Christmas in Spain

So I´ve been even busier since my last post. We´ve done quite a bit of gardening around the Earth Sanctuary. Behind our house there´s a bank and it had lots of brambles and weeds all over it. We cleared it away and found lots of rubble which people in the past have been chucking there. Some was ugly brick and concrete but others were more natural which we organised to make a nice rock garden, and left some cavities so that we can put compost in them and grow plants, like herbs and strawberries.

We´ve even been working with the resident handy-man in other places. He contracts himself out to do tree work. He´s specialised in climbing them especially palm trees, to cut away old leaves, which are pretty big and tidy the trunk. These palm leaves have spikes near their thick base, and I found out they hurt! Me and Mika will be working with him more in the spring which will give us some extra money. But we´ve also got plenty of work to do on the Earth Sanctuary, like clear overgrown terraces, and start cultivation with vegetables, herbs, trees and some gardening. There´s even been talk of a grant to clean and manage the woodland, so there´s no such thing as nothing to do lol.

We´ve finally moved into the house, it looks a mess and we´ve still got some painting to finish, and get a sofa but apart from that it´s very homely. We´ve even got a fire to warm ourselves with and heaters for bathroom and bedroom so it´s usually cosy. We now have sorted our bookcase, the computer and have been using the kichen a bit aswell and went to Barcelona to get ourselves some furniture and things for the kitchen.
When we went to Barcelona me and Mika went off to look for this British market that I mentioned in the last post. No such luck, we were told it had shut down. There must be something British there, it´s a very big city, the search goes on.

As for learning spanish? Slowly. I did buy an Asterix comic in Spanish and I´m painstakingly trying to translate it. I managed to translate the first page within an hour. I have three dicitionaries, a basic beginners, an old one (with old fashioned spanish) when the basic one fails and Mika for when neither have the word I want.
There are some problems that I have living in the Catalan area of Spain. There´s a native language of that name, not too disimilar to spanish. But everytime I look at signs to practise saying words it often turns our to be catalan which can be very different. But my reading of Spanish is usually pretty good and I build my vocabulary a bit each day.
Also the course book I use has a mistake, at least I hope it´s a mistake. They show a family tree and you have to describe in spanish how they are related. Well apparently Juan es el marido y hermano de Lola, which means Juan is the husband AND brother of Lola. I kid you not, the family tree shows they have the same parents and kids. It must be a mistake, mustn´t it?

So it´s Christmas time, we´ve got some decorations up, like the tree which we go from a garden centre and we´ll plant on the land. Christmas day was untypical, I was actually doing some work, their were some branches to be moved from the side of the road but Christmas eve was different, we had a nice Swiss dinner, a vegetable wrapped with ham and covered in cheese, YUM! And for desert, pancakes.

We all exchanged gifts, I´d got Mika a DVD of Oliver Twist the original, not with Elijah Wood and what´s meant to be a “cockney accent” lol and watched it, which gave me a good dose of British nostalgia. “I´d do anything, for you dear anything.”

Spain place more emphasis on the Three Kings which is usually on the 6^th of Jan, like Santa they also give presents out and if we get a chance we can look at some local clebrations of it. The Three Kings go through the streets throwing sweets around.

Early December

I´m now living with Mika and her family in Mas de Gomis. It´s up in some mountains and if it weren´t for cars it would be in the middle of nowhere. We had some problems with the car so had liited access. Thankfully Mika´s sister has a car which we used. From the terrace you can see the sea and Tarragona city through a lovely valley. We´re surrounded by cliffs and trees and occasionally you can hear an eagle calling from its nest. You can see a few pictures at this website http://www.earthsanctuary.net as well as see the sort of projects going on here.

In Mas de Gomis there is a fairly big house, which has 3 apartments and a few other rooms. Walking round this place can be a bit of a maze. Then attached to the back is a small house or “Hobbit Hole” as we´ve come to call it. There are two small rooms, one bedroom and a bathroom, and quite a large sitting room, only separated from the kitchen by a large wooden counter.

In some places it looks like an old cave because of the natural stones used for the walls. Some walls we´ve been painting over, most of them white except the kitchen wall which we´ve painted a reddish brown, it looks like a Morrocan restaurant, the entrance, which we´ve given a saharan desert colour and the bedroom, which is a light green colour.

You´d think, because I´m in Spain that it´d be warm but no, it gets very cold, even inside. Spanish houses aren´t made for winter, hardly any insulation and large air filled rooms so there´s no chance for any heat to build up, even with a heater!

I´ve been trying to learn Spanish from the BBC website and a course book. So far I´ve had little use for it so can´t understand much, enough for simple pleasantries like hello, how are you etc.

Also been learning a bit about cooking. Mika found a lovely mushroom recipe in a book which we did. It was very nice, mushrooms dipped in flour, egg and bread crumbs, refridgerated, fried and filled with two types of sauces made out of mayonnaise. I´d never seen mayonnaise made and it was Mika´s first succesful attempt at it. We´re both looking forward to experiment with recipes. In fact Mika learnt of a place in Barcelona dedicated to British products, so there´s no missing out on good British grub or a nice cuppa!

On sundays there is a regular art group, often doing things with Altered Trading Cards, Altered Books and Soul Cards, which entail lots of cutting and glueing and a fair dose of imagination. The art group just gone I spent writing for my blog, because I had something on my brain that needed expressing. It´s called Grove of Quotes http://www.grovequotes.blogspot.com and basically I take a quote and write about that subject which are often philosophical, spiritual or theological ramblings.

I hope you found this interesing. I want to be able to keep writing these diaries so that people can still feel in touch even if I don´t talk directly. And I shall try to keep regularly emailing and also I will make a blog of this so that people can look back on what´s happened.