Going to the Dentist

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

A visit to the hairdresser in another country can be daunting but what about the dentist?

I’ve had several experiences here with different dentists and all have been fine. Some have even been  pleasant!  I remember one in Barcelona telling me that in the sixties and seventies there were hardly any British dentists at the main conferences – dentistry was mostly NHS and this didn’t pay for extra training.  We were chatting about the British mouth from the 50’s and 60’s – full of fillings!

Today was our first full day at Sant Nicolau. We went shopping and walked in the woods and just as we got cosy for the evening I made the mistake of eating a bar of Topic, and halfway through felt that dreaded crunch which was not one of the nuts.  A moment of panic, then a gentle exploration revealed an enormous gap where last week I had felt something distinctly wiggly.

Helen gave me the number of a dentist in Figueres and after a quick phone call I left Bonnie behind in the cottage and set off at 5pm for an emergency appointment. By half past six I was back home with it all sorted out.
The cost?  It was 50 euros for a large and permanent filling.  Not bad is it?  They didn’t make me have an x-ray or charge me extra for not being a permanent patient.

The dentist was a young guy with strangely comforting garlic breath. His assistant chatted to him all the way through, leaving me to my dreams. Stories about her brother in law and problems with the car.  I sat, mouth agape, pressing madly on the acupuncture point on my hand for dental work. What I usually do is try to relax the muscles in my stomach and my neck and slip away into a parallel world.  I could hear them laughing and joking as if it was on the radio. Sometimes he would pause with his thumb lodged in my mouth and utter exclamations like ‘Collons!’
Occasionally I surfaced when I realised he was talking to me.
‘Obrir’ ‘Tancar’  ‘Giri el cap’.   ‘Mes ampli si us plau‘ Nothing too challenging to understand.

There is something ancient about the dentists chair. However much things have improved from the days of being held down and having your teeth yanked with only the help of a bottle of brandy, it still has that unpleasant feeling of being totally out of control and unable to communicate.
You are at their mercy.
Drills rattle, water splashes, metal things are tightened around teeth, soft rubbery things are lodged inside your gums, and that pipe is jiggled around inside your mouth which is supposed to keep you dry but often seems to have sprung a leak and jets cold water all over your face.

I never know exactly what is going on and I would hate to have to see it in a mirror.
There are dentists who want you to look inside and see the work. Something similar to the hairdresser who insists that you put on your glasses and make oh-ing and ah-ing noises at the end of a haircut.
Who wants to see the inside of their mouth or all around their head under a bright light and in public?

All we want to do is get through it, pay up at the front desk and run.

Back home and it feels like a dream already. There are two more bars of Topic in the fridge but I will wait for tomorrow.

If you want a dentist in Figueres they are called Clínica Dental Figueres and they are right next door to the vets on Avinguda Salvador Dali.  They were incredibly friendly and efficient.

 

Writing Christmas Cards

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

Some people hate this job but I have always loved it – it’s one of the highlights of Christmas for me.
I don’t like the consumerism and I get anxious buying presents for people when I don’t really know what they would like.  Christmas dinner with someone else’s family can be awkward for a foreign vegetarian and although  I try to stop myself I can still get a bit panicky and buy too much food on Christmas Eve even though I know there will always be shops open the day after.
What I like about Christmas is not easy to find in Catalunya.
  • Singing Christmas carols with other people
  • Opening Christmas stockings in your dressing gown in the morning
  • Celebrating with a delicious vegetarian meal on Christmas day
  • Spending a few precious days with good friends, playing games, preparing meals, reading in front of a log fire.
  • Being with my dog as it is her Christmas too
  • Going for a country or seaside walk on Boxing Day
  • Doing nothing much on Boxing Day
  • Celebrating something called Boxing Day rather than Sant Esteve and remembering my parents who got married on this day

Last year we came close to this ideal when we went to Sant Nicolau in the Emporda.  Just the three of us and Bonnie.  It was great for me but the Catalan family were not too pleased that we opted out. So this year it is back to the old routine and family visits every day from the 24th to the 26th.

But nothing and no-one can stop me making and sending Christmas cards.  It is not a tradition here so I don’t expect to receive many unless they are sent from the UK.  Being abroad also changes your friendship patterns and every year I get fewer cards in the post. But I still continue to send them out to everyone I feel warm towards and want to keep in touch with.  I like going through my address book and thinking of each person as I write the card.  It gives me a chance to stand back and take a look at my friendships and my family.
What changes are there this year?
Some people have drifted off. Some have sadly died and I can take time to think of them as well. There are people from many different areas of my past – Scotland, London, Cornwall, Barcelona, internet friends, old lovers, tango partners.  Some of them are people I hardly ever see any more but they still are woven into the fabric of my life and my heart

This year we made our own cards and for the first time had them printed more professionally at Marc the stationers down the road. They look much better than usual for which I thank Nuria for her wonderful and inspiring painting classes, Pep for helping me with final tweeking on the computer and Marc for doing such a good job with the laser printer.

