A slow recovery
The year 2019 started very badly. Irmtraud had problems with bacterial infections for which she got each time different antibiotics. She was feeling so weak that she stayed in bed for weeks but her health did not improve, in fact the opposite happened. One night, I saw that she wanted to go to the toilet but she was so weak that she hardly could stand on her feet. I thought that she would fall and I jumped out of the bed and could prevent it. In bed we measured her temperature which was below 35 degrees while her blood pressure was also below all acceptable values. We decided that she should stop with all the suggested medication because the infection was less harmful than the antibiotics she was taking. Slowly she recovered and regained her strength back again but it took a long time. Fortunately she was just in time good enough again that we could go to the exposition in Zaragoza of the work of our friend Mari Ito. One of the paintings we had bought from her was also borrowed for the exposition.
The exposition of new work of Mari Ito
We had been in Zaragoza before but nevertheless we were again impressed by the town, especially by the enormous church on the main square. However the main reason that we went to Zaragoza was the exposition of Mari. Normally her work is very colourful and full of optimism like the painting we had bought from her that was exposed at the exposition. This time it was partially different. Mari told us that she had made new work, inspired by the nuclear catastrophe that happened when she was in Japan. |
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About this disaster people could not speak in Japan. She wanted to pay attention to her feelings about this event in her work. We don’t think it is her nicest work but she seems to suggest that on the destruction new flowers start to grow again.
Beautiful Gobelins
Another reason why we liked to go to Zaragoza was that we had seen in the past rather badly maintained but beautiful medieval gobelins. The later gobelins in the style of Rubens paintings we did like but these gobelins were from an earlier period and were very impressive. We were informed that they were now in a better state, thus we decided to have a look again and it was really worthwhile as you can judge for yourself looking at the video below. Imagine how much work it must be to create such complex art work.
Another reason why we liked to go to Zaragoza was that we had seen in the past rather badly maintained but beautiful medieval gobelins. The later gobelins in the style of Rubens paintings we did like but these gobelins were from an earlier period and were very impressive. We were informed that they were now in a better state, thus we decided to have a look again and it was really worthwhile as you can judge for yourself looking at the video below. Imagine how much work it must be to create such complex art work.
No life without sports
For some reason I did not pay attention to an important part of my life in Barcelona which had to do with sports. Due to doing sports I have several injuries but without sports maybe I would have died already. In Barcelona I was still skating as I have reported before but in the compound where we live there is also a possibility to play paddle. This is a kind of tennis. The video below shows how it is played. They play a bit better than my team but we played the same game.
For many years we played paddle every Sunday morning with a nice group of people. This activity and the connected social contacts have contributed a lot to our feeling that we as foreigners were received as friends notwithstanding the Catalan independence movement. We are grateful for this experience,
For some reason I did not pay attention to an important part of my life in Barcelona which had to do with sports. Due to doing sports I have several injuries but without sports maybe I would have died already. In Barcelona I was still skating as I have reported before but in the compound where we live there is also a possibility to play paddle. This is a kind of tennis. The video below shows how it is played. They play a bit better than my team but we played the same game.
For many years we played paddle every Sunday morning with a nice group of people. This activity and the connected social contacts have contributed a lot to our feeling that we as foreigners were received as friends notwithstanding the Catalan independence movement. We are grateful for this experience,