“¡Valiente!” commented gentleman on the
stairs down from the restaurant where we had just had lunch. I wish that I could tell you that he was
commending me on some characteristic act of bravery, but he wasn’t. He was making a comment about the fact that I
was wearing sandals.
I suppose that the 20th of
December is fairly late in the year still to be in denial about the demise of
summer, but I am. And I would further
maintain that, as an ex-resident of Britain, I can still tell that the
temperatures that I experience even in the harsher months here in Castelldefels are
as nothing compared with the temperatures that I would experience were I still
in my home city of Cardiff.
Not that Cardiff is really cold. At least in comparison with the rest of the
UK. I noticed on weather maps that the
temperatures in my city, while hardly tropical, were usually among the warmest
on our benighted islands. And for me, it
was never really the low temperatures that got to me about the British weather:
it was always the rain and grey skies.
A
cold and crisp December day in Castelldefels I can take, but take that temperature and place it in a sky sullen with washed out clouds and a soul-destroying drizzle permeating every inch of clothing in southern Wales and I
start turning towards Strindburg for light entertainment!
And my feet don’t feel the cold as much as
other parts of my body. I am not an
idiot, I remember my father’s comment, “Only a fool or a pauper is cold!” and
maintain that I am neither, nor cold.
For example, I am typing this on the third floor, looking out (well, I
can touch type) through single glazed French doors and windows that do very
little to keep the cold out, so I have the central heating on. We have two duvets and my grandmother’s
eiderdown on the bed: we are warm. But I
can wear sandals without my feet getting cold.
They (my open feet) have become something
of a defining feature of my winter wear here in Castelldefels.
Catalan people dress according to the month, whatever the actual weather
is like. December is Winter, you must,
therefore, be thoroughly and warmly dressed up.
Young children display all the characteristics of victims about to be
pulled apart by horses, as they wear so many layers of clothing that their arms
and legs are angled away from their rotund bodies so that they look as though
they are little neophyte priests with their (well wrapped) arms perpetually
raised in blessing! If my feet felt cold
then I would wear shoes or trainers. But
they don’t, so I don’t.
The restaurant was at the bottom of our
road and next to the beach, with startling views of the Med. The meal was excellent. It started with calçots - a local variety of
an leek-like onion which are cooked over flames until the outer surface is
charred and blackened, then they are wrapped in newspaper and served with a
tasty sauce.
The real delight of this dish is that it is
filthy. You are provided with a paper
bib and plenty of serviettes because to eat the calçots you have to peel away
the outer layer, with blackening hands, extract the long oniony inside, dip it in the sauce and then lower it
into your open mouth. Not an elegant way
to start the meal, but a deeply satisfying one!
My main course was of a fish called
“denton” which is in none of my Spanish dictionaries and is unrecognized by
Google translate. I was told it was
“salvaje” (wild) and when it arrived it was complete with head. The flesh was juicy and sweet and I can’t say
I recognized the type from its appearance.
The real joy of this course, though, was the vegetables: a mix including
mushrooms, asparagus and peppers. They
were cooked al dente and had the sort
of taste that makes you believe that being a vegetarian might not be such a bad
idea after all. That idea doesn’t last,
but it is nice to have a dish that makes you believe it if only for a moment.
The last course was a sort of chocolate
sponge, cream and caramel topping that I will not describe further as I can
feel the calories adding themselves to my girth even as I think of them!
The wine was more than drinkable and my
post meal cup of tea was acceptably strong and the milk was brought in a little
jug and it was cold. Believe you me,
that last detail speaks volumes. It has
taken me a long, long time to get restaurants in our usual round to produce a
cup of tea that would not have British people phoning for the kitchen police
and, even though I give exhaustive and exhausting instruction as to how I
expect my tea to arrive, I am constantly flummoxed by the details that Spanish
tea making assassins can get wrong.
And so home after a little light shopping
for the final aspects of Toni’s Christmas present and the realization that we
are actually fairly well set to survive the season and to my delight and relief, Toni has
volunteered to wrap the presents tomorrow.
