Merida its a peaceful and lovely colonial town, just a walking distance from the hotel where we were staying at, is the Montejo Avenue, lined with grand beautiful houses in different styles, either French or Spanish styles. Merida prospered quite well by growing henequen or Izamal as some call it, after the port of Izamal where they used to export the ropes and bags made out of henequen. Great fortunes were made out of this industry but unfortunatelly the industry floundered with the invention of plastic
However, plastic bags have been found to rot the grains and its not echologically green as it doesn't degrade back into nature, so the Mexicans are beginning to see an answer in this plant to reintroduce it for commerce as the left-over of the henequen has been discovered by the NASA scientists to be more resistant than plastic in intense temperatures as it doesn't melt like plastic does, on top of this, there is a nice liquour that can be extracted from this plant and even though henequen is related to the agave (the plant that produces tequila) the liquour is completely different in taste to tequila. There are plans in Merida to start re-growing henequen again.
Robert, you would perhaps be interested to know that chilli peppers (without the bit that makes them hot) has been found by the Japanese to increase a person's metabolism
and Japan is marketing this discovery in pills to help people reduce weight.
Jane
Completed Portrait
Jane: Next Steps
Jane: New Portrait
Vanesha: Finished Portrait
Vanessa's Portrait
Ruth's Portrait
Lunch, San Lorenzo
Hotel Christmas Tree
Dinner at the Dorchester
Birthday
Happy Halloween!
Sacre-Coeur
Montmartre by Night
Restaurant Le Consulat
Artists Quarter
Montmartre by Day
Louvre Museum
Pyramid
Cathedral
Notre Dame
Paris
Eiffel Tower
Peter in an Irish Pub
View from our room in Donegal
Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin
Entrance to the City of Ek-Balaam
Tlaloc God of the Rain
Mouth of the Serpent
Angel in Ek-Balaam site
Sculptures in Ek-Balaam
Ek-Balaam
Man on a Ledge
View from our room
Cancun
Hotel Beach
Cancun
Enjoying the sunshine
Ek-Balaam site
Sunset from our room.
Sunset. View from our hotel room.
Posing with a stolen apple.
"Mmm, Cheese!"
"No Mr Blair, I am not Spanish"
"What do you think, M. Sarkozy?"
Farmland
The Shrewsbury Road
Pastels
Farmland
Pastels
Other side of kitchen.
New kitchen
Merida, Mexico
Merida, Mexico
Peter, Maria and Richard Hammond
A Romantic Cruise
Lunch at Merida
Lunch at Cancun
Guest bedroom fireplace
Beams in Office
Master Bedroom fireplace
Patty Spilsbury, my sister
Not exactly a picnic
Towards the Farm
Back of our house
At the back of our home
Snow scenes at home
My son Hector Birchwood meeting Mrs Thatcher.
Hygeia
Work in Progress
Thanks to our camera crew for the photo
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Filming in Ireland: Heir Hunters
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Painting in Progress
Work in Progress
Floodlit Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral, Evening
Early Evening in Lincoln
Painted when I was 13 years old.
Venice
More detail
Our House
Another show for Heir Hunters.
Filming at the Bear
Bear Hotel, Hungerford
Maria, Victoria and Peter
Victoria
Interview
Filming at Denbigh Record Office
Formal night on the 2010 cruise
Black Poodle
The younger Leonardo
Friends from El Salvador in Madrid.
Charlie 2
Sweet Dreams
Charlie
Cat-nap
The Adoration pf the Shepherds
Guido Reni (1575 - 1642)
Lough Rynn Castle Hotel
Leonardo da Vinci
Dog2
Dog
Maria
The Crystal Palace in El Retiro Park
The Royal Palace
The Plaza Mayor
La Cibeles Fountain and the Post Office
The River Manzanares and the Cathedral
Monastery of the Escorial, Spain.
The Royal Palace, Spain.
Birthday Celebration.
Birthday Celebration
Like the wine, I get better with the years.
