Collecting water from Montseny

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

We are muddling along.

Bonnie has good and bad days. In general she is happy and full of energy but her digestion is very unstable and this tires her (and me) out.
There is no way of knowing what will happen next.
Or when it will happen.
That is just a fact of life that I must accept.

Our new kitten Phoenix (Fenix in Catalan) has settled into Granollers fairly well. We keep her in one room until she feels more confident and also to avoid her running out of the front door onto the busy street. Once she is calm and comfortable with us all then we will have to trust her not to be foolish. She is still nervous when we make loud or sudden noises but trusts Bonnie totally

Yesterday we went up to Sant Fe in the mountains of Montseny. There is a natural spring there where we fill up our water bottles.  Sometimes when I am writing English I can’t remember which is the correct way to express something. I reverse translate and end up with funny expressions like ‘gather water’ or ‘collect water’. What is the right way to say this in English? Is it just ‘get water’?

 It was Sunday and many other people had the same idea. When we arrived there was a group of neighbours from Sabadell who were just beginning to fill up about 60 eight litre bottles of water. I timed them for a while and realised it takes about one minute each bottle. The stream coming out of the rock was steady but rather slow. The water is delicious and so cold


As we waited three more couples arrived armed with large plastic bottles. It was a bit of a party

The woods around the fountain are mostly beech and the ground was inches deep in reddy brown leaves which perfectly matched Bonnie’s coat

We filled up 30 bottles which should last us a few months. It is one of my great pleasures here – going to collect, or fetch, or catch, or get fresh mountain spring water.

A little Extra

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

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!





January Hiatus

~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment



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

 

How is Bonnie?

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

It’s been a long time since I wrote about Bonnie.
How is she getting on?  What are we doing for her?   How am I coping?
  • Sometimes it is hard to believe she is sick and has cancer.  She looks great, her coat is soft and thick, her eyes are bright and she has all her usual energy when she sees you have brought a ball to chase. We went for a walk today for example and when she realised I had not brought the all important ball, she raced off and found a pine cone and dropped it at my feet, teasing me with her eyes, inviting me to play.
  • Sometimes she looks worn out and tired. One of her eyes is weepy and irritated. Her body can feel hot and she drinks a lot.  There are nights when her tummy is gurgling and rumbling for hours and she can’t get comfortable in her bed. She gets up and plonks herself noisily on the floor, only to return to her bed a few minutes later.
  • So as you see, it is up and down. But right now it is more up.  Last week for about 4 days she had terrible diarrhoea.  The kind that you don’t want to happen in the middle of a busy street. She was drinking lots of water and seemed uncomfortable. We travelled back to Granollers and I took her straight to the vets at Veterinari Lauro. They are very nice there and all our checkup visits are free.  After taking antibiotics, a white gooey medicine to coat her stomach and some special digestive tinned food, the next day she was almost totally recovered.
  • I have joined three dog cancer groups on the internet and spend a lot of time trying to sort out which dog lives with who and what kind of cancer they have. There is so much information out there and so many people devoting themselves to caring for their sick dogs.  If not for these sites I wouldn’t know what to do for Bonnie now as the vets here, wonderful though they are, don’t know anything about alternative treatments.
  • Chinese mushrooms, parley, tumeric, wheat germ extract, Krill fish oil, artemesia, broccoli and brussel sprouts, sunshine, lots of hours of sleep in total darkness, learning new tricks, love, happy times, more love……..these are her medicines.
  • It is almost 7 weeks since the diagnosis. I find it impossible not to count the weeks even though I know that there are no accurate survival times. It was good to get past the 4 week mark, then the 6 week and now I am looking at the 8.  The vet said that she probably wouldn’t still be here in three months but who knows?  There are stories of great survivors and these herbal pills are strong allies in the fight to slow down the growth.
  • The major change for us is that we now spend a lot of time at Sant Nicolau. I booked one of the cottages for a month and now will take it for January too.   It is really wonderful to have it as a haven of peace and healing.  We came back to Granollers for Christmas.  I wouldn’t want to wish away any of Bonnie’s precious days but I have to say I am glad those ones are over.  There was nothing bad but I just wasn’t in the mood and had to go through the motions.  Now we can go back to the countryside and I am looking forward to seeing the mountains again and to watch how happily Bonnie races through the woods chasing scents, and rolls in the grass in a doggy ecstasy. Here she is peacefully watching the birds beside Blue.
    The skies were amazing on our morning walks. Would you ever tire of this?

Market Day in Figueres

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Up bright and early to go on the school run to Figueres. Bonnie was a bit surprised to be leaving the house at 7.30am when it was still dark.

We had a wander around the market watching them set up their stalls. It was much quieter than the market in Granollers – people standing around chatting rather than shouting at the top of their voices.
But to be fair perhaps they are like that in Granollers too at 8am – I have never been to look!

In the vegetable market there is a large sculpture of George and the Dragon – both looking strong and proud – forever caught in that moment before the fight begins. I much prefer it to depictions of the dragon losing the battle. But whatever George thinks – that Dragon will always rise again!

Beside the police station with it’s Spanish flag there is a window with the Catalan one

A Figueres hotel welcomes old cows like me!  In the Taurean sense of the word.
As we left town it began to rain – I can’t remember the last time it did – and as usual most people had umbrellas handy – except us!
Yesterday we took the Blue Dog sculpture down to sit in place beside Blue’s grave.

A very peaceful place to sit and dream.