Oreneta Aground

Long long ago in a land far far away there was a family. It seemed a pretty normal family, a Mom and Dad and a couple of little girls all living in a house in a fairly large North American city. They all loved books and stories, every one of them. The parents also had a slightly peculiar passion for all things to do with the water and boats, so not unnaturally they got children's books that told fabulous stories about kids and the sea.

One of the absolute favorites of the whole family, even the Mom and Dad, who would come and sit down to hear the stories read aloud was an absolutely fantastic series written by a man named Aurthur Ransome who was himself passionate about books and the sea. He made several interesting voyages and lovedlovedloved both kids and boats, so he wrote a book called Swallows and Amazons which was the first in a series of books all about children and boats.

The stories are about a group of five children from two families who meet up in the Lake Districts in England and are wildly undersupervised. They sail and camp and are pirates and explorers, and they have untold numbers of adventures.

These stories are some of the best ever written. They are extremely British, and some conversation around the rather Victorian (read politically incorrect) phrasing may be necessary, but I cannot recommend them enough to anyone.

Well, this fairly normal family one day decided to do something not quite so normal. They decided to get a sailboat and move aboard her and travel around together seeing what they could see, being together and sailing, swimming, rowing, reading, drawing and painting...among other things.

So they started to look for a boat. This was not so easy because they did not have the biggest budget in the world, but they had a lot of determination. So eventually they found the perfect boat, and they bought it; but it didn't have such a perfect name. Adagio. Which is a fine enough name, but it wasn't perfect. So while this family scrubbed and swept and painted and polished and re-greased, and re-wired and re-reaved and all the other thousand and one things you have to do to get a boat ready for sea, they thought and they thought and they thought. They thought of many many different names.

The two little girls wanted to name the boat Swallow after one of the boats in their favorite books, but the Mom and Dad did not want to go through life in a boat nicknamed 'gulp'. The little girls were insistent. So the parents thought and thought some more. They thought that since the Dad was born in a different land far far away, and spoke a different language with his parents and sisters, they would look and see what the name for a swallow, the twittering kind, not the one that goes gulp, is called.

They looked and looked, and one day they discovered that a swallow is called an oreneta in the Dad's mother tongue, Catalan. Well, now they had the perfect name.

So they christened their boat Oreneta. And so they were called also called by the many friends they made while sailing...as are all people who live and travel on their boats, so if you ever decide to move onto a boat, you must have the perfect name or else you will forever be hearing something silly like, "Here comes the Mom's Minks!!! Do you think they can stay for dinner?"

Well, after this family had sailed their boat from Canada all the way down the east coast of the United States and across to the Bahamas and back to Florida while having many adventures and making many exciting discoveries along the way, they went back to Canada for a few months to avoid the hurricanes and to make some money. While they were there they got an offer to move to Spain and work. They needed to pursue papers and citizenship to do this though which was a long and painfully boring process, which has no place in this tale, but it also meant that they got to go sailing for another two years which wasn't boring at all.

After their third year aboard all of the papers were in order, they packed up their bags and moved to Catalonia in Spain where they are still, right now, and when the Mom started up a blog to keep in touch with all of their friends and family and to record, journal and think about this new not quite so normal twist in their lives she had to pick a name, and since she still felt rather like an Oreneta rather than anything else, but also an Oreneta that had suddenly found herself squarely on terra firma - as is their boat - it seemed a good name for the blog, because that is about how her life felt.

So she named her blog Oreneta Aground...and thus it has been ever since.

I hope that they all live happily ever after.

This story was brought to you by Oreneta, but prodded by Trish who came up with this fun meme...to explain our blog's name, and we are to tag people as well. Now, let me think...I am going to tag Jocelyn at 'Oh Mighty Crisis' and Nomad's art blog 'Poena' and anyone else who want to play.

Hope you have enjoyed it.

7 things meme

Beth tagged me with the seven strange things meme...so I have to come up with seven strange things about me that I am willing to share with most everyone; aside from the fact that I have personally purchased a statue of Dubbya having a dump...


1. Eldest and youngest both think I dress strangely (I disagree) they think I dress like folks 40 years ago...all that really means is that I wear pants that don't require the use of neat to go out in pubic, oops, I meant public there. *blush*

2. I just got a feed reader, for those of you that don't know what it is, that would seem strange, if you do know what it is, you'll wonder why I've waited so long.

3. If you were Catalan you would think that I was VERY strange because I want to drink cafe amb llet (espresso with lots of warm milk) AFTER 11am. That is very very very strange here. So strange I have trouble ordering it...you want WHAT????

