Flipping away.

My friend Lawrence and I participated in The Flip Collection for Printroom. You can see my flipbook on my workblog. I was going to try and keep these two blogs totally separated from work and leisure, but this project was too much fun to just be classified as "work". 

Click here to see my flipbook: http://rachelsender.blogspot.nl/2013/01/transgender-transformation.html

Friday Music.

And mind-boggling video.

 

Cold Feet.

I love the colour of the icy water in this photo.

Snow and Swan.

Thursday Music.

Dead Swan.

Tiengemeten. Population: around 10 people.

Conxa and Gerard offered to take me to the island of Tiengemeten after my Christmas holiday, so I sneaked in another day off before getting back to work. The island and views are stunning and I got to see the beautiful work of Rien Poortvliet in the cozy Rien Poortvliet museum. He's famous for his illustrations of gnomes, which, apparently, aren't so appreciated here in The Netherlands. I can agree with that… but the rest of his work I felt were well worth a look at. I treated myself to his book "Braaf", with a wide range of dog drawings. 

Here's some wiki info on the island: 

The name refers to an ancient area measurement; one gemet is comparable with one acre so the name means ten-acre island. Ten gemets would be about 100 by 400 meters while the island is actually about 7 km long and 2 km wide.

The statistical area "Tiengemeten", which also can include the surrounding countryside, has a population of around 10.

On 10 May 2007, the island was officially given back to nature; its farming inhabitants were relocated and nature has been allowed to work its way undisturbed.^[2]
New nature reserves are rare in the Netherlands, and since its return to nature, Tiengemeten has become a real wilderness with trackless terrain, flowing creeks and gullies, meadows full of flowers and huge populations of migrating birds, including ospreys and egrets. Some of the marshy pastures are grazed by Highland cattle and other hardy animals.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiengemeten

Source of this image: Google Maps. 

Views from the boat. 

Don't mess around with this guy. 

And the walk began. 

The lovely company.

Spooky abandoned house in the middle of the water. 

Highland cow / bull.

Rien Poortvliet gets saucy with the gnomes. 

Gerard getting into gnome-mode. 

Two years of Floyd.

I love you, Floyd! Happy 2nd birthday! 

Under the sun.

Barcelona.

Good company.

Foreign Barcelona.

I've been living abroad for almost five years now. And I am experiencing a feeling that I've seen in others that live abroad and come back "home". You expect everything to be in the same place, everyone to be in a state of sort of frozen wait until you come back. But things evolve, people keep moving and you change. So everything is familiar but different. And home becomes another place. 

Every Sunday there is a book fair at Sant Antoni.

Very well organized postcards.

When I retire, I will move to a warm country.

Swapping cards.

Lia getting excited about finding coriander. 

Great illustration.

Miqui was in the newspaper! He's had his second book published, "La cápsula del tiempo".

Proud girlfriend.

20 degrees outside but they prefer to ice skate.

Very wrapped up friends.

NO COPPER LEFT. Empty spaces are being broken into to gather the copper tubes and wires that are used for construction. The sign on the front door of this empty space that used to house a bank, announces that there is no more copper left inside to avoid people breaking in. 

El rey de la gamba. Sculpture by Mariscal.

Full blast sun. 

This photo was taken from the inside of the Caixa Forum Museum. These teenage girls could see their reflection on the glass walls of the building, so used it to practice their choreographies. I bet the architects couldn't have predicted this to happen!