Author: Kate Wilson

Amma is in Granollers

~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Here are two images from my day.
I set off at 7.30am to queue for a ticket to receive a hug from Amma and here is the photo of my bike ride home at 3am

Granollers is heaven for cyclists being so flat and it is especially wonderful at night when there is no traffic and no people getting in your way on the main shopping street.
Amma is here for three days and the sports centre where she can be seen is right down the road from our house. It is a long straight road with a breast shaped mountain at the end.

It was a good day.  I felt more at home there than the first time I went two years ago.
It is hypnotic watching the people receiving their embraces.
She is incredible – I left just now around 3am and she was still receiving people, still smiling.
There is live music and chanting throughout the day – again it felt more familiar and less alien than last time. Something has changed for me in these two years! 
I found myself thinking that perhaps at last I am ready to visit India!
One thing that has not changed is my love of a masala dosa.

All the food was wonderful.  Made by volunteers in huge kitchen tents.
Some women sitting opposite me smiled across the table seeing how happy I was to be eating it in Granollers.   The drink is a mango lassi. Oh Indian restaurants – I miss you.

Bilingual

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

I am watching the news on TV3 one of the Catalan television channels. They are reporting on a fire which killed three women yesterday in Sabadell, a city 20km north-east of Barcelona.  The report is in Catalan, the neighbours interviewed speak in Spanish (castellano) and the story moves seamlessly from one language to another. No voice-over. No subtitles. This is because people who speak Catalan are all bilingual so they have no problem switching between languages.
Interestingly in the recent furor over possible independence one of the criticisms I heard from Spanish speakers is that Catalans only speak one minority language. Actually it is the rest of Spain who only speak one language. People here in their daily lives are constantly moving between two – and in our home – three!

I try to imagine this happening in the UK – that the news is broadcast in two languages and changes from one to another with no warning or explanation. It is one of those things that make life here fascinating.

Meanwhile I wonder how many more years before I can understand all that is said on the news!

Family Life

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

A little change of subject.
One of the hardest things about The Catalan Way for me – in fact THE hardest thing – is having to cope with life in the same house as an adolescent who isn’t my own one. I am trying to act as though he is but of course the reality is different. We don’t have the shared history that would make me feel secure in myself. I am the intruder.

Right now, in the kitchen, he and two friends eating toasted sandwiches and drinking milk/juice.
Harmless of course – and nothing bad is happening. None of them are rude or bad mannered.
But I feel awkward and ill at ease. I go in there and the room goes silent. I come out and they start talking and laughing. Am I sure they aren’t laughing at me?  They close the door so I know I am not welcome

I know I know. Everyone finds this age quite difficult to deal with.
 But when it is in another language, in a house that is more his than mine, in a family that I only joined three years ago, it makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable.  I am always walking a thin line anyway, trying my best to feel a part of this world but this situation, and of course this is not the first time, always makes me feel sick with nerves. I do not feel confident and who better to reveal this in its nakedness than a group of 17 year olds.

I tried to chat – but what language do I use?  Do I fumble around in Castellano or Catalan?  Do I just speak English and know that they don’t really understand me or they feel I am ‘that weird British woman’?   Do I ignore them and make my tea in silence while they wait for me to go? 

I feel my body tighten up. I struggle anyway to communicate but this situation really puts me to the test and, as so often, today I fail.

La Molina

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

We took the train from Canovelles Granollers Nord on Saturday, risking snow and freezing temperatures to go to the mountains to look for mushrooms.
Ah the mushroom hunt!  It always takes place in wooded areas and you can’t walk along the main pathes but must bend and twist under branches and through thickets.
All very slowly!
For me it is an act of love to go along as I want to walk fast and forward, especially when it is so cold.  I don’t think I am a natural mushroom hunter and I am not crazy about eating them either.
But the colours were lovely

 The area around La Molina where we got off the train was almost deserted

 Except for fierce looking cows with large horns which would appear as if from nowhere to scare us

 The town itself is hardly a village and almost all the houses were shuttered up as it’s not skiiing season yet. I suppose this is what a resort looks like in the low/dead season

 There were three lonely cafes open and when we went into the one by the station we were the only customers.  When we came back to catch the train home the temperature had dropped radically and the station was as totally empty as the town. For about 20 minutes I considered the prospect of being marooned there – freezing to death without even a hotel or a taxi to save us.  But the train arrived and we were warm at last and Bonnie slept all the way back.
Bonnie had a lovely day and we found many mushrooms, some of which we ate on getting back home…..and survived.

And there was a Dolmen -always a nice reminder of Cornwall.   Next post will be more on the mushroom theme but here are some crocus I found on the way – such a surprise!

Barça-Celtic

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

I was quite surprised when the Resident Adolescent agreed to accompany me to see this match in Camp Nou. It was us alone – just us – noone else to help or hinder us. It’s not like we are great friends. We’re not big enemies either but you know how it is with a 17 year old especially if they are not your own son?  The step mother/son relationship is not always easy and has a huge heavy weight of baggage attached to it. Too many unexpressed emotions and not enough shared experience to carry you over the humps. Then there is the teenage  refusal to communicate.  How on earth are you supposed to make friendly contact when you are creatures from different planets?  And we had never been out together alone before.

Well, perhaps going to see Barça play at Camp Nou might bring us together.

Amazingly, we had a great time. We travelled by train and metro and foot and stopped off for a drink and something to eat. You have to talk a little when you are sharing a patatas bravas!  We chatted.  I overcame my shyness enough to ask relevant questions about discos and DJs and exams and football and he overcame his enough to answer and even smile.
I didn’t retreat behind my Kindle and nor did he behind his mobile phone.
Success!
We had great seats, right behind the corner so we could see Messi and Xavi close up

We were surrounded by kindly good-natured Barça fans except for two feisty Glasgow wifies sitting behind us who bravely chirped “Cel-tic  Cel-tic” every time that the crowd bellowed “BARÇA BARÇA”

The only false move I made was to scream and shout when Celtic got the first goal.
‘Sorry! I know I embarrassed you. But I couldn’t help it’.  He was mortified but too polite to complain.
For a few golden minutes Celtic was in the lead at Camp Nou

Afterwards as we walked away from the stadium it was me who felt embarrassed. Somehow the loud drunken chanting and bravado of the defeated Scottish fans, although harmless, seemed immature in comparison to the quiet chat of the Barça crowd.  It’s not that they are quiet during the game – our neighbours kept up a constant steam of oathes whenever it seemed that Barça was doing badly.
I learnt some new swear words although in the main it was the usual, puta mierda, collons, Ostia, cony. But after the game – friendliness and calm.

In the bar before the match one green and white clad Glaswegian fan insisted on shaking hands with all the men at this table of Catalans. ‘Good luck to you all’ he said as he pumped each arm.

So it’s not lack of good will that makes the Scottish fans seem edgy and pugnacious but perhaps an excess of alcohol?  Or is it just a different football culture?  Or insecurity?  Or that strange inferiority complex that can afflict us?   It feels like an anger that can easily bubble to the surface – something in the tone even of the chants.  I can’t imagine ever wanting to go to a football match in the UK – the seam of aggression that lies below the surface would scare me but I don’t feel that fear at Camp Nou.  As I have said before, Scotland and Catalunya – not really that similar.