Verão / Summer (2)

Tem de ser o meu armário favorito. É o aparador do "quarto dos brinquedos" que a Avó fez para a M. e os primos, na casa do Alentejo. Um clássico bem reutilizado. Quando eu era pequena, sonhava ter um quarto feito com estas mobílias alentejanas, como tantas outras meninas.

Em cima, ao pé da ceifeira, está a casinha que fiz há dois anos para o Natal. Em vez de pão de gengibre, esta é feita com cereais de pequeno-almoço, waffles e salgadinhos. Ainda está de pé, mas cada vez se parece mais com as casinhas abandonadas que vejo por todo o Alentejo, à beira da estrada ou perdidas nos montes. Não fosse a sua arquitectura nórdica-natalícia, claro...

This has got to be my favorite cupboard. It’s the cabinet my mother-in-law placed in the playroom she decorated for M. and her cousins, in her country house. A perfect reutilization of a classic. This hand painted furniture, typical of the Alentejo region (in the south of Portugal), is supposed to have distant Islamic influences. When I was a little girl I used to dream about having a bedroom like this, but all in white, as many girls did.

On the top shelf, near the typical doll with peasant clothes, you can see the house we (me and M.) made two years ago, for Christmas. Instead of gingerbread, this house is made with breakfast cereals, waffles, and small salted pretzels. It still stands, but keeps looking more and more like those abandoned little houses I see everywhere, in the interior countryside. Except for its “architectural” style, of course; the traditional houses from southern Portugal have little to do with my attempt to recreate a Christmas cottage with a Nordic flare.