Camille

Rafa and Sofia got married!

Now join hands, and with your hands your hearts.
William Shakespeare

25 APRIL 1974

The Carnation Revolution (Portuguese: Revolução dos Cravos), also referred to as the 25 de Abril, was a left-leaning military coup started on April 25, 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, that effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy after two years of a transitional period.

Wedding

A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of wedding vows by the couple, presentation of a gift (offering, ring(s), symbolic item, flowers, money), and a public proclamation of marriage by an authority figure or leader. Special wedding garments are often worn, and the ceremony is followed by a wedding reception. Music, poetry, prayers or readings from Scripture or literature also may be incorporated in the ceremony.

THE KILLERS

Happy Day!

There was a time

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time...
Susan Boyle, congratulations!

Dates

"The International Day for Monuments and Sites was created on 18th April, 1982, by ICOMOS and later approved at the 22nd UNESCO General Conference in 1983. This special day offers an opportunity to raise public’s awareness concerning the diversity of the world’s heritage and the efforts that are required to protect and conserve it, as well as to draw attention to its vulnerability."

SMILE

ET

CALL HOME..............................

Beyonce - If I Were a Boy

Facts of the day!

The first elephant ever seen in the United States arrives from India.
This happened in 1796.
The elephant is the largest animal on earth!
The name of this nice and cute animal comes from "elaph".
Elaph is a Greek word and means ivory.
There are only two species of elephants: the African elephant and the Asian elephant.
The African elephant lives south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. They need large ears to cool off their bodies. Some live on the flat grasslands, called savannahs, while others live in the forest. The elephants that live in the forest have a smaller body and tusks than the elephants that live on the savannahs.

The Asian elephant is smaller than the African elephant and has smaller ears. Asian elephants live in jungle habitats. It's quite different than the desserts of Africa. Water and vegetation is more plentiful in the jungle. They do not need wrinkled skin to trap moisture or large ears to fan their bodies.
My favourite is Babar!

He's a very intelligent elephant. Yes, he is!
People say that he's got good memory, too.

... Various beautiful flowers, in Vila Viçosa!

Proverbial

April will bring many rain showers.
That'll bring us various beautiful flowers.

I Had an Easter Bunny

I had an Easter bunny,
One day she ran away.
I looked for her by moonlight,
I looked for her by day.
I found her in the meadow
With her babies 1, 2, 3.
So now I have four rabbit pets
To run and jump with me.
sources:poem,here;image:student's drawing,Escola D.Pedro Varela

HAPPY EASTER

THE STORY OF EASTER

Easter is a time of springtime festivals. In Christian countries Easter is celebrated as the religious holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God. But the celebrations of Easter have many customs and legends that are pagan in origin and have nothing to do with Christianity.
Scholars, accepting the derivation proposed by the 8th-century English scholar St. Bede, believe the name Easter is thought to come from the Scandinavian "Ostra" and the Teutonic "Ostern" or "Eastre," both Goddesses of mythology signifying spring and fertility whose festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox.
Traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in colored easter eggs, originally painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of spring, and used in Easter-egg rolling contests or given as gifts.
The Christian celebration of Easter embodies a number of converging traditions with emphasis on the relation of Easter to the Jewish festival of Passover, or Pesach, from which is derived Pasch, another name used by Europeans for Easter. Passover is an important feast in the Jewish calendar which is celebrated for 8 days and commemorates the flight and freedom of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Easter is observed by the churches of the West on the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs on or following the spring equinox (March 21). So Easter became a "movable" feast which can occur as early as March 22 or as late as April 25.
Christian churches in the East which were closer to the birthplace of the new religion and in which old traditions were strong, observe Easter according to the date of the Passover festival.
Easter is at the end of the Lenten season, which covers a forty-six-day period that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter.
Holy Week, the last week of Lent, begins with the observance of Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday takes its name from Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem where the crowds laid palms at his feet. Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper, which was held the evening before the Crucifixion. Friday in Holy Week is the anniversary of the Crufixion, the day that Christ was crucified and died on the cross.
Holy week and the Lenten season end with Easter Sunday, the day of resurrection of Jesus Christ.

A good reason to believe in miracles

The 98-year-old villager, from Tempera, near L'Aquila, yesterday became one of the latest survivors to be dragged from the rubble left by Monday's devastating earthquake in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. For 30 interminable hours, she lay below the ruins of her house, a few miles from the epicentre.
So what did she do to while away the time, not knowing whether she would live or die as rescue workers dug towards her? The answer, it seems, was "crochet".
She was given a packet of biscuits, but had a request that left onlookers even more astonished than before - and gave an entire new dimension to the concept of bella figura (which roughly translates as keeping up appearances). Before leaving for hospital, she said, she wanted a comb.
Dear Lady, thanks for this lesson of behaviour!
Sources: text and photo

(...)

A beautiful place to go, to relax, to walk, to see the river and the bridge. A beautiful view!

Darwin

"Meerkats demonstrate altruistic behavior within their colonies; one or more meerkats stand sentry (lookout) while others are foraging or playing, to warn them of approaching dangers."

A very important invention

Nicolas-Jacques Conté invented the pencil, people say... And they also say that he did it on this day: 6th April.
The crayons were named after their inventor and the Conté Crayons are very popular among artists. They are "a drawing medium composed of compressed powdered graphite or charcoal mixed with a wax or clay base, square in cross-section". Can you understand this definition? Neither can I!!!!
When I was a child, I can assure that pencils were already a very common tool in any student's schoolbag!
Thank you Mr Conté!

SEAN CONNERY

Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA Award winning British actor and producer who is best known as the first actor to portray James Bond in cinema, starring in seven Bond films. In 1987, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. Considered by many in Scotland to be the greatest living Scot, Connery was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in July 2000.

Connery was born in Edinburgh, the son of Euphamia C. "Effie" (née Maclean), a cleaning woman, and Joseph Connery, a factory worker and truck driver. His father was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, while his mother was a Scottish Protestant.
His first job was as a milkman in Edinburgh. He then joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged on medical grounds because of a duodenal ulcer. Afterwards, he returned to the co-op, then worked at other jobs, including a lorry driver, a labourer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, coffin polisher, and bodybuild.

I HAVE A DREAM...

SMILE

APRIL

April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, and one of four months with a length of 30 days. April was originally the second month of the Roman calendar, before January and February were added by King Numa Pompilius about 700 BC. It became the fourth month of the calendar year (the year when twelve months are displayed in order) during the time of the decemvirs about 450 BC, when it also was given 29 days. The derivation of the name (Latin Aprilis) is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the Latin aperire, "to open," in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open," is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of ἁνοιξις (opening) for spring. Since most of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to Venus, the Festum Veneris et Fortunae Virilis being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her Greek name Aphrodite (Aphros).