walking

Virtual Vermut

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

I am terribly behind in these posts – every day there is something new I want to write about and yet by the evening I am either tired and lazy or too engrossed in Trollope to download the photos.
So I thought a quick Virtual Vermut could be the answer and I can tell you lots of unrelated bits of news in one post!
For those who don’t know, Virtual Vermut is my name for a post written as I might chat to a friend over a drink in a cafe. It’s a chat, a chance to catch up with life.
So, although it is very late on a Sunday or more truthfully very early on a Monday, would you like to join me for a quick vermouth?

There is so much to tell you.
Home Life
As part of a much larger plan to make home life flow better as regards the Resident Adolescent, the three of us went bowling again a week ago. On Wednesday nights there is a special deal where you can play a large number of games for not too much money. The only catch is that the games are for two teams.  So with three people it meant two against one and we kept changing the combination so at one point I played against the two males and although I didn’t win, neither did I shame myself.
 It was only my third time at a bowling alley and my first time not using the side-guards. 
There is something very meditative about bowling and I need to breathe and centre myself before throwing otherwise I make a mess of it.  So true for many other things in my life as well!

Sant Nicolau again
The following weekend included a public holiday. Some people here worked through October 12th – Columbus Day –  as it is celebrates the Spanish State and the armed forces and so doesn’t have a good feeling in Catalunya.  Especially at the moment.
 But it is also my friend Tiffany’s birthday so well worth celebrating!
We took the chance to get away and go back to Sant Nicolau to look for mushrooms.
Blue’s statue is looking good and has a lovely solid presence in the garden

 The flowers were incredibly vivid in the intense autumn light

 There were some edible mushrooms in the woods, as well as a wild boar and a solitary hunting dog with big bloody jowls and a large bell around its neck. But the weather wasn’t really cold enough for a lot of ‘bolets’ although there was a beautiful line of them leading down to where Blue is buried


Back to Granollers and to our relief the house was fairly tidy and clean.  Perhaps adolescence really does begin to fade away in the late teens?  Or is it to do with the New Deal we have created?
The weather began to cool down and the shops to fill their windows with pumpkins and panellets

 Walking
At last we managed to organise a walk with Oreneta in the hills above the Maresme.
We reached a viewing point above Barcelona from where the city looks quite neat and small

Barcelona
Last Monday I went down for the evening to dance tango.  Wandering around Gracia before meeting my friend, I thought that if I ever get a flat in the city it should be here.   
It feels like Stoke Newington by the Mediterranean.
There were lots of Catalan flags hanging from windows.

 Imagine having a Palestinian restaurant nearby!

Milongas finish late so I came home for the first time on the night bus.
There are several that come to Granollers and I caught the 72 which takes 40 minutes from Plaça Tetuan to Granollers bus station.  What a peaceful way to travel and it only cost 3.70 euros. It is just as comfortable for sleeping as the train to Passeig de Gracia in which I can rarely keep my eyes open.

There is so much more to tell you but I know you have to get going soon so I’ll finish with a story about cats and dogs that happened today.
More Walking
Montnegre is a mountain range lying behind seaside towns such as St Pol and Arenys de Mar.  It is much quieter than the Serralada Litoral where we met Oreneta or the Montseny where we often go to the woods. After parking in St Iscle de Vallalta we followed a path up into the hills, passing a large property called Mas Olles. What the book didn’t warn us about was the pack of dogs that live there. First one barked in the distance, then another and another. One by one they all came thundering over the land towards us. I couldn’t count them – perhaps there were 15 or 18 – all large and all rather excited to see two people and a dog walking by

Luckily there was a stout fence but it’s impossible to know the stoutness of a fence until you have tested it. Once safely past, we discovered we had taken the wrong path so had to go past them again. Of course they had left an early warning party waiting by the fence just in case we did just this. I imagine it has happened before and this is their main enjoyment of the day.
It isn’t a place I would walk past on my own.
Later we found these wild cats on top of a ledge

 They looked very well but when winter comes I imagine they have a hard life.
So now good night and thank you for visiting and listening to these odd bits and pieces of life.
Have a good Monday – it is now definitely Monday morning!


Wild Flowers of the Congost

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

Here are some pictures of the walk I took with Bonnie last week.
We went all the way from home to the Vienna Cafe and back.
Past the church at Palou. It strikes every quarter hour and reminds you of the Catalan way of telling the time – un quart, dos quarts, tres quarts meaning quarter past, half past and quarter to. In the days before clocks and watches people always knew the time by hearing how often the bell rang.
Of course it helped if you had a vague idea of which hour it was too.

