Thought I’d celebrate with a little drawing – a petonet!
and now what?
Catalunya
Calendari Dels Pagesos
A friend just asked me how to find out the dates of all the Festes Majors.
Apart from asking someone who knows (and people in towns and villages all know the date of their local one), the best way is to look at the Calendari Dels Pagesos which you can buy for about 2.20E from news-stands or bookshops.
Apart from asking someone who knows (and people in towns and villages all know the date of their local one), the best way is to look at the Calendari Dels Pagesos which you can buy for about 2.20E from news-stands or bookshops.
This publication is a wonderful source of information. Contents include
- Astrological data – eclipses, phases of moon, sunrise times etc. There is also a list of when the planets are visible.
- Religious celebrations and dates
- Weekly markets – if it’s a Monday and you want to go to a market you can find out there is one in Arenys de Munt, Cardedeu, Olot and Santa Coloma de Farners amongst other places.
- Catalan festivals both local and national. This is where the Festes Majors are listed. Now you can see that there are hundreds! Looking just at July I see there are festes in Vic, Llança, Espinelves, L’Estartit, St Pol de Mar and about 160 other towns. Imagine having all these possible parties to go to, especially as a young person. I try to count up village/street parties I went to as a teenager and I come up with 0!!!!
- All Saints days are listed so you can keep up with all your friends and family and remember to phone them and say Per Molts Anys. Today is St Aaron and Santa Elionor. I have decided to adopt Saint Catherine of Alexandria as my saint and her day is November 25th. Lets see if the Calendari agrees…..yes and it is shared with Gonçal and Erasme. I don’t meet many people called Gonçal or Erasme so I have the day mostly to myself!
- Farming information and when to plant and harvest as well as tips on chicken keeping. July information “Tenen gran importància les feines de recol-leccio´ i d’irrigacio´. Encara es segueixen plantant tomàquets tardans per a esser collits a l’octubre o novembre.” The important jobs now are to harvest and to water. Continue planting late tomatoes so you can pick them in October and November
So, all in all a booklet full of useful information and all you have to do is remember to look at it from time to time. Ours has been in a drawer until now but I will put it beside the telephone from now on.
Now it’s wet!
What’s this? Cloudy skies. Wet pavements. Umbrellas.
At last the promised storm has come and I cycled home from the town centre rejoicing in the soft cool drops of water soaking my summer dress and my face and hair.
Of course everyone seemed to magically pull umbrellas from their bags – always prepared!
Bonnie and I walked earlier under grey skies. For the first time in weeks we were not too hot.
When the rain comes after a long hot spell, there is a strange smell in the air. I think it is the heat stored in the earth sizzling as the raindrops make contact. It is strong and like wet washing in a hot dryer.
At last the promised storm has come and I cycled home from the town centre rejoicing in the soft cool drops of water soaking my summer dress and my face and hair.
Of course everyone seemed to magically pull umbrellas from their bags – always prepared!
Bonnie and I walked earlier under grey skies. For the first time in weeks we were not too hot.
When the rain comes after a long hot spell, there is a strange smell in the air. I think it is the heat stored in the earth sizzling as the raindrops make contact. It is strong and like wet washing in a hot dryer.
I am very aware of the UK wanting sunshine and so it seems slightly impolite to be writing happily about rain and clouds and wind. But everything in moderation I suppose. Sunshine and heat is wonderful when it is broken occasionally by cloud and showers. And rain, wind and grey skies are awful when they go on interminably but without them we would burn to cinders.
What would be the perfect balance for me? Sunshine 80% and Rain 20%? Mmmmm. Perhaps that is too much rain. What do you think?
Setting Off
We – that is Blue Bonnie and I – are off for an adventure
We are driving up to near Figueres to stay in a little cottage I have rented for a week.
Time to relax and do some meditation and writing and reading and sleeping.
Wish me luck on the road – first time in the VW van alone, driving with my RHD steering wheel on a LHD road.
There is Wifi there so perhaps there will be news. But as I hardly know anymore who I am writing to – all of you who visit on quiet feet, padding in and out with ne’er a word of hello, perhaps I will just be with myself and my two wolf companions.
Have a good week!
May 20 2012
It was grey and humid.
Then it started to rumble with thunder and lightening.
Then the rain came.
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?