4. I will eat most anything for breakfast, no sticking to that breakfast food rule...for instance this morning, it was bread with alloli, which is olive oil and raw garlic pounded together, and rice and bean soup from last night. This may relate to number 3 above.

This is tricky...hmmmm...

5. I hate carrying a purse. Hate it. Indeed I hate carrying anything at all...after years of carrying everything including the kitchen sink and a potty with the kidlets, lord leave me free.

6. I really like Pringles potato chips. They do not really resemble food in any way, and I have on occasion been quite the particular kind of girl about health food, but pringles....mmmmmmmm.....they are just so good

7. I dislike the use of soap in the shower. Not that I don't get clean, but what the heck, there you are all lathered up with shampoo, why not just spread some of the goodness around? Started when I was travelling and the soap was invariably slimy and cold and made a mess in my bag, while the shampoo remained neatly in it bottle...then I discovered that shampoo doesn't leave that gross ring around the bath that you then need to scrub off...well there you have it, why wash yourself with something that then forces you to wash the tub, leaving you feeling grubby all over again?

I don't know if that is strange enough for you, but it's what I came up with....as the girls said, I am kind of used to myself...everything seems kind of normal to me.

To tag or not to tag, that is the question....

I think I will leave this too anyone who wants to do it...

Trish has also tagged me, I'll do that one tomorrow...

OK Ok ok, I have to laugh. I just checked my stat counter and a ton of people found my site when searching for santa's n*ughty h*lper...a LOT of folks, looking for a little, shall we say, Christmas cheer? BUT...yesterday? They were greeted by GDubya's crap!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Go look for your p*rn elsewhere...you're in the WRONG place for that!

Painting and caganers

A pleasant and effective kind of day, we got a bunch of crappy little jobs done, plus I've done some reading in Catalan, a bunch of painting, a twenty page copy edit for a friend...oof...

This is what I have been working on...today it started like this...



then went on like this....though it has infact progressed further at this point, I'll just have to surprise you with the next bit of progress.



You may or may not recall that time eldest and I were at a gallery in BCN and there was a show that included photos of people outside the Berlin wall, around when I visited. I took this photo of eldest's shadow cast over the photo, and that moment is the germ of the idea for the painting...



Now then. The Catalan's have this tradition, that starts out sounding pretty normal to me, they put up nativity scenes, but in the back of all these scenes, there is a man having a crap. The statues leave little to the imagination. He is called the caganer. Why he is there? I have no idea.

This has developed into quite an industry since then. You can now get statues of prominent football player caganers, the Pope caganers, and prominent politician caganers among others. Now American friends came to visit us this fall and when they we mentioned this unique Catalan cultural tradition and the spin off versions, the begged and pleaded that we send them a 'certain prominent American politician' caganer...so you two, if your looking in today here is a preview, I'll mail it this week...for the rest of you...well, I hope you're not offended.



Yessiree Bob, that's him...



Check out the equipment there, he probably would be flattered.

Here's a final adieu,

Hmmmmm....................

Eldest and I spent most of the day together, she had not one single pair of pants and about two pairs of socks. Something had to be done, despite my deep loathing of all things shopping...the kids have even commented on the fact that I am not so fun to shop with because I get so grumpy.

Ho hum

It went pretty well, she's got three pairs of pants now, and socks...turns out youngest needs socks too. Shoot.

It occured to me as I sat down to write and started to reflect on the day that I never really thought all day, don't get me wrong, cerebral activity was going on, chatting with eldest, dealing with traffic, finding our way through parts of the city we hadn't been too before, deciding on clothing, keeping my cool in the crowds...yet....

It amazes me sometimes how little we may really think in a given day.

As I said, I don't mean the standard day to day thought train that runs along as you work your way from moment to moment and meal to meal, but really thinking about something.

It is something we have been discussing lately as a family. The Spanish school system, in fact the Catalan in particular has been in the papers lately as one of the worst in Europe. (Hip Hip Hooray!!!) Looking at the work the students have to do now and further on, the biggest problem seems to me to be that they simply don't need to think. It is mountains and mountains of rote memorisation. I mean, really, get a load of this....in grade whateveritiswhenyouare14 the kids have to memorise the periodic table of elements.

Now excuse me, but WTF????

Isn't that something that you can, you know, look up?

What about making chemistry and chemical actions come to life? Let them think and work with the material, blow a few things up, burn sonething, create clouds of foul smelling stinky smog. If they are interested in the field they will want to learn the table of elements, but I am sorry, will they even understand what the elements are in any meaningful way if they are just set the task of memorising their order?

