{"id":4619,"date":"2025-04-09T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T08:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=4619"},"modified":"2025-04-09T09:54:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T08:54:46","slug":"week-13-birthday-of-esteemed-wife","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=4619","title":{"rendered":"Week 13: birthday of Esteemed Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

The main event in the last week of March was my wife’s birthday on the 28th, which we celebrated with a party on Saturday the 29th. Before that, it was a more or less normal week, with the usual activities of cycling, walking Mochi, and a meeting of the book club.<\/p>\n

13_1<\/strong>
\nI start with some pictures taken while cycling on Sunday, but not the usual beaches or landscapes. Every day, when driving to the office I pass a spot that has long intrigued me. But it is in a place where it is difficult to stop, and anyway in the morning I do not have time. But this time I was on a bike, it was Sunday, so I stopped. It turned out to be a community “item exchange”, similar to the book exchanges one sees:
\n\"1040796\"<\/p>\n

13_2<\/strong>
\nI chatted with this woman, putting up some announcement on the fence. She told me that people do that when they are looking for something or have something bulky that is not practical to put there:
\n\"1040798\"<\/p>\n

13_3<\/strong>
\nSome of the items seem more intended as a decoration rather than for actual exchange:
\n\"1040800\"<\/p>\n

13_4<\/strong>
\nIt is nice to see this kind of initiative in what is a low-income neighbourhood “on the wrong side of the tracks”:
\n\"1040801\"<\/p>\n

13_5<\/strong>
\nOn Tuesday we had the meeting of the WeRead book club, to discuss a German novel from 2012 called “Look Who’s Back”
\n(Er ist wieder da<\/em> in the original German). The book is about Hitler waking up in the middle of Berlin 60 years after his death and adjusting to life in modern Germany. The book is an excellent commentary on German society, the nature of celebrity etc. Here, Kari talks while Tina listens:
\n\"DCSF0082\"<\/p>\n

13_6<\/strong>
\nNow the roles are reversed:
\n\"DCSF0084\"<\/p>\n

13_7<\/strong>
\nOne late afternoon I found myself on one of Alicante’s main shopping streets, Avenida Maisonnave. I was for once out shopping, looking for a birthday present for my wife. I did find a present, and as a bonus I took advantage of the sharp afternoon sun for this contre-jour image:
\n\"DCSF0085\"<\/p>\n

13_8<\/strong>
\nThe occasional sunrise walks with Mochi continued. Other people also take their dogs to the beach. It is technically not allowed but early in the morning it is no problem:
\n\"DCSF0088\"<\/p>\n

13_9<\/strong>
\nMochi at the water’s edge:
\n\"DCSF0090\"<\/p>\n

13_10<\/strong>
\nFriday was my wife’s 65th birthday and I took the day off, not so much to celebrate but rather to start preparing the food for Saturday’s party. We were going to be 18 people, and my wife wanted me to make a curry dinner, so that required some dishes to be made in advance, at least partially. But I still had time for a morning ride to Busot. I love the view of the village from the road above, also knowing that from this point the ride is all downhill:
\n\"1040806\"<\/p>\n

13_11<\/strong>
\nThe Busot cemetery, located on top of a hill to prevent flooding during our occasional torrential rains:
\n\"1040807\"<\/p>\n

13_12<\/strong>
\nIn the afternoon, having worked in the kitchen for a few hours, I decided to enjoy the good weather and go to the 100 Montaditos beach bar. I love sitting outside with a pint and looking at the human and canine traffic:
\n\"1040812\"<\/p>\n

13_13<\/strong>
\nThe beach season has definitely arrived:
\n\"1040810\"<\/p>\n

13_14<\/strong>
\nThen Saturday arrived, and with that the party. We had invited our guests to arrive around 9 p.m., meaning the main dishes would be eaten around 10:30 or 11. Here is the spread I had prepared during the preceding two days–lamb curry, dal, vegetable curry, chicken curry, tandoori fish, onion salad and various chutneys:
\n\"DCSF0099\"<\/p>\n

13_15<\/strong>
\nOur guests devoured the food with pleasure (although I had made so much that it took us another couple of days to eat our way through the leftovers), and then we sat around drinking and talking on our front terrace. Assumpta is apparently getting some pleasant news:
\n\"DCSF0101\"<\/p>\n

13_16<\/strong>
\nI\u00c3\u00b1aki is a big champagne aficionado, and he is always the one in charge of this part of the proceedings, taking the task very seriously:
\n\"DCSF0102\"<\/p>\n

13_17<\/strong>
\n\"DCSF0103\"<\/p>\n

13_18<\/strong>
\nAround 1 a.m. it was time for the cake, prepared by my wife (that is one side of cooking that I have never even attempted):
\n\"DCSF0104\"<\/p>\n

13_19<\/strong>
\nAnd now I\u00c3\u00b1aki looks less serious:
\n\"DCSF0112\"<\/p>\n

With that, the proceedings sort of petered out, and I went to bed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The main event in the last week of March was my wife’s birthday on the 28th, which we celebrated with a party on Saturday the 29th. Before that, it was a more or less normal week, with the usual activities of cycling, walking Mochi, and a meeting of the book club. 13_1 I start with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4543,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4619"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4619"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4624,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4619\/revisions\/4624"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}