Castellets!

Castellets season started on the last Sunday here in Sabadell. This is a very ancient tradition here in Catalonia and one that I really appreciate and like.

A group of people of both sexes and all ages (really, from very old folks to kids as young as 5 years old) will form a sort of very high human tower, crowned by a small child (usually a girl) standing on the very top. There's also a small band playing traditional music with a couple of drums and some small flutes with a very piercing sound.

Each town and village in Catalonia has its castellers and our town, Sabadell, wears the green shirt.
In this day, 2 other towns were invited to participate with their castells, the one form Granollers were wearing the maroon shirt and, sorry, I forgot the name of the other town, in pink.
In the last picture you can see the the three groups together in their final salute, with Sabadell in the centre.
After the final salute, all the three bands play together and everybody gathers to dance a sort of lively traditional dance, something looking as a square dancing with couples joining hands and jumping a lot, and I mean everybody joins, castellers and public alike. Its lovely to see old ladies dancing with their grandchildren, parents or friends and having a great time.

We went to the central square with my mother in law and some other friends. We didn't tell her what we were about to see and she was truly amazed and mesmerised with both the skills and the tradition. Our friends from Japan were also in awe and taking pictures like... well... Japanese tourists!!

Of course there are some castells done in down town Barcelona, and if you ever come here this is one of the must see turistic event. Here it was the Real McCoy, just the locals and we were the only weird people taking pictures!

As you can see, the weather was changing from sunny to cloudy and still is a bit chilly, but when the sun shines it gets lovely.

Flat Christmas decorations

I mentioned in a tatting newsgroup that I do Christmas decorations with my tatting and somebody actually want to see them!

So I'm posting here a few of the decorations that I tat using a standard bangle for support.
I tat a 5 point start and attach it as I go to the bangle, this is not as difficult as it sounds, just means going around the bangle with the shuttle and getting the next stitch to support it firmly in place.
As you can see, the colour and size of the thread makes all the difference. In this case I used plastic pink bangles and a metal looking one.

Sometimes I also add beads but I gave those away so, sorry, no pictures. I also did them with with a metallic thread as I hope you can see on the second picture (the blue one) but I didn't like it much because the thread was too hard to work with.

I also tried with different designs, basically anything will do, but the snowflakes and stars are my favourites for Christmas.

I'll try to post the baubles as well.

This decorations work really well for me as most of my family lives in the southern hemisphere and my friends are scattered around the globe, so I have to post the decorations and is easier and cheaper to post flat things. And they look really good on the three or even on a window.

What do you think?

Easter's egg

I start with the recipe for the traditional Easter cake here.

Our second Easter week here in Catalonia and I'm having a tummy ache for too much chocolate and sweets.
As usual here Easter chocolate means much more than just an egg and the creations are as beautiful as ever and it was a pleasure just to go to around town visiting the shops to see what new wonderful things they have. This year, on top of the more traditional styles, I saw many designs such as the ones that I'm posting here. Art to lick! I love this place!

We still have one more day of eating as tomorrow here in Catalonia is Pascua Florida, which can be translated as Blooming Easter. I've no idea what's the meaning, but nobody work and we have to eat a special cake decorated with coloured feathers and sometime small chicks as this one in the picture. Nobody I know takes the trouble to bake one as the local shops do a magnificent and truly delicious job. In some places you even have to book them in advance.
As we were invited for lunch today to our Japanese friend's place, we took one and everybody loved it.

I wish we could share this with a nice cup of Earl grey! or even a humble PG. I'm about to run out of PG tea and "the husband" teases me that the true reason that I'm going to Bristol soon is to get some more tea!
Whatever!

I wish you had as lovely an Easter Sunday as we just had!

Parent's season

My mother in law is arriving latter today and this means the starting of parent's seasons, the time when our elderly parents travel to visit and to stay some weeks with us.
So... I'll be trying my best to be patient with the old people.

The worst thing is that I have to give up my computer room as this is the place where the old people sleep when they stay here. The desk with the pc are relocated to my bedroom and everything gets smaller and more crowded and the flat gets a bit claustrophobic.

As our family lives in the other hemisphere most of the time, we're not used to have them around living here 24/7 but they were great parents to us and I suppose is time for us to give some care back to them.

My son loves to have his grandparents here as they spoil him rotten, of course. So, he's really the one looking forward to the time of the year.

Wish me luck!

My tablecloth

Well... is far from perfect, especially because I started tatting this when I was too sad, depressed and unable to read after my beloved dog passed away, so my concentration wasn't brilliant anyway.
However, I'm pretty chaffed with my tablecloth as for the very first time I didn't copied from somebody elses' but made up my own designed as I was going along.
It measures 1.20m x 1.20m and it looks really good.
Here on the right you can see the whole thing and on the left a detail of a corner.

I've been tatting for years but this is the very first project that I can truly call mine from scratch. Now I started another one, this time the fabric circles are much smaller and I'm planing to add some coloured variegated green-yellow thread too so it'll be less plain.

Now I could invite you ladies for tea and use my very own tablecloth!!

