Animals

Dogs and cats and all other four legged creatures feature here

Virtual Botifarra

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

After the vermut perhaps you’d like a bite of botifarra?

It was in a bagette and almost filled the whole length.
I know I have relaxed my vegetarian-ness but not this far and I had one with cheese in it!
Botifarra is an important presence in Catalan cuisine – it is a sausage – obviously – and comes in various forms such as white with no blood in its mix, black and botifarra catalana.
Botifarra i mongetes is a classic Catalan recipe of sausages and white beans.
Perhaps this time next year I will be munching on my own sausage sandwich!
Animal news
We went for a walk in the hills and there were no fights or even growls. We are trying to become leaders of the pack and keeping the two combatants separate – if not in different rooms at least one of them is on a lead and under control. So far, so good.
The pigeon is at the vet – we found one  local practice that helps abandoned or wild animals and birds. They get a payment from the Protectora de Animales which I think is a kind of charity which receives grants from the council as well as donations from the public. Amazingly they were happy to include a street pigeon in this scheme and we are waiting for news of her wing and if she has hope of flying again.

In the current financial crisis many of these groups have had to close their centres including the one near Granollers and the animals were dispersed around the region. At first it looked like they had been ‘disappeared’ but it seems they were taken to other centres.  And it seems a new centre may open around here again soon. There was a big protest about the closure and perhaps it has had a positive outcome.

We discover how velcro was invented.

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

We are staying in a bungalow by the sea at Santa Susanna.

There were lots of burrs on the beach this morning.  Attached to many of them were soft fabric-like materials.  Apparently it was after examining these plants that George de Mestral invented velcro. The name comes from the French words velour and croquet and was used because it looks like velour and uses a hook and loop system sort of like croquet (?)

The burrs we found on the beach have little hooks which attach easily to anything with loops, like soft fabrics or the little hairs between the pads under Blue’s paws!

Today we found some more around the New Park in Granollers and Blue became suddenly lame as they nestled in between her soft pads.  Once removed, she set off at a trot once again!

Santa Susanna

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

Such a strange place – a lovely long beach and a caravan and camping site right on the edge of the sand

Then a railway track. Then the main road and then a large nothingness and further inland a very new town which seems as if it was plonked here just to serve the coastal tourist part

But if you just stay close to the beach it’s very pleasant and I can imagine coming back again and trying to get a beach side plot so I can put my breakfast table outside the van to sit there watching the sea and the sun rise.
And it’s only 32km from Granollers.
There are hundreds of camper vans – some enormous – some even more basic than mine. Mostly they have come from Germany and Belgium. Because of this it wasn’t too noisy on New Years Eve – about an hour of petardos thrown by local children and then peaceful silence

Petardos are firecrackers and I wasn’t aware of them before coming to Catalunya where they are commonly used by children of all ages to celebrate such things as the feast of St John in midsummer, Barça winning a football match and on New Years Eve. I just discovered that firecrackers were invented in China in the 9th century and were banned in the UK from 1997. They are designed to make noise rather than light and some of them are mini explosions which you just have to get used to if you live in Spain!
Blue is pleased to report one great advantage of being deaf – she is no longer bothered by fireworks!

One of the closed restaurants has a resident colony of cats

Bonnie enjoyed the beach but continues to have battles with Duna who is struggling to accept the changes this last month has brought to her life

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Walking three dogs is a bit like painting the Forth Road Bridge. No sooner have you finished than you have to start again. I am experimenting with taking a longer walk in the morning with the two agile ones while Blue sleeps at home after her shorter trip to the square. Hoping to gain some time for myself after lunch

As I said yesterday Granollers is spread along the banks of the Congost – not a great rushing river but a good enough stream of water to have ducks and today – a heron

You can walk upriver – away from Barcelona and towards La Garriga – then cross the bridge and come back down on the other side. Today we went via what we call the New Park which we have been visiting since it was under construction. It is still mostly doggy people who know about it and those mystery rubbish dumpers haven’t yet started to do their worst.
Further upstream we crossed over to return on the road side which is much used by runners and cyclists and has signs marking the kilometers and strange contraptions for exercising along the way

I saw a charm of goldfinches.

A lone duck sitting on an island in the stream.

And a little bit further away a grey heron balancing on one leg in the shallows.
There are some new cultivated parts.

People seem to claim a little patch and then clean it up and plant vegetables

These hortas suddenly appear, seemingly without effort as I have never seen anyone doing anything more strenuous than a casual sweep around of leaves. I’m sure these allotments are not official but they are tolerated and create a lovely garden feel to this industrial landscape.
We also bumped into Lolita and her owner – he also has an horta with chickens and ducks. My first border collie friend in Granollers was walking free and came over to see me – then her master too arrived to ask in Spanish how I am getting on. Bonnie and Lolita greeted each other with a collie kiss. It’s really all very lovely down there by the river.
I always wish I had taken binoculars and that I could find a bird expert here to help me identify all the birds I see.  I have the feeling there are lots of species living in this long snakey un-peopled belt of water and greenery, so close to industry and commerce but a little world of its own.

My third christmas

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

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