MY CATALONIA

When I think of Cat­alo­nia what im­me­di­ately comes to mind is the word ‘home’. I see the wide view across rows of vine­yards, the moun­tains of the Penedès in the dis­tance, the tops of Montser­rat fur­ther away, only able to be seen in win­ter when the leaves on the bare trees allow it. That, from our back ter­race.

I have to think about our house too. A nar­row but tall and mod­ern ‘ados­sat’ ter­race that has been ours to enjoy (and pay off back to the bank) for the last eleven years. The night­time light from the old church tower across the street still an­gles in across our lowly bed. Its bells still ring every fif­teen min­utes to re­mind me I rise and sleep in Eu­rope, not Aus­tralia, Eng­land or Japan.

I am also com­pelled to re­call the splen­dours of the food here. Dis­cov­er­ing the joy in sim­ple ‘pa amb tomàquet’ and the savoury won­der of salt cod, ‘su­quet’ seafood stew or the earthy rich­ness of ‘calçot’ green onions cooked on a wood fire.

In Cat­alo­nia too, I found the plea­sure of chew­ing the sweet, scant flesh on rab­bit bones and div­ing into a bowl of snails ‘a la llauna’ hot from a tin tray, freshly out of the oven. We still drink the co-op white wine from Co­vides (an un­for­tu­nate name in these times.) Good, cheap stuff pressed from Xarel·lo, Macabeu and Par­el­lada grapes.

Of course, Cat­alo­nia is so much more than just that. It’s where we’ve worked. I’ve writ­ten, taught and trav­elled thou­sands of kilo­me­tres to do these things. It’s an hour-long seat on RENFE trains, it’s dri­ving the hills up and down the sin­gle-lane N340 run­ning past Val­li­rana.

Equally, this place has sus­tained us and drained us; given so much but also taken so much en­ergy and ex­pense. It’s where our son went to school and learnt to use two lan­guages. Cata­lan is his sec­ond lan­guage and as he makes his way as an in­de­pen­dent young adult he still uses it every day in his work and study, I’m im­mensely happy to say.

Cat­alo­nia gave him su­perb teach­ers all through pri­mary and sec­ondary school. Every one of them were car­ing and ded­i­cated women, apart from a hand­ful of young men and they too were the exact kinds of male any­one could hope for as role mod­els for him.

As well, my thoughts can’t go much fur­ther than to the self­less peo­ple who work with such heart and hu­man­ity in the pub­lic health sys­tem here. I owe a great deal to them all and so does my wife.

And there’s al­ways The Big Smoke, the cap­i­tal that brings tourists from every­where. I was first one my­self al­most 25 years ago and now as a local I love to busy my­self in the crowds on the streets. Every part of Barcelona is a gift, even the least at­trac­tive cor­ners.

My Cat­alo­nia con­tin­ues to spur the imag­i­na­tion. (I once had the idea of a book of pho­tos of every ram­bla in every town where they could be found across the land).

Now, in my more op­ti­mistic times, I see some­where I’d never want to leave. As it is, I don’t want to live any­where else. Here is as good as it gets.