England before Christmas

So on December 1^st Brian caught a flight from Malaga and landed at Newcastle airport in the middle of a blizzard. I guess his plane was one of only a few that actually got to land that night, most being diverted elsewhere. I met him with warm clothes and we took the train to my parents' place. He said it felt so good to be in a familiar town again, to be able to take a hot shower, get into clean clothes, and eat a real homemade English dinner. Since we arrived here we’ve kept a low profile. Most days Brian wakes up early, makes himself some coffee, and works on the book he's writing for a couple hours before I get up. He says it's nice to be making progress on it again. He ended up taking a longer hiatus from it than he had originally planned to, but up until the week before leaving Spain he never really had the motivation to write.

Every day we usually venture out at least briefly in the afternoon, unless the sidewalks are treacherously icy, which has happened a few times. We’ve also made a few longer journeys, motivated both by the need to do some Christmas shopping and to see the beautiful snowy countryside. There’s an inviting patch of winter woods close to my place that we’ve explored. And we’ve gone to Durham a couple times. We went there for the Christmas market and a carol service at the cathedral. Then we went on my birthday to do some shopping and to eat at a French café by the bridge. We both like the feel of Durham, with its castle and cathedral perched over all those zig-zaggy medieval roads.

A few days ago we went to the Beamish museum for one of their Christmas events. Beamish is like a place I remember in New England called Sturbridge Village, where buildings and artefacts from a certain period of history have been collected in order to reconstruct a town. In this case, the period is around about 1910 or so. We took the wooden tram (which felt like riding in a boat) from the main entrance to the Edwardian town, where we sampled a pint of the local at a pub sitting beside a beautiful coal fire and saw a demonstration of candy making. At the candy shop we also had a sample of cinder toffee and some chocolates. One of our biggest highlights was the ride on a steam-powered carousel, which boasted an amazingly loud fairground organ complete with little wooden drummers.

In other news, we’ve heard back from more than a dozen farms in Italy that would like to host us during periods between February and the start of May. At the moment it looks like we’ll mainly be in Tuscany, because that’s where the best response is coming from. We’re excited as both of our top picks have sent us invitations.

on the carousel

he looks Canadian

the steam carousel at Beamish

another picture of the carousel

Last weeks in Totalan

His last two weeks in Totalan Brian spent alone, as I had to return to England for a doctor’s appointment. His days were spent picking olives, collecting and cutting firewood, and cooking (and eating). He also had the chance to go to a traditional festival in the little village, where he sampled some of the local sweet wines, which were a bit like sherry but lighter and fruitier, as well as some local cheeses made from sheep milk. He also hung out more with our hosts Geoff and Annie, who were definitely feeling sorry for him after I left. They had him over to their place for a nice meal of seafood and then he cooked some cajun-style food for them: shrimp etouffee, seafood jumbalya, and sweet potato cakes with Jack Daniels flambe. They were curious about this sort of food because they hadn’t ever heard of it, and were under the impression that the USA didn’t really have any cuisine of its own that was worth trying. Brian thought the food turned out well, though he had to improvise with ingredients a bit. It’s hard, for example, to find smoked sausage in that part of Spain, but he did find some beautiful okra, and the shrimp was wonderful. The last few days in Totalan were rainy and windy, and Brian mainly stayed inside by the fire, thinking about his time and looking forward to seeing me again :-) and being in a country that speaks his own language.

Totalan, Andalucia

At Casa Cabras we got back to basics in a renovated old farm house without electricity, hot water or a toilet!  Although this was hard at first we found that it gave us a much needed time of relaxation and reflection and a chance to reconnect with each other after the changes we’ve been through in the past 6 month.  We both felt very thankful to have this quiet time together and really enjoyed spending cosy nights by candlelight in front of the log fire.  In the mornings we spent our time harvesting olives, which are even now being turned into olive oil at the local olive mill.  In total we harvested around 170kg of olives between us and developed very strong hands in the process!  Our afternoons were spent harvesting vegetables for our meals and collecting and cutting firewood to keep us warm through the night.  The owners of the farm were very laid back and allowed us to take as many days off as we liked.  We took this opportunity to visit the nearby seaside town of El Palo and also visited the city of Malaga where we had lots of fun visiting the exotic tree park and the cathedral and where I had lots of fun showing Brian gifts he might like to buy me for my upcoming birthday :-)

