Author: Kate Wilson

Autumn Sun on the Costa Brava

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

I am spending a week at Sant Nicolau with some of my family from the UK
It is lovely to sing together in the church

The weather this October is warm and clear and although the nights are drawing in, it is still comfortable to swim in the warm clear water of the Costa Brava.

Estartit is a seaside town which was originally a traditional fishing village but now is lost within the usual sprawling developments of the 1960’s. However it  is saved by the presence of the Mides Islands which dominate the bay and the hilltop 13th century castle which overlooks the area.

On the way down to Estartit you pass through the beautiful Torroella de Montgri which makes a much better place to stop for lunch.

On Saturday we ate in a tapas restaurant in a quiet square – it’s easy to find

When we returned on Wednesday the kitchen was closed but the waitress recognised me from before and asked the cook if he would prepare us lunch anyway.  Which he did with a smile!
Lovely food and incredibly welcoming service in a very pleasant town

I could imagine living there.
But also, I can’t.
Strangely the longer I live here the more I understand the Catalan way of staying close to home. Granollers is not my home but for now it is the closest thing I have to that mythical place.

Saturday night much needed Vermut

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

As Fly Lady says, ‘you are not behind, just start from where you are’   So……

I’ve just had a friend to stay with me here in Granollers who I haven’t seen for two, or is it three years?  We had one of those wonderful weeks where there is plenty of time to catch up with everything but not in one great gulp.  We let the conversation meander between memories of when we were 6 and first met, to recent life changes, to current concerns, to music, back to families, stories from when we were teenagers, drugs, books and poems, kittens and dogs and everything else in between.

I’ll try to do the same thing now with you, letting the subjects rise and fall in their own rhythm.

Diet
I gave up my fasting diet for the week and ate and drank solidly throughout. It was lovely but now I’ll be returning with pleasure to the 5/2 diet where for 2 days a week you reduce your calories and feel hungry for a change. I’m pushing myself to get fully into kilos and grams and let go of pounds and ounces in more ways than one!

The Foot
Every morning this week I cycled to The Mútua for physiotherapy on my foot.
The journey up through France and north to Scotland then back down again caused a repetitive strain tendinitis in my left ankle.
I now know that this is a common injury and could have been avoided if I had rested more.   It didn’t start hurting until it was too late and by then I still had to drive and walk so compounded the problem.  For two months now it has been hard to walk, not helped by my impatience to take Bonnie out so that as soon it gets better I overdo it again.
I am having Laser and Ultrasound and Tens daily. It’s a sort of DIY system in the clinic where you clean the equipment and get your own ice-packs thus freeing up the staff to spend more time chatting with each other at reception

Art at Last
My friend Christine and I went to an art class in Granollers this week. It is amazing and is exactly what I have been looking for since I arrived but before I could only find classes for children.
We practised mixing colours in acryic paints which was like a meditation and totally absorbing

 I’ve always ended up before with mud brown and now I know why.
For days afterwards we were ‘seeing’ colours all around us. Look at this street corner in Granollers

Did you know that Malva is the Spanish word for Mauve?   And the Malvinas?

Now to get to the biggest theme of the week. The car.
In brief (which is difficult to do when something is obsessively churning around in your head) I bought a left hand drive Spanish registered car when I was in the UK. We drove home in it which meant that I could rest my ******* ankle.  It is a lovely car but when we went to Sabadell to register ourselves as the new owners, we couldn’t. We don’t have the correct paperwork from the UK dealers.
This is Spain. You need the correct papers and lots of them.  It is all a terrible muddle and errhhhh!
It has driven me crazy these past two weeks.  Very luckily we were able to get it through the ITV which is nothing to do with television but is the Spanish equivalent of the MOT.   You don’t need  to be the owner at the test.  The car is insured but that is it –  we don’t legally own it, there are several outstanding debts on it, we are not able to pay the road tax as we are not the owners…….. and the phone calls to the dealers are no fun.  I’m sure there will be a follow up to this saga….

That’s it for now then. If you are interested in seeing lovely photos of our town then can I invite you to take a look at the Facebook page Aboutgranollers?   I am building up a collection of images about what was called in the Guardian, this nondescript Catalan town.
And a last picture from today’s walk/limp in Montnegre. These are the trees that give us cork – they look so naked and unprotected after their outer bark has been taken. Think of them when you next open a bottle of wine.  But meanwhile, Salut and have a happy weekend wherever you are.

The Loneliest Emu in the World

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

Last week Bonnie and I went for a walk in Mont Negre with our friends Oreneta and Chuck.
Oreneta had met an angry emu the week before and we decided to avoid that path and stick to the main route. But not far around the corner, at a large watering hole from the recent rain, there she was. She didn’t bother with us, just walked away

Later we were sitting at a view point overlooking Barcelona and there she was again, walking slowly down the hot dusty road. Perhaps she wanted to see if anyone had left food at the picnic area but seeing so many people there she just passed by.   She seemed so lonely there in this alien place.

 A little later she came back and headed back up over the hill. Perhaps she escaped from a worse fate on an emu farm. Apparently emus are great survivors in hard conditions so good luck to her!

For Kate

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

There is a beautiful woman called Kate who lives in Maryland and writes and takes photographs to share on her blog Chronicles of a Country Girl.  Her speciality is nature photography and especially birds, and her border collie George. She has become a friend of mine online, and through our blogs.
Her husband has just died after a long illness and as a tribute to her, several people are sharing photographs of nature on their own blogs to send to her at this time beyond words. 
Here is my gift to Kate, with the words to a poem/hymn written by Tennyson which my mother chose to give to us her family when she died. Picture taken while sailing in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Borrassà

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

People have told me not to look for a house in Borrassà as it smells of pig farming and yes perhaps it does have a country whiffy smell sometimes but so does Lamorna.
I like Borrassà very much.  Every time I arrive in the Emporda I go there for shopping and start relaxing as soon as I park in the small town square.
I don’t eat much meat myself and for most of my life I was totally vegetarian. The idea of pigs being reared in barns upsets me as do the conditions that all animals have to suffer as they live out lives in service to human beings.
But today I am sharing a photo of the butchers in Borrassa

It is strange to find in myself the possibility of liking a butchers shop but I do like this one. 
They are very friendly and non-intimidating. I don’t have any anxiety when I go in even thought I am not in my natural element – I have to speak Catalan and I need to talk meat about which I am almost completely ignorant.

So why do I go there?

To get food for Bonnie of course. After her tick disease I changed her diet onto one of raw meaty bones and it has taken me into many butchers shops and turned me at last into something more like a typical Catalan housewife.

I ask about liver and kidney, I buy whole skinned rabbits, I peer with interest at the pigs trotters, I try to buy green tripe (impossible to find so far), I stop the butcher from removing the chicken’s head and feet.
“No, I want all of it!”  I say confidently.

What a difference from the old days!  When I tried to buy chicken breast and came home with all the parts, not knowing what to do with it. Now I would know