Author: Kate Wilson

Fountains for Dogs

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

There are always lots of drinking fountains around towns in Catalunya.
For a while earlier this year the water was switched off in Granollers and we were thinking it was a money saving decision but now everything is back to normal.
I use them mostly for the dogs and in emergencies when I haven’t taken enough in my bottle.
Almost all the squares have one and walking along the river side you pass several.
It’s one of those things you just don’t see in the UK.

We found this one near the railway line in Granollers – it seems to be specially designed for dogs. The water drains away down the open channel which is good for tongues at all levels.
Duna is good at drinking from any design of fountain but this one was especially easy.

May 20 2012

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

It was grey and humid.
Then it started to rumble with thunder and lightening.
Then the rain came.

Now it is pounding down giant hailstones.

I am sitting reading about todays Planetary alignment – the sun, the moon, the earth and the Pleiades. It is not a full solar eclipse but an annular one which means the moon will not totally block out the sun but sit in the centre and show a ring of fire. Sadly not visible from Europe.  This event and the date May 20th has been associated with Mayan prophecies about great changes in the world in 2012. I’m trying to read about it but much of the Mayan part is very hard to understand unless you are a specialist. This year there are two dates which have attracted attention – today and December 21.
A small village in France is expecting thousands of visitors at the end of the year.

Beginning in 2000, the small French village of Bugarach, population 189, began receiving visits from “esoterics”—mystic believers who have concluded that the local mountain, Pic de Bugarach, is the ideal location to weather the transformative events of 2012.  In 2011, the local mayor, Jean-Pierre Delord, began voicing fears to the international press that the small town would be overwhelmed by an influx of thousands of visitors in 2012, even suggesting he may call in the army. 
“We’ve seen a huge rise in visitors”, Delord told The Independent in March 2012. “Already this year more than 20,000 people have climbed right to the top, and last year we had 10,000 hikers, which was a significant rise on the previous 12 months. They think Pic de Bugarach is ‘un garage à ovnis’ [an alien garage]. The villagers are exasperated: the exaggerated importance of something which they see as completely removed from reality is bewildering. After 21 December, this will surely return to normal.”

I am wondering where I stand in all of this.  I can imagine some people reading this and snorting ‘what a load of bollocks’ (hello you lot!) and others like me finding it tempting to imagine that there are more things to this life than meets the eye and wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the people of the world make some radical change towards something more spiritual and less materialistic and selfish? I am not at all interested in doomsday predictions but neither can I dismiss these things. It’s funny how hard it is to admit this.  It’s something you are supposed to keep secret or be thought a crank.

I also am thinking about the Merry Maidens stone circle which has a link with the Pleiades. I think it makes an alignment on May 1st.  I spent more than 15 years visiting this circle almost every day as it is three minutes walk from my old home. If I was there today I think I would definitely go to visit the stones at 11.53 tonight which is when the planets make their linear connection.  Why not?

A red dress on Market Day

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

I went to the market today, wearing something a bit more cheerful than usual and it’s amazing how this can affect your mood. People stared at me but at least I could imagine this time it was because red attracts attention and not because I look like a weird foreigner

While waiting at one of my favourite stalls I filmed a little so I could see how it felt doing it in public.
Answer – it felt awkward!  Here I am – don’t know why my voice is so squeaky!
It will be another challenge to get comfortable doing this but I’d like to be able to film local sights and it helps if I can talk at the same time.
In the end I did my shopping in Catalan as usual as it doesn’t feel ok speaking in Castellano with people I normally talk to in Catalan. Unless I explain every time what I am doing which sometimes I do, but more often not.

So exciting that the cherries have arrived!
As I was waiting an older woman arrived at the stall and instead of asking ‘la ultima?’ she started buying her stuff although it was obvious I was there first. I really had to squash down the urge to turn away and buy things somewhere else. The guy knew it had happened and was friendly when he came to me so I commented how often this happens to foreigners, that you can end up feeling you are invisible. He listened but didn’t really reply – sometimes I wonder if it is because I haven’t explained it correctly or if it’s just that people here don’t say things like that.
Wondering if my red dress makes me stroppier?  Or perhaps it’s being a year older so I am beginning to feel like the old woman who wears purple and doesn’t care. I also had my toenails painted this week which is another amazing magical way of gaining confidence

Then I went to the olive stall where the man is not very friendly – nothing personal I know as he was the same with Pep one day. After buying three bags of olives and he seemed as grumpy as ever and I couldn’t keep quiet any more. I said – in English with a smile – ‘you are very scary’.  He ignored me totally but as I was just on the point of paying he couldn’t go away so I said it again then translated into Castellano and Catalan…….’tengo miedo de ti’…… ‘tinc por de tu’
All the waiting women in the queue started laughing and said – ‘yes, you are very serious today’ and he laughed too and suddenly the atmosphere was so much better

Funny how you can change things with just a few words.
I wonder if I am changing into someone who says what she thinks – in three different languages?




Warning – When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple


By Jenny Joseph

�

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
and learn to spit.
�
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickles for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.
�
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Happy Birthday!

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

Today was my birthday. I didn’t take a single photo which is most unusual but sort of OK too.

Flowers in the morning from my lovely friend Tiffany
Songs at midday with dearest Pep
Chocolate brownies in the afternoon with Me Myself I – making them not eating! (well, ok, I tried one)
Walks and walks and walks with Bonnie Blue and Duna at regular intervals
Messages, cards and phone calls from wonderful friends throughout the day
And winks from a stranger in a restaurant at night

All this made it a good day which was a relief to us all as the pre-birthday blues were rather extreme this year.     Does anyone else feel awful the day before their birthday?

It is also the birthday today of 15M the protest movement in Spain.  A whole year has passed since the indignats camped out in Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona and in other Spanish cities. I can hardly believe a whole year has passed by so fast.