Maria Spilsbury's Painting
Nudes
Nudes
Nudes
View from our Balcony
Neptune Fountain
Red Roses
View from the back of my House
View from my House
Sra Dina de Spilsbury
My Mother
Port of Isla Mujeres
Our hotel beach
View from Tulum
Tulum
Turtles
Tulum near Cancun, Mexico
Detail of the same Church
La Merced Church, Antigua, Guatemala
La Merced Church, Antigua
Earthquake damage
Church of the Cross
Another Guatemalan Church.
Cathedral, Antigua Guatemala
Parrot and me
Courtyard, Convento Hotel Antigua
Room at Convento Hotel Antigua
Room at Convento Hotel Antigua
Mother and Child
Flowers
About Me
- Maria
- Maria Spilsbury Birchwood started painting at an early age at the studio of the Spanish painter Don Valero Lecha and the muralist Violeta Bonilla, pupil to the great Mexican painter, Diego de Rivera. She received her first commission at the age of 13: a commission to paint a bullfight.When she was in her teens, she entered a competition and learned that she had won first prize. She was presented to the sponsor of the competition,who offered her a scholarship on behalf of the Dante Alligheri Society to study art in Rome. Maria continued her painting studies in Madrid, Spain at the school of San Fernando under the tutelage of the foremost landscape painter Jose Sanchez Carralero. She moved to England where, in 1982, she married forensic genealogist Peter Birchwood. Over the years, Maria has exhibited her work widely in different countries; at the Barbican Gallery in London, in California where she worked as a scenic artist on theatrical backdrops, Bedfordshire, and Wales, where she now lives. A recent commission was to paint the portrait of Liberal Member of Parliament Lembit Opik. The portrait is now hanging in the House of Commons.
Flowers in a Vase
10 comments:
That's nice to see an old industry being revived as a green alternative. I bet this is happening in other areas and with other industries too.
I'll make a note of what you say about the weight reduction, Maria, although I personally don't need to use it. I would imagine it will sell well on the women's counters in department stores, though.
I always knew about the hot peppers making you thin although in my mind I thought it was probably because the hot peppers irritated the walls of your stomach causing them to swell thus making you feel full when in fact that's all you had eaten, now with these Japanese tests, it seems its another ingredient which makes your tummy feel full.
Yes, its nice that an old biodegradable industry is being revived. Also de fishermen's nets are more effient and gentler to nature made out of henequen rather than plastic, since they have found fish which have died by getting choked with this plastic rubbish.
What kinds of fish do they have out there, then? Mexico has coasts so I imagine fish figure prominently on the menu.
Mexico has access to both Oceans: The Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. They have fish like: Sword-fish, trout, tuna, salmon, lobsters and crabs to eat. When you look inside the ocean, you can see Zebra fish, small grey sharks, not the ones that eat humans. Cancun is a coral reef. They have a wide variety of fish. Also Mexico is a paradise for bird watchers as they have: Ospreys, sandpipers, parrots, trogons, kingfishers, woodpeckers, mockingbirds, tanagers, buntings and vultures.
Interesting about the salmon. I tend to associate salmon with colder climes, but they have them in Mexico too.
Interesting about the salmon. I think of them as inhabiting colder climes yet Mexico has them too.
Robert, these days they have salmon
farms. They breed them in special man made canals. The best salmon is the blue salmon which breeds naturally in Antarctica and also in Chile, South America. John Derek the famous American actor and director used to go in his private airplane with close friends to fish in Chile the blue salmon.
They are a very hardy fish, able to fight their way upstream if need be, also their bodies change in order to cope with both salt water and fresh water conditions.
More and more, fish farms are going to be the answer in the future as the oceans are increasingly more polluted with mercury and radio-active waste. There is a nice fish farm in Oxford where they farm trout and the public can buy the food to feed them too. It is really exciting when you see them jumping up from the water as you feed them.
Yes there's a lot of stuff in the sea that shouldn't be there. I cannot swim but even if I could, i wouldn't go into the sea to do it. A public swimming pool would be better.
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