THE GRANDMA MEETS WITH ELI POPPINS IN MIRAVET

Eli Poppins and The Grandma in Miravet

What have in common Eli Poppins and The Grandma? Lots of things but mainly their passion for numbers, Science, stones and History. There's something that can unite all of these terms in one: The Knights Templars. 

Since Eli Poppins decided to live in Miravet, a small village in the Catalan county of La Ribera d'Ebre in Tarragona, The Grandma tries to visit her as many times as she can.

Today, The Grandma is in Miravet enjoying a wonderful day with Eli Poppins who is going to explain to us the History of this amazing place.

More information: Domus Templi

Miravet is a little village located in the middle of the Terres de l’Ebre, in the middle of a beautifull landscape between mountains, the River Ebro and a leafy bank forest. You can enjoy the view by crossing the river with the ferry.

Miravet i son Castell Templer by Leonardo di Ferrari.

Arriving in Miravet on the ferry that crosses the Riber Ebro, the last one of its type that has been conserved in the Terres de l’Ebre, is an unique experience. 

Today, of course, a medieval tax is no longer charged for the crossing, and though cars are now transported, the ferry still uses the river current as its only driving force.

Making use of a crag, the Moors decided to found the, nowadays, Old Village, and crowning the rock, the great castle, rebuilt by the Knights Templars and transformed into a fortress-monastery, after the conquest of 1153. 

More information: Catalonia-Valencia

It is considered to be the largest fortified complex in Catalonia, and one of the best examples of Romanesque, religious and military, architecture of the Templar order in the whole Western world. It keeps alive the memory of the end of the Knights at the Crown of Aragon, who suffered a 12 month siege, between 1307 and 1308.

Catalan painter Joaquim Mir in Miravet, 1929

The other architectural treasures are in the Old Village, the Old Church by the Hospital order, dating from the Renaissance and unique in its style throughout the Terres de l’Ebre, it conserves the original stone altar from the castle, the remains of wall paintings and somes expositions. In contrast to this, we find the Islamic Arch for the Aljama-mosque in the backside of the church, and the Sanaqueta balcony over the river.

The clay pottery, the most ancestral tradition that is conserved in Miravet and in the Terres de l’Ebre, has for centuries seduced visitors who came to this town, and can now be see in Miravet.

There are still eight workshops, which are located toghether in the Raval quarter. There masters can be found making pieces by hand and still using the potter’s wheel; with shapes and glazes introduced from the Islamic world, such as pitchers,vats and jars. 

Download The Military Orders in Catalonia

Don't forget to visit these places, then:

-The River Ebro and the landscapes.

-The traditional ferry crossing the river without motor.

-The Old village: dockyard, watermill, arcades, Aljama arch, Jewish street, watchtower and Sanaqueta balcony.

-The Old Church (XVI-XVII c.): nowadays, a cultural monument for concerts and exhibitions, temporary and permanent. You can visit it with a local guide from the Information Point.

-The Templar Castle (XII c.): a Government of Catalonia heritage site.

-Blores Route: following medieval paths through archaeological remains to the watermill.

-The potters workshops and the traditional pottery, in Raval Quarter.

Templar is truly a fearless knight, and secure on every side,
for his soul is protected by the armor of faith,
just as his body is protected by the armor of steel.
He is thus doubly armed and need fear neither demons nor men. 

AD 1135 by Bernard de Clairvax

THE SUPERMOON FROM PALOMAR OBSERVATORY, CA

Joseph de Ca'th Lon with the Hale Telescope

Today, Joseph de Ca'th Lon is in Palomar Observatory, in San Diego, California. 

He's following an Eli Poppins proposal: watching the supermoon tonight, and the best place to do it is in an astronomical observatory.

If he chose the Montsec Observatory in Àger to see The Draconids, now he has decided to travel to the West Coast of the United and honour an important astronomer, George E. Hale
 

A supermoon is the coincidence of a full moon or a new moon with the closest approach the Moon makes to the Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest apparent size of the lunar disk as seen from Earth. The technical name is the perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system.

 

The term supermoon is not astronomical, but originated in modern astrology. The association of the Moon with both oceanic and crustal tides has led to claims that the supermoon phenomenon may be associated with increased risk of events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but the evidence of such a link is widely held to be unconvincing.

The supermoon behind The Parthenon, Athens

The Moon's distance varies each month between approximately 357,000 kilometers and 406,000 km due to its elliptical orbit around the Earth, distances given are centre-to-centre.

 

A full moon at perigee is visually larger up to 14% in diameter, or about 30% in area, and shines 30% more light than one at its farthest point, or apogee.

