Only those unfortunates who get up at a quarter past six in the morning can really appreciate a lie in until nine o’clock: two and three-quarters hours of oblivion. Or rather an extended period of vivid dreams - a legacy, I think of the lingering effects of the medication to make sure that my single day off school remained as a single day!
The only thing that made the last two useless days of school supportable was the knowledge that today I was going to Barcelona to search for interesting wines to tickle the taste-buds of our little group of wine snobs (unfair!) in Stages in the New Year.
As the colleague who was going to accompany me had to go to hospital for emergency treatment at the weekend it seemed that she would be unable to wander about in Barcelona. Luckily the two ridiculous school days were so obnoxious that we were both determined to wash the memory away with a day out as soon as the term was ended.
We met, as is traditional for me, outside Habitat and, as if on cue, the rains started. What should have been a pleasant ramble around the elegant streets of Barcelona turned into a damp grumble, dodging puddles. This weather is most uncharacteristic and should have the good grace to bugger off to a country where it is more typical.
However depressing the conditions, we did not allow ourselves to be depressed: we were, after all, free on a Wednesday!
One of our first stops was in a superb chocolate shop where the elegant displays of boxed delights were almost too much to resist – until you noticed the price! I was much taken with a box of thirty-six chocolates set out in regulated lines and the top of each chocolate was decorated with a design composed of repeated numbers. The chocolates were grouped into nine batches of four and their flavours were, to say the least, experimental including such delights as curry chocolate and stout chocolate!
As I was looking for a present I had to tell myself that my somewhat eclectic taste might not be shared by the recipient, so I played (fairly) safe and chose more conventional confections.
This shop also has a coffee/chocolate shop and so we were able to have a flavoursome cup of rich, dark coffee and we also chose a single chocolate (packed in its own little box) to accompany the drink.
Thus refreshed we ventured out into the gallery area of Barcelona and saw the usual mixture of the urbane and the insulting. One ‘exhibition’ comprised the wall of the gallery being roughly painted in strips of colour with the paint pots lying around and a fringe of sports’ newspapers at the bottom of the walls to catch the drips. We almost didn’t go in because we couldn’t tell from a casual look if the gallery was being prepared for an exhibition or if it was the exhibition itself!
We looked at Greek classical sculpture; Egyptian artefacts; child-like coloured scribbles; prints by Victor Vaserely (a name from the past); an amazingly various collection of generally figurative artists; spectacularly well taken photographs; a childish take-off of something that Roy Lichtenstein did better and last, but certainly not least an exhibition of Ramon Casas.
We were on our way to lunch when through torrential rain I saw the unmistakable style of the artist that I regard as the finest that Catalonia has produced.
The exhibition was small and had pieces of dubious quality including some fugitive pieces that should surely be in a museum for experts to study and not stuck in some sort of totally inappropriate ornate frame simply because of the same. However, there was a Casas portrait sketch which stood out from everything else for me. And it was for sale. And therefore could be mine!
For only €45,000!
I will have to wait for El Niño and hope that I am successful in that draw.
Though if anyone has forty-five thousand lying around doing nothing . . .
Lunch was a chatty delight with mushroom risotto and a beautiful piece of salmon, followed by pear in chocolate sauce – and a bottle of wine. This, surely, is how all Wednesdays should be spent – apart from the rain of course!
Toni has returned from the frozen wastes of Terrassa, chilled to the bone and with the start of a cold. He is urging me to pile on the clothing when we go up to participate in the seasonal celebrations!
And I still haven’t wrapped the presents!
The only thing that made the last two useless days of school supportable was the knowledge that today I was going to Barcelona to search for interesting wines to tickle the taste-buds of our little group of wine snobs (unfair!) in Stages in the New Year.
As the colleague who was going to accompany me had to go to hospital for emergency treatment at the weekend it seemed that she would be unable to wander about in Barcelona. Luckily the two ridiculous school days were so obnoxious that we were both determined to wash the memory away with a day out as soon as the term was ended.
We met, as is traditional for me, outside Habitat and, as if on cue, the rains started. What should have been a pleasant ramble around the elegant streets of Barcelona turned into a damp grumble, dodging puddles. This weather is most uncharacteristic and should have the good grace to bugger off to a country where it is more typical.
However depressing the conditions, we did not allow ourselves to be depressed: we were, after all, free on a Wednesday!
One of our first stops was in a superb chocolate shop where the elegant displays of boxed delights were almost too much to resist – until you noticed the price! I was much taken with a box of thirty-six chocolates set out in regulated lines and the top of each chocolate was decorated with a design composed of repeated numbers. The chocolates were grouped into nine batches of four and their flavours were, to say the least, experimental including such delights as curry chocolate and stout chocolate!
As I was looking for a present I had to tell myself that my somewhat eclectic taste might not be shared by the recipient, so I played (fairly) safe and chose more conventional confections.
This shop also has a coffee/chocolate shop and so we were able to have a flavoursome cup of rich, dark coffee and we also chose a single chocolate (packed in its own little box) to accompany the drink.
Thus refreshed we ventured out into the gallery area of Barcelona and saw the usual mixture of the urbane and the insulting. One ‘exhibition’ comprised the wall of the gallery being roughly painted in strips of colour with the paint pots lying around and a fringe of sports’ newspapers at the bottom of the walls to catch the drips. We almost didn’t go in because we couldn’t tell from a casual look if the gallery was being prepared for an exhibition or if it was the exhibition itself!
We looked at Greek classical sculpture; Egyptian artefacts; child-like coloured scribbles; prints by Victor Vaserely (a name from the past); an amazingly various collection of generally figurative artists; spectacularly well taken photographs; a childish take-off of something that Roy Lichtenstein did better and last, but certainly not least an exhibition of Ramon Casas.
We were on our way to lunch when through torrential rain I saw the unmistakable style of the artist that I regard as the finest that Catalonia has produced.
The exhibition was small and had pieces of dubious quality including some fugitive pieces that should surely be in a museum for experts to study and not stuck in some sort of totally inappropriate ornate frame simply because of the same. However, there was a Casas portrait sketch which stood out from everything else for me. And it was for sale. And therefore could be mine!
For only €45,000!
I will have to wait for El Niño and hope that I am successful in that draw.
Though if anyone has forty-five thousand lying around doing nothing . . .
Lunch was a chatty delight with mushroom risotto and a beautiful piece of salmon, followed by pear in chocolate sauce – and a bottle of wine. This, surely, is how all Wednesdays should be spent – apart from the rain of course!
Toni has returned from the frozen wastes of Terrassa, chilled to the bone and with the start of a cold. He is urging me to pile on the clothing when we go up to participate in the seasonal celebrations!
And I still haven’t wrapped the presents!
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