Author: hwilkie@mhwcom.com

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Exciting Initiative

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that before the pandemia struck I was working on a book about the Bares Notables, a series of old, historic bars and cafes here in Buenos Aires. I put it on hold indefinitely, because the lockdown affected the economy so badly that we knew some of these places wouldn’t open again.  We still don’t know what the picture will look like in the end, but today I heard about a wonderful initiative that may help.

The Library Association has partnered with ten of the Bares Notables to make books available to patrons to read why they are there! They will be kind of mini-libraries, and you’ll be able to select a book and read it while you sip your coffee or wine, or have a meal. When you leave, you put the book in a special cuarantena bin, where it will stay for a week before coming out to be read again by another patron. Isn’t that great?

As it turns out, most of these Bares are not among the ones I know or have visited, so even though the book is still on hold, the “research” can resume! I’m sure there will be no problem getting friends to go out with me to check out the books and the bars—stay tuned!

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Update on the painting

The apartment painting is proceeding apace. They finished the kitchen and passageway in two days, and today they are starting the living room. The smell of paint hasn’t been too bad up to now, although the past couple of nights I have slept with the bedroom door closed, which I don’t usually do. But I think it’s about to get worse with the living room.

I usually work sitting on the couch in the living room, but today I moved my computer etc. into the bedroom and I’m sitting in a wee space in the middle of all this extra stuff! It’s a bit of a pain, but I just keep reminding myself how nice and bright it will be when it’s done.

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El Preferido

Last night a few of us went out to try a new eating place. It’s what’s called a bodegón here, a kind of traditional restaurant. They used to be more casual but now many of them are being upgraded, which unfortunately sometimes takes away from their charm and ambience.

Not so with El Preferido. We enjoyed the ambience, the food and the conversation as always. Thanks to Venetia and Jayne for taking the photos.

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The Painters Are Here

My apartment is being painted, starting this morning. They have told my landlady it will take three weeks, and I will be fascinated to see how it can possibly take three painters (yes, three!) three weeks to paint a one-bedroom apartment!

She has offered me the use of an apartment owned by her father, starting next weekend, if I want it. I don’t really want to have my work disrupted, so I may not take her up on it. I’ll wait to see how bad the smell of paint is and then I’ll decide. The last week will be the bedroom, and that’s when I’m most likely to want to move out. But we’ll see.

I’m really happy it’s being done though. It wasn’t really in bad shape, but just a bit tired looking. This will spruce it up. I love my apartment!

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A Visit with Gillian’s Students

My friend Gillian teaches English to Spanish speakers. She likes to expose them to different accents in English, and for the past couple of years I have enjoyed being with them on a social occasion for that reason. I guess she thinks if they can figure out my Scottish accent they are doing pretty well! It was supposed to be a picnic this year, but the weather didn’t cooperate, so we had coffee in a local cafe.

Coincidentally, Gillian had a birthday recently, so we also had some decadent chocolate cake with a single candle on it for her to blow out!

One interesting personal observation I had was that I had to keep reminding myself to speak English! I’m very focused these days on making Spanish second nature to me, so I guess it’s working!

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A Different Take

I’ve been gazing at this beautiful azalea plant so much that I decided I might as well sketch it. If you’ve seen the photos you’ll realize the colour isn’t true, as the flowers are actually a lovely deep coral pink, and the lighter blossoms are kind of a shell pink. But somehow I couldn’t get the right colour mixed, and a sketch is just an impression anyway, so I decided to go with what I had. I hope you like it.

 

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Milonga!

Finally, tango is back! Actually, most of the milongas that are operating are open air ones, and I only know of one traditional indoor one that’s open again. That’s because it’s big, and can support a crowd of a third of the usual capacity. You have to make a reservation in advance, but fortunately, they have taken off the restriction of only being able to dance with one person. Of course, you have to wear your mask when dancing, and there are spray bottles of alcohol to use each time you come off the dance floor — a small price to pay!

I went with my friend Susan to one of the open air milongas and it was delightful. It was in one small corner of Plaza Congreso, and I think there were only about 25-30 people there. It was a mixed age crowd, and very informal. My knees can only take dancing on a terrazza floor for a certain time, but we packed a lot of tango into that time!

There are some who say this is too dangerous, and they could be right. But the government has decided to allow the milongas to open as long as they follow the protocols, and so far I feel OK being there. And oh, it feels so-o-o-o good to be dancing tango again!

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As Promised

As promised, here’s the updated photo of my azalea plant.

As I sit on my couch I can look out onto my balcony and enjoy it. I’ve never seen a plant with two distinct colour blossoms on it like this. I’m glad I didn’t throw it out when it stopped blooming all those months ago!

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Lovely Couple of Hours in the Jardin Botánico

This was a beautiful day, bright and sunny, warm but not too humid, so I wanted to do some sketching. I haven’t been to the botanical gardens for a while, so I chose that as my destination.

Last time I went there to sketch, all the seats with good things to sketch were in full sun and it was way too hot to work, but today I was much luckier. Mind you, I sat on the wall at the edge of the pool to do the water lilies and I came within an inch of dropping my sketchbook in the water — that would have hurt!

Anyway, here are the two sketches. I’m almost at the end of this sketchbook, so the double page spread ones are difficult to photograph — sorry!

I saw some seats set out in front of the greenhouse, so I stopped to see what was happening. Unfortunately I couldn’t see the performers so I still don’t know, but the music is interesting!

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International Women’s Day Dinner

Yesterday being El Dia Internacional de la Mujer, the usual suspects decided to get together for a chicas’ night out. We went to a great steakhouse called Lo de Jesus, which is well known and I don’t really know why we haven’t been before! Here’s a photo of the interior.

And here are some shots of all of us enjoying the evening — that’s one thing we’re very good at!