More information: Time and Date

The full moon cycle is the period between alignments of the lunar perigee with the sun and the earth, which is about 13.9443 synodic months, about 411.8 days. Thus approximately every 14th full moon will be a supermoon. However, halfway through the cycle the full moon will be close to apogee, and the new moons immediately before and after can be supermoons. Thus there may be as many as three supermoons per full moon cycle.

More information: The Supermoon Patterns
 

The Supermoon in New York City

Palomar Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in San Diego County, California, The United States, 145 kilometers southeast of Los Angeles, California, in the Palomar Mountain Range.

 

It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) located in Pasadena, California.

 

Research time is granted to Caltech and its research partners, which include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Cornell University.
 

The observatory operates several telescopes, including the famous 200-inch Hale Telescope and the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope. In addition, other instruments and projects have been hosted at the observatory, such as the Palomar Testbed Interferometer and the historic 18-inch Schmidt telescope, Palomar Observatory's first telescope, dating from 1936.

More information: Palomar Observatory, San Diego

George Ellery Hale (1868-1938) was an American solar astronomer, best known for his discovery of magnetic fields in sunspots, and as the leader or key figure in the planning or construction of several world-leading telescopes; namely, the 40-inch refracting telescope at Yerkes Observatory, 60-inch Hale reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, 100-inch Hooker reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson, and the 200-inch Hale reflecting telescope at Palomar Observatory.

 

More information: Amazing Space 

Like buried treasures, the outposts of the universe have beckoned to the adventurous from immemorial times. Princes and potentates, political or industrial, equally with men of science, have felt the lure of the uncharted seas of space, and through their provision of instrumental means the sphere of exploration has made new discoveries and brought back permanent additions to our knowledge of the heavens. 

George E. Hale

CREATING A STORY: ELI POPPINS

WHO? Eli Poppins

WHERE? In the net

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? A web page

I’m a very creative person. For this reason, one day I decided to create a web page with the help of a friend. We wanted to talk about allergies and all this kind of things that affect children. The web was a great success and we are attending lots of questions nowadays. We want to improve the web and dedicate more hours but it’s a little more difficult being a worker mother.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. 

Scott Adams

GOODBYE CALIFORNIA! HELLO WASHINGTON DC!

Yesterday, The Poppins took a look over pronouns and Some/Any/No compounds and read a new chapter of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The family is learning some new grammar without having the pressure of studying it. They have been working very hard during two months to arrive to this point and they’re obtaining the results.

Eli Poppins offered a conference about her own web. She’s a clever and curious person who wants to get answers when she has questions. This aptitude is very important in life because you don’t accept the reality in the way that is offered but in the way that you discover and check.

More information: Object Pronouns

Finally, The Poppins wrote incredible compositions, a new demonstration about how much knowledge they’ve acquired.

More information: Some & Any Compounds

The family wants to stay this weekend in Washington DC because they have interesting things to do and The Grandma desires to visit Abraham, an old friend.

Today, they’re going to meet some superheroes and discover that they only exist in the paper format and in our dreams because we’re the real heroes.

We are all now connected by the Internet, 

like neurons in a giant brain. 

Stephen Hawking

ELI POPPINS & CLUBMADRES.COM

Eli Poppins & Club Madres

Hi, I'm Eli Poppins and I'm here to explain to you my last project: clubmadres.com.

When, the other day, Susanna Poppins showed us her project I thought in a web in which I write some articles about the maternity. The web was made in 2008 by an old friend, who is an expert in internet,and me.

We thought that when we have a problem, we search the solution in the net and because both of us were mothers and we had learnt a lot about pregnacy, babies, health and education, we decided to write our experiences in well-written articles.

At the beginning, we started with well-known themes like allergies because our children had and have a lot of them and we had some knowledge in this theme. We felt very happy.

After, we started to receive books from the publishers and we read them and wrote some articles about them.

Nowadays, we have less time and we don't write as frequently as we would like but, however, the web has lots of visitors.

More information: www.clubmadres.com

  

Goodnight, my angel, time to close your eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you've been asking me
I think you know what I've been trying to say.

Lullabye (Goodbye, My Angel), Céline Dion

SCIENCE: EPPUR SI MUOVE!

Top Gun

Yesterday, The Poppins studied passive voice in present and past. They read another new chapter of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and they worked with more elaborated texts. Moreover, they learnt how to create compounds using some adverbs and past participles. After some exercises of phonetic, the family has encouraged themselves to relax during some days to prepare the final exam in better conditions.

More information: The passive voice - Present Simple

They visited Ulisses in SeaWorld under a terrible hot climate and they reminded old personal stories plenty of actions with nightmares, beaches and dangerous holy bibles.The Grandma has talked about two people very admired by her: Manel Esteller and Valentí Fuster. It was another interesting day because this family is a box plenty of surprises.

