Christmas has been and gone and I haven’t written anything.
Nothing about the beating of the Tio, nor the traditional Catalan Christmas dinner of Escudella i carn d’olla.  I haven’t shown you the Christmas market in Barcelona nor the nativity scene in Plaça St Jaume.  No photos of bubbling cava or delicious turrons……nothing!  Res!  Niente!  Nada!
Sorry. I have just been so involved in getting the dogs settled here in their new home and trying to find a rhythm that allows me time for myself between sorties to the plaça with anxious Bonnie, hyperactive Duna or slow Blue or some combination of those three. I haven’t been to Barcelona at all and I didn’t go to  beat the Tio and sing ‘El Noi de la Mare’ this year.
But I did finally make it into Granollers centre to look at the Christmas market. It’s not really very exciting compared to the Santa Lucia one in Barcelona but I did take a good look at the figures for the all important nativity scenes and bought a little set for home

I remember unpacking the nativity scene was one of the lovely parts of Christmas in Troon when I was young. We used to set them up inside a toy garage which must have deeply influenced my idea of the stable in Bethlehem.
If you have been following this blog at all you’ll know that Catalunya has a strong tradition of scatalogical customs. the beating of the Tio is to make it shit presents. and in the nativity scenes, the pessebres, there must be somewhere hidden a caganer, a little man with his trousers down shitting in the bushes

I bought one of these for a friend but couldn’t decide on one for our pessebre so for the moment it has only Josep, Maria, Jesus, a donkey, (by the way did you know the donkey or burro has been adopted as a symbol of Catalunya and many cars have a bumper sticker with one on it?) and a cow, una vaca. Oh and an angel of course!

Christmas dinner was lovely this year and I have to say much easier now that I can speak a little more Catalan. I took my  own nut roast and ate parts of the typical Catalan dinner.

Of course there was Cava – here’s a glass with icecream mixed in
And a tower of turrons to be carefully demolished like an edible pikastix

The other reason I didn’t write too much was because it’s taken me a bit of time to get settled back in here after all the turmoil of the move and three months in Cornwall where of course I feel totally at ease. I have had some days of feeling like this

but now that the stress of Nadal and Sant Esteve is past I seem to be sniffing the air and, like Blue, finding it full of interesting smells