A short week, photographically speaking. Lots of work, mainly preparations for the following week’s trip to Finland, and not much time for photography. But it was still a nice week.
43_1
There was one cloudy morning on the beach, but such days are often more photogrenic than days with blue skies:
43_2
43_3
Then Friday arrived, and since it was the last Friday of October, we indulged in the usual drink at mid-day:
43_4
There are some new faces in our department; the guy in this photo recently joined from another department, while the young woman is part of our trainee intake which arrived here in late September:
43_5
This is another new trainee in our department, a newly minted Masters degree holder in economics from the University of Valencia. She has an interesting background, half-German, half-Venezuelan, with Spanish and German as her two mother tongues:
43_6
At the weekend, the weather was back to normal. While it is of course not as hot as in July-September, there is still plenty of sunshine, and in mid-afternoon there are people in the still warm water. But I was more interested in this sight along the beach road, a sign of the times (since then, the UK government has suspended its advertising campaign since Brexit has been postponed, yet again):
43_7
My daughter and her Italian housemates, including their dog Maeeve, recently moved to Aigües, just a couple km from the village centre and on my usual cycling route. I visited her for the first time and we walked the dog together:
43_8
Maeeve lounges around on sofas and beds as she pleases, a really spoiled dog. But she behaves well and hardly ever barks:
43_9
On Sunday afternoon we had another get-together with our friends Roberto and Mariluz in Benidorm. They have a nice house in a suburb called La Nucía; it is a bit of a hassle having to drive 45 km to get home after a party, but OK, it just requires some discipline with the wine. We arrived around 2 p.m., and I played a bit with a 35mm manual focus lens (35mm Voigtländer) on my newly acquired Panasonic GX80. Here is Roberto talking to Assumpta:
43_10
The main dish was going to be a paella, but first we munched on a variety of goodies, such as shrimp:
43_11
Dalaal, of Algerian origin, is a lovely woman in every respect:
43_12
Mariluz adopted a kitty a couple of years ago, and she begs for food almost like a dog:
43_13
43_14
After a couple of hours of grazing and chatting, Roberto gets down to business. First, the pulpo gets fried on the paellera:
43_15
43_16
The rice is added; not just any rice. A proper paella must be made with rice grown just south of Valencia:
43_17
One of the truly crucial steps, adding the caldo (broth). You can buy it pre-made, but Roberto says that he would never use anything but homemade caldo:
43_18
Almost ready:
43_19
Roberto requests help from Elio with the timing:
43_20
Roberto serving the paella:
43_21
And we certainly enjoyed it:
