Grape swallowing gene. Yes, yes, you know all about stuffing your mouth full of grapes but did you know that this New Year’s Eve custom only goes back to the beginning of the last century? Apparently, it was dreamed up by Valencia grape-growers in 1909 as a way of off-loading an extra-bumper crop. Although the [...]

The other day I went down the mountain to do some gestiones. Down the mountain. Bit of an exaggeration; Macharaviaya, the village where I live is only 240 metres above sea level, but it’s ten minutes of spiralling downhill bends to get to the coast, so ‘down the mountain’ it is.
Bueno, back to the gestiones. [...]

Hello from rainy Manchester, where I’m visiting my mother. I left Barcelona in balmy, springlike weather. We flew over the snow-capped Pyrenees. And I thought: they look like meringue. And remembered the Spanish expression for beating egg whites till they form stiff peaks: montar las claras a punto de nieve – to snow point. And [...]

Back to the frenzy that is Barcelona in its normal state. I wake to the roar of engines and machines in our patio de manzana and go to the balcony to check. Oh great! They’ve come to clean off the obscene graffiti that appeared over the holidays in the playground below.
Later, mid morning, I [...]