A Restorative Lunch

If you’re anything like me when you’re on holiday, buzzing with new sights, sounds, experiences – perhaps wrestling with the language – you need the break that a leisurely meal provides. It gives the chance to renew energy and to re-charge with the get-up-and-go needed for the rest of the day.

So let me take you to l’Albufera, near Valencia, home to the right kind of rice for paella. That’s a rice growing field – a little fallow in mid-winter – in the image above, and lunch in my all-important Square photo.

L’Albufera holds a special place in my heart, so tomorrow, for the last square of the month, I’ll take you there.

For Becky’s #SquaresRenew

Make Haste Slowly

To travel in the Cordillera Cantábrica in Spain – or in any other mountain range, anywhere -is to know that in order to move forwards, you may not be – exactly – moving forwards. You’ll be going ‘this way, that way, forwards and backwards’, to quote a pirate song beloved of British pre-school children.

Here’s a tiny portion of a fairly recent journey.

For Becky’s #SquaresRenew Challenge.

Renewing Family Ties

It was just five years ago this week that my whole family revealed the outcome of a Cunning Plot, months in the planning. Every single one of my chidren (three) and their partners and children conspired to get themselves to a holiday house in Catalonia, and then get me (and Malcolm of course) there too, without my suspecting a thing, to celebrate – extremely belatedly – my 70th birthday.

We had a whole weekend of catching up, of playtimes, of long lazy meals and silliness on the beach …

… and the memories will last me for the rest of my life.

For Becky’s #SquaresRenew Challenge, she’s inviting us to post square – only square – photos on the themes of Burgeoning; Moving Forward; Reconstruction; or Renewal.

Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich is the historic home of the Prime Meridian Line – Longitude 0º. It has served as the reference line for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) since 1884.  GMT became the worldwide time-standard a century later.

So it was quite a surprise to find this on a road in Northern Spain:

There we were on the Greenwich Meridian line, whilst incontrovertibly some 1000 miles south of London. And the bull shown in my featured photo, which is a common roadside sight in those parts, proved us to be incontrovertibly in Spain. We must have been moving forward.

For Becky’s #SquaresRenew Challenge, she’s inviting us to post square – only square – photos on the themes of Burgeoning; Moving Forward; Reconstruction; or Renewal

‘Eat Breakfast Like a King …’

That’s what the old saying says: ‘Eat breakfast like a king; lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper’. In other words, make the first meal of the day your best. And it’s easy enough with a bakery like this just down the road: easy to renew your energy and begin the day – even on Sunday!

For Becky’s #SquaresRenew.

Putting the Best Foot Forward

Here in Premià de Mar, I’ve found evidence of people putting their Best Foot Forward – here’s a man on a mission …

… and three women on a different kind of mission – to master the steps of the Sardana, so they can join in a street party.

All in the interests of Becky’s challenge, inviting us to find posts illustrating Burgeoning – Moving Forward – Reconstructing – Renewing.

#SquaresRenew

La Sagrada Familia – Constructed at Last?

Everybody knows that Antoni Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia is the oldest new church in (probably) the world. Begun in 1882, it may finally be finished in 2026. Promises, promises. It’s certainly been burgeoning for years.

The header photo, taken from the flat where Emily’s partner Miquel once lived shows how this monumental edifice dominates the skyline in a city where so many modern buildings scrape the sky.

For Becky’s #SquaresRenew