Animals

Dogs and cats and all other four legged creatures feature here

High above Granollers

~ Kate Wilson ~ 9 Comments

 

I took a walk this evening up to the derelict tower that sits on a hill overlooking GranollersThe tower Torre de Pinos is an old fortified defense tower built in the 14th century and now half in ruins it is protected but not really cherished.
But the place is magical. I took these photos on a sunny afternoon last week, walking along flower lined paths while trying to take photographs of the swifts. It is not easy to catch one moment of their flight path as they are the ultimate aerial birds. I had many photos of empty blue sky! Swifts eat, drink, mate and sleep on the wing and only come to earth for long enough to nest and feed their young. Barcelona is full of the sound of their excited cries and from our terrace here I can watch them at night. In Catala they are called Falciots, not orinetes which are swallows. Up in the fields around the Torre, high above Granollers, in the evening when the air is full of flying insects, I am able to feel as if I am in their world.
Tonight I went to the Torre just before sunset. The sun was hiding at first behind a large cloud and I watched it slowly emerge like a luminescent red balloon to glow with midsummer fire before settling down behind the hills. I had no camera and could only wonder and marvel at the dance of the swifts, the rays of purple light spreading across the sky and the wildness of this place so close to the city. So often I stand with my neck craned to watch them high above but tonight I had the amazing experience of having them whizz past my head so close I could hear their wing beat.
Life sometimes throws at us ‘momentos malos’ and it was in this kind of mood that I climbed the hill tonight with Duna as my companion. I felt very aware that nowhere within miles or kilometers was there anyone I could talk to freely in my own language. I was missing not so much ‘home’ but the feeling of ‘being at home’. If you ever imagine living in another country, include this in the fantasy, it can be hard! Small things can feel like the last straw and it is easy to feel inadequate when you can’t freely do the most normal thing – talk. So,what to do, where to turn?
For me it is to nature, which exists outside frontiers and customs, languages and barriers, frustrations and misunderstandings. All exists in the moment and tonight as the light was dying it was beautiful to be part of that moment.

A Walk in the Woods

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

Walking in the woods in the Natural Park of Montseny is one of the great pleasures of being here. It is a chestnut oak and beech wood with areas of pine forest and twice I have been there with a small group of people to do Reiki in the Woods. It is organised by a gentle and interesting man called Jordi. We meet up in Sant Celoni at about 10am on a sunday morning – sometimes it is nearer 11am when we all finally arrive but I must write another post about Time! Jordi takes us to a secluded and peaceful part of the woods and we spend time doing simple but deep exercises of healing, meditation, body movements and connection with ourselves and the natural world around us. I have done lots of classes in Catalunya which of course are all taught in Catalan which I still don’t speak but I have become accustomed to this new position of welcome outsider. I don’t understand everything, I miss some of the responses that people give to the exercises, I can’t communicate all that I am feeling in words. But something else happens – I have become not just practised at smiling and nodding but also more sensitive to body language, my heart hears emotions which may not be expressed in words. I make connections with people without being able to talk very much. When I first arrived in Barcelona I often felt frustrated and invisible and out of kilter but I have recently noticed this happens less and less. There are ways to connect and communicate without words – or without all the subtleties and clever wit that in the past I thought were vital. I think people here talk a lot – especially women – but perhaps it is just that I speak so little now. Words flow around me as if I am a rock in a fast flowing river and goodbyes can last over an hour as it seems there is always something else to say. I live in a more silent world – and the danger could be that I start to think too much and make judgements as I observe the other people. This sometimes happened in my first months here – a defense against the strangeness of my surroundings. But now I seem to have settled into enjoying this time of acute awareness of other levels of communication. Of course I also understand a lot more Catalan and I can respond in my hesitant but improving Castellano but I have also relaxed more into accepting this stage and taking things one step at a time – poco a poco or poc a poc!These pictures were taken the first time I did the Reiki in the Woods workshop and after a beautiful morning connecting with the trees – the new growth – the colours of the fallen leaves – the sounds of birds – we found a nest on the ground, intricately woven with grey beech twigs and I raised it on a longer branch and placed a pine cone inside – art – another way of communicating without the need for verbal explanations.And Duna was there too. Noone seemed to mind a little wild dog racing around excited by the woody smells as we did our more meditative work. She was the free spirit of adventure and for three hours was happy to explore by herself and bury her nose in the sweet leafy earth until in the end she become one with the surroundings.

Having two homes is stressful

~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment

The reality of having two homes is not so easy as you might imagine.

One of the things I have had to accept since moving to Catalunya is that the process of moving is slow and there is going to be a period of transition which is quite uncomfortable.  I love my new life but I also feel deeply attached to my old home and especially because my two border collies are still living there, being taken care of in their familiar home but without me.

I hope to resolve this as soon as I can but in the meantime, we went back to visit Cornwall for Easter
It was the first time my partner and his son had been in the UK and I felt responsible for making it a good trip.   So, what happened?
St Michaels Mount was still there and looked beautiful in the sunshine
We  got terrible colds which meant all our plans had to be changed
It also rained a lot and I felt sad that my new family didn’t see Cornwall at it’s best.
Spending time in my own cottage was wonderful and being with my dogs was bliss.
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my best friends
It is sometimes very hard having two homes and wanting to be in both of them.
We were still coughing on the ferry trip back  from Plymouth to Santander
I drove to Granollers in my little white van, bringing back essentials such as Twinings Earl Grey Tea and my blue Denby teapot, four fine china mugs and a very uplifting table clothBut two essential dogs had to be left behind … next time……… I hope… they can make the journey.

