Wednesday 27th of August 2008
As I am now in the wilds of the Costa Brava and in a masia
As I am now in the wilds of the Costa Brava and in a masia
I will have no access to a network and so will, consequently, write a day by day thought and paste them all together when I get back to Castelldefels.It was sad to see Emma go on Tuesday from Reus, but at least we now know the way to another airport in the Barcelona area. If AJ manages to find a flight to Girona we will have a Catalan set! Though I fear that there are other airports that we will discover in time through experience and panic!
The journey from Castelldefels to Santa Cristina was largely uneventful because most of it was on motorway. The only problems arrived when we arrived. It is an increasingly common feature that the electronic direction finders in cars are wonderful at getting you almost to your destination, but that disarming voice does have a tendency to assure you that you car is now next to where you want to be when it quite clearly is not so!
To be fair to my machine, I have to say that its failure was due to a new road system which was not built into its maps. And, on that subject, it appears to be cheaper to buy a new machine to get the latest maps than to download an update to your present configuration.
The destination finder thus enters a select (but growing) group of products where to buy new is a cheaper alternative than to repair or update; mobile phones being offered for repair only merit a sneering smirk from the thumb savvy sales assistants; digital cameras are so quickly superseded that offering a machine more than a year old for repair incurs the same costs as painstaking historical reconstruction; computer printers are now so cheap it is more economical to buy a new machine than to buy a new print cartridge, and white goods, well, white goods have always been something of a game of Russian roulette – you buy them and hope that yours is not the Friday afternoon one.
The masia is an impressive old place with a stone lintel with 1686
on it and impressive wooden beams throughout but, like the dustman’s brush, one suspects that all of the constituent parts of the building have been replaced at one time or another. The stairs are steep, the lights are on the outside walls of rooms and there is only one bathroom but it is well sited with a location next to a truly ancient looking basilica type church in what appears to be a very select neighbourhood.
Since we arrived at lunch time it was duly served.
What is the recipe for success in a barbecue?
I think my answer would be ‘the nearness of alternative cooking facilities.'
Carlos made Herculean efforts with a small domestic barbecue and produced grilled sardines and prawns. They were delicious with a true smoky flavour from the coals and a hint of the flavour of the firelighters intermingled to bring a synthesis of the natural and the industrial in one mouthful!
Our trip to the sea side was to Tossa de Mar: the first place that I visited in Spain fifty years ago!
Our epic journey to get there all those years ago seemed to take for ever as it was train from Cardiff to London; boat train from London to Dover; boat from Dover to Calais; train from Calais to Paris; coach tour of Paris; train from Paris to the Spanish border; change train to Barcelona; coach tour of Barcelona; coach from Barcelona to Tossa. And no sleeping compartments.
It was one of the best holidays that I ever had and is a large part of the reason that I am now living in Spain and especially in Catalonia – though, God knows there are other reasons too!
It was interesting to be back in that resort which was the first taste of Spain for so many package tourists in the late 1950s and emotional for me as I thought of the quintet of my parents, Uncle Eric, Aunty Ray and me enjoying what was then the experience of very few – a foreign holiday. In my class of 40 in my primary school, I was the only person to have gone abroad. How times have changed!
My bed is a severe single with a metal spring base and an absurdly spongy mattress.
I confidently expect curvature of the spine when I wake up!
Thursday 28th of August 2008
After a fairly sluggish start we eventually made it to a local beach. This was fine and dandy but in the night something had stolen away my swimming trunks!
As I was wearing then when we came back from the beach they have to be in the masia somewhere; but they have eluded careful search and have softly and suddenly vanished away. (And you get a bonus mark if you recognize the quotation there, and if you did then you should have spoken the line which comes immediately after that one.)
The place we went to struck me as sunnier version of Barry Island with a similar difficulty about parking.
After finding spaces a short walk took me to some shops where I was able to purchase a vastly more expensive version of the Matalan swimming trunks that have disappeared. Almost as soon as the trunks had been baptized it was time to return to the masia for lunch.
The fridge here seems to be altogether more efficient than the sorry apology for cold that we have in the flat and the result is that bottles put into the freezer for a quick cool get cold and then frozen.
The alcoholic slush puppies we had were most refreshing and were an admirable way of draining the potent parts of the drink from the mere water!
Our second visit to the beach was to a completely ersatz place where nothing seemed real. The beach seemed to have been constructed solely for the benefit of the hideous flats which fringed it. It was mechanistic and ruthlessly modern – but it did have parking spaces which is more than could probably be said for the rather more attractive old town that we could see further down the coast from where we were.
My previously unscarred body is now the feeding place for swarms of biting insects. Toni remarked that the mosquitoes of this region have been waiting a long time for a return feast and my blood flavour must have lived on in mosquito folk memory because they all seem to want a bit of me now!
I look towards one of the many proprietary insect repellents that glows fitfully in the one and only electricity socket in the room and wonder at the cupidity of man in believing in these things. What a mosquito wants a mosquito gets.
Mt blood group is Group A Rh positive in case I look pale and interesting in the morning!
