Spain was delicious

the hothot sun and shinyblue sea were wonderful, but the day after returning home my skin reacted with fury to the fresh British autumn chill with an outrage of hives and I've been looking like a red crocodile for the last week.

It's all done

Two years of planning and scheming to get on to a post grad in London, how to arrange finances to live/study in one of the world's most expensive cities

Two years of books and lectures and arguing and writing and exams and papers

The chef d'oeuvre was handed in on Monday -  the rest of this week I've been like one of those astronauts who falls out of a rocket and has to spend the rest of his life slowly spinning round in space.

It's my birthday next week, I'm heading off to a Spanish beach for a few days for perspective readjustment therapy

beach art by Jamie Harkins

Went to an Catalunyan outdoor boogie woogie concert

met this gang of loud women-with-many-fans-and-one-man

the following day we went to see Vivian Maier's photographs

that was a high point

Best resignation letter ever

Barcelona was hotter than hell

The puppy and I assumed this position A LOT 

I had one great skirt, long and billowy and I wore it constantly  

When it was time to wash it I put the clean billowy skirt out to dry on the washing line which is cantilevered off the balcony -the flat is up at the top of the building.

I didn't put enough pegs on the skirt so when I next looked out of the window my skirt was no longer there.  I went outside and leaned over the balcony - my skirt had caught on the washing line of someone below - but very delicately. Before it blew off again I rushed downstairs and knocked on the door of the apartment and as I waited for the reply and noticed the tumbleweed in the corridors I realised that I was the only person stupid enough to be in Barcelona at this time of year - everyone else has found a mountain to visit.

The puppy and I gazed down at the skirt and decided that it would definitely blow away in the night.

Over the following days I peered down below to see my skirt still just hanging on down there - then about a week later I came in the front door of the building at the same time as a lady with her arms full of ciabatta she looked at me suspiciously and said

where are you?

I said that I was with the puppy in the top apartment

Ah - the two boys - where have they gone?

I told her - then she said

I was in the mountains for two months - I have your skirt would you like it back?

Currently living with a range of beautiful flooring designs

khaki harlequin floor with red braid trim, accessorised here with red chewy

pink-and-white zig zag floor with visible mend

classic monochrome

all floors available with added canine

I stayed with Mrs Madrigal's daughter

last night in Barcelona*.

She let me into the house,  showed me the bed I could sleep in - which was on this veranda. We exchanged stories and then she disappeared. I'd spotted the kitchen but after she'd gone I needed the bathroom which I knew was behind one of the closed doors along the corridor - the first doors I tried opened onto other bedrooms where young women were reading or doing their hair - we smiled and said perdon/de nada at each other before I closed their door and tried the next one.

I particularly liked these family photographs on a shelf in the living room

*I'm guessing it must be Mrs Madrigal's daughter because I felt as though I'd turned up in an Armistead Maupin tale

on the bus to London

I did knitting and caught up on podcasts -  99% invisible - for a story about the worst smell in the world then a piece about 'sewbots' at Planet Money. Yesterday's best show was Freakanomics  about racial profiling in restaurants if there were shows like these in Spanish I'd be fluent in no time - if anyone knows of any good ones please send me the links.

yes I am still trying to speak Spanish like a native - did I mention that I'm off to Spain soon?

Dolores and I still have our regular spanglish meetings, we speak Spanish one visit then English the next - today was English day and, as she is a professional sportsperson, we discussed the fashion for 'cupping' amongst athletes.

When it is my turn to speak Spanish I seem to always end up talking about insects 

Kale Mountain

I'd photograph it but the pile of vegetation arriving from next door has got to the point that I can no longer push my way into the kitchen, there's also lettuces, raspberries and a cabbage the size of a big man's head


In Other News

I've been scraping the rust off my Spanish - listening to Spanish radio through the computer and language exchanging with Dolores - in this dayandage we should be able to meet in a clinic, have wires attached to our heads and download each others language files but unfortunately we are still poor so we meet every day for one hour: Spanish on Monday, English on Tuesday and so on for ever until one of us leaves the country.

I am on my way out of Spain

but not before I have become half whippet myself

It's Sunday here's a church

Today's weather on the forecast thingy looks like this

outdoors it looks like this

The whippet and I have mostly been inside listening to things like this




Longplayer Conversation 2014: David Graeber and Brian Eno from Artangel on Vimeo.

Virtually no traffic

comes through the village but most days I hear a parping horn that signals the arrival of a van that stops and then people come out of their houses and buy things from it. 


Today I heard the horn and ran out - determined to buy whatever was on offer - it was fish.

A man was also buying fish - I recognised his blackandwhite pointer dog that had followed me home in an elaborate game of Grandmother's Footsteps yesterday.

During the fish transaction we established that I am neither the sister, aunt nor cousin of the lady who owns the whippet

Mystery

Outside the nearby house there is a bottle of clear liquid  tethered to a post with orange twine. A few paces away there are more bottles - these are untethered. The house opposite has bottles of  untethered water(?) on the pavement.

