We flew to Spain on the 16th September, stayed
overnight in a hostel and onto see my brothers in La Murada (about a 40 minute drive from Alicante airport. Their house is amazing and it’s always great
to see what they have built and added to their outside space since we were last
there a year ago. They are both very
artistic and they had arranged for us to go to a Pottery class the morning of
John’s 68th birthday (18th Sept). We got there and were duly introduced to
everybody and the teacher Caran. She was an English Sculptress and Art teacher of note and
her work around the workshop was amazing.…..by this time I was getting nervous
and so was John. We had discussed the night
before, about what we were possibly going
to make. Something small but useful as I
love objects made of pottery around the house. Caran
asked us what we wanted to do and we asked her “what was possible for us to
make in a class lasting 3 hours”. She
presented us with our clay and discussed firstly with John what he was going to
make and then me. So we had an idea and was presented with utensils and objects
to use to engrave and make our pottery pieces. Everyone around us, including my
brother and his wife, were busily continuing to build up their sculptures and
pottery pieces bit by bit……all very amazing stuff.
I felt sick at this point, thinking and justifying that we all have to
start somewhere. I chose to make a fruit bowl or object for decorative purposes
and John chose to make a name plaque for our bungalow. So we were ready to start! Caran explained the rudiments of how to get
started and we cut and rolled our Terra Cotta clay. (There are different colours of clay white or
terra cotta brown or grey). It depended on what you were going to make and what
colours you wanted to use to glaze it.
Anyway, I knew I wanted vibrant colours like Red or Orange and John decided
to ‘play it by ear’! He was busily carving out the name of our bungalow onto
his piece of clay and it was looking amazing and I was tearing off strips to press over an arc that was
going to be used to create my bowl.
Caran explained to us (again) that she had various objects to make an
indentation or design on the clay to make it decorative. They could be made by plastic rollers, leaves
and natural products or even lace (you press the lace or leaf onto the clay and
roller over it to make the pattern). I
chose various different leaves that I collected from her garden and
some lace). So I duly pressed my leaves into the clay and lace cloth, which
made an awesome pattern and then laid these strips of clay onto the arc – leaving
holes here and there to add to the design.
This was going to be a masterpiece and by now I was very excited to see the
finished object . Once biscuit baked in
her oven (usually by the following week) it was then painted or varnished or glazed, which of course, we couldn’t
do. We chose our colours and duly asked my
brother and his wife (Tony and Barbara) to finish our pieces on their subsequent
visits. They would then bring our
pottery to the UK on their next visit. (It was a shame that we couldn’t paint
them as we were going to be a 300K drive away in Cuenca the following week). Cuenca
is a very old town where my brother had visited and somewhere John had always
wanted to go.
John carving the plaque
Tony and Barbara discussing their work!
Some of Carans' work
Official birthday picture taken in the garden of my brothers house
After the pottery class we went to lunch to celebrate John’s
birthday. It was a set three course meal consisting of a 2 big plates of Ensalada
(tuna salad) that we shared followed by meat with vegetables or fish and vegetables
followed by a sweet and coffee and that included Sangria as well for 10 euros a
head. Wow! A beautiful meal which afterwards
said “I’m never going to eat
again!” It was a pleasant way to spend
an afternoon with the birthday ‘boy’ and Tony and Barbara . Back for a siesta (John) and a good read (me)
in the calmness of their beautiful garden….I think it’s fair to say that John
(and I), had a memorable birthday.
Tony and John
The
next day we lazed around swimming in their pool and in the evening we went to
the ‘Moroccan tea rooms’ that one of their friends had told them about at
Pottery class. It was set in a Moorish
house of some distinction and the gardens were lush and green. We set off with menial directions pencilled
on a piece of paper and drove along the canal by my brothers’ house in the
outback of Spain to find the tea rooms.
The directions were ‘spot on’ and we found this amazing building and
gardens without losing our way. ‘Carmen
del Campello’ was an oasis in the middle of nowhere! The Moorish house had been
added to but was very old. We arrived around 6pm as my brother was told that it
looks spectacular once it started to get dark, as candles and lanterns, were
placed strategically, each side of steps, pathways and in trees and shrubs, to
light the way. Men in Moroccan dress
served you tea with Moroccan cakes steeped in honey and sesame seeds, dates and
figs, all very sickly, but nice! The music was playing and there were peacocks
everywhere in the grounds and on top of the roofs, squawking and flying to the
tops of the trees. A very different experience and well worth a visit
again. My brother reckons that ‘it was
an illegal place’ as the man on the exit gate, where you paid ‘the bill’, had very baggy trousers to put the money in
and there was no receipt, therefore no VAT etc.
Anyway, we had a good laugh and sang ‘baggy trousers’ by ‘Madness’ as we left and drove home in the moonlight. It was only 9pm, when we arrived in the local
town (La Murada) and as we were all a bit peckish….having only eaten cakes…….we
had an Indian meal in the village….. another wonderful day.
My brother and his wife outside the entrance to the gardens
The pathway leading to the entrance to the tea house
The outside sitting areas around
The sticky cakes
Jackie sitting on the cushions
A bowl of lemons.....simple but very effective
A shot of part of the gardens
Barbara inside one of the rooms where they light the fires when cold in the winter!
The next day was the last one with my brother
so after John and I helped my brother with an engineering extravaganza ( a large frame to grow his Jasmin
and Honeysuckle climbing plants up against ), John and I ventured into the
local town for a couple of hours to look
around and have a coffee (or in John’s case, an ice-cream as well!). We headed back to Tony & Barbara’s late
afternoon for our last supper before we left in the morning…..and what a supper
it was. Fish Paella, cooked the
traditional way, that cooked for an hour
on their BBQ…….it was delicious. ( I
have the recipe!). We left the next
morning for a 3 hour drive to Cuenca.
The fish paella
Mullered!
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