Feeling at Home

July 13, 2012December 3, 2014 ~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Today was lovely. Staying at the home of my good friend Janet where everything feels familiar and comfortable. Our hosts are away at a festival (please don’t rain too much on them all tomorrow!) and we are enjoying just being in one place, no driving, no need to squelch through wet grass to get to a toilet, no cooking on two rings while kneeling in my low roofed camper van.
I felt Happy with a capital H.
Outside there is a beautiful traditional English garden full of flowers and vegetables and bird song.
Inside there is Radio 4 wittering away as I do some ironing for my friend.
I love living in Catalunya but sometimes I need this sense of safe and familiar and welcome and easy.
All cells in my body were singing today and I imagined Bonnie was feeling the same as she raced through green wet grass outside. She rolled on the ground waving her legs in ecstasy.

I don’t think it is the UK we need – just a safe and peaceful home in Catalunya.

We will find it! Please God let it be soon.

Back in the UK

July 13, 2012November 8, 2014 ~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Every visit back home has felt different. If someone asked me ‘how does it feel coming back?’ I’d find it impossible to give the same answer from one trip to the next.
All I know is that there is something very relaxing about being in a familiar place where everyone speaks the same language as I do.
I catch myself preparing to speak, forming phrases (in English mind) and then mentally kicking myself – no need to stress, it’s easy, just say it!

We got back yesterday. I drove to Suffolk from Folkestone and found for the first time I needed to remember to drive on the left. That must be the result of driving more often recently in Catalunya.
While I complain a lot about roads around Barcelona I had to admit that the M20, the M25 and the A12 were all horrible to drive on. Too busy and full of impatient lorry drivers. There were not enough service stations and it was a huge relief to get onto quiet country lanes after Ipswich.

Looking for a coffee stop we eventually came off the main road and stopped in a random and, to me, unknown Essex town of Witham.
Discovered it was where Dorothy L Sayers lived and died

Found a good old traditional pub with a sunny garden out the back – the White Hart

which had a wonderful ladies toilet with photos and quotations in each cubicle

I asked Pep to check out who they had in the Men’s but there were only blank walls and a condom machine!
Men of Essex not expected to be interested in the thoughts of Clark Gable or Cary Grant.

Somewhere in France

July 11, 2012November 8, 2014 ~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

We are slowly making our way up through France.
Lots of camping – lots of coffee and croissants
Some disconnected thoughts ……..
Rivers are wonderful in France and sometimes they have cascades

Why don’t all countries have municipal campsites that only cost 5 euros for a peaceful and relaxed night? And huge beds of lavender at the entrance.

I didn’t know that circus wagons were once so common that there is a factory in Germany that made them. We slept in one – so lovely! Many thanks to Michael and Cristiana for their hospitality.

Pretty villages

with interesting castles

are all very well but what’s the point if there is no shop nor cafe and all the traffic races through like they know it’s just a dormitory town for rich people?
Lovely wooden carving though of Virgin and child. France is good at preserving wooden things.

Driving by I caught sight of many old advertising paintings on the house walls. Too often it was impossible to stop to take a picture but I did in this quiet street – in between lorries hurtling past!

Sometimes you arrive in a little village and find something surprising like that it has a French Scottish festival going on because it used to be the family seat of the Stuarts

More soon – we have travelled a long way and seen so much. I write this near Calais. Tomorrow is the tunnel!

Interruption in normal service

July 5, 2012November 8, 2014 ~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

We are preparing to go away. Aiming for Cornwall but taking an interesting and circuitous route. Today we will drive to France, perhaps stopping in the region of the cave art paintings near the river Lot. Then on to see friends near Clermont Ferrand. After a few days of resting and talking and drinking and eating and laughing …..we will continue up to Calais and go through the tunnel once again.
I’ll see how the new regulations are working around the need to see a vet before entering the UK.
Then we go up to Norfolk to stay with friends. They have very generously offered to have Duna for a few weeks to give us/me/Bonnie a break from the mala llet! She is a very loving dog and only has one enemy in life – unfortunately that is Bonnie! Will be lovely to see Janet and Bev and go for walks in that open fresh countryside where the sky is enormous.

After a few days there we will turn westward and drive down to Cornwall, hopefully passing close by Stonehenge.

And then to work on the cabaña once more. In the rain! Unless we have managed to take some sunshine with us and got it through customs.

So I hope to write as we travel but it will be patchy, as and when we have wifi and time to reflect.
Did you notice the change in photo at the top of the blog? It is thanks to Nuria who is helping me with Photoshop.

Mas Sant Nicolau

June 4, 2012November 28, 2014 ~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

This is a very special place.
Here are some of my favourite bits. Some random images of a wonderful place to visit
Most important of all there is this….