You must know Barcelona like the back of your hand, they say. Hmm…only yesterday, I walked down a narrow street in Gràcia (near where I live) that I’d never walked down before. And then we went to El Clot on an errand, got lost and drove all over Horta, winding up at the Vall d’Hebron [...]

Spring. The city becomes green and leafy, the pavements dappled with sunlight. I have always loved the trees of Barcelona. Orange trees lining quiet side streets in Gràcia. Pines refreshing you with their cool tang as you ride the escalators to a concert at the Palau Sant Jordi. Shining tall palms silhouetted against the sky, [...]

Whenever I’m asked what I most love about living here, the first answer that comes unbidden is usually: the food. It’s not just about the thousands of bars and cafes and restaurants, nor about eating out at all the ‘happening’ joints or fusion or Ferran Adrià. It’s the colourful cornucopia of the markets; the elaborate [...]

Recently I fell foul of La Ley de Falta Uno (The Law of One Thing Missing), which, as formulated by us, states that you can never ever complete a bureaucratic transaction in one go. Even something as apparently straightforward as picking up a registered letter at Correos is also subject to the law, as I [...]

Having married into a family of cradle-to-grave Barcelona supporters, el Barça is naturally one of the main threads in the tapestry of my life here. My sons were carted to the Camp Nou almost before they could walk and talk. During summers in the mountains, I drove 15 kilometres of hairpin bends every day to [...]