It is one of the challenges I am finding here teaching English, so many of the kids cannot be bothered to THINK.

As a culture we don't encourage this scary process. We are permanently anaesthetised by our MP3 players, our Tvs, cell phones (HI! I'm on the bus!) and streams of constant meaningless imput that prevents any real cerebral activity.

It is also a challenge I have faced teaching adults in Canada, they want to get through the course, regurgitate the necessary facts sufficiently well to get through and be gone, paper in hand. Our goal on the other hand is to give them enough info to begin to interpret and think, and get them trained in techniques for analysis, record keeping and writing...as in THINKING.

They hate it.

It is so hard and alien for them.

And there are days when I come to blog and I am distressed to discover that while I have been quite busy all day, I have not really had a chance to stop and think.

Until I sit down to write.

This may indeed be, for me, a lot of why I like to blog, why I continue to blog. It forces me to stop and reflect and think, if only for a little while.

The man

The man and I had a day out today, how nice was THAT!

The kids had fun day at school, eldest went skating, youngest to some sort of indoor playground, then to a friend's house for lunch, a real friend who volunteered to have them so the man and I could go out. After that they went to the local sport center for a dance, well youngest did, eldest felt ill and spent the afternoon on our friend's couch watching Spanish soaps, which is enough to make anyone feel unwell.

The man and I went into BCN which was WONDERFUL. I got some Christmas shopping done, had a coffee in a cafe while I waited for him. You see, we were kind of going at different paces this morning. I was all bustling along, list in hand, intent on completing as much as possible and honestly enjoying the freedom of moving at an efficient adult pace after YEARS of kid pace. The man however did not want to break a sweat (something akin to a death sentence and to be avoided at all costs) and so was sort of, you know, piddling along. We, as we often do, parted company and met up again a couple of times, giving me the chance to have a cafe amb llet while I waited. Mostly we went along together though...

Oh it was so nice....

When we got back to our town we went for lunch! Just the two of us, one of those lovely southern European two hour jobs.

The place we went is highly recommended as the best in town and the most Catalan of all the places. We started with a salad, I had water and the man a .75 liter bottle of wine, then we both had the mongetes, warm beans with straight warm bacon fat dripped over them and salt, and a couple of slices of pure fat bacon on top. We're talking winter peasant food here. It was delicious. I think the man is going to take an extra cholesterol pill today, I may snatch one of them too. The second course for the man was meatballs and sepia (cuttle fish) in a fishy romesco sauce. Very good.

I had peus, or pigs feet, following unintentionally the pig theme of the last post. I was worried I would be hungry at the end though. They were seriously good, cooked in a savory broth with artichokes and red peppers...I mopped up every single drop of juice with the bread.

I had crema Catalan to finish, along with my second cafe amb llet of the day, both decafinated I can happily say for the sake of my entire family. Crema Catalana is a creamy fatty yummy cream and egg mixture similar to creme caramel, but served in a small clay dish with burnt hard crisp sugar on top. My oh my. What a lunch.

You know what else I love about this, we each had a four course lunch, a full bottle of wine - which the man all but finished - a bottle of water and coffee each for 19 Euros!!!!

Mmmmmm

We then had a two hour walk in the hills with the dog, and the girls came home. The man had a nap (what a surprise) and we are having movie night tonight!

You know what I liked best? Spending the whole day with him...undistracted by anything or anyone else.

What a treat.

I'll have to send some Cava over to my bud.

Time

Like that jacket the neighbours have up? They're too young to have been there. Kind of a weird thing to sell, don't you think? Kind of like all the kids wandering around in Che shirts, and they have NO IDEA who he was.

Now...how about this?

Passen cinc minutes de dos quarts de tres

Falten cinc minutes pera un quart do cinc

This is how they tell time here...OMG

These read:

With an extra five minutes it is two quarters to three, or 2:35

and

Missing five minutes for one quarter to five, or 4:10

It is a wonder I ever get anywhere...the best I ever heard on the radio was...an extra five minutes for two quarters to six plus one...as in...5:36.

Youngest is trying to learn time in Catalan and the system is outrageous....though in some ways more logical than our quarter past quarter two as you may realise if you have tried to explain it to a child recently...either way, it's hard.

Poor kids.

And get a load of this....Theresa was right...there is urea, as in PEE in this. That said, it's working. Do I care? NO.



And check this out, the photo isn't the best, but look who we saw in the mountain? That's right a wild boar, isn't he enormous?




Now I have to confess, he is caged in someone's yard, I'm not sure why, but he has apparently been there for about eight years. Weird.