The whole walk was about 11 km, most of it along the side of the River Congost.
The flowers are incredible at the moment.
I wish I knew their names – I know the little blue one is Borage of course!

After four hours of walking we were very relaxed and began to see pictures and patterns in everything around us. I love that state of mind. It’s the first stirrings of creativity I’ve had for months.

GR92 near Orrius

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

Yesterday Bonnie and I met Oreneta and Chuck for a walk along part of the GR92. This is the Catalan name for a long walking trail that goes from the Pyrenees to the south of Catalunya.  It stretches further south into Andalucia and north into France but the Catalan part was so named to mark its completion in 1992 the year of the Barcelona Olympics.
It was a perfect walking day, sunny but not too hot, and we were mainly going along a very well maintained rough track on the top of the ridge. The mountains here are called The Corredor  – on one side is the Valles Oriental and Granollers and on the other, The Maresma and the Mediterranean Sea.
We met at Sant Bartomeu chapel. I didn’t know who this saint was but it seems he was also one of the apostles. When first he heard of Jesus he said  ” Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

We walked to the mineral spring the Font of Sant Mateu. He was the disciple that was a tax collector of whom Jesus said “I came not to call the righteous but the sinners”. Interesting!
Isn’t it amazing that here the rivers are either low or barely more than a dribble but all around the mountains there are fresh supplies of wonderful clear drinking water?

There and back was about 14 km and of course there were little breaks for snacks!
Who can resist these two beautiful friends?  Chuck was a perfect gentleman and chased off cars and wild dogs to protect Bonnie who was incredibly happy share her sandwiches with him.

If I keep a green bough in my heart then the singing bird will come

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

Sometimes I long for green.
One of the walks near here with grass and trees is at Mil Pins.
You have to drive there but it’s only 5 minutes away.

It’s like a park on the edge of the countryside.
Pep remembers camping there with his family when he was young

There are now lots of houses on one side and it’s easy to park right by the entrance

That may sound like a boring fact but believe me in Granollers it is a miracle

The dogs met some new friends.
I love the shape of the black one – the women sitting at the fountain said it was a podenco ibicenco which is a breed from Ibiza. But I can’t see any that are black. I had to stop reading because of the many sites describing how many are found in animal shelters after bad treatment.  This one at least was happy and playful and had a wonderful open space to exercise her grace and agility and intelligence.

All was peaceful barring a few growls and snaps

A week in my life

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

It’s been a good week with lots of movement – various aspects of life evolving and changing although, on the surface, everything is more or less the same.

You know the sort of week – time goes by, things happen, some days are better than others?
First – I finally went and had my hair cut in Granollers

 I had been putting it off.   Fear. Timidity.  But I am pleased with it and feel so much better, bouncier, lighter.   I managed perfectly well to explain what I wanted – in Catalan – and when the woman was washing my hair I did my usual MMMMMMmmmmm to show that I like having my head massaged (some people don’t!) and she continued to spend about 10 minutes massaging my whole scalp. I fell asleep – it was incredible.

The weather has been cold – today -4. But the sun still shines and it’s lovely during the day to be out and feel the warmth on your cheeks – it’s not hot but strengthening every day

We went for a walk up on the hills behind Mataro

Blue managed to walk all the way up to the top where we found an abandoned masia and dreamed of buying it and making it our home

It is so wonderful to be out in the countryside, to walk without traffic or people, to hear birds and see the sea in the distance

This week I have been practising Castellano as I realised it is getting harder and harder to speak it now that Catalan is dominant in the foreign language department of my brain. I have switched back to Spanish National Radio 3 to practise listening. On Saturday they played this song which I think would be lovely to dance tango to. But on the Catalan side of things I am feeling happy that we have almost finished the book we bought last year, Les Veus del Pamano. It feels like a big achievement and I understood almost every word.
On Saturday there was a class of Contact improvisation here in Llancadora.  It helped me relax after these two weeks of pain and at last I felt myself coming back into my body after the double shock of hurting both hands so badly.
On Sunday we had the tango class here again but for the last time as the teacher can’t afford to pay rent for the space!  It was 15 euros but he didn’t have enough people.  It’s been great to do some leading again as there were more women than men and all of them happy to practise with me. I am beginning to miss teaching tango so perhaps sometime I’ll start it up again and perhaps combine with English practice!

Today was my drawing class and tonight is the first meditation group at Tiffanys house.
New beginnings.

I feel that Spring is just around the corner – as if the seeds that are buried deep in the dark frozen ground are beginning to come to life. Something inside is shifting and wakening. We’ll see. For the moment – here is the cake that I brought home for tea, to celebrate the first day of my hands feeling better!