Personal Reflections

An outsider looking in

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

“I’ve felt like an outsider all my life. It comes from my mother who always felt like an outside in my father’s family.”   Anthony Hopkins
 I am going to tell you about our visit to Falset, the lovely town near Tarrogona where my partner’s aunt lives.  Falset is famous for wine and olive oil production and is where we get our bottles of Vermut – the real variety!
We drove over to Falset to celebrate Santa Montse – the saint’s day of all women called Montse (including Pep’s aunt) and of course our own much missed mother/mother-in-law. It was a family get together which if you have been paying attention to this blog you will know is not my favourite way to spend a day as I don’t feel relaxed and comfortable with that particular group of people. I don’t speak Catalan well enough but more than that, I don’t feel they are very interested in getting to know me.
But it went surprisingly well – perhaps partly because I love the auntie and so was happy to be there.  I also  love Falset and of course, things tend to go more smoothly when you meet up in neutral territory.
We ate here in a hill top restaurant called La Cassola in the wonderfully named Gratallops. The restaurant looks out over the vineyards and olive groves and was strangely empty for a Saturday lunch time. We all got quite giggly due to the immensity of the restaurant,  the strength of the rich red wine, the grumpiness of the owner/waitress and also the appearance of strange dishes like this typical Catalan escudella i carn d’olla
There was nothing odd about the dish itself, it was the fact that this huge tureen was a starter for one person!  Brother-in-law ploughed his way through it admirably but in the end had to admit defeat. 
 
The middle courses I don’t remember but I am sure they were also hearty. Then we had puddings and here they are!  
Music – dried fruit and nuts, served with a dessert wine
Crema Catalana –  the traditional option
Mel i Mato  – honey and a soft cheese
I couldn’t resist the Pyjama which turned out to be a bit of everything
We walked though the town afterwards and ended up at one of the wine cooperatives where we were overwhelmed by heady choices of wine and oil
I have always got on well with the Montses in the family – the living aunt and the sadly gone mother.  They belong to a generation which while it might have different opinions, is warm and welcoming to a stranger.  But I have spent many hours since arriving in Catalunya wondering why there is a coolness between me and the younger members of the family.  It is easy to think it is my fault – I don’t speak the language well enough, I don’t make enough effort to fit in, I occasionally duck out of events, I am so different culturally and in personality. But after this outing I did come to some conclusions which might explain this problem which has affected my ability to feel at home here.
“I think having an outsiders viewpoint is interesting and good.”
Paul Merton
1. Older people expect to be different from me and so can be accepting.  However younger people seem uncomfortable around  someone who is broadly their age but who is clearly not the same. They don’t know how to deal with me, what to think of me, where to psychically put me. I am an outsider by nature and by choice.
 
2. People in Catalunya generally do not move around as much as British people do. My own family are spread around the UK taking in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cambridge and Cornwall, but the Catalan family all live within 10 miles of where they were born. Their husbands, wives and parents do too.  All of them come from a small area around our town.  Imagine what a difference this makes in your life!  Your friends are also from the same area. Everyone that surrounds you is familiar.  The nearbyness of your extended family.
 
They don’t know how to relate to this strange childless woman in her 50’s who suddenly arrived in their midst?  Who is she?  Where is she from?  Why did she leave her home and family to come here? What is in her past?  Does she have dark secrets chasing at her heels?  
 
They could chose to ask me these questions and try to find out about me or they can play safe, being friendly but not inquiring too closely. It is safer to welcome me but not let me get too intimate – after all – I may decide to set off for pastures new again one day. Or I might try to disturb the familiar patterns of their lives.
 
I think it is hard for British people coming here to really understand how it is to be part of such a different culture – deeply rooted in home territory, bonded closely with family and childhood ties, passionately protective of traditional customs and habits. 
 
I have struggled with understanding all this and I continue to peck away at it in my mind – trying to make sense of so many subtle things that disturb my equilibrium. It is only now after 5 years here that I can see how important it is not to take it too personally. It is not personal although it has so often affected me that way.
It is a ‘thing’ that affects me, hurts me, confuses me but it is not directed personally at me.  Phew!
Or maybe it is!  Eeeks!   Maybe they just don’t like me?
  
Deciding to embrace my role as ‘outsider’ may be the only answer that will give me peace and stop my constant worry that I don’t fit in here at all.
At least I am in good company – thanks Paul Merton, Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Paxton and others who describe themselves this way.
Do you think that we all feel like outsiders?  Do you have this feeling sometimes?
I am curious to know how other people deal with this.
Let me know in the comments
“I’ve always felt myself to be an outsider, I’ve always felt awkward” 
Jeremy Paxman

 

 
 

 

 

Going deep into the cave and exploring the Talaiotic culture

~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment

We had one week on Menorca and saw only a small part of what there is to see.
There are hundreds of prehistoric sites for example and in the end we only visited two or three which we found by chance when driving to or from our daily walks.