I am bracing myself to make inquiries

Zig Zag

Before setting off for Spain I went to see this Francesca Woodman exhibition focusing on the zigzagginess of her photographic compositions. I now see zigzags everywhere - even when I'm wondering about the animal that needs that nest so big but can also balance itself and babies on top of a bell tower

and the bells must be bothersome - maybe they go out for dinner on Sundays

Dog of the Week

It's cold and rainy and we're curled up on the sofa and some of us are doing drawing


The neighbours and I have been making friendly noises at each other. They can't tell what I am saying because my Spanish is appalling and I can't tell what they are saying partly because my Spanish is appalling but also because they have strong regional accents and also because all the people that I have met so far have no front teeth.

Despite this we are exchanging foodstuffs; yesterday the next door neighbour gave me a jug of milk, I turned it into sort-of-cheese and gave her half. Today I met a man on a tractor who gave me two fat green peppers.

here's a photo of the village

Here are some things I wanted to buy at the market

but they were too big for my bag


I did buy a ham bone, it's still very hammy with what's left after they've made slices of Serrano ham.

I boiled it up and the whippet looked at me and said

I like ham ... she gives me ham

I'm in Spain - whippet-sitting

He's called Lucho and he's keeping a very close eye on me. It's supper time. I put some dried dog food in his bowl and made yummy noises but he looked at the bowl in a sad way and then he looked very directly at me at me and then he pointed to the fridge and he said

She gives me sausages

Snapshots From The Last 7 Days: Catalonia

Driving from Santander to Barcelona was easy enough, but once in Catalonia things got a bit confusing. The Catalan people have their own language and like to name/number their roads or not as they see fit, I spent 4 hours being lost in the spaghetti knots of roads around Barcelona trying to find my way to where the crew were working.

There are currently a series of unofficial referendums being held around the Catalonian towns and villages to try and get support for independence


In Barcelona I handed over the van to the cameramen so they could drive the kit home. The Director and I then took off for a few days on the rocky Catalonian peninsula of Cadaqués.


The centre of Cadaqués is maze of crazy-paved and cobbled streets which will become dead ends or steps or simply a rugged sort of rocky riverbed, quite a lot of streets are unnamed and most houses don’t have numbers

I had a go at making a map of Cadaqués


I had booked an apartment on Picasso Street, the landlady emailed me to say that there was no house number but I should call when we arrived and she would take us there. We wound our way down around the mountains and parked the car in what seemed to be roughly the right bit of town, suddenly before us we saw Picassso Street and felt triumphant, I called the landlady:

Me: Hola – Isabel, we’re here - at the end of Picasso Street
Isabel: Which Picasso Street?
Me: It has a furniture shop at the end where I am
Isabel: No you’re at the wrong Picasso Street, you need the short one.


Isabel came to our rescue riding this moped

Spanish Antics

We accomplished our mission to find out what the Argentine ants are up to in Spain by virtue of running a camera continuously while Whiplash and I bombarded the Spanish ant scientist with questions. It was a bit like when they send children out to interview celebrities. Among other things we established that;

a) The Argentine ants in Spain are indeed part of a global supercolony*

b) Human activity makes exactly the right conditions for invasive species

c) The ant scientist's favourite colour is yellow and he often has a croissant for breakfast

Our work done, Whiplash and I retired to Cadaqués, a ridiculously picturesque seaside town close to the French border. Salvador Dali made his home there, and it is impossible to turn a corner without seeing his famously mustachioed face. We visited Dali’s very theatrical house which is stuffed with all sorts of things; bottoms, bosoms, mirrors, taxidermied swans, the odd bear and a boss-eyed owl.












I had completely misunderstood the importance of the holy toast (see last post). Too late I realised that, rather than eat it, I should have hung it medallion-like around my neck to ward off the series of temptations placed in my path by Whiplash. I shall not go into detail (I have many episodes on film and plan to start up a sideline business). Hauling the bottles up the hill to the apartment was great for our lungs and biceps but the positive effects might be outweighed by the fact that I’ve started smoking again. I’ve also come home with ‘prickly heat’ – at least I think that’s what the rash is, either that or I’ve picked up something from the daily foam party.

Pop-tastic video courtesy of Whiplash on her mobile phone




*most species of ants make a nest that works like a self-contained state, when they meet ants from another nest, whether of their own species or different one they behave aggressively and often kill each other. Ants of the same species that have formed multiple nests and act in a friendly way towards each other become a supercolony - a sort of federation, they will all be related to each other. Usually a supercolony extends over a few metres or even kilometres of land area, the Argentine Ants have formed a supercolony that extends across continents

My Little Pony

I’m lucky enough to have a big derelict building at the end of my street. The broad steps in front of it are occupied from mid-afternoon onwards by the local winos, but in the mornings anyone can use the space. Last week some ladies in green quilted waistcoats stood among the empty bottles and dried up body fluids and set up a sandwich board advertising Free Prayers.

I wasn’t busy and felt that I could do with a boost, so I told one of the ladies what I needed, then I stood next to her while she shut her eyes, clasped her hands in front of her bosom and said a sort of poem from my words, then I continued on home.

I was a bit sceptical, then excited. Then I got anxious because if Jesus really did send me a pony, I wasn’t sure where I’d put it. This morning though I witnessed a true miracle. On burning my toast the clear image of a pony appeared - I’m not so sceptical now am I?

All that Jesus has to arrange now is for Whiplash and I to get off to Spain - she’s successfully bribed the courts to put off her next hearing, but she is singing with her band tonight and the gig/after party needs to end before the 6am flight.

If it works we’re away for a week – so see you later!