Friday 29th of August 2008
The beds in this masia are designed for dwarfs and I have had to change my sleeping choice from a bed with large wooden end pieces to a bed which at least allowed my feet to project over the ends.
I am not sure if my unsupported ankles are the reason but my legs have been aching since I’ve been in the Costa Brava – though I think the candyfloss mattress might have something to do with it as well!
The beach we went today had a rather British feel as the edge of the beach was fringed with multicoloured beach huts
Since we arrived at lunch time it was duly served.
What is the recipe for success in a barbecue?
I think my answer would be ‘the nearness of alternative cooking facilities.'
Carlos made Herculean efforts with a small domestic barbecue and produced grilled sardines and prawns. They were delicious with a true smoky flavour from the coals and a hint of the flavour of the firelighters intermingled to bring a synthesis of the natural and the industrial in one mouthful!
Our trip to the sea side was to Tossa de Mar: the first place that I visited in Spain fifty years ago!
Our epic journey to get there all those years ago seemed to take for ever as it was train from Cardiff to London; boat train from London to Dover; boat from Dover to Calais; train from Calais to Paris; coach tour of Paris; train from Paris to the Spanish border; change train to Barcelona; coach tour of Barcelona; coach from Barcelona to Tossa. And no sleeping compartments.
It was one of the best holidays that I ever had and is a large part of the reason that I am now living in Spain and especially in Catalonia – though, God knows there are other reasons too!
It was interesting to be back in that resort which was the first taste of Spain for so many package tourists in the late 1950s and emotional for me as I thought of the quintet of my parents, Uncle Eric, Aunty Ray and me enjoying what was then the experience of very few – a foreign holiday. In my class of 40 in my primary school, I was the only person to have gone abroad. How times have changed!
My bed is a severe single with a metal spring base and an absurdly spongy mattress.
I confidently expect curvature of the spine when I wake up!
Thursday 28th of August 2008
After a fairly sluggish start we eventually made it to a local beach. This was fine and dandy but in the night something had stolen away my swimming trunks!
As I was wearing then when we came back from the beach they have to be in the masia somewhere; but they have eluded careful search and have softly and suddenly vanished away. (And you get a bonus mark if you recognize the quotation there, and if you did then you should have spoken the line which comes immediately after that one.)
The place we went to struck me as sunnier version of Barry Island with a similar difficulty about parking.
After finding spaces a short walk took me to some shops where I was able to purchase a vastly more expensive version of the Matalan swimming trunks that have disappeared. Almost as soon as the trunks had been baptized it was time to return to the masia for lunch.
The fridge here seems to be altogether more efficient than the sorry apology for cold that we have in the flat and the result is that bottles put into the freezer for a quick cool get cold and then frozen.
The alcoholic slush puppies we had were most refreshing and were an admirable way of draining the potent parts of the drink from the mere water!
Our second visit to the beach was to a completely ersatz place where nothing seemed real. The beach seemed to have been constructed solely for the benefit of the hideous flats which fringed it. It was mechanistic and ruthlessly modern – but it did have parking spaces which is more than could probably be said for the rather more attractive old town that we could see further down the coast from where we were.
My previously unscarred body is now the feeding place for swarms of biting insects. Toni remarked that the mosquitoes of this region have been waiting a long time for a return feast and my blood flavour must have lived on in mosquito folk memory because they all seem to want a bit of me now!
I look towards one of the many proprietary insect repellents that glows fitfully in the one and only electricity socket in the room and wonder at the cupidity of man in believing in these things. What a mosquito wants a mosquito gets.
Mt blood group is Group A Rh positive in case I look pale and interesting in the morning!
Friday 29th of August 2008
The beds in this masia are designed for dwarfs and I have had to change my sleeping choice from a bed with large wooden end pieces to a bed which at least allowed my feet to project over the ends.
I am not sure if my unsupported ankles are the reason but my legs have been aching since I’ve been in the Costa Brava – though I think the candyfloss mattress might have something to do with it as well!
The beach we went today had a rather British feel as the edge of the beach was fringed with multicoloured beach huts
and equally colourful showers with signs warning ordinary folks with no access to one of the huts to stay away as the water gushing out of the shower heads was private.
It was fairly obvious that there was an attempt to make the beach select and exclusive. I however had other information from one who knows who stated that no Spanish beach was private so we flaunted our presence there with what can only be described as impunity.
And so back to Castelldefels and some sort of reality.
The beginning of term is also a time for me to consider what I should be doing in terms of work. It is not enough to enrol for Spanish classes; I need to be thinking about what I am going to do for the next few years.
There is so much potential in the next few months for so much to happen that I am somewhat intimidated by expectation.
Bring it on!
It was fairly obvious that there was an attempt to make the beach select and exclusive. I however had other information from one who knows who stated that no Spanish beach was private so we flaunted our presence there with what can only be described as impunity.
And so back to Castelldefels and some sort of reality.
The beginning of term is also a time for me to consider what I should be doing in terms of work. It is not enough to enrol for Spanish classes; I need to be thinking about what I am going to do for the next few years.
There is so much potential in the next few months for so much to happen that I am somewhat intimidated by expectation.
Bring it on!
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