A River Walk

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

Recently I took Duna for a walk – locally – not too far from the house. We walked alongside this river, the Congost, which runs through Granollers. This is how it looks close up.
This is the same view when you stand further backIt made me think about how I look at things and how I can miss beauty if I don’t adjust my vision.
On the other side of the river is this soap factoryGranollers is an industrial town so there are lots of factories along this stretch of river and many have been responsible for polluting the water and the land. What probably was once an idyllic stretch of water is now lined with ugly buildings with little thought for their visual impact. It couldn’t be more different from a walk along the coast path at Lamorna.
But Duna and I had a beautiful walk.
Looking up there was a blue sky and signs of Spring on the bare branchesAnd the most wonderful thing was the art gallery along the walls – urban creativity and energyDuna ran free and poked and pottered,sometimes stopping to sniff the airI watched ducks on the riverIt’s hard to photograph them when a Springer Spaniel keeps arriving to ‘spring’ them….
We were alone which is an unusual blessing in this land where people love to be outside and to gather in big sociable groupsWe ignored the rubbish – for such a deserted place it wasn’t too badand when it was time to go we left by these colourful stepsOutside the towns the countryside is beautiful, there are hills and fields and wild flowers and little quiet lanes. Towns in general seem to be blighted by development but here by the river there was a different kind of beauty and many of these rather desolate places provide homes and food for a lot of wild life. There is now in place an Environmental Action Plan to support the ecosystem of the Congost and to offer some protection to the wild life. Green spaces have been created and the plan is to further integrate the river and its banks into the lives of the local population making it more a place to be used and enjoyed than forgotten and abused.
Along the river bank runs a long cycle path which you can take all the way to Barcelona.
I hope to do this one day and will tell you what it was like. Duna loves to run beside the bikes so it will be a great excursion for her!

Dogs

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

I now live here in the same house as a dog. She’s called Duna and is a Springer Spaniel, age eighteen months, female. I always knew dogs have different lives outside the UK and that this could prove to be a challenge to my decision to have an open and uncritical attitude in this new country. And so it is!

Walking in the countryside there are many empty houses where the owners only come at weekends or for holidays. For security they often have two or more dogs who live there alone being fed by some custodian, sleeping outside or in a kennel and having as their main stimulation each day those moments when someone walks past the fence. Then there is a cacophony of barking and huge excitement as they race up and down alongside your path. They sound fierce but in a life of great boredom it must be the highlight of their day.

Duna came here from a family home where she lived for her first year, I don’t know how much time she spend indoors but it is very likely she slept outside and spent most of the day alone as the parents were at work and the children at school. All credit to them, the family decided they couldn’t give her the life she deserved so she came here. She was not house trained but had been taught some fairly useless tricks such as giving a paw on command and lying down to play dead. She is very willing to learn and has a very gentle nature. When we take her out for walks in the countryside she loves rummaging in the woods and looking for mushroomsWe live in a town. It is a big house and has a roof terrace and a half enclosed patio but no garden. When she first arrived she slept on the patio and used this for her toilet. It has taken a long time for her to learn bladder and bowel control and to wait until we take her out for a walk.
As the weather got colder last autumn I started to campaign for her to sleep indoors. It is hard to explain to UK dog owners how totally weird this seems to Catalan people. Here it is normal for dogs to be outside and any suggestion that it is too cold for her is met by wide eyed disbelief. I might as well be saying she should be given a chair at the table and a knife and fork to eat with! But the problem of her using the patio as a toilet made it easier to convince others that an indoor life would make it easier to know when she needs to be taken out. However, toilet training here is also of the old school variety – accidents happen and then she is made to put her nose in the puddle or pile and then summarily banned outdoors again. I knew it would be a challenge and it is definitely the hardest thing I have battled with since coming here. Last night I looked up web sites on dog training and found a mountain of information in English but very little in Catalan(which I knew would be more convincing than anything written by us softies who treat our dogs like babies!)It is interesting for me to have found my bottom line – most things like eating, speaking, house cleaning, socialising, time keeping, shopping I can happily adapt to and try to accommodate. But I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut when it comes to the lives of dogs.
However, Duna’s life is hugely better than it was before and a million times better than many dogs who live outside all their lives, with little human contact and no opportunities to explore the outside world. Or those who live in apartments in Barcelona who stay at home alone all day until that late evening hour when all the streets are full of dogs and their owners out for a stroll.
Duna has been to the seasideto the Costa Bravato France, on a skiing holiday, for a weekend camping and many times to the mountains and the woods and she is very lovedShe knows how to drink from the ubiquitous drinking fountainsI have to admit too that she is better behaved than my own dogs – she sleeps patiently most of the day, she only barks when the shop opposite opens or closes its shutters and she can be safely left tied to a lamppost while I am shopping without fear than she will bite passing children.