Following a sign for Torrellafuda,  we drove down a long sandy lane and ended up in an almost empty car park. The only sounds were of birds singing in the surrounding olive tree groves. There are no restrictions on entry – no tickets or barriers. Passing through a gate, we were in a field full of wild flowers with a group of standing stones peacefully guarding the entrance to a cave

I said before in these tales of Menorca that I was constantly reminded of Cornwall and here yet again I had a strong sense of the connection between these two places. I started to ask myself if it was more than a coincidence. Perhaps it is not Menorca that reminds me of Cornwall but Cornwall that has reminded me of Menorca?

This site is known as Talaiotic which describes the people who lived here in the Bronze Age, taking their name from the emblematic stone built look outs called Talaiots.
They left behind them many other monuments and we can only guess at the meaning and significance of these remnants of this long ago culture.

 Taulas are the stone altars

and there are also dwellings, stone walls and burial chambers

First you arrive at the stones – they are close to the entrance to a cave

 Inside it is dark and damp.  It is high enough to stand upright but only just. Once inside there is another round room with stones along the edge for sitting on, or perhaps for laying things on?

There is a phospherescent green glow all around – bringing back memories of Carn Euny of course.
It looks a bit creepy doesn’t it but once inside I didn’t want to leave. 

I stood in the centre of the first cave and just as I was thinking ‘this is an interesting place’ I started to feel an immense powerful emotion build up in my chest. Before I knew what was happening I started to cry. A lot!  Weeping like there would be no end to it.  I stayed there for about half an hour and the feeling subsided, the tears stopped just leaving me peaceful and with a sense of somehow coming home to this place. It wasn’t the sort of thing I usually experience. I love ancient sites and can spend hours normally trying to connect with the energies of old. but this was different – it just happened to me without any effort on my part and without any understanding of what it was about.
Here is a photo of someone who has just been plugged in to something mysterious in a cave

Coming out of the cave and turning left there is a path that leads to the original settlement where they built the large stony hill or talaiot for keeping lookout over the surrounding countryside, as far as the sea. A little further on is the settlement and some broken stone altars and the remains of the town walls with small entrance holes

This site is one of the many Talaiot settlements on Menorca.

Talaiots are Bronze Age megaliths, stone built towers,  dating back to 2000 BC.
Climbing up high on the Talaiot you can see for miles, as far as the coast line.
Imagine in the Bronze age how long it would take to walk from here to the coast!

  Thanks to this web site about Menorca for some of the information I found about the Talaiotic culture.

Walking on a cloudy day, dreaming new dreams

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

On Day 1 we walked on the south coast from Cala Turqueta to Son Saura

Day 2 was cloudy and we went to the north coast and walked from Algaiarens to Cala Morell where there is a white almost ghost town of an urbanisation on the hill above a glistening sea. We didn’t go down to the cove as the little town looked so artificial and the carefully designed houses were all too much of a muchness to feel inviting. Someone had tried to make it pretty but somehow it just felt de-humanised.
The walk to get there was beautiful though. And with a cloudy sky it was so much more comfortable

On the south coast we had passed many other people walking or cycling but here on the north west it was peaceful and quiet and for most of the day we were totally alone

It was rockier but still with inlets and small bays

The rocks kept changing from sandstone to limestone and something was very porous at the end that was almost impossible to sit on comfortably to eat our sandwiches. This one was streaked with white in a pattern which always makes Catalans remark see the four bars of their national flag

There was more variety of wild flowers

The gates of Menorca are made from olive wood

On the way back – we always have to walk out and then return to the car – we stopped to create a cairn. 

Back in Ciutadella we had supper in the Ulysses cafe beside the old Fish Market.

I really feel like I am on holiday!
Even wondering how it would be to live here – it is so familiar even while being new and strange.
It is an island where you can imagine creating new things.






Walking to happiness in Menorca

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

We have been thinking of coming to Menorca for several years but the sticking point for me was how to get here with Bonnie. I read that the conditions on some of the ferries were very poor for travelling dogs with dirty cramped cages, times where you were not allowed access to the animals and in one story the cages were in a lower deck that was hot and noisy close to the engines.  I asked the ferry companies, wrote on travel forums and got in touch with people who live in the Balearics but the stories were mixed and in the end I never trusted that it would be comfortable for Bonnie so we didn’t come.

Now of course Bonnie is no longer with us so we decided to come to Menorca for Easter.

First the practicalities:

Balearia and Acciona-Trasmediterranea are the two ferry companies that take you between Barcelona and Menorca. 

We came out on Balearia to Ciutadella and will return from Mao on Trasmediterranea.  One of my tasks is to look for myself at the dog accommodation areas so that in the future I will know what to expect. You never know – one day I may be travelling again with a dog!

