VISITS AND VACUUMS

TRAVEL – PRAGUE

Now I’m in a fix, I can’t find which pictures I showed you of Prague cathedral as there are just blank white spaces where I posted them. Ah, the wonders of technology! Maybe they will appear later.

So I’ve gone modern this week for a new year. There are a few very modern sculptures in the city. This is one of them.

But this one has to be the best I’ve seen in a long time. I stood there mesmerised.

This looks like a jumble of metal slices piled one on top of another – just interesting. There are 42 of them, but wait, it moves!

It’s 11 metres tall and it lines up to form the face of the famous Czech writer Franz Kafka. It weighs 39 tons, the artist is David Cerny and it was erected in 2014 in the Quadrio business district above a metro station.  It’s driven by a motor and a kilometre of cables which rotate the tiers independently of each other.  Eventually, DH had to drag me away.

HISTORY – ISABELLA OF SPAIN

Now in 2018 we left Prince Ferdinand, on his way to marry Isabella. He is penniless, cold, hungry and tired and is almost crushed to death outside a castle where he’s seeking help (I’m using the word seeking as that is in line with the way they spoke in those days). Such exciting stuff. Everyone else is trying to stop the marriage, and here is Ferdinand skulking around in the dark.

But luckily the owner of the castle – I don’t have the faintest idea who he is so please don’t ask – realizes it’s Ferdinand and welcomes them in and they are fed and watered – history doesn’t tell us if they offered him any wine though.  At Isabella’s command, they will set out the next day with an armed escort supplied, by the Count of Trevino.  From there they will continue on to Dueňas where many noblemen will rally to his cause and the lovebirds, who are yet to meet, can do all that marrying stuff.

AFRICA FACTS

When we first moved to Botswana, we house sat for an American who was away on long leave in the States. His resident housekeeper (note how politically correct I am here) was also on long leave, but as so often happens she sent her younger sister to look after us. The first day Ntebeling nearly had a heart attack when I got out the vacuum cleaner and showed her how to use it. She screamed and leapt over the sofa, which is very understandable if you’ve lived in a village with no electricity.

Good thing it wasn’t a Dyson, the one with the really powerful suck, and I really should not have waved it around as it leapt forward and began to swallow her scarf. It took several minutes of gentle counselling to persuade her out from behind the sofa. However, once she understood how it worked, she fell in love with it and my next task was to persuade her not to begin vacuuming at 5.am every morning. I wasn’t sure what would happen  when I introduced her to the iron, but there was more to come.

 

THE EMBARRASSING BIT (MY BOOKS)

I have now managed with the help of a kind FB friend to link my blog with my web page, so you can click on the link at the top of the page and go take a peep at all my books. I’m raising the price of Unhappily Ever After on all channels as soon as I have posted this so you might be just in time to grab it @0.99 if you are quick.

 

 

Till next time,

Take care

Lucinda