The parakeets that live round and about Ciutadella Park in Barcelona are opportunists. They know that all they have to do is hang around tourists, looking winsome, and the next meal will appear. If they’re lucky, maybe specially purchased nuts and seeds from equally opportunist street vendors. Otherwise, croissant crumbs and biscuits. They don’t seem fussy.
For Monday Portrait.
We’re back in England after our three weeks with the Spanish branch of the family. Identikit weather, in Spain, travelling back through France and here in the UK. Wet. Rather cold.
As my last two photos of the month show. Here we are driving through France …
That’s a shot from my phone. My camera tells a similar story. Our last afternoon in France was in Caen, where it was largely … raining. As the sun set, the rain went briefly away, so here’s sundown over a street busy with its late-in-the-day market.
For Brian’s Last on the Card.
Premià de Dalt is Premià de Mar’s slightly posher sister, just up the hill from here. It has an older town centre, with a church dating from the 10th century, and tantalising views of the sea far below. And a population of only 10,000.
I went to explore by myself on Friday. Malcolm wasn’t feeling so good, and that very night, Emily and I were due to fall victim to a thoroughly nasty sickness bug. It’s been that sort of holiday. Weather (i), transport limitations (ii) and ill- health (iii) have all been conspiring against us. (i) is about to hit again, (ii) are still with us, and (iii) is still afflicting Malcolm.
One of my discoveries was the town’s library. I was impressed. It’s situated by a local park, and there’s a large balcony with tables and chairs so you can read or study there in the fresh air.
It’s well-stocked.
Here are the books available if you’re studying English:
… or just reading in English. There were about 100 books to choose from – the old classics and up-to-the-minute reading choices.
I couldn’t take photos of the study area or the children’s library without expressly seeking permission from those using the spaces. So here’s a display from the chidren’s area.
The feel is very different from a British community library. When I’m ‘on duty’ in our local one, we talk about our tasks together in normal speaking voices, chat with friends who come to exchange their books, and take little notice as the children in the Junior Library enjoy a noisy morning music session or listen to stories on certain mornings of the week. Here in Spain are notices encouraging silence, in the way I remember from my childhood. I’m happy with both.
But in case it all sounds a bit serious to you. Here’s the fellow who welcomes you into the library, then shepherds you out.
Meanwhile, on her way home from work, Emily had popped into their local library to get books for the children.
Who knew that Winnie the Witch would be called Brunhilda in Catalan? Or that she would be so popular for so long? My children, all parents themselves, enjoyed her books decades ago.
I’ll hold over my own reading choices. They’ll keep.
For Rebecca’s Love your Library.
Arc de Triomf is slap-bang in Tourist Central in Barcelona. It is nevertheless a part of the city I enjoy, because it’s spacious enough never to feel crowded, and is near one of the city’s green lungs, Parc de la Ciutadella with its tropical garden the Umbracle, and its winter garden – the Hivernacle.
Parakeets sit around waiting to be fed, and street entertainers ply their trade. The other day, it was a man floating bevies of bubbles into the skies.
For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness
From dawn to dusk in France, then below-freezing dawn in France to sunny noon in Catalonia.
All taken from a moving car, so no prize-winning shots here. The featured photo is of the Pic du Canigou, the Pyrennean mountain which divides France from Spain.
Exactly two years ago, staying with Team Catalonia, I took myself off to Parc del Labirint d’Horta in the outskirts of Barcelona, and wrote about it here. I remember a balmy day, even though it was November, with tree-lined avenues casting shadows before me as I walked.
Oh, and there was a maze too. But I wrote about it in that post I’ve just mentioned.
For Becky’s NovemberShadows.
PS. I’ve just had a birthday card from WordPress. I’ve been blogging for sixteen years! Apparently. Thanks to all of you who’ve been ‘blogging pals’ for much of that time. You’re the ones who make it all such fun.
Today, for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, Sarah of Travel with Me invites us to photograph ruins. I could so easily take you (yet again) to my favourite ruined abbeys: Fountains Abbey, Jervaulx, or Rievaulx. But Sarah herself has shown Fountains Abbey off in her post. I could take you to ruins all over this country and beyond. Instead, I thought that I’d show you not buildings, but their statues, often ruined by weather, by warfare, or quite simply the passage of time.
Best start in Rievaulx though, where carvings in its museum gave me the idea.
Off to North Eastern France, where the churches and cathedrals of Rheims, Laon and Tournus (to name but a few) have all mightily suffered from the weather eating into into the local limestone from which these were built.
And in Troyes, wooden buildings have taken a weather-beating too.
A church in Bamberg has suffered mightily from having been contructed from limestone.
But even more recent buildings have been ruined a bit. Come to Hartlepool with me.
Let’s finish off by disobeying the challenge completely, at Sant Julia church, in Argentona, Catalonia. Its gargoyles were so ruined they pulled them down. And replaced them. Like this.
By the time you read this we will be at least half way down England, in transit for eastern France – Alsace. So you won’t get prompt responses to any comments I’m afraid, as we shan’t finish travelling till Friday. But I will send a postcard before the weekend is out!
The Alahambra in Granada has a history going back to the 11th century. It was a Zirid fortress, then a 13th and 14th century Nasrid royal palace and fortress complex. Like all Nasrid palaces, it’s a harmonious blend of space, light, and water, featuring intricate decorations and inscriptions, and it’s quite wonderful. Despite the crowds and the selfie-seekers, one of whom is immortalised below. We couldn’t get rid of her.
But in 1492 (the same year, as any English schoolchild knows, that ‘Columbus sailed the ocean blue‘), Catholic monarchs captured Granada, the last bastion of Moorish rule in Spain. It became a royal court for some time before falling into disrepair, was damaged by Napoleon’s troops, and was eventually discovered by 19th century Romantic travellers. Rediscovered, restored, it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Here’s some decorative detail. Also symmetrical.
And so it’s here I’ve come to celebrate symmetry for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, hosted this week by Dawn of The Day After. We visited in 2019.
Oooh. For Monochrome Madness this week, Brian Bushboy has set a challenge and a half. Backlighting. What? I hear non-photographers ask. Here’s what Brian says: ‘Backlighting in photography is a way for photographers to create dramatic lighting. This involves positioning the main light source for a photograph behind the primary subject’. In other words, do what you spend your photographic life trying NOT to do. Take shots direct into the sun, or the light source, anyway. It’s easier in a sunny country, so let’s take the ferry to Spain.
And here we are in Premià, staying with daughter and family.
We won’t outstay our welcome, but nip down to Valencia. To l’Albufera.
After, we’ll come back to the UK. To Pembrokeshire:
The featured photo is from the UK too. No idea where.
And that is all I have to say on the subject.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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