Practising collocations. One day Anne thought she was mature enough to set up her own business. She had done many courses that broaden her scope for working , but she needed the money to put the wheel into motion with her company. At that moment she had some financial problems , but the city council wanted to support new business so Anne took the chance and made her project. She was awarded with a grant so, after breaking the news to her family and friends ,started her new adventure. During a year she did the best she could, but then she realized she needed more staff to improve her company so she came to the decision of looking a partner. Anne interviewed a lot of people and finally thought she had found the right person . He gave her the impression of being an honest person and be able to do his best for the company, but she made a big mistake and paid the price for this bad decision losing her company.

When the street language changes faster than academic one does. Language pupils, as me, are always worried about grammar and using the proper word in the proper way, but sometimes the street language changes in a way that avoid us to understand it, not to talk about digital language. I use to talk with native speakers by Skype and sometimes they tell me that the way I have learned to use some grammatical structures is old fashioned and they don´t use it. One of these uses is the subjunctive form which is very common in my language but old fashion in English. There are other examples, but they don´t come into my mind at this moment. All of this makes me wonder if I should focus on a different learning way to make me understand native speakers, which is my real target.

Saint Anton bonfires. There is a Spanish tradition to celebrate Saint Anton, which consist of putting on a bonfire and staying there with friends. I don´t know which is the origin of this tradition, but I have read on the internet, that it is a pagan tradition which celebrated the end of the winter. We could think that it´s odd to celebrate winter ending in January because it´s just starting, but it was a way to wish to have a short winter and a long spring which was a good thing for crops and animals. Currently it has become very popular because most towns and cities celebrate also marathons on that day and there are people with torches lighting the way, at the end they use those torches to put on the bonfire.

Walking along Ronda. I had planned to visit Ronda in many occasions but it wasn´t till last weekend when I had the opportunity to do it. Ronda didn´t disappoint me, on the contrary, it was more than I had expected. Perched on an inland plateau riven by a 100 meters fissure, caved by the Guadalevin river, Ronda surprises to the visitor for its beauty, amazing views, historic building and of course for its gastronomy. This spectacular town is full of palaces and narrow streets where you are still able to feel the muslim atmosphere that impregnated it during seven centuries. One of the most important architectural structure you can find there is the called “Puente Nuevo” which was built during the eighteen century and has become the main symbol of Ronda. This magnificent structure allows to connect the old and the new part of the town and offers to the visitors a breathtaking view of Ronda mountains. It is worth passing at least a night here because when sunset comes and Ronda streets are empty of visitors is when the romantic atmosphere fills all its corners and you can feel the appeal that Hemingway and Orson Welles felt for this incredible town.

Autumn colours. I love autumn because I love when trees change the colour of their leaves before getting rid of them. If I have to choose the king of the forest it would be the beech. This tree has a deep beauty. Last weekend I went to visit a beech forest, it is one of the southernmost beech forest in Europe, its name is “Hayedo de la Pedrosa”. We could enjoy the ochre, yellow and brown of the leaves. These trees are characterized by the whimsical shape of their trunks. This shape is due to the economic activity in its neighborhood, which was the turning of wood. For this reason, trees were cut down and new trunks sprouted from their base, acquiring an aspect that can seem sinister , but it´s a delight to photograph.

Mi color favorito es verde. A book review. Mi color favorito es verte. Why I chose this book?. In Spain we have a very famous novel awards call “Premios Planeta”, “Planeta " is the name of a famous publishing house, this book was the finalist last year. What about the title?. I love this title. It is a pun because “verde” ,the color ,and verte ,the action, have a very similar spelling in Spanish. I think that it sounds very poetic. The author. She is a journalist, I knew very few about her , in spite of being very well known in my country. She takes part in some television programs as well as writes in a famous newspaper and has written lots of novels before that. I have to recognize that this is the first time I read her, but it won´t be the last. The book. It´s supposed to be autobiographic, based in a love experience she had. Apart from the plot ,which is very funny ,I could consider the book even a page-turner, it is the way she tells the story, full of personal details what surprises me more. The story catches your attention from the very first moment because the plot is fresh, vivid and funny and she creates a mysterious atmosphere around her lover disappearance.

The piece of art which emerged from the water. There is a awesome bridge, built in the sixteen century, which stays at the bottom of a reservoir. The bridge is a renaissance piece of civil art built over a roman one . It was submerged when the reservoir was built in 1998. Nowadays, due to the severe drought we are suffering, the bridge has emerged from the water and many people take advantage of this to visit it. I went to visit it last Sunday. It wasn´t easy to find because it is in an old road cut by the water, but I reached to it at the end. What surprised me the most was the perfect condition in which it remained in spite of having been sumerged along almost twenty years.

Graffiti, art or vandalism. Wikipedia defines art as any activity or product made by human being with an aesthetic or communicative finality, whereby you can express ideas, feelings or your vision of the world, with different elements such as plastics , linguistics, corporal resources. So, is graffiti an art or is it an act of vandalism?. This is a very controversial issue with different opinions depend on the person you ask. Some consider it as a way to express creativity but others argue that graffiti should be punished. Walking by the city, I can daily see some graffitis in walls , bridges or facades that are utter art pieces. They express ideas, feelings and a particular vision of the world. Nevertheless , they are not always in the proper place. Some buildings and facades are pieces of art by their own. I neither consider as art a graffiti that covers a train window or traffic signal, nullifying their use. Art should not make life difficult but the contrary. From my point of view, which could never be considered as art are all the signatures that only try to show that their authors were there and cause a huge cost to the city council and shop-keepers.

A book synopsis. Palm in the snow. The story revolves around two historical periods. The first one nowadays, when Clarence, one of the main characters ,finds a letter and discovers a familiar secret which roots are in 1953. In that year her father and her uncle went to Equatorial Guinea to work as foremen in a cocoa farm. She travels to this country and tries to discover that secret. She finds a territory hurt after years of instability, dictatorships, disappearances and absence of freedoms. She also finds two brother, one of them seems to have some relation with her family. The parallel story is set in 1953 when her father Jacobo and her uncle Kilian travel from the Pyrenees of Huesca up to the Spanish colony of Fernando Poo (at present Bioko), island of Equatorial Guinea, to be employed at a plantation of cocoa where their father was the manager. There Kilian falls in love with a native, a forbidden love in those times in which any lines could not be overstepped.