Here's two things I've been working on as well, this is a study for a part of another painting...



And this is a different painting as well...it isn't finished yet obviously.



It is also a little strange, but he looks pretty cheerful...

ID

Today in the my Catalan class we had to do one of those sesame street "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not quite the same..." Exercises (how many of you sang that as you read it? Hmmm?)...there were want ads for available jobs, which had silly requirements in them that were extraneous or illogical. We went through the exercise, but then I mentioned to the teacher that the ads that requested a photo with the CV would be illegal in NA, rightly so we felt. Certainly the requirement was extraneous and illogical.

She was surprised and asked why...we pointed out the rich possibilities for discrimination that providing a photo offers, and she seemed startled and thoughtful...one of the unbearable OLD SPANISH LADIES (OSL's) in the class of course had a lot to say. I ignored her entirely and continued to talk over her. I am so RUDE sometimes and they still don't get it....

Many people felt that asking for photos allowed for greater discrimination, some of them quite strongly, one of them felt it wasn't a big deal, we take photos all the time. Of course, my point being that our penchant for photos does not bear on your opportunities at finding work....then I mentioned that I found it strange that in Spain it is mandatory to carry photo ID with you at all times...technically I am supposed to bring my passport with me everywhere I go. Can you imagine? In BARCELONA???? The chance of keeping it for a year is next to zero...I am sure the consulates would be happy to go into nearly full time production of new passports while simultaneously posting Interpol warnings about stolen ones.

Many of my fellow students were surprised to discover that it is not mandatory to carry ID everywhere in Canada or the US, nor in the UK...in my frequently inflammatory style I mentioned that it is reminiscent of fascism....left some folks thoughtful, others laughed.

I do find that very strange though...very big brotherish....

They were surprised to realise that I NEVER hand in a photo here, nor did I in the Catalan class when it was requested. Interestingly, the only other person who didn't, that I know of, was the American in the class.

OH! My SECOND health card came in the mail today, after a record two weeks or so from application. Amazing. Now to apply for the pan-EU card...

This is the year of bureaucracy.

*groan*

The delta...water and boats

One of the things I loved most about the Ebro was the myriad little waterways and the boats that were used on them. Mostly punts, as in there is a stick you put over the stern (back) and push off the bottom...



I love boats something silly. These were so lovely. I have got to make it down to the beach and take some photos of the traditional boats there as well....after the Catalan class ends. Urgh.

I loved also these rice fields, all muddy and wet and fallow.....



This is probably the last post on the delta for a bit, I am starting to be buried under holiday shopping and planning, I feel rather excited as well as somewhat harassed by it all, but it should be fun.

Seriously now, how far along are you?

chickens

It is once again late, I am once again tired, but tonight I will write.

This schedule is killing me, bring on the holidays and the end of the Catalan classes...please!

The Ebro delta is one of the most outstandingly beautiful places I have ever had the good fortune to visit. Honestly. If you get the chance...GO!

We were very lucky on the weekend because the weather was astonishingly wonderful...I dream of going down there by myself for a week, getting out on the delta before the sun comes up. Taking photos and painting, and wandering until after the sun goes down...alternating this with walks in the mountains that surround it...heaven. They grow quite a lot of excellent rice there, and I would love to be able to go down on a semi-monthly basis and see the changes in the land as the rice grows up and finally is harvested....

I came to the conclusion while I was there that one of the things I love about it, as I love about being at see is the long views...the tremendous distance you can see and the sheer size of the sky...

I have paintings I want to do, and photos I want to get blown up.....ho hum....

We were all very tired by the time we got home...and we have all suffered a bit of a fun-over as I think Nomad coins it....that let down after a fantastic time...even Chuck is wiped...he had an exhilarating weekend chasing chickens. You see, there are chickens at the finca we were visiting. Safely ensconced in a cage, and Chuck derived great joy from running over to scare them. He's a smart dog though, he realised that it wasn't so fun once they went into their house, so he would wander away for four or five minutes, till the chickens came out again, then tear over to scare them all over again.

The chickens had a rough weekend.

Not one egg.

They have my sympathy, poor things, walking around with their legs crossed.

They were getting used to him by the end though, some of them didn't even bother to go inside.

Chuck is wiped out. Completely exhausted, and hungry.

It's a dog's life.

More anon....

That was an amazing weekend....

Hi all, there is so much to say and it is late and I am tired, so if the powers that be will let me, I will leave you with a slide show for now, and add some text later....



This is slightly disorganised, there are photos that are quite similar, and that will be shifted to other albums, but it is a longish (quite) view of our weekend....

Whatcha think?