I wish I had kept copies of past years productions.
But then again, better to live in the present and let go of what has gone before. This year I have written 34 cards, most of them heading off to the UK, a few for friends here in Catalunya and the rest off to Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Canada and the USA.  Tomorrow morning I will be at the Correo offices in Granollers before heading off again to Sant Nicolau with Bonnie for some more fresh air and country peace.
Anyone fancy a chocolate caganer?

Seen in a bakers window in Sant Celoni.

Independence?

~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Just watching the news as they announce a date for the referendum on independence in Catalunya.
It will be on November 9th 2014.
The questions, and there are to be two, are ‘Do you want Catalunya to be a State?’  and if you answered Yes, ‘Do you want this State to be independent?’

The news shifts to Madrid and the Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy. His reaction is to say that it is illegal and won’t be allowed to happen. He doesn’t specify how it will be stopped.

Another shift to the leader of the Catalan branch of the PP (the right wing party of Spanish government) Alicia Sanchez Camacho.   She is saying that to have such a referendum would be undemocratic.  Sending in the army of course would be!

It looks like 2014 will be an interesting year.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/12/spain-rejects-catalonia-referendum-bid-20131212161025718238.html

Sant Celoni

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

We stayed over a week at Sant Nicolau and came back via Sant Celoni which is a town further up the train line from Granollers, about halfway between Barcelona and Girona. As my partner works there I decided to spend a few hours exploring the town while waiting for him to finish.
The town always seems a bit austere when I arrive there on the train but this time I found the central street and there are some lovely buildings and interesting shops.
The church of Sant Marti was constucted in the years between 1634 and 1703.  A whole life time of works!  The front facade is beautiful
Here is the town hall
Christmas specialities such as crisp-flavoured turrons. At the back of the photo there are children playing hopscotch. Catalan towns provide lots of play areas – it is officially painted on the pavement!
Roasted chestnuts cooked on a brazier – sorry this photo is not good but it was hard holding the camera with a dog pulling on the lead. Bonnie is not happy walking through shopping streets.
Sant Celoni is right on the edge of the Natural Park of Montseny and makes a good starting point for excursions up into the mountains.  It’s on the direct train line to Barcelona and in the other direction to Girona and Figueres so is well placed for city, mountains and countryside. 
Until August 2013 there was a famous 3 star Michelin restaurant called Can Fabes. After the death of its founder Santi Santamaria in 2011 and in the current difficult financial climate, the restaurant closed its doors after 32 years of business. I wish I had known about it when I first arrived here and had taken the opportunity to eat some special Catalan cuisine.  I know I have often complained in this blog about the difficulty of finding good food so it is a shame I missed this one.  I just looked up its web site and it looks as if possibly it has reopened.  Impossible to tell with the internet as sometimes the ghosts of old establishments continue to haunt the airwaves. If anyone knows then please write in and tell me – does Can Fabes still exist, or not?   
And if you have eaten there, was it possible to eat vegetarian food?





The view to Canigó

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

We are now at Sant Nicolau.  Bonnie is happy and well.

Our morning walk is down the lane which leads winds through the woods and emerges at what must be one of my favourite views. Across the fields lie the mountains.  On the left I see the dark shape of Mare del Deu del Mont which is actually not far from here

Beside it to the right, or so it appears, is Canigó now covered in snow

This beautiful mountain is in the Pyranees, in the region of Rossello´ in France. But ask any Catalan and they will tell you it is in Catalunya Nord, that part of the country which was ceded to France by Spain by the Treaty of the Pyranees in 1659

Canigó is deeply symbolic for Catalan people. There is a famous poem about its legends by Jacint Verdaguer.  And a beautiful song called Muntanyes del Canigó. I am trying to learn it while I am here and practise singing every day on our early walk as well as in the little church.

I am not always moved by mountains, I am more of a sea person. But I love this view.  A few years ago we went to Prades and climbed Canigó. Just short of the top there was thick mist so we turned back but it is something we will do again sometime soon.

Every year at the feast of Sant Joan, close to the summer solstice, a group of young people from Perpignon take a flame which is kept lit all year round and climb with it to the top of Canigo´. There a large bonfire is lit and more torches are taken from this mother flame and carried far and wide across Catalunya to light the Sant Joan fires. Crowds of people climb the mountain to be part of this ancient ritual. After the descent the torches are taken away by foot, on bicycle and in cars. they say that over 3000 bonfires are lit from the one at the top of Canigo´.

The flame is symbolic of the life and vitality of the Catalan culture. The mountain, although it lies outside the borders of the present Catalunya, exists outside the world of treaties and countries and frontiers. It is very powerful and as I look at it each morning it is clearly part of this landscape

Here is Marina Rossell singing Muntanyes de Canigó.  I searched through several versions and this is the one that I like best. It is a beautiful song but so often these culturally significant songs are sung too sentimentally as I know from a similar tradition in Scotland.
This one is lovely and listen to how she rolls her rrrrr’s!    I need to practise that more.

Muntanyes de Canigó
fresques son i regalades
sobre tot ara a l’estiu
que les aigues son gelades
que les aigues son gelades