Spanish words for writing, reading, printing, communicating

  

Countries where Spain is an official language.

Spanish - English

arreglar - to fix

candidato - candidate

capitulo - chapter (not capital letters)

chatear - to chat

comunicar - to communicate

conciertos - concerts

en persona - in person

escritor - writer (like the words scribe, and script and manuscript)

firmar - to sign (confirm)

gol - goal

grupo(s) - group(s)

historia - history

libro - book

novela - novel

politica - political

problema - problem

vegano - vegan

English - Spanish

book - libro

chapter - capitulo

to sign - firmar

You fill in the rest.

Useful Websites for translating and learning Spanish

duolingo.com

translate google

wikivoyage Spanish phrasebook

-ends-

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Camping, on Brownsea Island Enid Blyton"s Famous Five Setting, Amid Wildlife - Recalling Squirrels, Snakes & Dragons

 I visited Brownsea Island with the tourist board to see the red squirrels from a hide. Just a side trip from Poole harbour, where we had previously visited Poole Pottery. 

No camping necessary. But, apparently, some people like the idea of camping overnight, not to save money, but because it evokes memories of Enid Blyton's books about the Famous Five.

The Joys Of Camping

I tried camping once as a teenager. It is one step worse than hiking. I discovered to my horros, that instead of the mere inconvenience of walking carrying your water, looking for a bush to go to the toilet, when camping overnight, you have to trek in the dark, stumbling over the tree roots, which might make you wet yourself with shock, to a smelly communal toilet. 

Modern camp sites with spaces for caravans, and swimming pools and toilet blocks are another matter. I have enjoyed those. For no more than one night for the novelty. I am not typical, even within my own family.

My husband is enthusiastically off camping. Putting up his own tent in the garden for practice. He stays three nights in splendour, then goes camping. Whilst I am jealous of the three nights in splendour, I think I'll be grateful to stay home. Reading about him and others. 

Enid Blyton & Brownsea Island

Here's today's good read, which I enjoyed, about the island immortalised by Enid Blyton in her books about the Famous Five. It's Brownsea Island in Poole, Dorset. It has red squirrels. 

Okay.  I'll watch a video of red squirrels. I have foxes and grey squirrels in London. 

Singapore Wildlife - Starting With Snakes

In Singapore, after seeing the snakes in the first six months, for the next thirty years I was cautious and never saw a snake. I lived in a high rise. 

My husband went running in the jungle..He saw snakes regularly. He entusiastically approached them with his camera. 

Whilst his retreating companion shouted to him, "Back off!" 

Larger than snakes are the crocodiles in the sea. And the komodo dragons on land.  

He also had a video of a hissing, long tongued, dragon, like a crocodile. Not a komodo dragon, from Indonesia, but the common or garden kind you get in Singapore in the Botanical Gardens - roaming freely. 

It was behind a chain link fence, the height of a tennis court, outside the Ministry of Defence buildings, inside their grounds, behind a chain link fence. I don't think the monster was an official part of the defence. They had signs warning about soldiers with machines guns, but no warning signs saying, beware of the dragon.   

At home, we were protected by a team of gardeners and security personnel who walked or cycled about.

American Wildlife\

I saw snakes in America. On trails through national parks. Forget that idea that snakes scuttle away. These were laying across the paths. warning signs were every few yards.

London Wildlife

I already have more wildlife in my life than I need. I had a nasty insect bite. I slept in pyjamas in summer heat for a fortnight. (For the enlightenment of any Chinese readers who don't knw the word Fortnight, it's short for fourteen nights, and days. It means two weeks It's a British everyday expression.)

Other Blyton Locations

You can see a plaque to Enid Blyton in south London. 

A model of a house connected to her is in Beaconsfield Model Village in Buckingham shire, a short trip from London. 

Should you be in Singapore and want to see a Komodo dragon at a safe distance, investigate what can be seen at the zoo. More are in zoos around the world, in the UK and USA at the Bronx zoo, the Smithsonian in DC and several more places.

Useful Websites

 Recapturing the joys and sorrows of camping, famous five style.

Video of Brownsea Island

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/dorset/brownsea-island?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Blyton

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Enid_Blyton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon

https://www.slow-travel.uk/post/historic-writers-houses-you-can-visit-in-england

w.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/england/dorset/brownsea-dorset-famous-five-blyton-wv7wccfwh

Please share links to your favourite posts. My books are on Amazon.com and Lulu.com 

Writers, Singers and Actors at Swanwick Writers Summer school

Potatoes. The way to my heart is through potatoes. A restaurant, hotel or conference centre can do no wrong, in my eyes, if they serve potatoes.




Chocolate cake. Alas, they say, a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.

However, I have my moment with the man in the kilt.

He does look better with a girl his height. 

On the last night people dress up in their finery - or national costumes, in this case on the right, Scottish tartan complete with sporran. 

Geoff Parkes told us how to sell niche books. 

Then he taught us grammar, to be sure we had books which deserved to be sold. His books on grammar were sold in the Book Room.

All pictures by photographer Angela Lansbury, taken at Swanwick writers Summer School. For details of next year's event and more photos and information, see previous posts.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker.

Angela Lansbury, the writer not the actress

A fellow writer has written to me a cordial letter from which I extract:

• "I have watched with interest several of your YouTube videos ...  .  I find confusing the many manifestations of your name, and wonder why you chose to adopt that of a nationally-known actress.  I can imagine what a lot of explaining I would have to do whenever you came up in conversation!"

