The last week of September was about things I saw while cycling, a backyard BBQ at home, and some nice activities at the office, including a workshop on linocutting organised by our art club and led by my colleague Kari.
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On Sunday I cycled to Busot to have a look at a nice event organised there together by local Ukrainians (the town has taken in several Ukrainian refugees) and the local civic association, with support from various organisations. A stage was set up on the square in front of the cultural centre, and various speeches and performances took place:
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This lady spoke in both Ukrainian and Spanish:
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Children performing:
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Looking and not looking:
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There were numerous booths selling food, t-shirts, arts and crafts and the like:
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Alicante and Ukraine themed art works:
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Children drawing in the sunshine, thousands of km from the war back home:
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In the afternoon, we had a BBQ at our house. As usual, the proceedings started with a table full of snacks and drinks:
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To get the grilling started, we had some lamb:
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A conversation between two lovely ladies of Algerian origin, one living in Paris, the other here in Alicante:
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My wife had bought a huge slab of beef which Cani was put in charge of:
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Once the beef was ready, we sat down at the table and spent the next few hours eating, drinking and conversing:
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At the office, our art club WeArt organised a lunchtime workshop on linoleum cutting (sometimes called linocutting). Basically, this is like woodcutting except that instead of wood, linoleum, a much softer material (and so easier to work with than wood) is used. I do not participate in such events, but I usually come by with my camera to document them. Here, my Bulgarian colleague Yasen is working on his cuts:
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Carmen has finished her linocut and is now spreading the black ink on it:
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Then she presses the linocut against the paper, under Kari’s guidance:
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The paper is carefully removed:
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And voilá! Carmen poses with the result of her effort:
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All the participants were thrilled with their results, and there was widespread demand for repeating the activity at a later date:
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The end of September means that we say goodbye to the trainees who have been with us for one year, and welcome the new crop. My new trainee is Algerian-French, with Spanish nationality, and goes by the name of Romy, preferring it to the rather complicated Arabic name in her passport. I invited the team for lunch in the office’s restaurant to welcome Romy, here listening to Carolina who is her usual animated self:
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And here is Justyna, a Polish trainee on her last day at the office. She is going back to Poland to join a law firm; besides her legal profession, she is also an accomplished opera singer, and we have enjoyed several impromptu performances during the year she was with us:
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Back to cycling. On Saturday I did one of my longer rides, a circular 83 km route taking me to the towns of Alcoraya, Aspe, Novelda, Agost and then home. The first half of the route is quite hilly, so it is quite challenging. But once I get to Novelda, the rest of the ride is mostly flat or downhill. I stopped to take in this scarecrow in a field near Novelda:
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Approaching Agost on the road from Novelda:
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On the plaza in Agost, where I always take a break with a Coke and a snack, I happened upon a wedding party. It is not often that I see this many people on the square–Agost is a sleepy small town–and especially not this well-dressed:
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If the photo looks a bit hazy, there is a good reason for it–as is customary in Spanish celebration, people were setting off all manner of fireworks, and the smoke was drifting over the crowd:
I finish with three photos that were actually taken the preceding week, but I shot them on film which I only developed and scanned this week. The film was Adox HR50, shot in my Olympus OM4T camera, a lovely combination. I developed it in the Adox HR developer, specifically formulated for this film, but also highly usable with other B&W films.
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The unpaved (and therefore very dusty) road in front of Hostal Maruja:
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View of the beach from the Hostal Maruja terrace:
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And finally, the sunrise in Altea on the morning following Egle’s wedding party. Normally, sunrises and sunsets are photographed in colour, but I quite like the rendition on a slow black & white film:
