My New Lanikai Ukulele

07 July, 2020

As my graduation present to myself, I bought a new ukulele! I'm so excited! It's a Lanikai tenor size ukulele, solid mahogany with maple inlay, walnut bridge and fingerboard, and mother of pearl dots.

The grain of the wood is so beautiful, it just glows, I don't know how to capture this in a photo but if you zoom in you may see more of the depth. The decorative details are lovely; I particularly like the chevron shape at the base of the finger board.

And for those of you who are unfamiliar with ukuleles, a concert size ukulele is significantly larger than the most common soprano sized ukulele and has a deeper, richer sound.

Here is a picture of it with my hand holding it so you can see the size, approximately 66 cm / 26 inches long. (I have no idea why my forearm looks like a deep sea animal, clearly my photography skills need a bit of work.)

I have missed playing the ukulele since I left my little red Makala Dolphin in California with a friend. The ukulele is an instrument which is hard not to be happy when you are playing because the sound is just so bright and cheerful.

Since it looks like I won't be doing much traveling this summer due to COVID-19, I can enjoy the long summer days sitting at home reading Spanish novels and playing music (although the neighbors might not call it that...).

(If anyone has been out of touch, yes, I am still in Spain.)

El Escorial and wildflowers

09 June, 2020

A very nice Spanish gentleman took me by car to visit El Escorial, a former monastery and sometimes summer palace in the foothills of the mountains north of Madrid. Unfortunately, it was still closed due to COVID-19 and we were one day early for the reopening, so we weren't able to tour the inside or the grounds.

Although we couldn't go inside the monastery, we were lucky in that the wildflowers were in full bloom and we took a short hike in the hills behind it.

This is a really interesting suspension bridge over the highway on the outskirts of Madrid.

It was so nice to have a day out of the city.

El Olivar

06 May 2020

The COVID quarantine has been de-escalated here in the Comunidad de Madrid, and we are now allowed to go out for walks at any time of day. Previously there were different times for people with children, elderly or high risk, and adults (anyone who didn't fit in the other categories).

There is an abandoned olive orchard near the house I am living in here in Rivas which is currently sporting lovely grass and wildflowers, where I love to go for my daily walks. There are a lot of people who walk there, especially dog walkers, but it rarely feels crowded because it's pretty large.  

Olive trees have a unique color and shape that I find really lovely.

There were a scattering of red poppies here and there, a brilliant contrast to all the more subtle colors.

  The occasional patch of thistles also provided color spots.

 I kept trying to capture the way these poppies looked to my naked eye and failing (although they are still pretty. Seen with the sun behind them, from this angle, they were translucent. Looking at them from the top, the petals looked as though they had been dusted with a fine opalescent glitter.