Perhaps everything that I have written up
to this point as been to avoid typing, or even thinking about what is going to
happen tomorrow.
The election in Catalonia.
Today is the day of reflection. Candidates have ceased campaigning, and today
is the day when people can think about what has been said (and shouted) and
weigh up the possibilities and make a measured judgement about how to cast
their vote.
Today is also the day when the leaders of
all the political parties but their rivalries aside and join together in a photoshoot
which shows them all together.
But not this year. A photoshoot of all the leaders would be a
tad difficult as one of the leaders is in prison and another is in exile in
Belgium! So the shoot has been cancelled.
Now right thinking people (i.e. me) might
think that this non-happening photoshoot is the clearest indication possible to
voters that some sort of Rubicon has been crossed. The courts have been politically manipulated
and motivated; an 'invasion' has been mounted against the Catalan government; our
leaders have been cynically deposed; a minority government has staged a pseudo
coup d’état, among other things.
It is perfectly easy, of course, to take a
radically different view. To aver that
the ‘deposed’ politicians have behaved in an unconstitutional way, they have
used public funds in an illegal fashion, they are seditious and in rebellion
against the state. The minority right
wing Spanish government therefore, has done no more than assert the rights of the
majority and uphold the constitution.
If we had a Spanish national government
that wasn’t so deeply mired in corruption; if we had true separation between
the courts and the executive; if we had politicians who thought about the
country and not their own well being; if we had a President who had political
nous; if . . . and so on, and so on.
Rajoy is President, he must accept the
lion’s share of responsibility for the present situation. He has been president for some time. His party objected to the settlement, that
passed both houses in Parliament, that would have given Catalonia a different
status and got the higher courts to overturn the plan. He has been president while the situation has
worsened and he has done nothing to find a real settlement.
Perhaps Rajoy’s ‘master plan’ (I use the
term very loosely for a political pygmy like him) has been to force things to a
catastrophic denoument then sweep in like an avenging angel and reset the
relationship with that 'difficult' region/country of Catalonia once and for all. After all his party scrapes lower than 9% of
the popular vote into his grasping paws, and he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying
whatever he feels like in a country that has constantly rejected him and his
‘ideology’.
Perhaps chaos is what Rajoy
has been working towards. If he has, he
has royally succeeded!
So tomorrow is the vote. Toni is confident that the independence
parties will get over the magic 68 seats needed to gain an absolute
majority. I'm not, but I am prepared to go with his optimism.
As an outside observer I have been shocked
at the one sided reporting of the election.
Rajoy knows that his own corrupt party stands no chance of winning in Catalonia and
so the power of the right wing press and the money of various industrialists
have gone into Ciudadanos that, although it sometimes like to describe itself
as a centrist party, votes or abstains to aid the minority right wing Spanish
PP governing party. Rajoy knows that a
vote for Cs (Ciudadanos) is, in reality a vote for the continuation of his
corrupt government and the only way that he is going to get anything
approaching a majority in Catalonia.
The Spanish equivalent of the British Labour party, PSOE or PSC in Catalonia have sided with PP and Cs. They do have a policy or renegotiation of the relationship between the regions and the central government. They reject the idea of a referendum for independence. They have lost credibility, and in all important aspects will, will have to vote with what are their natural enemies if they wish to prevent a declaration of independence by Catalonia. They do not have individual power or the likelihood of a coalition to get their ideas anywhere.
The same goes for Podemos, the further left party. Their idea of a binding referendum is doomed to failure in the national government because they do not have a majority or partners who might support their ideas. Without power these parties can say what they like, but it is not going to happen.
Even if the independence parties gain an absolute majority tomorrow, they will have to cope with the implacable opposition of Rajoy and PP with the support of Cs and the active support of PSOE voting with these parties or usefully abstaining. PP will, therefore, get what it wants. And it has a built in majority in the Senate.
Whatever happens, it's going to be a rough time for Catalonia.
Keep watching!