There were a lot of dogs on the crossing to Menorca. They were housed in portable cages in two different sizes. The cages were lined up on a small deck with an area for exercise which was protected by a roof but otherwise open to fresh air. The cages were basic and small and the area was not large and could be noisy if there was barking – which there was. But there seemed to be no restrictions on visiting and letting your dog out to sit with you in the exercise area. I was glad that Bonnie wasn’t having to travel there but I could imagine doing it with a younger dog. The journey is 10 hours so it could be stressful but it wasn’t impossible to imagine doing it.

We are staying in Ciutadella in a lovely flat lent to us by a friend of a friend. We were met at the harbour, given a key and a place to stay and a beautiful reminder of the ancient art of hospitality.  Both Greek and Celtic cultures are known for the sacred practice of hospitality to friends and strangers and it is alive and well in Menorca too. 

We are walking the Cami de Cavalls, exploring different parts of the island.
The beaches are sandy and clean

The water is an incredible turquoise

The path – which is for walkers and bicycles and horses – winds around the island and is well marked

There are cliffs

Sand dunes

And many beaches covered in seaweed

which the action of the wind and the water turns into thousands of small hairy balls


What do you do while walking?   Here is what I do…..
Singing, thinking, listening to music, talking, pretending my dog is with me and calling her or throwing one of these little balls for her to chase.  Thinking some more. 
It is strange to be on holiday without Bonnie but it is also much easier of course.  I feel bereft and sometimes the memory of her comes at me like a punch in the belly and tears surprise me running down my cheeks.  But there is also a new freedom that comes with loss.  I am free to come and go as I please.  With no-one dependent on me, I am alone again and this is both sad and liberating. 
I spent day 1 thinking of this and many other things, of people who have gone, of times that are past, of my own family and childhood.  Swimming on one of the golden beaches I suddenly had a strong sense of being alive and living the life that I always wanted to find. Ever since I was young I had a dream of living abroad and learning new languages.  And here I am!  It has not been just a series of accidents although sometimes I see it that way.  I have actually created the life that I dreamt of.  Surely that must be something to feel good about?   My next step – self confidence for real!

Three Blogs is Hard to Handle

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

Julie my fellow blogger from Barcelona, apart from inviting me to eat wrinkly spicy potatoes, also discussed blogging with me and gave me some helpful suggestions.

I described my current difficulty in keeping up with writing three blogs – not only do I not write regularly, I am now writing less often than when I had only one.

Three blogs?  

Yes I’m afraid I have been expanding and now it seems I need to deflate.

1 The Catalan Way

I began The Catalan Way not long after I arrived in Barcelona and used it for pretty much everything that I wanted to describe in my new life.  Sometimes I wrote about culture, sometimes about food and shopping, and sometimes about history.  Then there was daily life to describe and of course, I used it  to explore my own responses to this massive change in my life.
I have never had a large readership and therefore don’t receive many comments on my writing.  It’s amazing how many people feel shy about writing in a public forum. But people do sometimes let me know what they think and I soon noticed there were two groups of readers.  One lot love reading about modernism or Barcelona street life or the politics of Catalunya or anything informative.  The other group enjoys more my stories about finding my way in a foreign land.  As the years have passed I have experimented with different ways of writing and always wanting to improve my skills and to find more readers, I have tried to write both what pleases me and also what others enjoy reading. 


2 The Wicked Stepmother

I began to worry that I was writing in too personal a style and as that also impacts on the other people in my life here I started a second blog – one that was to remain anonymous and private.  I wrote there about my life as a step-mother living with the person I have referred to as the resident adolescent.  As anyone knows who has been in this position it is impossible to be a successful step-mother.  Failure is unavoidable and as I had no previous experience it took me a long time to realise I was only playing a part and not creating it.  I have been a complete failure if the test of success is a happy relaxed relationship with your stepchild.   Who knows what the future may reveal but I still cling to the hope that I have done some good.

In case you are interested there are four markers for having an especially difficult experience as a stepmother
1. The birth parents should not have an easy ongoing relationship
2. The stepmother should not have any children of her own
3. The stepchild should be between 11 and 16 when you first arrive in their life
4. The father should be someone who wants to be a friend rather than a father

I met all these criteria with the added ingredient that we do not share a language or culture.

3 About Granollers

I live in a town called Granollers and it is not my chosen place to settle down. For my first years here I was always planning our escape to somewhere more interesting, more peaceful, more beautiful. But here we were and here we stayed, in part because the resident adolescent needed some form of stability and it seemed unfair to make him live in the countryside just because we would prefer it.  So, I decided to start writing about this town which is almost totally unknown outside the region. 
Who has heard of Granollers?  When I first came here I couldn’t even pronounce the name.  
I started my new blog About Granollers intending to do lots of research about the history as well as to describe life here in all it’s ordinary glory. The Guardian newspaper once described Granollers as ‘a non-descript Catalan town’ and my aim was to put this right.
In my talk with Julie she suggested that I bring together these three blogs and try again to write here in The Catalan Way about all of my life rather than keeping them separate and distinct. 

Any thoughts?