TO SAY THAT HASN’T BEEN a great week around the world would be an understatement, with the horrific shooting at two mosques in New Zealand by an Australian terrorist last Friday afternoon, the on-going Brexit debacle and other unhappy news events. There were two bright lights in all this darkness, however.
HAD FORGOTTEN to tell you about the shock of reading Grace’s announcement recently. It’s hard to believe that after nearly fifteen years, this year will be the last for Design*Sponge. Hers was the very first blog had ever read, way back in 2007, and it was the reason why I began TIG.
WE JUST REALISED today that it is two weeks until Christmas and all the shop windows are decorated with beribboned garlands and strings of fairy lights.
WE HAVE BEEN sitting on the edge of our seats over the grave debacle that is Brexit and what may or may not happen on March 29. If the most recent deal by Teresa May had not been voted down in the House of Commons today (as it was expected to), we might have been directly affected and forced to leave Spain before the month was through. What happens next is still anyone’s guess, but hopefully it will lead to an extension or not at all. Brexit stress aside, all is well in life and love.
THIS NEW YEAR ALREADY seems to be flying by. For some, January was a very long month, but for us, it was one of industry and new beginnings, the start of new (good) habits and the keeping of resolutions, all of which we’ve (more or less) continued into this month, but with far less constraints. This weekend was one of those relaxing ones that one needs from time to time to recharge—long languid mornings and late brunches, books and films and wine and rambling conversations. There are big new projects and life plans in the future, but for the weekend, it was nice to stop time for a moment…
THE WEEKEND was spent rediscovering the city, little corners and places for a quiet drink or dimly lit and elegant hotel lobbies where the service is casual and the wine is good. Since keeping the new year’s resolution of reading a few pages from an actual book every morning with coffee instead of scrolling mindlessly through my phone, have already finished two books and am nearing the completion of a third with a few days still left of the month.
THIS WEEKEND we left the city behind with friends for a beautiful beach we’d never been to before. (If you follow on Instagram, you would have seen, in our Stories, the photos and video clips of white sands and grassy dunes and the lull of turquoise crashing waves.) After a leisurely walk along the coast in the bright sun and the bluest Mediterranean skies, we stopped in at the most charming restaurant that serves local cuisine, for a long and lingering lunch of the best seafood paella we’d ever tasted so far.
THIS WEEKEND was a working one in parts, and parts old films and drinks on terraces where it was warm in the sunshine and chilly in the shade—a lucky situation for February, when terraces are still hospitable even in the wintertime. We moved here for the weather, but ended up staying for people, the food, and the laid-back way of life. The endless sunny days, however, will always be our first love and now that February is already nearly half over, it will be springtime before we know it…
THIS WEEKEND we rented a scooter (our first time!) and drove to the beach, the wind in our hair on the quiet city streets. Today, it’s a holiday here, the shops are closed and the city is quiet, with many out of town for an extra long weekend. If you had believed in the idea of “Blue Monday”—that is, the idea that the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year, good news: the concept is actually pseudoscience, made up by a holiday company in 2005 to sell summer vacation packages. Don’t you feel better now? January is really not that bad, for it is a time of new beginnings…
SOMETIMES ON WEEKENDS (if there’s time) we like to watch random old films that we’ve never heard about, and this weekend, it we found a great one. It’s called Lost in America (1985) and is about a “husband and wife in their 30’s [who] decide to quit their jobs, live as free spirits and cruise America in a Winnebago.”
