Author: Kate Wilson

summer school

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

Today I took Duna for a walk down by the river. We met a new dog, one of the tiny variety that is so common here and for once Duna let it sniff her without raising her lip and snapping. You can never tell with these small ones – she really doesn’t like some of them but others pass some secret test and she will chase them around for a while. Here they are at the back of this picture getting to know each other

And here is Duna with the horrible flats in the background but….look at those glorious flowers!

I talked to the owner  – in Castellano this time. When I asked ‘Com es diu?’ (what is he called?) he answered   ‘Se llama Nury’.
It’s complicated like that here. You can’t be sure who speaks what until the conversation begins. And sometimes people who actually are Catalan change to Castellano because they think I will prefer it. Oh it makes life interesting!
In the summer school we did automatic drawings and also drawing with the non-dominant hand. To help us get more into the Miro world of imagination and dreams. I led this exercise which is the first time I’ve done that and managed to do it in Catalan.  The language wasn’t the problem, it was more getting 6 children to stop chatting and asking questions. They loved doing the drawings of moon and suns and stars and birds with their eyes shut and were amazed to see what they had done without all that intense ‘trying to get it right’ energy.
Then it was the rehearsal and it was wonderful to see them getting nervous behind the scenes then coming out and playing their parts, acting out a little story about Miro.  Songs, dressing up, props that we made, dancing, drama, the final bows.   All in one week – to my surprise it comes together and creates magic.
Tomorrow is the show. The audience are the parents and we are there to whisper prompts. No-one minds if things go awry. But it absolutely is the real thing – the nerves, the adrenalin, the buzz., the applause.

I will let you know how it goes.

Beach Days

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

I may have said this before but one of the wonderful things that I love about Catalunya is that there are dogs on the beaches.

Yes there are signs that say No Dogs!!!
But Duna comes with us and there are always a few other dogs who spend the day with their family, on the beach, happily playing or sleeping under the umbrella or swimming in the sea.
There is NOONE jumping up and down pointing at the signs or stomping over to remind you that it is not allowed.

Just people getting on with each other and their dogs.

Summer School

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

Today was my first day working in the summer school. This year we have chosen Famous Artists as our theme.
First Miró.
Now I know a lot more about him than before. He lived to be 90. Was born in Barcelona in the Gotic Area and lived the last 20 years of his life in Majorca. He was shy and liked working with images from his imagination, like the things you see when it is late at night and you are tired and there are patterns in front of your eyes.
The children found it easy to relate to these forms of suns, stars, ladders and insects.
And I noticed that my Catalan is so much better this year. Now I can communicate with them about more than just drinks and toilets!
It is lovely to see them gain confidence on the trapeze – first nervous and not wanting to take the risk. Then the beam of joy when they are up high with arms outstretched and swinging without support.
Can you see the spider in this pose?

What I love is seeing them working away on paintings and sculptures in the workshop – we produced some lovely cut out forms to use in Fridays show. When they are finished I’ll add a photo.
I used to be scared of children – they can be frightening when they just stare at you and then, when they have formed some secret opinion, turn their heads away to look for someone more interesting.


So it’s a challenge taking part in the summer school and it’s not over yet – four weeks to go – but today I felt much more relaxed about it all. Isn’t it funny how some things take almost your whole life to get to grips with? I was very shy at school and found the others terrifying with their confident games and loud voices. Of course I have moved on from there but still the presence of children can reactivate that fear of being rejected.  My mother ‘not-in-law’ once told me she felt the same – one of the many very nice things she shared with me to help me feel comfortable here.  It’s so nice to know you are not the only one!

Tango in Granollers

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

Tonight we went to try out the tango in Les Arcades in Granollers. Somehow the fact that there is a class and a milonga right here, not five minutes away in Carrer Girona, had slipped past my tango antennae. It has been going since January – five whole months in which I could have been walking down our road, turning left then right and then straight into a bar with a dance floor at the back and a group of people who dance tango.
Last year we tried to start a tango class here but I stopped after a term as the effort needed to teach in Spanish as well as advertise it seemed beyond my capabilities. Sometimes I feel that the energy I use  to learn two languages, get used to a new relationship, survive being a sort of step mother to a difficult adolescent, drive a car on the right side of the road, try to get health care, worry about my dogs in Cornwall and all the rest……means I just can’t do one more new thing.
Recently I have been feeling very like this.
I didn’t include writing this blog in that list as normally it is something that flows easily and I enjoy enormously. But recently, this too has felt hard. Too many questions like – What am I doing? Who is this for?  Does anyone read it (apart from those three people that I know about -thank you, you know who you are), What can I say and what is better to leave unsaid?
I try generally to write about what catches my attention and what I find interesting about Catalunya and the experience of changing my life. Sometimes it is cultural, sometimes it is personal, and sometimes it is a bit of both. But when I am feeling alien and alone here and struggling with the feeling of being an outsider without a strong support system of friends and family on hand, then the words get blocked. I can’t only write happy thoughts here but it is also a bit frightening to write down my doubts and fears and let them drop into this void.
What is this to do with tango, I hear you think.
Everything for me. This is what took me to tango in the first place and this is what I bring to tango when I dance.  Connection.  Longing for connection. Risking connection.
Tonight my dear man accompanied me to the class and the milonga, He isn’t really interested in tango but came to make me happy. We danced together.  I had a bit of a glitch when the female teacher started to tell me how to do the cross but I remembered my friend Tiffany’s advice and just smiled. The male teacher came and danced with me twice and then, just as I was taking off my shoes to leave, the man with the black and white shoes and fedora hat came up to ask me to dance. When he first arrived in the bar I thought he would be too flashy but actually he was just very good, very attentive, very connected.
It was a good evening. I came away feeling happy.

The people were friendly, the music was lovely, and we were dancing tango in Granollers.

Which made it feel more like home.

Thoughts while walking the dog

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

Last night I went down to walk Duna near the river Congost. It is one of my favourite areas in Granollers. There is a long stretch without buildings and you pass some hortas (vegetable patches), the geese guarded by Lolita the gentle border collie, and the field of wheat which has now been harvested. It’s like a little bit of countryside right in the middle of Granollers

Swallows swooping, people walking their dogs, the sound of the swifts high above, and occasionally a pair of ducks flying over on their circular routes around the river.
In the distance the hills.
I have some friends coming here to visit soon and I was wondering what they will think when I take them there. Will they see what I see?  Or will their eyes rest more on the ugly flats, the litter and dog shit, the large car park to the left and the industrial zone of Cavovelles across the river?
I can switch views and see all this too – it’s like having a button with two options – beautiful or ugly, nice or nasty, agreeable or disagreeable.
Sometimes it depends on my mood which one I see.
But generally I go there and feel good. I accept that I live in a town and not in the middle of nature as I used to in Cornwall. It just makes me happy that there are these wild places here.

But it struck me how much harder it is to do the same with human beings. Faced with someone who irritates me or who is nasty or disagreeable I find it much harder to just see the good parts. The option button gets stuck on negative mode far too often. I wonder why that is and what it would take to make the change. Practice?