Sant Jordi's day

Today is Sant Jordi, the patron saint of Catalunya. Yes, it's Saint George, the one with the dragon, the same guy different name. It's also book day in the whole of Spain
The tradition say that guys should give a rose to the special women in their lives: wives, girlfriends, mothers, daughters, etc, and the women should give their special guys a book. Now, in order to avoid being sexist some women also ask for books... at least I did!
So in every single corner of our town and even in crossroads outside the villages you could see a little table covered by the Catalan flag (see picture on the right hand) and vases of multicoloured roses individually wrapped for sale. The prices varied greatly from €3 and up according to the colour of the rose and the wrapping which was as creative as you can expect here.
Since very early in the morning you could see guys with roses and of course the bookshops were at their busiest. In some workplaces the bosses made sure to give one rose to every female employee, as "the husband" told me it happened in his lab.
I've got books for "the husband", my son and I even bought a book so my son could give to her grandma. "The husband" bough 2 gorgeous roses for his mum and for me and I've got another one from P. Very sweet. But I've got no book!! So I'm going to buy one for myself as soon as I can!
In our town the central square has its own open air show with music groups and local folk dancers and musicians. We also had 2 book fairs, one in the central square which included some local authors signing their books, and another one near the local market square. Most books were in Catalan, but there were also some in Spanish.
It's a nice event and I've been told that in the central Rambla in Barcelona is almost a show with all the book-stands and flower-stands beautifully done. The variety of roses is something that I've never seen before and I'm not sure that they were all naturals as I've seen one blue rose and another almost black one. Of course, you could also buy felt roses, metal roses... you name it. It was really lovely.
Of course ther was also a Sant Jordi's cake, but we didn't try as it was quite big and I'm trying not to eat everything that is in offer here, we're eating enough as it is!!
Every country has its own tradition and I'm truly enjoying the fiestas here. This is a special day in Barcelona and worthy of taking into consideration if you're planing a visit.