More information: The passive voice - Past Simple

The family is finishing their Californian trip. The Grandma wants to visit Miramar to meet an old friend, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a pilot who was Grandma’s lover in 1986. After, she wants to travel to Washington to visit another old friend but she prefers to ask her family before. 

Today, Eli Poppins is going to offer something incredible to the rest of the family. They’re intrigued.

There are four kinds of people in the world: 

those who make things change;

those who aim to ensure that things do not change; 

those who watch how things change 

and those who wonder at what point things changed.

Valentí Fuster

GET MARRY? CONVINCE ME THAT I'M WRONG

The Grandma and her new boyfriend in Australia

Today The Poppins have returned to their English classes. They’ve returned talking about Past Simple and doing some exercises.

They’ve been some intensive days of trips around Australia and now they’re in Sydney resting and waiting Núria Poppins’ arrival.

Tomorrow, Núria will join the family again and explain to them all her adventures in Scotland.

More information: Past Simple

For other hand, The Grandma is sad. While Esther, Laura, Irina and Saharay have new boyfriends, all the family is against the relationship between The Grandma and Dave, her new friend. She can’t understand why they don’t accept the idea of a future marriage between them.

After listening to all the members of the family, she is very affected and sad and she feels alone only with a little help and comprehension of Eli & Esther Poppins her anchors in this difficult moment.

Finally, she has decided to take an important decision that will affect the future of her family forever. Tomorrow, we will know the final of this story which seems a little tragic.

 

No one wants advice -only corroboration.

John Steinbeck

PIOU PIOU: WHEN WE DON'T SAY ALL THE TRUTH

Laura's boyfriend

Today, The Poppins has taken a look into the Superlative Adjectives and the Relative Pronouns. 

Because of they were tired and they deserved a special day after a week plenty of emotions, especially when Cristina Poppins said goodbye to the family, they have decided to talk about Group Dynamic and they’ve played to Piou Piou and Memos.  

Tonyi and Eli Poppins have been the winners and they’ve got lots of eggs.

The family has received news from home: Exit had gone to meet new friends and he has returned with a large family.

Finally, The Poppins are ready to leave Brazil where Laura Poppins has found love and travel to Scotland where the Highlands and Nessie are waiting for them and where Núria Poppins must accomplish her dream.

More information: Superlative Adjectives & Relative Pronouns

CRISTINA POPPINS: SO LONG, FAREWELL...

The Poppins

Today, The Poppins have lived an unforgettable day. First, they’ve studied how to use Shall in the polite questions and when to use So or Such. After that, they’ve talked about the importance of filling all the gaps in a web curriculum and about the importance of creating a good networking.

More information: Shall & So/Such

Next, the most important moment has arrived when Cristina Poppins has announced her decision of leaving the family and returning to Águeda, her hometown in Portugal. The family doesn’t know the real ideas of this decision but, of course, they respect and accept it and all of them have encouraged her to follow her new dream.

More information: Portugal's Umbrella Art

Involved by the emotion of the moment, the family hasn’t paid attention to Laura Poppins, who is missing since yesterday. Later, when the excitement of Cristina’s moment has finished, they have started to think in Laura and her possible unknown situation. Eli Poppins, like a detective, has the responsibility of finding Laura and the rest of the family is going to help her in this new search.

 There's a sad sort of clanging
from the clock in the hall
and the bells in the steeple, too.

Coo-coo. Regretfully they tell us.
Coo-coo. But firmly they compel us
to say good bye.

The Von Trapp Family, The Sound of Music

CREATING A PLAN IN SIBERIA

Today, The Poppins have studied the Present Simple in present, past and future. 

Before revising it, they had read the first chapter of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and written some passwords.

Next Friday is going to be a special day for this family because The Grandma is a great fan of Saint George. This is the reason because of she has explained them a part of a long story about the origins of Saint George and they’ve created some links between it and some cultures like Cathars and Gypsies.

More information: Saint George's Church (Cairo, Egypt)

More information: El Camí dels Bons Homes (Catalan Version)

Finally, The Poppins, who are now in Moscow, have thought about preparing a plan to rescue M.Carmen, who is still kidnapped in Siberia. The most part of the members of this family are worried about this situation but there’s a person who has the real clue: Eli Poppins. Why is really M.Carmen in Siberia? Is there a hidden agenda? Which is her role in this story? There are too many questions and no answers. We must wait for news...

Aqueres montanhes
que tant nautes son,
m’empèishen de véder
mèns amors a o son.

Montanhes Araneses, Imne d’Aran