Gold. Copa de oro. Gold cup. This post is for our friends in the North, caught up in the drab and grey of winter rain, sleet or snow. Low light and endless nights. Hang in there. Colours will come back.
Blue.
Green.
Orange. Cempazúchitl, flower for the Day of the Dead.
Terracotta. Better safe than sorry: this house is under the joint protection of the Virgin Mary and Saint Karl (Marx). (No tire basura: Don’t throw garbage)
Lava grey. Most of this area in the South of Mexico city was covered with lava and ash by the eruption of a volcano called Xitle (Navel) around 400 AD.
Terre de Sienne. One can find those barred windows all across Latin America. Many of the houses in the area date back to the Spanish “Colony”, around 1700 AD.
Blue. Again. Those typical colonial colours can be found all across Latin America and some areas of Spain and Portugal.
Rosa Mexicano. Mexican pink.
Bougainvillea from the window. Named after Monsieur de Bougainville (1729-1811) a French Navy officer and explorer who completed the first French round the world trip in the 18th century (might have said that before) and brought the flower back from Brazil for the world to enjoy. (Don’t ask me the exact colour of the flower, I am after all slightly colour blind)
Yellowish. (See above)
Ferrari red. This pretty little “thang” keeps visiting someone on the street. A beetle maybe? Such a dalliance.
This in French could only be referred to as “cacadois”. Goose poop. A true colour. Cross my heart. 🙂
To me, just another shade of blue. (Not a whiter shade of pale).
“Sólo por hoy”. Only for today. Mind the green things. Can be hot.
“Somewhere under the rainbow…” (I may have posted several of these. Changed my filing system… breaking the #1 rule: “If it works don’t fix it”)
Bide your time, my Northern friends. Sun and colours will be back. They’ve just taken a vacation South of the border.
I just needed dome colors in this old winter! Very nice post! Bravo 👏
Prego… I’ve had the post ready for a while… Thought it would reach “home” for a few… Buona sera Flavia.
Buona serata a te ☺️
🙂 Anche a te.
I loved these pictures! Not only because of the colours, also for the neat insight in Mexico (City’s) features.
Very good. Any image has several layers of “reading”. Bon week-end Peter.
Wonderful colors! Each day has a color… a smell.
“I must have flowers, always, and always.”said Claude Monet
Flowers are an integral part of our lives. They have the power to instantly refresh and cheer someone. Thank you for sharing!
Cu piacere… 🙂
Indeed Monet’s gardens at Giverny are a testimony to that.
Bon week-end.
en roumain on dit: cu placere = con piacere(en italien!) => avec plaisir, quoi… 🙂 btw, voici le jardin de Monet @ Giverny: https://myvirtualplayground.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/petit-apercu-des-jardins-de-claude-monet-a-giverny-mai-2015/
Merci pour le lien. Giverny est superbe… déjà été 2 fois, en 2016 et 2019…
Cu placere. bien sûr. Cu est facile, ça vient du Latin cum, qui a donné con en Italie et en Espagnol. Placere = plaisir = prazer en portugais. Je me mélange un peu avec l’italien… 😉
Bonne semaine Mélanie
Thank you same to you!… Oh, I love Monet!
Likewise. The impressionists in general. It’s always truck as paradoxical, that (one of) the highest expression of painting was reached at the same time, a new technology would completely transform the art of representation: photography.
Merci, mon ami 😊 Just what the doctor ordered 🤗 Love those colors – even the Mexican pink wall looks amazing, and I don’t usually like pink! Bougainvillea always remind me of the summer I worked in Nice. 😊
Glad you liked it Lumi. Of course you (with a few others) were the intended target…
(I don’t like pink too much but Mexican pink is unique)
Bougainvillea? They will always remind me of Africa. Where I saw them for the first time, in the garden of the house by the sea.
Bon week-end
Oh, and those last two things aren’t connected!
Merci tout plein pour les couleurs, Brieuc ! En effet, les couleurs et la lumière commencent à manquer par ici. Mais le solstice est dans très exactement dix jours après quoi les jours vont rallonger. Quand il n’y a plus beaucoup de couleurs dehors, on les hisse à l’intérieur. Noël tombe bien avec ses ores et ses rouges.
Un chouia daltonien ? Cela explique que le “caca d’oie” soit plus ocre que vert.
