Personal Reflections

Up to the Tower

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Granollers is a long town built along the banks of the Congost River and surrounded by hills. When you go up to the tower behind the hospital you can see the shape of it, and how although it feels very built up and in parts industrial, it does have edges and there are natural spaces all around

It’s so very different from walking the dogs along the coast path in Cornwall but the high land with the tower is beautiful in its way and one good thing about dog company is that they don’t complain, they just get on with enjoying what is there. So long as there are smells and they can run free, they are happy.  They even call a truce and investigate the same paths and bushes.

There are lots of olive trees up here – old ones with thick gnarly trunks.

Unfortunately there is also the inevitable rubbish which you find everywhere here unless you are far far away from ‘civilisation’

I wonder who are the people who take the trouble to carry televisions and cupboards and lumps of concrete up a hill to dump it under a tree?  Catalan people?  Andalucian people? Moroccan people?  Old people? Young people?  Men?  Women?  Who are these people and why do they ignore the council dump which is conveniently situated at the bottom of this hill?  It makes me sad but also curious. Anyone have any ideas?

I don’t want to finish on that image so here is another. It’s in Montseny the mountain I can see in the distance from Granollers and where I am hoping to take the dogs soon for a winter ramble in the sunshine

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

Receiving visitors

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

No photos today – sorry but it’s been a day of doing last minute things and I’m only writing here to let you know we are setting off for Catalunya tomorrow and although I am very nervous (about what?  not sure really but just General Fears) I am also ready to go.
I’m hoping for time to write a little on the way down – Blue is going to do some guest posts about her first trip ‘abroad’.
The van is packed, the tickets bought and the first dog friendly hotel is booked.
The weather is awful – all day it has teased us with sunshine and then soaked us as we trudged across the field carrying last things up to the cabin.
I have moved in with my lovely neighbours who have helped and supported me in so many ways throughout this process.  My own empty and echoing house was beginning to feel very weird – for me but also for the dogs who wandered from room to room looking forlorn before sinking down in  sad heaps on the cold concrete floors. So we moved out and have been sleeping better and breathing in normality with my friends.
Today there were a stream of visitors to say goodbye – to Blue!  After 15 years in Lamorna she has many friends both human and canine. Many of her old dog companions have died and she is one of the last of her generation. People came bearing gifts for the journey – homemade treats, biscuits, marrowbone markies.  Last photos were taken. Hugs and kisses accepted with a regal sigh. Blue cares deeply about those she loves but she doesn’t like to be fussed over.
Time to sleep now and tomorrow off we go on a great adventure – vuelvo al sur!
Vuelo al Sur
como se vuelve siempre al amor
vuelvo a vos
con mi deseo. con mi temor

15 things to remember about old dogs….

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments
 Old Dogs….
1.   Bark loudly because they are deaf and think you are too

2.   Teach you patience on a walk as they stop to savour a smell for….. a   l o   n g  t  i m e….. and then a little longer
3.   Still pull on the lead but now they pull you back where they used to pull you forward
4.    Have trouble with the front end knowing what the back end is doing
5.    Can’t see too well either…..but use the sense of smell to get about without knocking into things


6.    Are happy with the simple things in life
7.    Come upstairs and then can’t remember what they came up for so go downstairs again

8.       Prefer the beach to the countyside – it’s so much softer on the paws
9.       But still love to get up high and look out over the world – if there’s a handy car park

10.      Like bones even after losing most of their teeth

11.       Know how to open a birthday present – after 15 years of practice
12.       Let things go which in the past would have led to an unpleasantness

13.     Were once young

14.      Are still learning new tricks

15.      Are willing to follow you to the end of the world if it means you can be together

Virtual Vermut

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

It’s blowing a gale outside and is definitely the night to sit in front of the fire and have a drink and a chat with a friend.   I am here with the fire and the vermut – actually red wine –  I can even offer you mince pies…… and hopefully you are here too for the chat?   (Thank you Bodhi Chicklet for keeping the glasses full in my absence!)

The room is quite empty now as you can see. I have brought in a garden table and on the top you can see two envelopes full of old postcards which sold on ebay today anda spiral notepad containing everything I need to remember while organising the move
.
If you were here I could show you Blue’s new ramp which arrived this morning and which thankfully seems to be all that was promised in the advertisment

Light, strong, wide, non slip and most important of all, acceptable to Blue. It is a Solvit ultralite bought from Easy Animal who have a freephone advice service and I would highly recommend them.
I could also take you outside when the rain stops to show you the cabin we were working on all summer

I’ve been up there today trying to sort out old diaries and deciding which ones to burn.  I never thought I would do this but actually I am tired of heaving them around with me and am not sure I would want anyone else to read them.  Along the outside wall are a selection of my sculptures. I am amazed at how many there are and how small they seem when put outside.

I went to an auction today to watch some of my things flying out of the room for very low prices – it could be disheartening but I am well beyond the point of caring. All I want to do is get this house empty and I am still fighting with the little stuff which I neither want to keep nor throw away.
I stare at it and wish it would just dissolve. If you were here perhaps you could take it away?

Two very good friends came all the way down to Cornwall from Suffolk last weekend. They even brought their own bed!  Both the dogs loved having familiar people staying and spent the nights guarding their room to make sure they too didn’t disappear

But sadly on Sunday they did and so we three are here again, listening to the wind rattling the letterbox and counting the days till next Monday when we set off.
My old house is changing – it still feels like a safe cocoon but the time is coming to let it go for a while and stretch my wings and fly. Think of the swallows who were born this year in my garage – one day they flew around and around the field and then….they climbed higher and higher, set their compass to south and trusted themselves to the air.