Travellin' Man

We have been busy these last few days. On Saturday I caught the train up from Madrid to Gijón, and then to Avilés, which is a port town that was (according to a doctor friend of ours) known in the sixties for being a focal point of 'black placenta' syndrome (which I have just looked up in the internet and which people claim is an urban myth, but I trust doctors more than the internet, so in it stays). Marian had gone on Thursday, and I met her at the SELIN, the independent publishing book fair.

As with last year, we were sharing a hutch with Salto de Página, and now with the great and friendly Sajalín.

This is the view from inside our little love-nest.

This is the view from inside our little love-nest if I squat and pretend to be arty.

This is Julio from Sajalín (background) and Ismael Martínez Biurrun who is one of Salto de Página's authors. I always addressed him by his full name in the hope that he'd say 'no, no, no, call me Ismael', but nothing doing. I'm sure he'd never heard that one before.

The saturnine Pablo Mazo of Salto de Página talking to Marian.

He has hollow legs.

The morning after (urgh...) was wet and still quite pretty.

This was as close as I got or wanted to get to the royal wedding.

Friends: David, Patricia, Jesús, Miguel.

Cabin-fever set in by Sunday morning.

This is Marian and Julio and yr. humble servant just about to catch the bus to Gijón.

Avilés seems nice, although we only saw it from inside a box.

Gijón on the other hand definitely is nice, misty and how I imagine Whitby to be, but probably erroneously.

Miguel, Audrey, Marian.

Jesús, Tao, Miguel, Audrey (invisible for moving so fast), Marian.

The train to Pamplona: industrial and post-industrial landscapes.

Pamplona.

The Gothic cross.

Space-age architecture.

¿Runes?

Jesus in a shop window.

Street art.

A city that is proud of its gigantic civic monument of men being trampled by bulls certainly has some cojones.

And this is the train station on the way home.