Merci encore, Brieuc, et profite bien de ton après-midi.
Très vrai Gilles. On rentre les couleurs en faisant le gros dos. Je n’ai jamais vraiment senti le Solstice en Europe. Pour moi les jours sont courts jusqu’en Février… Bizarre.
Il fallait un Français pour noter que ce cacadois n’est pas tout-à-fait cacadois… (Licence littéraire je pense). En fait ma seule vraie confusion de couleurs concerne les couleurs militaires… entre vert treillis et vrai cacadois… C’est probablement pour ça que mon service militaire a été une épreuve… 😉
Bon ouiquande et tout ça…
Personnellement, je suis très sensible à la lumière. Je pense que je commence à percevoir un lever de soleil avancé de 3 minutes.
Merci et un tout beau bout de semaine à toi également, Brieuc.
May the light be with you then… 🙂
Many thanks, Brieuc ! Have a lovely day.
Il y a de très jolies couleurs d’hiver, chez toi !
Merci pour ce rayon de soleil
Avec plaisir ma grande. C’est un des points forts de ce pays. Même si les journées sont un peu “fraîches” jusqu’en Janvier, la lumière est superbe, car les pluies sont finies… A+
Thank you for the colour shower! The Bougainvillea is pink … 😉
How about “Terracotta” instead of Cacadois? 😀
Already in February we might see the dwarf iris flower, if we are lucky …
LOL. You won’t get me into a colour debate. I’ve evaded it since I was 13 or 14, and realized there were two colours I had difficulty telling apart. Bougainvillea? Actually here, in the garden there are 3 varieties. Blue-purple, reddish-Terracota, and white.
This cacadois is probably more Ocher…
That thing with colours has taught me that “normal” people probably don’t see the same colours. Minute variations.
I se the dwarf iris. Do you have “perce-neige”? Snowdrop in English. Galanthus nivalis?
🙂
Yes I do, they are Schneeglöckchen (little snow bells) in German and Vintergækker (why, oh, why?) in Danish. It means winter fools.
Schnee is snow, right? Glöck must be bell. (Yes! 2 more words)
So gaekker must be fools… That is quite poetic . Only crazy flowers would try to fight the snow. And succeed. Thanks for 3 new words… Tschüss.
Winter has only been here for a few weeks and we have gotten a lot of rain. Ready for spring already!
Where’s the rain when there are fires, right? Do you go to the cabin in winter?
A welcome rainbow on a rainy day in Panama. My favorite was ‘Orange’ Magnificent framing and subject. And all the florals in the post were icing on the cake.
Glad it brightened your day. So you guys are still in Panama?
Those orange flowers I’ve only seen here. They look like orange carnations…
Buon finale di settimana…
Still in Panama and longing to sail to Mexico
Will you stop in Costa Rica? I hear it is gorgeous.
Thank you. I needed that. I love the color and the gorgeous flowers.
Light is the main reason I left Europe… The darkness of winters… Glad this helped…
Thank you for the colors, Brian–much appreciated as the gray day dawns! Bougainvillea has always been a favorite.
Glad to oblige Liz. 🙂
That is a very special flower. The plant is a nightmare, with very sharp thorns… And the flowers are very delicate. One rain, and all is on the ground…
Bon week-end
Some to you, Brian!
Stunning colours, Brian. Especially those lavender blues. V soothing too. And boy do we need soothing – after appalling UK election outcome. Talk about engineered consent.
Glad to help soothing… You of course Memsahib are one of the intended recipients of this post.
Yeah. Just vaguely saw that Boris Judas Johnson has been confirmed. Shakespeare must be turning in his grave. Or Lear’s Gloucester maybe… All the best, rafiki.
Big hug to you, Brian.
All gorgeous! Especially the bougainvillea ( we have them in abundance here) and the graffiti, it’s very cool. 😊
🙂 Bon week-end mon amie.
Bon week-end Brian!
Plenty of nice warm colours … much appreciated!!! Last time I saw the sun was last Saturday, a week ago. I especially loved the bougainvillea … why, if I had those outside my window, I’d stand in the window looking out all day long! Thanks for the colourful post!
LOL. I don’t see the Bougainvillea from my study/library, but I do from another room.
Glad you enjoyed the colours.
