I had to stop writing as the computer suddenly started writing something other than what I wanted to say!  After a while I realised it had changed its keyboard settings from British English to French.  Quite a strange sensation when you lose control of the keys!

So now that is sorted I can just add a few more photos of the beautiful gorge on the way to Sant Aniol. The waters were clear turquoise

High up in the mountains we finally reached the old hermitage which is beside a derelict refuge. People are currently restoring it so that walkers can stay here again. And to get the building materials up there they first have to restore the path so that donkeys can use it once again.
It is on a very popular walking route that goes across to France



Another highlight of the walk were the swinging bridges that crossed the water

And from another day – we were walking in the woods around Sant Nicolau and passed this pomegranate tree – the first I have ever seen. Love pomegranate seeds in Rocket and Parmesan salad!

Bridges and Pomegranates and Phoenix rising from the ashes – what wonderful New Year images.
May your January be fertile ground for new plans and may 2014 bring  fresh and healing energy into your life!

Happy New Year!   I am so glad to be in 2014 and I am sure it will be a great year

I have to admit that I almost always feel this at the turn of the year. I was writing to a Scottish friend recently and we agreed that for us New Year is always deeply emotional.  It is like a container for so many memories and hopes and dreams.  It is quite hard to explain this to anyone who just treats it like ‘any other day’. There is sadness and loss, there is excitement and energy, there is a real feeling of expectation and significance. The time when one year closes and the next begins is still for me a moment of power. It really matters to me.

Here are some of my moments from the past weeks

• Christmas came and went and even more than usual I felt detached from it. That does not mean that I don’t like Christmas but I have realised that it is almost impossible for me to feel Christmassy here in Catalunya. Other years I struggled to find my Christmassy feeling and failed and felt sad. This year I accepted it and it was ok.  There are strong traditions here for the three days of Christmas and they are not my traditions so, as I also let go of having a Christmas tree, making Christmas stockings, singing carols on Christmas Eve, I found those days were pretty much like any others. 
• I made my own Christmas dinner and took it round to my partners family on the 25th. Although it felt extremely weird to be eating something different all by myself I actually found it made the whole event much more bearable. I asked myself what would be my favourite thing to eat that day and the answer was Bangers and Mash!  So while everyone else had Escudella i Carn D’Olla, I had home made vegetarian sausages and gravy with mashed potato and carrot and oven roasted brussel sprouts. It was totally delicious and I was interested to find out how important it is to me to actually enjoy the food on Christmas day.   Having resolved that problem I actually enjoyed the meal:
  
  
• We have a new television and now I feel more entitled to watch BBC programmes when I want to. Combine that with having every single episode of Downton Abbey on my computer and the result is a much more cosy winter for me!
• Bonnie and I are spending a lot of time at Sant Nicolau. She is very well but having digestive problems. I am now at the stage of having low level worry all the time but much less panic in general. I know she won’t last for ever but I feel so much more connected with her in the present moment that I can almost forget the diagnosis.
• Today takes us past the eight week mark since she was diagnosed. I was told she would die in 4-8 weeks and so it is like a miracle to still have her here and to see her enjoying life. To celebrate we went on a long walk in the mountains of the Garrotxa to a high up hermitage called Sant Aniol. 

• And last but definitely not least, we took in a little kitty who was living a precarious life in someone’s garden. She is about 8 weeks old and has a cold and is very thin.  She lived inside car engines and her fur was matted with oil. Bonnie loves cats and it seems that she loves Bonnies!  We have called her Phoenix and she is bringing much happiness to the start of this new year

 

It’s been a strange few weeks.
We got back from Cornwall at the beginning of September and the two months that have passed since then have felt like an obstacle course.
Jumping, climbing, ducking and diving and tunnelling through.
-The car documents- thankfully now resolved.
-My ankle – a stubborn tendonosis that has only now stopped hurting. I couldn’t walk without weird pains that came and went and moved around from foot to ankle to leg to heel to toe.
-No sooner than I had managed to sort that out (through the use of Trigger point massage, really interesting and worked like a miracle) than I developed an allergy to something which meant I never stopped sneezing and wheezing. 
Not all the time. But every day, violently, sometimes.
-The Resident Adolescent who I haven’t mentioned for a while has continued to provide gritty sand for my developing pearl. His recent obsession is a company called ACN which promises money for old rope. You have to pass over your phone bills to them and the representative gets commission. At least he has started talking to us but only about that one subject. He needs customers.
We just want the dishes done!
– Today I stopped sneezing, I can walk without pain, I have a car that is legally mine and then….Bonnie got sick. She has a mysterious foreign object in her stomach and an even more scary mass in her abdomen. 
Tomorrow they will operate.

I know it has been a hard time for many other people too.

What can we do?

What, if anything, does it all mean?

I have been trying to keep positive and it’s good to concentrate on all that is wonderful. A bit of Pollyanna does no harm!
A lovely night away in a hotel on the Costa Brava

Every Tuesday my painting class

Holding my friends beautiful baby girl

And sitting tonight beside my lovely Bonnie – my companion and loyal loving friend here on this Catalan adventure

Good luck to us all and may the path get easier in the coming monthes

I have wanted to take my niece here ever since I found out about it and finally last week we made it there.  If I lived close by I would visit every week at least. It’s free as well.

Apart from the loveliness of a place that is full of birds and on the edge of the sea, the Aiguamolls are wonderful because of their history. They were saved from destruction in the 1980’s when there were plans to drain the marshes and build yet more ghastly flats and hotels.  There was a huge outcry and a strong campaign and this time, they won!

These photos were taken by my niece who also knew the names of all the birds and has kindly allowed me to use her beautiful photos here. 
What a beautiful afternoons walk!

 Northern Shovellers

 Grey Heron

 Horse and egret

 Horse and egret

 Egret

 Roe Deer

 White Stork

Marsh Harrier

There is a beautiful woman called Kate who lives in Maryland and writes and takes photographs to share on her blog Chronicles of a Country Girl.  Her speciality is nature photography and especially birds, and her border collie George. She has become a friend of mine online, and through our blogs.
Her husband has just died after a long illness and as a tribute to her, several people are sharing photographs of nature on their own blogs to send to her at this time beyond words. 
Here is my gift to Kate, with the words to a poem/hymn written by Tennyson which my mother chose to give to us her family when she died. Picture taken while sailing in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.