{"id":5071,"date":"2026-05-03T20:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T19:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=5071"},"modified":"2026-05-03T20:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T19:53:13","slug":"week-17-art-books-the-beach-and-the-magic-cactus","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=5071","title":{"rendered":"Week 17: art, books, the beach and the magic cactus"},"content":{"rendered":"

A nice week back in Alicante, with some pleasant office-related events: a new art exhibition, a meeting of our book club, some nice cheese and bread for sale during our weekly “market” at the office. Of course there were the daily walks with Mochi. And my late mother’s magic cactus exploded in an orgy of flowers during the week that marked the 25th anniversary of her death.<\/p>\n

17_1<\/strong>
\nA random photo from one of my bike rides. Near the village of Verdeg\u00e1s, someone has apparently taken up residence in an empty lot. The lot is fenced, so we are not talking squatting here. The flag on the fence and the presence of a grill suggests that the inhabitant of the camper is Argentine:
\n\"1050397\"\/<\/p>\n

17_2<\/strong>
\nMy morning beach walks continue to provide me with nice images, like this classic sunrise image:
\n\"DSF4213\"\/<\/p>\n

17_3<\/strong>
\nOr images like this and the next one, looking at the objects illuminated by the rising sun:
\n\"DSF4212\"\/<\/p>\n

17_4<\/strong>
\n\"DSF4210\"\/<\/p>\n

17_5<\/strong>
\nOur daughter went to Madrid for the weekend, so my wife and I were babysitting. On Sunday, we took Mochi for a walk on the V\u00eda Verde del Maigm\u00f3, a 22 km gravel path that replaced an abandoned narrow-gauge railroad:
\n\"DSF4220\"\/<\/p>\n

17_6<\/strong>
\nIt was a new experience for him to walk through the dark tunnels:
\n\"DSF4223\"\/<\/p>\n

17_7<\/strong>
\n\"DSF4226\"\/<\/p>\n

17_8<\/strong>
\nI think Mochi enjoyed the new smells more than the views, but we did enjoy the latter:
\n\"DSF4222\"\/<\/p>\n

17_9<\/strong>
\nIn the evening, Mochi and I went for our usual weekend treat at The Place:
\n\"DSF4231\"\/<\/p>\n

17_10<\/strong>
\nTuesday was an artsy day, in several ways. A new exhibition by local artist Manuel Aguilar opened in our exhibition space. The exhibition consists of paintings of various celebrities, not exactly my cup of tea, but it is nice that we continue to attract local artists to exhibit in the office:
\n\"DSF4233\"\/<\/p>\n

17_11<\/strong>
\nMarilyn:
\n\"DSF4234\"\/<\/p>\n

17_12<\/strong>
\nDemi and Bruce:
\n\"DSF4235\"\/<\/p>\n

17_13<\/strong>
\nSharon and Sylvester:
\n\"DSF4236\"\/<\/p>\n

17_14<\/strong>
\nJulia and Clint:
\n\"DSF4237\"\/<\/p>\n

17_15<\/strong>
\nTina:
\n\"DSF4238\"\/<\/p>\n

17_16<\/strong>
\nAfter looking at the paintings, I went to check out our “Tuesday market”. This is a new initiative by our office, to invite local businesses to sell their products to us every Tuesday. I was especially interested in this goat cheese producer from Muchamiel, a suburb of Alicante. I bought a couple of cheeses from him, and they are delicious. Artesanal cheese, made from raw milk:
\n\"DSF4242\"\/<\/p>\n

17_17<\/strong>
\nWith good cheese you need good bread, and that was available too:
\n\"DSF4240\"\/<\/p>\n

17_18<\/strong>
\nThe prices were high (compared to regular bakeries around here) but the bread is truly delicious:
\n\"DSF4241\"\/<\/p>\n

17_19<\/strong>
\nThat evening, we had the monthly meeting of our book club:
\n\"DSF4246\"\/<\/p>\n

17_20<\/strong>
\nThe traditional photo of the book of the month, Siddartha by Herman Hesse. This time we had versions in English, Spanish, Italian and Greek. Funny enough, nobody brought the original German version:
\n\"DSF4248\"\/<\/p>\n

17_21<\/strong>
\nHarrie is Dutch but he brought an English version. It was shorter than mine, and Harrie demonstrates why–it was printed using a really small font:
\n\"DSF4244\"\/<\/p>\n

17_22<\/strong>
\nA rare photo that includes me, with Eri:
\n\"DSF4265\"\/<\/p>\n

17_23<\/strong>
\nThe next day, Eri came to see me about some work issues. Afterwards, she posed for me in my private meeting room, called the Eureka Chamber following a vote of the staff of my department. Being Greek, Eri appreciates the name:
\n\"DSF4267\"\/<\/p>\n

17_24<\/strong>
\nSome more photos from my morning walks with Mochi towards the end of the week. A “beware of the dog” sign in my neighbourhood, for some reason in French rather than Spanish:
\n\"DSF4232\"\/<\/p>\n

17_25<\/strong>
\nA construction site near our house. When I see something like this, I think of the line from “Jurassic Park”–“nature will find a way”:
\n\"DSF4269\"\/<\/p>\n

17_26<\/strong>
\nAnother nice sunrise on our beach:
\n\"DSF4270\"\/<\/p>\n

17_27<\/strong>
\n\"DSF4273\"\/<\/p>\n

17_28<\/strong>
\nMochi with one of his favourite people, the bakery owner who gives him bread every morning:
\n\"DSF4290\"\/<\/p>\n

17_29<\/strong>
\nMy mother died on 21 April 2001. So this week was the 25th anniversary of her death. To mark the occasion, her Magic Cactus went nuts this week. On Friday morning it was clear that something special was on the way:
\n\"DSF4279\"\/<\/p>\n

17_30<\/strong>
\nOn Saturday at lunchtime, the flowers were ready to open:
\n\"DSF4282\"\/<\/p>\n

17_31<\/strong>
\nOn Sunday morning, the 16 flowers were open in all their glory:
\n\"DSF4293\"\/<\/p>\n

17_32<\/strong>
\nLater on Sunday, we went for lunch at the house of our friends Eliot and Assumpta. The men were outside, discussing manly things:
\n\"DSF4296\"\/<\/p>\n

17_33<\/strong>
\nAs usual, Eliot was roasting what seemed like half a cow on the grill:
\n\"DSF4300\"\/<\/p>\n

17_34<\/strong>
\nAfter devouring the meat, we enjoyed the dessert:
\n\"DSF4309\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A nice week back in Alicante, with some pleasant office-related events: a new art exhibition, a meeting of our book club, some nice cheese and bread for sale during our weekly “market” at the office. Of course there were the daily walks with Mochi. And my late mother’s magic cactus exploded in an orgy of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4915,"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\/5071"}],"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=5071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5073,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5071\/revisions\/5073"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}