Neat! Thank you for the colours. It’s been dark and grey up here for weeks, and it’s still a week to the first day of winter.
I know… I remember my very first winter in Holland, years ago. I couldn’t believe the low light…
Thank you, yes, much as I like winter. – all the seasons – this drenching of colour and light is welcome.
Glad to oblige…
Now for real I wish I was there…cheerful colours Brian cheers from snowy etown ☺️🙃🙂❄️💨❄️
Cheers back. Those colours were for you. (And a few other friends up North)
Very well done. Many of these colours appear over here in lower Tuscany as well except the duck poo and the Mexican pink. How I’d be enjoying this last one!
A good point. Those colours might be common to all Southern Europe. I don’t know East of Italy though. But I remember Praga a few years back, all baroque in colours forgotten under the Russians… Maybe those are just Baroque colours? 🙂
Aaah these colors make me jealous 😪🤣 we have all white around us these days…lol
Colours tend to be stronger in the “South” what’s the festival of colours in India? Not Diwali is it?
Its actually Holi 🙂 Diwali is festival of lights 🙂
Yes! Yes! Yes! Ho-li, Diwa-li. I tend to store words by phonetic resemblance. Don’t know why, just the way my memory works. In this case the final syllable… 🙂
But It’s committed to memory. Thank you.
Wow that’s a great way to remember. No wonder you are such a great curator for your family’s treasured past.
Just the way I’m wired. And I was fortunate to be gifted with a good memory. Now, having said that, most of the photos in the family albums are identified. But those people I didn’t know and have not been identified in writing… their names are lost forever… 🙂 (Even some high school friends I don’t remember the full name.) Don’t forget to put names on your family albums. Whether paper or electronic…
(Don’t forget to put al the
Good tip. I will remember that 😊
Sun makes everything more colorful, I guess 🙂
Quel magnifique arc en ciel. 😉 Oui, il ne faut pas oublier que les couleurs retournent…eventuellement. Merci, mon ami!
Avec plaisir “ma grande”. 🙂
I always associate winter with blue and white or red and green for Christmas. This definitely has been an eye opener.
LOL. Those are colours of the South. I’ve seen very strong colours in Singapore and Penang… 🙂
These are not the colours I’m seeing around Berlin this winter … makes me want to revisit Mexico though. Thanks Brian. A very Merry Xmas to you.
My pleasure. That was the idea. Illegal export of colours… 🙂
Joyeux Noël and all that.
Wonderful
💖
Grazie Luisa. Glad you liked it. Bonne année 2020. 🙂
Pretty.
Colours are a thing of the South… ‘Hope it’s not too cold and grey where you are right now. (Also hope you had a pleasant end-of-year)
Cheers (Phir milenge and all that)
Are you in Paris now? Much to my display, it’s too warm in my neck of the woods.
No, we’re back in Mexico city. After 10 days on the coast of Yucatan with the whole family.
“Too warm”? in New York? 🙂
Quelles merveilles…
Quel plaisir de partager ces couleurs avec tous ceux qui pour le moment sont dans le gris… (Mais le printemps viendra…)
Cette année dans le Finistère c’est à croire qu’il ne viendra plus jamais. Les jours de soleil ininterrompu (au moins pour quelques heures!) se comptent sur les doigts d’une seule main depuis septembre… J’ai soudain des envies sérieuses de prendre la route de l’arrière pays Niçois…
Ah, le Finistère, c’est bien beau, comme la Bretagne (chuis Breton quand même!) mais c’est vrai que le climat est dur. J’ai fait mon service militaire près de Rennes, beaucoup de manoeuvres tout l’hiver, qu’est-ce qu’on s’est caillé… Chère amie, la vie est trop courte pour s’emm…bêter. Si l’arrière pays Niçois te convient… Y’apluka.
Tu as bien raison!
Je ne savais pas que tu étais Breton…?
Mon prénom est Brieuc… Plus Breton que ça…
Mais comme je communique beaucoup en Anglais, j’ai traduit mon prénom par Brian. Vieux prénom Gallois qui est peut-être une traduc…
Effectivement, Brieuc c’est 100% beurre demi-sel!
C’est tout-à-fait ça. Avec une mère de Rennes et un père de Saint-Malo, ça complète… (Je déteste la margarine…) 😉