I am not the only person in the world to have the same name as somebody else. In many offices employing over 100 people there are two or more with the same first name, and every so often you find an office where two people have the same first name and family name.

Nor am I the only person in the world to have the same name as somebody (older) whose world wide and internet success and fame has overtaken mine.

I did not choose to have the same name as a nationally known actress. 

The Family Name Change
I admit that my father changed the family surname after World War II before I started school to something which was not European but English. Unfortunately I did not record that I ever asked my father why he chose Lansbury. 

If I did, he probably answered, non committally  as he would have done, that it was just an English name. He was a practical person, ran a small optician's shop, later a second shop, and had no interest in fame. 

My father was a quiet man. He went deaf in one ear, which limited conversation. I realise, whilst typing this for you, that being deaf also accounts for liking for reading books, but also his lack of interest in anything requiring listening: radio and TV, films and theatre, concerts, nor opera. After WWII both of my parents preferred to live a quiet life. 

George Lansbury
Let's go back to the name Lansbury. My father grew up in the East end of London. George Lansbury was known for defending the seamstresses and my father's mother had been a seamstress. The name Lansbury would have been known to both my parents. However, I doubt whether they ever checked on how widespread the name was, whether it was common or distinctive. 

Many people changed their name. Something English sounding and easy to pronounce. Easier to make friends. More memorable for a business. Moss Brothers was originally Moses Brothers. Marks and Spencer.

However, my mother was the one who pushed for a change of name. Her family had been in England, for four generations, more than my father's three. My mother's family had been born in England, speaking English, for four generations.

My maternal grandmother (mother's mother) chose my first name. My mother chose the middle name Angela.

I preferred Angela. It sounded more feminine. I was a girly girl. I liked pink and pretty dresses. I liked frills. I liked to sit and sew.

When I went to primary school (known as elementary in the USA) the teacher called me Angela by mistake because another girl with the same length hair had sat in the same seat the previous year. The teacher appoogised. I obligingly told her it was OK because it was my middle name and I preferred it.

My grandmother died whilst I was still at primary school, so my mother was happy to call me Angela, matching the name I was called at school.

Unfortunately, when I went to grammar school, the teachers reverted to my, now unfamiliar, first name. I endured four years of this, until, worst of all, at O level year we read Hazlitt. Another pupil decided to nickname me Hazlit. Then somebody else decided that was too complicated and called me Hazel Nut. Finally worst of all, I was nicknamed Nut.

When I got to university I took the opportunity to r e v e r t to Angela. (Spaces inserted because predictive text inserts recent.)

As a schoolchild I spent evenings doing homework. TV showed one programme, BBC, Dixon of Dock Green. I did not go to films with my parents. 

When I went to university, I took a trip to the USA. I was delighted that reception in a grand hotel remembered my name Angela Lansbury. 

Imagine my surprise when I went out into the street and saw my name in lights. There was another Angela Lansbury.

For a brief period I added an H before my name. It didn't make any difference. I was still known as Angela and had the same conversations about my name. It just made my signature pretentious and caused confusion about my having two names.

I wrote features and travel articles and several books under my maiden name. When I married my husband insisted that I took his name.

When I started to look for email addresses and websites, my name had already been taken by other people called Angela Lansbury (I know of four of us, the actress, two authors, and one other person).

The names Angela and Lansbury are both legitimate names used by me on documents, not just nicknames, not just pen names. However, I also have other names from other periods of my life, which causes some confusion.

In many other cultures women have two names, their maiden name and their married name. Most people stick to their first married name, even if they divorce and re-marry, in order to have the same name as their children.

Liz Taylor, the actress, is a case of a person who because well-known under a name, and kept using the same name even when she married somebody of a different surname.

I once phoned Alton Towers to speak to the PR/marketing. I left a message, "Please tell Liz Taylor that Angela Lansbury would like to speak to her."

Liz Taylor, the marketing lady, spoke to me on the phone and never mentioned the fact that either of us had the same name as an actress. No doubt she had wasted enough company time doing that to other people and knew that I would understand.

When I go onto Facebook and search for a friend or acquaintance, I usually find at least three people with the same name. Businesses have problems when somebody of the same name opens a business on the other side of the world. You also have problems if anybody of the same name is associated with any kind of criminal activity. 

Worse still, newspapers merge your details with somebody else's. Easily done as people's lives overlap. Angela Lansbury the actress and I both have sons called Anthony. (She has three more children of different names.) 

In some cultures and countries a name is given to everybody in a group. Huge numbers of people are given the names Mohammed or Mary. John Smith is very common. 

I went to teach English to a girl living in Wembley whose family name was Patel. I thought it would be easy to ask where the Patels lived. After finding I was at the wrong house, I asked again. Another family called Patel lived across the road. Then I discovered that several, almost all the people in that small cut de sac were called Patel. 

In Singapore you find many people called Lim, or Wong. To claim a lottery ticket, or many other items, you have to show your national identity number. 

My family think it's pretentious of me to put letters after my name. But in Asia it is a requirement. It helps identify which department you are visiting and which level of employee you are due to meet. This spares the receptionist the embarrassment of introducing the head of the company to the office junior. It saves wasting time. It starts conversation. it helps socially. Introduce two scientists to each other. Two writers. Two students. Two heads of department. Two engineers. Two accountants. Two members of Toastmasters International.

Angela Lansbury, BA Hons, CL, ACG.
English teacher and tutor.
Travel writer and photographer, researcher, author and speaker.
Author of twenty books including:
Wedding Speeches and Toasts.
Quick Quotations.
Who Said What When.