I took a walk this evening up to the derelict tower that sits on a hill overlooking GranollersThe tower Torre de Pinos is an old fortified defense tower built in the 14th century and now half in ruins it is protected but not really cherished.
But the place is magical. I took these photos on a sunny afternoon last week, walking along flower lined paths while trying to take photographs of the swifts. It is not easy to catch one moment of their flight path as they are the ultimate aerial birds. I had many photos of empty blue sky! Swifts eat, drink, mate and sleep on the wing and only come to earth for long enough to nest and feed their young. Barcelona is full of the sound of their excited cries and from our terrace here I can watch them at night. In Catala they are called Falciots, not orinetes which are swallows. Up in the fields around the Torre, high above Granollers, in the evening when the air is full of flying insects, I am able to feel as if I am in their world.
Tonight I went to the Torre just before sunset. The sun was hiding at first behind a large cloud and I watched it slowly emerge like a luminescent red balloon to glow with midsummer fire before settling down behind the hills. I had no camera and could only wonder and marvel at the dance of the swifts, the rays of purple light spreading across the sky and the wildness of this place so close to the city. So often I stand with my neck craned to watch them high above but tonight I had the amazing experience of having them whizz past my head so close I could hear their wing beat.
Life sometimes throws at us ‘momentos malos’ and it was in this kind of mood that I climbed the hill tonight with Duna as my companion. I felt very aware that nowhere within miles or kilometers was there anyone I could talk to freely in my own language. I was missing not so much ‘home’ but the feeling of ‘being at home’. If you ever imagine living in another country, include this in the fantasy, it can be hard! Small things can feel like the last straw and it is easy to feel inadequate when you can’t freely do the most normal thing – talk. So,what to do, where to turn?
For me it is to nature, which exists outside frontiers and customs, languages and barriers, frustrations and misunderstandings. All exists in the moment and tonight as the light was dying it was beautiful to be part of that moment.