Going to Bristol!

I've bought tickets to go to Bristol for 6 days!!

This is the first time for as long as I can remember that I'm taking a holiday on my own, and God's know that I deserve it.

Then why do I feel guilty?

Well... it all started last year when my mother-in-law declared that if my father stayed with us for 6 months then she's going to stay with us for the exact same time this year. Of course we totally panicked as the old lady is not exactly a joy to be with.
I'm not going to bore you with the whole negotiation story, let's just say that "the husband" managed to reduce the time we have to serve from her proposed 6 months to 1 month and 18 days. A great achievement for "the husband" as she's a very determined woman.
(She was the very first woman to graduate as a medical doctor in our local university and then she went on to a post-grad and became a paediatrician. That tells you a lot about her and her determination in a machista society as it was Argentina on the 50's).

So, as we were talking and trying to see how are were going to organise for her visit, Patxi said that it'll be a good idea if I take a holiday on my own before she arrived so I'd be fresh and relaxed. That got me thinking but then I've changed the timing a bit so I could have a nice break in the middle of her stay to refresh my self.
Then I found very cheap tickets in Ryan Air (total return tickets cost €45 around 30 pounds!) and I'm going!!

That's going to be invigorating. I know that probably the weather is going to be bad but who cares, I've got sun here!
So, ladies of Filton library, here I go! We'll have to organise to have lunch on the pub behind the library as I haven't see you in almost 2 years.
I'm going to visit loads of people and also do some shopping, despite the fact the Britain is very expensive if you go with euros.

I'm looking forward to my first holidays on my own for a very long time.

Book update

I've downloaded a talking book that I enjoyed very much listening. Is called Naked in Baghdad by Anne Garrels who was the war correspondent in NPR (National Public Radio in USA), only 1 of 16 US journalist who stayed in Baghdad during the invasion. As she's a radio journalist I thought it'd be a better to hear the book instead of read it and I did enjoy the book a lot. She talks about the situation of the people and the city but also of her own tribulations and feelings and she manages to convey a very clear picture as one feels like you're somehow with her. The book also contains the e-mails with personal updates that her husband is writing to friends and family.
Although I remember following the invasion on the news at the time, this book is not just a re-statement of facts but a very insightful and personal view. Often sad but sometimes unexpectedly funny and I enjoyed the very female middle-aged perspective. Once I started listening to this audio book I just couldn't put it down.

Please listen to it if you can get it.

Now I started reading a book that I bought very recently on amazon.co.uk and had it shipped here around a month ago.
I loved Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood bible which is one of my all-time favourite list, but this one is a non-fiction account of her and her family as they're trying to eat only locally produced and seasonal produce at least for a whole year.
The idea temps me as I grew up eating mostly seasonal and locally produced food and then embraced the eat-everything at all times culture more or less when I moved to England. It was there too when I started eating loads of highly processed food, something that was far too unusual and expensive to eat back home.
Then, well after Patxi was born I started to learn about what exactly is inside processed food and the effect of pesticides and conservatives and I slowly turned from junk food addict to a more concious and, hopefully, healthier consumer.
But it was only recently that I learned about the carbon footprint of food as is it send all over the world and I started to wander if we really need to eat fresh tomatoes the whole year around.
Plus... I'm in a country that takes its food seriously and I' learning to appreciate food's raw materials in a different way.
So, as I'm trying to educate myself and my family on ways of eating healthily I bought this book and so far it hasn't disappointed me. I'm even getting some ideas of going rural!!

But so far, I'm still a Coca Cola addict!!

the worst flue ever

I've had the worst flue ever!
It all started with P getting sick on Friday 23th of February. He had some fever and said that he didn't feel well so he stayed home all day long. When I arrived home later that day he was, very unusually, still in bed (in my bed!) totally knackered and he stayed that way for the whole weekend. He even missed his team final game of the local championship and for my son not to go to play rugby... well... that was a first.
In any case, he's such a strong little guy that by Tuesday 26th he was ok and back to school.

By Wednesday 27th I had a slight cough early in the morning but of course I went to work as usual. By 4pm that day I had lost my voice completely, I was not only hoarse but virtually mute. This never happened to me before but I wasn't feeling that bad and it was sort of amusing to have to cancel my classes for a few days... or so I thought.

By the first of March I was in bed with fever and a heave chest, couldn't sleep properly and was feeling utterly miserable.
Of course, by then "the husband" also got it and this time I felt truly sorry for him as he was as bad or worse than me and he didn't got to work either.

To make a long story short... that was the reason I didn't write, I just couldn't. I spend a solid week in bed feeling miserable and sorry for myself. The proverbial silver lightning is that because I couldn't smell and my sense of taste was all but gone I didn't eat much and I lost 3 kg.

The first time that I felt well enough to go to work was Friday the 7th and even when I only worked 4 hours as some classes were cancelled due to a local fiesta, I ended up feeling as tired as if I'd climbed Mount Everest!

This week I'm working hard to try to catch up with my students and some translation work that I have to do, e-mails, blog, etc.