the nearby village of Totalan from our house

Nepalese Bell Peppers grown in the garden

the Chameleon we found in an olive tree

picking olives

Monda, Andalucia

One missed train and an abandoned bike later we did eventually make it to our second destination, a tiny village in Andalucia called Monda.  Here we spent our time preparing vegetable beds for winter crops, fighting back brambles, grazing goats and sampling the local sangrias.  For lunch we would cook in the outdoor kitchen and we had fun trying some of Jamie Oliver´s recipes such as Chorizo and Tomato salad, which were very yummy.  We also spent lazy days on the beach in Marbella enjoying the sun and the ocean.  While we were in Monda we were able to experience Halloween the Spanish way.  In Spain, Halloween is known as Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead and is a very sombre occasion.  On this day Andalucians eat a special pastry known as the bones of the holy and decorate their family graves with candles and flowers.  It was very interesting to see the cultural differences between rural Spain and the UK and USA. Sometimes we felt like we were being transported back into time watching the children play marbles on the streets, asking the shopkeeper for groceries from behind the counter and toasting bread on the stove.


Summing up our time in Monda, we'd say that Christina was one of our better hosts. She definitely enjoys the element of exchange in the wwoofing system. Unlike our previous host, we felt she was very interested in our own experiences and actually had questions for us. The food we ate with her was simple, and as much as possible of it was freshly harvested from her garden. She offered a few different options for places to stay - at a neighbor's house, at her house, or up in the hills in her little caravan.

our lunch trailer

the outdoor kitchen

Marbella beach

The Mediterranean Sea

Barcelona

Before heading south we took a few days to visit Barcelona where we stayed in a hostel that was some sort of converted monastery. We fell in love with the architecture of the city and loved going to Parc Güell, a municipal garden designed by Antoni Gaudí between 1900-1914. Exploring the main streets and alleys of Barcelona stretched on late into the night as we tried to take in as much of the city as we could. On our first evening we enjoyed tapas and sangria along the Passeig de Gracia. Then in the morning we walked down the Ramblas, where we were pretty overwhelmed by all the tourists and performing arts shows in the open-air market. We walked all the way to the sea, then back through the Gothic quarter until we got to the Sagrada Familia cathedral, which they’ve been building forever! They started building it in 1882 and don’t expect to have it finished until 2026. We definitely want to go back and see it because even in its unfinished condition it brought tears to our eyes.

one of the buildings at Parc Güell

in Parc Güell

The Casa Batillo

walking down the Ramblas

the harbour

Camos, Catalonia

In September, Brian and I began our wwoofing adventure in the north of Spain. The first place we stayed at was 7km outside of Camos, in a beautiful seventeenth century stone farmhouse set amongst forested mountains. These mountains were once terraced groves of trees grown to make coal and other products but about a hundred years ago this industry ceased and the terraces became overgrown. Now they are a fire hazard and filled with invasive species. At Cal Serano our work involved two main jobs that revolved around thinning out the forested slopes of one of these mountainsides. Brian spent most of his time cutting back the trees and pulling down the vines that grew thick over everything, while I grazed the small flock of sheep and goats on the terraces to keep the unwanted plants at bay. We also spent time tending two indigenous species of oak, which were being encouraged to grow in the area. When we weren’t working we had a great time eating paella and patisserie by the Estany de Banyoles, playing with the endless number kittens on the farm and visiting the nearby town of Girona where we ate lots of amazing tapas! We both really enjoyed the Catalonian cuisine and were fortunate to stay with two good cooks. For lunches we enjoyed goat meat and home made paellas and for dinners we looked forward to toast with tomatoes and olive oil, wild mushrooms grilled on the fire and locally cured meats. We loved trying the local cheeses and every few days a couple of new kinds would show up in the cheese tray and we would discover a new favourite. Another thing we enjoyed was the fresh goats milk and home made farmer’s cheese which was like a dense creamy yoghurt that we ate mixed with wild honey.

Nave of Santa Maria dels Turers

Banyoles delights

Girona Cathedral

Facade of Girona Cathedral

Girona Bridge by Eiffel

Cal Sereno

Wayward goats at Cal Sereno

Farm cats

The lonely Goatherd

Considering our time at Cal Sereno as a whole, we would say that we're glad we came, but we'd hesitate to either come back or recommend the place to anyone. Living conditions were very good for wwoofers. We had a clean, spacious room with a nice bathroom. The food was generally of good quality and we had the chance to sample many Catalonian delights. However, we didn't get the feeling that Josep the host really likes having wwoofers (or anybody else) staying here with him. For him the wwoof exchange is primarily something necessary for the work to continue, and not something that provides much in the way of personal or cultural exchange. Of course, this could have just been our own particular mix of personalities with each other, and we're sure other wwoofers will have had other impressions.