Sunset industry

Actually that would be sunset in the sense that Gijon's west-end, where its remining shipyard is located, for obvious reasons is called 'Poniente' (sunset). Although shipbuilding activity has decreased, with the closure of one yard in recent times, the remaining yard still employs about 300 and has a reasonably healthy order book for tugs, fishing boats and possibly a ferry.

Moving from sunset to sunrise ('Naciente') we got up and went out fairly early this morning to hunt for a new sofa. There is an area to the east of Oviedo called Colloto where there's a concentration of large furniture retailers. Fourteen from a quick count on Google maps, and another half a dozen in Oviedo itself.  Our living room has too many doors, four in total which limits our possibilities. So I was expecting a physically and mentally tiring and frustrating day trudging around lots of shops where most of what is on offer wouldn't be suitable. Fortunately it didn't turn out like that.

When we got to Colloto we pulled in to the first store we came to. We were almost immedately picked up by a very knowledgable and helpful sales assistant. As soon as we had explained what we wanted and that we couldn't fit any of the chaise-longe type sofas which are all the fashion, she whisked us off to see a sofa which we liked and is suitable. She then took to see a set of living room furniture, TV table, centre table etc, all of which we also liked.  In the space of about half an hour we were sorted. So thank you Adriana for being good at your job and saving us from a stressful day.

We did go into another store atferwards but after a brief glance at a couple of sofas decided there was no point, and so off for a quick cicuit of Ikea as one does, then lunch, then home, then out for a stroll and some photos. Can't resist using up some of my 'extras' quota today.

In other news, this week I enrolled in the Open University's TG089 photography class. Looking forward to it, never having done any kind of photography course before. I think there are a fair number of blippers who've done the course, or it's predecessor T189. I'm not sure whether to take a subscription to Lightroom, which is the course's standard processing tool, but they say that it can be done with other programs so I may try to hack it with a combination of RawTherapee, Gimp etc. We'll see.