Today I took Duna for a walk down by the river. We met a new dog, one of the tiny variety that is so common here and for once Duna let it sniff her without raising her lip and snapping. You can never tell with these small ones – she really doesn’t like some of them but others pass some secret test and she will chase them around for a while. Here they are at the back of this picture getting to know each other
And here is Duna with the horrible flats in the background but….look at those glorious flowers!
I talked to the owner – in Castellano this time. When I asked ‘Com es diu?’ (what is he called?) he answered ‘Se llama Nury’.
It’s complicated like that here. You can’t be sure who speaks what until the conversation begins. And sometimes people who actually are Catalan change to Castellano because they think I will prefer it. Oh it makes life interesting!
In the summer school we did automatic drawings and also drawing with the non-dominant hand. To help us get more into the Miro world of imagination and dreams. I led this exercise which is the first time I’ve done that and managed to do it in Catalan. The language wasn’t the problem, it was more getting 6 children to stop chatting and asking questions. They loved doing the drawings of moon and suns and stars and birds with their eyes shut and were amazed to see what they had done without all that intense ‘trying to get it right’ energy.
Then it was the rehearsal and it was wonderful to see them getting nervous behind the scenes then coming out and playing their parts, acting out a little story about Miro. Songs, dressing up, props that we made, dancing, drama, the final bows. All in one week – to my surprise it comes together and creates magic.
Tomorrow is the show. The audience are the parents and we are there to whisper prompts. No-one minds if things go awry. But it absolutely is the real thing – the nerves, the adrenalin, the buzz., the applause.
I will let you know how it goes.
Ooooh, hope it goes really really well!!!!
The drawing looks like fun…I should do some more of that, I have once or twice, but not often enough.
EEEEEK! A show! Blind drawings can be so much fun, but of course I think so in my dotage and yet kids can be so forgiving with these kinds of exercises. I hope it all goes swimmingly!
How lovely the summer school has started again. I was lucky enough to experience a little bit of it last year and it is so creative and fun and yes it all does come together wonderfully well! Great you can speak much more to the children this time. Talking to kids in any language takes practice, they see things differently and are often much more honest, sometimes brutally so. I am more comfortable now with my classes of 16-19 year-olds but it always takes a while to build up rapport/contact and I still hate it when they say the lesson is boring! Enjoy the show and the next 3 weeks including the well-earned swims. Christine x
Gosh! This all sounds fabulous! I hope it goes well. Look forward to your report on it all.
Pearl x
I loved doing the automatic drawings. First one – draw quickly with left hand (or right if left handed) Then close eyes and I gave each of them a crayon, got them to draw blind. Lots of squealing and “No Puc’ but then they did it.
then exercises to relax the arms and hands and scribbles with left (or R) hand with eyes shut. Afterwards look at it and see what you can see and how you want to change it. Was good.
I didn’t know I would enjoy this sooooo much! K x
Also Christine/Sinde – yes the swims are important too – we havn’et been enough but last time we were at St Pol I thought of you and what a lovely afternoon we had there last summer. K x