Sunday Picnic

I have plans afoot. I am hoping to teach crafty classes (instead of English) here in Madrid this fall and I am in the process of working on a schedule with some lovely ladies who have a textile teaching studio in the heart of Madrid. I will release details once things become finalized. Let's just say that I am on board to teach some spinning and needle felting classes! In Spanish! I am nervous but excited to practice in my new language. Until then I am studying all of the textile terms in preparation.

But until I can release the details, I want to share the perfect day I had this past Sunday with my husband of almost 10 years.

We took a picnic lunch to Parque de Quinta de los Molinos, which some of you might remember from a previous posts here and here. It was a beautiful day, it is still a little warm here in Madrid, with the days getting up to 30C (82F), but in the shade it was perfect. As you can see the leaves are changing, and I am excited that my favorite season is here!

The thing about this park is that there are many olive and almond orchards. They are very old and very charming. You can walk amongst the orchards if you want, or in our case picnic, and even come and pick the fruit when it is at peak.

The park also has an estate house, grand walkways, manicured gardens, and eucalyptus trees, which I love to photograph.

Here is the area we settled on for our picnic. We had lunch early, around 1pm, so we had the place mostly to ourselves. (Most Spaniards eat lunch on Sunday around 3 or later, and they sleep in.) In fact except for the dull roar of traffic noise, we could pretend that we were in the countryside. The soil (dry and rocky) and the smell of pines reminded strongly of the mountains in my home State of Colorado.

We ate, we lay on our blanket looking up at the sky and talked. Sometimes we were silent, listening to the breeze in the trees and the bird song. These moments are what life is all about. 

But... there was only so much time you can sit, lie on the rocky ground so we packed up our picnic and made our way leisurely out of the park. Note to self: Picnic more often.