In Cod We Trust – in Barcelona

In a city centre back street in Barcelona, somewhere near Las Ramblas, we found this shop. It sells one thing only: blocks of dried salt cod: bacallà (Catalan) bacalau (Spanish). Salting and drying cod changes and deepens the flavour, and means it will keep for a very long time if necessary. Soak it to remove much of the salt and to soften it, and use in your favourite recipe!

For Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.

Monday Window Puzzle: a Brief Answer

I showed you three images on Monday.

- Yes, they're of a church.
- You should have stuck to your guns: they're the work of Antoni Gaudí.
- It's an early work of his, and unfinished.
- And it was built as the place of worship for the textile manufacturing area, just outside Barcelona, of  Santa Coloma de Cervelló .
- This community is now known as Colònia Güell. It's a worker's colony that was commissioned as a model town by Count Eusebi de Güell in 1898.

It’s a fascinating story and an interesting place. But telling it to you will have to wait till I’m back in England and have the time to do it justice. I’ll try to whet your appetite with just a few random images from the town.

A Monday Window Puzzle

I am going to set you a puzzle today. I’m showing a few teaser photos of somewhere that deserves a post of its own, but now’s not the time: that new baby, that newly-three toddler are both more important. So – what can you tell me about it? Do you know – or can you guess, what kind of building this is, who designed it, or where it is? I’ll give brief answers in a couple of days in the comments. The full story will have to wait.

For Ludwig’s Monday Window.

An Orange Walk Home from School

Five o’clock. Time to collect Anaïs from nursery school. Off to the shops first, walking along a street planted with Seville orange trees. The bitter fruits don’t tempt anybody to steal one for a snack. But I’m tempted by windfalls. We collect all we can find so that later, we can scrub them clean and make marmalade.

Up the hill, on the way back, here’s a street still with a few papery autumn leaves …

… and a house with a orange tree: sweet oranges this time, and ready to eat.

We turn left, and walk towards the sunset.

Then - finally – home at last …

For Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.

Doors in Mataró 

We’ve travelled almost the length of England, almost the length of France and through half of Catalonia to arrive in Premiá de Mar​​. It’s here that we’ve met our new granddaughter Olivia, exactly three weeks old today. And we’ve celebrated the birthday of her elder sister Anaïs, three years old on Tuesday.

Unsurprisingly, we haven’t been out and about much yet. But yesterday, Olivia, her mum, Malcolm and I ventured to Mataró, capital of the Maresme, for a little light mooching.

Here are two doors we mooched past.

For Dan’s Thursday Doors.

The Tale of an Industrious Mouse

Many of us – in the UK at least -have seen the video of the hard-working, meticulous mouse who has every night been busily tidying up the workbench in a garden shed. Being Country Mice ourselves, we get field mice here in the house from time to time. Not one of them has ever offered to tidy up. Where have we gone wrong?

We all need a bit of feel-good in January. So here he (she?) is:

You can read all about it here. 

I’m going to be an intermittent presence on the blogosphere for the rest of the month, both in the posting and the reading of the posts of others. We’re off to Spain to meet our latest granddaughter.