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.