yet elegant and then the bougainvillea!

At this time we see lots of flowers and blossoming here on the Mediterranean coast. Oleanders, roses, plumbago, jacaranda, to name a few...

Today I was looking back at some posts on my blog that I wrote while living in the Caribbean. 

If you do that too you will notice the change in colors in my pictures. They are still colorful, but not so exuberant. It is exactly what I expected: more sun and color than in Holland, but less relentless than the heat of the islands...

See  you!

Regina

Inspiration and invention

my small washi tape collection...half of it made by moi

As with our former residence, it seems that we have again chosen a place where it is difficult to buy art supplies. Some years ago this sometimes made me frustrated, but no more so! I have learnt that in fact everything is there (here), but not in the places one expects...I discovered that acrylic paint, brushes and related products, are being sold in a paintstore, yes, the one where you buy your housepaints! In fact so logical, but I have never seen this in Holland and/or the USA. Another advantage is that  this lack of 'everything' artsy has a huge benefit: you don't get overstimulated and I myself get inspired to look for different solutions. 

On the internet I found several sites where the most beautiful washitapes are pictured. Washitape and Spain do not know each other yet (I think...), so with some doublesided tape from our Chinese supermarket I now make my own. The possibilities are endless, so is my stack of magazines with colorful pictures... problem solved!

 in the tiles store...

As you may know our new home is a big renovation project that is currently asking for much decisionmaking:   what bathroom and kitchen do we want/need, what materials do we choose/can we afford...? The above picture I shot in a tiles store. Spain has a very famous reputation of producing tiles and the assortment is huge. I think we might choose a very simple, basic, terracotta for our complete upper floor. It is tempting to choose one of these small bordertiles, but I'm afraid I will get bored by them after not too long time. Great for inspiration, though!

and now the weather is getting warmer, it is time to take these lanterns out of the crates and enjoy them in our lovely garden, I love long summernights, when the sun has finally set and a slight breeze cools my sunburnt skin...

Summer, happy!

Have a great Sunday, thanks for visiting!

Regina

Tall ship collage

Bounty

digital collage

Hello dear readers,

My plans for today got completely disturbed and so I had to be flexible...that means imo that I have some extra time for my long neglected blog!

It has been quite some time that I have been practising my skills in making digital collages, so I used this opportunity. Looking for some pictures for layering, I found some in my picture collection of Canada, 2010.

 It was the day before Canada Day when we visited Toronto and the city was preparing for the festivities of the next few days. One of the scheduled highlights was a tallship festival and one by one these enormous and most impressive ships came sailing into the harbour.

We visited some of them, one being the famous HMS Bounty, the replica vessel that had been built for and used in several movies, Pirates of the Caribbean being the last one if I remember right.

Last year this ship unfortunately sank during hurricane Sandy and I heard this news while we had only been moving to Spain some weeks before. Actuality made me kind of miss the details then, but this morning I found tons of information on the internet, here and also here, lots of pictures of this ship can be seen at this site 

Back to my collage now! I used part of an old blogbanner, cropped it and that is the part that says Enjoy, put a picture of the man on the Bounty that was inspecting (?) the Bounty sails back in 2010 over it, and then the layering fun started. Playing with filters, opacity and this is the result.

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon,

Regina

Coastal walk

view from the path below the coastal road, 

Moraira in the distance

Finally, I had made time for a walk last Sunday. My goal was an English bar, where we had a coffee last week. They have a place inside that is full with books for swapping. Most of the books are in English, but every now and then there is one in Dutch. Last week I discovered a thriller that I would like to read, so I asked the  bartender if I could take it now and bring in another book one of the next days. "No problem", he said. 

To get on the lovely coastal road, I just have to leave our street, take a right and then a left and there you are: it looks like the French Riviera! Our municipality had made a good sidewalk, so many pedestrians, runners etc. enjoy it while being close to the sea, it is lovely. The statue below is something you cannot miss. It sits at a good spot, the persons seems to be looking at the bay of Moraira.

this statue is of rusty iron, a material that is also used for the statues on the many roundabouts in our village. They seem to be from the same artist, something I want to find out next...

The picture below shows the coastline as you can see when looking in the opposite direction. There are three or four sandy beaches in our village, but all along the coast you can discover little, secluded and mostly rocky places where you can go for a swim or snorkeling. These 'cala's' are not visible when driving on or walking along the winding road. To reach them you have to go down steps that are hardly visible, you have to discover them yourself and I love that! This ensures that these tiny, stony beaches are mostly quiet and very clean.

The coastal path is even more beautiful once you leave the village of Moraira and enter Benissa. There starts an ecological path between this city and the city of Calpe. The famous Penon d'Ifach rock is to be seen on the last picture in the upper left corner.

When my son was here a few weeks ago, we started that walk in Calpe towards Moraira.

More on that next time!

Bye for now,

Regina

Spain. Now

 

 

Long time, no blogging, my friends....

 

After we moved in the apartment in the underbuild of our home, we started renovating. Here is a little update...

 

On mother's day our eldest son came driving on his motorbike, all the way from Holland. He  has been driving through Germany, Luxembourg, France, the Pyrenees and arrived after five days.With his energetic help the old kitchen and bathroom have been removed, all tiles both from the walls and the floor have been broken out and carried away, a hell of a job. Despite the work, we had a very good time together.

 

Now the upper part of the house is stripped and empty, ready to be restored. At the moment the electricity cables are being checked, replaced and extended where necessary. In the meantime we have asked for offers regarding the solar heating system and study the possibilities, differences, look for materials like tiles and how do we want our bathroom, our new kitchen?

 

The majority of this work is being done by my sweet husband, and I take care of the drinks, the calls, run errands whenever something is missing and the like. No time, or energy for blogging. It seems I have nothing to tell you, at the same time a lot, but not in the usual way. I'm sure you understand my temporary absence in this place.

 

But: every day the weather is getting more lovely here in Spain, and we wake up in the morning with sunny weather. In the afternoon, when it is siesta time here, I often read and recharge in our secluded garden behind the house. This might become my most favorite spot here, at least for as long my studio is not ready to move in! The place where we live now is lovely, the coast gorgeous and there are many, many very friendly Spanish people and folks from other European countries around.

All in al we feel already at home and so this has been a good step, moving from the Caribbean to

Spain!

 

I would love to show some pictures from my coastal walk yesterday. However, at this moment Blogger/Internet Explorer does not let me upload anything. Hence the above picture is one of my old collages that was in Picasa.

 

Thanks for visiting, as always!

 

Regina